The Romance of Polar Exploration / Interesting Descriptions of Arctic and Antarctic Adventure from the Earliest Time to the Voyage of the "Discovery"

by G. Firth Scott

Through the wind and the cold they worked, neither pausing for rest nor refreshment. All around them the ice was heaving and grinding, and over them the cold northerly gale was blowing and driving great clouds of snow; but they worked on, knowing only too well that in every barrel of food they rolled into security was contained a week of life for them. The driving snow made it more and more difficult to see, until the air was almost dark. With fearful force the wind howled across the icy expanse, and those on the pack crouched for some shelter behind the stores they had piled up by the hummock, waiting till the gale should have exhausted its fury.

The faint sound of a cry came to them from the direction of the ship and they peered out through the gloom. Then a cry of despair broke from their lips—they forgot the force of the wind and the cold of the driving snow as they sprang from behind their shelter. The ice had parted again, and, down the long lane of open water which had been formed, the hull of the ship loomed as it swung away into the darkness.

Anxiously the castaways watched for the coming together again of the divided packs, in the hope that the Polaris would again be caught and held. Those who remained on board were equally anxious, for they knew the vessel must be leaking terribly, and to be left much longer in the open water meant that she would founder and they be drowned. A man ran to the rudder and tried to bring her round to the ice which glimmered through the snow-storm, but the rudder was damaged too much for steering and the ship drifted on. Soon it was obscured from those on the pack, and the truth of their position dawned on them. Whether the ship had foundered or not they did not know, but this was clear: they were adrift on an ice-pack which might at any moment split asunder and precipitate them into the freezing water, or, if it held together, carry them till they died of cold and starvation.

Either alternative was sufficiently gloomy to depress the spirits of the bravest; as the nineteen cowered behind their stack of provisions for shelter from the keen snow-filled wind, into the mind of each there came a grim determination to fight while there was an ounce of food in the casks or a vestige of ice to float them. In the morning, when the storm had abated and the air was clear, they emerged from their shelter and looked about for a sign of the vessel. Some of them clambered up on to the top of the highest hummocks so as to command a wider field of vision, but they saw no more than those who remained below. All around them was ice, piled in heaps, or stretching out in flat expanses; but always ice, as far as the eye could reach, and nowhere a vestige or a sign of the Polaris.

They gathered together round the heap of stores and looked at one another in silence, each one reading the other's thoughts and always finding them the same as his own. The ship had probably gone to the bottom, with all on board, as soon as she broke away from the ice. The packs had closed again over the spot where she had disappeared, so that there was no chance of any spars or timber floating to the surface and confirming their suspicions. Everything was under the ice, everything except the scanty supply of provisions that had been put overboard.

At length one man spoke. It was no use mincing matters, he told his comrades. They would do well to realise the position they were in, and, looking at it from the worst side, make the best of it and fight to the end. The vessel had gone, and all they had to keep them from starvation and death was the heap of stores and their own energy. There was no timber to build a raft, so that they could float if the ice broke up; there was no wood to waste on a fire. But as they had to keep afloat and warm if they were going to escape, he considered that first of all they should remove their stores to the thickest, heaviest ice they could find, and then set to work to build snow huts for shelter. Winter was coming on with its long spell of darkness, and there was no time to waste. It was every one's business to help one another and to do the best they could, working together and sharing whatever came, whether it was short rations or plenty.

The sentiments appealed to all the men, and they formed themselves into parties to carry out the scheme. Fortunately they had just passed one winter in the Arctic regions and knew, therefore, what was in front of them, and also how to carry out the building of snow huts and the other necessary makeshifts. A massive hummock, which apparently was too strong to be crushed, and solid enough to last through several summers without melting, was selected as the site of the encampment. The snow which had fallen during the gale was not quite hard enough for building huts at the moment, so while some of the party were overhauling the stores and arranging to move them to the hummock, the others were clearing away the snow from the site of the camp and banking it up all round as a break-wind.

By the time the stores were placed in the enclosure, canvas shelters were erected for a temporary covering, pending the time when the snow became hard enough to cut for building blocks. It is only when the snow has become compressed by its own weight and frozen nearly solid by the cold that it can be cut into slabs or blocks for a hut. When it has become hard enough, the blocks are cut and the building commences. First a circle is laid, with a small space vacant where the doorway is to be. On either side of this opening the blocks are laid so as to form the plan of a porch, one side of which, in the present instance, was continued at right angles so as turn the entrance passage towards the stack of provisions and thus shelter the doorway from the wind. As soon as the ground plan of the hut was laid, the surface of the blocks was moistened and other blocks laid upon them, and so on until the walls rose some five feet, the moisture making the blocks freeze hard to one another. The layers were now gradually lapped over the interior until a dome roof was formed. Both inside and outside were then moistened and smoothed, and the cold air, freezing the moisture, glazed the entire structure with a covering of ice.

All the clothing, bedding, and weapons were taken inside. A lamp was constructed out of an empty preserved meat tin; it was filled with fat, and, with a piece of twisted tow for a wick, it lit up the interior of the hut and afforded some warmth as well. Heavy canvas curtains were suspended across the opening out of the hut at the inner wall, at the bend in the passage, and at the outer opening. Such of the packages of stores as were suitable were also brought into the hut, and upon them the blankets and furs were laid so as to make the sleeping places as comfortable as possible. The quarters were thus as good as the men could make them, but one anxiety still remained. The lamp would have to be kept going all the twenty-four hours, and especially during the long Arctic night; but the supply of fat was limited.

A hunting party was organised to search the pack for seals or walrus or any animal from which blubber could be obtained. Here again the experience of the previous winter and its hunting exploits served them. A small opening in the pack was discovered a mile or so from the camp, and on the ice around the water three seals were resting, having evidently been caught in the ice when it closed. With great care the hunters crept over the ice towards the animals, whose sacrifice meant so much to the castaways. Only two had rifles, the others carrying harpoons they had made from the tent-poles, and which were anything but reliable weapons. Steady aim was taken by the two men who had the rifles at the two larger of the seals. Firing together, one seal fell dead; the one which was not aimed at plunged into the water, and the other, badly wounded, hobbled to the edge of the ice. In another moment he would have been over and probably have sunk to the bottom, had not one of the men flung away his harpoon, and, springing forward, managed to seize the hind flippers of the wounded creature. His comrades rushed to his assistance and dragged both him and the seal back from the opening on to the ice, where the latter was quickly despatched.