Chapter Nineteen.
The Burning of the “Icebear.”
All hands worked steadily, willingly, and well. There was not a sound to be heard, except the roar of the flames, the tramping of feet, an occasional word of command, and the steady clank, clank of the little pumping engine. No noise, no bustle, no confusion on board the burning ship.
The flames had soon gained mastery over the captain’s cabin, and over the wardroom as well, for the fire seemed to spread on both sides.
Claude was walking slowly up and down the deck, ’twixt main and foremast, quietly superintending everything. That he was here, and here only, showed the perfect confidence he had in his men and officers to carry out the terrible duties now imposed upon them.
Smoke and flames were pouring up through the companions aft, and it was evident that that portion of the ship was doomed.
Claude was hoping against hope. Were the cabin and wardroom only destroyed and the fire here checked, the hull and the fore-part of the ship would be but little injured, and the voyage home be, after all, made in safety.
The greatest danger of all rested in the fact that the magazine, containing a very considerable quantity of gunpowder and gun-cotton, lay close to—almost in—the seat of fire, and so quickly had the flames spread that it had been found impossible to remove the stores without the almost certainty of exploding the whole.
So among the first orders given was for a volunteer to carry the end of the hose along the lower deck and flood the magazine.
Boy Bounce was the first to spring forward.
“Can we trust him, Mr Lloyd?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“And I’m so small, you know; I can walk where a big ’un would ’ave to creep, sir.”
The boy seemed a long time gone, but he crawled back at last, and fell senseless at Lloyd’s feet. He was badly burned about the hands and even face, but as soon as he came to himself he went on working with the rest.
Hours flew by, one, two, three; still the fire raged; still the men worked steadily on.
All seemed going well, when suddenly the wind shifted, and almost at the same time the smoke and flames came roaring forward, and one mast caught fire. The crew were driven from the pumps, and for the first time something like a panic spread fore and aft.
It was evident now that the ship could not be saved. All further attempts at pumping were abandoned, and all hands set to work to remove stores.
Unfortunately, two of the boats that hung on davits aft were lost, so that only two remained.
One of these boats was commanded by McDonald, the other by Dr Barrett, Claude and Lloyd determining to remain on board till the bitter end.
How bitter that end was to be no one could have guessed.
All the stores that could, with apparent safety, be got out were landed; the boats were returning to the ship. Claude had calculated that hours must elapse before the vessel blew up, or that she might sink without an explosion.
Orders had just been issued for the men to stand by to embark in the boats with regularity and quietness, when suddenly the after-part of the ship was blown up with fearful violence; masts, spars, deck, rigging, and bulwarks flew skywards, in a fountain of crimson flame.
The sea was covered with the wreckage, and the Icebear began rapidly to sink stern foremost.
“Give way, men,” shouted Dr Barrett. “Give way with a will to the rescue.”
Let the curtain drop over the terrible scene. Suffice it to say that everything that man can do, or heroes accomplish, was done and dared by those in the boats to save their friends and messmates from drowning, and from worse—from being devoured by sharks; but out of all that crew of men, who, only a few short hours before, had been peacefully slumbering, and dreaming, perchance, of home and happiness, only thirty answered to their names that morning in the shore-house.
Some of these, too, were badly wounded, and nearly all exhausted.
Poor Lloyd was among the drowned, so was Warren, the second mate, and both Pipes and Chips had gone to their account.
Big Byarnie had been sent ashore with one of the first boats. He was a giant to work, and did about three men’s duty in unloading. He had taken the sea-birds with him.
Fingal had, dog-like, stayed with his master, and swam all the way to the shore with him after the explosion. Boy Bounce came floating on shore stride-legs on a spar, propelling himself with half an oar, which he had managed to pick up somehow or other.
There was so much life and enthusiasm about Paddy O’Connell, that it is almost needless to say he got ashore.
“Somehow,” said Paddy; but how, he couldn’t remember at all.
A great fire was made in the shore-house, and the men who had been taken out of the water rendered as comfortable as circumstances would permit.
When breakfast had been served and discussed—there was no ceremony now, no distinction between officers and men, those poor mariners in their terrible plight having formed themselves into a little republic—Claude and Dr Barrett went out together.
They walked for a time in silence up and down the beach, Claude hardly daring to cast a glance seawards where the wreckage still was floating.
The doctor was the first to speak.
“This is a sad ending to all our hopes,” he said slowly.
“I cannot as yet realise it,” replied Claude. “My poor men! my poor men!”
There were tears in his eyes as he spoke, tears of which he had no reason to be ashamed.
Dr Barrett pressed his hand.
“I am older than you,” he said; “let me beseech you not to repine. It is almost cheering for me to think that the bitterness of death is past for those dear brave hearts who, remember, Captain Alwyn, died doing their duty nobly and manfully.”
“True, true, Dr Barrett; theirs must be a merciful judgment: but the drunken brute who caused this terrible accident!”
“Stay, sir, stay; he too is in God’s hand. We cannot, dare not, set bounds or limits to His mercy. Let us turn our thoughts to Him, then,” continued the doctor. “We have to submit to whatever is before us. We must pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”
“Yes,” replied Claude, “but that portion of the beautiful prayer our Saviour taught has always seemed to me more difficult than any other to utter from the heart while in grief or expecting grief.”
“I know it, Captain Claude Alwyn, I know it. There are few kinds of grief in this world I have not tasted the bitterness of. But come,” he went on, “you and I are still the chiefs of this expedition. Let us, even now, bravely face the situation. Let us see how we stand.”
