Works of Jules Verne/Adventures of Captain Hatteras/The English at the North Pole/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
WHAT THE CREW THOUGHT ABOUT IT
By watching the chance, however, and taking advantage of every favorable lead, the Forward managed to gain a little ground, but instead of avoiding the enemy, it was evident that direct attack would soon be necessary, for ice-fields, many miles in extent, were approaching, and as these masses when in motion represent a pressure of more than ten millions of tons, great care was requisite to avoid nippings, that is, getting crushed in among them on both sides of the ship. The saws were ordered to be brought up and placed in readiness for immediate use.
It was hard work now for the crew, and some began to grumble loudly, though they did not refuse to obey, while others took things as they came with philosophic indifference.
"I couldn't tell for my life what brings it into my head just this moment," said Bolton, gayly, "but I can't help thinking of a jolly little grog-shop in Water Street, where a fellow can make himself very comfortable with a glass of gin and a bottle of porter. You can see it too, quite plain, can't you, Gripper?"
"Speak for yourself," said Gripper, in the surly tone he generally adopted. "I can see nothing of the sort."
"It's only a way of speaking, Gripper; of course I didn't suppose that those ice-cities which Mr. Clawbonny so admires have even one solitary little public-house in them, where a brave Jack Tar can get a tumbler or two of brandy."
"You may be quite sure of that, Bolton; and for that matter you might add, there is nothing even to be had on board to keep a poor fellow's heart up. A queer idea, certainly, to forbid spirits to Arctic sailors!"
"I can't see that," said Garry, "for you remember what the Doctor said, that it was absolutely necessary to avoid all stimulants if a man wished to go far north, and keep well and free from the scurvy."
"But I have no wish to go far north, Garry. I think it is all lost labor, even coming this length. I can't see the good of being so bent and determined on pushing through where the Fates are dead against us."
"Ah, well, we shan't push through, anyway," said Pen. "When I think I have even forgotten the taste of gin!"
"You must comfort yourself, my boy," said Bolton, "with what the Doctor said."
"Oh, it's all very fine to talk," said Pen, in his coarse, brutal voice, "but it remains to be seen whether all this stuff about health isn't a mere sham to save the rum."
"Pen may be right, perhaps, after all," said Gripper.
"Pen right!" exclaimed Bolton. "His nose is too red for that, and if this new regimen is beginning to bring it back to its natural color a bit, he may thank his stars instead of complaining."
"What harm has my nose done to you, I should like to know?" said Pen, angrily, for this was an attack on his weak point. "My nose can take care of itself; it doesn't want your advice. Mind your own business."
"Come, Pen, don't get rusty. I didn't think your nose was so sensitive. Why, man, I like a good glass of whisky as well as other people, especially in such a climate as this, but if it does one really more harm than good, I am quite willing to go without it."
"You do without it?" said Warren, the stoker, "but I am not so sure that everyone else on board does without it."
"What do you mean, Warren?" said Garry, looking fixedly at him.
"I mean this, that for some reason or other there are spirits on board, and I don't believe some folks in the cabin don't make themselves jolly."
"Pray, how did you know that?" asked Garry.
Warren could not answer; he was only talking for talking sake, as the saying is.
"Never mind him, Garry," said Bolton. "You see he knows nothing about it."
"Well," said Pen, "we'll go and ask for a ration of gin from the chief officer. We've earned it well, I'm sure, and we'll see if he refuses."
"I advise you to do nothing of the sort," rejoined Garry, seriously.
"Why not?" asked Pen and Gripper.
"Because you'll only get 'No' for an answer. You knew the regulation when you signed the articles. You should have thought about it sooner."
"Besides," replied Bolton, who always sided with Garry, "Richard Shandon is not the master; he has to obey like all the rest of us."
"Obey whom, I should like to know?"
"The captain."
"Confound the captain," exclaimed Pen. "Can't you see through all this make-believe. There is no more any real captain than there is any tavern among those ice-blocks. It's only a polite fashion of refusing us what we have a right to demand."
