In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic (21 page)

As we went about our menial tasks on the evenings that followed, we dreamed up all manner of plans for the future.

But here is a little tale that will illustrate how enfeebled our minds were at that stage.

The first sight of Sedov’s inscriptions and the two metal mail tins nailed to the big cabin had convinced me, for no apparent reason, that a ship from Arkhangel’sk would arrive some time this year. This idea had become so firmly anchored in my mind that I really expected the ship to arrive in August. I even began to invent plausible motives for the imaginary steamer’s delay. Unexpected pack ice, I concluded, might well oblige the party to postpone their journey until the following year. To prepare for this eventuality, we repaired the big cabin, prepared all sorts of provisions, and mended our worn clothes. As we could see open sea stretching ahead for ninety nautical miles, we were convinced that to the south there could hardly be any ice, and a vessel could reach us without too much difficulty. It is interesting, from a psychological point of view, that my conviction was founded on nothing at all, but was so deeply rooted that I felt it was totally pointless to open the above-mentioned postal boxes and examine their contents. Those letters would, of course, have provided me with valuable information, and today, now that my thoughts are clear, I am as greatly astonished at my over-sight as the next person. How many times did I walk past those tin letter boxes without even giving them a second glance! And yet I congratulate myself on not having read their contents, which no doubt would have altered all my plans and might even have put us in mortal danger—as we shall soon see.

In short, we patiently awaited the next stage of our adventures. We had almost finished the tedious cleaning up of the main cabin. All that was left was to have a house-warming celebration, and to keep a fire burning in our tiled stove to thoroughly dry the place out.

 

On July 20, at about six in the evening, with my daily chores over, I set off to prepare some supper in our “mansion.” Konrad had stayed behind to finish a job in the big cabin. I paused for a few moments in the fresh air, which always did me a lot of good after a day spent in the damp, stuffy air of the cabin. I let my gaze wander out to sea, without the nostalgia that ordinarily beset me when outdoors. The weather was calm and warm, with a slight mist. As nearly always, ice floes of all shapes and sizes were drifting along the coast, some of them carrying motionless walruses. For once, my desire to hunt was keener than usual, and I was about to return for my gun and alert Konrad, when a strange apparition caught my attention. . . . Was it yet another hallucination? No, it was real! I could perfectly well see two masts rising above the sea, one higher than the other: a main mast without a topmast, a mizzen, and between the two, a smokestack, trailing a thin cloud of vapor. The hull was hidden in the mist and still indistinct. It must have been about two nautical miles offshore. As soon as I realized that it was not a mirage, I stood stock-still, my pulse racing.

When I had recovered from my stupor and found my voice, I shouted at the top of my lungs: “Alexander, a ship! There’s a ship coming!” Soon the hull emerged from the mist and I recognized the
Saint Foka,
which I had often seen in the port of Arkhangel’sk, while it was being fitted out to take Sedov to the North. At first Alexander must have thought that I was still delirious, for he stared at me warily. I pointed to the ship that was now almost stationary, obviously searching for a safe lead through the ice to the coast. She gathered way again very slowly, but we could tell that the captain was about to drop anchor. What other purpose could he have? Plainly, he had come back for Sedov, whom he had left here a year earlier. We immediately climbed onto the roof of the big cabin, hoisted the flag we had brought with us from the
Saint Anna,
and fired off a few shots. In my agitation I fired two shots from the double-barreled shotgun simultaneously and wounded the index finger of my right hand, but I paid no heed to my injury and continued firing.

One might wonder why the arrival of the ship had such an effect upon us, since we had been counting on it. I can only say that we had not expected it until August, when it would have been easier to sail through these regions. Our joy at this premature event was quite understandable: It brought us the certainty of immediate rescue and our return home.

