Nine loaded sledges and five boats carrying sixty days’ provisions, had to be hauled across the moving floes in the course of the day. The road had to be travelled no less than thirteen times, seven times with loads and six times empty handed, thus walking twenty-six miles in making an advance of two. The sick, with the hospital stores and tents, were under the care of Dr. Ambler. Thus the march over the frozen ocean was continued for several weeks when, to the consternation and dismay of Captain De Long, he found upon taking observations, that by the northerly drift of the pack they were losing ground daily and had drifted some twenty-four miles to the northwest. This disheartening intelligence was kept from the men, with the exception of Melville and Dr. Ambler. Changing their course to south-southwest, the party continued their slow and wearisome progress until the 11th or 12th of July, when the mountainous peaks of an island gladdened the eyes of the shipwrecked crew. Inspired to renewed effort, the men pushed on, finally landed, and Captain De Long took possession in the name of God and the United States, naming this new territory Bennett Island. Nine days were spent on this island, during which the boats were repaired. A cairn was built and a record left. The final departure from Bennett Island took place August 6. In the meantime, the brief summer had gone; already young ice was forming, and the streams and rivulets that had gladdened the men’s eyes upon their arrival had disappeared as the cold grasp of winter prepared to hold them fast.
It had been decided by Captain De Long to divide the party into three sections, and to proceed by boats; to this end Lieutenant Chipp was assigned to the second cutter in command of nine men; Chief Engineer Melville to the whale-boat in command of nine men, De Long reserving the command of the first cutter and twelve men. Instructions to Chipp and Melville directed that they should keep close to the captain’s boat, but if through accident they should become separated, to make their way south to the coast of Siberia and follow it to the Lena River, then ascend the Lena to a Russian settlement.
For the next eighteen days, the retreat was made by working through leads, hauling the boats out, and making portages across floe pieces that barred their progress; and occasionally as much as ten miles was made a day to the southwest. Vexatious delays were caused by the fast approaching winter, and, upon reaching Thadeouiski, one of the New Siberian Islands, the pinch of diminishing rations began sorely to be felt. Game, which had been occasionally secured during the early part of the retreat, had been scarce of late, and the outlook began to take on the gray aspect of a desperate future.
CHIEF ENGINEER MELVILLE
From now on, the retreat was one long, desperate struggle against famine and gales and piercing cold. Describing the experiences of September 7, Melville writes:—
“Standing to the southward, we shortly came up with a large floe alive with small running hummocks and stream ice. It was blowing stiffly, the sea was lumpy, and our boats careering at a lively rate. Pumping and bailing to keep afloat, we suddenly came unawares upon the weather side of a great floe piece, over which the sea was breaking so terribly that for us to come in contact with it meant certain destruction. It was floating from four to six feet above water, its sides either perpendicular or undershot by the action of the waves, which dashed madly over it, the surf flying in the air to a height of twenty feet; and, where the sea had honeycombed it and eaten holes upward through its thickness, a thousand waterspouts cast forth spray like a school of whales. Round about, down sail, and away we pulled for our lives. De Long, being fifty or a hundred yards in advance of me, and so much nearer danger, hailed me to take him in tow, which I did, and together we barely managed to hold our precarious position. The second cutter was away behind again, but upon coming up seized the whale-boat’s painter; and so we struggled in line, and at last succeeded in clearing the weather edge of the floe. It was a long pull and a hard pull. The sea roared and thundered against the cold, bleak mass of ice, flying away from it like snowflakes and freezing as it flew; the sailors, blinded by the wind and spray, pulled manfully at the oars, their bare hands frozen and bleeding; and the boats tossed capriciously about with the wild waves and the unequal strain of the tow-line. Drenched to the skin by the cruel icy seas which poured in and nigh filled the boats, the overtaxed men, as they faced the dreadful, death-dealing sea and murderous ice-edge, found new life and strength and performed wonders....
“Our boats were well bunched together, and although it was now pitch dark, we could yet for a while discern each other looming up out of the black water like spectres, and plunging over the crests of the waves. Presently the second cutter faded away, but as mine was the fastest boat of the three, I experienced no difficulty in following De Long. Indeed, in my anxiety to obey the order ‘Keep within hail,’ I at times barely escaped running the first cutter down....”
“Toward midnight,” continues Melville, “we approached the weather edge of the pack, the roar of the surf reaching our ears long before we could see the ice. I involuntarily hauled the whale-boat closer on the wind, and by so doing lost sight of the first cutter, but the terrible noise and confusion of the sea warned me beyond doubt of the death that lay under our lee. Presently out of the darkness there appeared the horrid white wall of ice and foam. Not a second too soon. ‘Ready about, and out with the two lee oars if she misses stays.’ This, of course, from the heavy sea, she did; and quick as thought my orders were obeyed. As we turned slowly round, a wave swept across our starboard quarter filling the boats to the seats. Ye Gods! what a cold bath! And now we were in the midst of small streaming ice, broken and triturated into posh by the sea and grinding floes, and this was hurled back upon us by the reflex water and eddying current in the rear of the pack, which was rapidly moving before the wind. With bailers, buckets, and pumps doing their utmost, the two lee oars brought us around in good time, and we filed away on the other tack, the waves still leaping playfully in as though to keep us busy and spice our misery with the zest of danger.
“When day broke, neither of our companion boats was in sight. The wind had moderated greatly, and we were now in quiet water among the loose pack,—perhaps the most miserable looking collection of mortals that ever crowded shivering together in a heap. We looked, indeed, so utterly forlorn and wretched that just to revive and thaw, as it were, my drowned and frozen wits, I burst forth into frenzied song. Of a truth, as we sat shaking there, our situation was nigh desperate; we were down to an allowance of a pint of water to each man per day, now that De Long was separated from us; but upon the suggestion of some one in the boat, I set up the fire-pot and made hot tea. We were thus breakfasting when the first cutter hove in view. I at once joined company, and shortly after the second cutter made her appearance and we were again together. The sea soon calmed, les misérables thawed out, the morning became as pleasant as the memorable May mornings at home, and we again were bright and alive with hope.”
A SECOND WINTER IN THE PACK