The normal run of hardship, although eased, now piled up the accumulated poison of overwork, and when I now think of the terrible strain I fail to see how a workable balance was maintained.
As we passed the eighty-sixth parallel, the ice increased in breadth and thickness. Great hummocks and pressure lines became less frequent. A steady progress was gained with the most economical human drain possible. The temperature ranged between 36° and 40° below zero, Fahrenheit, with higher and lower midday and midnight extremes. Only spirit thermometers were useful, for the mercury was at this degree of frost either frozen or sluggish.
Although the perpetual sun gave light and color to the cheerless waste we were not impressed with any appreciable sense of warmth. Indeed, the sunbeams by their contrast seemed to cause the frost of the air to pierce with a more painful sting. In marching over the golden glitter, snow scalded our faces, while our noses were bleached with frost. The sun rose into zones of fire and set in burning fields of ice, but, in pain, we breathed the chill of death.
In camp a grip of the knife left painful burns from cold metal. To the frozen fingers ice cold water was hot. With wine-spirits the fire was lighted, while oil delighted the stomach. In our dreams Heaven was hot, the other place was cold. All Nature was false; we seemed to be nearing the chilled flame of a new Hades.
We now changed our working hours from day to night, beginning usually at ten o'clock and ending at seven. The big marches and prolonged hours of travel with which fortune favored us earlier were no longer possible. Weather conditions were more important in determining a day's run than the hands of the chronometers.
That I must steadily keep up my notes and the records of observations was a serious addition to my daily task. I never permitted myself to be careless in regard to this, for I never let myself forget the importance of such data in plotting an accurate course.
I kept my records in small notebooks, writing very fine with a hard pencil on both sides of the paper. At the beginning of the journey I had usually set down the day's record by candle light, but later, when the sun was shining both day and night, I needed no light even inside the walls of the igloo, for the sunlight shone strongly enough through the walls of snow. Shining brilliantly at times, I utilized the opportunity it afforded, every few marches, to measure our shadows. The daily change marked our advance Poleward.
When storms threatened, our start was delayed. In strong gales the march was shortened. But in one way or another we usually found a few hours in each turn of the dial during which a march could be forced between winds. It mattered little whether we traveled night or day—all hours and all days were alike to us—for we had no accustomed time to rest, no Sundays, no holidays, no landmarks, or mile-posts to pass.
To advance and expend the energy accumulated during one sleep at the cost of one pound of pemmican was our sole aim in life. Day after day our legs were driven onward. Constantly new but similar panoramas rolled by us.
Our observations on April 11, gave latitude 87° 20ʹ, longitude 95° 19ʹ. The pack disturbance of the new land was less and less noted as we progressed in the northward movement. The fields became heavier, larger and less crevassed. Fewer troublesome old floes and less crushed new ice were encountered. With the improved conditions, the fire of a racing spirit surged up for a brief spell.