Trial by Ice

by Richard Parry

  Then Noah Hayes fell down the gangway and twisted his knee so badly that he could not perform his duties for an entire week. Three da^s later an old frostbite injury on William Morton's heel reopened. During one trip with Dr. Kane, Morton had frozen his heel. The wound remained closed in temperate climates. Now the parchmentlike scar split apart, forcing the man to remain in bed until it healed. As a precaution against scurvy, lime juice joined the daily rations.

  For some time now, Arctic explorers had understood that the lack of fresh vegetables and sunlight fostered scurvy. Plants and most animals can synthesize vitamin C from glucose, but humans cannot. The lack of vitamins C and D prevents the production of collagenthe main component in fibrous and elastic tissues. Teeth loosen and fall out, and healed scars break down. Bleeding into the skin and muscle follows as the walls of the blood vessels weaken. Since the Inuit ate fresh meat that contained vitamin C and never suffered from scurvy, except during periods of starvation, the Western explorers adopted their practice. Lime juice helped as well. James Lind, a Scottish surgeon serving in the Royal Navy, first discovered this association in 1753. Forced to drink a mix of lime juice and sauerkraut, the British tar soon acquired the moniker of “Limey.”

  With each passing hour, the days and nights merged more tightly into one black, faceless event. The thermometer sank incessantly, and the wind grew dangerously sharp. The sinuous winding of greenish-purple and rose-colored auroras appeared with increasing frequency in the skies overhead, confirming the Inuit's feelings that evil forces were at work.

  The galley stove broke down. A constant wind raking across the deck and rattling the ice-rimed rigging now forced downdrafts through the chimney. Clouds of smoke, sparks, and burning cinders drove Jackson and his helpers out of the galley. The small stoves in the forecastle and below decks replaced the galley. Each mess therefore cooked their own meals. This solution further conspired to divide the crew. Buddington unwittingly aggravated the problem when he canceled the daily services that Hall had held. No longer would the various watches and teams on the Polaris come together in one place.

  A series of gales raked across the bay beginning on November 18. Winds increased to almost fifty knots. The wind instruments tore apart under the impact. Herman Sieman, a stout figure,left the ship to measure the tidal change through the fire hole, an opening kept from freezing over in case seawater should be needed to fight a fire on board the ship. A gust blew his feet from under him. Crashing onto his back, Sieman shot across the ice in freezing water tha: had overflowed from fresh cracks in the ice. Each new blast pushed him farther from the ship. Using his ice ax, he barely made it back to the safety of the ship.

  The fury of the storm trapped Emil Bessel in his flimsy observatory. Each hammering of the wind threatened to rip the prefabricated shac k apart. By nine o'clock the next morning, Bessel had not returned. Since the observatory had a small coal stove, his tardiness caused liti le alarm.

  As tine passed, concern mounted until Meyer volunteered to reach the house. Each attempt he made, the storm foiled. Struggling through a milky white world where he could not even see his hand, he never found the building. The force of the storm drove him back with mounting savagery. One of his eyelids froze solid during his struggle. Finally Hans and Ebierbing joined the attempt. The swirling snow taxed even their expertise. Creeping along on hands and knees, the three finally reached the observatory.

  Inside they found Emil Bessel on the verge of freezing to death. He had burned his last lump of coal more than eight hours before and then luddled inside the rattling building while his ear froze. As they battled back to the ship with the petrified doctor, Ebierbing's right cheek turned white from frostbite. Only Hans escaped unharmed. With the temperature reaching minus 20°F and the wind howling 2t fifty knots, exposed skin froze within fifteen seconds.

  All diy the men huddled inside while the ship creaked and groaned with the buckling ice. Far out to sea, the thinner sea ice shattered as the ocean's fetch allowed waves and swells to grow under the ir creasing pressure of the wind. The rolling sea jacked the thicker b;iy ice until leads and fissures crisscrossed the harbor. By afternoor the Polaris rocked inside her frozen cradle as the walls around her splintered and shattered to the accompanying rifle-shot cracks of breaking ice.

