Works of Jules Verne/Adventures of Captain Hatteras/The English at the North Pole/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
OUT AT SEA
The wind was favorable, though very variable, and full of sudden squalls, and the Forward cut her way rapidly through the waves. At five o'clock the pilot gave up his charge into Shandon's hands, jumped into the boat, and was soon out of sight.
Johnson was right. Once fairly out at sea, there was no more trouble with the sailors. They fell into regular ways at once, and in their admiration of the ship's good qualities, forgot the mystery hanging round her.
The little Doctor almost lived on deck, gulping down the sea air as if he could never be satisfied. He would walk up and down in the stormiest weather, and, for a man of learning, his sea legs were pretty fair. "The sea is a beautiful thing to look at," he said to Johnson, coming on deck after breakfast. "I am rather late in beginning my acquaintance with it, but I'll soon make up for it."
"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny. I wouldn't give one fag-end of sea for all the continents in the world. People say that sailors soon grow tired of their calling, but here have I been, forty years at sea, and I enjoy it as much as the first day."
"And what a pleasure there is in feeling a good ship under your feet; and, if I'm any judge, the Forward is a regular 'brick.'"
"You are quite right there," said Shandon, coming up at that moment; "it is a well-built ship, and I must confess I have never seen one better provisioned and equipped for an Arctic expedition. That reminds me that, thirty years ago, Captain Ross, going in search of the North-West passage———"
"Went in the Victory," interrupted the Doctor, "a brig of nearly the same tonnage as ours, and with a steam-engine, too?"
"What! Do you know all about it?"
"Don't I!" said the Doctor. Steam was then in its infancy, and the engine on the Victory caused much injurious delay. Captain Ross, after vainly trying to repair it, ended by doing away with it altogether, and left it behind in his first winter quarters."
"Why, Doctor," exclaimed Shandon, "I see you are quite familiar with all the facts."
"I ought to be," replied the Doctor, "for I have read the narratives of Parry, and Ross, and Franklin, and the reports of McClure and Kennedy, and Kane, and McClintock; and then one thing I recollect—this same McClintock's vessel, called the Fox, was a screw brig, like ours, and he succeeded in gaining his object in a more direct and easy manner than any of his predecessors."
"That is perfectly true," said Shandon. "This McClintock was a brave sailor. I have seen him at work; and you may add that, like him, we shall be in Davis's Straits before April is out; and if we can manage to get past the ice, it will greatly shorten our voyage."
"At all events," returned the Doctor, "I hope we'll be better off than the Fox was in 1857, for she got blocked in among the ice to the north of Baffin's Bay, the very first year, and had to stay there all the winter."
"We'll hope for better luck, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and, certainly, if we can't get on with a ship like the Forward, we had better give up trying for good and all."
"Besides," said the Doctor, "if the captain is on board, he will know what's to be done better than we do in our complete ignorance, for this wonderfully laconic letter of his gives us no clue to the object of the voyage."
"We know what route to take, at any rate," said Shandon, rather sharply, "and that is a good deal. We can manage now, I should think, to do without supernatural interventions and instructions for a full month at least. Besides, you know my own opinion of this mysterious captain."
The Doctor laughed, and said, "I thought with you, once, that he would put you in command of the ship, and never come on board; but now———"
"But what? said Shandon in a snappish tone.
"But since the arrival of this second letter my views on the subject are somewhat modified."
"And pray why, Doctor?"
"Because, though the letter tells you what course to take, it does not tell you the destination of the Forward. Now, he must know where we are going, and I should like to know how a third letter can be sent to you when we are out in the middle of the sea. On the shores of Greenland the postman would certainly be a rara avis. What I think, Shandon, is, that our gallant captain is waiting for us at some Danish settlement at Holsteinberg or Upernavik. He will have gone there to complete his cargo of seal-skins, and to buy his sledges and dogs—in fact, to get everything ready that is required for a voyage to the Arctic Seas. I shall not be at all surprised to see him walk out of his cabin some fine morning, and give orders to the crew in the most ordinary matter-of-fact fashion imaginable."
"Possibly," said Shandon, drily; "but meantime the wind is freshening, and it is not very prudent to risk a topmast in a stiff breeze." This broke off the conversation, and he walked away immediately, and bade the men reef sails.
"He sticks to his notion," said the Doctor to Johnson.
"Ay, and more's the pity," said the boatswain, "for you may be right, Mr. Clawbonny."
Towards evening on Saturday, the wind changed to a hurricane, and almost drove the ship against the Irish coast. The waves were very high, and the brig rolled and pitched so heavily, that if the Doctor had felt inclined to be seasick, he would have had every excuse. At seven they lost sight of Cape Malinhead on the south. This was the last glimpse of Europe, and more than one of the brave crew of the Forward, destined never more to return, stood gazing with long, lingering look. The gale ceased towards nine at night, and the brig continued her course towards the northwest.
