Works of Jules Verne/Adventures of Captain Hatteras/The English at the North Pole/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
PERILOUS NAVIGATION
Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, and Johnson, accompanied by Foker and Strong, the cook, got into the whaling-boat, and went on shore.
The Governor, with his wife and five children, came courteously to meet their visitors. Dr. Clawbonny knew enough Danish to establish friendly relations between them, and Foker, the ice-master, who was also interpreter, knew about twenty words of the Esquimaux tongue, and a good deal can be done with twenty words if one is not very ambitious.
The Governor was born in Isle Disko, and had never been out of it in his life. He did the honors of his town, composed of three wooden houses for himself and the three Lutheran ministers, a school, and a few shops, which were stocked by shipwrecked vessels. The rest of the town consisted of snow-huts, with one single opening, into which the Esquimaux crawled on all-fours.
A great part of the inhabitants had gone out to meet the Forward, and more than one advanced as far as the middle of the bay in his kayak.
The Doctor knew that the word esquimaux means eater of raw fish, but he also knew that this name is considered an insult by the natives; and he therefore took care to call them "Greenlanders."
And yet their oily sealskin clothes and boots, and the greasy, foetid smell of both men and women—for one sex is hardly distinguishable from the other—told plainly enough the description of food on which they lived, as well as the disease of leprosy which prevailed to some extent among them, as it does among most ichthyophagous races, though it did not affect their health.
The Lutheran clergyman and his wife, with whom the Doctor was anticipating some pleasant intercourse, were on a visitation in the south, below Upernavik, so he was obliged to make the best of the Governor. This worthy functionary was not very lettered; a little less intelligence would have made him an ass; a little more, and he would have known how to read.
The Doctor also wished to make a personal inspection of an Esquimaux hut, but, fortunately for him, the entrance was too small to allow of his admission. It was a happy escape, for nothing can be more repulsive than the interior of a Greenland hut, with its heap of dead and living things, seal-flesh, and Esquimaux rotten fish, and stinking garments; not even a solitary window to purify the air; nothing but a hole at the top, which allows the smoke to escape, but not the fœtid smell.
Shandon, meanwhile, was obeying the instructions of his unknown commander, and procuring means of transport over the ice. He had to pay £4 for a sledge and six dogs, and even then the natives wished to get out of their bargain. He also sought to engage the services of Hans Christian to manage the dogs, the same young man that accompanied the McClintock expedition, but found he had gone to the south of Greenland.
But the most important part of Shandon's business was to try and discover whether there was any European at Upernavik waiting for the arrival of the Forward. Was the Governor acquainted with any stranger, an Englishman most probably, who had taken up his abode in this region? When had he last had any intercourse with whalers or other vessels?
To these questions the Governor replied that not a single stranger had landed on the coast for more than ten months. It was evidently a hopeless mystery, and Shandon could not help crowing a little over the disappointment of the sanguine Doctor.
"You must own it is quite inexplicable," he said; "nothing at Cape Farewell, nothing at Isle Disko, nothing at Upernavik."
"Wait a few days, and if it turns out there is nothing at Cape Melville either, I shall hail you as the only captain of the Forward."
Towards evening, the whale-boat came back to the ship, bringing Strong, the cook, with some dozens of eider-ducks eggs, twice the size of common hens' eggs, and of a greenish color. His forage for fresh provisions had not been successful, but still the eggs were a very welcome addition to the salt junk.
The wind was favorable next day, but Shandon still delayed weighing anchor. He determined to wait till morning to give time for anyone to come on board that wished, and fired a salute from the cannon every hour to make known the presence of the vessel. It made a tremendous noise among the icebergs, but had no effect beyond frightening the molly-mokes and rotches, who came flying out in clouds. Squibs and rockets in abundance were sent up during the night, but equally without result. There was no alternative but to proceed.
By six o'clock next morning the Forward had lost sight of Upernavik and its ugly posts all along the shore, with strips of seal intestines and paunches of deer hanging to dry. The wind was S.E., and the temperature had risen to 32⁰. The sun appeared through the fog, and the icebergs began to give way a little beneath his melting beams.
The white, dazzling reflections of his rays, however, had a disastrous effect on the men. Wolsten the gunner, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell, were attacked with snow blindness, a very common disease in spring, and often terminating among the Esquimaux in total loss of sight. The Doctor advised everyone, and especially those suffering from the complaint, to wear a green gauze veil, and he was the first to follow his own prescription.
The dogs Shandon had purchased at Upernavik turned out rather wild at first, but they soon became used to the ship, and Captain got on very well with his new associates. He seemed no stranger to their ways, and, as Clifton was not slow to remark, he had evidently been among his Greenland brethren before.
