Against the Ice, page 7
We always took two pieces of the best meat back to the tent for Girly and Bjørn, so that they could feast on the remains of a companion who had been weighed and found wanting.
Bjørn always gobbled up his bit with delighted grunts and much smacking of his lips, but Girly would just smell hers, turn it over and smell the other side, take a cautious trial nibble at it — and then turn away from it and give me a most expressive look. If she had been able to talk, she would undoubtedly have said in a tone of reproach: “So all my hard work is rewarded with a piece of nauseous meat from a companion. How can you!” That was all very well, but what else could I do?
Bjørn would be keeping an eye on Girly, and when he saw that she was leaving the meat, he would approach cautiously; but Girly would not even protest when, warily and with his bad conscience showing in his eyes, he patted the lump to him with a paw and swallowed it in a couple of gulps. Bjørn did not possess the finer feelings and was not one to despise any food.
Iver and I would look at each other, always rather guiltily. Once I patted Girly, petting her a bit because she was a good dog who refused to eat a comrade; and, though I did not say anything, I may have smiled a little exultingly at Iver. Anyway, he took it as a tacit condemnation of Bjørn, who had not such fine feelings, and suddenly squeezing out of his warm damp sleeping bag, he opened the door of the tent and thrust the yelping Bjørn into the raging storm and cold snow, without Bjørn having any idea what he had done: “Damned cannibal,” Iver shouted at him. “Enjoy yourself there!”
Then Girly was given a microscopic piece of an almost invisible bit of pemmican as a reward for virtue.
Those days of storm were long and difficult to get through. We spent forty-nine days on the inland ice and of these we were stormbound for nineteen whole days, and various half days. That was a fearful lot.
That did not exhaust the devilry of the weather, for calm fine days were so rare there that we had eighteen days (other than stormbound ones) of slow, laborious battling against a more or less violent wind, before we had our first good day.
I must admit that we were making our journey too early. In the summer, or early summer, the weather is much better; or so one is led to believe. I had always known that we were starting out too early, but I had no choice: either we had to cross the inland ice as early as we possibly could, or we must be prepared to spend the summer somewhere or other on the coast, which would involve another wintering, and for that we had no great desire.
I had chosen to sledge early across the inland ice in the hope that the powers which govern wind and weather would be gracious. They were, in fact, the reverse, so that, though we had chosen almost the worst time for the inland ice, where storm was the rule, we still had to be prepared to spend the summer somewhere on the coast. And if our rifles could not get us food there, what then? There would be no more “and then?” Mylius-Erichsen and his companions had not survived, though one of them was a Greenlander, accustomed to keeping alive in that harsh land.
We had had a hard time of it with the dirty weather and, in all probability, would have just as bad a time with hunger during the summer. Which of the two would be worse, was a matter of opinion; both situations were grim and could cost us our lives. Now we had come through the storms: would we do as much with the hunger?
We had every excuse to consider the outlook dark. The provisions we carried had been too few for the consumption necessitated by the days of storm and no progress, and it was obvious long before we came down off the inland ice that we must make up our minds to spend the summer there, as it was only in the autumn we could hope to get back to Alabama. Those nineteen days of storm would cost us a whole year, at least a year — if we even came through the summer.
CHAPTER VII
Last Days on the Inland Ice
Ice and cold improve — Land straight ahead — The dogs break into the tent — Run-away ride — A fairy world — Back on land
Luckily, it could also happen that when we woke, we would sit up in surprise in our sleeping bags, listening for the sound we were accustomed to hear, listening intently without catching the least hiss of snow against the tent; and if, at the same time, the sun happened to be shining through the tent-cloth, filling with golden sunlight the little space the storms made so dreary, then we would be out of our sleeping bags in a flash and, while one made tea, the other hurried out on to the gaily lit inland ice, joyfully sniffed the fresh air, shuddered a little with the cold and set about getting all ready for the earliest possible start.
