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Trial by Ice

Page 12

by Richard Parry


  Distressingly the reminders to Buddington and Bessel reflect the siege mentality developing aboard the ship. Hall sensed sabotage of his efforts to press northward. Without the dogs and an accurate chronometer, he could not reach the North Pole. The letter's tone smacked of imperialism and treated Buddington like a dolt. Surely he would know enough to feed the dogs before sending them back. But the note also raised questions about Hall's own competence. All those odds and ends for him, yet nothing needed for Hans or Ebierbing. Apparently the Inuit knew how to pack their kits.

  Far worse, that offhanded remark to Bessel stung the haughty Prussian. As with the instructions for Buddington, Hall's reminder to wind the chronometers assumed that the doctor would otherwise forget. For a man who had a string of degrees from Heidelberg, Stuttgart, and Jena and served as the head of the scientific corps, it was a deep insult.

  Here was another example of Hall's attempting to micro-manage his expedition. Even before he left on this first overland trip, he presented Buddington with a long, detailed list of instructions on how to manage the ship in his absence. It ranged from instructing Buddington (the experienced sea captain) as to what to do in an emergency to how to feed the newborn litter of puppies with canned pemmican. Too much coal was being burned to heat the ship, he complained. Only enough to keep the temperature at 50°F was to be used. All lights were to be out by nine p.m. except for a single candle forward for the night watch, and nothing was to be burned without the permission of Noah Hayes, who was to record every scrap.

  Tellingly he appointed William Morton as quartermaster and ordered that only Morton could open supplies. For a final slap in the face, he commanded Buddington to keep a journal of any and all violations of this fiat, as if Buddington would be stupid enough to report his own pilfering. Nothing survives of the response that Buddington or Bessel made to either of Hall's letters. No mention is found in any of the recovered journals or diaries. One can easily assume, however, that their bitterness toward Hall only increased.

  The requested supplies raced back with Hans, and the men worked at banking more snow and ice against the sides of the ship. On October 17 the sun sank behind the mountains of Greenland, not to be seen again until February. From then on each shrinking hour of daylight would be marked only by the rosy glow that shimmered along the southern horizon. Blackness and gloom began to permeate everything, slowly sapping the expedition's strength.

  Captain Hall's party mushed northward along the foot of the mountains until they struck a frozen river. Since the river drained northward, they traveled along its relatively smooth surface, following the twisting riverbed until it emptied into the head of a bay. There Hall read a special prayer written for the occasion by John Newman and named the bay after Newman. He must have reflected bitterly over the lines in Reverend Newman's prayer that said: “And here in this far-off northern clime Thou givest snow like wool and scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. Who can stand before Thy cold?” For a cleric who had not sailed north of Disko, Newman's words proved remarkably accurate. Already the trip was bogging down. Although Hall had planned to travel a hundred miles, the sleds had made less than fifty.

  Sledding over the frozen water, they reached the mouth in two days and turned north again. Scaling a mountain, Hall and Chester viewed the surrounding land. Below lay the ice-choked Robeson Channel. Across the straits Ellesmere Island ran north by west in a curving arc while the earth beneath their feet rounded to the east.

  Hall correctly surmised he was standing on an island and looking at the northern ends of both Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Here was the end of land. Ahead lay the Lincoln Sea and the North Pole. No solid earth remained above water between the tips of these two islands and the top of the world.

  Hall's viewpoint of the top of the world was dutifully named Cape Brevoort, after his generous benefactor J. Carson Brevoort of Brooklyn. Hall sat among the rocks on a windswept portion of the mountain to draft a dispatch to Secretary of the Navy Robeson.

  Below him stretched a missed opportunity, one that might never come again. Sanguinely he wrote:

  On arriving here we found the mouth of Newman's Bay open water, having numerous seals in it, bobbing up their heads. This open water making close both to Sumner Headland and Cape Brevoort, and the ice of Robeson Strait on the move, thus debarring all possible chance of extending our journey on the ice up the strait.