  At two-thirty in the morning, a convulsive jerk rippled throughout the ship. All hands rushed topside to find the vessel surrounded by a frothy well of black water. Its icy cradle had shattered to pieces. Freed of its constraints, the ship rocked wildly with each wave. The open water quickly swallowed the ice wall that the men had spent days banking against the ship's sides. In an instant all their work vanished.

  Blinded by the swirling clouds of snow, the men waited like sightless creatures as block after block of bay ice rammed against the sides of the ship. Soundings with a lead line confirmed an even worse fear: The Polaris had dragged her anchor and was drifting. The soundings read deeper water under the keel with each throw. With the bay ice broken, the entire pack was drifting out to sea carrying the Polaris along with it.

  Even more frightening was the presence of Providence Berg. Once a shelter from the wind and seas, the massive iceberg now threatened the ship. All the turmoil of waves and wind had not dislodged the iceberg. Firmly grounded in the bottom of the bay, the frozen mountain still straddled Thank God Harbor.

  Now the current and wind carried the ship directly toward the stationary iceberg. Drawn like a floating leaf, within minutes the Polaris would be smashed against the iceberg. Once the hull began sliding along the underwater portion of Providence Berg, the contact would be fatal. The underwater spur of the iceberg, frozen water polished to a slick surface, would act like a deadly ramp, flipping the ship onto its side while wind and waves cascaded over the opposite railings. The Polaris would roll over until water rushed over the leeward rail, overwhelmed her pumps, and she sank.

  Frantically the sailors broke open chain lockers and bent on heavy chain to bow and stern anchors. Ice coating the lockers had to be chipped off to free the chains. If anchors could be set in the powdery bottom, the hopeless drift of the ship toward the iceberg could be slowed or stopped. Fore and aft anchors splashed into the waterwith no relief. The anchors continued to drag across the poor holding ground.

  The men braced themselves for the grinding crash. But none came. Almost docilely Polaris sidled under the protective shoulder of Providence Berg. The following ice floes parted and flowed past the ship on their way out to sea. Soberly the sailors realized their respite might not last more than an hour unless the ship was secured. Since the anchors refused to bite into the soft bottom, mooring the sh p to the grounded iceberg remained the only option.

  William Lindermann stripped off his fur clothing and squeezed through fie forward porthole on the starboard side. Just beneath him, the ship's prow jutted across part of Providence Berg. From there he grasped a projecting spur of the iceberg and dragged himself onto the ice. Ebierbing followed close behind him. Using knife and hatchet, the Inuit cut footsteps so they could ascend to the flat saddle of he iceberg.

  Under the light of a burning kerosene-soaked hawser set in a pan, the two men drove an ice anchor into the berg and secured the bowline. Three more men scampered across and placed two more anchors. Secured fore and aft, the Polaris nestled beneath the protective shoulder of the frozen giant while the men aboard listened to the thumping and crashing of waves and floating ice hammering against the outer side.

  By la:e afternoon the storm blew itself out. When the air cleared sufficiently for the men to look about, they took stock. The change was remarkable. The bayonce frozen solidly with two-foot-thick sections of icenow lay open. Black water lapped against the ship's hull and stretched as far as the eyes could see.

  The sudden breakup of the surrounding ice had cost the party dearly. Two sleds vanished into the dark sea, and two dogs were missing along with numerous parcels. The wind and snow wreaked havoc with the instruments left on the bank. The declinometer l
ay on its side, half buried in snowdrifts. Several small igloos were blown do wn, and Dr. Bessel's prefabricated observatory was totally buried b) snow. Burrowing a six-foot-long tunnel to the door proved the only way to enter the laboratory.