“We are imprisoned in a living grave.”
“Not quite so bad as that, my friend.”
“Well, Dr Barrett, what do you propose?”
“Shortly this. We have still stores on shore here, but we must supplement them Despatch one boat at once; if she returns before the snow falls, well and good. Send her back for a further supply; if the snow falls ere she returns, do not wait, but despatch the sledges across country. As we are about one hundred miles south of the inlet, the sledges will take the short cut, and reach the cave stores in shorter time than the boat can.”
“Good. I will lose no time, and as soon as our poor fellows are buried—”
He paused and glanced seawards. “My dear Captain Alwyn,” said the doctor, “our poor fellows are already buried; that water swarms with sharks.” (Note 1.)
Claude himself went in charge of the boat to visit the Kittywake stores. There would be, he reasoned with himself, about three hundred miles of water to row or sail over. The tide, however, that swept up and down the long creek which joined the ocean to the inland sea, had all the force of a mill-stream. He determined, therefore, to take advantage of that, and on his voyage out to anchor alongside the banks during the flow, and rush onward when the tide was ebbing.
He returned to the camp far sooner than he had expected.
He returned empty.
A bridge of ice and snow had been encountered which, no doubt, extended all the way to the sea.
“And so, even if my poor vessel had not been doomed to destruction, it would have been impossible to get clear this year.” So spoke Claude.
“True, true,” said Dr Barrett, “and now we must depend upon the sledges to bring us supplies from the stores. But,” he added, “it is only right I should tell you what I think, Captain Alwyn—”
“And that is?”
“That they, too, will return empty.”
This melancholy surmise of Dr Barrett turned out far too true.
They waited till the snow fell. Then, in charge of the spectioneer, who had been among the saved, and Mr McDonald, third mate, the sledges set out. As usual, Fingal trotted off with the rest.
Even to those in the sledges, the time seemed long. Their adventures were many, the whole journey a toilsome and perilous one. But the goal was gained at last. There was the signal pole on the cliff top that had been raised to guide the Kittywake towards the creek, but where was the creek itself?
Nowhere to be seen.
It had been frozen over in the winter, and the ravine, at the bottom of which it lay, filled entirely and completely level with snow.
To find or even to guess at the whereabouts of the cave where the stores were buried under such circumstances was quite out of the question. A thousand men could hardly have found and rescued them.
If the time seemed long for those who went on this expedition, it was doubly tedious for those who waited their return.
At last, one evening, about sunset, amid thickly falling snow, Fingal came bounding into camp. Claude knew the sledges could not be far away. All rushed out to meet them. Alas! and alas! for hope seemed to die even in Dr Barrett’s heart at the dire news.
They brought two bears, and these were cut in pieces and stored.
“What is to be done now?” said Claude. “Are we to die like rats in a hole?”
“Not, I think,” was the reply, “without making one last effort to save ourselves. Were it the summer, we could live at all events as long as ammunition lasted, but we have hardly food enough to serve us to spring-time. So I propose that we get ready at once, that we provision the sledges, and make an attempt to reach the semi-Eskimo, semi-Danish settlement of Sturmstadt.”
“It will be a terrible journey.”
“It will, indeed, but both Jack and Joe know the way. I have talked to them. Their people have come on the hunting-path within a hundred miles of this place.”
“For myself, I care not,” said Claude; “but I grieve to think of my poor fellows, perhaps sinking and dying by the way. Would it not be almost better to rough it here through another winter, then, when the snow is gone, to walk the journey? Every day would then be bringing us into a warmer and better climate.”
“No, captain, it would not, and for this one of many reasons. If we take the journey now we can go in almost a straight line, for the creeks and streams will be frozen over in a few days. In summer we know not what détours we might not have to make, what streams or rivers to ford or even swim.”
“I will be guided by your experience,” said Claude.
Early next morning, outside the wooden tent, Paddy O’Connell and boy Bounce were heard talking together loudly and excitedly.
“Is it true what you’re telling me, and sorra a word av a lie in it?”
“Which I walked all the way over, and ran all the way back to see,” was the boy’s reply.
“Och! bladderips!” roared Paddy; “och! the thieving spalpeens! Bad cess to them evermore. Sure if I had them I’d break every bone in their durty bodies. I’d murder every mother’s son or the two o’ them.”
He entered the tent as he spoke.
“I know what you’ve come to say, Paddy,” said Claude: “the Eskimos have taken the sledges and deserted us.”
“True for you, sorr,” said Paddy. “It’s all up wid us now, sorr. Sure I could tear me hair and cry; and it isn’t for meself either, sorr, I’d be after crying, but for me poor mother and Biddy.”
“This is, indeed, terrible news, doctor,” said Claude.
The doctor whistled a few bars of an operatic air thoughtfully before he made reply.
“It may be all for the best, you know. Hope, sir, hope, hope, hope.
“‘Hope is a better companion than fear;
Providence, ever benignant and kind,
Gives with a smile what you take with a tear.
All will be right; Let us look to the light.
Morning is ever the daughter of night.
Cheerily, cheerily, then, cheer up!’”
Note 1. The Scymnus Borealis. Some of these monsters obtain a length of nearly twenty feet, and at certain seasons of the year the sea in some places swarms with them. They are gregarious, and never fail to appear when men are drowning or seals being killed. They are terribly fierce and voracious.