Fatal North (35 page)

Chester went on. “I will state that, as regards personal safety, I think I should have preferred being on the floe to being on the ship because we did not know the condition the ship was in at the time of the separation. The snap and crackle of the timbers of the vessel when she was nipped and thrown onto the ice of course led everyone to feel uneasy. There was no one on board but who thought that she was more or less injured, and when she settled back into the water, that she would likely fall to pieces and sink. That was the general impression of all hands at the time. The other party had the boats and the kayaks, the natives, and many provisions had been landed on the ice.”

As for the condition of
Polaris
after she suddenly broke free, Chester said, “I did not know how the vessel could float when I looked at her broken stem. She was in such a condition that she could not possibly have been repaired and brought out.”

Hence the decision, he said, to run her aground near shore.

Without being asked, Chester gave his opinion of Buddington.

“As a whaling commander, Captain Buddington, I think, does very well, but not so good for a North Pole expedition. He has not that enthusiasm for the North Pole that Captain Hall had. I could not say that Captain Buddington was opposed to going farther north, but I think it likely if there had been someone else there as sailing master, the ship would have gone farther north. He drank a litde, and I have seen him once or twice in a condition that we would call ‘boozy.' Captain Hall appeared to have a kindly feeling for Captain Buddington—more than Captain Buddington seemed to have for Captain Hall. I got that impression from what I saw on the vessel of the actions of the two men. [Buddington] at times rather depreciated Captain Hall, in using language around the main deck that should not have been used by a man in his capacity. When I say ‘main deck,' I mean among the seamen. He did this when he was sober, too. He did not speak very respectfully of the commander or of the expedition.”

When Chester stepped down, the board adjourned for the day.

The first witness the next morning was second mate William Morton, who introduced himself by saying, “I am a seaman—I follow the sea for my living.” He told of the
Polaris
expedition being his third to the Arctic, and of having spent most of his adult years in the United States Navy serving as a petty officer.

The first thing of interest that happened on the
Polaris
expedition, he said, were the “words of misunderstanding” between Captain Hall and “the scientific officers—Mr. Meyer and Dr. Bessels. It was, however, all arranged amicably before we left.”

Morton's testimony about Hall's illness and death was noteworthy,
as the second mate had been present shortly before and after Hall took ill, and subsequently spent much time at his sickbed. The second mate explained that he had been ashore when Hall returned from his sledge journey.

“I met him on the ice between the ship and the shore. I shook hands with him; asked him how he was. He said he was right well. I went on board with him to the upper cabin, and stayed with him at that time, except when he ordered the steward to get him a cup of coffee. The steward went to the galley to get the coffee. While he was gone, I went to get Captain Hall a shift of fresh clothing.”

In his testimony before the board months earlier, steward John Herron had said that Hall asked him if there was any coffee ready. “I told him there was always [some] in the galley. I asked him if he would have anything else. He said that was all he wanted. I went down the stairs and got a cup of coffee. I did not make the coffee. I told the cook it was for Captain Hall. He drank white lump sugar in his coffee. Never cared for milk.” The English steward said he did not see Captain Hall get sick that evening; he had departed Hall's cabin soon after delivering the coffee. (Two members of the Buddington party, including fireman Walter Campbell, who sometimes served as assistant steward, would testify that the coffee
had
been specially prepared for Captain Hall and his returning party. Joe, in his earlier testimony, told of having a cup of coffee from the galley shortly after returning from the sledge journey, and feeling no ill effects.)

Conflicting testimony about the coffee had been given earlier by the cook, William Jackson, who had been confronted at least once by an angry Hall over the quality of the meals he prepared. Jackson, testifying a short time after the steward, brought up the coffee right away, telling the board that it was “taken from the galley the same as everybody else had. It was directly after dinner, and he got the same coffee we had for dinner.” However, the cook's memory was flawed: dinner had not yet been served when Hall had arrived aboard
Polaris
at three o'clock and wouldn't be for several more hours. In his brief appearance
before the board, Jackson was asked only three questions. Not one pertained to the coffee that Hall drank.

“Did the steward bring the coffee while you were there?” Robeson asked Morton.

“I don't recollect. I went to Captain Hall's private storeroom to get him some clothing, and when I came back he was sick. I was alarmed and asked him what was the matter. He said, ‘Nothing at all—a foul stomach.' I was not gone more than twenty minutes.”

“Who was with him when you went after the clothing?”

“Hannah was there, and I don't know whether Captain Buddington was there or not. He came on board also with Captain Hall. There was also Joe, the Eskimo, and the steward. I don't know of anybody else, except perhaps Dr. Bessels.”

“Who was with him when you came back?”

“The doctor was there at the time he was sick, and I believe while he was taking the coffee. He asked the doctor for an emetic and, as far as I could understand, the doctor said no, that he was not strong enough or it would weaken him too much or something to that effect. Captain Hall got delirious very soon after the second day. He got suspicious of some people, and said they wished to harm him, and he said to me, ‘They are poisoning me.' I thought he was out of his head. He continued that way for six or seven days, and he then got right smart, and got up. He spoke about his journey, and went about his ordinary business for a day or two, then relapsed.

“The doctor told me, I think the second day, that Captain Hall's illness was very serious, and that he would not recover. I cannot rightly recollect what the doctor said was the matter with him; apoplexy, I think. Captain Hall was not smart in his movement. He was feeble-like—prostrated. He showed that feebleness very soon, not immediately, but I noticed it the next day, when I put on his clothing.”

“Had he taken any medicine or anything before the vomiting?”

“No, sir. Nothing but the coffee from the galley.” “Who gave him his medicine?”

“Dr. Bessels, although Captain Hall was opposed to taking medicine from the doctor when he was delirious.”