  Satisfied that it had demonstrated its power, the Arctic abruptly ceased its savagery and started to preen. The sky cleared to expose a dazzling, display of northern lights. Electric clouds, as the seamen called them, floated above their heads. Coiling and snaking, the bands of ale blue and violet danced from one horizon to the next. Folding and writhing like a living thing, the lighted curtains arced across tha clear air, appearing to hover just outside of fingers' reach, although they actually waved more than two hundred miles overhead. Using the latest instruments available, the scientists measured the mysterious sight. Their magnetic instruments showed no effect, probably because they were not sensitive enough, and the black paddles of the electroscope remained still. To the men on the Polaris expedition, the aurora borealis remained an unexplained phenomenon.

  It would take another hundred years for men of science like Sun Akasofu of the University of Alaska to unravel most of the mysteries of the northern lights. Still not completely understood, the dazzling display results from charged electrons and protons reaching the earth in the solar wind emanating from the sun. The magnetic fields surrounding the earth pour out from the north and south magnetic poles like unseen fountains and draw the charged particles toward the top and bottom of the earth. During intense periods of solar activity, gust after gust of solar particles blow out from the sun to concentrate at the poles and bombard the earth's upper atmosphere. Slamming into the atmosphere, these charged particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms, split off their electrons, and knock those electrons into excited states. As the electrons drop back into their normal state, they emit characteristic light waves of violet, green-blue, and red. At the exact moment a display of northern lights flares over the North Pole, an identical displaythe aurora australis, or southern lightsdances over the South Pole. In some ways the magnetized air over the poles acts like one enormous fluorescent bulb lighting up the heavens.

  Magnetic fields do accompany the aurora borealis. Intense light displays will send power surges along high-tension electric lines running between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, and magnetic fields do flow down the Alaska oil pipeline. So why the scientists of the Polaris failed to detect magnetic changes is uncertain. However, the pipeline and power wires act as giant conductors, concentrating the aurora's magnetism.

  That the Polaris escaped major damage from the storm amazed all hands. The ship narrowly missed being dragged out to sea with the ice pack. Without a full head of steam, the ship would have drifted without power until crushed amid the jostling ice. If divine intervention had played any part in the ship's salvation, the idea was lost 3n Captain Buddington. The following Sunday, over the objection; of Mr. Bryan, the captain announced that attending Sunday services was no longer required.

  Two days later an eerie sight greeted all the men. A strangely shaped full moon rose and shone brightly across the covered decks. Refractio i of moonlight on ice crystals suspended in the air, aided by the density of the cold air, produced an optical illusion called a paraselene. Three identical images of the full moon hovered in the dark sky, surrounding the real one, one on each side and one above. A fourth image, the lowest one, was hidden by the mountains. The four visible images connected by the rays of light from the real moon, aided by the mind's eye, formed a cross. The Inuit took this to be another omen of bad things to come.

  They didn't have long to wait. Providence Berg, once the protector, turned on the ship it sheltered. Another storm struckthis time from the south. Heavy snow fell, adding to that blown by the wind, and soon the visibility dropped to a few feet. Wind and waves attacked both ship and iceberg from their unprotected side.

  Unde r constant pressure from the ice floe, Providence Berg split in two. The advancing ice floe wedged the halves apart until more than eight feet separated them. The half that sheltered Polaris swung or its grounded foot while the smaller island of ice rammed into the ship's side. Every man held his breath as the Polaris creaked and groaned against the point of this frozen lance.

  Buddington rushed back and forth along the covered deck, peering over the side with each protest from the straining oak planks. Was the side cut through? he wondered. Were the ribs staved in? Miraculously the wood withstood the pressure. Seams opened, but the ship's flanks remained intact.

  However, another, more dangerous, event occurred. What the ice could not break, it sought to overturn. A shelf of ice protruded from Providence Berg below the waterline, close beside the ship's nose. Slowly the force of the storm drove the Polaris onto the underwater projection, lifting her keel until the bow rose into the air, exposing the copper sheathing and barnacle-encrusted iron plate of the prow. Shaking and quivering like a whipped dog, the ship advanced with each blow from the thundering waves.

