by Ice! [V2. 0]
Out of the ice-field area, the seas were now lively again, and Cresswell, with her shallow draft and narrow beam, was boisterous. It was, however, warm enough in the engine cuddy, and when the horizon was completely clear of any ice, I set the sails to self-steer and, together with Nelson, would go below. He would lie at the end of the shelf I had made, and I would take off the sealskin boots and stick my feet in between his legs and his belly. He made a grand foot-warmer.
By the eighteenth of May I was 130 miles to the west of Jan Mayen Island. Way out on the grey horizon I saw the smudge of smoke from a ship, but heard nothing on the radio. She was too far over the horizon to see me, but I could tell that she was heading to the east. I stared for two hours at the thin discoloration in the sky, thinking of all the millenia of effort and struggle it had taken to put her there, and wishing she were nearer, just so I would see somebody, and perhaps have a word with them. But she went on her way, unaware that I was there, and I settled down again, pushing north.
On the twenty-fifth of May I sighted, right across the northern horizon, a long line, like a low shore. First it was grey, then, as the sun rose high in the south, it changed to deep blue, to aquamarine, then white, and finally gleaming silver—the edge of the ice pack! Soon, all around me, there were loose floes, but they did not seem to be moving. At first this puzzled me, until I figured that the southwest wind was holding them back from flowing southwest with the current. But then a question loomed. Was that the case, or was the ice, in fact, moving north?
I dropped the sails and hove to, under mizzen only, to wait a few hours and find out exactly what was happening. By noon I knew. The ice was actually moving north, but very slowly, and the edge of the ice field dropped back to the northeast. I decided to follow it, at a distance, just far enough away that I could see it, low on the horizon.
On the thirtieth of May I reached latitude seventy-six degrees ten minutes north. This was the furthest north I had reached in the previous year. I was elated. It was only the end of May, and I had clear water still to the north of me and all the months of June, July, and August for the ice to melt and break up, before it started to solidify again in September.
The wind increased that "night," and soon I was shortening sail. Under spitfire jib, trysail, and mizzen I headed due east, for I wanted to be far away from the ice should heavy weather blow up.
I switched on the radio, but got nothing in English. Back topsides, it seemed that a regular dusting was in the offing. I steered as straight as I could in the ever-steepening seas, to get clear of ice. By midnight it was blowing a twenty-four-carat bastard, with the wind howling, black clouds racing across the sky, and the sea getting up into a short, steep frenzy. I carried on to the east, staying on the wheel for a solid fifteen hours, unable to leave the helm for more than a few seconds at a time.
Eventually, with no sign of the storm abating, and with no ice having been sighted for twelve hours or so, I hove to, dowsing the spitfire jib and the trysail. Then I went below, to try to rest for a couple of hours and warm up a little. Sleep, in that sea, with the boat jerking and plunging, was impossible, but I did doze for a few minutes at a time. The smells from the diesel oil and lubricating oil in the engine compartment were sickening, and so I moved my blankets into the cabin, getting a great slop of icy cold Arctic Ocean water all over them in the process. But this soon froze, and I was at least warmer under the frozen blankets than I was outside. It was so cold during this storm that even Nelson, who was keeping watch while I rested, came down below every few minutes to warm himself up for a spell.
The storm raged for six days. It slashed, it howled, it screamed, driving the seas before it like berserk monsters. Soon the tops of the seas were so white with driven spume that it was impossible to tell if there were ice floes anywhere near the boat, and for a week I existed with the ever-present threat of death right in front of me, staring me full in the eye. To touch a floe with these seas running would be the end. Instant and very, very final. The great twenty-foot-high mountains of water would pick the boat up and throw her against the ice. She would be crushed like a matchbox. The only thing I could figure out as a possible safeguard was to slow the boat down to what I estimated would be the speed of a floe. Being low in the water, they move before the wind much more slowly than a boat. If I could stay at the speed of the average floe, chances were that I would not overtake one and drift close to it.
