Arctic Adventures

Chapter Eight

We now waited in anxious expectation for the arrival of our shipmates, but they did not appear. The days were getting shorter, the nights longer. The cold was increasing. Often and often we gazed out over the ice. As far as we could judge no change had taken place in it. A vast snow-covered plain, with here and there mountainous heights of ice could be seen extending as far as the horizon. Unfortunately we had not brought a telescope, or we thought that we might have discovered our friends. At length we began to entertain the most serious apprehensions as to their fate.

We had one evening turned in, and, having closed the door of the hut, had lighted our lamp and composed ourselves to sleep, when Ewen roused me up.

“I heard a shout!” he exclaimed, “they must be coming.”

We slipped into our day clothing, and hurried out, carrying our rifles in our hands, for we never moved without them.

Again there was a shout: we replied to it with all our might. Some one was evidently approaching. More clearly to show our position, I fired off my rifle, and sent Croil in to light a small piece of drift-wood the only thing we possessed to serve as a torch. Again and again we shouted: at length we caught sight through the gloom of night of some dark spots moving over the snow.

“Hurrah!” cried Ewen, “there are our shipmates!” Soon after he had spoken I discovered three of the dogs dragging the sledge and two men following them. The one was Sandy, the other Hans the seaman.

Hurrying forward we led them up to the hut. Sandy could scarcely speak.

“We are well-nigh starved, and I thought we should never get back,” he said at length.

“Where are our shipmates? Why haven’t they come?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you all about it when we have had some food and rest. Can you give us something to eat?”

“Plenty,” I answered, leading him and Hans into the hut, while Ewen and Croil unharnessed the poor dogs, who looked well-nigh famished. Ewen gave them some bears’ flesh, and they devoured it with a greediness which showed that they had gone long without a meal.

We soon had some slices of meat frying on our stove and some snow melting. After the two weary travellers had eaten, and drank some hot coffee, Sandy gave us the alarming intelligence that he had been unable to reach the camp. On arriving at the edge of the land-ice, what was his dismay to discover a wide gap between it and the field in the midst of which our friends were encamped, and which was in motion drifting southward. Still, hoping that it might again come in contact with the land-ice, he determined to move in the same direction. He caught sight indeed of a flag and what he took to be a portion of the wreck, though at so great a distance that he did not suppose the sound of his rifle, which he fired off, would be heard. No object indeed would have been gained had it been so, as it would have been impossible for one party to communicate with the other. For two days he followed the floe, but the distance between it and the land-ice increased. At length the ice over which he was travelling became so rough that he could proceed no further; he lost sight of the floe and its living freight, and was reluctantly compelled to return for want of food. One of the dogs gave in and it was killed and eaten. The last morsels had been consumed the day before he and Hans reached the hut. Their joy at finding us still there may be imagined, for had we by any chance fallen in with natives and accompanied them to the south, they fully expected to perish.

As soon as the meal was over, the two weary travellers lay down to sleep. Croil imitated their example, while Ewen and I sat up by the light of the lamp, I mending clothes and my friend engaged in preparing a small tub for holding bear’s grease to serve us for fuel. Our conversation naturally took a melancholy turn. The thought that the floe on which were my brother and his companions might be dashed to pieces, and that they would perish miserably, was painful in the extreme. We thought more of them, indeed, than of ourselves, though our position was truly perilous. Our only shelter during the intense cold of an Arctic winter was an ice hut. Hitherto the bears we had shot had afforded us food and fuel; but they might take their departure, and we should then have no other food on which to depend, until the return of spring should enable us to kill walruses and seals. No ships, even in the summer, were likely to penetrate so far north, for few whalers had got so near the pole as the Hardy Norseman had done, and destruction had overtaken her.

“Still I have heard that people have wintered in Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, even with fewer means of supporting themselves than we possess,” observed Ewen. “We must not despair, Hugh, but trust in God; Sandy’s return to us is greatly to our advantage; for with his harpoon, when our powder is expended, he will be able to kill seals, and furnish us with food.”

“I am thinking of my brother Andrew, and the hopelessness of finding David,” I replied.

“But we do not know that he and the rest of the party are lost, and if your brother David is alive he may still make his escape wherever he may be.”