After leaving Upernavik the appearance of the coast quite changed. Immense glaciers stood out against the gray sky, and in the west, beyond the opening of Lancaster Sound, vast ice-fields extended, ridged with hummocks at regular intervals. There was great danger of the brig becoming nipped, as each instant the leads got more impracticable. Shandon had the furnaces lighted, and till the 11th managed to pursue a winding course among the loose floes, but on the morning of the 12th the Forward found herself beset on all sides. Steam proved powerless, and there was no alternative but to cut a way through the ice-fields. This involved great fatigue, and a mutinous spirit began to manifest itself in some of the crew, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolsten. Certainly it was hard labor to saw through huge masses six and seven feet thick, and when this was accomplished it was almost as hard to tow the vessel along by means of the capstan and anchors fixed in the ice in holes made with a center-bit. The broken ice, too, had to be constantly pushed back under the floes with long poles tipped with iron, to keep a free passage, and all this physical toil, amid blinding snow, or dense fog, combined with the low temperature, the ophthalmia, and the superstitious fears of Clifton, contributed to weaken the mental and bodily energy of the men.
When the sailors have to deal with a bold, intrepid, decided leader, who knows his own mind and what he intends to do, confidence is felt in spite of themselves; they are one in heart with their captain, strong in his strength and calm in his calmness. But the crew of the Forward were conscious of Shandon's irresolution and hesitancy, for, notwithstanding his natural energy of character, he betrayed his weakness by his frequent countermand of orders, by imprudent remarks, and in a thousand little things that did not escape the notice of his men.
The simple fact, besides, that Shandon was not the captain, was enough to make his orders matters of discussion, and from discussion to rebellion is an easy step.
Before long, the malcontents had won over the head engineer to their side, a man who had been hitherto a very slave of duty.
On the 16th of May, six days from the time the Forward had reached the ice-fields, Shandon had not made two miles farther north. This was a very serious aspect of affairs, for they were in imminent danger of being locked in till the next season.
About eight in the evening, Shandon and the Doctor, accompanied by Garry, went out on a voyage of discovery over the vast outstretching plains of ice. They took care not to go too far from the ship, for it would have been difficult to find the way back. The Doctor was quite amazed at the peculiar effects of refraction. He came to a place where he thought he had only to make a little jump, and found to his surprise he had five or six feet to leap over, or vice versa, a fall being the result in both cases, which, though not dangerous, was painful on such a hard sharp surface.
Shandon and his companions were in search of leads, or navigable openings, and in pursuance of this object, about three miles from the ship, they climbed, though with considerable difficulty, to the top of an iceberg, above three hundred feet high. From this they had an extended view over a widespread heap of desolation. It was like gazing at the ruins of some mighty city, with its fallen obelisks and overturned towers and palaces. It was a veritable chaos, and far as the eye could see, not a single lead was visible.
"How shall we get through?" asked the Doctor.
"I don't know," replied Shandon, "but get through we must, even if we have to blast those mountains with powder. I certainly have no intention of being imprisoned in the ice till next spring."
"As the Fox was, just about this very same part," said the Doctor. "Bah! we shall get out, never fear, with a little philosophy. I would back that against all the engines in the world."
"One must confess things don't look very favorable this year."
"That is true enough. The aspect of the regions is much the same as it was in 1817."
"Do you suppose, then, Doctor, it is not always alike—the same to-day as it has always been?"
"Unquestionably I do, Shandon. From time to time sudden breakings up occur, which scientific men have never been able to explain. Till 1817 this sea was constantly blocked up, but in that year an immense cataclysm took place, which hurled the icebergs into the ocean, and many of them fell on the Bank of Newfoundland. From that time Baffin's Bay has been nearly free, and has become the rendezvous of numerous whalers."
"It is easier now, then, for ships to go north?" asked Shandon.
"Immensely so," said the Doctor; "but it has been a subject of remark, that for some years past there has been a tendency in the Bay to refill and close again, an additional reason why we should push on with all our might; though, I must confess, we are much like a party of strangers going through unknown galleries, when each door closes behind as they pass through, and cannot be reopened."
"Do you advise me to go back? asked Shandon, looking at the Doctor, as if he would read his inmost soul.
"I advise you to go back! No, I have never yet learned to put one foot behind the other, and I say go on, even should we never return; only, what I wish to impress on you is this, that if we set to work imprudently, we know the risks we incur."
"And you, Garry," asked Shandon, "what is your opinion?"
"I should go right on, certainly, sir. I agree with Mr. Clawbonny. However, it rests with you entirely. Give your orders, we will obey."
"All don't say so, Garry," was Shandon's reply. "All are not in the mood to obey. Suppose they refuse? What then?"
"I have told you my mind," replied Garry, coldly, "because you asked me, but you are not obliged to follow my advice."
Shandon made no response; but after carefully scanning the horizon once more, climbed down the iceberg again, followed by his two companions.