Trial by Ice (31 page)

Back on deck Lindquist spotted his bag lying on the field, bobbing atop a wedge of ice surrounded by twelve feet of floating slush. Someone had thrown it overboard. He started over the side.

Strangely Captain Buddington stopped him.

“I don't see any need for you to go there now,” Buddington advised.

Lindquist pointed to his endangered duffle bag. “I'd like to get my clothes bag,” he pleaded. Nearly all his belongings were on the ice.

Buddington let his arm drop from the sailor's shoulder. He shrugged. “Very well, go ahead.”

Lindquist climbed hand over hand down the taut bowline to the floe. He would quickly regret that move.

Above Lindquist, Meyer struggled to push the last chest of documents through the opening in the railing. Grasping both handles of the chest, Meyer leaned far over the railing to lower it carefully down to the ice.

Without warning the icy plain erupted in a plume of seawater, snow, and ice.

The
Polaris
lurched violently. Meyer's feet shot out from under
him while the box swung into the night. The weight of the crate dragged Meyer over the side, and the two plummeted downward. Below, Lindquist dove to one side just as the massive chest crashed beside him, missing his head by inches. The startled sailor glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Mr. Meyer follow the chest onto the ice. The fall knocked the wind out of the meteorologist's lungs, and the dazed Prussian looked up to find himself flat on his back where he least wanted to beon the ice.

The cataclysm engulfed the entire expanse of ice surrounding the ship. As Tyson clambered about the relocated goods, the ice beneath his feet exploded, flinging him to the ground. He struggled to his knees just in time to see a cloud of snow billowing along the side of the
Polaris.
The cloud rolled the entire length of the ship like exploding gunpowder.

Mooring lines secured to the floe snapped like rifle shots, and the ice anchors ripped loose. The vessel wrenched free of the ice's grip and lurched into the darkness. In an instant it vanished within the swirl of the storm. A second later the ice floe, freed of the ship's weight, tilted precipitously and fractured into a hundred pieces. Inky water bubbled forth from the widening rents.

Through the darkness and swirling snow came the plaintive cry of John Herron, the steward. “Goodbye,
Polaris
…”

“Hurry! To the whaleboat, men!” Tyson shouted. To launch their small craft in search of the
Polaris
was impossible. But the longboat would save them from the frigid waters if their floating island disintegrated.

As his crew huddled about the boat, Tyson spotted a dark shape through the blowing snow. He shielded his eyes and looked again. A precious bundle of musk ox hides, essential for warmth, was slipping into a widening fissure in the ice. Tyson stumbled forward and snatched the corner of the disappearing hides just as they threatened to slide into oblivion. He dug his heels into the ice and pulled. The corner of the hides flipped back, exposing two frightened faces.

Shocked, Tyson realized the bundle of hides contained the Eskimo children of Hans and Tookoolito. The Inuit families had combined their offspring and placed them where they thought it
was safest. However, no place on the cracking floe remained secure for long.

The navigator tugged desperately as the fissure widened. For a minute it was touch-and-go as to whether the children would slip beneath the black waters. Gradually the furs slid back from the edge with the children still inside, and Tyson bundled them back to the safety of the boat. Tookoolito, working about the whaleboat, stopped when she saw the children. She flashed Tyson a grateful smile as s le embraced her child.

One hide remained in the crack. As Tyson looked back, the fissure ground shut with a savage groan. The lone fur vanished like a morsel in a giant's jaws. The navigator shivered. He'd almost been too late.

But there was no rest for the worn-out Tyson. A cry for help drew his mention to his left. Five men stranded on a bobbing raft of ice shouted to him. They had been working close by the
Polaris
when the breakup occurred. Only desperate leaps had saved them from being sucked under as the ship sprang free. Now they huddled together on a frozen chip less than eight feet square. Any movement caused the sliver of ice to tip and bob like a cork. In a minute the wind and waves would capsize their island and throw them to their deaths.

Tysor launched the ship's scow, the small, square-nosed boat that the crew affectionately called the “little donkey.” But waves swamped the craft, and the would-be rescuer scrambled back to solid ice, barely escaping a plunge into the deadly sea. Next he tried the second whaleboat, which had broken free of the
Polaris
and beached itself by the water's edge. Rowing by sound as much as sight, Tyson paddled through the frigid veil, guided only by the cries of the stranded men. Anxious minutes passed before he located the men and hauled them off.

