CHAPTER XXIII
September 1st came, and winter fell on us like a blanket. Snow, low temperatures, and the prompt freezing over of all stray pools with a coat of ice that failed to melt again gave the pack an immediate wintry appearance that only deepened as the month drew on. September 6th, the anniversary of our being first frozen in, opened our second year in the pack, with the only change noticeable the fact that winter had set in earlier and harder. But of course our present position, a hundred and fifty miles north of that of the year before, might easily have accounted for that.
September drifted by. October came. The temperatures dropped into the sub-zero twenties. We noted only that we were less sensitive to cold than the year before—luckily for us, for apparently we were in for a worse freezing. All hands, officers and men, became more moody, less talkative. By now it was evident to even the dullest-witted that we might go on thus forever in the ice pack; that is, at least till death in one form or another—by starvation, when our food gave out; by freezing, when we exhausted our coal; or by the ice crushing our weak bodies at any time—put a period to our tale. To talk further about what the expedition would do when the ice released us seemed just a waste of breath. The ice was not going to release us.
Meanwhile, in spite of our dreary outlook, we had to stick to the ship, for what else could we do? But would the ship stick to us? What would the ice do to the Jeannette during this winter? Our memories of the horrors of the winter past were not reassuring.
The month drew along. We ate our tasteless food, we drank our distilled water, we kept ourselves alive. Two things only broke up our unvarying daily routine—Divine Service on Sunday, and the weekly issue (begun now for the first time on the cruise) on Wednesday of two ounces of rum per man. Jack Cole did not have to pipe long of a Wednesday afternoon to get the complete roster round the whiskey barrel. But his long piping of a Sunday morning drew no such crowds. To Divine Service, conducted weekly in the cabin by the captain, came not a single seaman, and of the officers, just Chipp, Ambler, Dunbar and myself—a congregation of four only to hear George Washington De Long, acting chaplain, feelingly invoke the blessing of the Almighty upon our enterprise and ask His mercy upon us—distressed, worn mortals trapped in the Arctic wastes.
As October drew toward its close, distant rumblings in the pack, cracks in the floes roundabout caused by contracting ice, ridges of broken floe thrown up hither and yon, and the pistol-like snappings of shrinking bolts in our timbers, warned us of trouble. November came; we viewed its advent with trepidation, for the previous November had inaugurated our reign of terror. On November 6th, the sun departed from us and the long Arctic night commenced, our second. It would be longer this time till the sun reappeared, ninety days or more instead of seventy-one, for we were further north.
True to form, the thundering of the ice and the grinding of the pack recommenced as per schedule in November and the tremors coming through the thick floes shook the Jeannette as in a storm. But we were more calloused. Let the pack screech and roar! So long as nothing was happening close aboard we merely listened. Newcomb and Collins, however, who were more nervous than the rest, were forever running up on deck at these shocks. They came back even more disturbed when they could see nothing than when moving ice within eyesight gave the explanation.
November drew along without visible disaster, but the dread and anticipation of terrors yet to come caused trouble in other ways. Newcomb, childish always, became mum as a clam at meals, and at other times talked to no one, except perhaps to Collins. Whatever De Long thought of this, he said nothing till one day passing through the taxidermy room while Newcomb was mounting a crab, the latter stopped him, queried,
“Captain, will you ask Mr. Dunbar whether he saw that Uria Grylle he shot with his rifle yesterday, in flight?”
De Long, a little piqued perhaps at being thus asked by a very junior officer to serve as a messenger boy, said,
“Why don’t you ask him yourself, Mr. Newcomb?”
“Because,” replied our naturalist, “he has declined any relations with me.”
De Long looked at him puzzled.
“Declined? On a matter of duty? That seems queer. I’ll have to look into this.” Poking his head into the cabin outside, he called the veteran Dunbar into the workroom, then closed the door.
“What’s this, Dunbar, about your refusing to speak to Mr. Newcomb? He’s just asked me to ask you a question about a bird you shot, because he says you won’t speak to him.”
“Let him ask,” replied the ice-pilot. “I’ll speak to him any time about anything in the line of duty. But not on other things; I despise that little Yankee pedlar and he knows it!”
“Come now, Mr. Dunbar,” broke in the captain, “that’s no way to talk about a shipmate. Don’t lay too much stress on that little trading episode of Newcomb’s with those Indians at St. Michael’s; Mr. Newcomb did it only as a joke.”
