Trial by Ice

by Richard Parry

  The cataclysm engulfed the entire expanse of ice surrounding the ship. As Tyson clambered about the relocated goods, the ice beneath his feet exploded, flinging him to the ground. He struggled to his knees just in time to see a cloud of snow billowing along the side of the Polaris. The cloud rolled the entire length of the ship like exploding gunpowder.

  Mooring lines secured to the floe snapped like rifle shots, and the ice anchors ripped loose. The vessel wrenched free of the ice's grip and lurched into the darkness. In an instant it vanished within the swirl of the storm. A second later the ice floe, freed of the ship's weight, tilted precipitously and fractured into a hundred pieces. Inky water bubbled forth from the widening rents.

  Through the darkness and swirling snow came the plaintive cry of John Herron, the steward. “Goodbye, Polaris …”

  “Hurry! To the whaleboat, men!” Tyson shouted. To launch their small craft in search of the Polaris was impossible. But the longboat would save them from the frigid waters if their floating island disintegrated.

  As his crew huddled about the boat, Tyson spotted a dark shape through the blowing snow. He shielded his eyes and looked again. A precious bundle of musk ox hides, essential for warmth, was slipping into a widening fissure in the ice. Tyson stumbled forward and snatched the corner of the disappearing hides just as they threatened to slide into oblivion. He dug his heels into the ice and pulled. The corner of the hides flipped back, exposing two frightened faces.

  Shocked, Tyson realized the bundle of hides contained the Eskimo children of Hans and Tookoolito. The Inuit families had combined their offspring and placed them where they thought it was safest. However, no place on the cracking floe remained secure for long.

  The navigator tugged desperately as the fissure widened. For a minute it was touch-and-go as to whether the children would slip beneath the black waters. Gradually the furs slid back from the edge with the children still inside, and Tyson bundled them back to the safety of the boat. Tookoolito, working about the whaleboat, stopped when she saw the children. She flashed Tyson a grateful smile as s le embraced her child.

  One hide remained in the crack. As Tyson looked back, the fissure ground shut with a savage groan. The lone fur vanished like a morsel in a giant's jaws. The navigator shivered. He'd almost been too late.

  But there was no rest for the worn-out Tyson. A cry for help drew his mention to his left. Five men stranded on a bobbing raft of ice shouted to him. They had been working close by the Polaris when the breakup occurred. Only desperate leaps had saved them from being sucked under as the ship sprang free. Now they huddled together on a frozen chip less than eight feet square. Any movement caused the sliver of ice to tip and bob like a cork. In a minute the wind and waves would capsize their island and throw them to their deaths.

  Tysor launched the ship's scow, the small, square-nosed boat that the crew affectionately called the “little donkey.” But waves swamped the craft, and the would-be rescuer scrambled back to solid ice, barely escaping a plunge into the deadly sea. Next he tried the second whaleboat, which had broken free of the Polaris and beached itself by the water's edge. Rowing by sound as much as sight, Tyson paddled through the frigid veil, guided only by the cries of the stranded men. Anxious minutes passed before he located the men and hauled them off.

  More cries for help filtered through the snow and sleet. For three Ion hours, Tyson added to his boat as he ferried stranded men back to their tiny fort.

  Wher morning came, the storm abruptly quit, departing as suddenly as it had struck. Low-hanging clouds persisted, but the Arctic sun rose on a painfully scoured sky and commenced its skimming along the horizon. Blackness retreated before silky purples and rose colors that bathed the sky, the water, and the shards of ice, coating them in delicate shades of pink and blue. Dark and fearsome mere hours before, the Arctic changed its face to a soothing landscape fit to rival the canvases of the finest impressionists.

  Still, things looked bleak for the stranded men. No one knew the fate of their ship. Had the Polaris sunk in the storm? If not, were its engines working so it could return to rescue them? Stranded on the floe, hundreds of miles from help, the party's chances were slim.

