Fast in the Ice: Adventures in the Polar Regions

Chapter One

One day, many years ago, a brig cast off from her moorings, and sailed from a British port for the Polar Seas. That brig never came back.

Many a hearty cheer was given, many a kind wish was uttered, many a handkerchief was waved, and many a tearful eye gazed that day as the vessel left Old England, and steered her course into the unknown regions of the far north.

But no cheer ever greeted her return; no bright eyes ever watched her homeward-bound sails rising on the far-off horizon.

Battered by the storms of the Arctic seas, her sails and cordage stiffened by the frosts, and her hull rasped and shattered by the ice of those regions, she was forced on a shore where the green grass has little chance to grow, where winter reigns nearly all the year round, where man never sends his merchandise, and never drives his plough. There the brig was frozen in; there, for two long years, she lay unable to move, and her starving crew forsook her; there, year after year, she lay, unknown, unvisited by civilised man, and unless the wild Eskimos1 have torn her to pieces, and made spears of her timbers, or the ice has swept her out to sea and whirled her to destruction, there she lies still—hard and fast in the ice.

The vessel was lost, but her crew were saved, and most of them returned to tell their kinsfolk of the wonders and the dangers of the frozen regions, where God has created some of the most beautiful and some of the most awful objects that were ever looked on by the eye of man.

What was told by the fireside, long ago, is now recounted in this book.

Imagine a tall, strong man, of about five-and-forty, with short, curly black hair, just beginning to turn grey; stern black eyes, that look as if they could pierce into your secret thoughts; a firm mouth, with lines of good-will and kindness lurking about it; a deeply-browned skin, and a short, thick beard and moustache. That is a portrait of the commander of the brig. His name was Harvey. He stood on the deck, close by the wheel, looking wistfully over the stern. As the vessel bent before the breeze, and cut swiftly through the water, a female hand was raised among the gazers on the pier, and a white scarf waved in the breeze. In the forefront of the throng, and lower down, another hand was raised; it was a little one, but very vigorous; it whirled a cap round a small head of curly black hair, and a shrill “hurrah!” came floating out to sea.

The captain kissed his hand and waved his hat in reply; then, wheeling suddenly round, he shouted, in a voice of thunder:

“Mind your helm, there; let her away a point. Take a pull on these foretopsail halyards; look alive, lads!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” replied the men.

There was no occasion whatever for these orders. The captain knew that well enough, but he had his own reasons for giving them. The men knew that, too, and they understood his reasons when they observed the increased sternness of his eyes, and the compression of his lips.

Inclination and duty! What wars go on in the hearts of men—high and low, rich and poor—between these two. What varied fortune follows man, according as the one or the other carries the day.

“Please, sir,” said a gruff, broad-shouldered, and extremely short man, with little or no forehead, a hard, vacant face, and a pair of enormous red whispers; “please, sir, Sam Baker’s took very bad; I think it would be as well if you could give him a little physic, sir; a tumbler of Epsom, or some-think of that sort.”

“Why, Mr Dicey, there can’t be anything very far wrong with Baker,” said the captain, looking down at his second mate; “he seems to me one of the healthiest men in the ship. What’s the matter with him?”

“Well, I can’t say, sir,” replied Mr Dicey, “but he looks ’orrible bad, all yellow and green about the gills, and fearful red round the eyes. But what frightens me most is that I heard him groanin’ very heavy about a quarter of an hour ago, and then I saw him suddenly fling himself into his ’ammock and begin blubberin’ like a child. Now, sir, I say, when a grow’d-up man gives way like that, there must be some-think far wrong with his inside. And it’s a serious thing, sir, to take a sick man on such a voyage as this.”

“Does he not say what’s wrong with him?” asked the captain.

“No, sir; he don’t. He says it’s nothin’, and he’ll be all right if he’s only let alone. I did hear him once or twice muttering some-think about his wife and child; you know, sir, he’s got a young wife, and she had a baby about two months ’fore we came away, but I can’t think that’s got much to do with it, for I’ve got a wife myself, sir, and six children, two of ’em bein’ babies, and that don’t upset me, and Baker’s a much stronger man.”

“You are right, Mr Dicey, he is a much stronger man than you,” replied the captain, “and I doubt not that his strength will enable him to get over this without the aid of physic.”

“Very well, sir,” said Mr Dicey.