At last Ewen and I, having trimmed the lamp that it might keep alight, and maintain sufficient warmth in the hut, carefully closed the door and lay down to sleep.

There was no necessity for keeping a watch as was the case on the floe, nor had we the dread of an attack from hostile natives, for no human beings were likely to come near us. We should have been heartily ready to welcome any Esquimaux should they find us out.

I awoke at the usual hour, just before day-break, and getting up trimmed the lamp which had almost gone out, and set to work to prepare breakfast for my companions.

After a time I called up Ewen and Croil, but we allowed Sandy and Hans to sleep on, keeping the breakfast ready to give them the moment they should awake. It was noon before they opened their eyes, when having taken the food we offered them they fell asleep again. It was several days, indeed, before they got over the fatigue of their journey.

Sandy, when once himself again, was as anxious as any of us to make preparations for passing the winter. We talked of pushing southward to seek a more level region, but the lofty hills in the distance, without the appearance of any spot on which we could land, made us hesitate. As the days were now only of three hours’ duration, we feared that we should not have light for more than a very short journey, and it was impossible to endure the cold for any length of time after the sun had gone down. We had already a good supply of bear’s meat, but it was important to get more. Our store we had buried in a pit close to the hut, so that no roving bears could get at it. They are in no way particular, and would quite as readily feast on the flesh of their relatives as on any other meat. We had frequently seen their tracks made during the night close outside the hut, but they must have taken their departure, like spirits of another world, before dawn. They were not as hungry at this time of the year as they would be further on, when no seals were to be caught and the deer and other animals had migrated southward. At length the sun sank beneath the horizon, not again to rise until the end of a long winter’s night. The cold too had become so intense that we could only keep ourselves warm in the hut with the door closed and the lamp alight, but then it was almost too hot. We had, therefore, to make a window through which we could admit fresh air, without the necessity of opening the door; but when there was any wind we were obliged to fill up the aperture with snow, for the smallest orifice admitted a draught of air which pierced the hand like a needle when held up to it. The poor dogs had to be taken inside, for though we had built kennels for them close to the hut, there was a great risk of their being carried off by bears while we were asleep. Those “monarchs of the realms of ice,” as they are poetically called, had scented us out, and scarcely an hour passed but one made his appearance. Sometimes they got off, though we killed no inconsiderable number, thus adding to our stock of food, while their skins enabled us to make our beds as warm as we could desire. At length, however, they became more daring and troublesome, so that none of us could go out of the hut alone lest we should be carried off.

We had expended by this time so much of our powder that we had resolved to use no more of it until the return of spring, when we should require it on our journey southward.

How the winter went by I can scarcely describe. We had no books, but were never idle, being always employed in manufacturing articles with our knives, either from bones or pieces of drift-wood, or making shoes and clothing from the bears’ skins.

We were thus employed, having opened the window to admit some fresh air, and a few rays of the returning light of day, when, looking up, what should I see but the snout of a bear poked through the aperture, evidently enjoying the odours arising from some steaks frying on our stone.

Not at all disconcerted by the shouts we raised, for the sake of getting the savoury morsels, he began scraping away at the snow walls, in which, with his powerful claws, he could speedily have made an alarming breach.

Sandy, jumping up with his harpoon, which he had been polishing, in his hand, darted it with all his might at the bear. Fortunately his weapon did not stick in the animal’s throat, or he might, I confidently believe, have pulled down the whole structure in his struggles.

Uttering a roar of pain, the bear started back. His roar was repeated by several other bears outside, who must have joined it from sympathy, echoed by the dogs from the inside, who jumped about eager to attack their foes.

Ewen was about to open the door, when Sandy stopped him.

“Let us see how many of these gentlemen there are outside, for I’ve a notion there are more than we should wish to tackle,” he observed.

He and I looked out of the window, when we saw no less than three huge bears close to the hut, while the fellow we had wounded and several others were visible further off, watching the proceedings of their friends, whose evident intention it was to break in if they could, to eat the savoury steaks we were cooking, and us into the bargain. Notwithstanding our intention of not using our fire-arms, we must either kill the baars if we could not drive them off, or run the risk of being torn to pieces by them.