  In time the Polaris keeled to one side, coming to lie nearly on its beam end. Men slid down the icy deck to crash into the aft cabins. The deck canted so steeply that walking proved difficult without using the lifelines. When the Polaris finally came to rest, the stem jutted two and one-half feet above the sea. Here the ship remained, careened to one side like a trader run on a reef. When the tide ran out, the ship's stern dropped and the bow rose four feet in the air. On the flood tide the stern rose again, lowering the stem to two and one-half feet once more. All the while this teeter-tottering worked its damage on the keel. The pitch and yaw of the ship so frightened the Inuit that they moved from the ship to the observatory. There they took up residence, scattering their skins and oil lamps among the crates of brass instruments.

  Thanksgiving arrived with no special services to celebrate their deliverance from another near disaster. As George Tyson wrote acerbically in his diary, “Thanksgiving was remembered at the table, but in no other way.” Opened cans of lobster, turkey, oyster soup, pec ins, walnuts, plum duff, cherry pie, and wine punch made up for the lack of spirituality. While the men feasted, no one considered the extra fuel they were using. Ominously, 6,334 pounds of coal were burned during November, 1,596 pounds more than the previous month.

  December brought deepening cold. The men amused themselves by playing cards and racing sleds on the refrozen bay. Captain Buddington wrote in his journal: “All possible preparations are being made to succeed with our sledge parties next spring.” His notes mu >t have been for public consumption. Already the skipper was doin^ his best to paint the brightest picture possible for the men in Washington. No other journals mention such preparations. Tookoolito's sewing of new skin anoraks and pants appears to be the only measure taken.

  Chester wrote glowing praise of the men, describing them like cheerful Boy Scouts, always industrious and especially neat: “They are all good men. They keep clean and take good care of themselves. Everything about their quarters looks clean and neat. There is not much danger of such men being troubled with scurvy.”

  His rose-colored glasses are impressive. First, soap cannot prevent scurvy. Second, stability aboard the Polaris had all but vanished. Inc reasingly Captain Buddington was drunk, and the men, taking their cue from the captain, pilfered the ship's alcohol stores. Gallons of ethanol intended to preserve scientific specimens simply vanished. Duplicate keys to the storage lockers sprang up throughout the ship. Boisterous, drunken parties reigned nightly.

  Orde and discipline suffered. Day and night became the same. One long, ongoing period of darkness engulfed the crew. Day and night activities bled slowly into each other. Now when the need was greatest t3 establish regular routines to prevent the malaise that follows the loss of these normal cycles, there were none. Buddington had no siomach for order, preferring to drink in his cabin. Tyson, Hayes, and Hobby regularly visited Hall's grave and lamented his absence. “Captain Hall did not always act with the clearest judgement,” George Tyson wrote, “but it was heaven to this.”


  Tyson saw things quite differently from Chester. “There is so little regularity observed,” he lamented. “There is no stated time for putting out lights; the men are allowed to do as they please; and, consequently, they often make nights hideous by their carousing, playing cards to all hours.” He took to walking on the ice in the darkness “longing for a moment's quiet.” But the heartless isolation and oppressive darkness weighed heavily on him. “The gloom and silence of every thing around settles down on one like a pall,” he wrote.

  Nathan Coffin turned worse. When he was sane, he worked diligently repairing sleds in the aft-galley space, which had become the carpentry workshop. During those times he appeared normal. At other times a black mood fell over him. His deranged mind remained convinced that someone on board intended to murder him.

  Their method for doing him in was bizarre by any standards. Coffin imagined that after boring a hole in the bulkhead where he slept, they would insert a nozzle through the opening and spray him with carbolic acid, thus freezing him to death. Such a death would be ascribed to the Arctic cold rather than to a murderer, he reasoned, and would go unpunished. The open questions about Captain Hall's recent demise gave credence to his theory. Hall's ravings about poison still remained fresh in everyone's mind. Many still wondered if their commander had been murdered.