Trial by Ice (10 page)

With the
Congress
came Tyson's written commission, and he officially became an officer. Up until that time he had served only at Captain Hall's pleasure, an extra cog not integrated into the machinery of command. More than a month had passed while the crew sorted out their tasks and tested the mettle of their officers. Like seamen since the beginning of history,
Polarises
sailors used that time to see what they could get away with, subtly probing their leaders for weakness and testing to find how slipshod their actions could be before they were called to task. Sailors can be either experts at efficiency or strict minimalists if not properly motivated. Regrettably Tyson's inaction during this time critically undermined his leadership. Lasting impressions were formed while he did nothing. Thus, his authority over them never fully matured. This weak link would make its results felt in the months to come.

Waving heartily back from the
Congress
was the theologian the Reverend Dr. John Philip Newman. By Newman's side stood the newly appointed astronomer and ship's chaplain, Mr. Bryan. Tucked inside Newman's coat pocket were special prayers for the expedition. One, to be opened and read only on reaching the North Pole, would never be used.

While the
Congress
came placidly on, insurrection seethed below decks on the
Polaris.
From Hall's cabin came the heated voices
of the captain, Frederick Meyer, and Emil Bessel. Both men had picked their ground to openly defy their captain's orders. As he would later report, beyond the bulkhead the black steward, John Herron, listened in amazement. Two against one, he mused, both against the captain. Peering through a crack in the boards, the steward watched the drama unfold.

“I am the commanding officer of this vessel,” Hall fumed. “I ordered you to keep my journal. You are to write what I dictate.”

Meyer must have glanced furtively at the chief scientist. Seeing support in Bessel's dark eyes, he squared his shoulders. “I cannot, Captain. It interferes with my primary duties as meteorologist.” Meyer had considered adding the word
regret
but decided against it. From the corner of his eye, he saw Bessel nod his head.

“What?” Hall's face flushed.

From his hiding place, Herron held his breath.

“Captain, I must go ashore to take readings. I cannot remain on the ship to do your writing if I am to take those measurements. My orders from headquarters require me to do that scientific work.”

“Orders? What orders?” Hall towered over the smaller man, opening his meaty hands and closing them into fists. “Produce these orders!”

Meyer blanched. He had no such orders. He was only parroting what Bessel had told him to say. And unlike the newly arrived Bessel, Meyer's six years in the United States Signal Corps gave him much more to lose. His head dropped. On the verge of backing down, he opened his mouth.

But before Meyer could capitulate, Dr. Bessel stepped out of the shadows of the cramped cabin. To exacerbate their obvious dislike of each other, Hall had the odious habit of standing over him while talking, as if to emphasize their size difference. And Bessel hated looking up to him.

“Mr. Meyer is under my orders,” Bessel interceded smoothly. “He's a member of
my
scientific corps.” He emphasized the pronoun. “If he desires to go ashore to take readings, he is free to do so
whenever be wishes”

Bessel watched smugly as Hall's face contorted in rage. “He will not!” Hall shouted. “If he disobeys my direct order, I'll send
him back with the
Congress.
He can answer to his superiors in Washington.”

Visions of iron manacles flashed before Frederick Meyer's eyes. His career was ruined.

But Bessel appeared unaffected. “Mr. Meyer is under my authority, Captain. You cannot do that.”

“I can, and I will! I'm in overall command of this expedition. And I do have that in writing.”

Bessel shook his head slowly. He released a long-drawn sigh. “Very well, if you insist. But, if Mr. Meyer leaves,
so will
I.” Bessel paused to gauge the effect of his words. “I will go in support of him.” With satisfaction, the doctor watched his sentence strike the captain like a blast of icy sleet.

Now it was Hall's turn to blanch. Color drained from his face. The shadowy faces and whispered threats of those in Washington returned to haunt him. If Bessel left, Hall knew he would be replaced.

Bessel delivered his final blow with perfect timing. “And, Captain, I have the assurances of the German crew that they will leave with us….”

Seven days later Captain Davenport, commanding officer of the United States tender
Congress,
leaned against the binnacle of his ship and watched the
Polaris
steam away. The cheering from both ships no longer rang in his ears. His tars had long since turned back to their tasks as the shouting voices of the bos'ns urged them to achieve perfection. On a brave ship departing on a noble mission, it should have been a moment to savor. Unhappily the dirty tail of black smoke that dragged behind the
Polaris
sent a feeling of foreboding running through the skipper. Beside him stood the Reverend E. D. Bryan, who had come along to bid farewell to his oldest son, R.W.D. Bryan, the
Polaris's
new chaplain and astronomer. Next to the minister stood Capt. James Buddington, also a passenger aboard the
Congress
to see his nephew Capt. Sidney O. Buddington off. Davenport must have sensed their depression. He shook his head. A ship heading for trouble.

The open defiance of some members of the
Polarises
crew
toward their captain sent a shiver through the seasoned sailor. Hall had confided in Davenport, offering him a glimpse of the troubles that beset the
Polaris.
Davenport knew that nothing of this sort could be tolerated on a navy vessel. In all his years in the navy, Davenport had never faced such a thing. He offered to clap the offenders in irons and drag them back to the navy yard for trial.

Strangely Hall declined. While Meyer was on loan from the army, Bessel was a civilian, the
Polarises
commander admitted. So were his entire crew, save for old Morton and a few others. And Hall himself did not strictly hold a naval commission. Neither he nor Tyson nor Buddington did. Trust Washington to splice a civilian crew onto a naval vessel, Davenport mused.

