The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras Page 7

  CHAPTER V.AT SEA.

  The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, wasblowing in genuine April squalls. The _Forward_ sailed rapidly, andits screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards threeo'clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and theIsle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on itspaddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last good-byto the crew of the _Forward_.

  At five o'clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to RichardShandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared fromsight in the southwest.

  Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southernextremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea wasvery high; the _Forward_ rode the waves very well, however, andleaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the NorthChannel.

  "Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."]

  Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselvesinstinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of theirvessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship'sroutine was soon regularly established.

  The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down thedeck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he hadvery good sea-legs.

  "The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon thebridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making itsacquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."

  "You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the worldfor a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of theirbusiness; but I've been sailing for forty years, and I like it as wellas I did the first day."

  "What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one's feet! and, ifI'm not mistaken, the _Forward_ is a capital sea-boat."

  "You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the twospeakers; "she's a good ship, and I must say that there was never aship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That remindsme that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek theNorthwest Passage--"

  "Commanded the _Victory_," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of aboutthe tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."

  "What! did you know that?"

  "Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then newinventions, and the machinery of the _Victory_ was continuallydelaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up everypiece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place hewintered at."

  "The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."

  "More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come acrossthe works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy,Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might addthat MacClintock, on board of the _Fox_, a propeller like ours,succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all hissuccessors."

  "That's perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a goodsailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be,like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if we can getthrough the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."

  "Unless," said the doctor, "we should be as unlucky as the _Fox_ in1857, and should be caught the first year by the ice in the north ofBaffin's Bay, and we should have to winter among the icebergs."

  "We must hope to be luckier, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and if, witha ship like the _Forward_, we can't go where we please, the attemptmust be given up forever."

  "Besides," continued the doctor, "if the captain is on board he willknow better than we what is to be done, and so much the better becausewe are perfectly ignorant; for his singularly brief letter gives us noclew to the probable aim of the voyage."

  "It's a great deal," answered Shandon, with some warmth, "to know whatroute we have to take; and now for a good month, I fancy, we shall beable to get along without his supernatural intervention and orders.Besides, you know what I think about him."

  "Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor; "I used to think as you did, that he wasgoing to leave the command of the ship in your hands, and that hewould never come on board; but--"

  "But what?" asked Shandon, with some ill-humor.

  "But since the arrival of the second letter, I have altered my viewssomewhat."

  "And why so, doctor?"

  "Because, although this letter does tell you in which direction to go,it still does not inform you of the final aim of the voyage; and wehave yet to know whither we are to go. I ask you how can a thirdletter reach us now that we are on the open sea. The postal service onthe shore of Greenland is very defective. You see, Shandon, I fancythat he is waiting for us at some Danish settlement up there,--atHolsteinborg or Upernavik. We shall find that he has been completingthe supply of seal-skins, buying sledges and dogs,--in a word,providing all the equipment for a journey in the arctic seas. So Ishall not be in the least surprised to see him coming out of his cabinsome fine morning and taking command in the least supernatural way inthe world."

  "Possibly," answered Shandon, dryly; "but meanwhile the wind'sfreshening, and there's no use risking our topsails in such weather."

  Shandon left the doctor, and ordered the topsails furled.

  "He still clings to that idea," said the doctor to the boatswain.

  "Yes," was the answer, "and it's a pity; for you may very well beright, Dr. Clawbonny."

  Towards the evening of Saturday the _Forward_ rounded the Mull ofGalloway, on which the light could be seen in the northeast. Duringthe night they left the Mull of Cantire to the north, and on the eastFair Head, on the Irish coast. Towards three o'clock in the morning,the brig, passing Rathlin Island on its starboard quarter, came outfrom the North Channel into the ocean.

  That was Sunday, April 8. The English, and especially sailors, arevery observant of that day; hence the reading of the Bible, of whichthe doctor gladly took charge, occupied a good part of the morning.

  The wind rose to a gale, and threatened to drive the ship back uponthe Irish coast. The waves ran very high; the vessel rolled a greatdeal. If the doctor was not sea-sick, it was because he was determinednot to be, for nothing would have been easier. At midday Malin Headdisappeared from their view in the south; it was the last sight thesebold sailors were to have of Europe, and more than one gazed at it fora long time who was doubtless fated never to set eyes on it again.

  By observation the latitude then was 55 degrees 57 minutes, and thelongitude, according to the chronometer, 7 degrees 40 minutes.[1]

  [Footnote 1: Meridian of Greenwich.]

  The gale abated towards nine o'clock of the evening; the _Forward_, agood sailer, kept on its route to the northwest. That day gave themall a good opportunity to judge of her sea-going qualities; as goodjudges had already said at Liverpool, she was well adapted forcarrying sail.

  During the following days, the _Forward_ made very good progress; thewind veered to the south, and the sea ran high. The brig set everysail. A few petrels and puffins flew about the poop-deck; the doctorsucceeded in shooting one of the latter, which fortunately fell onboard.

  Simpson, the harpooner, seized it and carried it to the doctor.

  "It's an ugly bird, Dr. Clawbonny," he said.

  "But then it will make a good meal, my friend."

  "What, are you going to eat it?"

  "And you shall have a taste of it," said the doctor, laughing.

  "Never!" answered Simpson; "it's strong and oily, like all sea-birds."

  "True," said the doctor; "but I have a way of dressing such game, andif you recognize it to be a sea-bird, I'll promise never to killanother in all my life."

  "So you are a cook, too, Dr. Clawbonny?" asked Johnson.

  "A learned man ought to know a little of everything."