The second mate was a man whose countenance never showed any signs of emotion, no matter what he felt. He seldom laughed, or, if he did, his mouth remained almost motionless, and the sounds that came out were anything but cheerful. He had light grey eyes which always wore an expression of astonishment; but the expression was accidental; it indicated no feeling. He would have said, “Very well, sir,” if the captain had refused to give poor Baker food instead of physic.

“And hark’ee, Mr Dicey,” said the captain, “don’t let him be disturbed till he feels inclined to move.”

“Very well, sir,” replied the second mate, touching his cap as he turned away.

“So,” murmured the captain, as he gazed earnestly at the now distant shore, “I’m not the only one who carries a heavy heart to sea this day and leaves sorrowing hearts behind him.”

Chapter Two

At Sea—The First Storm

It is now hundreds of years since the North polar regions began to attract general attention. Men have long felt very inquisitive about that part of the earth, and many good ships, many noble lives have been lost in trying to force a passage through the ice that encumbers the Arctic seas, summer and winter. Britain has done more than other nations in the cause of discovery within the Arctic circle. The last and greatest of her Arctic heroes perished there—the famous Sir John Franklin.

Were I writing a history of those regions I would have much to say of other countries as well as of our own. But such is not my object in this book. I mean simply to follow in the wake of one of Britain’s adventurous discoverers, and thus give the reader an idea of the fortunes of those gallant men who risk life and limb for the sake of obtaining knowledge of distant lands.

There have always been restless spirits in this country. There have ever been men who, when boys, were full of mischief, and who could “settle to nothing” when they grew up. Lucky for us, lucky for the world, that such is the case! Many of our “restless spirits,” as we call them, have turned out to be our heroes, our discoverers, our greatest men. No doubt many of them have become our drones, our sharpers, our blacklegs. But that is just saying that some men are good, while others are bad—no blame is due to what is called the restlessness of spirit. Our restless men, if good, find rest in action; in bold energetic toil; if bad, they find rest, alas! in untimely graves.

Captain Harvey was one of our restless spirits. He had a deeply learned friend who said to him one day that he felt sure “there was a sea of open water round the North Pole!” Hundreds of ships had tried to reach that pole without success, because they always found a barrier of thick ice raised against them. This friend said that if a ship could only cut or force its way through the ice to a certain latitude north, open water would be found. Captain Harvey was much interested in this. He could not rest until he had proved it. He had plenty of money, so had his friend. They resolved to buy a vessel and send it to the seas lying within the Arctic circle. Other rich friends helped them; a brig was bought, it was named the Hope, and, as we have seen in the last chapter, it finally set sail under command of Captain Harvey.

Many days and nights passed, and the Hope kept her course steadily toward the coast of North America. Greenland was the first land they hoped to see. Baffin’s Bay was the strait through which they hoped to reach the open polar sea.

The Hope left England as a whaler, with all the boats, lances, harpoons, lines, and other apparatus used in the whale fishery. It was intended that she should do a little business in that way if Captain Harvey thought it advisable, but the discovery of new lands and seas was their chief end and aim.

At first the weather was fine, the wind fair, and the voyage prosperous. But one night there came a deep calm. Not a breath of air moved over the sea, which was as clear and polished as a looking-glass. The captain walked the deck with the surgeon of the ship, a nephew of his own, named Gregory.

Tom Gregory was a youth of about nineteen, who had not passed through the whole course of a doctor’s education, but who was a clever fellow, and better able to cut and carve and physic poor suffering humanity than many an older man who wrote M.D. after his name. He was a fine, handsome, strapping fellow, with a determined manner and a kind heart. He was able to pull an oar with the best man aboard, and could even steer the brig in fine weather, if need be. He was hearty and romantic, and a great favourite with the men. He, too, was a restless spirit. He had grown tired of college life, and had made up his mind to take a year’s run into the Polar regions, by way of improving his knowledge of the “outlandish” parts of the world.

“I don’t like the look of the sky to-day, Tom,” said the captain, glancing at the horizon and then at the sails.

“Indeed!” said Tom, in surprise. “It seems to me the most beautiful afternoon we have had since the voyage began. But I suppose you seamen are learned in signs which we landsmen do not understand.”

“Perhaps we are,” replied the captain; “but it does not require much knowledge of the weather to say that such a dead calm as this, and such unusual heat, is not likely to end in a gentle breeze.”

“You don’t object to a stiff breeze, uncle?” said the youth.