The ship did not immediately notice our signals, nor did she hear our shots. The fog grew thicker, and hid the
Saint Foka
from sight. But there was no doubt that she was about to drop anchor, so we rushed to the “mansion” to get ready for our first encounter with civilized people, not wanting them to see us in our filthy rags. Our “Sunday clothes” were already drying on the rocks in front of the house; we had boiled them over and over again with ashes. Now we had to shake all the dead lice out of them, wash ourselves well with Ziegler’s soap, and quickly get dressed. This was done at top speed, and we finally looked as presentable as was possible under the circumstances. We had even cleaned and oiled our boots, although in a drawing room we still would have stuck out like sore thumbs.

Now that we were decent, we went down to the shore, to paddle the kayak out to the ship through the thick and persistent fog. As we paddled out, I started to hear the voices of the crew and the barking of dogs; already the outline of the ship was becoming clearer. Finally they caught sight of us. I waved my cap in greeting. Everyone rushed on deck and stared at us with great surprise, then they waved their caps and a great cheer went up. Faces lit up with joy. Their welcome touched me deeply, although I was still rather dazed by the recent turn of events. But I realized they might be taking me for Sedov or one of his companions, so I hastily shouted back, “Gentlemen, Sedov has not yet arrived.” But this news seemed to have no effect upon them, so I went on to explain; “I am the navigator Albanov, from the Brusilov expedition. I left the
Saint Anna
three months ago and managed to reach Cape Flora.” The reply was a unanimous shout of admiration and a new round of still louder cheering. I asked if they were carrying any mail for the
Saint Anna
but I do not recollect why I asked this question. I then learned that the
Saint Foka
had not sailed from Arkhangel’sk, as I had supposed, but Hooker Island, where Sedov had wintered over, thirty miles to the northeast of Cape Flora. I also learned that Sedov had died during his trek to the Pole and was buried on Prince Rudolf Island; that their ship, like us, had been at sea for two years; and that they had no fresh news of the outside world.

I had been carrying on this conversation as we paddled alongside the slowly moving ship. Suddenly I was startled by loud cries: “Watch out! There’s a walrus right behind you. Climb on board!” At the same moment several shots rang out. I turned around in time to see one of those vicious beasts trying to attack our kayak. Several more shots put an end to his pursuit and sent him under the waves. The
Saint Foka
had dropped anchor by then, so I clambered on board and greeted the crew. We embraced one another and everyone spoke at once. We exchanged the basic outlines of our adventures. I learned, among other things, that from his winter quarters on Novaya Zemlya, Sedov had requested a fast shipment of coal to be shipped from St. Petersburg, and so the crew had thought at first that I was the captain or navigator of the much-awaited coaler.

The
Saint Foka
was presently out of fuel for her engines. In order to fire her boilers and motor away from Hooker Island, they had been obliged to sacrifice the steerage deck and a number of bulkheads: in short, anything that was not indispensable. Even the walruses they shot were fed to the boilers. When I had first spotted the ship, they were slowing down because of lack of fuel, and were waiting while other parts of the vessel were being broken up to stoke the fires.

They were calling at Cape Flora only in order to demolish the cabin and shed that we had gone to such trouble to clean. With this new fuel supply, the captain hoped to steam through the barrier of drifting ice that was blocking his passage south, and then continue under sail.

When the crew learned the sad fate of my companions, they unanimously decided to head for Cape Grant and search for them as soon as they had taken on equipment and provisions.

Konrad was then brought on board, and Captain Sakharov invited us to take supper with him in the mess. The other guests were: Dr. P. Kushakov, Sedov’s replacement as expedition leader; the geographer V. Vize; the geologist M. Pavlov; and the artist N. Pinegin. We were welcomed in a most princely manner. The menu consisted of delicious, crusty, white bread, fresh eggs, canned meat, and roast bearded seal, with a glass of vodka. Dessert was tea with milk and real sugar, and biscuits. We could not have been happier to be once again among our own people. But they seemed to have come from a world that was now quite foreign to us. There was a fine piano in the mess, and Mr. Vize played like a maestro. An excellent gramophone with a varied repertoire provided additional dinner music.