Morton explained that Hall was also suspicious of taking food or drink from anyone, and asked others—usually himself, Hannah, or Joe—to taste everything first.

The second mate told of being at Hall's side when “he breathed his last.”

He went on, “After Captain Hall's death, it appeared that there was divided authority. I heard that Dr. Bessels had authority, and Buddington went among the men and made very free with them, and of course, told them he was captain.”

Robeson asked Morton if he had any reason to suppose that there was foul play toward Captain Hall.

“I have not, indeed.”

“Did you think so at the time?”

“I did not. It never struck me.”

“Do you think so now?”

“I do not.”

“Then you consider these expressions of suspicion by Captain Hall the ravings or hallucinations of a man out of his head?”

“I do, sir, and I hope so.”

22

Cause of Death

B
y special invitation from Secretary Robeson, Surgeon-General W. K. Barnes of the United States Army and Surgeon-General Joseph Beale of the United States Navy were present at the hearing on October 16 for the testimony of Dr. Emil Bessels.

“I was born at Heidelberg, in 1844,” Bessels began in accented English. “Graduated at Heidelberg. Joined the
Polaris
expedition as chief of the scientific department.” Bessels told of
Polaris
arriving at Disco, and the “little difference” between Hall, Meyer, and himself.

“Some kind friends wanted to make out that we had a mutiny on the ship,” Bessels said, his tone scoffing. “But the whole amount of it was that Captain Hall wanted Mr. Meyer to write his journal, and Meyer did not want to do it. Captain Hall intended to discharge him, and spoke to me about it. I told him that I did not think Mr. Bryan and myself would be able to perform the whole of the scientific work to be done on the expedition. I told him I preferred to go on shore myself if Mr. Meyer was dismissed. Finally, Mr. Meyer agreed to conform to the orders and instructions of Captain Hall, and the matter was settled.
Happily, I am able to produce the original copy of the original instructions belonging to Captain Hall. I found it when the vessel broke adrift, and here you will find a statement on this page in Captain Hall's own handwriting. I think it explains the matter.”

Bessels handed the board the memorandum in Hall's handwriting signed by Meyer on August 16, 1871, stating that Meyer did “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.”

Notwithstanding his explanation that he found it on the ice, the fact that Bessels was able to produce this single sheet that had certainly been part of Captain Hall's collection of personal papers—since missing—was curious, yet the board did not probe.

Bessels rushed on, reading from the log kept by the three scientists aboard
Polaris.
It presented a dizzying array of geographical references, locations, and times that he recited in a heavily accented monotone for nearly an hour. Finally, he came to something considerably more interesting: Hall's return from his last sledge journey.

“I was at the observatory, about a quarter of a mile from the ship, at the time he returned,” Bessels said. But even then he found a tangent to veer off onto. “I had fixed the Observatory, and got the instruments ready to take our observations. Up to that time, meteorological observations had been taken every three hours. We noted hourly the height of the barometer, the temperature of the air, and the amount and kinds of clouds.” He finally came back on track. “As I say, I was at the observatory when I heard the sledges approaching, and went out to meet Captain Hall and his party. He shook hands with me, and I accompanied him about halfway to the ship; then I returned to the observatory.”

Contradicting the testimony of Morton and others that placed the doctor in Hall's cabin when he took ill, Bessels told the board that after returning to the observatory, he stayed
there about an hour and a half before coming aboard and finding Hall already sick in bed.

Bessels summarized his medical care of Hall over the two weeks of his illness.

He said he had found Hall's cabin “rather warm” upon entering it. The doctor said Hall complained of pain in his stomach and weakness in his legs. “While I was speaking to him he all at once became comatose. I tried to raise him up, but it was of little use. His pulse was irregular—from sixty to eighty. Sometimes it was full, and sometimes it was weak. He remained in this condition for twenty-five minutes without showing signs of any convulsions. While he was in this comatose state I applied a mustard poultice to his legs and breast.”

The nation's two top military doctors, who were listening to Bessels' testimony and taking notes, knew mustard was used in a poultice as a counterirritant, and as a method of providing localized heat for relief of pain.

“Besides that,” Bessels continued, “I made cold-water applications to his head and on his neck. In about twenty-five minutes he recovered consciousness. I found that he was taken by hemiplegia. His left arm and left side were paralyzed, including the face and tongue, and each respiration produced a puffing of the left cheek. The muscles of the tongue were also affected. The hypoglossus nerve was paralyzed, so that when the patient was requested to show his tongue and he did so, the point would be deflected toward the left side. I made him take purgatives. I gave him a cathartic consisting of castor oil and three or four drops of croton oil. This operated upon him three times, not to any great extent, however.”

The board failed to ask Bessels about testimony that he had been vehemendy opposed to giving Hall anything to induce vomiting. An emetic would cause poison to be vomited out before further absorption, while a purgative, or strong laxative, would draw that same poison through the system—at least to the lower intestinal tract—before expelling it from the body. It was a vital medical point that was never addressed.

Hall slept that first night, Bessels said, with second mate Morton watching over him.

“The next morning, he experienced some difficulty swallowing. He complained of numbness of the tongue. Sometimes he was entirely incapable of speaking distinctly. Again I gave him a dose of castor oil and croton oil, and he recovered from his paralysis pretty well. He complained of chilliness, and indeed he had some rapid changes of temperature like you find in cases of intermittent fever. His temperature was higher in the evening.”

“What was the state of his mind at that time?” asked a board member.

“The state of his mind was as well as ever before—quite clear. After having experienced these sudden changes of temperature, and having recovered from his attack of apoplexy, I gave him a hypodermic injection of about a grain and a half of quinine to see what the effect would be. He felt better in the evening.”