Trial by Ice

by Richard Parry

  The ice field swung around with the storm and drove between the two towering mountains. The floe shuddered to a halt upon impact. High-pitched screams emanated from the icebergs as slabs weighing tons sheared from their sides to tumble onto the floe.

  Resembling an earthquake opening fissures, the impact buckled the floe and sent spidery cracks racing outward from the point of impact. Close behind these widening fissures, the ice rose and heaved like falling dominoes. The crumpled ridge rushed toward the trapped ship like an ivory tidal wave.

  Then it struck the ship. Crumpling, cracking, and twisting, the enormous sheet of frozen water encasing the Polaris exploded into fragments. The force lifted the Polaris bodily and drove it onto its port side. Shuddering and trembling from the pressure, the vessel wrenched out of its frozen bed and rode up onto the ice. A cleat securing ore of the ice anchors pulled free with a sharp crack and vanished over the side with the hawser. Heavy oak timbers groaned and snapped, mostly abaft the beam. The stern section appeared to split in two.

  A tortured groan wrenched George Tyson from his deep sleep and caused him to sit bolt upright in his narrow bunk. Flakes of frost from condensed moisture on the walls rained down on him as the ship's sides trembled. The cold flakes stung his face like needles and brought him fully awake.

  Grop ng within the blackness of the cabin, his fingers touched the rough oak walls of the ship, an act of reassurance every mariner performs when frightened. No sounds of rushing water reached his ears; no streams of freezing water met his touch. The solid sides were still intact. Tyson murmured a prayer, and he calmed himself.

  Tyson cocked his ear, uncertain of what exactly was happening. As assistant navigator of the expedition, his twenty years sailing the Arctic ha d prepared him for the creaks and sounds each ship makes as it lives uneasily among the ice. No vessel ever masters the Arctic seas. Ratier, the massive bergs and blocks of ice permit a ship to exist. Already cracked and leaking, the Polaris had plenty of reason to protest the pressure of the ice, but these sounds were different more intense, more … painful.

  Tyson blinked in the dark. He must get topside, he realized. A feeble shaft of light marked the forward ladder. Another, lesser moan followed the first, this one issuing from the ribs of the ship itself. It was as if the Polaris were being tortured, crying out in pain with each blow to its sides.

  Suddenly the vessel lurched violently to port, throwing Tyson from his bunk.

  “We are sinking!” The shout came from the deck. Another roll followed close on the cry, and a sharp grinding shook the keel. Above his head running feet thudded across the deck, mixing with the scrape of sliding crates.

  A voice he recognized as belonging to Campbell, the fireman, screamed down the hatch: “The ice has driven through the side!”

  Instantly Tyson leaped to his feet and bounded up the ladder. A wall of frigid air struck his lungs as he skidded onto the ice-rimmed deck. His bare fingers caught the rigging to keep his balance. The frozen cordage burned like molten iron.

  The perpetual gloom of the Arctic winter provided scarcely more light than his darkened room, but he could see the faint outlines of the forecastle rising like a dark wedge into the inky sky. Snow and sleet peppered his face, blinding him at times. Squinting through the mist, he forced his eyelids to remain open. What he managed to see chilled his heart.

  Surrounding the ship, ice floes and jumbled pack ice hovered in the blowing snow like ghostly specters. Two monstrous icebergs threatened the ship from both sides. At first Tyson thought the bergs had struck the ship, but a swirl of the snow revealed that not to be the case. The bergs had struck the ice floe instead, he realized.

  A body tumbled past Tyson, striking his left leg on the way by. The tilt of the deck had slid the crew against the port railings, clustering them in a bunch like ninepins near the waist of the vessel. Those who could stand peered over the railing. Tyson slipped and skated to them and followed their gaze over the side.

  Razor ridges of ice pressed against the ship's sides, compressing the timbers and forcing the Polaris upward until the scarred iron and copper sheeting lay exposed to the frigid air. Clusters of barnacles and patches of sea grass, the ship's watery beard, coated the edges of jce that had sheared them from the hull. Ironically, the cracked timbers that had eluded repair rode high above the water.

  Quickly Tyson skated to the starboard rail.

  Solid ice gripped that side as well. The blowing wind and waves had forced frozen hummocks and knife-sharp sastrugi against the floe to which the Polaris was moored. Adding to this, the massive weight of the two icebergs leaned against the crumpled edge of the ice field. Thousands of tons of frozen water now pressed against the trapped ship. Between these jaws the Polaris was being crushed.

  A well-founded vessel, designed for such a contingency, would wriggle free of the closing jaws and rise above the crushing forces. Thus, resiing on top of the ice, it would lie safely while the vast pack of ic e shifted and moved inexorably north or south with the ocean's current. Now the navy's decision to cut costs by reusing the unsuitably shaped narrow hull of the old Periwinkle would threaten the lives of all aboard.

  To Tyson's alarm the starboard side of the vessel still lay within the frozer jaws, while the port side obediently rode above the danger. Each gust of wind drew protests from the groaning hull as the ice tightened.

