CHAPTER VIII.
The Sledging Campaign Opens—A Push for the “Discovery”—Petersen Breaks Down—Shelter in a Snowdrift—Difficulties in Retreat—A First of April Chase—Programme of Spring Sledging—Limited Hopes—Departure of Main Detachments—Double Banking—The Camp—A Night in a Tent—A Typical Floeberg—The Hare’s Sanctuary—Coat of Arms—Castle Floe—Parhelia—Road-finding in the Fog—Mirage—A Crevasse.
THE failure to communicate with H.M.S. “Discovery” in the autumn had to some extent disarranged our plans. Communication was absolutely necessary to ensure co-operation, and the sooner it was effected the better, for our consort had as much sledging work to get through as she could possibly complete in the season.
Robeson Channel had to be crossed, and the rugged northern shore of Greenland explored in search of land poleward. Petermann’s Fiord had not yet been traversed, and Lady Franklin Sound might possibly open northwards, and afford a favourable route for the “Discovery’s” sledge-crews to penetrate as far as the shore of the Polar Sea.
The short travelling season in the far north is limited on the one hand by the lingering cold of winter, and on the other by the summer thaw of the surface snow and the renewed motion of the ice. As soon, therefore, as travelling was at all possible, a dog sledge was got ready to carry despatches to our sister ship. Two energetic young officers and Niel Petersen the Dane were detailed for this duty. On the morning of 12th March everyone in the ship gathered on the floes to see them off. Their team of nine dogs carried the “Clements Markham” down the smooth ice of our exercise mile at a gallop, and in a few minutes the red and white sledge pennant with its crossed arrows was lost to sight amongst the hummocks off Cape Rawson.
Three days passed in preparing the ship for spring, and the low temperature and strong wind made us think anxiously of our absent messmates, but we never for a moment supposed that they would suffer anything more than the recognised hardships of sledging in bad weather.
On the evening of the third day, our heavy winter awning had just been taken down from over the deck, and the men were coming inboard after their day’s work, when some one caught sight of the dog sledge coming back to the ship. There were but two men running alongside, and they came on silently, without the usual joyful signalling that marks a returning party. Poor Petersen lay on the sledge, marvellously changed in three days, mottled with frost-bite, and apparently dying. His companions had succeeded in carrying him back to the ship only just in time. They themselves were much fatigued, and their fingers raw with frost-bites incurred in attempts to restore Petersen’s frozen limbs. When they had slept, as only tired men can, we heard their story.
They had not been a day away when Petersen found he had greatly overrated his strength, and became unable to assist in the heavy work of guiding the sledge along the steep incline under the cliffs, lowering the dogs and sledge down precipitous places, and hauling them up again. Next day he was badly frost-bitten, for a cramped and enfeebled man cannot long resist strong wind and a temperature of minus 34°. It was impossible either to proceed or retreat without risking his life, and the breeze freshened, so that they could not pitch the tent. The only course left was to dig a pit in the snow, which was, fortunately, somewhat hardened by the wind. So they at once set about shovelling out a hole, and when it was six feet deep they excavated it below till they got a space eight feet square. It took six hours’ hard labour before they were able to move Petersen, wrapped up in the tent and tent robes, into it, and cover the top closely in with the sledge and drifting snow. But once well covered in, and the sledge lamp lit, they had the satisfaction of seeing the temperature rise to 7° above zero. But Petersen could not be warmed. They made tea for him—he could not take it; pemmican disagreed with him; and a little soup was made from the Australian meat carried for the dogs. By turns they chafed his limbs for hours at a time, and thawed his frozen feet under their own clothes, Eskimo fashion, then swathed feet and hands in their flannel wrappers, and lay close on either side trying to warm him; but in a very short time, although he said his feet were warm and comfortable, they were found frozen so hard that the toes could not be bent, and the whole process had to be gone through again. For a day and a night they struggled in this way against the fatal cold, and then, fortunately for them, the wind lessened, and leaving provisions and fuel, dogs’ food, and all that could be dispensed with, behind, they took the only course open to them, and struck out for the ship. The only possible road was the one they had come, and it was rugged in the extreme. On the left rose high cliffs banked with treacherous snow, and on the right rounded and broken ice piled in towers and pinnacles upon the shore. In some places round headlands it was utterly impossible to get the sledge safely past with the man and tent robes lashed on it, and one had to help him round as best he could, while the other held in the eager dogs and tried to guide the sledge. The poor brutes were so anxious to get back to the ship that constant halts were necessary to disentangle their harness, no easy task with frost-bitten fingers. The last headland was the worst. In spite of every effort the sledge slipped sideways, then upset, and rolled down into a deep ditch, turning over three times as it went, and dragging the dogs after it. When it was at length got out, a comparatively smooth road lay before them, and they drew up alongside the ship, most thankful that their comrade was still able to recognise the friends that crowded round him. For days the poor fellow lay in a very uncertain state. Severe amputations were unavoidable, but he rallied wonderfully for a time, and when the main detachments of sledges left the ship we bade him a hopeful good-bye.