Fifteen feet of ice! De Long’s mustaches drooped for a full due when Nindemann reported that. Only mid-September, and already fast in ice extending two feet below our keel! A gigantic block of ice to try to cut, but there was nothing for it but to saw away if we were ever to right our ship. Fortunately our saw was at least long enough.
The bosun plumbed the hole with the kedge anchor suspended from the yardarm, hauled everything two-blocks, and then,
“Let go!” he roared.
Down came the kedge with a run, crashed into the thin remaining ice-floor of the hole, broke through, carrying the lower end of the saw with it, and we were ready.
Then commenced four hours of strenuous labor. Sweetman and Nindemann, armed with crowbars, down on the pack guided the sides of the saw blade for a fore and aft cut, while on deck the starboard watch stretched out along the fall, alternately heaved and slacked away, on the upstroke lifting the weight of both saw and kedge anchor, on the downstroke depending on the weight of the kedge only to drag the blade down again, while on both strokes the steel teeth rasped and shrieked and tortured our ears as they tore into the solid ice.
But it was useless. In spite of Sweetman’s skilled guidance and Nindemann’s brawny shoulders, it was next to impossible to keep that blade going straight against such thick ice, for the bottom of the saw being so far below them, actually guiding it was wholly out of question, with the result that on nearly every stroke the saw jammed in the cut. After half a day’s arduous labor the net results were a badly bent saw, hardly a fathom of cut ice, and such a flow of sulphurous language both on deck and on the ice pack from those handling the saw that I doubt not it may well have melted more ice than we cut.
So at eight bells, when the gang over the side knocked off for mess, De Long, ruefully contemplating the twisted saw temporarily hanging in the clear at the yardarm, and the insignificant length of the cut compared with the stretch of ice along our hull which had yet to be severed, gave up and silently motioned Cole to unrig everything. With alacrity, all hands as soon as this was done, scrambled below to the forecastle.
A few minutes later, in the comparative warmth of the wardroom (50° instead of the 16° out on deck) with some difficulty on account of the slope, I eased myself into my chair near the head of the table on the captain’s left, silently bracing my plate with my knife to keep it from sliding away to starboard while Tong Sing ladled out the soup, hardly more than half filling my plate lest the steaming liquid overflow the low side.
“Well, mates,” observed Danenhower, at the low end of the table, contemplating his scanty portion, “such is life in the Arctic! We’re in for this list all winter. I’m glad I don’t like soup anyway. Stew’s more in my line.”
“Better see Ah Sam, then, Dan,” I advised, “and make sure he thickens that stew enough to insure a safe angle of repose, or your stew’ll flow away like the soup.”