With the boat bouncing up and down like a crazy yo-yo, I delved into the after cuddy and dug out the long storm line. This was six hundred feet long. After leading the rope outboard through blocks on the gunwale at the chain plates, I secured both ends around the mast tabernacle, then cast the bight into the roaring sea, over the bow. The woven nylon line floated, and the bight created enough resistance to stop the boat drifting. However, the strain imposed on the hull, every time the sea lifted it up then dropped it forty feet, was shocking. She would rise up slowly, hover for about ten seconds as a great long, grey, icy sea ran under her, then slam down into the trough with force enough to lift me clear into the air if I was not securely tied down to the wheel binnacle. Where the storm line imparted the shocks to the hull, through the chain plate blocks, the sudden judders were great enough for me to wonder how long she could stand this treatment, strong as she was. But I had to accept the risk of the boat shaking to pieces as better than the risk that she would hurl down onto a floe.
During the storm I had not been able to get any sun, star, or moon sights to enable me to estimate my position, but by dead reckoning (that is, calculating the direction of course, drift, and the current, together with the speed), I had a rough idea. I was about 200 miles to the west-southwest of Prins Karls Forland, an island in the Svalbard group, and my latitude was approximately seventy-seven thirty north. Only 390 miles from the magical eighty-four degrees!
With the wind dropping and swinging to the southeast, I determined to head northeast. On the fifth of June I sighted, through a gap in the cloud cover, far away, the black mountains of the Barentzburg, on Spitsbergen. I got a bearing and went below. Checking up on the chart it was soon obvious that my previous dead-reckoned position had been way out, because I was only now at seventy-seven degrees forty north. When the horizon cleared up, it showed that the line of the ice field went clear across to the coast of Spitsbergen, and through the binoculars I could see plainly the settlement smoke of King's Bay. The entrance might be clear. I made sail again and headed for the smoke. The wind continued to swing to the east, and I was soon sailing in long zigzag tacks against the wind. Within six hours all hell broke loose again, with a fifty-knot wind blowing straight out of King's Bay dead against me. Before the sleet began to slash down, a quick gaze at the far-off shore showed that I must be around twenty miles off. The engine's ten-horsepower was useless against such a wind and sea, so I continued patiently and wearily, tacking all day. But the wind rose even more, and finally I had to admit defeat. After I had seen King's Bay and safely! I hove to. Again. All day on the sixth, the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth. Despite the storm line slowing her progress, the wind was blowing the boat away from Svalbard towards the ice field. Anxiously I watched astern, through the sheets of freezing hail and sleet, hour in, hour out. I had no idea what I would do if the ice field showed up, except perhaps rig the trysail and attempt to head south. But even with those sails up the wind would still blow the boat sideways, and the chances were that she would end up being flung against the awful ice. The only thing that I could hope for was that there was enough sea room astern of me, to the west.
Then I saw it; after many long, freezing hours of anxiety. I saw it, through a momentary clearing in the sleet, a great piled-up hump of frozen slabs, all thrown up into the air, this way and that. A mile long and seemingly a thousand feet high, glowering over the lashed, grey waters of the Arctic, and to each side of it, the frozen wall of the ice field, stretching back from here right across the top of the world, all the way to Alaska and the Bering Strait. Dead as
tern right in the way of the boat.
"Holy Jesus Christ Almighty!" I murmured to Nelson, as I crawled forward over the icy deck to hoist the trysail in a sixty-knot wind. "It looks like we've had it, old son."
Little by little, with the wind flogging the sail as I let go of the tiers and started to haul, up went the trysail. Then, hanging onto the ice-festooned boat-with one hand, getting the spitfire jib up with the other frozen hand and my teeth, I struggled like a maniac. Then back to the cockpit, where I unlashed the wheel and heaved her over.
