Trial by Ice

by Richard Parry

  Passing to the east of Crozier Island, the ship sailed beneath the silvery white face of Cape Constitution. Morton and Hans Christian watched glumly as they passed the point that the two of them had reached by sled in 1854 during Dr. Kane's expedition. Their seamed faces showed little of the excitement they had felt when they had steamed northward past the point less than a year before. For Morton this would be his last journey to the far North. Never again would he share the exhilaration of stepping onto undiscovered land with his old friend Hans.

  Two days into their steaming, fog settled across the entire length of Kennedy Channel. Buddington steered the vessel west along Cape Frazer, then back toward the western side of Greenland in his attempt to keep within the open channel. Meyer hastily took a sextant reading before the fog obscured the sun. His calculations placed the ship at 80°1' N latitude.

  Weaving his way through the tiny, shifting openings day and night weighed heavily on Buddington. All around him cakes of ice threatened the weakened ship, and the open leads he followed grew narrow and turned without warning. As usual he consoled himself with nips from his pocket flask. By noon of the fifteenth, the captain was considerably drunk.

  The wrong order slurred from Buddington's lips turned the ship sharply out of the slender canal and drove the vessel into the bordering ice. Thinner, freshly formed ice might have parted beneath the Polarises ironclad prow, but Buddington picked the wrong floe to hit. This floating island stretched more than five miles in length and measured many feet in thickness. In an instant the string of two days' worth of good luck that had come with the birth of the Inuit snapped. With a sickening grind, the bow of the ship rode onto the floe. Abr iptly the Polaris jerked to a halt.

  Insta ltly Buddington ordered the engine into full reverse. The screw be it the water into a greenish froth while the hull painfully wriggled its way off the island. Men held their breath and gripped the hand ails while the ship struggled to free herself.

  Runring the prop in reverse carried a danger of its own. Adjacent blocks of floating ice, drawn in by the suction of the propeller, closed about the screw like wolves on a wounded deer. The blades struck ore mound after another. Chunks of ice flew into the air and spattered the stern before littering the foaming sea with ivory chips.

  The bronze blades bent in the process.

  Below decks the engineer Schuman sensed the stress on the screw and signaled frantically to the bridge. Another minute might see the driveshaft snap. Reluctantly Buddington ordered the engine shut down. With a groan the ship settled onto the ice and heeled onto its side, once more resuming its familiar angle.

  Two days into their escape, the Arctic ice had recaptured the Polaris. More ice gathered around the free side of the ship, packing around the hull. New ice quickly formed between the blocks, sealing the openings until the spidery rime once again entrapped the Polaris in an icy cocoon.

  Chester barked an order, and men leaped onto the floe to drive ice screw > and anchors into the solid surface to keep the ship from rocking t3 pieces. Within an hour stout lines secured the bow and stern.

  Just 120 miles south of the farthest point the Polaris had sailed, Arctic ice again ensnared the woeful ship. Slowly the sailors walked along the deck peering down at the ice encasing their home. For all their efforts to escape the clutches of the Arctic, little good had come of t. In fact, they were considerably worse off. Providence Berg, desoite splitting apart, had remained grounded on the shallow floor of Thank God Harbor, thereby offering some degree of protection. The floe that presently held them was adrift. Like a flea riding the back of a dog, the Polaris no longer controlled its destiny. Worse still, they had burned two more days' worth of their irreplaceable coal and bent their propeller blades.

  Paradoxically the ship appeared to be moving north at times! While the current generally moved from north to south, strong southerly winds buffeted the pack and pushed the ice floe north, preventing it from drifting down the coast. Not only had the region recaptured the retreating expedition, it appeared to be drawing the ship back into its northern lair.

