What next?
I had thought that our experiences so far had sufficiently numbed my nerves to enable me to stand anything further with comparative calm, but I had underestimated the ice pack.
During the night after our going afloat nothing happened as we drifted, but by early morning of the next day, November 25, we were once more in action, fighting the pack for our existence.
At six a.m., as a preliminary, drifting ice pressed us against the edge of the pack and piled high up against our side, nipping our port bow. An hour or so later, this developed into a heavy squeeze which started more of our bulwark planking, and listed us sharply to port. At this, coming while we were at breakfast, things commenced to look bad and we began to shuffle nervously in our chairs, all hands eyeing the exit to the poop, but Danenhower tried to ease the mental strain for us when, bending down to retrieve his spoon which for the third time had rolled off the sloping table to the deck, he remarked,
“Well, mates, if you’ve been itching for the good old days, now’s your chance to cheer. With this heel, the Jeannette’s beginning to feel to me like the old home again!”
But nobody laughed, and when after an hour of that ticklish heel, the pressure slacked and we leveled off, no one regretted the missing list, unnatural as its absence now felt to us.
Coming up on deck after a hasty breakfast, we found ourselves adrift again near one end of a narrow lead of water perhaps a couple of miles long, at the far end of which appeared a sizeable open bay. De Long debated earnestly with both Chipp and Dunbar, whether he ought to attempt to run out an ice-anchor and make fast to a floe, though the question was largely academic for never did a large enough floe come near us.
In the late afternoon with still no decision, the question was settled for us when a strong current springing up for some unknown reason, the rudderless ship began to drift stern first down that canal in the pack. At the same time the broken ice behind us also got underway and started to follow, bearing down ominously for our bows.
We moved along with increasing speed, to our deep relief steadily gaining on the broken floes pursuing us, till unfortunately at a bend in the canal, our stern took the bank and stopped us dead. At this, with our rudder post anchored in the floes, it seemed as if we were caught, when De Long sang out happily,
“Look! Her bow is paying round as prettily as if she were casting under jibs!” and to our surprise, it was so. Our stem swung through a complete arc of 180°, our stern drifted clear of the ice, and there we were, wholly without effort on our part, properly headed downstream with the current!