“No, Tom; but I don’t like a storm, because it does us no good, and may do us harm.”

“Storms do you no good, uncle!” cried Tom; “how can you say so? Why, what is it that makes our sailors such trumps? The British tar would not be able to face danger as he does if there were no storms.”

“True, Tom, but the British tar would not require to face danger at all if there were no storms. What says the barometer, Mr Mansell?” said the captain, looking down the skylight into the cabin, where the first mate—a middle-sized man of thirty-five, or thereabouts—was seated at the table writing up the ship’s log-book.

“The glass has gone down an inch, sir, and is still falling,” answered the mate.

“Reef the topsail, Mr Dicey,” cried the captain, on hearing this.

“Why such haste?” inquired Gregory.

“Because such a sudden fall in the barometer is a sure sign of approaching bad weather,” answered the captain.

The first man on the shrouds and out upon the main-topsail yard was Sam Baker, whose active movements and hearty manner showed that he had quite recovered his health without the use of physic. He was quickly followed by some of his shipmates, all of whom were picked men—able in body and ready for anything.

In a few minutes sail was reduced. Soon after that clouds began to rise on the horizon and spread over the sky. Before half an hour had passed the breeze came—came far stronger than had been expected—and the order to take in sail had to be repeated. Baker was first again. He was closely followed by Joe Davis and Jim Croft, both of them sturdy fellows—good specimens of the British seaman. Davy Butts, who came next, was not so good a specimen. He was nearly six feet high, very thin and loosely put together, like a piece of bad furniture. But his bones were big, and he was stronger than he looked. He would not have formed one of such a crew had he not been a good man. The rest of the crew, of whom there were eighteen, not including the officers, were of all shapes, sizes, and complexions.

The sails had scarcely been taken in when the storm burst on the brig in all its fury. The waves rose like mountains and followed after her, as if they were eager to swallow her up. The sky grew dark overhead as the night closed in, the wind shrieked through the rigging, and the rag of canvas that they ventured to hoist seemed about to burst away from the yard. It was an awful night. Such a night as causes even reckless men to feel how helpless they are—how dependent on the arm of God. The gale steadily increased until near midnight, when it blew a perfect hurricane.

“It’s a dirty night,” observed the captain, to the second mate, as the latter came on deck to relieve the watch.

“It is, sir,” replied Mr Dicey, as coolly as if he were about to sit down to a good dinner on shore. Mr Dicey was a remarkably matter-of-fact man. He looked upon a storm as he looked upon a fit of the toothache—a thing that had to be endured, and was not worth making a fuss about.

“It won’t last long,” said the captain.

“No, sir; it won’t,” answered Mr Dicey.

As Mr Dicey did not seem inclined to say more, the captain went below and flung himself on a locker, having given orders that he should be called if any change for the worse took place in the weather. Soon afterward a tremendous sea rose high over the stern, and part of it fell on the deck with a terrible crash, washing Mr Dicey into the lee-scuppers, and almost sweeping him overboard. On regaining his feet, and his position beside the wheel, the second mate shook himself and considered whether he ought to call the captain. Having meditated some time, he concluded that the weather was no worse, although it had treated him very roughly, so he did not disturb the captain’s repose.

Thus the storm raged all that night. It tossed the Hope about like a cork; it well-nigh blew the sails off the masts, and almost blew Mr Dicey’s head off his shoulders! then it stopped as it had begun—suddenly.

Chapter Three

In the Ice—Dangers of Arctic Voyaging

Next morning the Hope was becalmed in the midst of a scene more beautiful than the tongue or the pen of man can describe.

When the sun rose that day, it shone upon what appeared to be a field of glass and a city of crystal. Every trace of the recent storm was gone except a long swell, which caused the brig to roll considerably, but which did not break the surface of the sea.

Ice was to be seen all round as far as the eye could reach. Ice in every form and size imaginable. And the wonderful thing about it was that many of the masses resembled the buildings of a city. There were houses, and churches, and monuments, and spires, and ruins. There were also islands and mountains! Some of the pieces were low and flat, no bigger than a boat; others were tall, with jagged tops; some of the fields, as they are called, were a mile and more in extent, and there were a number of bergs, or ice-mountains, higher than the brig’s topmasts. These last were almost white, but they had, in many places, a greenish-blue colour that was soft and beautiful. The whole scene shone and sparkled so brilliantly in the morning sun, that one could almost fancy it was one of the regions of fairyland!