  The grounding on the ice floe reactivated Buddington's worst fears. The very danger he had worked so hard to avoid had come to pass. He and his ship were trapped in the ice fields. If they could not free the Polaris, surely starvation and cannibalism awaited them. Visions of Sir Hugh Willoughby's Muscovy Company sailing ship drifting onto the shores of Lapland with its ghastly cargo of frozen corpses probably haunted his dreams. Even though Sir Hugh's catastrophe had occurred three hundred years before, its dreadful image frequented all the recent publications, adding color to a long string of Arctic disasters that led up to Sir John Franklin's. Ironically the Polaris expedition would contribute to the tales, and it would not be the last calamity.

  Two days passed before the ice resorted to its old trick of nipping the ship's sides. Hummocks piled into the free side of the Polaris with sufficient force to raise the keel and increase the angle of heeling. Panic swept the crew, and Buddington prepared to abandon ship. Supplies littered the deck, readily located for heaving onto the ice should the worst happen. Later that evening another onrush of ice battered the ship again. Heeling increased dramatically while the men looked wistfully at open water miles beyond their reach.

  A southwest gale added to the men's anxiety and discomfort. Freezing rain pelted the deck and coated every exposed fitting and line with ice. The angled deck became a skating rink, ready to send the unwary crashing into the lifelines. Exposed skin froze to lashings on contact, and strips of skin tore away when the limb pulled free.

  Encrusted doors refused to close, blocks froze to their tackle,and icy latlines proved so treacherous that climbing to the crow's nest risked life and limb. Even so, Chester and Tyson climbed daily to the topmast to search for a way out. The swirling mist and sea fog parted at times to reveal tantalizing glimpses of open water. Always, however, white walls rose in defiance between the ship and their freedom.

  Throjghout this icy rain, the crew fretted through a deadly game of blindman's bluff. Not a day passed without some monstrous, milky hillock emerging from the freezing mist to bear down on the tethered Polaris. With singular purpose one or more would cruise stiaight for the vessel, threatening to crush it against the frozen expanse at its back. By hauling on the bow and stern lines, the crew could warp the ship fore and aft to evade the onrush. The work was deadly and disheartening. By using blocks and tackle, the capstan, md even raw muscle, the lines would be pulled in to swing the ship away from the path of the charging mountain of ice. Not unlike dr iwing on strings to turn a child's puppet, the action would pivot the vessel. But this puppet weighed four hundred tons. Around tlie clock the assaults continued until the sailors strained at their lines with numbed minds as well as hands.

  Pressure on the weakened hull continually mounted as the oncoming ice packed tighter and tighter against the exposed flank of the ship. The leaking seams and split boards opened wider as the jaws of the vise inexorably tightened. Again Buddington turned to pumping by the steam donkey. With all hands occupied in moving the ship back and forth along their tightrope, no one could be spared to work the hand pumps on deck.

  As th.3 ship drifted back and forth with the floe, the opalescent walls of tie Humboldt Glacier shimmered and glistened to the east, guarded by an armada of chalky icebergs passing in review down Smith Sound. Behind this floating wall, the pale lavender and blue mountains of Greenland beckoned like soundless sirens to the helpless crew. On August 25 Joseph Mauch penned words that reflected the prevailing gloom that gripped his shipmates as they watched land pass out of reach: “The ice is opening a few hundred yards from us, but so little that we cannot take advantage of it. The officers are, of course, aware that, ten chances to one, we are lost if we should net be able to reach land.”

  For the rest of August and most of September, the ice retained its hold on the Polaris. No further gales roared up the sound. Instead, fog and freezing drizzle filled the days, alternating with cold, dia
mond-clear periods during which the hard reflection of the sun off the ice burned everyone's eyes. The absence of stiff winds proved a curse rather than a blessing. Without wind to roil the water, no waves broke the deepening ice, and the swirling current drifted the intact ice pack north and south, east and west. Dead reckoning and celestial sightings noted little progress to the south. Most days the ship moved less than a mile in any direction. Paradoxically the men now prayed for a gale to release them.