“A joke, eh?” burst out the angered whaler. “And I suppose it’s a joke too, when he tries to write a letter home from Siberia, criticizing his superiors, saying that you, the captain, are a profane Catholic and Melville’s an atheist! A fine shipmate he is!”
De Long, at this unexpected personal turn, reddened, grew suddenly stern, gazed intently at Newcomb.
“What’s that, Mr. Newcomb? I’m a Catholic, right enough, but I think no man can truly say I’m a profane one. Did you write such a letter, sir?”
“I did not!” said Newcomb promptly.
“I didn’t say he wrote one,” countered Dunbar. “I merely said he tried to. There wasn’t any mail going, so I guess he didn’t. But the little fool’s too chummy with the men; it got out around the crew somehow that he was going to. That’s where I heard it.”
“Well, never mind about any scuttle butt rumors, Mr. Dunbar. Mr. Newcomb says he didn’t write such a letter, and that settles it. Now, Mr. Newcomb, I’ve noticed before your not talking to your fellow officers. Forget any such child’s play, and you’ll get along better.”
“Don’t I do my duty, sir?” asked Newcomb with apparent innocence.
“Yes, and I’ll take good care that you continue to,” responded the captain.
“Very well, sir,” said Newcomb pertly. “If I do my duty, I must respectfully continue the privilege of maintaining this silence.”
Nonplussed at this attitude, De Long looked at the infantile naturalist a moment, then gave up, turned on his heel and left. Needless to say, the ice-pilot promptly did likewise, leaving Newcomb in proud possession of his privilege of silence.
But this was only a beginning of increased ill-will in the mess, owing probably to the general state of ragged nerves. The very next morning, Dr. Ambler and Collins had a fierce set-to about the slamming of a door. It so happened that I was sitting in the wardroom, calmly reading a book, when along came Starr, the Jack-of-the-dust, to break stores out of the afterhold. He opened the wardroom door and fastened it back in order to roll a barrel through it, which he did. Just then four bells struck, and it being Ambler’s turn to get the ten o’clock observations, the doctor drew on his parka and went out the opened door, followed soon by the huge Russian, who, sailor fashion, kicked the door to as he passed. The door closed with a bang, startling Collins, who as usual was asleep during the morning. Collins, grabbing a few clothes, shot by me out of his room, mad as a hornet. He never noticed Starr who was still busy rolling his barrel forward, but spotting the doctor on his way up to the deck above, raced after him, seized him by the arm, and belligerently demanded,
“What d’ye mean by slamming the door like that? You know well enough I always sleep in the morning!”
Ambler looked at him in complete mystification.
“Why, what are you talking about, Mr. Collins? I haven’t closed any doors, let alone slammed them.”
“What d’ye think woke me up then? I’m not crazy! I heard you do it, and I’m damned sick of my being broken out of my sleep by you or by anybody!”
A dangerous hardness came into Dr. Ambler’s usually soft Virginian voice.
“I tell you I didn’t slam any door! Mr. Collins, do you mean to say to me that I lie?”
What might have happened, I don’t know. I scrambled up the ladder, thrust myself between the two. From the glint in Ambler’s eyes, it looked to me like bloodshed next.
“Hold on, gentlemen! Please!” I begged. “I know all about this. The Jack-of-the-dust slammed that door; Dr. Ambler didn’t even notice it. Now look here, Collins! If you’d been faster on your feet, you’d have seen who did it yourself; and if you weren’t so damned fast at taking offense at every little thing, you’d have rolled over and gone to sleep again without bothering about a little noise. Now apologize to the doctor and turn in again till you’ve slept off that grouch!”
Collins, very red in the face at having made a fool of himself, mumbled out some lame apology, which Ambler accepted without comment and departed to take the morning observations. I went below to continue my interrupted reading, but Collins, instead of turning in, moped about all day, no doubt trying to justify to himself his ridiculous conduct; very possibly wondering also whether I had not fabricated from the whole cloth that yarn about the Jack-of-the-dust to put him in a hole and figuring how he might reciprocate.
At any rate, at dinner that evening, he startled me by breaking his usual mealtime reticence and remarking as I was hacking away at the salt beef,
“There’s old Melville, getting gray and bald over his confinement in the ice.”
“No, Collins,” I shot back, “my hair’s no grayer than yours. And as for my baldness, I’ve suffered neither heat nor cold from it since I’ve been in the Arctic, but I will admit that if instead of being marooned here, we were off Saint Patrick’s Land where we could all be hunting now, probably I’d have a better time.”
