Alaska (22 page)

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only sixteen or seventeen miles a day against the wind. From time to time the lookouts sighted one of the islands, and several of the grand volcanoes that dotted the chain were also visible, soaring perfectly into the sky and covered at their peaks with snow.

The sailors found little comfort in this beauty, for scurvy of the most virulent kind attacked them. Without fresh food and with inadequate water to accompany what biscuits they did have, their legs began to swell and their eyes to glaze over. They suffered violent pangs of hunger and unsteadiness in gait. Each day their plight worsened, until the entries in the log became monotonous and mournful: Frightful storm and great waves ... all day waves from both sides washed over the deck . . . terrific storm ... 21 men on sick list ... by the will of God, Alexei Kiselev died of scurvy ... 29 men on the sick list . . .

During the last days when ordinary activity was possible, the St. Peter hove to off the shore of Lapak Island, the one to which the Great Shaman Azazruk had led his emigrants twelve thousand years earlier, and here they encountered islanders who provided them with water and seal meat which helped sustain them during the month of September.

Since most of the junior officers were now incapacitated by scurvy, the yawl which went ashore was captained by Trofim Zhdanko, who requested that Adjunct Georg Steller assist him, and this was a fortunate choice, because the German had been ashore only a few minutes when he began scampering about and grabbing grasses. 'This is no time for such nonsense!' Zhdanko protested, but Steller waved a handful of grass in his face, shouting with glee: 'Trofim! This is an antiscorbutic! It can save all our men who are ill!' And off he went, enlisting three Aleutian children in his search for the acid-tasting grasses which he knew would combat the dreadful scurvy. Had he been given time, he might even have saved those members of the crew on whom death had already fastened his gaze.

But the man on whom this brief visit was to have the most lasting influence was Trofim Zhdanko, for when late in the day he came upon a hut dug deep into the ground in the old style but faced with stones carefully placed and covered with a solid roof made of whalebone and stout driftwood beams, he wanted to know more about the man who had built so carefully, and when finally the frightened fellow came tentatively forward, black hair down in his eyes, a big walrus bone 143

stuck through his septum, Zhdanko handed him some of the goods Captain Bering had given him to appease the natives: 'Here, this Chinese tobacco, this hand mirror.

Look at yourself. Aren't you handsome with that big bone in your face? This fine cloth for your wife, and I'm sure you have one, with that handsome face. And this ax, this pipe and this tobacco.'

The Aleut who received this largesse, which Captain Bering had wanted to get rid of before returning to Siberia, realized that he was being offered gifts; the miraculous mirror alone proved that, so in the custom of his people he knew that he must give this huge stranger, two heads taller than himself, something in return. But when he looked at the munificence of what Zhdanko had given, especially the ax made of metal, he wondered what possibly he could give that would not seem niggardly. And then he remembered.

Beckoning Zhdanko to follow him, they went to an underground storage area, from which the Aleut produced two walrus tusks, two sealskins and, from the dark rear, the pelt of a sea otter longer and more handsome than either of those Trofim had given the tsar. It was a full seven feet long and as soft and gentle as a handful of blossoms.

It was magnificent, and Zhdanko allowed the Aleut to know he thought so.

'Have you many out there?' he asked, pointing to the sea, and the man showed his understanding by waving his arms in the air to represent plenty. And he indicated that his kayak resting on the shore was the best on this island for catching them.

Steller, meanwhile, had succeeded in collecting a large armful of weeds, some of which he was already chewing vigorously, and when the boatswain signaled that the longboat was leaving, he summoned Zhdanko and offered him a handful of the life-saving grass whose ascorbic acid would counteract the onslaughts of scurvy. When he saw the seaotter skin he reminded Trofim of their conversation, and it was evident that he hoped that Trofim would give the skin to him to augment his meager collection.

But the cossack would have none of that. Turning away, he said: 'Wonderful island.

I wonder what it's called?'

Now the German showed how clever he was. Handing Zhdanko his armful of grass, he faced the Aleut, and using wonderfully orchestrated movements of hands and lips, he asked what name his people gave this island, and after a while the man said: 'Lapak,'

at which Steller bent down, touched the ground, and then rose to embrace with his arms the entire island. 'Lapak?' he asked, and the islander nodded.