As they seemed resolved to pull our hut down for the sake of getting at us, we loaded our fire-arms and prepared for the defence of our fortress. Sandy desired me to take my post at the window, and to shoot down as many as I could, while he with the rest of the party opened the door and sallied out to attack the invaders. I advised him, however, to wait and see the result of my shots, unless the bears should actually begin to tear down the walls. Taking aim at the nearest, I fired. The thick smoke prevented me for some seconds from seeing the effect of my shot. Great was my satisfaction when I perceived the bear struggling on his back in the snow.

Ewen then handed me up his rifle, and while he reloaded mine, I took aim at the next bear, which I knocked over in the same fashion as I had the first; but strange to say, their companions, instead of being frightened and running away, came growling up as if resolved to revenge their deaths.

On seeing this, Sandy, who was looking over my shoulder, calling the rest of the party, opened the door, and fired a volley, all hands shouting at the same time at the top of their voices.

One of the bears fell; the rest, terrified and pursued by the dogs, who bolted out, took to flight. We called off our canine attendants, who were, however, very unwilling to return, coming slowly back, and every now and then facing round and barking furiously at the retreating bears.

Four of the animals had been killed, and we had made, as Sandy observed, “a good morning’s work.” It took us some time to cut them up and stow the flesh away in our pit, while the preparation of the skins gave us abundant occupation, though not a pleasant one in the confined hut.

Day after day went by; the sun remained longer and longer above the horizon; while the warmth sensibly increased, when there happened to be no wind, although the air was still cold enough to make our thick clothing indispensable.

We now began to make preparations for our journey southward, which must be performed before the land-ice should begin to break up.

I suggested that some of the party should first make a trip with part of our provisions, sufficient for three or four days, to the south, and there form a depot, so that we might not run the risk of starving should we fail to kill any animals, and this was agreed to.

Sandy and I drew lots which of us should go, and which remain at the hut.

The lot fell on him to go, and he chose Hans and Croil to accompany him. I confess that I would far rather have gone, but having agreed to the proposal, I felt bound to yield to his wishes.

The party set off the next morning with the tent, and as much bear’s meat as they chose to carry, and a portion of the remainder of our other stores. Ewen and I saw them off, not without some forebodings of evil, and then returned to our hut to employ ourselves as usual.

We never allowed the time to hang heavily on our hands, though we would have given a great deal for a book of any description, especially for a Bible, for that could have been read over and over again with advantage, whereas any other book would have been quickly got through. We calculated that Sandy would be absent a week or ten days at the utmost. The ten days had elapsed, and Sandy had not appeared; a fearful snow-storm, with a violent wind, had, however, come on, and confined us to the hut, and we concluded that he and his companions had pitched their tent, and had halted until it should be over, and that we might thus expect to see them at any hour.

Still days went by after this, and they did not come.

“Can they have deserted us?” asked Ewen.

“I am sure that they have not willingly done so,” I replied. “Some serious accident I fear may have happened to prevent them from returning.”

Our position had now become critical in the extreme. In a short time the ice might leave the shore, and our escape from the bay would be impossible.

We resolved at once to set out. Should the party be returning, we might perhaps meet them. If not, we must push on as long as our strength lasted. Having accordingly packed up our meat, our lamp, our stock of oil, and our ammunition, we set out.

We might find shelter in some cavern in the cliffs, or if not we could build a snow-hut of sufficient size to contain us. We might even venture to sleep out on calm nights, covered up in our blankets.

Before quitting the spot we closed the door of our hut, to prevent the ingress of bears, for we might possibly have to return to it, though as the warmth of the sun increased it would melt away.

We trudged on manfully, both feeling in better spirits than we had done for some days. On our right rose lofty cliffs, and occasionally vast masses of ice formed into glaciers a mile or more in extent, while on the left stretched out a vast field of ice, out of which rose numerous bergs of fantastic shapes, but no open water could we discover.

For the first day we got on very well. As the light decreased we built a snow-hut in which we could comfortably rest, with an entrance so small that no bear could have suddenly pounced upon us, while we kept our rifles ready to shoot the intruder should one appear. Next night we did the same, though we felt very tired when the work was over, and but little inclined to start the next morning at sunrise. We had, indeed, miscalculated our strength. It seemed easy enough to walk straight ahead over the ice for several hours a day; but we found that, though the ice was sometimes smooth, we had frequently to clamber over hummocks, so that our progress was slower than we had expected. At last Ewen declared that, unless we could take a whole day’s rest, he could go no farther.

