Works of Jules Verne/Adventures of Captain Hatteras/The English at the North Pole/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV
THE LAST BIT OF COAL
The bears appeared absolutely impregnable; not one was taken. Indeed, nothing was killed except a few seals, and then the wind changed and the snow falls became so violent that it was impossible to leave the ship.
On the 15th of November the thermometer fell to 24° below zero. This was the lowest temperature they had hitherto experienced, yet with a calm atmosphere the cold would have been bearable, but the stormy wind that blew seemed to fill the air with sharp lancets.
Even had it been possible to venture out, the least exercise would soon have made a man pant for breath. Not a fourth part of the usual work could be done by the crew, and woe to the hapless individual who was incautious enough to touch anything made of iron. He felt as if he had been suddenly burnt, and the skin was torn off his hand, and remained sticking to the article he had so imprudently grasped.
The only relief to the close confinement was a daily walk of two hours on the covered-in deck, and the permission to smoke, which was not allowed down below.
The stoves had to be carefully attended to, for if the fires got the least low, the walls became covered with ice, and not only the walls, but every peg, and nail, and inch of metal.
The instantaneousness of this phenomenon astonished the Doctor. The breath of the men seemed to condense in a second, and leap, as it were, from fluid to solid, falling in snow all round them. Only a few feet away from the fire the cold was felt in all its intensity, and it was little wonder that the poor shivering fellows huddled round the stove in a close group, scarcely ever changing their position.
Yet the Doctor counseled them wisely to try and get inured to the temperature by gradually exposing themselves to its influence. But his advice was in vain, though he practiced what he preached. The men were nearly all too lazy or too benumbed to leave their post, and preferred sleeping away their time in the warm unwholesome atmosphere.
As for Hatteras, he seemed not to feel the change in the temperature in the least. He walked about as usual in perfect silence, and would be absent from the ship for hours, and return, to the astonishment of his crew, without a sign of cold on his face. What was the secret of this? Was he so wrapped in one idea that he was actually not susceptible of outward impressions?
"He is a strange man!" said the Doctor to Johnson. "He amazes even me; he has a blazing fire inside him!"
"It is a positive fact," replied Johnson; "that he goes about in the open air with not a stitch more clothing than he wore in the month of June!"
"Oh! as far as clothes are concerned, that is nothing; what's the good of wrapping up a man who has got no heat in himself? You may as well try and warm ice by putting it in a blanket. Hatteras does not need that; he is so constituted that really I should not be astonished to see things catch alight that come near him, as if they had touched glowing coal!"
On the 28th the thermometer fell to 32° below zero. There was only enough coal to last ten days longer.
Hatteras dispensed now with the fire in the poop, and shared the common room of the men with Shandon and the Doctor. This brought him into more direct contact with his crew, who bestowed on him sullen, scowling glances. He heard their reproaches and recriminations, and even threats, without daring to punish. Indeed, he seemed deaf to all that was spoken, and sat in a corner away from the fire, with his arms folded, in perfect silence.
In spite of the Doctor's advice, Pen and his friends refused to take the least exercise. They spent whole days crouching over the stove, or in their hammocks rolled up in the blankets, and the consequence was that their health gave way, and scurvy, that terrible disease, made its appearance on board.
The Doctor had been dealing out lemon-juice and lime pastilles every morning for a considerable time, but these usually efficacious remedies had no apparent effect. The malady ran its course, and soon assumed the most frightful forms.
What a sight the unhappy sufferers presented! Their legs swollen to an enormous size, and covered with large dark-blue spots; their gums bleeding, and lips so tumid, that articulation was almost impossible.
Clifton was first attacked by the cruel malady, and he was soon followed by Gripper, Brunton, and Strong. Those who escaped were forced to witness the sufferings of the others, for there was but one living room, and this had to be forthwith turned into a hospital, as within a few days thirteen out of the eighteen men, which composed the crew of the Forward, were confined to their hammocks. Pen was not attacked, thanks to his vigorous constitution. Shandon exhibited a few premonitory symptoms, but he succeeded in warding these off by exercise and regimen, and remained tolerably well.
The Doctor attended his patients with unremitting care, and his heart was often wrung with the sight of pain he could not relieve. He did all he could to raise the spirits of the dejected men, and by conversation and sympathy, and ingenious devices, to lighten the monotony of their long, weary days. He read aloud, and drew largely on the stores of his wonderful memory for their amusement; but often and often his stories would be interrupted by a groan or moaning cry from one or other, and he would have to break off, and try anew all the resources of his healing art.
Meantime, his own health remained unimpaired. He became no thinner, and his corpulence was better than the warmest clothing. He often congratulated himself on being like the seal and the whale, so encased in good thick fat that he could easily bear the rigors of an Arctic winter.
Hatteras, for his part, felt nothing, either mentally or physically. The sufferings of his men seemed not to touch him in the least, though, perhaps, he would not allow his emotion to appear, and a close observer might have discovered a humane heart beating under that iron exterior.
The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was quite deserted except by the Esquimaux dogs, who kept howling piteously. The 8th of December arrived, and the Doctor went out as usual to look at the thermometer. The mercury was frozen—completely frozen!
"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he exclaimed, in dismay. Yes! and on this very day the last atom of coal was thrown into the stove.