“Our only salvation was to reach the stationary shore-ice. The edge of the moving floe was grinding it into a devilish porridge. Immense blocks, weighing tens of thousands of tons, were whirled round, leaped out of the sea, climbed on each other, rearing on high, groaning and roaring, and plunging and vanishing!”
PAINTING OF A SLEDGE SET UPON END FOR THE NIGHT, WITH SKINS AND MEAT HUNG UPON IT SO AS TO BE OUT OF REACH OF THE DOGS
They made the crossing and dragged on inland for three days. A gentle breeze was blowing. Borissoff heard a suspicious plash of water.
“It was horrible to believe our ears. We climbed a hummock; and there our eyes assured us that another channel of water really separated us from firm land! The floe began breaking up. The solid ground failed beneath us. Our feet were sucked into yielding quicksands of snow and splintered ice. We threw ourselves flat to distribute our weight and clutched the larger lumps. We lost our kerosene stove, the tray for lighting fires on, some of our cartridges, and most of our instruments. The sleeping-bags, fur coats, and other remnants of our supplies we managed to save.”
The despairing howls of their lost dogs cut them to the heart. The men lost courage. Borissoff and the two scientific men had to threaten the others with revolvers; and a tragedy on the ice was imminent, when they found themselves being carried into an extensive bay surrounded by lofty cliffs. On an iceberg they discovered brackish water. Later it gave them unbearable thirst, until the men cried: “Oh, God, for one small cup of warm water, to die in peace!”
Making a Fire with Seal Fat
Borissoff killed a seal and implored them to be patient while he made a fire with its oily fat to melt snow for drinking—a trick he had learned among the Samoyeds. Ravenously eating the liver, lights, kidneys, and brains raw, they began cutting the necessary pieces of fat. Borissoff would take a tiny log of firewood, cut it small, pour kerosene over it, rub it with fat, and light it. This had to be done in a tea-tin. They put fat on the fire. It burned splendidly. One small stick warmed the kettle; and the famished men were soon drinking lukewarm cocoa. During their further wanderings from floe to floe, they carried with them the embers of wood and treasured every little piece of rag and paper “to keep the lamp of our life burning as long as we should have seal fat. The wood embers seemed capable of burning for ever, provided there was enough fat!”