Radio Boys in the Secret Service; Or, Cast Away on an Iceberg

by J. W. Duffield

The iceberg, together with a considerable section of the floe, had broken away, leaving no solid connection with the land.

They passed an hour or more helplessly gazing at the rapidly widening gap between them and the mainland, and then decided that a long season of hardship was in store for them unless someone on shore learned of their predicament and came to their rescue. The wind was blowing almost a gale from the land now and was steadily widening the breach. They climbed to the highest point they could reach and erected a flag of seal-skin between two upright spears.

The two Eskimos, whose names were Emah and Tarmik, now made haste to prepare quarters to protect themselves and their dogs from the severe weather that threatened to come heavily upon them. With their “pick-axe” and harpoons they dug a cave in a wall of ice, and by evening they had hollowed out a room large enough to accommodate themselves and their four-footed companions. They removed the bear’s skin and spread this and another on the floor to sleep on. A few smaller skins they spread out for the dogs. In the entrance they piled up blocks of ice, leaving only sufficient opening for ventilation. Then they lighted some blubber in a stone lamp and soon the ice-walled room was very comfortable.

But they had a scant supply of blubber with them, and the bear they had slain, although large, was lean. Fortunately, however, they discovered a deposit of driftwood partly imbedded in the ice on the other side of the iceberg after they had fashioned the rude steps of the “stairway” into a series of safer footholds. Much of this wood they dug out and carried over to their cave, as they feared a further breaking of the ice.

Two days later this fear was realized. Large portions of this section of the ice-field broke off close to the berg on both sides. On the side where the cave had been hollowed out, only a small but well elevated area was left in front of their lodge.

Meanwhile they kept their flag at the top of the stairway as a signal of distress to passing ships. But none hove in sight, and life on their floating island became more desolate and lonely day by day. The days grew into weeks, and they lost all reckoning of time. The weather was stormy, snow and sleet fell, the wind blew heavy gales, and the iceberg moved rapidly, with the currents of air and water. Bear meat was their chief article of diet until the quarry that got them into trouble was devoured. Then they began to kill their dogs, slaying one at a time until only four were left. During much of this time, when the weather permitted, they were busy with hook and line, trying to catch fish for their larder, but they caught only a few. They would have set some traps for birds, but after the first few days afloat none flew near the iceberg.

Both of the Eskimos were asleep when the Herculanea was sunk within a cable’s length of their ice cave, and they knew nothing of the disaster until informed by Prof. Anderson. Cooped up as they were in their walls of frozen water, their slumbering ears had not been quickened by the explosion of the boilers or the screams of panic-stricken passengers. Moreover, their flag of distress fell from its anchorage, so that the castaways did not see it in the morning.

The professor elicited all this information from the Eskimos without a reference to the hunger of his companions, much to the disgust and impatience of some of the latter when they learned the nature of the, to them, unintelligible conversation. But he did not wish to frighten the two Greenlanders with the condition of affairs among the shipwrecked party, and he had a professional and scientific curiosity that demanded satisfaction almost as urgently as did the gnawing in his stomach.

By the time the story of the two Arctic men had been drawn out with many questions, the professor had a pretty clear idea of the extent of the assistance that might be expected from them. Turning to his companions he said:

“Gentlemen, we want to be careful what we do. We must treat these fellows with perfect justice. They have hardly enough to keep their own souls and bodies together. Whatever assistance we get from them must be obtained by appealing to their good nature, for they are good-natured fellows. About all they have that can be made into food is four dogs, and they would hardly supply one good square meal for all of us.”