"But there is a captain," replied Bolton, "and I would wager two months' wages that we shall see him before long."
"So much the better," said Pen. "I, for one, should like to say a few words to him."
"Who's talking about the captain?" said a fresh interlocutor.
It was Clifton who spoke—an anxious, superstitious man.
"Any more news about the captain?" he asked.
"None," was the unanimous reply.
"Well, some fine morning I quite expect to find him in his cabin, without anyone knowing how he got there, or where he came from."
"Be off with you," said Bolton. "You seem to think the captain is a sort of Brownie, like those that the Scotch Highlanders talk about."
"Laugh as much as you like, Bolton, but that won't change my opinion. Every day, when I pass his cabin, I take a look through the key-hole, and you see if I don't come and tell you some day what he looks like, and how he's made."
"Plague take him," said Pen; "I suppose his timbers are no different from other people; and if he's going to try and force us where we don't want to go, he'll soon show us what stuff he is made of."
"That's pretty good," said Bolton. "Here's Pen, who doesn't even know the man, wanting to pick a quarrel with him directly."
"Doesn't know him?" returned Clifton; "that remains to be proved."
"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.
"I know what I'm saying."
"But we don't," was the common exclamation.
"Why, hasn't Pen quarreled with him already?"
"With the captain?"
"Yes, with the dog-captain, for it comes to the same thing."
The sailors gazed dubiously at each other, hardly knowing what to say or think.
At last Pen muttered between his teeth, "Man or dog, as sure as I'm alive, I'll settle accounts with him one of these days."
"Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you actually profess to believe that the dog is the real captain? Johnson was only fooling you."
"I firmly believe it," said Clifton, with an air of perfect conviction, "and if you were to watch him as I have done, you would have seen his strange behavior for yourself."
"What strange behavior? Tell us about him."
"Haven't you seen the way he marches up and down the deck, and looks at the sails, as if he were on watch?"
"Yes, that's quite true; and one evening I positively caught him, with his fore-paws up, leaning against the wheel."
"Impossible!" said Bolton.
"And doesn't he leave the ship now every night, and go walking about among the ice, without caring either for the bears or the cold?"
"That is true, too," said Bolton.
"Besides, is the animal like any other honest dog, fond of human society? Does he follow the cook about, and watch all his movements when he brings in the dishes to the cabin? Don't you hear him at night, when he is two or three miles from the ship, howling till he makes your flesh creep, which, by the way, isn't a very difficult matter in such a temperature. And, to crown all, have you ever seen him eat any food? He will take nothing from anybody. His cake is never touched, and unless someone feeds him secretly, I may safely say he is an animal that lives without eating. Now, you may call me a fool if you like, if that isn't peculiar enough."
"Upon my word," said Bell, the carpenter, who had listened to all Clifton's arguments, "it is not impossible you may be right."
The other sailors were silent, till Bolton changed the subject by asking where the Forward was going.
"I don't know," said Bell. "At a given moment, Shandon is to receive his final instructions."
"But how?"
"How?"
"Yes, how? that's the question," repeated Bolton.
"Come, Bell, give us an answer," urged the others.
"I don't know how," said the carpenter. "I can tell no more than you can."
"Oh! by the dog-captain, of course," exclaimed Clifton. "He has written once already; I daresay he can manage a second letter. Oh, if I but knew half that dog does, I should feel fit to be First Lord of the Admiralty."
"So, then, the short and long of it is, that you stick to your opinion, Clifton," said Bolton.
"I've told you that already."
"Well," said Pen, in a deep, hollow voice, "all I know is, if that beast don't want to die in a dog's skin, he had better be quick, and turn into a man, for I'll do for him as sure as my name is Pen."
"And what for?" said Garry.
"Because I choose," was the rude reply. "I am not bound to give an account of my doings to anyone."