  Distressingly the sun wearied of sailing aloft as it had during the summer and dipped below the horizon for the first time since April. Taking their cue from the departing warmth, birds and animals fled southward, leaving the stranded ship alone in the ice. Seal sightings grew scarce. By the end of August, the only sign of life seen all day was one ivory gull winging its way south. Buddington's fears of starving grew closer to reality. No longer could the party rely upon the Inuit to provide fresh meat. All that remained were the tinned foodstuffs, and Buddington's calculations raised doubts there would be enough to feed all of them until next April.

  Everywhere the region seemed to be settling into the steely grip of the coming winter. The air grew heavy and thick with the cold, and the earthy scents of the land disappeared. Once more the ear-shattering silence of the dreaded Arctic night crept forward to muffle the world.

  Unlike the Ancient Mariner's predicament, fresh water was abundant for the trapped men. Melted portions of the glacial ice and snow filled the hollows of the ice pack with pools of fresh water. Daily parties of men crossed the ice to fill their buckets and casks with brackish water to drink and feed to the steam boilers. As the temperature fell and the pools froze, they cut blocks of ice from the icebergs.

  More coal vanished in fruitless attempts to break free. One long day of working the hand lines and using the steam engine moved the vessel less than its own length. Nine hundred pounds of coal per day vanished into the firebox of the steam pumps. Chester and Schuman struggled to reduce the constant flow of water from the cracks. Ninety fathoms of chain was fed into the forepeak in an effort to freeze the water in the forward hold in hopes this might slow the influx of seawater.

  Tarred sailcloth was fed under the bows and winched tightly against the damaged side. Called “thrumming,” the process involved piercing the sailcloth with an awl and feeding short strips of yarn thrcugh each of the hundreds of holes. In theory the suction of the leak would draw the yarn into the holes and bind the canvas against tie ship's hull. In practice thrumming a sail worked well and had saved many a ship from a watery grave. But that was in warmer waters. Encountering frigid air and icy water, the tarred canvas froze into an inflexible sheet too stiff to closely enfold the damaged hull.

  The thud of caulking hammers driving oakum into the cracks rang for days. In the end the leaks proved worse.

  Schuinan abandoned his attempts to stop the leaks and turned his attention to reducing the coal needed to run the pumps. Besides having a large firebox, the steam donkey labored far in excess of its intended purpose. Originally designed only to transfer water to the engine boilers, the overstressed steam pumps kept the ship afloat by their continuous use, something they had never been built to do. Their breakdowns frayed the crew's nerves and kept Schuman busy with emergency repairs. He settled upon a small boiler designed to aid the combustion nozzles in the engine room. The men brought it on deck nd bolted it down. Ingeniously the engineer redirected the small boiler's smokestack through Ebierbing's cabin to provide extra heatir g for the Inuit while the machine fired.

  By the twenty-third of September, Schuman had the little machine wo rking well enough to replace the steam donkey. As he had hoped, it did cut down considerably on the amount of coal needed to do the job. Only 350 pounds of fuel per day emptied the holds of water. However, their respite did not last long. Six days of heavy use burned up the boiler beyond repair. The end of September found thti Polaris with less than twenty tons of coal left. Forced back to burning close to half a ton of coal a day just to keep from sinking, by November the Polaris would be out of coal to fire its engines. Hall had stored enough coal for two and one-half years, but the leaks had drastically altered fuel consumption.

  Buddington prepared for the worst. Should the pumps fail or the ship's side be crushed by the ice, the vessel would sink within minutes. Following Captain Hall's lead, he moved stores necessary for survival topside. The storm staysail and gaff-topsails were cut up and sewn into seabags. Bags filled with two tons of coal and loaves of bread joined the growing piles of tinned goods, twenty barrels of pork, and cans of molasses heaped by the guardrails. One remaining whaleboat was lowered onto the ice and the last remaining skiff unlashed from the cabin roof and swung over the side on davits, ready for fast deployment.

