Under the Sea to the North Pole (3 page)

Hubert bent over and withdrew from one of the pigeonholes a few objects of simple form, which at first glance revealed nothing in particular.

These were cylinders of steel, whose weight was relatively heavy. They measured about a foot in diameter, and ended in a narrow neck fitted with a double screw stopper, as if they were gas reservoirs.

Bernard Lacrosse here put in a word.

“We do not want to be so very clever to see that those cylinders contain something. Are we allowed to ask what?”

Hubert placed his finger to his lips.

“Not before the time. Yes, you understand, these cylinders contain something. I can only tell you what that is when we are in such a position that no ill-will can hurt us. Know only that these cylinders contain the secret of our approaching victory; heat, force, light, movement. With them, thanks to them, we shall know no obstacles. These are the things which will take us to the Pole.”

The hearers of this little speech remained open-mouthed for a moment before him.

“By Jove!” said Lacrosse, “if it is as you say, D’Ermont, that must be a secret well worth keeping.”

Isabelle’s face had become thoughtful.

“To what ill-will do you allude, Hubert?”

The young man would probably have replied had not the cabin door been suddenly burst open to give entrance to a magnificent Newfoundland dog, who went and put his intelligent head on Isabelle’s knees.

“Good morning, Salvator!” said she, gaily, as she caressed the superb animal.

Hubert appeared vexed.

“We left the door open, then?” said he, quickly.

He put back the steel cylinder into the safe and hurriedly shut the door.

Through the cabin doorway came a whiff of tobacco smoke. Hubert rushed into the saloon and saw a tall figure with red hair disappearing down the gangway. “Mr. Schnecker was there,” he said, with a frown, as he entered the cabin.

“Our chemist?” asked Isabelle.

“Yes our chemist; and I don’t particularly take to our chemist,” added Hubert.

“Oh Hubert, what makes you say that?”

“I say what I think,” said the young officer. “Besides cousin, would you like to examine an impartial witness?”

Before she could reply, and while she was thinking in surprise, Hubert took the dog’s head in his hand and looked into his eyes.

“Salvator, is your friend Mr. Schnecker?” Salvator showed all his teeth, and a deep growl of anger rolled within his depths.

CHAPTER II

FORT ESPERANCE.

O
N the 15th of May the
Polar Star
rounded the North Cape. Up to then the plan that had been agreed upon was to sail north-east. They wished, in fact, to follow in the route of the Tegetthoff expedition commanded in 1872-1874 by Payer and Weyprecht, who from Nova Zembla, situated in 76° north latitude, had reached an unknown coast they had called Franz Josef Land, and which they supposed extended from the eightieth to the eighty-third parallel.

This plan, besides enabling the travellers to be near the old continent, had also the merit of flattering the vanity of those desirous of opening up an entirely new road. “It will be very unfortunate,” thought De Keralio, “if we cannot manage to find a passage beyond longitude 30, between Spitzbergen and the fragmentary lands of Nova Zembla.”

Captain Lacrosse had steadily objected to this plan, and the reasons he had invoked for combating it were weighty. Besides going at a venture, they were in a peculiarly conceited spirit, neglecting to avail themselves of the experience of their predecessors, notably the precise discoveries made in Grinnell Land in 1875 and 1876 by Nares, Markham, and Stephenson, and more recently in 1881 to 1884 by Greely, Lockwood, and their gallant and unfortunate companions.

Lacrosse reasoned with sound common sense, “At least,” he said, “by going that road we shall have an open course up to the 83rd parallel. Smith Sound and Strait, Lady Franklin Bay, are nowadays well known as rendezvous for people who know what they are about.” He added, not without some appearance of truth,— “It is to be feared that the breaking up of the ice will make the road very difficult in a region where there is. little land, and it may carry us to the westward, in spite of all we can do. That will be so much lost time, as we should have to winter in the neighbourhood of Iceland, and thus exhaust a third of our provisions on the voyage alone.”

His opinion was only too soon to be confirmed by facts.

