Kitabı oku: «In the Land of the Great Snow Bear: A Tale of Love and Heroism», sayfa 9

Chapter Nineteen
The Burning of the “Icebear.”

All hands worked steadily, willingly, and well. There was not a sound to be heard, except the roar of the flames, the tramping of feet, an occasional word of command, and the steady clank, clank of the little pumping engine. No noise, no bustle, no confusion on board the burning ship.

The flames had soon gained mastery over the captain’s cabin, and over the wardroom as well, for the fire seemed to spread on both sides.

Claude was walking slowly up and down the deck, ’twixt main and foremast, quietly superintending everything. That he was here, and here only, showed the perfect confidence he had in his men and officers to carry out the terrible duties now imposed upon them.

Smoke and flames were pouring up through the companions aft, and it was evident that that portion of the ship was doomed.

Claude was hoping against hope. Were the cabin and wardroom only destroyed and the fire here checked, the hull and the fore-part of the ship would be but little injured, and the voyage home be, after all, made in safety.

The greatest danger of all rested in the fact that the magazine, containing a very considerable quantity of gunpowder and gun-cotton, lay close to – almost in– the seat of fire, and so quickly had the flames spread that it had been found impossible to remove the stores without the almost certainty of exploding the whole.

So among the first orders given was for a volunteer to carry the end of the hose along the lower deck and flood the magazine.

Boy Bounce was the first to spring forward.

“Can we trust him, Mr Lloyd?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“And I’m so small, you know; I can walk where a big ’un would ’ave to creep, sir.”

The boy seemed a long time gone, but he crawled back at last, and fell senseless at Lloyd’s feet. He was badly burned about the hands and even face, but as soon as he came to himself he went on working with the rest.

Hours flew by, one, two, three; still the fire raged; still the men worked steadily on.

All seemed going well, when suddenly the wind shifted, and almost at the same time the smoke and flames came roaring forward, and one mast caught fire. The crew were driven from the pumps, and for the first time something like a panic spread fore and aft.

It was evident now that the ship could not be saved. All further attempts at pumping were abandoned, and all hands set to work to remove stores.

Unfortunately, two of the boats that hung on davits aft were lost, so that only two remained.

One of these boats was commanded by McDonald, the other by Dr Barrett, Claude and Lloyd determining to remain on board till the bitter end.

How bitter that end was to be no one could have guessed.

All the stores that could, with apparent safety, be got out were landed; the boats were returning to the ship. Claude had calculated that hours must elapse before the vessel blew up, or that she might sink without an explosion.

Orders had just been issued for the men to stand by to embark in the boats with regularity and quietness, when suddenly the after-part of the ship was blown up with fearful violence; masts, spars, deck, rigging, and bulwarks flew skywards, in a fountain of crimson flame.

The sea was covered with the wreckage, and the Icebear began rapidly to sink stern foremost.

“Give way, men,” shouted Dr Barrett. “Give way with a will to the rescue.”

Let the curtain drop over the terrible scene. Suffice it to say that everything that man can do, or heroes accomplish, was done and dared by those in the boats to save their friends and messmates from drowning, and from worse – from being devoured by sharks; but out of all that crew of men, who, only a few short hours before, had been peacefully slumbering, and dreaming, perchance, of home and happiness, only thirty answered to their names that morning in the shore-house.

Some of these, too, were badly wounded, and nearly all exhausted.

Poor Lloyd was among the drowned, so was Warren, the second mate, and both Pipes and Chips had gone to their account.

Big Byarnie had been sent ashore with one of the first boats. He was a giant to work, and did about three men’s duty in unloading. He had taken the sea-birds with him.

Fingal had, dog-like, stayed with his master, and swam all the way to the shore with him after the explosion. Boy Bounce came floating on shore stride-legs on a spar, propelling himself with half an oar, which he had managed to pick up somehow or other.

There was so much life and enthusiasm about Paddy O’Connell, that it is almost needless to say he got ashore.

“Somehow,” said Paddy; but how, he couldn’t remember at all.

A great fire was made in the shore-house, and the men who had been taken out of the water rendered as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

When breakfast had been served and discussed – there was no ceremony now, no distinction between officers and men, those poor mariners in their terrible plight having formed themselves into a little republic – Claude and Dr Barrett went out together.

They walked for a time in silence up and down the beach, Claude hardly daring to cast a glance seawards where the wreckage still was floating.

The doctor was the first to speak.

“This is a sad ending to all our hopes,” he said slowly.

“I cannot as yet realise it,” replied Claude. “My poor men! my poor men!”

There were tears in his eyes as he spoke, tears of which he had no reason to be ashamed.

Dr Barrett pressed his hand.

