“Hans, are ye hot enough yet to make the snow hiss? If ye are, when we get back, the chief can put out the forecastle stove and use ye for a heater!”
Amid the general merriment, joined in by all hands except poor Hans, big Erichsen finally managed to cool himself down in the snow enough so that he could stand an administration of pure sweet oil to the affected parts. Carefully applied by me, this soothed him enough to permit his dressing again, and with most of us in a hilarious frame of mind, we slid into our sleeping bags.
Next day, our sixth since departure, we set out again at 3 A.M., and mirth having proved a better cure than medicine, with all hands in fair shape except Dunbar who still had to ride the sledge. Within an hour we sighted the ship. This cheered us further. And the dogs recognizing the masts and realizing that at last they were pulling toward home, for the first time put their hearts and shoulders into the job. Over bad ice, we made such excellent progress that by 6 A.M. we were within a mile of the ship, apparently without having been sighted from there.
At this point, I ran into an open water lead with running ice, and unable to find a detour, had determined to launch the dinghy and ferry across when a sledge runner gave way and left us flat in the snow. We repaired the runner, but it was evident that it would never carry all the weight again. So I unloaded the boat, ferried the sledge across, and then sent it ahead with Dunbar only on it while Sharvell and I stayed behind with the dinghy and all the rest of our sledge load of equipment.
We were all soon sighted and a party came out from the ship. There on the ice, Dr. Ambler met me, and undemonstrative though he was, so overjoyed was he at our safe return that he gave me a regular bear hug.
Approaching the gangway, we caught sight of Captain De Long, enthusiastically waving to us from the deck, running up the ladder to the bridge for a better view. Then to our horror we saw him, absorbed only by our progress, step directly into the path of the flying windmill! In an instant, before anyone could cry out in warning, down came one of the huge arms, whirling before a fresh breeze, hitting him a terrific blow on the head and sending him reeling backwards down the ladder!
Fortunately the quartermaster caught him, breaking his fall, but Ambler and I, forgetting all else, rushed for the gangway, arriving on deck to find the captain crawling on hands and knees, stunned and bleeding from a great gash in his head. Ambler hurriedly bent over him, carefully feeling his skull, and announced thankfully there was no evident fracture. He helped the semi-conscious captain to his cabin, where he immediately went to work stitching up a deep four-inch long wound. By the time this was done and the bandages applied, De Long at last came out of his daze. But calloused as I was by war and many hardships it nevertheless brought tears to my eyes when his first question after his fluttering eyelids opened on the doctor bending over him, was not about himself but a faint query,
“How about Melville and his men, doctor? Are they all safe?”
CHAPTER XXVI
On June 5, 1881, a Sunday morning, we got back to the Jeannette. In the early afternoon, in honor of our safe return. De Long with his eyes hardly visible through his bandages, conducted a Thanksgiving Service, attended only by Ambler and myself, for the other two usual members of the congregation, Chipp and Dunbar, were both on the sicklist. In further celebration of the event, the captain ordered in the evening the issue of a double ration of whiskey forward, which ceremony conducted in the forecastle by Jack Cole drew a somewhat larger attendance, I believe.