“A little before half-past nine to-night the vessel received a tremendous shock. I went out, but no noise of ice-packing could be heard. However, the wind howled so in the rigging that it was not easy to distinguish any other sound. At half-past ten another shock followed; later on, from time to time, vibrations were felt in the vessel, and towards half-past eleven the shocks became stronger. It was clear that the ice was packing at some place or other about us, and I was just on the point of going out when Mogstad came to announce that there was a very ugly pressure-ridge ahead. We went out with lanterns. Fifty-six paces from the bow there extended a perpendicular ridge stretching along the course of the lane, and there was a terrible pressure going on at the moment. It roared and crunched and crackled all along; then it abated a little and recurred at intervals, as though in a regular rhythm; finally it passed over into a continuous roar. It seemed to be mostly newly frozen ice from the channels which had formed this ridge; but there were also some ponderous blocks of ice to be seen among it. It pressed slowly but surely forward towards the vessel; the ice had given way before it to a considerable distance and was still being borne down little by little. The floe around us has cracked, so that the block of ice in which the vessel is embedded is smaller than it was. I should not like to have that pressure-ridge come in right under the nose of the Fram, as it might soon do some damage. Although there is hardly any prospect of its getting so far, nevertheless I have given orders to the watch to keep a sharp lookout; and if it comes very near, or if the ice should crack under us, he is to call me. Probably the pressure will soon abate, as it has now kept up for several hours. At this moment (12.45 A.M.) there have just been some violent shocks, and above the howling of the wind in the rigging I can hear the roar of the ice-pressure as I lie in my berth.”
[1] He did not return, after all.
[2] We had used for this purpose our pure grape-spirit.
Chapter II
The New Year, 1895
“Wednesday, January 2, 1895. Never before have I had such strange feelings at the commencement of the new year. It cannot fail to bring some momentous events, and will possibly become one of the most remarkable years in my life, whether it leads me to success or to destruction. Years come and go unnoticed in this world of ice, and we have no more knowledge here of what these years have brought to humanity than we know of what the future ones have in store. In this silent nature no events ever happen; all is shrouded in darkness; there is nothing in view save the twinkling stars, immeasurably far away in the freezing night, and the flickering sheen of the aurora borealis. I can just discern close by the vague outline of the Fram, dimly standing out in the desolate gloom, with her rigging showing dark against the host of stars. Like an infinitesimal speck, the vessel seems lost amidst the boundless expanse of this realm of death. Nevertheless, under her deck there is a snug and cherished home for thirteen men undaunted by the majesty of this realm. In there, life is freely pulsating, while far away outside in the night there is nothing save death and silence, only broken now and then, at long intervals, by the violent pressure of the ice as it surges along in gigantic masses. It sounds most ominous in the great stillness, and one cannot help an uncanny feeling as if supernatural powers were at hand, the Jötuns and Rimturser (frost-giants) of the Arctic regions, with whom we may have to engage in deadly combat at any moment; but we are not afraid of them.
“I often think of Shakespeare’s Viola, who sat ‘like Patience on a monument.’ Could we not pass as representatives of this marble Patience, imprisoned here on the ice while the years roll by, awaiting our time? I should like to design such a monument. It should be a lonely man in shaggy wolfskin clothing, all covered with hoar-frost, sitting on a mound of ice, and gazing out into the darkness across these boundless, ponderous masses of ice, awaiting the return of daylight and spring.
“The ice-pressure was not noticeable after 1 o’clock on Friday night until it suddenly recommenced last night. First I heard a rumbling outside, and some snow fell down from the rigging upon the tent roof as I sat reading; I thought it sounded like packing in the ice, and just then the Fram received a violent shock, such as she had not received since last winter. I was rocked backward and forward on the chest on which I was sitting. Finding that the trembling and rumbling continued, I went out. There was a loud roar of ice-packing to the west and northwest, which continued uniformly for a couple of hours or so. Is this the New-year’s greeting from the ice?