“So?” said Collins, instantly offended. “That settles it! When a man starts to get personal in his remarks, I don’t have anything more to say.”
“Personal? Who’s getting personal?” I asked, perplexed, for if Collins’ commenting on my baldness was not personal, what was? Then recalling my statement, I blushed myself, for in my haste in getting in my repartee I realized suddenly that my tongue had slipped. “Did I say Saint Patrick’s Land, Collins? I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I meant Prince Patrick’s Land, off to the northeast of here.”
“Oh, no, Melville; I’m not a fool!” Collins blazed out, obviously certain now that I was altogether too facile in explaining away embarrassing situations. “When you said Saint Patrick’s Land, you meant Saint Patrick’s Land! And as for my gray hairs, I got them in honorable service you’re completely ignorant of!”
Well, I thought to myself, where does he think I got mine? Surely the Civil War, which started me off on both my grayness and my baldness, was honorable service! But very prudently, I kept my thoughts to myself and my mouth shut. What was the use of further inflaming him? Quietly I bent my beard over my plate and resumed operations on my salt beef, while the rest of the mess, content to let the matter drop, wisely did the same and the meal closed in a tenser silence even than it had opened.
It began to seem now as if every little thing caused trouble. That night I had a remarkable dream, and there being so little to talk about that all hands had not heard discussed a hundred times over, I sprang it on the mess after breakfast, expecting to get a good laugh out of them.
“Say, mates,” I began, “speaking of all the instruments we have to read on our meteorological observations, I had a grand dream about ’em last night. Want to hear it?”
“Guaranteed a brand-new dream, chief?” demanded Chipp. “If not, belay the story, for I dream about instruments every night now myself.”
“Don’t mind Chipp, chief. Shoot it!” encouraged the blindfolded Danenhower from the foot of the table. “I can stand it, anyway; I don’t have to read those instruments any more.”
“Oh, it’s new all right,” I assured Chipp. “Stand by then. I dreamed last night I was old Professor Louis Agassiz himself, king of the scientific world, and without a stitch of clothes on, I was going down the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue on my way to the Smithsonian Institution, decked out with necklaces of hygrometers, bracelets made of thermometers, a belt like a South Sea hula-hula’s grass skirt made up of mercurial barometers, and God knows what other instruments dangling from my fingers and my toes. And there I was, dancing along through the heart of Washington with all those instruments on me clattering like castanets, offering to sell ’em to the crowd at only two cents apiece, but nobody would buy!”
Amid a gale of laughter from my messmates, I danced around my chair snapping my fingers, illustrating, then asked,
“Now, how’s that for a dream, boys?”
“I think it’s damned insulting to me and my profession, if you want my opinion!” broke in an unexpected voice.
Taken completely aback, I stopped dead in my dance and whirled about. There standing in his stateroom door, watching me, was Collins, who, never on hand for breakfast, was at that time normally sound asleep. A dead silence fell on the laughing mess.
“And if you’ve got to try to make me look like a damned fool, Melville, with your jokes about nakedness and that my instruments are not worth two cents, wait till I’m off the ship!”
Slam! went the door, closing off our meteorologist, whom I had never even thought of in connection with my dream, from my sight. I sank back into my chair with a deep sigh. I couldn’t even relate an innocent dream without offending the touchy Collins.
However, that was not the end of it, though I had hoped it was. The day itself wore along like all our other days, an utter blank, till about ten p.m., when with all hands about ready to turn in, the captain in his cabin sent for Collins, and as luck would have it, asked him, of all things, to bring a thermometer!
Collins went to fetch the thermometer, some special one, and took it into the cabin. There was some conversation about thermometers which, the skipper’s door being open, was faintly audible to us in the wardroom, but to which I paid little attention, till, the subject of thermometers evidently being now a raw one with Collins, I heard him say in a loud voice,
“Captain, I wish the officers would treat me with the same courtesy I try to treat them.”
At that I pricked up my ears.
“What’s the matter with you?” demanded De Long quickly. “If you have any particular charge to make against any officer, make it right now and I’ll investigate it.”
That was the last I heard, for the captain immediately closed his door, wanting privacy of course for such a discussion.
“Well, here’s where I have to explain even my dreams,” I thought to myself as I rolled into my bunk. “What a life!” Still, I managed to sleep that night with no more nightmares about thermometers to disturb me, and I woke in the morning quite refreshed. Nothing happened during breakfast either, and I was beginning to think that perhaps Collins was more of a man after all than the night before I had given him credit for being, when a little after eleven, while out on the ice for my regulation exercise, De Long hailed me,
“Come here, Melville. I want to see you.”
I went over. It was forty below zero, and, I thought, a devil of a temperature in which to get hauled up over thermometers.
“Last night, chief,” said the captain, starting mildly enough, “in a conversation with Mr. Collins, he reported you to me for plaguing him. I asked him what the trouble was, and he said that you were always cracking jokes and singing Irish songs to make game of him.”
“What?” I mumbled half to myself, completely flabbergasted. “Songs, in addition to thermometers?”
But the captain, oblivious of my interruption, finished decisively,
“Melville, you had better not sing any more.”
“Why, captain!” I said in astonishment. “I don’t think I should be muzzled in this manner. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t sing a song if I want to. It’s my only relaxation. My songs don’t disturb anybody.”
“Collins says your Irish songs disturb him. Sing something else,” ordered the captain flatly.
“But, captain, I can’t. I don’t know any other songs.”
“Well, sing psalms then.”
“Psalms? Me?” I protested. “Never! I didn’t ship as a psalm singer!”
“Very well, chief; suit yourself,” said the skipper with a note of finality in his voice. “It’s a little cold out here to discuss the matter further. You had better stop singing altogether then,” and leaving me badly upset at the idea of losing my one diversion, he walked off in the snow, resuming his exercise.
Naturally enough, I looked around the frosty field of ice to starboard of the Jeannette, which constituted our exercise grounds, for the cause of that muzzle the captain so unceremoniously had just slapped on me. A little way off was Collins, undoubtedly a witness to what had gone on, and in view of the extraordinary way sounds carried across the ice in that Arctic air, probably a willing enough auditor also. I strode over to him.
“Good morning, Collins.”
“Good morning, Melville.”
I was too hot in one way and too cold in another for any preliminaries. I jumped headfirst into my subject.
“The captain tells me you complained to him and claimed his protection against my jokes and my singing Irish songs and making game of you. Collins, that was neither upright nor manly!”
“Hold on!” said Collins. “I’ll explain that thing.”
“I don’t want any explanations! It’s plain enough what you’ve done. If you’d come to me like any shipmate should, and told me that my jokes and songs were disagreeable to you, I wouldn’t have sung another song or cracked another joke. But your tale-bearing makes me sick! From now on, we’re through! You keep to your side of the ship and I’ll keep to mine! And don’t you forget it!”
And from that day forward, I never spoke again to Collins nor he to me, except when I was told to carry him an order.
Our wardroom mess was now in a fine state for sociability. Danenhower, blinded, behind the bulkhead of his stateroom talked almost incessantly to relieve his monotony but nobody paid any attention to that as conversation. Dunbar wouldn’t talk to Newcomb; Collins and I were not on speaking terms; Newcomb would not talk to anybody; Collins was nearly as bad, speaking pleasantly only to Danenhower; Chipp was naturally reticent and had little to say ever; Dunbar, much aged by illness, was taciturn as a result; the captain, weighted down by his responsibilities, felt compelled to maintain an extreme official reserve; and only Dr. Ambler and I were left ever to carry on a conversation like ordinary human beings. The ice was working on us, all right. A casual visitor, had one been able to poke his head through our door on the Jeannette at any meal, would have concluded that we were about to attend the funeral of some dear friend, and in that he would not have been far wrong; subconsciously we felt and acted as if we were going to a funeral, only it was—ours!
Matters in one direction at least soon came to a head with a rush. Collins, usually the last man out on the ice at eleven a.m. for exercise and the first man aboard at one p.m., when it ended, now began to comply with the exercise order even less cheerfully. As a regular thing he was considerably late in leaving the ship, and what was worse, he took an ungodly length of time, when he went aboard at noon to record the results of his midday observations in the log, to get back again on the ice with the rest of us. This quickly became such a flagrant flouting of the exercise order that while no one said anything about it, De Long could hardly overlook it and keep his authority with the rest of us. December 2nd brought the end.