In a few seconds the wind picked up the sails and she was crashing over the immense moving mountains of white spume and grey green heaving water, straight for the ice. After the first few minutes of shock, I peered again at the ice field, through another clearing in the sleet. Then, wiping the cluttered ice off my face, looked again. Another wipe over my eyebrows and lids, heavy with fluffy ice from my frozen tears. I looked again. There was an inlet behind the mountain of piled floes! There was a gap between the south end of the berg and the ice field. It was my only chance. I rammed the boat through the wind; she refused to go. I wore her, that is, turned off the wind; the trysail slammed across with a juddering shock, the spitfire came about with an explosion of ice particles and cold water, and she was over, heading for the gap!
And now the storm is over,
And we are safe and well;
We will walk into a public house
And drink and drink our fill;
We will drink strong ale and porter
And we'll make the rafters roar,
And when our money is all spent
We'll be off to sea once more!
(FINE GIRL YOU ARE!)
Ye're the girl I do adore,
And still we'll live in hopes to see,
The Holy Ground once more!
Old Liverpool halyard shanty. The Holy Ground was the Scotland Road brothel area, the landowner of which was the Roman Catholic Church.
22
In the Arctic Icecap
The sail for the gap behind the iceberg was the kind I never want to make again as long as ever I live. To keep the boat moving northwest, beam onto the switchback seas, she had to carry all the sail she could. The course was uncertain. I did not know if there was submerged ice between me and the gap; I did not know if there was shallow water or other underwater hazards, such as protruding ice, near the ice field. All I knew was that this was a God-given chance of survival. I pushed her on, with the freezing spume off the tops of the seas blowing right over the boat, the spitfire jib dipping into the tops of the seas, picking up whole buckets of water and flinging them aft with the wind from its slipstream, the droplets freezing into hail as they flew with the wind straight at me, turning into a thousand burning daggers.
As visibility improved, I saw that the berg was, first of all, not as far away as it had seemed and, secondly, not as big as it had first appeared. Two hundred yards off the gap, I let fly the spitfire jib-sheets, to slow down the boat, and took stock, balancing myself up high in the mizzen shrouds. What I saw was incredible. There was a good clear passage, about forty yards wide, between the "hill," which rose about two hundred feet, and the piled-up pack ice on the other side. It all seemed to be clear of obstruction. Beyond the mouth of this inlet was a bay of flat water. I hauled in the sheet and steered a course right for the middle of the gap, bashing away over the great long thrusts of angry green seas.
Cresswell shot into the gap like a rat up a drainpipe. One minute she was in terrifyingly high, steep seas, with frozen spray flying all around, and the next minute she was becalmed, in the lee of the hill of ice, floating in calm water. Ahead was a small bay, reaching about two hundred yards deep between the hill and the ice field. The little bay was about one hundred yards wide.
I let go the sheets again and clambered below to start the engine. It had been shaken clear off its bed and was lying in the bilge, on its side. The strain imposed on the propeller shaft by the shock had bent the shaft like butter. I took one look below, then climbed aloft.
I tested for depth with the sounding lead, all eight hundred feet of it. There wasn't any bottom! I could not drop an anchor (useless anyway, with the ice field moving over the top of the world). I had to make the boat secure to the ice!
I inflated the rubber dinghy (try getting rubber bungs into the air inlet valve holes while wearing two pairs of mittens!) and threw it over the side. Then I hopped into it with a long crowbar, a hammer, the mooring line, a small block, and the oars. Towing Cresswell almost a hundred yards was agony, for I was using up my reserves of strength, but eventually I made it to the middle of the bay, where the "shore" of the berg fell back. I rowed ashore, axed out footholes in the side of the berg, to get about ten feet above sea level, drove in the crowbar, and made fast the line. Then back to the boat to shorten the line and secure it to the knightheads. Over the side again with another line, I rowed over to the ice floes on the western side of the bay, clambered up the eight-foot sides, drove in a spike, made fast, and returned to the boat. Shortened up on the after line, and that was that, the boat was tied up secure, in flat calm water. I crawled down below so tired that I could not even find the strength to make a cup of tea or dish out some burgoo. I collapsed in the cabin, fully dressed, and fell asleep, to the noise of the wind, the ice floes grinding against the field, the seas crashing onto the ice floes, and Nelson padding around on deck. It was the tenth of June. In Britain the flowers were blooming; there was green, green grass, and trees, and towns with electric lights and buses. I drifted off. Outside it was broad daylight. Inside, with the felt pads over the decklights and portholes, with the companionway hatch shut, it was dark. Dark and cold, though under the blankets crackling with the cold as I moved in my sleep, it was warm enough. I was so weary I could have slept on a clothesline.