  The collusion between his troublesome Captain Buddington and the ever-shifting sea ice had cost him dearly. With his own eyes he watched the fading light fingering across the open water. The route farther north by sea still lay open! Had Buddington the stomach, they could have laid to, set the ship in irons, or anchored while the storms passed, then steamed on! At the very least they might have pushed their way into this fine bay to winter over. Deeper than Polaris Bay and guarded by the sheer headlands, Newman Bay offered far better shelter than the shallow scallop of Thank God Harbor. By whatever quirk of nature, Newman Bay remained open, even now, where thick ice gripped the Polaris fifty miles farther south.

  Most disheartening was the fact that the open water now blocked any farther progress by dogsled. From the speed of the icy cubes sweeping south in Robeson Channel, Hall realized that the current of more than two knots would keep the straits open for days to come. It would do no good to wait for ice to seal the sea. Weeks might pass before the ice grew thick enough for safe sledding.

  He was blocked by land and by sea. Clouds the color of hammered pewter, reflecting the dark mood, closed in as the men descended. Like Moses, Hall had been to the mountain and had seen the promised land. Like Moses, he would never set foot on it.

  Huddled inside an igloo hastily built by Hans and Ebierbing before the storm broke, Hall finished his dispatch. He neglected to mention two close calls that had nearly spelled disaster for the probing mission. One night in particular almost proved deadly as they sat inside a snow house. Expertly crafted by Ebierbing and Hans to retain the warmth of a single seal-oil lamp yet block the howling Arctic wind, the house matched the Inuit's usual specifications of being airtight. With everyone inside, the Natives dutifully sealed the door with a block shaped for that purpose. Tired, preoccupied, or perhaps careless, no one had bothered to cut a vent hole in the top.

  While Hall calculated his dead reckoning and star sights, the kerosene lamp flickered and went out. Assuming it had run low on fuel, Hall continued by the light of the one candle while Chester and the Inuit dozed. Then the candle sputtered and died. Exasperated, Hall struck a match to relight the taper. Match after match extinguished as soon as it was struck. Puzzled by this, Hall suddenly became dizzy. The candle and lamp had consumed all the oxygen in the sealed igloo, he realized. They were out of air.

  “Kick down the door!” he ordered Ebierbing, who was closest to the entrance. The Inuit obeyed, and fresh air rushed into the room to revive them. It had been a close thing. Had they been sleeping, they would have suffocated.

  Danger and death lurked at each turn. Back at the ship, Chester picked up a pot of coffee boiling on the portable metal stove, called a conjurer because it resembled something a magician might use to brew a potion. Finding the pot handles too hot to hold, the first mate dropped the pot and splashed boiling coffee over his face. Blisters immediately formed. Luckily Chester's eyes were spared, and his burns responded to Cosmoline, the rust-inhibiting grease, wiped from the rifles and metal tools and applied to his burned skin.

  If anyone on the trip needed a reminder of the harsh nature surrounding him, he had only to look about. Grim evidence abounded.

  During the sled passage one of the dogs had given birth to a full litter of pups. As the animals slept in harness, tied to the sled, the tracings kept the mother from moving her babies to safety. In the night the other dogs killed and ate all the puppies.

  “Up to the time I and my party left the ship all have been well, and continue with high hopes of accomplishing our great mission,” Hall wrote the next morning. In his heart he knew he could n
ot account for the actions of Captain Buddington or Emil Bessel while he was absent from the ship.

  Hall must have feared that Buddington would sail the ship south at the first opportunity. The skipper had wanted to winter over at Kane's winter camp, farther south. Perhaps the fact that Kane had survived the winter at that location provided Buddington with assurances, whereas their advanced position did not. Bessel, however, appeared happy collecting and measuring where the ship now lay anchored. With his feet on land and overseeing the construction of his observatory, the Prussian scientist seemed fully occupied. But his apparent contentment worried Hall. The man detested him, he and Tyson realized all too well. Bessel hated taking orders from someone he rated far beneath him. Since the episode at Disko, Bessel looked as if he were biding his time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  Up to the time Hall had left, everything was fine. But what mischief awaited his return he could only guess.

  Nothing of Hall's concerns survived, but George Tyson's diary and testimony as well as that of the men paint a picture of growing acrimony between the chief scientist, the skipper, and Captain Hall.

