[Ill.u.s.tration: TABULAR ICEBERG AND FLOE ICE]

CHAPTER XII

THE ICE FIGHT GOES ON

To recount all the incidents of this upward journey of the _Roosevelt_ would require a volume. When we were not fighting the ice, we were dodging it, or--worse still--waiting in some niche of the sh.o.r.e for an opportunity to do more fighting. On Sunday, the sixth day out from Etah, the water continued fairly open, and we made good progress until one o'clock in the afternoon, when we were held up by the ice pack as we were nearing Lincoln Bay. A cable was run out, and the ship secured to a great floe, which extended some two miles to the north and several to the east. The tide, which was running north at the time, had carried the smaller ice with it, leaving the _Roosevelt_ in a sort of lake. While we were resting there, some of the men observed a black object far out on the great ice floe to which we were attached, and Dr. Goodsell and Borup, with two Eskimos, started out to investigate. This walking across the floes is dangerous, as the ice is full of cracks, some of them quite wide, and on the day in question the cracks were for the most part concealed by a recent snowfall. In jumping across a lead, the men had a narrow escape from drowning, and when they got within shooting distance of the black object they were seeking, it proved to be only a block of stone.

Before the return of Borup and the doctor the ice had already begun to close in around the ship and, as soon as the men were safe on board, the cable was hauled in and the _Roosevelt_ drifted south with the pack. So close was the ice that night, that we had to swing the boats inward on the davits to protect them from the great floes, which at times crowded the rail. Finally, the captain worked the ship into another small lake to the southeast of our former position by the great floe, and there we remained several hours, steaming back and forth in order to keep the pool open.

About eleven o'clock that night, for all our efforts, the ice closed in again around the _Roosevelt_; but I observed a small lead to the southeast, which led into another body of open water, and gave orders to ram the vessel through, if possible. By working the nose of the ship into the small opening, and then by b.u.t.ting the ice on alternate sides, we succeeded in widening the lead sufficiently to allow of our pa.s.sing through to the pool of open water beyond.

At four o'clock the next morning we were again under way, working northward through slack ice to a point a little beyond Shelter River, where we were again stopped by ice about nine o'clock in the forenoon.

The _Roosevelt_ moved in near the sh.o.r.e and her head was shoved against a big floe, to avoid her being jammed or carried southward by the now swiftly running tide and the ice pack.

After supper that night, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, with two Eskimos, started for the sh.o.r.e over the jammed ice, with the intention of getting some game; but before they reached the sh.o.r.e there was so much movement in the adjacent floes that I considered their journey too hazardous for inexperienced men. A recall was sounded with the ship's whistle, and they started back over the now moving floes. Their movements were impeded by their guns, but fortunately they carried boat hooks, without which they could never have made their way back.

Using the boat hooks as vaulting poles, they leaped from one floe to another, when the leads were not too wide. When the open water was impa.s.sable in that way, they crossed it on small floating pieces of ice, using their hooks to push and pull themselves along. First the doctor slipped on the edge of a floe, and went into the icy water to the waist, but he was quickly hauled up by Borup. Then Borup slipped and went in to the waist, but he was out again as quickly.

Meanwhile the ice had separated about the _Roosevelt_, leaving a wide lane of water between her and the men; but by running the ship against one of the larger floes, we enabled them to clamber aboard. They lost no time in exchanging their wet garments for dry ones, and in a few minutes they were all laughing and recounting their exploits to an interested--and possibly amused--group of listeners.

A man who could not laugh at a wetting or take as a matter of course a dangerous pa.s.sage over moving ice, would not be a man for a serious arctic expedition. It was with a feeling of intense satisfaction that I watched these three men, MacMillan, Borup, and Dr. Goodsell, my arctic "tenderfeet," as I called them, proving the mettle of which they were made.

I had selected these three men from among a host of applicants for membership in the expedition, because of the special fitness of each one. Dr. Goodsell was a solid, st.u.r.dy, self-made physician of Pennsylvania stock. His specialism in microscopy I trusted might give valuable results in a field not hitherto investigated in the North. He was to make microscopic studies of the germ diseases of the Eskimos.