  The cause of the ship's sudden expulsion from its icy cradle glowered over the marooned sailors for anyone with the interest to see. The storm had driven the twin icebergs together like hammer and anvil, crushing the ice field that had held the Polaris. No one really cared at that point. Only Tyson remained awake. Natives and sailors alike slept under snow-covered hides and blankets. Everyone but the navigator had accepted their fate and crawled under cover to await the inevitable.

  Bone-tired, Tyson counted heads and took stock of their situation. Emerging from their white cocoons, tired faces greeted his count. Ten men from the ship's company and the two Eskimo with their wives and small children, nineteen in all, resided on a circular floe of ice less than several miles around.

  Pitiful as their roster was, Tyson realized their residence was far worse. Their domain consisted of a floating island of sharp hills of tumbled ice, more like massive, razor-edged crystals, interspersed with pressure ridges of snow and scattered lakes and ponds of fresh water still melted from the summer sun. Their terra firma was anything but that. Parts of the floe thinned to several inches, insufficient to support a man's weight, while other sections measured more than forty feet thick. Careless wandering would plunge the unwary into freezing water.

  They were miles from land, and interwoven barricades of ice prevented their rowing ashore. Unless a dramatic change in the current dispersed the floating islands, they were trapped on a section of drifting ice that might break apart at any moment.

  Rescue by their ship remained the most favorable prospect, but Tyson's heart sank as he scanned the ice-strewn horizon. No sign of the Polaris existed. The vessel must have sunk in the storm with all aboard, he concluded. They were on their own.

  The p irty had two whaleboats and the nearly useless scow, half filled witr water. To feed the nineteen souls, Tyson counted fourteen cans of pemmican, fourteen salted hams, eleven and a half bags of flour, and one can of dried apples. Of the hundreds of pounds ol bread, meat, and coal, most had sunk or drifted off.

  Unknown to the navigator, the marooned crewmen had taken special pains to salvage their personal belongings at the expense of saving essential gear. Whereas Tyson had only the clothing on his back, moi t of the crew had their seabags with coffee and chocolate, fresh clothing, and firearms.

  As ra aking officer, he had no weaponsa distinct disadvantage, he suddenly realized. How could he impose his will over those seamen who had firearms? This detail would devil him in days to come.

  Roll call revealed that the navigator's company included Frederick Meyer, the troublesome Prussian meteorologist whose collusion with his fellow Teutonic knight Dr. Bessel back at Disko had aided the undermining of Captain Hall. The unfortunate Meyer, dragged over the side by his crate of papers, represented the only member of the scientific corps. Suffering from the effects of scurvy, which drew his leg up so that only the toe could touch the ground as he hobbled about, Meyer would be of little use other than to take sighnngs. If the fog and ice mist persisted, sextant readings would be impossible, and Meyer would be of no use at all.

  The able-bodied seamen were Fred Jamka, William Lindermann, Pe :er Johnson, Fred Anthing, and Gustavus Lindquist. J. W. Kruger, row called Robert by the others, completed the list of sailors. Tyson remembered several of these men as being mutinous, among them some who had broken into the ship's stores and drunk the alcohol used for the scientific specimens. None of the sailors had any expertise surviving in the Arctic.

  Tired as he was, Tyson had to chuckle at the irony. His command contained most of the ship's seamen. He had the sailors but no ship to sail. Buddington, if he still lived, had only Joseph Mauch, Noah Hayes, Herman Sieman, and Henry Hobby to crew the Polar, s. William Jackson, the black cook, and John Herron, the ship's steward, represented the entire galley sta
ff. Tyson had the galley staff without the galley, while Buddington's command was top-heavy with officers and the two scientists. Fate had split the command along the least favorable lines.

  On the plus side of Tyson's party stood the stalwart Inuit, Ebierbing and Tookoolito, the faithful husband-and-wife team called “Joe” and “Hanna.” Most important, Ebierbing was an excellent pilot. Hans, the other Inuit, was a proven hunter capable of taking seal and even bear from his fragile kayak with either spear or rifle. When the food ran out, the two Inuit men would have to hunt for them all.

