Wild Adventures round the Pole

“I can’t help my face, sir,” cried the mate, bristling up like a bantam cock.

“Silence!” roared the burly skipper. “Silence! when you talk to your captain. You, I say, you come and report a big steamer in sight to help us at the banquet.”

The mate scratched his head, taking his hat off for the purpose.

“Did I make the ship?” he asked with naïve innocence.

“Pooh!” the skipper cried; and next moment he was scrambling up the rigging with all the elegance, grace, and speed of a mud turtle.

He was in a better humour when he returned.

“I say, matie,” he said, “yonder chap ain’t a sealer; too dandy, and not boats enough. No, she is one of they spectioneering kind o’ chaps as goes a prowling around lookin’ for the North Pole. Ha! ha! ha! Come below, matie, and we’ll have a glass together. She ain’t the kind o’ lady to interfere with our blubber-hunting.”

The mate was mollified. His face was soaped, and he shone.

Chapter Fifteen.

The “Arrandoon” Anchors to the “Floe” – The Visit to the “Canny Scotia” – Silas Grig – A Sad Scene – Rory Relieves His Feelings – Strangers Coming from the Far West

Seeing the skipper of the Canny Scotia and his mate come below together smiling, the steward readily guessed what they wanted, so he was not dilatory in producing the rum-bottle and two tumblers. Then the skipper pushed the former towards the mate, and said, —

“Help yourself, matie.”

And the mate dutifully and respectfully pushed it back again, saying, —

“After you, sir.”

This palaver finished, they both half-filled their tumblers with the ruby intoxicant, added thereto a modicum of boiling coffee from the urn that simmered on top of the stove, then, with a preliminary nod towards each other, emptied their glasses at a gulp. After this, gasping for breath, they beamed on each other with a newly-found friendliness.

“Have another,” said the skipper.

They had another, then went on deck.

After ten minutes of attentive gazing at the Arrandoon, “Well,” said the skipper, “I do call that a bit o’ pretty steering; if it ain’t, my name isn’t Silas Grig.”

“But there’s a deal o’ palaver about it, don’t you think so, sir?” remarked the mate.

“Granted, granted,” assented Silas; “granted, matie.”

The cause of their admiration was the way in which the Arrandoon was brought alongside the great ice-floe. She didn’t come stem on – as if she meant to flatten, her bows – and then swing round. Not she. She approached the ice with a beautiful sweep, describing nearly half a circle, then, broadside on to the ice, she neared it and neared it. Next over went the fenders; the steam roared from the pipe upwards into the blue air, like driven snow, then dissolved itself like the ghost of the white lady; the ship was stopped, away went the ice-anchors, the vessel was fast.

And no noise about it either. There may not be much seamanship now-a-days, but I tell you, boys, it takes a clever man to manage a big steamer prettily and well.

The Arrandoon was not two hundred yards from the Canny Scotia. Now round go the davits on the port quarter, outward swings the boat, men and officers spring nimbly into her, blocks rattle, and down goes the first whaler, reaching the water with a flop, but not a plash, and with keel as even and straight as a ruled line.

“I say, matie,” said Silas Grig, in some surprise, “if that boat ain’t coming straight away here, I hope I may never chew cheese again.”

So far as that was concerned, if Silas chose, he would at least have the chance of chewing cheese again, for the Arrandoon’s boat came rippling along towards them with a steady cluck-el-tee cluck-el-tee, which spoke well for the men at the oars.

“Well,” continued Silas, who, rough nut though he was, always meant well enough, “let us do the civil, matie; tell the steward to fill the rum-bottle, and pitch ’em a rope.”

The rope came in very handy; but there was no need for the rum; even in Greenland men can live without it – the officers of the Arrandoon had found that out.

McBain, with Allan and Rory, – the latter, by the way, seemed to have registered a vow to go everywhere and see everything, – stood on the quarter-deck of the Canny Scotia, the skipper of which craft was in front of him, a comical look of admiration on his round brick-coloured countenance, and his two hands deep in the pockets of his powerful pilot coat.

“Ay, sir! ay!” he was saying; “well, I must say ye do surprise me.”

He put such an emphasis on the “me” that one would have thought that to surprise Silas Grig was something to be quite boastful of ever after.

“All the way to the North Pole? Well, well; but d’ye think you’ll find it?”

“We mean to,” said Rory, boldly.

“Perseverando!” said Allan.

