On October 5, Lieutenant Lockwood says:—
“We have now three chances for our lives: First, finding American cache sufficient at Sabine or at Isabella; second, of crossing the straits when our present rations are gone; third, of shooting sufficient seal and walrus near by here to last during the winter. Our situation is certainly alarming in the extreme.”
These men were shelterless, with but a small food supply, with impassable barriers of ice north and south. “Some hunted on land, others on ice; some put up stone huts, others searched for cairns and records.” The Arctic night had settled upon them before their huts were barely finished, these huts of heavy granite stones, dug from the snow and ice, lifted with swollen and bleeding hands, put in place with back-breaking efforts, by enfeebled, weary men, and into them they crawled with torn clothing, hand and footgear in holes, covering shivering, aching bodies.
GREELY REACHES CAPE SABINE
In this desperate plight, scouts returned with news of the sinking of the Proteus and with the notice from Lieutenant Garlington, describing the disaster, his plans and his retreat, and the caches of provisions at Cape Sabine. Relying on the expressed promise that “everything within the power of man will be done to rescue the brave men at Fort Conger from their perilous position,” Greely at once endeavoured to move his party near that point. “Camp Clay” was established on Bedford Pim Island, which was reached October 15, with forty days’ rations to tide over two hundred and fifty days of darkness and misery until help could come. Another hut was erected by the same arduous methods employed in building former huts. The rock walls were about two feet thick and three feet high; outside this wall was an embankment of snow at first four feet thick, but as the season advanced the winter gales buried the hut entirely in snow.
“The whale-boat just caught on the end walls, and under that boat was the only place in which a man could even get on his knees and hold himself erect. Sitting in our bags, the heads of the tall men touched the roof.” “Compared to our previous quarters,” writes Greely, “the house is warm, but we are so huddled and crowded together that the confinement is almost intolerable. The men, though wretched from cold, hard work, and hunger, yet retain their spirits wonderfully.”
It now behooved the party to gather in the stores from all the caches, and this was done under the most trying conditions. The news of the loss of the Jeannette was learned by a newspaper found among the stores and brought in with other articles. Records and instruments of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition were safely cached early in October on Stalknecht Island.
During the few remaining days of light, the hunter, Long, with the Eskimo, remained out of the floe in the intense cold, ill fed, without shelter, for the purpose of securing seals or other game that might be seen. A seal was all that was secured under the most trying circumstances.
When certain of the stores were examined to ascertain their condition, the dog biscuits were evidently bad, but “When this bread, thoroughly rotten and covered with green mould, was thrown on the ground, the half-famished men sprang to it as wild animals would.” October 26, 1883, marked the last day of sunlight for one hundred and ten days. The hunters still pursued their labours, but without success. However, on the last day of the month, “Bender was fortunate enough to kill a blue fox with his fist; it was caught with its head in a meat-can.”
All rations had been collected except one hundred and forty-four pounds of beef cached by Nares in 1875, forty miles distant at Cape Isabella. A further reduction of the quantity of food served to each man was inaugurated November 1. The following day Rice, Frederick, Elison, and Lynn started in the Arctic night for Cape Isabella; on the fifth day out they reached their destination after the most hazardous travel in temperatures ranging from -20° to -25° with only sixteen ounces of food per day to each man. Taking up their cache of meat, they started on the return journey. On reaching their first camp after fourteen hours of hard travel, Elison, who had done this day’s work on a cup of tea and no food, was found to have frozen both his hands and feet. “Our sleeping-bag was no more nor less than a sheet of ice,” writes Frederick in his journal. “I placed one of Elison’s hands between my thighs, and Rice took the other, and in this way we drew the frost from his poor frozen limbs. This poor fellow cried all night from pain. This was one of the worst nights I ever spent in the Arctic.”