CHAPTER XII—CAPE YORK TO CAREY ISLANDS
"And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold,
And ice, mast-high, came floating by
As green as emerald."
I noticed a rather curious phenomenon while coming up the Greenland coast, but thinking that there was probably some simple explanation, made no note of it. One evening while in the passage at the foot of the stairs I heard a peculiar whistling. It was like the noise one sometimes hears when standing beside a telegraph pole. The steward was in the pantry and I drew his attention to it. The sound was very distinct in the pantry, and not noticeable in the saloon, which was on the same deck but a little further aft. The steward said he had heard it before and we concluded it was due to a vibration of the taut rigging conducted down the mizzenmast to this particular place. The engine was silent at the time, otherwise the noise of machinery would have drowned everything else.
I listened to the peculiar whistle several times after and always heard it very distinctly in the pantry. The steward had sailed Arctic waters for years, but he made no comment on this subject and never mentioned having heard it on other ships, nor did any; one else on board the Aurora speak of it at all; in fact, we were probably the only two who noticed it.
Years after I came across the following passage in "Old Whaling Days," by Captain Barron:
"From latitude 69 N. to latitude 74 N. on the east side and in Melville Bay, not far from the land, a strange phenomenon is heard resembling a very weird whistling in a high note and gradually dying away to a very low one. It is only heard when it is calm, and most distinctly when in a boat or in a ship's lazarette which is nearly level with the water. On deck it is seldom heard." The above interested me as it describes what I noticed. Captain Barron believes it to be connected with the Aurora Borealis, which he states can be heard but not seen when the sun shines on a summer's night in the Arctic.
June 19th. Thursday. The engine starting up brought me on deck. The fog had lifted and the Arctic and Wolf could be seen astern, while the Bear was to the north of us. Some time after we were steaming through a nice lead into open water ahead. I was on the bridge, where the second mate was in charge, and the Captain was in the crow's nest, which he seldom left. Presently we noticed the lead very narrow, being little wider than the ship. A moment later we were among crunched up ice and within twenty or thirty yards of the open water and the ship was slowing up owing to her progress being impeded by the ice. The Captain called down, "Get over there, some of you men, and push that ice out of the way with poles." We were almost through, and it looked as though a few pieces pushed away would relieve the situation. Specksioneer Lyon and twenty others were immediately over, and began pushing. Almost at once Lyon called up, "It's coming together, sir," and sure enough we were caught between two points of great floes coming together and the Aurora was in the greatest danger of being lost within the next few minutes. The Captain immediately came down and began giving orders. All boats were provisioned and lowered away. I rushed to my cabin and was rolling up my blankets, when he brought the log, which he asked me to put with my things. I took my bundles on deck with a rifle and gun, and by this time the ship was so squeezed that my door would not open or shut, and she had a heavy port list. As the Arctic and Wolf were a short distance astern of us, there was no danger to life and I thoroughly enjoyed the excitement of being shipwrecked so comfortably. With a bump the ship righted herself greatly and presently, after straining and groaning, she slipped up considerably. Her water line was now above the crunching ice and she was for the time being tolerably safe. This all happened in a very short time and it was a wonderful escape. I went on to the ice forward with the mate and engineer; and while there the ship slipped up higher still, so that she was almost out of the water.
The surgeon of the Arctic paid us a visit at this time and took the two photographs here reproduced after some retouching. The first one shows the ship in the nips; in it I happened to be in the foreground. In the second she has slipped up and is almost out of the water. The mate, engineer and myself were on the ice in front at the time. Sailors were a little superstitious, and did not like their ship being photographed while in distress, so these pictures were very hurriedly taken. For some hours the Aurora rested in this position and we knew that eventually the ice would open and let her into the water. Our principal anxiety was about the stem post and rudder; but these fortunately escaped injury. Our propeller had only two blades, so when the ship was sailing or stuck in the ice the propeller was always stopped with the blades up and down. While in this position the whole thing could easily be unshipped, and we carried an extra one. As looms were flying about in numbers along the floe edge just in front of the ship I shot a big bag of them. They fell into the water, but drifted against the ice edge where I picked them up. The Arctic and Wolf were pretty tightly caught astern of us, but they had not to abandon the ships as we had. During the afternoon the pack was tighter than ever and it made weird sounds at times. We had our meals on board and were all very happy at our wonderful escape, especially the Captain, who was determined to take home a cargo of whales in his own ship instead of returning as passenger on one of the others. During the night a crack occurred under the bows. This opened by degrees, letting the ship down. We hoisted up our boats and the shipwreck was over. When whalers go into Melville Bay they generally arrange a quantity of provisions so that it can be easily reached in event of their suddenly having to leave the ship as we had done.