  Just then Schuman, the engineer, burst from the aft companion-way, shouting in German as he flailed his arms. His feet slipped on the ic> deck, and he bowled into the crew clustered by the railing. Tysoi grasped the officer by his collar and dragged him to his feet.

  “Speak English!” he ordered. “What is it? What's the matter?”

  “We're sinking!” Schuman stuttered. “The ice has opened the seams. Many new leaks,” he gasped.

  A terrified moan arose from the deckhands. Their widened eyes, glowing white even in the darkness, signaled they were close to panic. If the ship sank, all were lost. Not only were there no other ships within hundreds of miles, but the nearest settlements were also hundreds of miles south. Those who made it to an island of ice were doomed to a drawn-out death from frostbite and starvation. With the seawater temperature at 28°F, no man would last longer th.m fifteen minutes. Anyone who fell into the sea would drown as the cold robbed his muscles of any strength. More than a few minutes in the water so stiffened the small muscles of the hands that a man could not grasp a rescue line.

  “The pumps, man,” Tyson said as he shook the engineer, “start the pumps!”

  Schuman shook his head. “We are pumping, but it does no good. The water is gaining on the pumps. It rushes into the hold. We are lost!”

  Tyson released his grip on his fellow officer as a shaft of light flashed in the doorway of the master's cabin. It was Captain Buddington.

  Hauling himself along the lifelines, Tyson slid to the sailing master. “The ship is being strongly nipped, sir,” he yelled over the howl of the wind. “Schuman says the seams have opened and the pumps cannot keep up.”

  Buddington stared uncomprehendingly at Tyson. The captain's breath reeked of alcohol. His eyes blinked rapidly while his lips moved, but no words came out. Now more than ever, Tyson wished for the solid, sturdy face of Captain Hall. Unflappable in any emergency, the late captain was sorely needed.

  “We are sinking!” Schuman screamed through the blowing snow. “Sinking!”

  As if responding to the engineer's cries, the Polaris lurched farther to one side and rose by the bow as the ice pack shifted.

  Schuman's words and the ship's movement galvanized Buddington. He rushed forward to the crew, waving both arms at the pile of supplies lashed to the center of the deck. Heavier supplies like the bags of coal were stacked forward, while ammunition, rifles, and lighter boxes had been collected aft.

  Buddington threw his arms up in the air and yelled: “Throw everything onto the ice!”

  Gustavus Lindquist and Peter Johnson spun about at these startling words. Other sailors
stopped and cast nervous glances at one another. Had they misunderstood the captain? Was the ship really sinking? During previous threats of swamping, calm orders were issued and goods transferred safely onto the ice until the danger passed. Surely all was not lost?

  Buddington answered their unspoken questions. “Work for your lives boys!” he bellowed.

  Panic erupted. Terror-stricken, the crew rushed about cutting the lashings and flinging whatever they snatched over the railings on both sides. Boxes and crates flew into the darkness and the swirling snow. All the while the Polaris rose and fell with the rolling ice and roiling waves from the growing storm. The sway of the hull and the force of the storm opened wide gaps in the ice that moments before had encased the ship. Level floors of ice cracked and drew apa^t like broken china. Other sections tumbled and overturned as the supporting sea roiled beneath its frozen roof. Blinded by their fears as well as the pelting snow, the men worked feverishly and foolishly. Superhuman strength imbued many and galvanized those who saw their impending death.

  One man single-handedly pushed a sled through the gangway and hefte« 1 it over the side. Not waiting to see where it landed, he rushed aft to help empty the deck of the goods stacked there. Boxes of ammunition, stacks of rifles and revolvers, tins of preserved fruit cascaded off the ship and rained into the darkness.

  Over :he roar of the wind, Tyson heard a splash. He leaned far over the port railing. To his horror he saw the results of the hurried evacuatio i.

  Most of the supplies were falling into the sea.

  The navigator's heart sank as he watched box after box vanish beneath the dark waters or shatter as the roll of the ship against the ice crushed and splintered the crates. Cans and crates bobbed in the open gaps. From the corner of his eye, Tyson saw Joe and Hans, the two E >kimo hunters, slip over the railing onto a crust of solid ice and begin to drag what they could onto the ice floe. The Natives had kept their heads while the “educated and civilized” crew lost theirs.

  A crash caught Tyson's attention. The last remaining whaleboat thudded to the ice as the desperate men cut the lines to its davits. It slid back off the ice, coming to rest half in the water. The oars and sails for the boat rattled against its plank sides. Floating against the churning dull, the longboat risked being instantly crushed.

  “The provisions are sinking!” Tyson shouted to his befuddled skipper.

  “Move them back!” Buddington ordered.

  The assistant navigator jumped down and snatched a box from certain doom. He struggled with the whaleboat until more hands joined him. When he looked up, he could see a dozen others working on the ice. He wondered briefly whether Buddington had sent them down or whether the men had come on their own.

  Gathering a working party, Tyson followed the Eskimo onto the jumbled ice away from the ship. In their wisdom the Natives were moving their possessions toward the pitched tent, where the ice appeared the thickest.