That could be a cold job when the temperature was so low that the mercury was frozen, and it became an even colder one when one day I remembered how, in Alaska, the Eskimos often ice the runners of their sledges when they want to drive quickly across snow that is free from stones. That was a thing we also should be able to do, and there was certainly no need to be afraid of stones ripping the ice off the runners, when we were on top of a layer of ice nearly 5,000 feet thick! So we tried icing our runners, and the experiment was a magnificent success — the sledges slid along almost on their own.
The dogs were highly surprised when we moved off and they found that they could scarcely feel the weight of the sledges. They barked loudly in amazement and turned round to see whether they had lost the sledge, or why they could no longer feel it. Then they saw our smiling faces and heard our words of encouragement “Keep going, little dogs. The sledges are there and will follow you all right.”
And so they dashed ahead. Iver and I smiled to each other. It was almost incredible how easily everything went. The sun was shining, there was no wind to hamper us and we were maintaining a relatively good speed — praise be! There was, though, one nasty snake in our paradise: icing sledge runners in a temperature of thirty or forty degrees (Centigrade) below zero, perhaps even fifty, was a job for experts. We had filled our mouths with water to warm it slightly, then spat it out onto the runners and rubbed it with our bare hands along the wood, laying layer upon layer until the skin of ice was almost a millimetre thick. That was a cold job for bare fingers, and when at last we were done we discovered that our hands had been so numb, that we had never even noticed the big splinters of wood we had rammed into our palms.
We did not worry much about that, though. We could always pull the splinters out when the frost had gone from our hands. All that we were concerned with was to get the sledges gliding easily, so as to save the dogs’ strength and cover as great a distance as possible, and thus make up some of the time we had lost.
The sledges did at least slip along easily on their iced runners, and once we had got so far north that the inland ice began to shelve down towards the land round Danmarks Fjord, sledging became a real joy instead of the inhuman toil it had been.
It was nearly May and the sun was high in the sky both at midnight and at noon. The worst of the crevasses and fissures were evidently behind us, for we saw but few of them, and a large mass of mountains was heaving itself up above the horizon far away in the north, more mountains to take the place of those we had struggled so hard to reach and pass.
The weather, too, had improved. There were not so many storms, and they neither so violent nor of such long duration as they had been. Obviously, we had the worst behind us. So, as we sped across the waste of ice, we urged the dogs on with fair promises of land and musk oxen, of such gorging as their bellies had never known before.
We called gay flippancies across to each other, as we strode along with sail on the sledge, for now we had a following wind instead of the interminable head wind that had blown till then. The tent, hoist on a mast of three skis lashed together, made a peculiar looking sail, but it served its purpose, increased our speed and enhanced our joy at the progress we were making. And, as usual, when things weren’t going at all right with us, Iver sang most loudly; thus, across the inland ice, rang the comforting refrain:
“Why should we sorrow,
Why let things annoy?
The world’s not worth it
’Twas made for joy.”
We certainly had no cause for tears. Fate had given us a warning rap over the fingers and had taught us to be less arrogant and sure of ourselves. We realized, of course, that we should have to spend the summer on the coast; but that all lay in the future, so why lament now when everything was going so well? So I just cracked my whip in time to Iver’s song. This was the old Iver that I knew. But, Iver, do you not see the cirrus clouds coming up from the north, as though they were the long arm of the Ice King stretching out to catch us and keep us up there? They perhaps mean storm tomorrow, and you won’t sing then. Then the wind will be whistling and howling its harsh song of wasted days and short commons, while the snow flakes whirl in their ghostly dance!
But Iver just laughed. “What of it,” said he — “things are going well today, so why wail about possible disasters tomorrow. Perhaps there will be a storm, perhaps there won’t; let us rejoice in the present, even if tomorrow stifles us.”
There was something in that.