When young Gregory came on the quarter-deck, no one was there except Jim Croft, a short, thick-set man, with the legs of a dwarf and the shoulders of a giant. He stood at the helm, and although no steering was required, as there was no wind, he kept his hands on the spokes of the wheel, and glanced occasionally at the compass. The first mate, who had the watch on deck, was up at the masthead, observing the state of the ice.

“How glorious!” exclaimed the youth, as he swept his sparkling eye round the horizon. “Ah, Croft! is not this splendid?”

“So it is, sir,” said the seaman, turning the large quid of tobacco that bulged out his left cheek. “It’s very beautiful, no doubt, but it’s comin’ rather thick for my taste.”

“How so?” inquired Gregory. “There seems to me plenty of open water to enable us to steer clear of these masses. Besides, as we have no wind, it matters little, I should think, whether we have room to sail or not.”

“You’ve not seed much o’ the ice yet, that’s plain,” said Croft, “else you’d know that the floes are closin’ round us, an’ we’ll soon be fast in the pack, if a breeze don’t spring up to help us.”

As the reader may not, perhaps, understand the terms used by Arctic voyagers in regard to the ice in its various forms, it may be as well here to explain the meaning of those most commonly used.

When ice is seen floating in small detached pieces and scattered masses, it is called “floe” ice, and men speak of getting among the floes. When these floes close up, so that the whole sea seems to be covered with them, and little water can be seen, it is called “pack” ice. When the pack is squeezed together, so that lumps of it are forced up in the form of rugged mounds, these mounds are called “hummocks.” A large mass of flat ice, varying from one mile to many miles in extent, is called a “field,” and a mountain of ice is called a “berg.”

All the ice here spoken of, except the berg, is sea-ice; formed by the freezing of the ocean in winter. The berg is formed in a very different manner. Of this more shall be said in a future chapter.

“Well, my lad,” said Gregory, in reply to Jim Croft’s last observation, “I have not seen much of the ice yet, as you truly remark, so I hope that the wind will not come to help us out of it for some time. You don’t think it dangerous to get into the pack, do you?”

“Well, not exactly dangerous, sir,” replied Croft, “but I must say that it aint safe, ’specially when there’s a swell on like this. But that’ll go down soon. D’ye know what a nip is, Dr Gregory?”

“I think I do; at least I have read of such a thing. But I should be very glad to hear what you have to say about it. No doubt you have felt one.”

“Felt one!” cried Jim, screwing up his face and drawing his limbs together, as if he were suffering horrible pain, “no, I’ve never felt one. The man what feels a nip aint likely to live to tell what his feelin’s was. But I’ve seed one.”

“You’ve seen one, have you? That must have been interesting. Where was it?”

“Not very far from the Greenland coast,” said Croft, giving his quid another turn. “This was the way of it. You must know that there was two ships of us in company at the time. Whalers we was. We got into the heart of the pack somehow, and we thought we’d never get out of it again. There was nothin’ but ice all round us as far as the eye could see. The name of our ship was the Nancy. Our comrade was the Bullfinch. One mornin’ early we heard a loud noise of ice rubbin’ agin the sides o’ the ship, so we all jumped up, an’ on deck as fast as we could, for there’s short time given to save ourselves in them seas sometimes. The whole pack, we found, was in motion, and a wide lead of water opened up before us, for all the world like a smooth river or canal windin’ through the pack. Into this we warped the ship, and hoistin’ sail, steered away cheerily. We passed close to the Bullfinch, which was still hard and fast in the pack, and we saw that her crew were sawin’ and cuttin’ away at the ice, tryin’ to get into the lead that we’d got into. So we hailed them, and said we would wait for ’em outside the pack, if we got through. But the words were no sooner spoken, when the wind it died away, and we were becalmed about half a mile from the Bullfinch.

“‘You’d better go down to breakfast, boys,’ says our captain, says he, ‘the breeze won’t be long o’ comin’ again.’

“So down the men went, and soon after that the steward comes on deck, and, says he to the captain, ‘Breakfast, sir.’ ‘Very good,’ says the captain, and down he went too, leavin’ me at the wheel and the mate in charge of the deck. He’d not been gone three minutes when I noticed that the great field of ice on our right was closin’ in on the field on our left, and the channel we was floatin’ in was closin’ up. The mate noticed it, too, but he wouldn’t call the captain ’cause the ice came so slowly and quietly on that for a few minutes we could hardly believe it was movin’ and everything around us looked so calm and peaceful like that it was difficult to believe our danger was so great. But this was only a momentary feelin’, d’ye see. A minute after that the mate he cries down to the captain:—

“‘Ice closin’ up, sir!’