My fear was lest, while we were inside our hut, Sandy and his companions might pass us. I agreed to take a short journey only, and offered to watch while Ewen slept. This he did not like to let me do, but I over persuaded him, and, while he turned in, I walked about the outside of the hut, sometimes climbing to the top of a hummock near at hand in the hopes of seeing our friends. The day closed in, however, without a single object appearing, and the next morning, Ewen saying that he felt stronger after his rest, we continued our journey.

We had been travelling for a couple of hours or more, when we reached a point beyond which a deep bay appeared. Should we go round it, or cross from one side to the other? As far as we could discern, there was nothing to tempt us to go out of our course. The cliffs were more precipitous and lofty than those we had hitherto seen, with intervals of vast glaciers of equal height.

We had hitherto had the cliffs to guide us, but now should the snow fall, or the weather become thick, we should not be able to distinguish them. Clear weather was, therefore, of the utmost importance, so, praying that it might continue, we pushed forward.

Though we travelled all day, with but a few minutes’ rest to take our food, the opposite side of the bay appeared no nearer than at first. Darkness came on, and not the faintest outline of the cliffs could we discover. It seemed to us, as we crept into our hut, that we were in the midst of the frozen sea. Fatigue happily brought us sound sleep. When we got up in the morning, what was our dismay to find that a violent storm was blowing, and that the snow was falling so thickly that we had great difficulty in forcing our way out of the hut. In a short time we should have been enclosed in what might have proved our tomb. To travel was next to impossible; although on starting we knew the direction to take, we were aware that we might very soon go wrong should the wind change. We therefore remained in our hut, occasionally digging away the snow to keep the passage clear.

At last the snow ceased, and as we could make out the faint outlines of the cliffs to the southward, we at once, shouldering our packs, pushed forward. It seemed, however, that we had made no progress when again we had to halt and build a hut.

The three next days were but a repetition of those I have described; but now our provisions had greatly decreased, as had our strength. The cliffs on the other side of the bay had not been reached, and when we got there, what were we likely to find? We had to confess to each other that we should not have strength to go much farther. Still, we resolved to struggle on as long as life remained. The snow had again begun to fall, but not with sufficient thickness to compel us to stop. At last Ewen suddenly declared that not another step could he stir. I offered to take his rifle and his pack, but, when I made the attempt to carry them, I found that I was unable to bear an additional load to my own.

Poor Ewen sank down. “Go on,” he said; “you may reach human beings, but I fear that you will not.” I could not bear the thought of leaving my friend. Even should I reach the shore and find a settlement, he would be dead before I could return. I proposed again encamping, but he had not strength even to assist in building a hut.

While I was endeavouring to encourage him, I fancied that I saw in the distance to the westward some objects moving over the ice. They might be bears – reindeers would scarcely have left the land. I looked more attentively. While I was gazing, the snow almost ceased falling.

“Look, Ewen, look!” I shouted, “those are men and sledges. They must be Sandy’s party, but they are too far off to see us. They are coming nearer, however. Rouse up, old fellow; let us try to meet them.”

Ewen’s strength seemed suddenly to return. We hurried forward, but we both feared that they might pass by without discovering us. As we got nearer to them we shouted, but our voices were hollow and low, and too probably would not be heard.

“I’ll fire my rifle!” I exclaimed. “I wonder that I did not think of doing so at first.”

The report had the desired effect. As we watched the strangers, to our joy we saw that they were directing their course towards us. In a short time we were among a party of Esquimaux, who seemed very much surprised at seeing us, though what they said we could not make out.

From the direction they had been travelling, we concluded that they were bound to some place on the north side of the bay for the purpose of spending the summer there. We tried to make them understand that if they would turn back and carry us to some place where we should find Europeans, we would give them our rifles, and anything else in our power. After holding a consultation, during which they looked frequently at the sky, they agreed to my proposal. Two of the party, unloading one of the smaller sledges, made signs that Ewen should get upon it. They then packed some provisions they had brought, together with some of our loads and rifles, and signified that they were ready to set off.

Having rubbed noses with their friends, who continued their route to the northward, we started in the opposite direction.