"Come, boys, you have had talk enough," said Johnson, interrupting the conversation to prevent a quarrel. "Get to work; it is time the saws were all up, for we must get beyond the ice."
"So be it, and on a Friday, too. We shan't get beyond quite so easily," said Clifton, shrugging his shoulders.
From what cause it was impossible to say, but all the efforts of the crew were in vain. That day the Forward made no way whatever, though she dashed against the ice-fields with all her steam up. She could not separate them, and was forced to come to anchor for the night.
Next day the wind was east, and the temperature still lower. The weather was fine, and, as far as the eye could reach ice-plains stretched away in the distance, glittering in the sun's rays with dazzling whiteness. At seven in the morning, the thermometer stood eight degrees below zero.
The Doctor felt much inclined to stay quietly in his cabin, and devote himself to the reperusal of his volumes of Arctic voyages; but his custom was always to do whatever was most disagreeable to himself at the time being, and as it was certainly anything but pleasant to go on deck in such bitter weather and lend a helping hand to the men, he adhered to his rule of conduct, and left his snug warm quarters below, and went upstairs to do his share of work in towing the vessel along. He wore green spectacles to protect his eyes; but from this time he began to make use of snow-spectacles, to avoid the ophthalmia so frequent in Arctic latitudes.
By evening the Forward had gained many miles, thanks to the activity of the men and the skill of Shandon. At midnight they cleared the sixty-sixth parallel, and on sounding, the depth was found to be twenty-three fathoms. Land was about thirty miles to the east.
Suddenly the mass of ice, which had hitherto been motionless, broke in pieces, and began to move. Icebergs seemed to surge from all points of the horizon, and the brig found herself wedged in among a crowd of moving bergs, which might crush her at any moment. The task of steering became so difficult that Garry, who was the best hand at the wheel, could never leave it. Ice-mountains were reforming behind the ship, and there was no alternative but to bore a way forward through the loose floes.
The crew were divided into two companies, and ranged on the starboard and larboard; each man armed with a long pole pointed with iron, to push back the most threatening packs. Before long, the brig entered a narrow pass between two high blocks, so narrow, that the tops of the sails touched the rock, like walls on either side. This led into a winding valley, full of whirling, blinding snow, where masses of drift ice were dashing furiously against each other, and breaking up into fragments with loud crackings.
But it was soon but too evident that there was no outlet to this gorge; an enormous block was right in front of the ship, and drifting rapidly down on her. There appeared no way of escape, for going back was impossible.
Shandon and Johnson stood together on the forepart of the vessel, surveying her perilous position; Shandon giving orders with one hand to the steersman and with the other to James Wall, who transmitted them to the chief engineer.
"How is this going to end, Johnson?"
"As Heaven pleases," was the boatswain's reply.
The ice-block, an enormous berg a hundred feet high, was now within a cable's length of the Forward, threatening her with instant destruction.
It was a moment of intense agonizing suspense, and became so unbearable that the men flung down their poles in spite of Shandon's commands, and hurried to the stern.
Suddenly a tremendous noise was heard, and a perfect waterspout broke over the deck. An enormous wave upheaved the ship, and the men cried out in terror, all but Garry, who stood up quietly at the helm, and kept the vessel in the right course.
But when the men recovered themselves a little, and ventured to look the gigantic foe again in the face, it was gone! The whole berg had completely disappeared, the pass was free, and there was a long channel beyond, lighted up by the oblique rays of the sun, which offered an uninterrupted passage to the Forward.
"Well, Mr. Clawbonny," said Johnson; "how do you explain this phenomenon?"
"It is one that often occurs, and is very simple, my good friend," replied the Doctor. "When these floating icebergs become detached at the time of the thaw, they sail separately along and preserve their equilibrium perfectly, but as they gradually drift farther south, where the water is relatively warmer, they begin to melt and get undermined at the base, and the moment comes when their center of gravity is displaced, and down they go. If this had happened, however, but two minutes later, it would have fallen on the ship and crushed her to atoms."