CHAPTER XXIX
When we got underway that night on June 25th, we headed southwest instead of south. Burning in my breast were De Long’s words Nil desperandum! and my faith in him from his faith in me, rose. The ice to the southwest, thank God, Dunbar reported as not so bad as he had found it to the south, though Heaven knows how that could have been for we had to bridge and ferry five times in one mile, and in many places to get our sledges over inescapable hummocks blocking our path, we had to build inclined planes of snow to their crests and other inclines down the lee slopes, then heave our sledges up one slope like Egyptian slaves building the Pyramids, and brace ourselves back to ease them down the other side. We couldn’t even coast down the lee slopes, for then the sledges buried their noses so deeply in the banks at the bottom that extricating them was horrible work.
So like horses (though sometimes seahorses as we plowed through water to our waists) we worked along through the ensuing week, making about a mile and a half a day over the ice. We were all in a bad way from exhaustion, and oddly enough the brilliant sun, cold though it was around 28° F., burned and blistered our faces and added to our general suffering. On top of that a mental trouble became noticeable; the men were grumbling because no news of our position or of our progress had been posted, for they had all seen the captain taking sights and felt that the results ought to be made known. As the week drew along and nothing was said, they began to get suspicious, but none dared ask the captain; when they questioned me, I merely shrugged my shoulders, saying,
“Don’t ask me, boys. I’m only an engineer! Why should I bother with the navigation?”
As for the growling which was plentiful over the shortened rations, I could point out that our progress was slower than originally expected so we must naturally stint ourselves to stretch them out longer, and thus allayed any suspicion on that score.
But De Long had a busy time dodging his other officers, lest they ask embarrassing questions. With Chipp and Danenhower this was not difficult, for Chipp could hardly walk and Danenhower could hardly see. Keeping away from them was easy. Ducking Dunbar was much harder, but since the ice-pilot was ahead laying out the road most of the night, the skipper with some finesse managed to steer the discussions into safer channels on the few occasions when he couldn’t avoid him. Ambler, however, turned out to be a Tartar who from the very nature of his duties the captain couldn’t keep away from. Finally, concluding that with Ambler confidence was better than suspicion, he acquainted him also with the reasons for our sudden change of course, and I must say for the doctor that I think he took it better than I did, for early in the week when he was told, he was more than having his hands full between swinging a pick-ax on the roads and tending his patients, especially Chipp.
Lieutenant Chipp, carried from his sick bed when the ship sank, was in a bad way from exposure and sleeping on the ice, despite the fact that he was the only person allowed to take an extra coat. Even the week’s rest before we started sledging south helped him little and he fainted in his harness the first day out. After that, though hauling no longer on the hospital sledge, he had since barely managed to stagger along with it as it went.
The day we started southwest, so badly off was Chipp that slow as we went that day, he could not hobble well enough to keep his emaciated and pain-racked body up with the hospital sledge and was delaying even its snail-like progress. De Long, bringing up the rear guard, ordered him to climb aboard the sledge and ride. Chipp made no move to get aboard, but instead staggered onward. Without a word, De Long picked him off the ice, laid him gently on his back on the sledge, and ordered briefly,
“You stay there, Chipp, or I’ll hand you a courtmartial for insubordination! You’re delaying our progress when you walk!”
Poor Chipp, broken-hearted at being made a burden for his overladen shipmates to drag, tried to roll off the sledge to the snow, but so weak was he that he could do no more than turn on his face when he stuck, clawing feebly, trying to pull himself off the sledge. Failing even in that, he looked pitifully up at De Long by his side.