  Trying to end on a positive note, Hall added:

  I have omitted to note that our sleeping-bags, our vestments, everything that we wear, are all saturated with the moisture, and frozen stiff. But these kinds of difficulties we do not mind much. So long as we can forward the service we are engaged in, so long will we laugh at such obstacles as these mentioned.

  Reluctantly they turned back in the morning. Before departing the men scraped away the snow until they found enough rock to build a cairn of stones. Placing the dispatch inside a copper cylinder as prescribed by his orders, Hall sealed the opening and trudged away. His dispatch was written on a form instructing the finder in six different languages to forward the message to the secretary of the navy. Chester further marked the site with an empty two-pound meat tin and a condensed-milk can filled with sand. The rough draft of the letter Hall cached remained inside his portable writing desk and so survived for us to read. His scribbled notes tightly fill all four corners of the printed official paper.

  The pack ice and icebergs jostling within Robeson Channel mocked any idea of crossing by sled. The rugged slate-gray mountains lining the tip of Greenland blocked farther travel overland. He would have to wait until spring, Hall realized. Already this short trek was proving more arduous than expected.

  George Tyson dropped the snow block he held and looked up. The sled dogs tethered on the ice and near the observatory barked and strained against their leashes. Beside him Morton and Sieman continued their work of hauling the cut squares to bank against the sides of the ship. Whenever the weather permitted, insulating the Polaris continued. This was the fourth day, and the snow bank measured ten feet thick in parts. Still, much more needed to be done.

  Tyson scanned the horizon. The thick twilight restricted his vision to a few hundred yards. Something had disturbed the animals. No musk ox would be foolish enough to blunder into camp. Polar bears were another matter. He squinted harder. The white bears blended so well with their surroundings as to be almost invisible. Only their black eyes and black nose stood out. But he saw nothing.

  The dogs renewed their yelping. Now they all stood, howling and facing to the east. In the cold, dense air, sound carried for miles across the jumbled ice field. Faint barks returned from the base of the foothills. Tiny dark dots crested the rise of a snow ridge and sped toward the ship. Captain Hall and Chester had returned.

  Instinctively Tyson fished his pocket watch from the folds of his sealskin coat. It read one o'clock. Two weeks to the day, the advance party was back. He waited as the sleds drew nearer.

  Expertly Ebierbing brought the team to a halt alongside the observatory building. Hall rolled out of the sled basket and sprang to his feet. Walter Campbell, one of the firemen, greeted him. To Campbell, the commander looked unwell.

  Hall shook his head. “No, I'm pretty tired, but quite well in health.”

  Emil Bessel emerged from the hut. The two shook hands, and Bessel walked beside Hall, talking about several of the experiments. Frederick Meyer and Noah Hayes stopped stacking provisions to welcome their commander. Hayes thought Hall looked “very much exhausted.” Once again Hall insisted he felt fine.

  A crowd gathered as Hall walked toward the Polaris. Budding-ton and Morton approached. “Do you think the Pole can be reached along the shore you just explored?” Buddington asked.

  “It can,” Hall answered firmly. He then clasped Tyson's outstretched hand and smiled warmly. Patches of hoarfrost silvered Hall's beard and eyebrows, contrasting with the ruddy complexion of his flushed face.

  “How was the trip?” Tyson asked.

  Hall grinned widely. “Wonderful time. Only went fifty miles instead of the hundred miles I planned. But, all went well. Didn't lose a single dog.”

  Tyson nodded.

  Hall wiped his running nose with the back of his mitten. “Going again,” he said. “And I want you to go along.”

  Hall shook hands with everyone in the work party. Before climbing the gangplank, he addressed the men. “Men, I thank you for your good behavior during my absence,” he said.

  Ebierbing and Mr. Chester, both covered with snow and frost, climbed the platform with Hall. Campbell and Morton followed. At the tumble home Bryan and the steward, Herron, waited as the reception party. Hall exchanged a few words with the chaplain before crossing the tented deck and making his way below to his shared quarters. Joseph Mauch greeted the captain at the doorway. In his hands he held a bound ledger recording the events that had taken place during Hall's exploratory trip. Before he left, Hall had ordered Mauch as secretary to keep an accurate log of all happenings. Proudly Mauch thrust the book at Hall.