The sledging continued to go well — better and better, in fact, as the days came and went. The ominous cirrus clouds that till then had been such infallible harbingers of calamity now seemed to have lost contact with the future and the evils it had in store, and we stopped paying heed to them. Then, one day we at last saw the sight to which we had been looking forward so hugely; ahead and far below us we glimpsed land, land that was almost clear of snow, an incredible sight.
We left the sledges and dogs and walked on closer to the edge of the ice to see if there was a practicable way down to our promised land. For the first time for ages we had rifles bumping on our backs, and each bump was like the greeting of a good friend, one who might be able to procure us food; if only we could get down to the land of promise where game and meat — fantastic thought — were perhaps to be had.
However, when we reached the edge of the inland ice after some hours’ walking, there was a sheer glacier wall of over 300 feet, down which it would have been impossible to lower the sledges, so we turned and walked back to our camp, fagged, disappointed and hungry. How near was our object, land, and yet how far.
The state in which we found the camp did nothing to improve our humour. The dogs, forgetting all their training as their masters walked off across the ice, had broken into the tent — nothing difficult about that — opened the tin boxes and eaten some of our precious provisions. The few miscreants had gobbled up over two stone of pemmican, plus a quantity of biscuits and some dried vegetables. The omniverous creatures had topped this off with a bit of sleeping bag, and they had licked Primus, jug and spoons till they were clean and gleaming, which they had not been for a long time.
There was little doubt that Girly was the prime mover in this base theft, for she knew where the provisions were kept and, no doubt, what the different boxes contained; for Girly was very clever and made good use of her eyes. As we entered the tent and saw the awful thing that had happened, Girly lay on her back, waving her paws in wheedling apology. Grimrian and Bjørn had taken up quarters in our sleeping bags, where they were sleeping the heavy sleep of repletion, snoring loudly and smelling abominably. Bitter was the awakening, for the whip handles were still relatively whole, though the long lashes had been eaten. That last did not matter so much at that moment, since it was only the whip handles we needed; as a means of punishment they exactly suited our state of mind. We were furious. Our arms were strong and the presumptious ones were duly taught that that particular crime could not go unpunished. In order that justice should be administered impartially, I thrashed Iver’s Bjørn and he my Girly. Grimrian’s punishment was left to the last, but he got what he deserved, first from Iver, then from me, so there was no question of his getting off lightly.
We could scarcely sleep for the stench in our sleeping bags and for vexation. The next morning there was no question of our being able to sledge on. Our thieving dogs were incapable of hauling properly, being still too gorged and, perhaps, also rather tender from the payment we had exacted; thus, whether we liked it or not, the dogs had to have a day’s rest, lovely and fine though the weather was. I found it impossible to sit still, so leaving the tent, I set off in the hope of finding a relatively practicable way down the huge wall of ice that towered up vertically from the land below. The previous day’s experience of leaving the dogs to guard our belongings had proved too expensive for us to dare leave them alone again, so Iver had to remain in camp to keep an eye on the tent, provisions and dogs. He would have liked to come with me, partly because of the joy of setting foot on true land again, but mostly so as to be there to help, if I happened to come unawares too close to a crevasse, as I very easily could. “I don’t like your going alone,” said Iver, “So much can happen. And what then?”
Yes, what then? If it happened, it happened, and that was all there was to it, for we dared not leave the dogs alone with the food.
I walked off across the glistening, steeply shelving ice, and after several hours I found a promising place, where a huge snowdrift had made a sort of bridge from the bottom of a winding gorge in the sheer wall of the ice to the land below. It looked probable that we could reach the land by going through the gorge and so on across the snow drift, but, however tempting, I did not dare try it, for it was so steep that I was afraid I would be unable to climb up on to the ice again and get back to Iversen.
It was hard to have to turn when the goal of our longings was so close, but, nonetheless, I was in high spirits as I made my way back to Iver, and I shouted to him from a distance: “Tomorrow we make our last start on this waste of ice — and before evening we’ll camp on a carpet of heather.” Promising words, almost too promising and arrogant to come true, but we had been through too hard a school not to rejoice, when we thought there was anything to rejoice at.
