A Mans Woman | Page 9

signalling us."
Bennett did not answer, but, with his hand gripping the tiller, kept his
face to the front, his glance alternating between the heaving prow of the
boat and the huge gray billows hissing with froth careering rapidly
alongside. To pause for a moment, to vary by ever so little from the
course of the storm, might mean the drowning of them all. After a few
moments Adler spoke again, touching his cap.
"I'm sure I see a signal, sir."
"No, you don't," answered Bennett.
"Beg pardon, I'm quite sure I do."
Bennett leaned toward him, the cast in his eyes twinkling with a wicked
light, the furrow between the eyebrows deepening. "I tell you, you don't
see any signal; do you understand? You don't see any signal until I
choose to have you."
The night was bitter hard for the occupants of the whaleboat. In their
weakened condition they were in no shape to fight a polar hurricane in
an open boat.
For three weeks they had not known the meaning of full rations. During
the first days after the line of march over the ice had been abruptly
changed to the west in the hope of reaching open water, only
three-quarter rations had been issued, and now for the last two days half
rations had been their portion. The gnawing of hunger had begun.

Every man was perceptibly weaker. Matters were getting desperate.
But by seven o'clock the next morning the storm had blown itself out.
To Bennett's inexpressible relief the cutter hove in view. Shaping their
course to landward once more, the boats kept company, and by the
middle of the afternoon Bennett and the crew of the whaleboat
successfully landed upon a bleak, desolate, and wind-scourged coast.
But in some way, never afterward sufficiently explained, the cutter
under Ferriss's command was crushed in the floating ice within one
hundred yards of the shore. The men and stores were landed--the water
being shallow enough for wading--but the boat was a hopeless wreck.
"I believe it's Cape Shelaski," said Bennett to Ferriss when camp had
been made and their maps consulted. "But if it is, it's charted thirty-five
minutes too far to the west."
Before breaking camp the next morning Bennett left this record under a
cairn of rocks upon the highest point of the cape, further marking the
spot by one of the boat's flags:
"The Freja Arctic Exploring Expedition landed at this point October 28,
1891. Our ship was nipped and sunk in 76 deg. 10 min. north latitude
on the l2th of July last. I then attempted a southerly march to Wrangel
Island, but found such a course impracticable on account of northerly
drift of ice. On the lst of October I accordingly struck off to the
westward to find open water at the limit of the ice, being compelled to
abandon one boat and two sledges on the way. A second boat was
crushed beyond repair in drifting ice while attempting a landing at this
place. Our one remaining boat being too small to accommodate the
members of the expedition, circumstances oblige me to begin an
overland march toward Kolyuchin Bay, following the line of the coast.
We expect either to winter among the Chuckch settlements mentioned
by Nordenskjold as existing upon the eastern shores of Kolyuchin Bay
or to fall in with the relief ships or the steam whalers en route. By
issuing half rations I have enough provisions for eighteen days, and
have saved all records, observations, papers, instruments, etc. Enclosed
is the muster roll of the expedition. No scurvy as yet and no deaths. Our
sick are William Hawes, carpenter, arctic fever, serious; David
McPherson, seaman, ulceration of left foot, serious. The general
condition of the rest of the men is fair, though much weakened by
exposure and lack of food.

(Signed) "WARD BENNETT, Commanding."
But during the night, their first night on land, Bennett resolved upon a
desperate expedient. Not only the boat was to be abandoned, but also
the sledges, and not only the sledges, but every article of weight not
absolutely necessary to the existence of the party. Two weeks before,
the sun had set not to rise again for six months. Winter was upon them
and darkness. The Enemy was drawing near. The great remorseless grip
of the Ice was closing. It was no time for half-measures and hesitation;
now it was life or death.
The sense of their peril, the nearness of the Enemy, strung Bennett's
nerves taut as harp-strings. His will hardened to the flinty hardness of
the ice itself. His strength of mind and of body seemed suddenly to
quadruple itself. His determination was that of the battering-ram, blind,
deaf, resistless. The ugly set of his face became all the more ugly, the
contorted eyes