MacMillan, a trained athlete and physical instructor, I had known, and known about, for years. I chose him because of his intense interest in the work, his intense desire to be of the party, and his evident mental and physical fitness for the rigorous demands of the Arctic.

Borup, the youngest member of the party, impressed me with his enthusiasm and physical abilities. He had a record as a Yale runner, and I took him on general principles, because I liked him, satisfied that he was of the right stuff for arctic work. It was a fortunate selection, as the photographs brought back by the expedition are due in a large measure to his expert knowledge of film developing.

I have been asked how the members of my party amused themselves during the long waits, when the ship was held up by the ice. The princ.i.p.al amus.e.m.e.nt of the new members was in trying to acquire from the Eskimos on board a smattering of their language. As interpreter, they had Matt Henson. Sometimes, looking down from the bridge of the ship onto the main deck, I would see one of these new men surrounded by a group of Eskimos, gesticulating and laughing, and I knew that a language lesson was in progress. The women were delighted at the opportunity to teach Borup the Eskimo words for jacket, hood, boots, sky, water, food, et cetera, as they seemed to be of the opinion that he was a fine boy.

The _Roosevelt_ lay quietly in open water all night on the 24th of August, but in the forenoon of the 25th steamed northward nearly to Cape Union. Beyond there the ice was densely packed. I climbed up into the rigging to take a look but, finding no suitable shelter, decided to turn back to Lincoln Bay, where we made the ship fast between two grounded ice floes. The day before had been calm and sunny, but the 25th was snowy and disagreeable, with a raw northerly wind. The snow was driving in horizontal sheets across the decks, the water was black as ink, the ice a spectral white, and the coast near us looked like the sh.o.r.es of the land of ghosts. One of our berg pieces was carried away by the flood tide, and we were obliged to shift our position to the inner side of the other one; but there were other grounded bergs outside us to take the impact of the larger floes.

On general principles, I landed a cache of supplies at this point on the following day. The possibility of losing the ship was always present; but if everything went well the cache could be made use of in the hunting season. The supplies, in their wooden boxes, were simply piled upon the sh.o.r.e. Wandering arctic hares, reindeer, and musk-oxen never attempt to regale themselves on tin cans or wooden boxes.

I went ash.o.r.e and walked over to Shelter River, living over again the experiences there in 1906, when, during my absence at Cape Thomas Hubbard, Captain Bartlett--for he was then, as now, the master of the _Roosevelt_--had tried to drive the ship south from her exposed position at Cape Sheridan to a more sheltered place in Lincoln Bay, where I was to rejoin them.

At Shelter River, the _Roosevelt_ had been caught between the moving pack and the vertical face of the ice-foot, receiving almost a fatal blow. She had been lifted bodily out of the water, the stern-post and rudder smashed into kindling wood, and a blade ripped off the propeller.

Everything was landed from the vessel in the expectation that when the ice slacked off and she settled into the water, she would be leaking so badly it would be impossible to keep her afloat.

Bartlett and his men worked manfully in stopping the leaks, as far as possible; and when the pressure from the ice was partially released, the ship was floated. But she lay there nearly a month, and twice during that time even the rigging of the ship was landed, when it seemed impossible that she could survive.

Here at Shelter River I had found the _Roosevelt_ on my return from "farthest west." A new rudder was improvised, and the crippled and almost helpless ship floated around into Lincoln Bay, whence she finally limped home to New York.

After an hour of retrospection at this place I walked back to the ship.

Borup and MacMillan had also gone ash.o.r.e, in the hope of obtaining game but had not found any. It was a dull, raw, overcast day and MacMillan, Borup, the doctor, and Gushue, the mate, amused themselves by target-shooting with their Winchesters.