Collins, late on the ice that day as usual, went promptly aboard at eight bells to log the readings. When he failed to reappear after about three times the period required to note them down, De Long with an irritated look on his face boarded the ship. He glanced through the door, always open for ventilation purposes while the ship was cleared, into the cabin. There with his parka off, smoking his pipe, was Collins, leisurely writing in the logbook and carrying on an animated conversation through the opened doors and hatches with Danenhower in his stateroom on the deck below. De Long, further irritated at this confirmation of his suspicions, said nothing and returned to the ice, pacing nervously back and forth for another period long enough for anyone again to have logged the readings thrice over, and still no Collins! De Long reached the end of his patience. With determination in his stride, up the gangway went the captain and into the cabin. What happened afterwards, I got from Danenhower, who, an unwilling listener (unless he plugged his ears), was forced to take it all in.
Collins, at the stove drawing on his gloves, was still talking with Danenhower, when he looked up in surprise to find the skipper regarding him fixedly. De Long opened the ball.
“Well, Mr. Collins, has it required all this time for you to record the 12 o’clock observations?”
Collins, a little nettled, replied,
“Well, sir, I hardly know the meaning of your question.”
At this naive disclaimer of comprehending simple English, De Long proceeded to explain in words of one syllable,
“The meaning of my question, sir, is this: Is it necessary for you, in order to record the 12 o’clock observations, to remove your coat, light your pipe, engage in a conversation with Mr. Danenhower, and remain in the cabin for twenty minutes when you should be exercising?”
“Well,” answered Collins curtly, “perhaps I might have done it quicker, but I didn’t know my minutes were being counted for me.”
With difficulty swallowing the broad implication of spying contained in Collins’ last words, the captain said evenly,
“I have seen fit to issue an order that everybody should go on the ice from 11 to 1, and your coming in the cabin and remaining for twenty minutes is a violation I will neither submit to nor permit you to continue. I have noticed for several days that you were longer than necessary in logging the noon observations, and today I satisfied myself on the subject.”
“Oh, very well,” said Collins contemptuously, “if you are satisfied, of course I have nothing more to say. But you are doing me a great injustice!”
That was too much for De Long, who as captain prided himself on even-handed justice for all hands. Whatever his ideas were before, he now changed his mind.
“Mr. Collins, as I have recently shown you, a representation to me of injustice has only to be made in proper language to secure you all the justice you want. But I do not like your manner or bearing in talking with me. You seem to assume that you are to receive no correction, direction, or dictation from me; that your view of an occurrence is always to be taken; and that if I differ from you, it is my misfortune, but of no importance to the result!”
At this Collins blazed up.
“Well, I don’t like the manner you speak to me either, nor the way in which I am taken to task!”
De Long looked calmly at him.
“I am your commanding officer, Mr. Collins. I have a perfect right to say what I say to you.”
But this Collins would evidently not admit. In a fiery tone, he shot back,
“I acknowledge only the rights given you by Naval Regulations!”
That shot rocked De Long and he promptly flared up.
“Do you mean to imply that I am going contrary to Naval Regulations?” he asked, outraged.
“I mean to say,” said Collins flatly, “that you have no right to talk to me as you do!”
De Long considered that carefully before speaking, then in as official a voice as he could still muster he stated,
“I consider that by coming into the cabin as you did today, removing your coat, lighting your pipe, and carrying on a conversation with Mr. Danenhower, you took advantage of the 12 o’clock observation to disregard my order in relation to the exercise.”
“And when you say that,” roared Collins, “I say it is not so!”
Amazed now by this open insubordination, De Long paused and regarded the belligerent Collins with perplexity, puzzled by a situation so complicated that the like of it no commanding officer in naval history had ever had to deal with. The captain finally decided to try to calm Collins down, educating him a bit in naval manners, before finally admonishing him.
“Mr. Collins, great allowance has been made for your ignorance of Naval Regulations, your position in this ship, and your being so situated the first time. But you must remember that the commanding officer is to be spoken to in a respectful manner and with respectful language, and you do not seem to attend to either particular.”
Collins rudely tossed this olive branch into the scuppers, so to speak, by retorting truculently,
“I treat the commanding officer of this ship with all the respect due him as head of the expedition, but when he charges me with violating an order, I say, I HAVE NOT!”
De Long accepted the challenge.
“Do you suppose you will be permitted to contradict me flatly in that way, sir? Have you lost your senses?”
“No!” exclaimed Collins. “I haven’t lost my senses. I know what I say. And when you say I’ve violated an order, I say I have not!”
For the long-suffering De Long, that settled it. He rose, a dangerous coldness in his voice.
“Enough, Mr. Collins! You can’t be properly dealt with in this ice. When we get back to the United States, I’ll have you courtmartialed! Meanwhile, turn in all your instruments, and perform no further duty on this ship. You’re under arrest!”