More cries for help filtered through the snow and sleet. For three Ion hours, Tyson added to his boat as he ferried stranded men back to their tiny fort.

Wher morning came, the storm abruptly quit, departing as suddenly as it had struck. Low-hanging clouds persisted, but the Arctic sun rose on a painfully scoured sky and commenced its skimming
along the horizon. Blackness retreated before silky purples and rose colors that bathed the sky, the water, and the shards of ice, coating them in delicate shades of pink and blue. Dark and fearsome mere hours before, the Arctic changed its face to a soothing landscape fit to rival the canvases of the finest impressionists.

Still, things looked bleak for the stranded men. No one knew the fate of their ship. Had the
Polaris
sunk in the storm? If not, were its engines working so it could return to rescue them? Stranded on the floe, hundreds of miles from help, the party's chances were slim.

The cause of the ship's sudden expulsion from its icy cradle glowered over the marooned sailors for anyone with the interest to see. The storm had driven the twin icebergs together like hammer and anvil, crushing the ice field that had held the
Polaris.
No one really cared at that point. Only Tyson remained awake. Natives and sailors alike slept under snow-covered hides and blankets. Everyone but the navigator had accepted their fate and crawled under cover to await the inevitable.

Bone-tired, Tyson counted heads and took stock of their situation. Emerging from their white cocoons, tired faces greeted his count. Ten men from the ship's company and the two Eskimo with their wives and small children, nineteen in all, resided on a circular floe of ice less than several miles around.

Pitiful as their roster was, Tyson realized their residence was far worse. Their domain consisted of a floating island of sharp hills of tumbled ice, more like massive, razor-edged crystals, interspersed with pressure ridges of snow and scattered lakes and ponds of fresh water still melted from the summer sun. Their terra firma was anything but that. Parts of the floe thinned to several inches, insufficient to support a man's weight, while other sections measured more than forty feet thick. Careless wandering would plunge the unwary into freezing water.

They were miles from land, and interwoven barricades of ice prevented their rowing ashore. Unless a dramatic change in the current dispersed the floating islands, they were trapped on a section of drifting ice that might break apart at any moment.

Rescue by their ship remained the most favorable prospect, but Tyson's heart sank as he scanned the ice-strewn horizon. No sign of
the
Polaris
existed. The vessel must have sunk in the storm with all aboard, he concluded. They were on their own.

The p irty had two whaleboats and the nearly useless scow, half filled witr water. To feed the nineteen souls, Tyson counted fourteen cans of pemmican, fourteen salted hams, eleven and a half bags of flour, and one can of dried apples. Of the hundreds of pounds ol bread, meat, and coal, most had sunk or drifted off.

Unknown to the navigator, the marooned crewmen had taken special pains to salvage their personal belongings at the expense of saving essential gear. Whereas Tyson had only the clothing on his back, moi t of the crew had their seabags with coffee and chocolate, fresh clothing, and firearms.

As ra aking officer, he had no weaponsa distinct disadvantage, he suddenly realized. How could he impose his will over those seamen who had firearms? This detail would devil him in days to come.

Roll call revealed that the navigator's company included Frederick Meyer, the troublesome Prussian meteorologist whose collusion with his fellow Teutonic knight Dr. Bessel back at Disko had aided the undermining of Captain Hall. The unfortunate Meyer, dragged over the side by his crate of papers, represented the only member of the scientific corps. Suffering from the effects of scurvy, which drew his leg up so that only the toe could touch the ground as he hobbled about, Meyer would be of little use other than to take sighnngs. If the fog and ice mist persisted, sextant readings would be impossible, and Meyer would be of no use at all.

The able-bodied seamen were Fred Jamka, William Lindermann, Pe :er Johnson, Fred Anthing, and Gustavus Lindquist. J. W. Kruger, row called Robert by the others, completed the list of sailors. Tyson remembered several of these men as being mutinous, among them some who had broken into the ship's stores and drunk the alcohol used for the scientific specimens. None of the sailors had any expertise surviving in the Arctic.

