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Page 9
Bennett leaned toward him, the cast in his eyes twinkling with a wicked
light, the furrow between the eyebrows deepening. "I tell you, you don't
see any signal; do you understand? You don't see any signal until I
choose to have you."
The night was bitter hard for the occupants of the whaleboat. In their
weakened condition they were in no shape to fight a polar hurricane in
an open boat.
For three weeks they had not known the meaning of full rations. During
the first days after the line of march over the ice had been abruptly
changed to the west in the hope of reaching open water, only
three-quarter rations had been issued, and now for the last two days
half rations had been their portion. The gnawing of hunger had begun.
Every man was perceptibly weaker. Matters were getting desperate.
But by seven o'clock the next morning the storm had blown itself out. To
Bennett's inexpressible relief the cutter hove in view. Shaping their
course to landward once more, the boats kept company, and by the middle
of the afternoon Bennett and the crew of the whaleboat successfully
landed upon a bleak, desolate, and wind-scourged coast. But in some way,
never afterward sufficiently explained, the cutter under Ferriss's
command was crushed in the floating ice within one hundred yards of the
shore. The men and stores were landed--the water being shallow enough
for wading--but the boat was a hopeless wreck.
"I believe it's Cape Shelaski," said Bennett to Ferriss when camp had
been made and their maps consulted. "But if it is, it's charted
thirty-five minutes too far to the west."
Before breaking camp the next morning Bennett left this record under a
cairn of rocks upon the highest point of the cape, further marking the
spot by one of the boat's flags:
"The Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition landed at this point October
28, 1891. Our ship was nipped and sunk in 76 deg. 10 min. north
latitude on the l2th of July last. I then attempted a southerly
march to Wrangel Island, but found such a course impracticable on
account of northerly drift of ice. On the lst of October I
accordingly struck off to the westward to find open water at the
limit of the ice, being compelled to abandon one boat and two
sledges on the way. A second boat was crushed beyond repair in
drifting ice while attempting a landing at this place. Our one
remaining boat being too small to accommodate the members of the
expedition, circumstances oblige me to begin an overland march
toward Kolyuchin Bay, following the line of the coast. We expect
either to winter among the Chuckch settlements mentioned by
Nordenskjold as existing upon the eastern shores of Kolyuchin Bay
or to fall in with the relief ships or the steam whalers en route.
By issuing half rations I have enough provisions for eighteen days,
and have saved all records, observations, papers, instruments, etc.
Enclosed is the muster roll of the expedition. No scurvy as yet and
no deaths. Our sick are William Hawes, carpenter, arctic fever,
serious; David McPherson, seaman, ulceration of left foot, serious.
The general condition of the rest of the men is fair, though much
weakened by exposure and lack of food.
(Signed) "WARD BENNETT, Commanding."
But during the night, their first night on land, Bennett resolved upon a
desperate expedient. Not only the boat was to be abandoned, but also the
sledges, and not only the sledges, but every article of weight not
absolutely necessary to the existence of the party. Two weeks before,
the sun had set not to rise again for six months. Winter was upon them
and darkness. The Enemy was drawing near. The great remorseless grip of
the Ice was closing. It was no time for half-measures and hesitation;
now it was life or death.
The sense of their peril, the nearness of the Enemy, strung Bennett's
nerves taut as harp-strings. His will hardened to the flinty hardness of
the ice itself. His strength of mind and of body seemed suddenly to
quadruple itself. His determination was that of the battering-ram,
blind, deaf, resistless. The ugly set of his face became all the more
ugly, the contorted eyes flashing, the great jaw all but simian. He
appeared physically larger. It was no longer a man; it was a giant, an
ogre, a colossal jotun hurling ice-blocks, fighting out a battle
unspeakable, in the dawn of the world, in chaos and in darkness.
The impedimenta of the expedition were broken up into packs that each
man carried upon his shoulders. From now on everything that hindered the
rapidity of their movements must be left behind. Six dogs (all that
remained of the pack of eighteen) still accompanied them.
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