The old captain probably smelled the rot of politics in all this. Bessel was anointed by those nabobs in Washington, the Smithsonian, and the National Academy of Sciences. Bessel was their pick. If he came up lacking, it reflected poorly on their judgment. The waves would spread to the secretary of the navy until the waters of this mess lapped at the feet of President Grant himself. No wonder Hall was cautious.

To make matters worse, Hall was not a sea captain, and it showed. His crew sensed it, too.

But Hall should have been able to rely on Buddington. At least that man had his sea legs, even though they had been gotten on whaling vessels and not in the navy. Buddington should have known how to man a ship. Then Hall admitted to Davenport that Buddington liked the demon rum. When both ships transferred cargo, the sailing master got drunk. He had his little supply stashed away. Buddington also raided the pantry for milk and sugar like a three-year-old. Well, clap him in irons, too, the navy man suggested.

After deliberation, Hall realized his trip was doomed if Davenport sailed away with half his crew in the brig, and so he asked Davenport to make an appearance to strengthen his sagging command. The old commander cut an intimidating figure when he came over. Boarding the
Polaris
with two marines as honor guard, he insisted on being piped aboard. The men snapped to smartly when they saw his sword and all his gold braid.

When Davenport left the
Polaris,
order appeared restored. Captain Buddington repented his ways, and Meyer had signed a statement
in the margin of Hall's official orders. “As a member of the United States naval north polar expedition, I do hereby solemnly promise and agree to conform to all the orders and instructions as herein set forth by the Secretary of the United States Navy to the commander,” it read. Break that oath, Davenport's presence hinted darkly, and Meyer would swing from the yardarm.

But then Hall once again backed down. After pinning Meyer like a butterfly in a collection box, Hall gave the man what he wanted. He relieved Meyer of his duties as secretary and appointed a young man named Joseph Mauch. Bessel won after all. From that day onward, Captain Hall would relinquish the scientific studies he had worked so hard to teach himself. To Bessel and his scientific corps would fall the pleasures of collecting the specimens, bones, rocks, and Native artifacts that Hall so loved.

Something else troubling happened. There was a saboteur aboard. Before the
Polaris
sailed again, the ship's machinery was tampered with. The special boilers designed to burn seal oil and whale blubber vanished. Someone had thrown them overboard, it seemed. Now the vessel could run the engines or heat the crew's quarters only by burning coal. And where they were headed, there were no coal stores except what they carried in their hold. All Hall's ingenuity to provide that backup plan went for naught.

Even the Reverend Newman weighed in to pour oil upon the troubled waters. The day before the
Polaris
sailed, he came aboard to read one of the prayers he'd written for blessing the enterprise. It borrowed heavily from the Psalms, especially the part about those who go down to the sea in ships and do their business upon the great waters seeing the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Whoever wrote that psalm had been upon the sea.

But the wise Newman had added something elsea plea for harmony. In deep, resonant tones, the minister's rolling voice sang out the lines:

Give us noble thoughts, pure emotions, and generous sympathies for each other, while so far away from human habitations. May we have for each other that charity that suffereth long and is kind, that envieth not, that vaunteth not itself, that is not puffed up, that seeketh not her own,
that is not easily provoked, that thinketh not evil, but that beareth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things; that charity that never faileth.

That about covered it. If the men aboard the
Polaris
followed that exhortation, they would be all right. But it would take a strong sailor to live up to those wordsonce the dark and cold of the Arctic worked on them.

In his diary notation for August 10, George Tyson wrote:

Captain Davenport and Rev. Dr. Newman, who came up in the
Congress,
have had their hands full trying to straighten things out between Captain Hall and the disaffected. Some of the party seem bound to go contrary anyway, and if Hall wants a thing done, that is just what they won't do.

Out in the bay a squall line swept sleet and rain across the sea like a giant's whisk broom. Wind advancing before the rain tore wisps of spindrift from the tops of the short waves and roiled the sullen water. Patches of pewter sky, overwhelmed by the lowering clouds, merged with the leaden sea. Davenport watched the
Polaris
slip into the curtain of rain and fog.

Not a ship heading for trouble, the navy captain must have realized, but a troubled ship going in harm's way.

F
IRST
I
CE

August 18, 1871, the
Polaris
reached Upernavik. The vessel dropped anchor in a shroud of mist and fog. For those new to the far North, the gray skies and barren, windblown coast of Greenland offered a sour taste of what lay ahead. Strewn with bits and pieces of driftwood and salvaged scraps, the village resembled a dump rather than the last notable link with civilization. After Upernavik only the harbored settlement of Tasiussaq lay between them and the unknown. Whereas the sunlit rocks and shadowed tidal pools of St. John's underscored Newfoundland's rugged beauty, the coast of Greenland presented a far gloomier picture. Barren, desolate, and dank, the colorless harbor existed uneasily between the threatening sea and the brooding peaks that scowled down upon it. These
nunataks,
or mountain peaks, pierce the omnipresent mantle of ice that dominates the region. Scoured of snow by the winds, the jagged projections of hard Precambrian rock rise above the ice like somber crystals, making them the inverse of the picturesque, snow-covered peaks of the Alps or Rocky Mountains.

As the largest island of the world, Greenland suffers from two dubious distinctions. To the eye, it is neither green nor land. First, two-thirds of its land mass lies within the Arctic Circle, so most of
Greenland is white. Erik the Red lied to his fellow Icelanders on his return from Greenland in a.D. 985 to encourage them to settle there. Later travelers would marvel at the irony of the place's name.