  Hall eyed the ledger. He nodded his approval but waved off the book. “I'll read it as soon as possible,” he said. Perusing the log was not on his mind. He was thirsty.

  “Have you any coffee ready?” Hall asked Herron.

  “Always enough,” the steward beamed. “Under way down stairs in the galley. Would the Captain care for anything else?”

  “No. Just the coffee.”

  Herron rushed off to find the cook, Jackson. But the pot was empty. Dinner would not be served to the working parties for another two hours. The thirsty crew stacking provisions by the hut and banking the ship had drunk the morning's coffee to keep warm. Campbell, acting as assistant cook, watched as Jackson brewed a fresh pot. Later, under cross-examination, Jackson would claim that the captain's cup was filled from the same pot everyone else had sampled. Whether he lied or had a lapse of memory, the truth remains that the cook brewed a fresh cup for Captain Hall. Both Campbell and Mauch remembered watching him make one.

  In the cabin William Morton pulled off Hall's mukluks and washed his feet. The commander sat on his bunk. Going from minus-zero temperatures to the relative warmth of the ship caused him to sweat, further drenching his already damp shirt. Throughout their trip moisture had plagued Chester and Hall. Without modern synthetic fibers to wick perspiration away from their bodies, the two men had steamed inside their clothing as they ran beside the dogsleds. Furthermore, the wet wool lost all of its insulating property.

  By evening their undergarments had literally dripped. Each morning they had awakened to sleeping bags frozen into stiff cocoons from the water vapor. Hans and Ebierbing avoided this problem by sensibly wearing nothing beneath their furs and sleeping under the hollow-haired caribou robes.

  As an afterthought Morton went out to retrieve a change of dry clothing for his commander. Bryan and Bessel stood inside the cabin. When the mate returned, Hall sat drinking his cup of coffee. Herron had returned with the brew. Captain Hall drank his coffee sweetened with sugar “white lump sugar,” as the steward described it. How many hands beside Jackson's and Herron's passed the cup to Hall is unknown, but Dr. Bessel and Mr. Bryan were present.

  As Hall gulped down the coffee, he grimaced. Those present saw him d
o so. The taste was awful, unlike any coffee he had drunk before, far too sweet and metallic in character. He mentioned it to Morton and again, later, to Tookoolito. He set the cup aside and rose to pull his shirt over his head. Suddenly his stomach burned, a visceral fire deep inside as if he had swallowed molten iron.

  “Something is the matter with me,” Hall stammered. “I … I feel sick.” Abruptly he doubled over as the pain struck even harder. He vomited suddenly. But the pain continued, and he collapsed onto his bunk.

  The vomiting continued unabated.

  Helplessly Morton and the steward watched as wave after wave of pain and nausea swept over the captain. Bryan wrung his hands, while Bessel studied the attack with medical detachment. Within minutes Hall appeared to improve. Emptying his stomach seemed to relieve the symptoms.

  Fearing that something in the coffee had affected him, Hall asked Dr. Bessel for an emetic. If his vomiting had left anything harmful behind, further regurgitation could only help. With problems in food handling, preparation, and preservation rampant in the nineteenth century, food poisoning was common. On an Arctic vessel with little water used for hand-washing, the problem was compounded. Emetics were a common way of dealing with contaminated foods.

  Surprisingly Bessel shook his head. “No. You are not strong enough,” he said. “One would weaken you too much.” Bryan blinked at this unexpected recommendation. Purging was standard practice, and the captain's vomiting had seemed to help him. However, he deferred to Bessel's medical experience. Since he had not examined Hall, the Heidelberg-trained physician had no basis for such a pronouncement regarding Hall's relative strength or weakness, unless he was trying to keep the contents of the coffee cup inside Hall.

  Captain Buddington arrived. Hall looked up from his bunk,pale and shaken. “I felt a little sick coming in from the cold to this warm cabin,” Hall explained, “and I've been vomiting slightly.”

 

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