“The Perseverance!” cried the skipper. “I know the ship, a Peterheader. Last time I saw her she had got in the nips, and was lying keel up on the ice, yards and rigging all awry of course; and, bother her, I hope she’ll lie there till Silas Grig gets a voyage (a cargo), then when the Scotia is full ship, the Perseverance can get down off the shelf, and cabbage all the rest. Them’s my sentiments. But come below, gentlemen, come below; there is room enough in the cabin of the old Scotia for every man Jack o’ ye. Come below.”

Silas was right. There was room, but not much to spare, and, squeezed in between Allan and McBain, poor Rory was hardly visible, and could only reach the table with one hand.

The cabin of this Greenlandman can be described with a stroke of the pen, so to speak. It was square and not very lofty – a tall man required to duck when under a beam; the beams were painted white, the bulkheads and cabin doors – four in number – were grey picked out with green. One-half at least of the available space was occupied by the table; close around it were cushioned lockers; the only other furniture was the captain’s big chair and a few camp-stools, a big square stove with a roaring fire, and a big square urn fixed on top thereof, which contained coffee, had never been empty all the voyage, and would not be till the end thereof. I suppose a bucket of water could hardly be called furniture, but there it stood close to the side of the stove, and the concentric rings of ice inside it showed the difficulty everybody must experience who chose to quench his thirst in the most natural way possible.

Above, in the hollow of the skylight, hung a big compass, and several enormously long sealer’s telescopes.

“No rum, gentlemen?” said Silas; “well, you do astonish me; but you’ll taste my wife’s green ginger wine, and drink her health?”

“That we will,” replied McBain, “and maybe finish a bottle.”

“And welcome to ten,” said Silas; “and the bun, steward, bring the bun. That’s the style! My wife isn’t much to look at, gentlemen, but, for a bun or o’ drop o’ green ginger, I’ll back her against the whole world.”

After our heroes had done justice to the bun, and pledged the skipper’s good lady in the green ginger, that gentleman must needs eye them again and again, with as much curiosity as if they had been some new and wonderful zoological specimens, that he had by chance captured.

“All the way to the North Pole!” he muttered. “Well, well, but that does get over Silas.”

Rory could not help laughing.

“Funny old stick,” said Silas, joining in his merriment, “ain’t I?”

He did look all that and more, with his two elbows on the table, and his knuckles supporting his chin, for his face was as round as a full moon orient, and just the colour of a new flower-pot; then he laughed more with one side of his face than the other, his eyes were nowhere in the folds of his face, and his nose hardly worth mentioning.

After the laugh, beginning with Rory, had spread fairly round the table, everybody felt relieved.

“I’m only a plain, honest blubber-hunter, gentlemen,” said Silas Grig, apologetically, “with a large family and – and a small wife – but – but you do surprise me. There?”

(It is but fair to say that, as a rule, captains of Greenlandmen are far more refined in manner than poor Silas.)

But when McBain informed him that the Arrandoon would lay alongside him for a week or more, and help him to secure a voyage, and wouldn’t ship a single skin herself, Silas was more surprised than ever. Indeed, until this day I could not tell you what would have happened to Silas, had the mate not been providentially beside him to vent his feelings upon. On that unfortunate officer’s back he brought down his great shoulder-of-mutton fist with a force that made him jump, and his breath to come and go as if he had just been popped under a shower-bath.

“Luck’s come,” he cried. “Hey? hey?”

And every “hey?” represented a dig in the mate’s ribs with the skipper’s thumb of iron.

“Told ye it would, hey? Didn’t I? hey?”

“What’ll the old woman say, hey? Hey, boys? Hey, matie? Hey? Hey?”

“You gentlemen,” said Silas, alter his feelings had calmed down a trifle, “are all for sport, and Silas has to make a voyage. But you’ll have sport, gentlemen, that ye will. My men are sealing now. They’re among the young seals. It has been nothing but flay, flay, flay, for the last two rounds of the sun, and there isn’t such a very long night now, is there? And you saw the blood?”

Saw the blood, reader! Indeed, our heroes had. Where was it that that blood was not? All the beautiful snow was encrimsoned with it on the distant field of ice, where the men were carrying on their ghastly work. It was as if a great battle had been fought there, and the dead crangs lay in dozens and hundreds. A crang means a carcass. Is the adjective “dead,” then, not unnecessary? What else can a carcass or crang be but “dead”? Nay, but listen: let me whisper a truth in your ear, and I know your brave young blood will boil when I tell you: I’ve known our men, Englishmen and Scotchmen, flense the lambs while still alive.