“I am older than you,” he said; “let me beseech you not to repine. It is almost cheering for me to think that the bitterness of death is past for those dear brave hearts who, remember, Captain Alwyn, died doing their duty nobly and manfully.”

“True, true, Dr Barrett; theirs must be a merciful judgment: but the drunken brute who caused this terrible accident!”

“Stay, sir, stay; he too is in God’s hand. We cannot, dare not, set bounds or limits to His mercy. Let us turn our thoughts to Him, then,” continued the doctor. “We have to submit to whatever is before us. We must pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”

“Yes,” replied Claude, “but that portion of the beautiful prayer our Saviour taught has always seemed to me more difficult than any other to utter from the heart while in grief or expecting grief.”

“I know it, Captain Claude Alwyn, I know it. There are few kinds of grief in this world I have not tasted the bitterness of. But come,” he went on, “you and I are still the chiefs of this expedition. Let us, even now, bravely face the situation. Let us see how we stand.”

“We are imprisoned in a living grave.”

“Not quite so bad as that, my friend.”

“Well, Dr Barrett, what do you propose?”

“Shortly this. We have still stores on shore here, but we must supplement them Despatch one boat at once; if she returns before the snow falls, well and good. Send her back for a further supply; if the snow falls ere she returns, do not wait, but despatch the sledges across country. As we are about one hundred miles south of the inlet, the sledges will take the short cut, and reach the cave stores in shorter time than the boat can.”

“Good. I will lose no time, and as soon as our poor fellows are buried – ”

He paused and glanced seawards. “My dear Captain Alwyn,” said the doctor, “our poor fellows are already buried; that water swarms with sharks.”⁸

Claude himself went in charge of the boat to visit the Kittywake stores. There would be, he reasoned with himself, about three hundred miles of water to row or sail over. The tide, however, that swept up and down the long creek which joined the ocean to the inland sea, had all the force of a mill-stream. He determined, therefore, to take advantage of that, and on his voyage out to anchor alongside the banks during the flow, and rush onward when the tide was ebbing.

He returned to the camp far sooner than he had expected.

He returned empty.

A bridge of ice and snow had been encountered which, no doubt, extended all the way to the sea.

“And so, even if my poor vessel had not been doomed to destruction, it would have been impossible to get clear this year.” So spoke Claude.

“True, true,” said Dr Barrett, “and now we must depend upon the sledges to bring us supplies from the stores. But,” he added, “it is only right I should tell you what I think, Captain Alwyn – ”

“And that is?”

“That they, too, will return empty.”

This melancholy surmise of Dr Barrett turned out far too true.

They waited till the snow fell. Then, in charge of the spectioneer, who had been among the saved, and Mr McDonald, third mate, the sledges set out. As usual, Fingal trotted off with the rest.

Even to those in the sledges, the time seemed long. Their adventures were many, the whole journey a toilsome and perilous one. But the goal was gained at last. There was the signal pole on the cliff top that had been raised to guide the Kittywake towards the creek, but where was the creek itself?

Nowhere to be seen.

It had been frozen over in the winter, and the ravine, at the bottom of which it lay, filled entirely and completely level with snow.

To find or even to guess at the whereabouts of the cave where the stores were buried under such circumstances was quite out of the question. A thousand men could hardly have found and rescued them.

If the time seemed long for those who went on this expedition, it was doubly tedious for those who waited their return.

At last, one evening, about sunset, amid thickly falling snow, Fingal came bounding into camp. Claude knew the sledges could not be far away. All rushed out to meet them. Alas! and alas! for hope seemed to die even in Dr Barrett’s heart at the dire news.

They brought two bears, and these were cut in pieces and stored.

“What is to be done now?” said Claude. “Are we to die like rats in a hole?”

“Not, I think,” was the reply, “without making one last effort to save ourselves. Were it the summer, we could live at all events as long as ammunition lasted, but we have hardly food enough to serve us to spring-time. So I propose that we get ready at once, that we provision the sledges, and make an attempt to reach the semi-Eskimo, semi-Danish settlement of Sturmstadt.”

“It will be a terrible journey.”

“It will, indeed, but both Jack and Joe know the way. I have talked to them. Their people have come on the hunting-path within a hundred miles of this place.”

“For myself, I care not,” said Claude; “but I grieve to think of my poor fellows, perhaps sinking and dying by the way. Would it not be almost better to rough it here through another winter, then, when the snow is gone, to walk the journey? Every day would then be bringing us into a warmer and better climate.”

“No, captain, it would not, and for this one of many reasons. If we take the journey now we can go in almost a straight line, for the creeks and streams will be frozen over in a few days. In summer we know not what détours we might not have to make, what streams or rivers to ford or even swim.”

“I will be guided by your experience,” said Claude.