  "Then take care, Simpson," said the boatswain; "the doctor is a cleverman, and he'll make us take this puffin for a delicious grouse."

  In fact, the doctor was in the right about this bird; he removedskilfully the
fat which lies beneath the whole surface of the skin,principally on its thighs, and with it disappeared all the rancid,fishy odor with which this bird can be justly charged. Thus prepared,the bird was called delicious, even by Simpson.

  During the recent storm, Richard Shandon had made up his mind aboutthe qualities of his crew; he had tested his men one by one, as everyofficer should do who wishes to be prepared for future dangers; heknew on whom he could rely.

  James Wall, who was warmly attached to Richard, was intelligent andefficient, but he had very little originality; as second officer hewas exactly in his place.

  Johnson, who was accustomed to the dangers of the sea, and an oldsailor in arctic regions, lacked neither coolness nor courage.

  Simpson, the harpooner, and Bell, the carpenter, were steady men,obedient and well disciplined. The ice-master, Foker, an experiencedsailor, who had sailed in northern waters, promised to be of thegreatest service.

  Of the other men, Garry and Bolton seemed to be the best; Bolton was ajolly fellow, always laughing and joking; Garry, a man aboutthirty-five years old, had an energetic, but rather pale and sad face.

  The three sailors, Clifton, Gripper, and Pen, seemed to be the leastenthusiastic and determined; they were inclined to grumbling. Gripperhad even wished to break his engagement when the time came forsailing, and only a feeling of shame prevented him. If things wentwell, if they encountered no excessive dangers, and their toil was nottoo severe, these three men could be counted on; but they were hard toplease with their food, for they were inclined to gluttony. In spiteof their having been forewarned, they were by no means pleased withbeing teetotalers, and at their meals they used to miss their brandyor gin; but they made up for it with the tea and coffee which weredistributed with a lavish hand.

  As for the two engineers, Brunton and Plover, and the stoker, Warren,they had been so far well satisfied with having nothing to do.

  Shandon knew therefore what to expect from each man.

  On the 14th of April, the _Forward_ crossed the Gulf Stream, which,after following the eastern coast of America as far as Newfoundland,turns to the northeast and moves towards the shore of Norway. Theywere then in latitude 51 degrees 37 minutes, and longitude 22 degrees37 minutes, two hundred miles from the end of Greenland. The weathergrew colder; the thermometer fell to 32 degrees, the freezing-point.

  The doctor, without yet putting on his arctic winter dress, waswearing a suit of sea-clothes, like all the officers and sailors; hewas an amusing sight in his high boots, in which he could not bend hislegs, his huge tarpaulin hat, his trousers and coat of the samematerial; in heavy rain, or when the brig was shipping seas, thedoctor used to look like a sort of sea-monster, a comparison whichalways flattered him.

  For two days the sea was very rough; the wind veered to the northwest,and delayed the _Forward_. From the 14th to the 16th of April therewas still a high sea running; but on Monday there fell a heavy showerwhich almost immediately had the effect of calming the sea. Shandoncalled the doctor's attention to it.

  "Well," said the doctor, "that confirms the curious observations ofthe whaler Scoresby, who was a member of the Royal Society ofEdinburgh, of which I have the honor to be a corresponding member. Yousee that while the rain is falling the waves are hardly to be noticed,even when the wind is strong. On the other hand, in dry weather thesea would be rougher even with a gentler wind."

  "But what is the explanation of it, Doctor?"

  "It's very simple; there is no explanation."

  At that moment the ice-master, who was on watch in the topmastcross-trees, cried out that there was a floating mass on the starboardquarter, about fifteen miles to windward.

  "An iceberg in these latitudes!" cried the doctor.

  Shandon turned his glass in that direction, and corroborated thelookout's words.

  "That's strange," said the doctor.

  "Are you surprised?" asked the commander, laughing. "What! are welucky enough to find anything that will surprise you?"

  "I am surprised without being surprised," answered the doctor,smiling, "since the brig _Ann Poole_, of Greenspond, was caught in theice in the year 1813, in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude,and Dayement, her captain, saw hundreds of icebergs."

  "Good," said Shandon; "you can still teach us a great deal aboutthem."

  "O, not so very much!" answered Clawbonny, modestly, "except that icehas been seen in very much lower latitudes."

  "That I know, my dear Doctor, for when I was a cabin-boy on thesloop-of-war, _Fly_--"

  "In 1818," continued the doctor, "at the end of March, or it mighthave been the beginning of April, you passed between two large fieldsof floating ice, in latitude forty-two."

  "That is too much!" exclaimed Shandon.

  "But it's true; so I have no need to be surprised, now that we are twodegrees farther north, at our sighting an iceberg."

  "You are bottled full of information, Doctor," answered the commander;"one needs only draw the cork."

  "Very well, I shall be exhausted sooner than you think; and now,Shandon, if we can get a nearer view of this phenomenon, I should bethe gladdest of doctors."

  "Exactly, Johnson," said Shandon, summoning the boatswain; "I thinkthe wind is freshening."

  "Yes, Commander," answered Johnson, "we are making very littleheadway, and soon we shall feel the currents from Davis Strait."

  "You are right, Johnson, and if we mean to make Cape Farewell by the20th of April, we must go under steam, or we shall be cast on thecoast of Labrador.--Mr. Wall, give the order to light the fires."

  The mate's orders were obeyed; an hour later the engines were inmotion; the sails were furled; and the screw, turning through thewaves, was driving the _Forward_ rapidly in the teeth of the northwestwind.