From the field of slaughter the skins were being dragged to the ship by men with ropes, so there were streaks of red all the way to the ship, and all the vessel’s starboard side was smeared with blood. Indeed, I do not wish to harrow the feelings of my readers, and I shall but describe a few of the cruelties of sealing – no, on second thoughts, I will not even do that, because I know well you will believe me when I tell you these cruelties are very great, and believing this, if ever you have an opportunity of voting for a bill or signing a petition to get poor Greenland seals fair play, I know you will.

Silas Grig and our heroes took a walk to the field of unequal strife, and Rory and Allan, to whom all they saw was very new, were not a little horrified as well as disgusted.

“This,” said McBain, “is the young-sealing. We are not going to assist you in this; we are sportsmen, not butchers, Captain Grig?”

Silas grasped McBain’s hand. “Your feelings do you credit, sir,” he said – “they do. But I have feelings, too. Yes, a weather-beaten old stick like me has feelings! But I’m sent out here to make a voyage, and what can I do? I’ve a small wife and a large family; and my owners, too, would sack me if I didn’t bring the skins. I say,” he added, after a pause, “you know my mate?”

“Yes,” said McBain.

“Well,” said Silas, “you wouldn’t, imagine that a fellow with such an ugly chunk o’ a figure-head as that had feelings, eh? But he has, though; and during all this young-sealing business we both of us just drowns our feelings in the rum-bottle. Fact, sir! and old Silas scorns a lie. But, gentlemen, when all this wicked work is over, when we are away north from here, among the old seals, and when we can look at that sun again without seeing blood, then my matie and I banishes Black-Jack (the gallon measure from which rum is served is so called) and sticks to coffee and arrowroot; that we do!”

They had turned their backs on the by no means inviting scene, and were walking towards the Canny Scotia as Silas spoke.

“But,” said the Greenland mariner, “come and dine with the old man to-morrow. The last of the young seals will be on board by then, and we’ll have had a wash down; we’ll be clean and tidy like. Then hurrah for the old seals! That’s sport, if you like! – that’s fair play.”

“Ah!” said McBain, “your heart is in the right place, I can see that. I wish there were more like you. Do you seal on Sunday? Many do.”

Silas looked solemn. “I knows they do,” he said, “but Silas hasn’t done so yet, and he prays he never may be tempted to.”

“Captain Grig, we’ll come and dine with you, and we expect you to pay us the same compliment another day.”

“I daresay you fellows are glad to get home?” said Ralph, rising from the sofa and throwing down the volume he had been dreaming over.

“Not a bit of it!” said Rory and Allan, both in one breath; and Rory added, “You don’t know what a funny ship a real Greenlandman is! I declare you’ve lost a treat!”

“Does it smell badly?” asked Ralph, with a slight curl of his upper lip.

“Never a taste!” says Rory; “she’s as sweet as cowslips or clover, or newly-made hay; and the bun was beautiful!”

“The what?” said Ralph.

“Don’t tell him?” cried Allan; “don’t tell him!”

“And the green ginger!” said Rory, smacking his lips. “Ah, yes! the green ginger,” said Allan; “I never tasted anything like that in all my born days!”

“Hi, you, Freezing Powders!” cried Rory, “take my coat and out-o’-doors gear. D’ye hear? Look sharp?”

“I’m coming, sah; and coming plenty quick!”

“De-ah me!” from Cockie.

“Now bring my fiddle, you young rascal, into my cabin;” for Rory, reader, had that young-sealing scene on his brain, and he would not be happy till he had played it away. And a wild, weird lilt it was, too, that he did bring forth. Extempore, did you ask? Certainly, for he played as he thought and felt; all his soul seemed to enter the cremona, and to well forth again from the beautiful instrument, now in tones of plaintive sorrow, now in notes of wrath; and then it stopped all at once abruptly. That was Rory’s way; he had pitched fiddle and bow on the bed, and presently he returned to the saloon.

“Are you better?” inquired Allan. Rory only gave a little laugh, and sat down to read. It had taken McBain nearly a fortnight to get clear away from the Isle of Jan Mayen, for the frost had set in sharp and hard, and the great ice-saws had to be worked, and the aid of dynamite called in to blast the pieces. They were now some ten miles to the north and east of the island, but, so far as he knew on the day of his visit to the Scotia, he had bidden it farewell for ever.