The next day was seemingly endless, and still we lay there at Lincoln Bay, with a strong, raw, northeast wind blowing steadily and with increasing violence. The edge of the moving pack was only a few yards from the ship, but we were fairly well protected by large pieces which had grounded outside of us. Every little while a big floe came rushing past, crowding everything out of its way and giving our protectors a shove that set them and us nearer the sh.o.r.e. From the crow's nest we could see a little open water near the east coast of the channel, but there was none in our vicinity--only ice, ice, ice, of every imaginable shape and thickness.

Still another day, and the _Roosevelt_ was in the same position, with the ice crowding against her; but at the crest of the high tide the grounded floe-berg to which we were attached by cable went adrift, and we all hurried on deck. The lines were hastily detached from the berg.

As the ice went south, it left a stretch of open water before us about a mile long, and we steamed northward along the sh.o.r.e, pushing our way behind the grounded bergs, trying to find another niche where we might be secure from the now rapidly approaching pack.

It was well for us that the wind was blowing violently off sh.o.r.e, as it eased the pressure of the pack against us. One place seemed secure, and we were making ready to attach the cables, when an ice-floe, about an acre in extent with a sharp, projecting point like the ram of a battleship, came surging along toward the _Roosevelt_, and we were obliged to shift our position. Before the ship was secured, she was again threatened by the same floe, which seemed to be endowed with malign intelligence and to follow us like a bloodhound. We retired to still another position, and secured the vessel and finally the threatening floe pa.s.sed onwards to the south.

There was no sleep for any one that sunlit night. About ten o'clock the berg fragment to which we were attached drifted loose under the pressure of the furious wind and the rising tide. In contracted s.p.a.ce, with the ice whirling and eddying about us, we hastily got our lines in and shifted to another place, only to be driven out of it. We sought still another place of shelter, and in turn were also driven out of that. A third attempt to find safety was successful, but before it was accomplished the _Roosevelt_ had twice been aground forward, her heel had been caught by a berg's spur, and her after rail smashed by the onslaught of another berg.

Sat.u.r.day, the 29th, was another day of delay but I found some comfort in thinking of my little son in the far-away home. It was his fifth birthday, and Percy, Matt, and I, his three chums, drank a bottle of champagne in his honor. Robert E. Peary, Junior! What were they doing at home? I wondered.

I think that none of the members of the expedition will ever forget the following day, the 30th of August. The _Roosevelt_ was kicked about by the floes as if she had been a football. The game began about four o'clock in the morning. I was in my cabin trying to get a little sleep--with my clothes on, for I had not dared to remove them for a week. My rest was cut short by a shock so violent that, before I realized that anything _had_ happened, I found myself on deck--a deck that inclined to starboard some twelve or fifteen degrees. I ran, or rather climbed the deck, to the port side and saw what had happened. A big floe, rushing past with the current, had picked up the grounded berg to which we were attached by the hawsers, as if that thousand-ton berg had been a toy, and dashed it against the _Roosevelt_ and clear along her port side, smashing a big hole in the bulwarks at Marvin's room. The berg brought up against another one just aft of us, and the _Roosevelt_ slipped from between the two like a greased pig.

As soon as the pressure was relaxed and the ship regained an even keel, we discovered that the cable which had been attached to the floe-berg at the stern had become entangled with the propeller. It was a time for lightning thought and action; but by attaching a heavier cable to the parted one and taking a hitch round the steam capstan, we finally disentangled it.

This excitement was no sooner over than a great berg that was pa.s.sing near us split in two of its own accord, a cube some twenty-five or thirty feet in diameter dropping toward the ship, and missing our quarter by only a foot or two. "Bergs to the right of them, bergs to the left of them, bergs on top of them," I heard somebody say, as we caught our breath at this miraculous escape.

The ship was now quite at the mercy of the drifting ice, and with the pressure from the outer pack the _Roosevelt_ again careened to starboard. I knew that if she were driven any higher upon the sh.o.r.e, we should have to discharge a large part of the coal in order to lighten her sufficiently to get her off again. So I decided to dynamite the ice.

