our crow’s nest became at once the nucleus of the expedition. edith gale named it our “fighting-top” because of the fierce discussions that took place there.
this warfare concerning the new objects that appeared daily on our horizon was almost continual, and when not actively engaged in the combats, i was supposed to adjust them. they occurred most frequently between edith gale and her father, both of whom delighted in our lookout, and remained with me there a greater part of the time, in spite of bitter cold, and even the wet freezing discomfort that often swept in about us.
a paragraph of borchgrevink’s came back to me now—the fulness of which i had not before realized. “only from the crow’s nest,” he says, “can one fully appreciate the supernatural charm of antarctic scenery. up there you seem lifted above the pettiness and troubles of everyday life. your horizon is wide, and from your high position you rule the little world below you. onward, onward stretch the ice-fields, the narrow channels about the 107ship are opened and closed again by the current and wind, and as you strain your sight to the utmost to find the best places for the vessel to penetrate, your eyes wander from the ship’s bow out toward the horizon, where floes and channels seem to form one dense vast ice-field. ice and snow cover spars and ropes, and everywhere are perfect peace and silence.”
i have quoted this because we felt it all, and he has given it to us so much better than i could say it. no ordinary attempt of the elements could dismay us, or chill the exalted joy of our high, swinging perch. from our fighting-top we looked away to the south, across leagues of lifting, shifting, grinding ice—split here and there by long, black waterways—studded by iridescent island bergs—garish with every splendor of the spectrum, and blending at last into that overwhelming fathomless hue of the south, antarctic violet.
new wonders were constantly appearing before and below us. from our lofty vantage we discussed them fully, and photographed them when they came within range. with the luminous icy mist about us, there was still a gratification and a rapture, and when it passed and the sun returned, a new blazing enchantment lay all below us, even to the northward, where, beyond the dazzle of drifting ice-pans, rolled the black, uplifting sea.
108we observed and studied the haze or “blink” in the sky that always indicates the presence of ice, and the black, or “water” sky that tells of an open way—keeping well in among the floes, that we might not miss any lead or northward drift that would reveal our current from the south.
i did not expect it for a long distance yet, but it was our plan to leave no step of the way unexamined, and certainly there was plenty beside to repay us. edith gale seemed fairly lost in the color glories of this supernatural, elemental world. chauncey gale declared it was like the chicago fair, where one could have spent a lifetime and still not have seen it all. he made his initial attempt at naming birds one morning when a penguin, the first we had seen, came by on a small pan of ice. the bird regarded us solemnly, and in return we laughed at him. edith gale was overjoyed at his arrival.
“now, daddy, what’s that? you were going to name things, you know.”
“that,” replied gale gravely, “is a ‘billy watson.’ he looks exactly like a fellow i used to know by that name, when he had his dress suit on.”
we didn’t consider it much of a name, but it had a sticking quality, and all penguins became “billy watsons” to us thereafter. there were “big billy 109watsons” and “little billy watsons.” also, some that had feathers in their hats, and these we called “dandy billy watsons.” when we came to some sea-leopards and crab-eating seals he tried his hand again as a naturalist.
two impressions of billy watson. first, by chauncey gale. second,
by nicholas chase.
“those,” he said, “are ‘moon-faced mollies.’”
but this was regarded as a failure. anyhow, it was my turn. the captain had referred to them indiscriminately as seals, whereupon i produced their true names and my authority for conferring them, thus adding another instalment to mr. biffer’s respect for my scientific attainments, which, though slight enough, were sufficient to impress him considerably.
during these days ferratoni had almost nothing to say. he walked the deck for hours as we pushed through the drifting ice, listening to its crushing 110under the iron sheathing below and looking always to the south, as if something lay there from which, across that wireless, frozen waste, to him alone came tidings. now and then he ascended to our fighting-top to peer still farther into those polar depths. we all felt very close to creation’s secrets here in this primeval world, but we realized that ferratoni was nearer to the invisible than the others.
“i feel sometimes that he can read our very souls and all the mystery of the air,” edith gale said to me, after one of these visits. “when he looks at me i know that i may as well have put my thoughts into words. he believes, too, you know, that we shall be able to converse mentally, by and by, and at any distance. it would be simply the chording of the thought vibration, he says, and that there is really no need of words—that they are but a poor medium at best, and, as somebody has said, invented more to conceal thought than to convey it.”