It had not been for the mere sake of sport or adventure he had called in there, he had another reason. Old Magnus, before the sailing – ay, or even the building – of the Arrandoon, had heard that the island was inhabited by a party of wandering Eskimos. Wherever Eskimos were McBain had thought there must be dogs, and that was just what was wanting to complete the expedition – a kennel of sleigh-dogs. But, as we have seen, the Eskimo encampment was deserted, so McBain had to leave it disappointed. But, as it turned out, it was only temporarily deserted after all, and on the very day on which they had arranged to dine with Skipper Grig, two daring men, chiefs of a tribe of Eskimos, drawn in a rude sledge, were making their way towards the island. Their team consisted of over a dozen half-wild dogs, harnessed with ropes of skin and untanned leather. They seemed to fly across the sea of ice. Hardly could you see the dogs for the powdery snow that rose in clouds around them. Well might they hurry, for clouds were banking up in the west, a low wind came moaning over the dreary plain, and a storm was brewing, and if it burst upon them ere they reached the still distant island, then —

Chapter Sixteen.

Silas Grig’s Dinner-Party – A New Member of the Malacopterygii – The Storm on the Sea of Ice – Break-up of the Main Pack – Roughing it at Sea

While those two chiefs of the Eskimo Indians were hurrying their team of dogs across the sea of ice eastwards, ever eastwards, with the clouds rising behind them, with the wind whispering and moaning around them, and sometimes raising the powdery snow in little angry eddies, that almost hid the plunging dogs from their view, honest Silas Grig, though somewhat uneasy in his mind as to what kind of weather was brewing, busied himself nevertheless in preparing what he considered a splendid dinner for his coming guests.

“But,” he said to his mate, “it will just be like my luck, you know, if it comes on to blow big guns, and we’ve got to leave good cheer and put out to sea.”

“Ah! sir,” said the mate, “don’t forget luck has turned, you know.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Silas, “really, matie, I had a’most forgotten.”

And away forward he hurried, to see how the men were getting on scrubbing decks and cleaning brass-work, and how the cook was getting on with that mighty sirloin of beef. He took many a ran forward as the day advanced, often pausing, though, to give an uneasy glance windward, and at the sun, not yet hidden by the rising clouds. And often as he did so he shook his head and made some remark to his mate.

“I tell ye, matie,” he said once, “I don’t quite like the looks o’ ’t. Those clouds ain’t natural this time o’ the year, and don’t you see the spots in the sun? Why, he is holed through and through like an old Dutch cheese. Something’s brewin’. But, talking of brewin’, I wonder how the soup is getting on?” (In Greenland these sunspots are quite easily seen by the naked eye.)

Silas’s face was more the colour of a new flower-pot than ever, when McBain and our three heroes came alongside in their dashing gig, with its beautiful paint and varnish, snow-white oars, flag trailing astern, and rudder-ribbons, all complete.

Rory was steering, and he brought her alongside with a regular admiral’s sweep.

“Why, she’s going away past us!” cried Silas; “no, she ain’t. It is the bow-and-bow business the young ’un’s after.”

“In bow?” cried Rory. “Way enough – oars!”

These were the only three orders Rory needed to give to his men. There was no shouting of “Easy sta’board!” or “Easy port!” as when a lubber is coxswain.

Next moment they were all on deck, shaking hands with the skipper and his mate. The latter remained on deck; he didn’t care for the company of “quality;” besides, he had to loosen sails, and have all ready to get in anchors at a minute’s notice and put out to sea.

The skipper of the Canny Scotia had contrived another seat at table, so there was no such thing as crowding, and the dinner passed off entirely to his satisfaction. The pea-soup was excellent, neither too thick nor too thin, and the sippets done to a turn. Then came what Silas called the whitebait.

“Which is only my fun, gentlemen,” he observed, “seeing that they are bigger than sprats. Where do I get them? Hey? Why, turn up a piece of pancake-ice, and there they be sticking in the clear in hundreds, like bees in a honeycomb, and nothing out but their bits of tails.”

“It is curious,” said Rory. “How do they bore the holes, I wonder?”

“That, young gentleman,” replied Silas, “I can’t say, never having seen them at work. Maybe they melt the ice with their noses; they can’t make the holes with their teeth, their bows are too blunt and humble like. Perhaps, after all, they find the holes ready-made, and just go in for warmth. Queer, ain’t it?”

“I believe,” said Rory, “they belong to the natural order Malacopterygii.”

“The what?” cried Ralph; “but, pray, Row, don’t repeat the word. Think of the small bones; and McFlail isn’t here, you know.”

“Of which,” continued Rory, “the Clupeidae” (Ralph groaned) “form one of the families, belonging to which are the herring, the sardine, the whitebait, and sprat.”