On the 16th of May it could be seen that the field of ice was so little broken that it afforded no passage to the
Polar Star,
The numerous attempts that were made ended only in a loss of time, and notwithstanding all they could do, they had on the 25th of May drifted four degrees to the westward. The way that was blocked in the east seemed in curious irony to open out to the west.

De Keralio’s obstinacy gave way before this demonstration of the facts themselves, and, yielding to the captain’s advice, he was the first to decide in favour of a change of direction.

To the general satisfaction the north-easterly route was abandoned in favour of the one towards the opposite horizon, and the
Polar Star
steered for the southern end of Spitzbergen.

The sea gradually becoming clearer of ice, this point was reached on the eighth of June. On that date eighty days had elapsed since their departure from Cherbourg. They were in the 78th degree of north latitude. Five only remained for them to traverse to reach the extreme limit of human investigations. But all knew that a veritable campaign was about to begin, rich in struggle and effort. To travel three of these degrees in sledges, Nares, Markham, Stephenson, and then Greely, Lockwood, and Brainard had taken two mortal years.

They must hasten. The Arctic summer is very short, and when July was over the cold would begin again. Since passing the Polar circle they had no need of artificial light; the midnight sun had been their luminary. For nearly a month the broken ice had only been met with in inconsiderable fragments. But the captain had only shaken his head and smiled at Isabelle’s exclamation of astonishment. “Patience! All this will change. Do not forget we are in the least encumbered part of the polar seas. We can only depend on getting a start from Greenland.” He told her true. It was in vain that from the southern extremity of Spitzbergen they tried to steer straight for the north. The pack or field of ice stopped the
Polar Star
on the second day. It was even impossible to keep to the westward along the 78th parallel owing to the drift ice. The drift continued for three degrees. Then the field of ice under the action of a warm current opened again. Captain Lacrosse steered obliquely towards the northwest. On the 25th of June they had regained the 77th degree, and the coast of Greenland appeared, bordered by an icy barrier about thirty-five miles long. Obliged to keep a careful look-out on her surroundings, the
Polar Star
steamed hardly eight knots an hour. As the ship went further to the north the ice became more frequent. Now they could follow it without interruption as a string of islands of unequal size. At present the blocks were all flat on the surface, being fragments of the ice field. But they were becoming more uneven, more hummocky, bristling with sharp points, striped with longitudinal cracks, with clear brilliant crevasses like the edges of broken glass. Behind them others appeared, higher, larger, which took the strangest of forms. Some looked like distant sails on the horizon, and the flotilla increased in numbers as they approached the grand fiord of Franz Josef discovered by Payer during the voyage of the
Germania
and the
Hansa.
At last on the 30th of June the
Polar Star
entered the fiord and cast anchor under the same 76th parallel they had already reached on the coast of Spitzbergen. The moment had come for putting into execution the second part of De Keralio’s plan. This consisted in landing a party, and then returning as quickly as possible to the south for dogs and Eskimo drivers, indispensable for the coming sledge journeys.

The plan had suffered from such modifications that it might be said to be an entirely new one. Precious time had been lost in their attempt by way of the east. Instead of going north from Franz Josef Land, they were on the east coast of Greenland below Mount Petermann. It was proposed to take an oblique course from the 24th to the 5Sth degree of east longitude, so as to cross if possible Lockwood’s route in 1882, at about 82° 44' north latitude. It was a grand scheme, bristling with difficulty; but, as De Keralio said, was that an obstacle to stop a Frenchman?

Captain Lacrosse had forty-six days, from the 1st of July to the i5th of August, in which to reach the south of Greenland, double, if necessary, Cape Farewell, and return to Franz Josef fiord with the dogs required by the expedition.

Fortunately, this was the warmest period of the year. The
Polar Star
during her three months’ voyage had experienced no storm. She was still abundantly provided with coal, and even after her return would have enough for a further dash towards the north if the sea opened before her adventurous commander.

Thanks to the measures taken a long time in advance, and minutely calculated, the landing of the chief explorers was accomplished in a day. The crystalline border of the fiord was only six miles wide, and such were still the solidity and thickness of the ice that there was no fear of its breaking up. These borders along the shore have remained unthawed for centuries, and their bases apparently rest on the rock itself, forming a ledge from six to nine feet thick above the level of the open water.

