Although we had located the N 25, they did not see us till the afternoon of the second day, which was May 23rd. We had taken the small inflated balloons, which the meteorologist had given us with which to obtain data regarding the upper air strata, and after tying pieces of flannel to them set them loose. We hoped that the wind would drift them over to N 25 and so indicate to them in which direction to look for us. But the wind blew them in the wrong direction, or else they drifted too low and got tangled up in the rough ice.
Through all that first day the wind was blowing from the north and we could see quite a few patches of open water. On the second day the wind shifted to the south and the ice began to close in on us. It was as though we were in the grasp of a gigantic claw that was slowly but surely contracting. We had a feeling that soon we would be crushed.
On the third day, May 24th, the temperature was -11.5 c., and we had trouble with our pump freezing. The two planes were now slowly drifting together, and we established a line of communication, so that we knew each other’s positions pretty well. It is tedious work, semaphoring, for it requires two men: one with the flag, and the other with a pair of field-glasses to read the signals. It took us a whole hour merely to signal our positions, after which we must wait for their return signals and then reply to them.
On this day, after an exchange of signals, we decided to try to reach Amundsen. We packed our canvas canoe, put it on our sledge, and started across what looked to us like mountainous hummocks. After only going a few hundred yards we had to give up. The labor was too exhausting. With no sleep for three days, and only liquid food, our strength was not what it should have been. Leaving our canvas canoe, we now made up our packs of fifty pounds each, and pushed on. We may or we may not return to our plane again.
According to my diary we traveled the first two miles in two hours and fifteen minutes, when we came upon a large lead that separated us from the N 25 and which we could see no way to cross. We talked to them by signal and they advised our returning. So, after a seven-hour trip, we returned to our sinking plane, having covered perhaps five and one half miles in about the same length of time it had taken us to fly from Spitzbergen to Lat. 87.44. Arriving at our plane, we pitched camp again and cooked a heavy pemmican soup over our Primus stove. Dietrichson gave us a surprise by producing a small tin of George Washington coffee. We took some of the pure alcohol carried for the Primus stove and put it into the coffee, and with pipes lighted felt more or less happy.
As we smoked in silence, each with his own thoughts, Dietrichson suddenly clasped his hands to his eyes, exclaiming: “Something is the matter with my eyes!” He was snow-blind, but never having experienced this before, did not know what had happened to him. We had been careful to wear our snow-glasses during most of the journey, but perhaps not quite careful enough. After bandaging Dietrichson’s eyes, Omdal and I put him to bed and then continued with our smoking and thoughts. It seems strange, when I think back now, that during those days nothing that happened greatly surprised us. Everything that happened was accepted as part of the day’s work. This is an interesting sidelight on man’s adaptability to his environment.
All our energies were now being bent in getting the N 24 up onto the ice floe, for we knew she would be crushed if we left her in the lead. The whole cake we were on was only about 200 meters in diameter, and there was only one level stretch on it of eighty meters. It was laborious work for Dietrichson and myself to try to clear the soggy wet snow, for all we had to work with was one clumsy home-made wooden shovel and our ice-anchor. As I would loosen the snow by picking at it with the anchor, Dietrichson would shovel it away.
Looking through our glasses at N 25, we could see the propellers going, and Amundsen pulling up and down on the wings, trying to loosen the plane from the ice, but she did not budge. On the morning of May 26th, Amundsen signaled to us that if we couldn’t save our plane to come over and help them. We had so far succeeded in getting the nose of our plane up onto the ice-cake, but with only one engine working it was impossible to do more. Anyway, she was safe now from sinking, but not from being crushed, should the ice press in on her. During the five days of our separation the ice had so shifted that the two planes were now plainly in sight of each other and only half a mile apart. During all that time the ice had been in continual movement, so that now all the heavy ice had moved out from between the two camps. We signaled to the N 25 that we were coming, and making up loads of eighty pounds per man, we started across the freshly frozen lead that separated us from our companions. We were well aware of the chances we were taking, crossing this new ice, but we saw no other alternative. We must get over to N 25 with all possible speed if we were ever to get back again to civilization.
With our feet shoved loosely into our skis, for we never fastened them on here for fear of getting tangled up, should we fall into the sea, we shuffled along, slowly feeling our way over the thin ice. Omdal was in the lead, myself and Dietrichson—who had recovered from his slight attack of snowblindness the next day—following in that order. Suddenly I heard Dietrichson yelling behind me, and before I knew what it was all about Omdal ahead of me cried out also and disappeared as though the ice beneath him had suddenly opened and swallowed him. The ice under me started to sag, and I quickly jumped sideways to avoid the same fate that had overtaken my companions. There just happened to be some old ice beside me and that was what saved me. Lying down on my stomach, partly on this ledge of old ice, and partly out on the new ice, I reached the skis out and pulled Dietrichson over to where I could grab his pack and partly pull him out onto the firmer ice, where he lay panting and exhausted. Then I turned my attention to Omdal. Only his pallid face showed above the water. It is strange, when I think that both these Norwegians had been conversing almost wholly in their native tongue, that Omdal was now crying in English, “I’m gone! I’m gone!”—and he was almost gone too. The only thing that kept him from going way under was the fact that he kept digging his fingers into the ice. I reached him just in time to pull him over to the firmer ice. I reached him just before he sank and held him by his pack until Dietrichson could crawl over to me and hold him up, while I cut off the pack. It took all the remaining strength of the two of us to drag Omdal up onto the old ice.
Our companions could not reach us, neither could they see us, as a few old ice hummocks of great size stood directly in front of N 25. They could do nothing but listen to the agonizing cries of their fellow-men in distress. We finally succeeded in getting over to our companions, who gave us dry clothes and hot chocolate, and we were soon all right again, except for Omdal’s swollen and lacerated hands. Both men had lost their skis. In view of the probability of being forced to tramp to Greenland, four hundred miles away, the loss of these skis seemed a calamity.