Early next morning, outside the wooden tent, Paddy O’Connell and boy Bounce were heard talking together loudly and excitedly.

“Is it true what you’re telling me, and sorra a word av a lie in it?”

“Which I walked all the way over, and ran all the way back to see,” was the boy’s reply.

“Och! bladderips!” roared Paddy; “och! the thieving spalpeens! Bad cess to them evermore. Sure if I had them I’d break every bone in their durty bodies. I’d murder every mother’s son or the two o’ them.”

He entered the tent as he spoke.

“I know what you’ve come to say, Paddy,” said Claude: “the Eskimos have taken the sledges and deserted us.”

“True for you, sorr,” said Paddy. “It’s all up wid us now, sorr. Sure I could tear me hair and cry; and it isn’t for meself either, sorr, I’d be after crying, but for me poor mother and Biddy.”

“This is, indeed, terrible news, doctor,” said Claude.

The doctor whistled a few bars of an operatic air thoughtfully before he made reply.

“It may be all for the best, you know. Hope, sir, hope, hope, hope.

 
“‘Hope is a better companion than fear;
Providence, ever benignant and kind,
Gives with a smile what you take with a tear.
All will be right; Let us look to the light.
Morning is ever the daughter of night.
Cheerily, cheerily, then, cheer up!’”
 

Chapter Twenty
Sorrows Never Come Singly

However cheerful Dr Barrett might try to appear, he was far from feeling easy at heart.

Hopeless he was not. He had seen too much of the world – the wide world, I mean – he had faced too many dangers not to know that there is seldom or never real reason to throw up one’s arms in despair.

But it behoved him to assume an air of cheerfulness, even under the distressing circumstances in which he and his companions were now plunged. The survivors of the unhappy Icebear were all his patients, all his charge and care, and he well knew the depressing effects of despondency, so he determined to do his duty, and keep up their hearts if possible.

“Give the men something to do,” he said to Claude on the same morning the news of the desertion of the Eskimos had been brought to camp by busy boy Bounce.

“I’ll overhaul stores to begin with.”

“Good?” said the doctor. “And during the time yen are working I’ll get on the top of the bench and play the fiddle to them.”

It may seem a menial kind of duty for a surgeon to fiddle to a ship’s crew; nevertheless, duty it was, and the doctor did it.

And the men were pleased; the gloomy shadows left their brows; their eyes grew brighter; they even laughed and joked a little as they worked, and I’m quite sure they got through the task in half the time.

A good dinner followed. The cook, poor fellow, had been drowned, but he found a worthy successor in busy boy Bounce.

Boy Bounce to-day had made some excellent pea-soup. It was a good thing for these unfortunate sailors that this house and camp had been built on shore, and that it contained all the necessaries for cooking, etc, that they were likely to want. After the soup came preserved potatoes and pork, to say nothing of a delightful frizzly relish of young seal’s liver. Then all felt happier and more hopeful.

There would be at least a whole month of daylight yet, though every day would be much shorter than its predecessor. Then light would leave them, and merge into the long, long Polar night.

As long as there was anything like a day, the men were employed fishing and hunting. The bears had not yet left, and sometimes a deer was met with. Why some of these animals should occasionally be left behind the migrating flock is a great puzzle. Are they too delicate for the journey south, or are they left behind for punishment?

The bears that meant remaining were already seeking holes and caves.

The doctor knew their tricks and their manners, and had every likely hole and corner searched, often by torchlight, and several fine specimens were thus unearthed.

The brutes always showed fight, and some fierce hand to hand encounters (if I may so name them) were the consequence.

But the days grew shorter, and, despite all that Dr Barrett could do, a gloom settled down on the minds of the men that nothing seemed able to dispel. Even Paddy O’Connell himself lost heart.

“Och! sure,” he said one day, “it is our graves we are in already, and it’s little use there is in trying to prolong our existence.”

Dr Barrett took him aside.

“Paddy,” he said, “you must help me to keep up the men’s spirits. I depend upon you. I am doing my best. Help me. Will you?”

The tears rushed to the good fellow’s eyes.

“Doctor dear,” he exclaimed, “I’d lay down my life to plaze ye, and it’s the truth I’m telling you.”

“Well, my good honest fellow, there needn’t be any laying down of lives, only just you keep up your heart, and I’ll lay a wager the men will be merry enough, and that is half the battle. I will not conceal from you, Paddy,” continued the doctor, “that there is a hard struggle before us, a struggle perhaps for bare existence, but with God’s help we’ll get through it and conquer.”

“’Deed, then, and well try, sorr.”

“Yes, Paddy; and if the worst comes to the worst, we have but once to die, you know.”

“True for ye, sorr. I never heard of any one dying twice, sorr.”