  Probably to keep Captain Tyson occupied, Buddington bestowed upon him the grandiose but hollow title of “master builder” and ordered him to construct a tent on the ice beside the ship. During the construction, they discovered that the ice surrounding the Polaris measured six feet thick. Sinking poles into the ice for support and lashing the crossbeams together, Tyson, Morton, Mauch, Bryan, and Ebierbing built a frame twenty-seven feet long and twenty-five feet wide. The canvas used to house the deck during the winter at Thank God Harbor enclosed the tent. Eight hundred pounds of bread was stacked in canvas bags beside the shelter. Within days of the food transfer, a polar bear approached the camp, probably attracted by the smell. Two rifle shots wounded the animal without bringing it down. Half the crew took out after the fleeing bear, but it escaped. By week's end tracks of three more bears crossed close to the cache of bread.

  October ended their two-month respite. Just as the donkey steam pump broke down yet again, new and dramatic events gripped the ice floe and its captive sailing ship. The ice started to move. First, the vast island swung slowly around until the bow of the ship faced directly west. Then a gale struck from the south, creating waves and troughs that crumpled the weaker parts of the ice. Hills and hummocks rose before the men's eyes, accompanied by grinding noises that reverberated throughout the ship. Giant, razor-sharp shards pierced the frozen seascape surrounding them and tumbled over close by. Any one of these frozen knives striking the ship could easily hole the wooden hull beyond all repair.

  Resigned to the fate of spending another winter locked in Smith Sound, the crew found themselves propelled backward by the sudden and swift movement of the ice southward. Snowfall accompanied the storm, obscuring any sun sight. Meyer used land bearings to place the Polaris at 78°45' N. The next day he reckoned the ship to be 12 miles from Cape Grinnell. They had drifted south another 120 miles in a matter of days.

  Spirits rose. Their floating world approached the northern outlet of Baffin Bay. At this rate they would soon drift within reach of help. Once the vessel entered Baffin Bay, it would float with the pack until spring melted the ice. Besides, each mile brought the ship closer to Disko, where a storehouse of coal and food awaited.

  But progress came with a price. Pressure increased on the ship's sides, and the vessel protested constantly with nerve-racking creaks and snaps and fresh leaks. Buddington redoubled his preparations to abandDn ship. The men piled a total of eighteen hundred pounds of bread about the tent. All items necessary for survival were brought topside and stacked for quick access. Should the ship suffer a fatal blow, the plan was to heave the goods onto the ice. Yet the unstable nature of their surroundings prevented moving the items off the boat until the last moment. To place all their supplies on the ice would be to risk losing everything should the ship break free or the tent be swallowed by a sudden opening in the island. Crates of tinned pemmican, tobacco, and hams rose on the deck in preparation. Piles of musk ox hides joined the jumble until walking about became difficult. Below decks prudent sailors stuffed their belongings into seabags and waited.

  A DREADFUL NIGHT

  The ice was here, the ice was there,

  The ice was all around:

  It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
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  Like noises in a swound. …

  —SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,

  ”THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER”

  They wouldn't have long to wait. Late in the day on October 15, the sky grew threatening. Dark clouds gathered to the northwest and steadily advanced in a glowering mass of molten lead until the edge of the storm hung over the ship like a black pall. Ominously the wind died down. An oppressive stillness pressed down upon the ship. The nervous banter of the deckhands trailed off until the only sound heard was the creak of the ice-encrusted deck as the men moved warily about.

  As if spurred on by the coming gale, the stretch of ice that encompassed the Polarises world surged forward, dragging the ship along. Out of the icy mists, two ghostly mountains rose directly ahead. Shimmering and sliding silently through the water, these icebergs loomed like twin giants, drawing ever closer to the ship.

  Men standing their watch gasped as their drift drew them inexorably toward their doom. The ship was trapped in the floe, and there was no possibility of escape. Within minutes the floe bearing its puny vessel would crash into the frozen giants. If the ship did not hit one of them directly, the pileup of the oncoming ice pack into the icebergs would surely shatter the expanse of ice surrounding them and crush the hull like a paper cup.

  Just then the gale struck from the northwest. Snow, mist, and ice crystals swirled about the air. Visibility dropped to mere inches in front cf the men's faces, punctuated by fleeting glimpses of the ice and w iter when the wind scattered the snow.