  Aboard the ship Tookoolito watched Hans's wife leading her daughter toward the canvas tent. On her back the woman's newborn son, Charlie Polaris, slept contentedly. Tookoolito watched them vanish in the swirling snow before turning back to the companion-way. More of her possessions remained in their cabin. Extra furs, two seal-oil lamps, and her sewing kit were still below. Quickly she gathered these precious things up in her arms.

  The simple lamps made by grinding a shallow depression in a flat stone would provide light and heat for her family on the ice. Filled with seal oil and regulated by a braided grass wick, the lamp was all they needed to warm an igloo. New wicks could be fashioned from sea grass stuffed inside her mukluks for insulation. Equally important was her sewing kit. With its bone needles and awls, Tookoolito could fashion new garments and repair torn ones. Those two items, the lamps and the sewing kit, ensured her family's survival. Without them they would be lost.

  Coming up the steps, she encountered the oil-smudged face of Alvin Odell, the assistant engineer. The unspoken concern in her dark eyes caught his attention.

  Odell stopped and laid his greasy hand on her shoulder. His gaze rested on the articles clutched tightly against her breast. The heavy hand patted her shoulder reassuringly. “Don't worry, little lady,” he chuckled. “We've got the leaks under control. We'll have you back on board before long.”

  Tookoolito followed Odell up the steps to the deck. He spotted Captain Buddington and headed over to him. The Inuit woman looked about at the confusion sweeping the foredeck. Buddington now added to her consternation by ordering her onto the ice.

  Through the whistle of the wind, she heard her husband, Ebierbing, call her name. The snow parted to allow her a fleeting glimpse on him beckoning from the ice. Quietly Tookoolito slipped over the s de and dropped onto the ice. She would take her chances with her husband, she decided, rather than on this ship with its bad Inuu

  As she slipped onto the ice floe, Tookoolito carried one other precious thing. Gripped tightly in her arms was also a small wooden box given to her by her dying friend Charles Francis Hall. While Buddington and Bessel had collected all of Hall's papers upon his death, Tookoolito had hidden this small box of letters from them. Honoring Hall's dying wish, she protected and preserved them with her life.

  Behind her Bryan and Meyer wrestled with chests filled with the expedition's scientific papers. Over the side Bryan tossed his own personal box with his private letters and notebooks. He and the meteorologist lifted case after case over the railing.

  Hours passed unnoticed as the men fished floating crates from the waves, wrestled them onto solid ice, and dragged them toward the center of the floe. In the darkness time had little meaning, especially while the fury of the storm mounted.

  A disheartened Tyson finally dragged himself onto the ship to report his progress. What supplies they had salvaged were now clustered iround a whaleboat dragged to the most solid part of the floe. He estimated six thousand pounds of canned pemmican had sunk along with many bags of the precious coal. The helter-skelter jettisoning had proved ruinous. The bulk of the ship's emergency provisions littered the ocean floor.

  As he reached Buddington, the ship shifted to port again, just as the ice released the starboard side of the Polaris. Black open water swirled around the hull.

  Both men stared at their reprieve. One side was now free. One jaw of the vise was gone. If the leaks could be contained, the ship would be saved.

  “How much water is the vessel making?” Tyson asked anxiously.

  Buddington grinned sheepishly and shrugged. “No more than usual,” he answered. “When the bow rose, the water in the hold rushed forth. Schuman mistook that for a new leak. But he was mistaken. The vessel is strong.” He gave a nervous laugh. Odell's second assessment had calmed his fears. “I guess we're not sinking after all. The engineer's first report was a false alarm.”

  The navigator studied the pumps. The steady clank of the steam donkey reassured him that it was pumping smoothly. Two men working the hand pump motioned to their hose. Water and air gushed out the nozzle. That pump was sucking air, Tyson realized. The bilge must be almost dry.

  The storm permitted them no time at all to rejoice. A stiff gust of wind rattled the rigging and howled through the cross spars and showered them with shards of ice stripped from the fittings. The deck with all its frenzied activity vanished in a blanket of stinging ice crystals and snowflakes. The surrounding ice field groaned with the accompanying storm surge.

  “Look.” Tyson pointed to new cracks appearing about the ship. “The ice is breaking up even more.” The vast floor of ice resumed its rising and falling in sections like waves, with cracks and fissures opening and closing with each shift. The clouds of snow parted to expose additional crates scattered about the port side of the vessel that Tyson and the men had missed.

  Buddington's attention shifted to the precious supplies. “Mr. Tyson, get everything back as far as possible on the ice,” he ordered.

  Tyson nodded wearily and crawled down onto the floe to resume directing his exha
usted men. Another hour passed as the men slid and pushed the freight back from the cracking edges. In the whirling snow, visibility was cut to a few inches. The force of the blowing wind stung their faces, and the icy sleet cut the men's eyes whenever they faced into the gale. Half the time they stumbled blindly about while the ground under their feet writhed and turned like a living beast.

  Lindquist manhandled an enormous barrel of molasses to the tumble home. Using his back for leverage, he pushed the cask over the side and watched with satisfaction as it crashed onto the ice and rolled away from the edge. Then he headed back into his quarters to check on his seabag. Alarmingly, his bag, containing all his clothing, was missing from his bunk.

  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.