Tired as he was, Tyson had to chuckle at the irony. His command contained most of the ship's seamen. He had the sailors but no ship to sail. Buddington, if he still lived, had only Joseph Mauch, Noah Hayes, Herman Sieman, and Henry Hobby to crew the
Polar, s.
William Jackson, the black cook, and John Herron, the ship's steward, represented the entire galley staff. Tyson had the galley staff without the galley, while Buddington's command was top-heavy with officers and the two scientists. Fate had split the command along the least favorable lines.

On the plus side of Tyson's party stood the stalwart Inuit, Ebierbing and Tookoolito, the faithful husband-and-wife team called “Joe” and “Hanna.” Most important, Ebierbing was an excellent pilot. Hans, the other Inuit, was a proven hunter capable of taking seal and even bear from his fragile kayak with either spear or rifle. When the food ran out, the two Inuit men would have to hunt for them all.

Tookoolito and Hans's wife, Merkut, whom the sailors called Christiana, were adept at tending the seal-oil lamps and sewing the needed clothing. Yet even the Inuit's presence had a downside: there were the extra mouths of their children to feed. Tookoolito's adopted daughter, Puney, and Hans's four childrenAugustina, Tobias, Succi, and newborn Charlie Polariswere too young to hunt or fish.

Now that the snow had stopped, Tyson checked his bearings. Six miles to the southeast rose gray, wind-scoured peaks of land, but plates of pancake ice blocked that route except for a narrow channel of open water. The ice floe where they huddled lay jammed between the two towering icebergs. As chips of ice and smaller scrabble flowed past in the current, he realized the two bergs were firmly grounded on the ocean floor with their floe wedged tightly between.

The bite of the wind rising from the northeast caused the navigator to turn his face in that direction. What he saw sent shivers up his spine. Chunks of ice, mixed with broken plates and saucers, converged on the only open lee. The shifting wind was blowing closed the only route of escape from their fragile stand. They must move quickly. If they failed to paddle through the gap before it disappeared, they would be trapped.

“Quickly, men, get up!” Tyson shouted. “Load the boats. We must launch the boats before that opening closes.” He pointed to the distant landfall. “We must reach that solid ground.”

Overcoming his fatigue, the navigator raced about, kicking and prodding the snow-covered mounds of sleeping men. Try as he might, he could not get them to obey. Instead, the half-frozen sailors stared at him blearily.

“Hungry,” Jamka mumbled. An accompanying chorus agreed with him.

Instead of preparing the boats, the men got slowly to their feet and began to search among their kits for food. To a man they ignored Tyson's entreaties.

Soon a score of pitiful fires, started with seal oil, rags, and scraps of wood, flickered uncertainly on the ice. Tinned cans of meat were pried open and used to thaw their frozen contents over the flames. After licking the tins clean, the sailors boiled snow in the cans to make coffee and chocolate. No one offered Tyson a single bite. The hungry navigator could only stand and watch in frustration. Performing his duty had placed him at a terrible disadvantage.

The Inuit, aware of the danger, ate their frozen seal meat while they waited by the boats and watched the greedy sailors. If they disapproved of the selfish behavior, they said nothing. Survival on the ice meam making hard decisions, something the Natives understood. More likely, they agreed, it might come to every man for himself.

Inexorably the pack ice tightened its noose around the open water. The channel to the land narrowed to a thin thread.

By insisting on eating, the men probably saved their lives at the cost of losing their only path to solid ground. Tyson's prowling about the floe all night using his muscles had kept him warm. The wet, tired seamen lying on the ice sank into hypothermia. The thick blanket of snow that covered them had kept them from freezing to death. Bit without some external warmth, whether a fire or hot food, their body temperatures would continue to slide to deadly lows. Th-dr fumbling, somnambulant actions and slurred speech were symptomatic of this disorder. Their minds had cooled past caring or following orders. Only a primitive instinct directed them to find warm food. Consequently for them it was the right decision.

More than an hour passed while the men boiled more coffee
and tea in the empty tins. Slowly their energy returned. Next they hunted inside their oilskin seabags for a change of dry clothes. While an incredulous Tyson watched, the men changed out of their wet clothing before following his orders. Again no one offered to share his dry articles with the officer.