“we shall have wordless telepathy, then, instead of wireless telegraphy,” i assented, “and i believe ferratoni is nearer right than most people would admit. why, when we are up here alone together, sometimes, it seems to me that we——” i hesitated, and she interrupted me rather hastily.
“yes, when we are looking out at all this, we are so often silent because there are no words to convey 111it; but i know what you are thinking better than if you tried to tell it.”
i do not think this was quite what i had started to say, but i was grateful for the interruption. i should doubtless have got into deep water and difficulties.
each day the sun rose earlier, shone warmer, and set later. what we referred to as night no longer bore even the semblance of a night, and its darkest hour was but a brief period of lambent twilight. the weather continued unusually good for the latitude, and thanksgiving day, on the edge of the antarctic zone, was a complete golden cycle. after a bounteous dinner planned by mr. sturritt, and joined in by all the officers of the billowcrest, we ascended by turns to the fighting-top to look for the first time on the midnight sun. captain biffer came back to the deck rather solemnly.
“it’s more than likely we won’t see it again, right away,” he announced. “if i’m not mistaken, there’s a blow coming off there to the northeast.”
the captain was not mistaken, this time. within an hour after midnight we were pitching in the midst of real darkness, fearsome and impenetrable. icy waves were breaking over the decks of the billowcrest, and the crash of ice under her hull was terrifying in its deafening fury.
112there was no sail to take in, for we were running under steam only, now, but the sailors had enough to do at first to keep everything movable from washing overboard, and then, a little later, themselves. at each end of the vessel the officers were roaring out commands, and the men striving to obey.
there was no thought of sleep, of course, and everybody was on deck or in the cabins. zar was praying swiftly and inclusively so as to have everybody in readiness at a moment’s notice, and nobody discouraged this undertaking. from stray bits that came to me now and then above the uproar i gathered that she believed our thanksgiving services, as well as the expedition generally, had been of a character to provoke divine wrath.
“oh, lawd,” she howled, “what can dese po’ sinful people expect, a-goin’ a hop-scotchin’ aroun’ on thanksgivin’ day, an’ a-huntin’ foh a fool pole in a lan’ wheah dey ain’ nuffin but ice, an’ wheah de sun shine at midnight? what can dey spect, lawd? what can dey spect?”
as a matter of fact we were expecting almost anything at that moment, and we were not surprised, or more frightened than we had been, when captain biffer came in and roared at us that we were being driven into the pack!
“let her go in!” yelled gale.
113“be smashed, if we do. go to hell in five minutes!”
“don’t care! hell can’t be worse than this!”
in the electric blaze of the cabin i looked more closely at gale. there was a green pallor over his features that was not due to fright. even in that awful hour there came upon me a proper and malicious joy. he was seasick! i did not blame him. we were rolling fearfully and i felt some discomfort, myself. but the spirit of my ancestors had waxed strong now, and prevailed. the others, too, were getting pale, all except zar, who turned a peculiar blue, and discontinued her prayer service. the brawny stewardess and myself assisted both her and her mistress to their staterooms, where i spoke a reassuring word to edith gale, and hastened back to the others. but gale and ferratoni had both disappeared, and i saw them no more during that fearful night.
plunging and battering we jammed our way into that mass of thundering ice. our search-lights, of which we had two, were kept going constantly, but even so, we were likely at any moment to collide with a berg in that surging blackness. the sight from the deck—the shouting sea, with the ice tossing and flashing as it was borne into the angle of our electric rays—was as the view of a riotous inferno 114that was making ready to crush us into its sombre depths.
but by morning we had penetrated the pack to a point where the violence beneath produced on the surface only a heaving, groaning protest at our presence. with the return of light, i went out to view our condition, and when i realized that our invincible billowcrest had battled unhurt through it all, that noble vessel—whatever may have been her faults, and in spite of all disparagement—took a place in my affections that was only outranked by those of her builder and her mistress. the wind slackened in the afternoon, and with the calm there came clear, intense cold. by morning the great ice-floes about us were cemented together. we were frozen solidly in the pack.
