“In the evening the men all started eating their stock of cakes, sweetmeats, and such-like, smoked tobacco, and enjoyed themselves in the most animated fashion. They evidently thought it was uncertain when they should next have such a time on board the Fram, and therefore they thought it was best to avail themselves of the opportunity. We are now living in marching order on an empty ship.
“By way of precaution we have now burst open again the passage on the starboard side which was used as a library and had therefore been closed, and all doors are now kept always open, so that we can be sure of getting out, even if anything should give way. We do not want the ice-pressure to close the doors against us by jamming the doorposts together. But she certainly is a strong ship. It is a mighty ridge that we have in our port side, and the masses of ice are tremendous. The ship is listing more than ever, nearly 7°; but since the last pressure she has righted herself a little again, so that she must surely have broken away from the ice and begun to rise, and all danger is doubtless over. So, after all, it has been a case of ‘Much ado about nothing.’
“Sunday, January 6th. A quiet day; no jamming since last night. Most of the fellows slept well on into the morning. This afternoon all have been very busy digging the Fram out of the ice again, and we have now got the rail clear right aft to the half-deck; but a tremendous mass had fallen over the tent. It was above the second ratline in the fore-shrouds, and fully six feet over the rail. It is a marvel that the tent stood it; but it was a very good thing that it did do so, for otherwise it is hard to say what might have become of many of the dogs. This afternoon Hansen took a meridian observation, which gave 83° 34′ north latitude. Hurrah! We are getting on well northward—thirteen minutes since Monday—and the most northern latitude is now reached. It goes without saying that the occasion was duly celebrated with a bowl of punch, preserved fruits, cakes, and the doctor’s cigars.
“Last night we were running with the bags for our lives; to-night we are drinking punch and feasting: such are, indeed, the vicissitudes of fate. All this roaring and crashing for the last few days has been, perhaps, a cannonade to celebrate our reaching such a high latitude. If that be so, it must be admitted that the ice has done full honor to the occasion. Well, never mind, let it crash on so long as we only get northward. The Fram will, no doubt, stand it now; she has lifted fully one foot forward and fully six inches aft, and she has slipped a little astern. Moreover, we cannot find so much as a single stanchion in the bulwarks that has started, yet to-night every man will sleep fully prepared to make for the ice.
“Monday, January 7th. There was a little jamming of the ice occasionally during the day, but only of slight duration, then all was quiet again. Evidently the ice has not yet settled, and we have perhaps more to expect from our friend to port, whom I would willingly exchange for a better neighbor.
“It seems, however, as if the ice-pressure had altered its direction since the wind has changed to S.E. It is now confined to the ridges fore and aft athwart the wind; while our friend to port, lying almost in the line of the wind, has kept somewhat quieter.
“Everything has an end, as the boy said when he was in for a birching. Perhaps the growth of this ridge has come to an end now, perhaps not; the one thing is just as likely as the other.
“To-day the work of extricating the Fram is proceeding; we will at all events get the rails clear of the ice. It presents a most imposing sight by the light of the moon, and, however conscious of one’s own strength, one cannot help respecting an antagonist who commands such powers, and who, in a few moments, is capable of putting mighty machinery into action. It is rather an awkward battering-ram to face. The Fram is equal to it, but no other ship could have resisted such an onslaught. In less than an hour this ice will build up a wall alongside us and over us which it might take us a month to get out of, and possibly longer than that. There is something gigantic about it; it is like a struggle between dwarfs and an ogre, in which the pygmies have to resort to cunning and trickery to get out of the clutches of one who seldom relaxes his grip. The Fram is the ship which the pygmies have built with all their cunning in order to fight the ogre; and on board this ship they work as busily as ants, while the ogre only thinks it worth while to roll over and twist his body about now and then, but every time he turns over it seems as though the nutshell would be smashed and buried, and would disappear; but the pygmies have built their nutshell so cleverly that it always keeps afloat, and wriggles itself free from the deadly embrace. The old traditions and legends about giants, about Thor’s battles in the Jötunheim, when rocks were split and crags were hurled about, and the valleys were filled with falling boulders, all come back to me when I look at these mighty ridges of ice winding their way far off in the moonlight; and when I see the men standing on the ice-heap cutting and digging to remove a fraction of it, then they seem to me smaller than pygmies, smaller than ants; but although each ant carries only a single fir-needle, yet in course of time they build an ant-hill, where they can live comfortably, sheltered from storm and winter.
“Had this attack on the Fram been planned by the aid of all the wickedness in the world, it could not have been a worse one. The floe, seven feet thick, has borne down on us on the port side, forcing itself up on the ice, in which we are lying, and crushing it down. Thus the Fram was forced down with the ice, while the other floe, packed up on the ice beneath, bore down on her, and took her amidships while she was still frozen fast. As far as I can judge, she could hardly have had a tighter squeeze; it was no wonder that she groaned under it; but she withstood it, broke loose, and eased. Who shall say after this that a vessel’s shape is of little consequence? Had the Fram not been designed as she was, we should not have been sitting here now. Not a drop of water is to be found in her anywhere. Strangely enough, the ice has not given us another such squeeze since then; perhaps it was its expiring grip we felt on Saturday.
“It is hard to tell, but it was terrific enough. This morning Sverdrup and I went for a walk on the ice, but when we got a little way from the ship we found no sign of any new packing; the ice was smooth and unbroken as before. The packing has been limited to a certain stretch from east to west, and the Fram has been lying at the very worst point of it.