When I awoke, shivering, it was 0600 hours the next day. I lit the cooking stove, then carried it outside on deck and made a fine breakfast of corned beef hash and cocoa for me, the remainder of the burgoo, boiled up, for Nelson. Around, the wind was dying, but the seas were still colliding heavily with the floes outside the little bay. I fit the stove in the engine compartment, then sat down to smoke one of my six-a-day cigarettes and have a think.
There was plenty to do. But the first thing was to make sure that the boat was safe. This is always a skipper's highest priority. I made ready to climb the ice nearest to the boat and from there survey the scene. It was now obvious that what I had thought was one hill, was, in fact, three. These piles of ice did not look like the type of berg I had seen off Greenland. I concluded that this was a great chunk of ice which had escaped from the coast of Siberia, and was not a glacier-spawned berg, but in fact sea ice which had piled up on the coast far away somewhere.
Again, I gathered my ax, hammer, two spikelike chisels, rope and oars, and paddled over to the berg. The face at sea level was an overhanging wall of ice fifteen feet high. Climbing it to get a spike into the ice on the top of the wall took four hours. By the time that was done, and I had secured a block and rope onto the spike, I was about half- frozen, so I dropped into the dinghy and headed for the boat, to warm up for half an hour. Then, packing some food, corned beef and beans, with a block of freshwater ice in a small shoulder bag, I set off again.
From the overhanging edge of the berg's side, on top of which I had fixed the block, the hill overhung a platform, rearing up one hundred and eighty feet. To one side there was a slope of ice rising about fifty feet to a shoulder between two small peaks. The slope was at an angle of thirty degrees. Cold, shiny bright ice, with no handholes. Getting up the slope, driving one chisel in while standing on the one just driven in, was purgatory and it took three hours. When I got to the shoulder, I found myself once more in the wind, although by now it was down to about ten knots. Looking out "to sea," to the east, there was nothing but ice. To the north, the west, to the east, and as far as I could judge, to the southeast as well. To the south the broken ice floes were piled up ag
ainst the bottom of the berg. Directly to the southwest the slope of the hill rose at around twenty degrees to a height of about two hundred feet. I started climbing, every now and then looking down. Thin ice was already forming a dull grey sheen all across the bay. It took another four hours to get to the top of the hill, the most southerly of the three. I promptly made a note to name them, from south to north, "England,"
"Wales," and "Scotland." The whole ice-mountain I christened "Brittania-Berg."
The scene from the top of "England" was astonishing. To the north, right around from east to west, there was nothing but ice. Most of it was flat, but at intervals other great hummocks appeared, similar to the one I was on, though not as big, except for one, in the far-off, hazy distance to the northeast, which was a giant. On the other side of the bay was a great jumble of ice floes, all heaving up and down separately as the monster sea-swell rolled in from the east, crashing, groaning, wheezing, and sighing. Then I looked at the mouth of the gap. It did not seem as wide as it had the day before. I made a note to check it in a few days' time. On top of the hill I firmly set a broom handle with a red ensign nailed to it to signal any searchers.
It took much less time to climb down "England" hill, as I had chopped out footholds in the ice. I was very careful though—one slip would mean death in the freezing water. I resolved that next time I climbed up I would bring a rope up all the way with me. I had chipped some of the ice and tasted it. Right on the top it was fresh, but on the shoulder it was sally. This confirmed my suspicions about the berg's origin.