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.