To assure himself of safety, Lacrosse began by taking soundings, and found twenty-five fathoms down a bottom of syenite and schistose rocks. It was evident that there was a gentle slope up to the land.

When the travellers landed they took with them certain numbered pieces of wood for the rapid construction of a hut in which they could take shelter. Here, again, frequent drill in piecing together and taking apart the beams and scantling, walls and partitions, of the wooden house, resulted in a truly wonderful economy of time. The exceptional mildness of the temperature— reaching nine degrees centigrade between noon and three in the afternoon, and dropping only to five between midnight and three in the morning—favoured the work. In six hours, Fort Esperance, such was it named, was fit to receive the twelve persons who came ashore, that is to say, De Keralio, his daughter Isabelle, his nephew Hubert, the good Tina Le Floc’h, Isabelle’s nurse and servant, Dr. Servan, the naturalist Schnecker, and six Breton sailors, Guerbraz, Helouin, Kermaidic, Carions, Le Maout and Riez. It was to these twelve that the rest of the crew left the task of completing the two wings necessary for the ultimate reception of the thirty-three officers and men remaining on board the ship, and who would return from their run to Cape Farewell to shut themselves up with their companions for the long winter night.

The dog Salvador followed Isabelle ashore. He could not live away from his young and valorous mistress. On the 1st of July in the morning, Captain Lacrosse, after a farewell banquet given on board the
Polar Star,
shook hands with those who had landed on the Green Land of the north, and gave the signal of departure, promising to return before the month of August.

There was a moment of indescribable sadness when the steamer began to move under the first impulse of her screws. Whatever might be the ardour of the intrepid explorers, they were unable to face this first separation without apprehension. Those who remained were to have their first experience of sojourning on a desolate land; those who went were to find a land almost as desolate, and enter Into communication with a most rudimentary people.

Rut they were sure to come back again. And so the oppression at this preliminary separation was soon overcome and those who were left behind set to work to make the most of the time that remained before the coming of winter.

The first thing was to get the house into order. The house was quite a masterpiece of practical and hygienic arrangement. It measured as it stood, without the wings that were to flank it, forty feet along the chord of the semicircle in which it was built. The diameter of its wino-s would add six feet more at each extremity. It would thus be in a circular form, the second half overlapping the first, with an interior courtyard twenty feet across covered with a movable roof.

This curious edifice, which was not unlike a panorama, contained a number of rooms, or, more correctly speaking, compartments. One of these rooms, the best furnished, was reserved for Isabelle and her nurse. Besides the two dining-rooms of unequal size, one for the officers, the other for the crew, the house contained the kitchen, three bath-rooms, a physical and chemical laboratory, an astronomical and meteorological laboratory, an infirmary, a dispensary, and altogether ten public rooms and eight private apartments.

It had been designed by De Keralio, and the plans had taken a year to prepare and improve with the help of Doctor Servan.

It was consequently with very natural pride that De Keralio did the honours to his companions who had now become his guests in this provisional habitation that in more favoured regions might have been a permanent one. And it was with considerable satisfaction that he explained its many advantages.

“Consider that our house is built of sections carefully numbered, and therefore as easily taken to pieces and carried away as they have been put together here. We have a double wall of planks, and the inner wall is covered with the waterproof sheeting which keeps in the warm air. The walls are ten inches apart and form an air chamber. Their inner surfaces are covered with paper, and for greater security we are going to cover the partitions with woollen curtains.”

And omitting no detail, he showed his wondering visitors the columns of copper and steel sustaining the light wooden framework and the gentle give and take of the timbers so as to allow for the most violent winds by the play of the angles at the bolts; the storeroom towering over all, the roof with the skylights to make the most of the light of day, and at the same time minimize the inevitable currents of air from doors and windows, the felted floor supported by the beams of iron covered with wood. A circular corridor, or rather a gallery, put all the rooms in communication and allowed of passing from one to the other without going outside.