  Tookoolito and Hans's wife, Merkut, whom the sailors called Christiana, were adept at tending the seal-oil lamps and sewing the needed clothing. Yet even the Inuit's presence had a downside: there were the extra mouths of their children to feed. Tookoolito's adopted daughter, Puney, and Hans's four childrenAugustina, Tobias, Succi, and newborn Charlie Polariswere too young to hunt or fish.

  Now that the snow had stopped, Tyson checked his bearings. Six miles to the southeast rose gray, wind-scoured peaks of land, but plates of pancake ice blocked that route except for a narrow channel of open water. The ice floe where they huddled lay jammed between the two towering icebergs. As chips of ice and smaller scrabble flowed past in the current, he realized the two bergs were firmly grounded on the ocean floor with their floe wedged tightly between.

  The bite of the wind rising from the northeast caused the navigator to turn his face in that direction. What he saw sent shivers up his spine. Chunks of ice, mixed with broken plates and saucers, converged on the only open lee. The shifting wind was blowing closed the only route of escape from their fragile stand. They must move quickly. If they failed to paddle through the gap before it disappeared, they would be trapped.

  “Quickly, men, get up!” Tyson shouted. “Load the boats. We must launch the boats before that opening closes.” He pointed to the distant landfall. “We must reach that solid ground.”

  Overcoming his fatigue, the navigator raced about, kicking and prodding the snow-covered mounds of sleeping men. Try as he might, he could not get them to obey. Instead, the half-frozen sailors stared at him blearily.

  “Hungry,” Jamka mumbled. An accompanying chorus agreed with him.

  Instead of preparing the boats, the men got slowly to their feet and began to search among their kits for food. To a man they ignored Tyson's entreaties.

  Soon a score of pitiful fires, started with seal oil, rags, and scraps of wood, flickered uncertainly on the ice. Tinned cans of meat were pried open and used to thaw their frozen contents over the flames. After licking the tins clean, the sailors boiled snow in the cans to make coffee and chocolate. No one offered Tyson a single bite. The hungry navigator could only stand and watch in frustration. Performing his duty had placed him at a terrible disadvantage.

  The Inuit, aware of the danger, ate their frozen seal meat while they waited by the boats and watched the greedy sailors. If they disapproved of the selfish behavior, they said nothing. Survival on the ice meam making hard decisions, something the Natives understood. More likely, they agreed, it might come to every man for himself.

  Inexorably the pack ice tightened its noose around the open water. The channel to the land narrowed to a thin thread.

  By insisting on eating, the men probably saved their lives at the cost of losing their only path to solid ground. Tyson's prowling about the floe all night using his muscles had kept him warm. The wet, tired seamen lying on the ice sank into hypothermia. The thick blanket of snow that covered them had kept them from freezing to death. Bit without some external warmth, whether a fire or hot food, their body temperatures would continue to slide to deadly lows. Th-dr fumbling, somnambulant actions and slurred speech were symptomatic of this disorder. Their minds had cooled past caring or following orders. Only a primitive instinct directed them to find warm food. Consequently for them it was the right decision.

  More than an hour passed while the men boiled more coffee and tea in the empty tins. Slowly their energy returned. Next they hunted inside their oilskin seabags for a change of dry clothes. While an incredulous Tyson watched, the men changed out of their wet clothing before following his orders. Again no one offered to share his dry articles with the officer.

  Well past nine in the morning, the party finally dragged and skidded the boats to the water's edge. Rowing and poling through the slush, the party struck off for the elusive shore. A low fog rolled in from the north as they got farther from their ice island. Tyson struggled to keep his bearings as the sliver of land ahead vanished and reappeared in the mist.

  Halfway across, the lee ahead closed completely. Now they were on neither land nor solid ice but caught in a slurry of slush and ice that threatened to swamp them. If they could not break free, they would face the white death every Eskimo afloat feared: trapped in a rime of ice too thick to navigate through yet too thin to walk upon. Only death from starvation or freezing could follow.

  Desperately the men rowed for the largest floe they could see. Hacking and chopping through the slush with their oars, they finally reached it. About a hundred yards across, the ice proved thick enough to support the boats. The men pulled the craft onto the floe to keep the whaleboats from freezing solid in the closing ice. Exhausted, the men flopped down in the shelter of the boats.