As Steller turned to view the island, he saw off its northern shore a splendid small cone of rock emerging from the sea, 144

and by gestures he asked if it was a volcano, and the Aleut nodded yes. 'Does it explode? Fire? Lava flowing into the sea? Hissing?' Steller asked all these questions, and received answers. He was pleased that he had discovered an active volcano and tried to ascertain its name, but this was a concept one or two degrees too difficult for the language these men had invented in half an hour, and he did not learn that in the twelve thousand years since Azazruk had first seen the nascent volcano, then less than one hundred feet above the surface of the sea, it had erupted hundreds of times, alternately rising high in the air or falling almost beneath the waves.

Now it was of intermediate height, about three thousand feet, and tipped with a light cover of snow. Its name in Aleut was Qugang, the Whistler, and as Trofim Zhdanko studied it, there in the near distance rising so handsomely from the waves, he told Steller: 'I'd like to come back here,' and the German replied as he gathered up his grasses: 'So would I.'

THE ELIXIR THAT STELLER BREWED PROVED AN ALMOST

perfect cure for scurvy, since it supplied all the nutrients missing in the belly-filling but blood-depleting diet of biscuit and salt-pork fat. But now one of the recurring ironies of the sea took place, for the very men whose lives could have been saved by imbibing the horrid-tasting stuff refused to try it. Steller drank it and so did Trofim, convinced at last that the German scientist knew what he was doing, and so did three junior officers, who saved their lives thereby. The others continued to refuse, and in this they were supported by Captain Bering himself, who growled: 'Take away that mess. Do you want to kill me?' And when Steller railed against this folly of rejecting the life-saving substance, some men whispered: 'No damned German can make me drink grass.'

By mid-October, long after the St. Peter was supposed to be safe in Petropavlovsk, the men wallowing about in the storm-stricken ship were dying from the dreadful effects of scurvy, and entries in the log were piteous:

Terrific gale blowing. Today I became ill with scurvy but do not count myself among the sick.

I have such pains in my feet and hands that I can with difficulty stand my watch, 32 on the sick list.

By the will of God died the Yakutsk soldier Karp Peshenoi, and we lowered him into the sea.

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Ivan Petrov, the naval carpenter, died.

The drummer boy Osip Chenstov, of the Siberian garrison, died.

10 o'clock died the trumpeter Mikhail Totopstov. Grenadier Ivan Nebaranov died.

On 5 November 1741, when the St. Peter hove to off one of the most miserable islands in the northern seas, far past the end of the Aleutians, Captain Bering, himself stricken with a severe case of scurvy, assembled his officers to consider objectively their tragic condition, and to open the meeting, Zhdanko read the report prepared by the doctor, who was too ill to participate: 'We have few men to handle this ship. Twelve are already dead. Thirty-four are so weak they may soon d
ie.
The total number of men strong enough to handle ropes, ten, and of them, seven can move about only with difficulty. We have no fresh food and very little water.'

Faced with such blunt facts, Bering had no option but to recommend that his ship, the one in which he had dreamed of accomplishing so much, be beached on this forlorn spot, there to build a refuge where the sickest seamen might have a chance to survive the bitter winter that was descending upon them. This was done, but of the first four men sent ashore, three died in the rescue boat the canonneer Dergachev, the sailor Emilianov, the Siberian soldier Popkovand the fourth man, the sailor Trakanov, died just as he was being handed ashore.

Then came that blizzard of sorrowful entries: Stepanov died, so did Ovtsin, Antipin, Esselberg, and then the pitiful notation: On account of sickness I had to stop keeping a regular journal and am just making notes like this.

On 1 December 1741, during the blackest single day of the journey, Captain Bering sought out his aide, and with a burst of energy that was remarkable in one so old and so ill, he moved about the camp, encouraging everyone and assuring them that this winter would pass as had the other difficult ones they had shared. He refused to admit that this situation was far worse than difficult, and when Zhdanko tried to tell him how perilous things were, the old man stopped, stared at his assistant, and said: 'I would not expect a healthy Russian to talk like that.'