After dessert I asked our host to allow us to wash and, if possible, change our clothes, for all through the meal I had been in fear of seeing a louse crawl out of my sleeves. My request was immediately granted and minutes later we were the proud owners of a clean set of clothes. Everyone had donated some item he could do without. In the engine room we transformed ourselves into new men from head to foot, after a good wash and a shave.

Surrounded by such kind and helpful friends, I suddenly felt I had a new lease on life, and an unfamiliar wave of happiness swept over me. It was as if we had already been repatriated, although we still had a very long way to go. The fact that the
Saint Foka
was crippled and could only make slow headway, due to the lack of fuel, did not worry us unduly. Then suddenly the engines came to life: I heard a rushing noise, the whistle of steam and the throbbing of the pump. The sole topic of conversation of those around us was “When will we reach the continent? When will we drop anchor in an inhabited harbor?”

I spent the evening with Dr. Kushakov, who gave me an up-to-date history of the expedition and its vicissitudes. Thus I learned that a detachment led by Vize had traveled to Cape Flora the previous winter, where they had dropped off the mail and spent a few days in the little hut which Konrad and I had occupied, thereby explaining the signs we had discovered of a recent visit. Vize had also been to Bell Island and I was greatly surprised to learn that on the northwest coast there was a hut built by Leigh Smith over forty years ago,* including a little storehouse of supplies and a good rowboat. If only I had known! To think that we had been only three hundred feet away from it when we were hunting for ducks’ nests and exploring Eira Harbor. We had obviously turned back only moments before we would have stumbled across it.

Those few steps we had not taken had very serious consequences. Had we discovered this hut, Lunayev and Shpakovsky would surely have been saved, and would be sitting alongside us now on board the
Saint Foka.
They would have rested in the hut and regained their strength. For Nilsen it would have been too late; he was already too close to death’s door. Having found solace and fresh supplies in this refuge, we would have taken the sturdy rowboat across Mieres Channel, since we would have read the note Vize had left explaining the outcome of his expedition. We would also have avoided the storm and its distressing consequences. How wretched it is to learn such things when it is too late, when the irreparable damage has been done, and no amount of regret can change things! But I must admit that we had been dogged by the most extraordinary bad luck.

Sedov’s men were astonished that I had not read their mail and asked me why. I could give them no real reason, but I think I was right in not doing so. I would have learned that the
Saint Foka
was anchored only forty miles away at Hooker Island, and that would have thrown me into great confusion, for I would not have been able to decide what to do.

Would we have gone to Hooker Island by kayak? The large whaleboat we found in storage on the beach would have been out of the question, as it was too big for two men to handle. We would also have assumed that the
Saint
Foka
would be heading straight for home, without stopping at Cape Flora. We could not have left before the eighteenth of July: I was too sick before then. We would have followed a course up the Mieres Channel, where there was open water, especially since the eastern side of Northbrook Island was totally unknown to us, and too open and unprotected. But it was precisely from that opposite, eastern coast that the
Saint Foka
had appeared on July 20. We would therefore have missed each other and reached Hooker Island after their departure, which would have been most depressing. Then we would have paddled the forty miles back, only to find our cabin at Cape Flora destroyed by the crew of the
Saint Foka.
So perhaps I saved our lives by not opening those mail cans!

The next morning, we all went ashore to dismantle the big cabin and transport the wood to the ship. All the provisions we had taken so much trouble to organize now had to be moved into our small hut. To these we added cans of food, biscuits, and other victuals, along with two rifles and five hundred cartridges off the
Saint Foka
for the benefit of any future lost sailors. Our comfortable “mansion” was soon transformed into an Arctic refuge.

It would be an exaggeration to say that everyone felt safe on board the
Saint Foka.
The shortage of fuel was very worrying, and frequent collisions with ice floes were a further source of concern. The ship was also very old, no longer very seaworthy, and had sprung a leak. Every day, each of us had to work the pumps for two three-hour shifts to prevent the ship from sinking.