“They may be sprats, or they may be young sperm-whales, for anything I care,” said Ralph; “but I do know they are jolly good eating. Captain Grig, may I trouble you again?”

With the pudding came the green ginger, that Ralph was so anxious to taste.

“The peculiarity of that pudding, gentlemen, is this,” said Silas – “eaten hot it is a pudding, eaten cold it is a bun. The peculiarity of the green – ”

What more he meant to have said will never be known, for at that moment the Canny Scotia gave an angry cant to leeward, and away – extemporised seat and all – went the skipper down upon the sta’board bulkheads; the coalscuttle, the water-bucket, and the big armchair followed suit, and there was consequently some little confusion, and a speedy break-up of the dinner-party.

McBain’s boat was called away, for the ship had slipped her ice-anchors, and was drifting seaward, with the wind roaring wildly through rigging and cordage. The gale had come upon them as sudden as a thunderclap. Good-byes were hastily said, and away pulled the gig. She was in the lee of the ice and partly sheltered, otherwise they never would have regained the Arrandoon. As it was, the men were almost exhausted when they got alongside.

Her anchors were well fast, and her cables were strong; there was little fear of dragging for some time, so the order was given to at once get up steam, and that, too, with all speed, for the force of the wind seemed to increase almost momentarily. On the Arrandoon’s decks you could scarcely have seen anything, for the snow blew blindingly from off the ice; there was little to be heard either, for the shrill, harsh whistling of the wind. Men flitted hither and thither like uneasy ghosts, making things snug, and battening down the principal hatches; on the bridge, dimly descried, was McBain, speaking-trumpet under arm, and beside him Stevenson.

Down below, from fore to aft, everybody was engaged. In the stoke-hole they were busy, and making goodly use of the American hams; in the engine-room the engineers were looking well to their gear, with bits of greasy “pob” in their hands, humming songs as they gave a rub here and a nib there, though to what end or purpose I couldn’t tell you, but evidently on the best of terms with themselves and their beautiful engine. The doctor was busy stowing his bottles away, and the steward was making the pantry shipshape, and our heroes themselves were stowing away all loose gear in their cabins. Presently they entered the saloon again, where was Freezing Powders making the cockatoo’s cage fast with a morsel of lanyard.

“Here’s a pretty to-do!” the bird was saying, half choking on a billful of hemp. “Call the steward! – call the steward! – call the steward!”

“You jus’ console yourse’f,” said the boy, “and don’t take sich big mou’fuls o’ hemp. Mind, you’ll be sea-sick p’esently.”

“De-ah me!”

“Yes, ye will – dreffully sea-sick. Den you wants to call de steward plenty quick.”

One ice-anchor came on board; the other – the bow – was cut adrift as the ship’s stern swung round seaward. Almost at the same moment an explosion was heard close alongside, as if one of the boilers had burst. The great berg to which they had been anchored had parted company with the floe, and was evidently bent on going to sea along with the Arrandoon.

Once they were a little way clear of the ice they could look about them, the snow no longer blowing over the vessel. The scene was peculiar, and such as can only be viewed in Greenland under like circumstances.

The whole field of ice, as far as it was visible, was a smother of whirling drift; the lofty cone of Jan Mayen, which though miles to the south’ard and west, had been so well-defined an object against the blue of the sky, was now blurred and indistinct, and the grey, driving clouds every now and again quite hid the top of it from view. All along the edge of the pack the snow was being blown seaward like smoke, or like the white spray on the rocks where billows break. The eastern horizon was a chaos of dark, shifting billows, as tall as houses, and foam-tipped; but near by the ice, although the wind blew already with the force of a gale, and the surface of the water was churned into froth, there was not a wave bigger than you would see on a farmer’s mill-pond.

What a pity it seemed to leave this comparatively smooth water and steam away out into the centre of yonder mighty conflict ’twixt wind and wave. But well every one on board knew that to remain where they were was but to court destruction, for the noise that proceeded from the ice-fields told them the pack was breaking up. Ay, and bergs were already forging ahead of them, and surrounding them. Ere they were a mile from the floes they found this out, and the danger from the floating masses of ice was very real indeed. Every minute the pieces were hurtled with all the force of the waves against the sturdy vessel’s weather-side, threatening to stave her; nor could McBain, who never left the bridge until the vessel was well out to sea, avoid at times stemming the bergs that appeared ahead of him. For often two would present themselves at one time, and one must be stemmed – the smaller of the twain; for to have come in collision bow on, would have meant foundering.