Zhdanko, realizing that his captain's mind was wandering, 146

gently led him to his bed, but he could not make the old lion lie down. Bering continued to move about, giving orders for the management of the camp. Finally he staggered, reached for things that were not there, and fell into Zhdanko's arms.

Unconscious, he was placed in the bed from which he would never rise. On the second day he slept, but on the third he asked for full details on what was being done aboard ship, and then he again lapsed into unconsciousness, which Zhdanko said was God's mercy because of the extreme pain the old fighter was experiencing. On 7 December, a bitter cold day, he wanted to be taken out to the ship, but this Zhdanko refused to do. In lucid moments, Bering discussed intelligently the work still to be done before the expedition could be considered a success, and he judged that the expedient thing to do would be to dig in for the winter, break the St. Peter

apart, build from its timbers a tight small boat called a hooker, sail to Petropavlovsk when the weather was good, and there build a new ship with better strength in its timbers and return to explore seriously those inviting lands close to that great nest of mountains coming down to the sea.

Zhdanko encouraged him in all this dreaming, and on that night of 7 December he slept beside this extraordinary Dane whom he had grown to respect and love. At about four in the morning Bering wakened with a host of new plans, which, he told Zhdanko, he felt sure the authorities in St. Petersburg would approve; when he tried to explain them in detail he lapsed into Danish, but there were none of his Danes still living to understand.

'Go back to sleep, Little Captain,' Zhdanko said, and shortly before five o'clock on that storm-swept island the old man died.

But now the survivors took hold of themselves, as Bering had hoped they would, and despite blizzards and inadequate food, the gallant forty-six surveyed the island, reported on its possibilities, and did exactly what Bering had planned: from the wreckage of the ship

St. Peter they constructed the hooker St. Peter, thirty-six feet long, twelve feet wide, five feet three inches deep. In this frail and crowded craft all forty-six sailed the three hundred and sixty miles to Petropavlovsk, where they landed on 27 August 1742, an appalling nine years, one hundred and sixty-three days after the departure from St. Petersburg on 18 March 1733.

When they landed they learned that their companion ship, the St. Paul, had had its troubles, too. Of her seventy-six officers and men who sailed in June, only fifty-four returned in October, four months later. They heard with sorrow of how the two boats with fifteen knowledgeable seamen had 147

vanished near a beautiful island, and they understood what had been involved when a local officer

reported: 'On the journey back to Petropavlovsk they were smitten with scurvy and many died.'

The harshest judgment on Vitus Bering was that he had been unlucky. All events seemed to conspire against him; his ships leaked; the stores that he anticipated did not arrive on time, or were lost, or were stolen. Many other captains conducted voyages of much greater extent both in miles and time than his from Kamchatka to Alaska and back without being struck by such a virulent outbreak of scurvy, but he was so adversely marked by fate that on this relatively brief cruise he lost thirty-six in one ship, twenty-two in another. And he died without ever having encountered the Europeans he sought.

And yet this doughty, stumpy Dane left a heritage of honor and a tradition of seamanship which inspired the navy of a great nation. He had sailed the northern seas with a vigor that excited the men who accompanied him, and in all the logs of his ships there is no entry which speaks of ill feeling against the captain or disturbances among the men under his command.

In the seas he wandered so ineffectively, two memorials remind us of his valor. The icy water that lies between the Pacific and Arctic oceans carries his name, the Bering Sea, and it seems to borrow its character from him. It is dour; it freezes hard; it is difficult to navigate when the ice crowds down; and it punishes those who miscalculate its power. But it also teems with a rich animal life and rewards good hunters and fishermen enormously. It is a sea deserving to be named after someone rugged like Bering, and in this narrative we shall meet it repeatedly, always with respect. At the close of the following century thousands will swarm to its shores and some will find in its magical sands the golden wealth of Croesus.

The Russians also named after him that forlorn island on which he died, and a more wretched memorial no good sailor was ever given. But there will always be critics to claim that he was not a good sailor and they will cry: 'No first-rate seaman ever attempted so much, managed it so poorly, and accomplished so little.' History does not find it comfortable to adjudicate such debate.