No Man’s Land.
The cold pierced Steve through and through, as he hurriedly shook himself together; and his first thought now was to help Captain Marsham, who was utterly prostrate from anxiety, want of sleep, and long exposure.
“I shall be all right, my lad,” he said kindly, “as soon as I’ve had some hot tea and a nap. It was a long fight, but the storm is over. The wind swept round, and we’ve been carried north with the ice, which has been ripped up into endless lanes of clear water. As soon as I can take an observation we shall see where we are.”
Their talking roused the doctor, who sprang up to reproach himself after Steve’s fashion.
“I am so ashamed, Marsham!” he cried warmly.
“For doing your duty as a non-combatant man?” replied the captain, smiling. “Nonsense! You did me the greatest service you could by keeping out of my way.”
In a short time the sailor who acted the part of steward appeared, to show that the routine of the ship, interrupted by that fearful storm, had been resumed, and that the cook had his galley fire going; for a good breakfast was spread upon the table, after which Steve hurried out on deck, leaving the captain to have an hour or two’s rest.
He gazed about him wonderingly, his eyes dazzled by the brilliant light; for the sun was shining brightly, and flashing and sparkling from the ice and snow floating in every direction and in motion in the water, which appeared by contrast absolutely black.
The Hvalross was under steam, for the ropes and sails were thickly coated with ice and snow; but the aim of the man who was now on the bridge was not to attempt progress so much as to avoid coming in contact with the masses and fields of ice which from time to time threatened to close in around and crush her like a shell. For there were masses of ice from the size of one of the boats right up to detached fields that were hundreds of yards across; and feeling as if they had escaped a horrible danger, and in perfect ignorance of the fact that their position was as perilous as ever, Steve feasted his eyes on the glorious spread of fantastic beauty before him, and felt as if he had just awakened in a world where everything was silver, even to the vessel in which he sailed.
There were no towering icebergs such as are encountered floating in the Atlantic, for the ice here consisted of the broken-up surface of the frozen sea, the largest pieces not being twenty feet in height, and looking, from their irregularity, as if one field had been forced over another by the rushing waters, which ripped and tore and broke up the ice barrier at whose edge they had so often sailed. But these pieces exhibited every shade of lovely blue, side by side with the glittering as of crystallised silver, for their inequalities were in places covered with soft powdery snow such as three of the men were scraping up and brushing from the deck and tops of the deckhouses where it lay piled.