During the hurricane Richard Shandon had closely studied his men, analyzing each individual, as every captain ought to do, that he may know what characters he has to work with, and be on his guard. James Wall was a most devoted officer but he was deficient in the initiative faculty; he could understand and obey, but that was all: he was only fit for a third-rate position. Johnson, an experienced old Arctic sailor, had nothing to learn in the way of sang froid and boldness. Simpson, the harpooner, and Bell, the carpenter, were reliable men, slaves of duty and discipline.
The ice-master, Foker, a sailor brought up in Johnson's school, would be a valuable man.
Of the other sailors, Garry and Bolton appeared the best. Bolton was a lively, chattering fellow. Garry was about thirty-five years of age, an energetic-looking young man, but rather pale and sad.
The three sailors, Clifton, Gripper, and Pen, were less enthusiastic and resolute. They were rather fond of grumbling; and Gripper would have given up his engagement, even at the last moment, if he had not been ashamed. So long as things went well, and there was not much work to do, and no danger to risk, he might reckon on these three well enough; but they needed to be well fed. They took very badly to the teetotal regimen, though they knew it was to be enforced beforehand, and whenever the meal-time came round they were always regretting their brandy or gin, though they made up for it by drinking huge bowls of tea and coffee, which might be had almost ad libitum on board.
As for the two engineers, Brunton and Plover, and the stoker Warren, they had sat with folded arms hitherto: their work had not begun.
Shandon knew now how much each man could be depended on.
On the 14th of April the Forward crossed the great current called the Gulf Stream, which runs along the eastern shore of the American continent as far as the Banks of Newfoundland, and then curves southeast to the coast of Norway. They found they were in latitude 51° 37', and longitude 20° 58', about 200 miles from Greenland. The weather had become cold, and the thermometer had fallen to 32°—that is, to freezing point.
The Doctor had not yet donned his winter costume, but he had followed the example of the sailors and officers, and put on an oil-skin jacket and trousers, and a big "sou'wester," and high boots, into which he dropped all of a lump; and really, to see him on deck when the rain was falling in torrents, and the waves dashing over the vessel, he might have been taken for some marine animal, though the comparison would not flatter his vanity.
For two days the weather was extremely unfavorable, the wind was southwest, and the Forward could make no way. From the 14th to the 16th the sea continued rough and stormy; but on the Monday a violent shower came, the result of which was an almost immediate calm. Shandon pointed out this peculiar phenomenon to the Doctor, who replied:
"It quite confirms the curious observations made by Scoresby, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, of which I have the honor to be a corresponding member. You see that during rain the waves are less susceptible to the action of the wind, even when violent. On the contrary, in dry weather, the sea is easily agitated by a comparatively slight breeze."
"But how do you account for this?"
"That is easily answered. I don't account for it at all," said the Doctor.
Just at that moment the ice-master, who was on watch at the mast-head, signaled a floating mass on the starboard side, about fifteen miles to leeward.
"An iceberg in these latitudes!" exclaimed the Doctor.
Shandon pointed his glass in the given direction, and confirmed the announcement of the pilot.
"That's strange!" said the Doctor.
"Does that astonish you?" asked the chief officer, smiling. "What! we are actually fortunate enough to find something that astonishes you!"
"Well, it astonishes me, and yet it doesn't," replied the Doctor, smiling, "for, in 1813, the brig Anne, of Poole, got blocked in among ice-fields in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude, and Dayement, her captain, counted icebergs by hundreds."
"Capital!" said Shandon; "you can still find something to tell us about it that we don't know."
"Oh! not very much," was the modest reply of the amiable little man, "except that icebergs have been met with in still lower latitudes."
"I know that, my dear Doctor, without your telling me, for when I was a cabin-boy aboard the Fly, a sloop-of-war———"
"In 1818," interrupted the Doctor, "at the end of March or we might say April, you passed between two great islands of floating ice in the forty-second degree of latitude.
"Really, you're too bad, Doctor!" exclaimed Shandon.
"But it is true. I have no reason to be astonished, then, at finding a floating iceberg in front of our ship, seeing we are ten degrees farther north."
"I declare, Doctor, you're a perfect well; you have only to let down the bucket."
"All right. I shall dry up sooner than you think; and now, all I want to make me the happiest of doctors is, to see this curious phenomenon a little nearer."
"Precisely," said Shandon. Johnson," he added, calling to his boatswain, "it seems to me the wind is getting up."
"Yes, sir," said Johnson, "we are losing speed, and the currents from the Straits of Davis will soon begin to affect us."
"You are right, Johnson; and if we want to be at Cape Farewell by the 20th of April, we must put on steam, or we shall be dashed against the coast of Labrador. Mr. Wall, will you give orders for the fires to be lighted immediately?"
His orders were executed forthwith, and in another hour the steam had acquired sufficient power to propel the screw, and the Forward was racing along against the wind with close-reefed sails at full speed.