June 20th. Friday. After our escaping from the nips, we steamed in a northerly direction, with the Arctic and Wolf a heavy fog came on. I was very tired, so went and lay down.
As the engine room was aft, a person in any of the staterooms could easily hear the bell there being rung from the crow's nest. How long I had been lying down, I don't know, but something awoke me. I knew, from the sound of the engine, we were going fast ahead, but I heard the bell ring, "stop her," and then immediately full speed astern. Knowing that something was wrong, I rushed on deck; it was very thick and I heard some one say, "O my God, we are lost!" and just then on the starboard side of the ship, I saw a great berg towering above us. We just missed it! All was well! We steamed dead slow for awhile and I realized that those who "went down to the sea in ships" could have a great deal of excitement in two days. About an hour after this a steam whistle blew right ahead. The fog instantly lifted a little and there was the Arctic shooting across our bows. We both stopped, and the Captain went over to her. When the Captain came on board again the fog was gone and we were off Conical Rock. The ice was loose here and the two ships kept together until we passed Cape Dudley Diggs. Here we drifted farther apart, but were within sight of each other all the way to Wolstenholm Island.
During the night we arrived at the island, but found that the Rear had been there ahead of us, so we directed our course towards Carey Islands, the ice being loose, but the weather pretty thick.
June 21st. Saturday. Heavy fog and plenty of ice, so our speed was slow. Sometimes it cleared a little and we could see for several miles ahead. There were numbers of birds about, principally guillemot and eider duck. They probably had headquarters at Wolstenholm, and Carey Islands. Natives repaired to Wolstenholm at this season of the year and collected eggs; but Carey Islands were in the middle of the Sound and, I fancy, left pretty well undisturbed. During the afternoon it became very thick, and for a time we stopped steaming, as we could not make out the leads and there was some heavy ice about. Late in the evening it cleared a little and we ran in to Carey Island. The Arctic was ahead of us, and the Wolf in the distance. I wrote some letters in the evening as I thought there might be a chance of sending them on board the Bear. Our Captain had decided to go from this place to the whaling ground, and leave the Greely part of it to the expedition ships, as the owners would not thank him for risking the vessel in higher latitudes and possibly missing his chance for whales in Lancaster Sound. The Arctic had a boat on shore, but saw nothing of explorers or records. The Bear left the islands after midnight, but was not near us, so I had no chance of sending my letters. This was the last we saw of the relief ships. They picked Greely up within twenty-four hours at Cape Sabine. We knew nothing of it until later, when we heard the news from some of the slower ships, which met the expedition returning with the rescued, and their story was as follows: June 22nd. After the Bear left Carey Islands, she joined the Thetis and they proceeded to Cape Sabine, where they arrived during the evening. From records found on Brevoort Island near Cape Sabine, they knew where the explorer was, and he was picked up by Lieutenant Colwell of the Bear almost at the place where he, Colwell, landed after the loss of the Proteus. Of the twenty-five who left with Greely a few years before, but seven were now alive, and the story they told of starvation and death was in tune with others we have all read of Arctic exploration and was doubly impressive when told to us, situated as we were in the dreary regions where the tragedy had been enacted. Greely had done his work well. His two years at Fort Conger had been well spent. Lockwood had attained latitude 83° 24' in 1882, beating all previous records. Most valuable magnetic observations had been made and the interior of Grinnell Land had been explored. The orders to abandon Fort Conger were carried out in 1883 and then their troubles began. Relief had not come, depots of provisions had not been established, and in a very dejected state they had arrived at Cape Sabine, where they established their final camp, the history of which supplies Arctic literature with its blackest chapter.
On June 22nd Schley arrived at Cape Sabine. No Arctic expedition had ever done so well by this date, its first year. A week or two later there would probably not have been one survivor. This relief expedition had been perfectly successful in its gallant dash and had arrived not a minute too soon.