Cape Flora. Farewell to Franz Josef Land
Fortune favored us. On her northward voyage the Windward had much and difficult ice to combat with before she at last broke through and came in to land. Now, too, we met a quantity of ice, but it was slack and comparatively easy to get through. We were stopped in a few places, and had to break a way through with the engine; but the ship was in good hands. From his long experience as a whaler, Captain Brown knew well how to contend with greater odds than the thin ice we met with here—the only ice that is found in this sea. From morning till night he sat up in the crow’s-nest as long as there was a bit of ice in the water. He gave himself little time for sleep; the point was, as he often said to me, to bring us home before the Fram arrived, for he understood well what a blow it would give to those near and dear to us if she got home before us. Thanks to him, we had as short and pleasant a homeward voyage as few, if any, can have had from these inhospitable regions, where we had spent three years. From the moment we set foot on deck, he did everything to make us comfortable and at home on board, and we spent many a pleasant hour together, which will never be forgotten by either of us. But it was not only the captain who treated us in this way. Every man of the excellent crew showed us kindness and goodwill in every way. I cannot think of them—of the little steward, for instance, when he popped his head into the cabin to ask what he could get for us, or wakened me in the morning with his cheery voice, or sang his songs for us—without a feeling of unspeakable well-being and happiness. Then, too, we were continually drawing nearer home; we could count the days and hours that must pass before we could reach a Norwegian port and be once more in communication with the world.
From the experience he had had on the northward voyage, Captain Brown had come to the conclusion that he would find his way out of the ice most easily by first steering in a southeasterly direction towards Novaya Zemlya, which he thought would be the nearest way to the open sea. This proved also to be exactly the case. After having gone about 220 knots through the ice, we came into the open sea at the end of a long bay, which ran northward into the ice. It was just at the right spot; had we been a little farther east or a little farther west, we might have spent as many weeks drifting about in the ice as we now spent days in it. Once more we saw the blue ocean itself in front of us, and we shaped our course straight for Vardö. It was an indescribably delightful feeling once more to gaze over the blue expanse, as we paced up and down the deck, and were day by day carried nearer home. One morning, as we stood looking over the sea, our gaze was arrested by something; what could that be on the horizon? We ran on to the bridge and looked through the glass. The first sail. Fancy being once more in waters where other people went to and fro! But it was far away; we could not go to it. Then we saw more, and later in the day four great monsters ahead. They were British men-of-war, probably on their way home after having been at Vadsö for the eclipse of the sun, which was to have taken place on August 9th. Later in the evening (August 12th) I saw something dark ahead, low down on the horizon. What was it? I saw it on the starboard bow, stretching low and even towards the south. I looked again and again. It was land, it was Norway! I stood as if turned to stone, and gazed and gazed out into the night at this same dark line, and fear began to tremble in my breast. What were the tidings that awaited me there?
“We Stood Looking over the Sea”
When I came on deck next morning we were close under the land. It was a bare and naked shore we had come up to, scarcely more inviting than the land we had left up in the mist of the Arctic Ocean—but it was Norway. The captain had mistaken the coast in the night and had come in too far north, and we were still to have some labor in beating down against wind and sea before we could reach Vardö. We passed several vessels, and dipped our flag to them. We passed the revenue-cutter; she came alongside, but they had nothing to do there, and no one came on board. Then came pilots, father and son. They greeted Brown, but were not prepared to meet a countryman on board an English vessel. They were a little surprised to hear me speak Norwegian, but did not pay much attention to it. But when Brown asked them if they knew who I was, the old man gazed at me again, and a gleam, as it were, of a possible recognition crept over his face. But when the name Nansen dropped from the lips of the warm-hearted Brown, as he took the old man by the shoulders and shook him in his delight at being able to give him such news, an expression came into the old pilot’s weather-beaten face, a mixture of joy and petrified astonishment, which was indescribable. He seized my hand, and wished me welcome back to life; the people here at home had long ago laid me in my grave. And then came questions as to news from the expedition, and news from home. Nothing had yet been heard of the Fram, and a load was lifted from my breast when I knew that those at home had been spared that anxiety.
Then, silently and unobserved, the Windward glided with colors flying into Vardö Haven. Before the anchor was dropped, I was in a boat with Johansen on our way to the telegraph-station. We put in at the quay, but there was still so much of our former piratical appearance left that no one recognized us; they scarcely looked at us, and the only being that took any notice of the returned wanderers was an intelligent cow, which stopped in the middle of a narrow street and stared at us in astonishment as we tried to pass. That cow was so delightfully summery to look at that I felt inclined to go up and pat her; I felt now that I really was in Norway. When I got to the telegraph-station I laid a huge bundle down on the counter, and said that it consisted of telegrams that I should like to have sent as soon as possible. There were nearly a hundred of them, one or two rather long, of about a thousand words each.
The head of the telegraph-office looked hard at me, and quietly took up the bundle; but as his eye fell upon the signature of the telegram that lay on the top, his face suddenly changed, he wheeled sharp round, and went over to the lady clerk who was sitting at the table. When he again turned and came towards me his face was radiant, and he bade me a hearty welcome. The telegrams should be despatched as quickly as possible, he said; but it would take several days and nights to get them all through. And then the instrument began to tick and tick and to send through the country and the world the news that two members of the Norwegian Polar Expedition had returned safe and sound, and that I expected the Fram home in the course of the autumn. I pitied the four young ladies in the telegraph-office at Vardö; they had hard work of it during the following days. Not only had all my telegrams to be despatched, but hundreds streamed in from the south—both to us and to the people in the town, begging them to obtain information about us. Among the first were telegrams to my wife, to the King of Norway, and to the Norwegian Government. The last ran as follows:
“To his Excellency Secretary Hagerup: