Trial by Ice (20 page)

Yet was there more to Bessel's elation than the removal of a meddlesome opponent? The impression lingers that Bessel actively strove to keep Hall from reaching the North Pole. By his constant support of Buddington, he thwarted Hall's intention to sail farther north. Perhaps Bessel harbored ambitions beyond mere scientific discovery. Later he would offer Henry Hobby two hundred dollars to help him be the first to reach the North Pole. Perhaps Bessel's motive was more sinister. Perhaps the former Prussian officer followed orders to scuttle the trip or took it upon himself to do so. Just as the men aboard the
Polaris
faced a formidable foe in the natural elements that threatened their survival, they also faced a fight with their own human nature and its darker elements.

If Emil Bessel thought he was the one chosen to reach the top of the world, the Arctic soon demonstrated its reluctance to award that prize.

Within days of Hall's demise, the mechanism to devolve the
Polaris
command took effect. The Navy Department, so lax in so many other ways, had spelled out what to do if Hall died:

You will give special written directions to the sailing master and ice master of the expedition, Mr. S. O. Buddington, and the chief of the Scientific Department, Dr. E. Bessel, that in case of your death or disabilitya contingency we sincerely trust may not arisethey shall consult as to the propriety and manner of carrying into further effect the foregoing instructions, which I here urge must, if possible, be done. In any event, however, Mr. Buddington shall in the case of your death or disability, continue as the sailing and ice master, and control and direct the movements of the vessel; and Dr. Bessel shall, in such case, continue as chief of the Scientific Department, directing all sledge journeys and scientific operations. In the possible contingency of their
non-agreement as to the course to be pursued, then Mr. Buddi igton shall assume sole charge and command, and return with the expedition to the United States with all possible dispatch.

Navy Secretary Robeson's orders were quite specific. Control of the vessel fell to Buddington, and Bessel assumed complete control of all scientific studies and journeys overland. If they disagreed, the whaling captain was to sail home immediately. Dutifully the two men issued a written notice to that effect. There it was: both men got just what they wanted. Officially the
Polaris
expedition now had two heads. It would be only a matter of time before this two-headed chimera quarreled with itself.

Mean while strange happenings continued to occur.

One cold midnight, cries from the forward compartment drew the men
to
Nathan Coffin's bunk. Since he had fashioned Captain Hall's coffin, the carpenter showed increasing signs of instability. Described as “sensitive,” Coffin had taken the captain's death hard. That night they found the carpenter cowering beneath his blankets in the corner of his berth. Wide-eyed and shaking with terror, Coffin babbled that voices were calling to him from the adjacent storage locker. The sailors unlocked the room and searched it to pacify Coffin, but to no avail. He continued to hear the voices. A rapid bedside consultation diagnosed the man's problem to be related to the isolated and exposed nature of his bunk, which was far forward of the main sleeping quarters, cold and damp. A change of sleeping arrangements was prescribed. Showing an astonishing lack of sensitivity, Caotain Buddington moved the unbalanced Coffin into the dead Captain Hall's old bed. As might be expected, Coffin recalled Hall's ravings about murder and naturally assumed he was next on the list. Within days the carpenter began to fear that unknown persons aboard ship would kill him.

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 lay 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.