With a wave, I left him. Chipp was far and away the best seaman of us all—no need to worry over him. I hastened back to my own boat, filled up all our pots with freshly-fallen snow to be used for drinking water on our voyage, and in a few minutes, we all shoved off and were underway again, De Long’s last admonition to both of us being to keep formation astern of him and hold our little squadron together.
The wind continually freshened and soon hauled to the northeast, dead astern of us. This made the sailing more hazardous, for we now were constantly exposed to the danger of jibing our sails, but for some hours more, we bounced along over rough seas, on the whole grateful for the occasional drifting floes we encountered because they tended to break the waves. I managed to maneuver safely amongst these floating menaces until four o’clock, when following the first cutter through a narrow passage between two floes, a wave hurled my whaleboat to leeward, staving in our starboard side against sharp ice and I hurriedly had to haul the boat out on the floe to keep from losing her. In fifteen minutes, while the other boats lay to in the lee of that ice, I had her repaired by tacking a box cover over the hole, and overboard again, we filled away to the southwest in regular formation. That (though I soon had cause to regret it) was the last of the ice pack we ever saw.
In the open Arctic finally, we ran on, the breeze freshening all the time from the northeast and the sea picking up. Before long, Chipp began to drop steadily astern, since both De Long’s cutter and my whaleboat were far better sailors than his short cutter. To avoid losing him, we had to reef sail, first taking one reef, and soon a second, after which both the leading boats ran close-reefed while Chipp, with his sail full out, barely managed to hold position in column in my wake.
Jack Cole, who was my coxswain, had been steering since morning. Jack, put in my boat by De Long because he had been such an excellent small boat sailor, was, however, now a severe disappointment to me. For some days he had been dull and apathetic, seeming hardly to know what was going on in the boat. The weather we were facing required prompt and vigorous action at the helm, so with some reluctance I relieved Cole of the tiller, replacing him with Seaman Leach, and detailing Manson and Wilson, good sailors both, to take the tricks following, intending to relieve Leach in four hours.
As the late afternoon faded, the wind whipped up to gale force. Spray came in over our stern, soaking all of us through and through, while the freezing wind chilled us to the bone. Wet and miserable, buoyed only by the thought that before that gale we should certainly make the Lena and safety by morning, we struggled to hold position, my whaleboat pitching and rolling badly, while ahead and astern of us, we could see the other boats heaving even more crazily in the seas, a sight which did little to encourage us. To keep from jibing, running free as we were, I was forced to station a man with a boathook to hold out the sail; and not daring to trust anyone else with the job, I manned the sheet myself, hour after hour clinging to that freezing manila line. Heavy spray began to break over our stern, and we started bailing.
But despite close reefs and frequently dousing sail to deaden headway, we began to run ahead of the first cutter, which heavily laden as that square-sterned boat was with the records of the expedition, its stores, and more men than any other, proved a slower sailer than my double-ended whaleboat. Vainly I tried to hold astern of the first cutter, but each time I doused sail, the racing seas combing over our stern came heavily aboard, forcing us to bail vigorously to avoid waterlogging. By seven o’clock in the fading twilight with the wind blowing a lively gale and the sea, already bad, rapidly getting worse, I found my little boat in spite of all my efforts a thousand yards out on the weather bow of the first cutter and steadily gaining on her.
At this moment, Manson sang out,
“Chief, Ay tank dat cutter ban making signals to us!”
Looking astern across the waves, I saw De Long waving to me, apparently to come within hail. We were already close-reefed and there was no way to achieve this except by dousing sail again and drifting while he caught up, so I stationed several men to gather in the foot of the sail (she was rigged with a single mast and a dipping lug sail) while the yard came down. We partly doused sail and slackened speed, but as we did so, a sea caught us and boarded our stern, flooding us all to our hips in icy water. The men holding the foot of the sail, startled at the fear of swamping, promptly let go and we had for a moment the chaos of a flooded boat erratically heaving in the seas, a flapping sail threatening to take the stick out of her, and every man bailing wildly with any utensil at hand that would hold water.
We finally got her cleared and the sail hoisted to get some headway and hold us before the seas, when we tried again. Once more we were flooded, but while some bailed, the men at the sail, strongly admonished to hang on no matter what happened, clung to it this time, and we managed to drift almost within hail of De Long. I could see him shouting to me from his cockpit, but whatever he said (I being to windward of him) was lost in the roar of the gale. Just then another sea rolled up and combed over both boats, nearly filling mine. Instantly I jumped to my feet and bellowed down the wind to him,