For a while, indeed, it looked as though I had spoken too soon, as though all my fine promises were written in the finest drift snow. The sun was shining, the dogs were rested and our excitement had somehow or other communicated itself to them, when with tails waving they started off at a run across the steeply shelving ice. The thrill of speed laid hold of my team; wilder and wilder grew the pace, while I pulled back against them as hard as I could, for I knew that the vertical glacier wall, 300 feet high, was close, and just exactly where we were heading at that crazy speed.
The sledge rolled and yawed like a boat in a storm. The ice was now all but bare of snow, worn by the drifting snows of winter and as smooth as a mirror. The dogs noticed nothing; they no longer obeyed, just ran on and on; perhaps they, too, had caught the smell of land. Then I slipped, fell and was dragged along, for I could not get free of the trace which, as always, I had over my shoulder. I was dragged along over the hard, smooth ice, banging myself here and everywhere, until at last the trace broke. That was a relief, for I knew that at least I was not going to be dragged down to certain death. I lay where I was to collect my wits after the wild chase and watched the sledge continue its mad career downhill, till suddenly the stem tilted into the air and vanished as abruptly as did the joyous barking of the dogs.
I was too battered and bruised to be able to get to my feet at once, but I realized that Iver must be halted, if that were in any way possible, so that his sledge should not be lost too. If it were, we would be lost as well. I got to my feet with a tremendous effort. I turned and twisted, bent low down and far back in an attempt to discover whether I really had escaped from my rough ride without any broken bones or other serious injury; I squeezed myself here and there on the body’s most vulnerable spots, but it was obvious that I was not badly hurt in any way.
It was impossible to keep your feet on that mirror-smooth slope of ice, so I had to crawl on hands and knees, hooking on to the least protuberance in order to get up to the crest of the rise: then at last I saw Iver, thank goodness, without his sledge.
When he came up, he asked in a horrified voice: “What’s happened to the sledge and the dogs?”
“Gone over the glacier face, smashed, dead. And I nearly went the same way,” I replied, dully, rubbing my bruised body. “We’ve lost everything there was on my sledge. It’s almost the worst thing that could have happened, and we’ve been rejoicing so at reaching land today!”
Iver would not believe that things were so bad. “Are you sure?” he asked, in a voice that was slightly shaky — “Don’t you think they might have got away with the fall?” No, I did not. I had seen the rear end of the sledge tilt high in the air, as if it were a ship diving to the bottom. They did not have a chance, unless a miracle had happened. At that moment, Iver cried out joyfully and slid a few paces forward across the smooth ice. There really had been a miracle. Ten yards away lay the sledge, overturned on top of a dog that, unable to keep up the frantic pace, had got under a runner, and thus acted as a brake. The poor dog was whimpering pitiably, as it had every reason to do, for the sledge was heavy. And in front of the sledge sat my Girly with her tongue hanging far out from her flews, almost grinning as she looked at me, as much as to say “What a speed, wasn’t it?”
It took us eight hours of really hard work with all the dogs harnessed to the one sledge to haul it up the ice slope, down which I had driven, slid, almost flown in just a few minutes. But the land was beckoning to us, and, the weather being still fine, we had to go on. Off we went on another reconnaissance, and after we had cut some 350 steps, each eighteen inches or so, in the glassy ice or hard, compressed snow, we reached the foot of the ice-wall and land that was free of snow and to us a paradise.
Willows grew in our paradise, a whole little copse of willows three or four hands high and with trunks as thick as a thumb that was swollen with frostbite and unnaturally thick. Long stalks of grass stuck up through the snow and their rime powdered seed-cases waved gently in a warm wind. On the bare patches, we saw thick layers of moss, naturally frozen hard, but as soon as the sun regained its warmth, they would melt and become soft, moist and summery and be an invitation to rest. Our eyes were gladdened by the sight of lovely tall heather in the particularly well-sheltered spots, not fifty yards from the eternal ice.