“No, Paddy. And now you are my assistant – aren’t you?”

He extended his hand as he spoke, and Paddy grasped it with the grip of a vice.

But Paddy did not speak, because there was a big lump in his throat. Only from that moment the doctor and he understood each other.

Another faithful fellow whom the doctor greatly depended on was Giant Byarnie.

So now, virtually, the four heads of the expedition were Claude, the doctor, Paddy, and Byarnie.

They used to hold little meetings by themselves, apart from the others, and talk together of their prospects.

“If everything goes fairly well,” said Dr Barrett one day, “what with rigid economy and no waste, we will manage to weather the winter, be it ever so hard.”

“What say you to bear-steak, Captain Alwyn?”

“Delicious, I’m sure, with hunger as sweet sauce.”

“Well, we can have that in abundance, and we have, or can have, fish all the weary winter. The biscuit is scarce, but we have peas, and – ”

“And tobacco, sorr,” put in Paddy.

“Right you are, Paddy. For that we ought to be thankful indeed. – What I lament most,” continued the doctor, “is that our casks of cabbage have gone bad, and that we have saved no lime-juice from the burning ship. However,” he added more cheerfully, “let us keep our minds easy, and hope for the best. How are the birds, Byarnie?”

“In fine wing, sir, the two that are left, for one died, you know, sir. But these are the strongest two, and were Miss Meta’s favourites.”

It was determined to start them both – both to bear the self-same message.

Claude would not willingly have brought a tear to Meta’s eyes to own a throne, but it was agreed between the doctor and him that the best plan was to tell the whole truth, to hide nothing of the terrible extremities to which they were reduced.

And Claude took his advice, and with that message of love which those strong-winged birds bore away south with them, was something like a farewell, a long farewell, and a fear that, on earth, he – Claude – would never meet his love again.

“I think I can face death more bravely now,” said Claude.

“And I too,” was the reply.

It will be seen that even Dr Barrett lacked the complete hope of being able to fight against the fearful odds before them.

The men were set to work at the mines, but they did so with very little heart indeed.

What is the good, they said, of slaving here like coal-heavers, for gold that can never benefit either ourselves or our families?

Faddy came to Claude as spokesman.

Claude himself went personally to the men. He assured them that every nugget of gold they found would be their own; that they were now shipwrecked mariners; that they were to some extent, therefore, free agents, and could, if they chose, throw over allegiance to him, their former captain.

“No, sir,” the men cried, “we will never do that. We have lived together happily and cheerily enough, let us die together.”

“Who talks of dying?” cried Paddy O’Connell. “Sure we’ll never die at all, at all. Is it because the winter is with us, and darkness all around us, that we’d go and cry like a choild that has been sent to bed widout a light? Troth, men, it’s meself that’s ashamed av ye entoirely. Won’t the sun come back and shine down on us wid de blessing o’ Heaven in a few or three months? Then won’t we take our guns under our arms and go marching thro’ the country as bould as Inniskilling Dragoons? And won’t there be such sport and such fun all the way south, as you never had the loikes of before? And sure, won’t we reach the say at last, and go off in some ship or another to England and Oirland? And och! won’t our wives and sweethearts, if we’ve got any, be glad to see us just – the darlints that they thought they’d never see in loife again, because the big whales av Greenland had eaten them up? And sure, won’t me own dear mother, and Biddy my sister, and the pig, the crayture, go wild wid the joy that’ll be on to them when they see their Patrick march in at the door again! Hooch! hurrah! it’s myself that’s as happy as a king wid the thoughts av it all.”

Paddy’s speech had even greater effect in keeping up the men’s spirits than had Claude’s. They resumed their work more cheerfully, and Paddy constantly led them with song or with joke.

Lectures and concerts were resumed in the wooden tent, now their sole abode. But the singing lacked spirit, and the dancing was nil.

They say that sorrows seldom come singly. It appeared even now, in December, that the proverb would hold good in the case of those forlorn mariners. For the winter turned out to be one of awful gloom and darkness.

The aurora, that shone with such radiance the winter before, now showed only occasionally, and that only as a faint white glimmer among the clouds. No moon or stars were ever seen.

Sometimes, for a week at a time, the snow fell and the wind raged with such fearful and bitter force as to preclude the possibility of any one ever putting his head beyond the threshold of the door on pain of instant suffocation.

At such times it taxed all the energies of Claude and the doctor, and even of Paddy himself, to keep the men from sinking into utter despondency.

Even Fingal, and Alba the snow-bird, seemed to partake of a portion of the general gloom. Fingal lying quietly in his corner, dreaming, perhaps, of the bonnie heather hills of Scotland; and Alba, with drooping wings – her head under one – perched over Claude’s couch.