“And the captain he runs on deck. By this time there was no mistake about it; the ice was close upon us. It was clear that we were to have a nip. So the captain roars down the hatchway, ‘Tumble up there! tumble up! every man alive! for your lives!’ And sure enough they did tumble up, as I never seed ’em do it before—two or three of ’em was sick; they came up with their clothes in their hands. The ice was now almost touchin’ our sides, and I tell you, sir, I never did feel so queerish in all my life before as when I looked over the side at the edge of that great field of ice which rose three foot out o’ the water, and was, I suppose, six foot more below the surface. It came on so slow that we could hardly see the motion. Inch by inch the water narrowed between it and our sides. At last it touched on the left side, and that shoved us quicker on to the field on our right. Every eye was fixed on it—every man held his breath. You might have heard a pin fall on the deck. It touched gently at first, then there was a low grindin’ and crunchin’ sound. The ship trembled as if it had been a livin’ creetur, and the beams began to crack. Now, you must know, sir, that when a nip o’ this sort takes a ship the ice usually eases off, after giving her a good squeeze, or when the pressure is too much for her, the ice slips under her bottom and lifts her right out o’ the water. But our Nancy was what we call wall-sided. She was never fit to sail in them seas. The consequence was that the ice crushed her sides in. The moment the captain heard the beams begin to go he knew it was all up with the ship; so he roared to take to the ice for our lives! You may be sure we took his advice. Over the side we went, every man Jack of us, and got on the ice. We did not take time to save an article belongin’ to us; and it was as well we did not, for the ice closed up with a crash, and we heard the beams and timbers rending like a fire of musketry in the hold. Her bottom must have been cut clean away, for she stood on the ice just as she had floated on the sea. Then the noise stopped, the ice eased off, and the ship began to settle. The lead of water opened up again; in ten minutes after that the Nancy went to the bottom and left us standing there on the ice.

“It was the mercy of God that let it happen so near the Bullfinch. We might have been out o’ sight o’ that ship at the time, and then every man of us would have bin lost. As it was, we had a hard scramble over a good deal of loose ice, jumpin’ from lump to lump, and some of us fallin’ into the water several times, before we got aboard. Now that was a bad nip, sir, warn’t it?”

“It certainly was,” replied Gregory; “and although I delight in being among the ice, I sincerely hope that our tight little brig may not be tried in the same way. But she is better able to stand it, I should think.”

“That she is, sir,” replied Croft, with much confidence. “I seed her in dock, sir, when they was a-puttin’ of extra timbers on the bow, and I do believe she would stand twice as much bad usage as the Nancy got, though she is only half the size.”

Jim Croft’s opinion on this point was well founded, for the Hope had indeed been strengthened and prepared for her ice battles with the greatest care, by men of experience and ability. As some readers may be interested in this subject, I shall give a brief account of the additions that were made to her hull.

The vessel was nearly two hundred tons burden. She had originally been built very strongly, and might even have ventured on a voyage to the Polar seas just as she was. But Captain Harvey resolved to take every precaution to insure the success of his voyage, and the safety and comfort of his men. He, therefore, had the whole of the ship’s bottom sheathed with thick hardwood planking, which was carried up above her water-line, as high as the ordinary floe-ice would be likely to reach. The hull inside was strengthened with stout cross-beams, as well as with beams running along the length of the vessel, and in every part that was likely to be subjected to pressure iron stanchions were fastened. But the bow of the vessel was the point where the utmost strength was aimed at. Inside, just behind the cutwater, the whole space was so traversed by cross-beams of oak that it almost became a solid mass, and outside the sharp stem was cased in iron so as to resemble a giant’s chisel. The false keel was taken off, the whole vessel, in short, was rendered as strong, outside and in, as wood and iron and skill could make her. It need scarcely be said that all the other arrangements about her were made with the greatest care and without regard to expense, for although the owners of the brig did not wish to waste their money, they set too high a value on human life to risk it for the sake of saving a few pounds. She was provisioned for a cruise of two years and a half. But this was in case of accidents, for Captain Harvey did not intend to be absent much longer than one year.