  Just then Tyson spotted the Polaris.

  Steaming around a point about ten miles north, the ship was under way, apparently undamaged, and making way under sail and steam. Sunlight glowed off her sails, while a dark plume of smoke streamed from her stacks. Black, open water sparkled off the bow of the ship and spread to within a mile of the stranded whaleboats. From there on only pancake ice sealed the difference. With her reinforced prow, the ship could easily smash her way to their rescue.

  A signal was needed. The Polaris could not help but see them; still, Tyson was taking no chances. Light glaring off the ice and water might mask the party. There was no time for a fire, much less the wood to make a notable blaze. Dragging a sheet of India rubber from the bottom of one boat, Tyson draped it over a mound of ice. His men followed his example.

  In mir utes an American flag, canvas bags, musk ox hides, and even a pair of red flannel long Johns sprouted from poles and oars stuck in the snow. While his men cheered, Tyson watched the Polaris through his telescope.

  A shier ran down his spine. The Polaris looked like a ghost ship. The decks were clear. No one kept watch in the crow's nest, and the quarterdeck appeared empty. Silently, like the Flying Dutchman, the ship cruised closer with no sign of life aboard.

  The Polaris steamed on, following the curve of a lump of land that Tyson assumed was Littleton Island. Inexorably the vessel bore down on them. The men jumped and yelled in celebration. They were saved. This night would see them warm and dry on their ship.

  When the Polaris reached the tip of the island, it turned away. Tyson snapped his glass shut in amazement as the cheers of his men died.

  The Polaris vanished behind the land and was gone.

  MAROONED

  We heard a crash, and looking out the window, we saw the ice coming in on us.

  —PETER JOHNSON, FIREMAN, TESTIMONY AT THE INQUIRY

  The sudden snap of the hawsers and the explosion of the ice propelled the Polaris into the mouth of the storm. The lurch that followed those breaking ropes sent Captain Buddington sprawling across the quarterdeck, sliding over the ice-covered planks until he careened into the raised cabin. Even as the ship danced wildly through the clouds of snow, he scrambled to his feet and shouted, “All hands to muster!”

  He did not know how many of the crew remained behind on the ice. For a fleeting moment, he feared he might be alone. Quickly he calmed his fears. The engineers at least were still aboardthem and the tiresome Dr. Bessel. Throughout the entire storm, the physician had not stirred from his cabin.

  White-faced men raced to his side, and a roll call was hurriedly taken. Anxiously Buddington counted the bodies while he searched each bundled face in recognition.
The mad carpenter, Nathan Coffin, grinned lopsidedly at him. Resenting every minute he had to stand in the cold, Emil Bessel glared back sullenly. Beside him stood the gentle Bryan, his face placid as he prepared to meet his Maker. There, too, were the stolid features of old William Morton, the second mate, and Hubbard Chester, the first mate.

  Half the crew was missing. Sieman, Hayes, Mauch, and Hobby were the only able hands left to man the ship. Four such men could not handle the sails in a strong blow, Buddington realized. He cursed his bad luck in ordering so many men onto the ice. He cursed Tyson, too, ever the thorn in his side, for having both the whaleboa :s with him.

  The door to the companionway swung open, and four coal-blackened faces gazed up at the group. Schuman, Odell, Booth, and Campbell all the engineers and firemen were still aboard.

  “Schuman?” Buddington asked.

  The engineer shook his head, answering the unspoken question that burned in the mind of each and every one. “Water still rising.”

  “And the engines?”

  Schuman wiped an oily hand across his mouth. “The fires are lit in the boilers, but there's not enough steam yet to run the engines. If the water in the bilges reaches the fire plates, it'll put out the fires.”

  Buddington looked up to watch an iceberg half the length of the ship scrape along the ribs of the vessel. Chips of ice and snow showered onto the deck as the danger floated past. Even with their sails furled, the force of the storm pushed the Polaris along on bare poles. Wich the rudder and screw damaged and no steam, the ship drifted among the floating ice like a lamb among wolves. Without anchors, without ice hawsers, and with no lifeboats, the men were helpless.