I told Bartlett to get out his batteries and dynamite, and to smash the ice between the _Roosevelt_ and the heavy floes outside, making a soft cushion for the ship to rest on. The batteries were brought up from the lazaret, one of the dynamite boxes lifted out with caution, and Bartlett and I looked for the best places in the ice for the charges.

Several sticks of dynamite were wrapped in pieces of old bagging and fastened on the end of long spruce poles, which we had brought along specially for this purpose. A wire from the battery had, of course, been connected with one of the primers buried in the dynamite. Pole, wire, and dynamite were thrust down through cracks in the ice at several places in the adjacent floes. The other end of each wire was then connected with the battery, every one retreated to a respectful distance on the far side of the deck, and a quick, sharp push on the plunger of the battery sent the electric current along the wires.

_Rip! Bang! Boom!_ The ship quivered like a smitten violin string, and a column of water and pieces of ice went flying a hundred feet into the air, geyser fashion.

The pressure of the ice against the ship being thus removed, she righted herself and lay quietly on her cushion of crushed ice--waiting for whatever might happen next. As the tide lowered, the _Roosevelt_ was bodily aground from amidships forward, heeling first to one side and then to the other with the varying pressure of the ice. It was a new variation of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"--one that sent Eskimo babies, the dogs, the boxes, and even ourselves, tumbling about the decks.

When the tide rose, efforts were made to dislodge the ship from her stranded position. From the port side of the bow a line was made fast to a stationary floe-berg, and the captain called for full steam, first ahead, then astern. For some time there was no perceptible movement of the ship. Finally, the pull on the port bow from the cable, with full speed astern, had the desired effect and the vessel slid off and floated free; but the ice was so heavily packed behind us that we could not move her away. It was far from a pleasant spot.

CHAPTER XIII

CAPE SHERIDAN AT LAST

To put it mildly, the position in which we now found ourselves was dangerous--even with the a.s.sistance of so experienced and steady an ice fighter as Bartlett. As day followed day and still we hung there at Lincoln Bay, we should doubtless have been extremely anxious had the _Roosevelt_ not had a similar experience on the preceding voyage. But we believed that sooner or later the movement of the ice would enable us to steam the few remaining miles to Cape Sheridan, and possibly beyond there; for our objective point was some twenty-five miles to the northwest of our former winter quarters in 1905-06. We tried to possess our souls in patience, and if sometimes the delay got on our nerves, there was nothing to be gained by talking about it.

On the first of September the ice did not seem to be moving quite so rapidly. The evening before MacMillan had been sent ash.o.r.e to the bluffs beyond Shelter River, and he had reported that there was considerable open water along the sh.o.r.e. Bartlett then went forward to reconnoiter.

On his return he also reported open water, but with corners of big floes barring it in every direction.

That the fall hunting might get under way, Ootah, Aletah, Ooblooyah, and Ooqueah started off for the Lake Hazen region, with a sledge and eight dogs, after musk-oxen and reindeer. It had been planned that they should hunt there until joined by other Eskimos from the ship, after she reached Cape Sheridan or Porter Bay. But in the absence of snow, the going was too rough for even a light sledge, and the Eskimos returned.

At last, a little before midnight on the 2d, we got out of the _impa.s.se_ at Lincoln Bay, where we had been held up for ten days. The cables were taken in, and the _Roosevelt_, steaming first forward and then astern, extricated herself from the sh.o.r.e pack. We felt as men must feel who are released from prison. There was a narrow lane of open water following the sh.o.r.e, and along that course we steamed, rounding Cape Union about half an hour before midnight.

But we were soon held up again by the ice, a little below Black Cape, a dark cone-shaped mountain standing alone, on the eastern side washed by the waters of the sea, on the west separated by deep valleys from the adjacent mountains. It was a scene of indescribable grandeur, for the coast was lined for miles with bergs, forced sh.o.r.eward, broken and tilted at right angles. At Black Cape we had made half the distance between our former position at Lincoln Bay and the longed-for shelter at Cape Sheridan.