CHAPTER III

 STRUGGLING AGAINST THE IMPOSSIBLE 

     From the Platen Island we made a desperate effort to get out upon the polar pack and start toward the Pole. But it was simply impossible. The storm of which I have spoken had driven hundreds of millions of tons of ice down upon the land—an example of an irresistible force encountering an immovable body—and the result was mad chaos. Ice-blocks as large as houses piled high in the wildest confusion. Between them deep pockets filled with treacherous slush and brash ice upon which we could get no firm footing and through which the water could not be forced. We had many narrow escapes whilst working in this mass of frozen stuff over the deep sea. Many times we pulled one an­other out of the water. After these cold baths we went on with our work as if nothing had hap­pened, not taking the trouble to change our soaked clothing for dry. It is nothing when you get used to it. 

     Defeated in the main purpose of our expedition, we had to think of returning to that of Spitzbergen where we could hope to find a ship. So we started back for Walden Island. On the way we had many adventures. The ad­vancing summer rotted the ice. For miles and miles we could make headway only by shoving the aluminum boats through the slush-ice, we half walking, half swimming alongside, jump­ing in the boat when we came to an open pool, out again and leaping from ice cake to cake in the broken-up fields. We were wet to the middle from morning till night. We did not mind it so much when the sun shone and the weather was fine. But it was pretty dreary work in wind and rain, and worse still in the thick fogs, so dense that we could not see much more than a boat's length. 

     It was particularly awkward to camp at night —as we were sometimes forced to do—upon ice so rotten that we could not step a couple of paces from the boats without danger of going down into the salt water underneath. Many such duckings we all had, and sometimes it was not easy to pull a man out after he had gone down in the ice to his middle.  

     One of my best and bravest Norwegians, Herr Alme, a fine athlete, broke a bone in his foot one day, leaping from one floe of ice to another. He suffered excruciating pain. That night, after his foot had been dressed by Dr. Mohun, I found the poor fellow lying in his boat crying bitterly. When I asked him if he was suffering so much, he replied:  

     "My foot is easier, but the doctor says I can't walk for a month. That means I can't help pull the boat." 

     "Don't worry about that. We'll get along all right." 

     "But—but you won't leave me out here in the ice, will you?"

The secret was out. The brave boy knew we would have to drag him in the boat, making our work so much the harder. And he had actually feared we would abandon him to perish out there in the wilderness of ice! 

Several polar bear—ice-bear the Norwegians always call them—we killed on the way, and so did not lack for an occasional meal of fresh meat.

      At last there was no hummock between him and his intended victim. With a mighty leap Mr. Bear rushed upon the seal. Just as it appeared to us the hunter had his dinner safe in his clutches, plump into the ice-hole rolled the dark, fat seal. No one ever saw a more angry bear. He stuck his head down into the hole, so deep that it seemed he could never get out again. When he realized he had lost his dinner his rage knew no bounds. He roared and tore up the ice and snow and snorted and even pulled out tufts of his own hair. After a time he cooled down. And soon it was evident he had made up his mind that if he couldn't get a square meal he could at least have the next best thing—a nice bath. And so he wallowed for several minutes in one of these natural ice-pools like the one I had taken a dip in some weeks earlier. 

     Pretty soon he came round where he got our scent, and slowly and cautiously approached us. The polar bear is almost blind in summer. He depends vastly more upon smell than sight in hunting his food, which consists almost entirely of seal. But he could not quite make us out. He had never scented such game before. So he came up slowly, pausing every few rods to rise on his haunches and move his head to and fro in the air, sniffing and trying to solve the riddle. At this juncture Paul Bjoervig, one of our Nor­wegians—you will read more about him in these pages—thought to play a joke on the visitor. Getting down in the snow in front of our sledges he crawled along on all fours, throwing out his arms in imitation of the flippers of a seal, and perfectly mimicking a seal's short grunts. The bear was now close enough to see this bogus seal. This time he felt sure of his dinner! With a mad rush he leaped toward Bjoervig, who was lying there in the snow laughing. As the bear rushed his prey two of our guns cracked and the beast turned in a flash and made off at a speed of about forty miles per hour. I had told the men not to kill him. We already had all the bear meat we needed; and, besides, I felt a sincere sympathy and admiration for this beast who had had the wit to cover his black snoot with his white paw while stalking the seal. 

     After some weeks of struggle we arrived at Walden Island, and found the sailors there all well in their camp. Capt. Bottolfsen had gone south in one of our aluminum boats to find a ship and summon help. After waiting some time, and seeing no signs that the ice was likely to leave the coast and permit a vessel to come to us, we started south with two aluminum boats and the heavy lifeboats which had been saved from the wreck of the Ragnvald Jarl. Storms came on, the ice was drifting violently to and fro, and we had many close calls from being crushed and wrecked. Once in the nick of time we managed to pull the boats upon an iceberg, while masses of ice were crashing together all about us. There we were held prisoners till the wind changed and permitted us to find a little open water in which the boats could be launched again. Finally we reached the edge of the drift-ice, and there found a sealing sloop which had come as far north as she could get looking for us. In her we returned to our depot at Virgo Bay, and thence to Norway.