The Man Without a Country, and Other Tales by Edward Everett Hale (fiction book recommendations TXT) 📖

the "Investigator" were sent home to England this summer by a ship from Beechey Island, the head-quarters; and thus we heard, in October, 1853, of the discovery of the Northwest Passage.

After their crews were on board again, and the "Investigator's" sixty stowed away also, the "Resolute" and "Intrepid" had a dreary summer of it. The ice would not break up. They had hunting-parties on shore and races on the floe; but the captain could not send the "Investigators" home as he wanted to, in his steam tender. All his plans were made, and made on a manly scale,—if only the ice would open. He built a storehouse on the island for Collinson's people, or for you, reader, and us, if we should happen there, and stored it well, and left this record:—

[pg 160]

"This is a house which I have named the 'Sailor's Home,' under the especial patronage of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

"Here royal sailors and marines are fed, clothed, and receive double pay for inhabiting it."

In that house is a little of everything, and a good deal of victuals and drink; but nobody has been there since the last of the "Resolute's" men came away.

At last, the 17th of August, a day of foot-racing and jumping in bags and wrestling, all hands present, as at a sort of "Isthmian games," ended with a gale, a cracking up of ice, and the "Investigators" thought they were on their way home, and Kellett thought he was to have a month of summer yet. But no; "there is nothing certain in this navigation from one hour to the next." The "Resolute" and "Intrepid" were never really free of ice all that autumn; drove and drifted to and fro in Barrow's Straits till the 12th of November; and then froze up, without anchoring, off Cape Cockburn, perhaps one hundred and forty miles from their harbor of the last winter. The log-book of that winter is a curious record; the ingenuity of the officer in charge was well tasked to make one day differ from another. Each day has the first entry for "ship's position" thus: "In the floe off Cape Cockburn." And the blank for the second entry, thus: "In the same position." Lectures, theatricals, schools, &c., whiled away the time; but there could be no autumn travelling parties, and not much hope for discovery in the summer.

Spring came. The captain went over ice in his [pg 161] little dog-sled to Beechey Island, and received his directions to abandon his ships. It appears that he would rather have sent most of his men forward, and with a small crew brought the "Resolute" home that autumn or the next. But Sir Edward Belcher considered his orders peremptory "that the safety of the crews must preclude any idea of extricating the ships." Both ships were to be abandoned. Two distant travelling parties were away, one at the "Investigator," one looking for traces of Collinson, which they found. Word was left for them, at a proper point, not to seek the ship again, but to come on to Beechey Island. And at last, having fitted the "Intrepid's" engines so that she could be under steam in two hours, having stored both ships with equal proportions of provisions, and made both vessels "ready for occupation," the captain calked down the hatches, and with all the crew he had not sent on before,—forty-two persons in all,—left her Monday, the 15th of May, 1854, and started with the sledges for Beechey Island.

Poor old "Resolute"! All this gay company is gone who have made her sides split with their laughter. Here is Harlequin's dress, lying in one of the wardrooms, but there is nobody to dance Harlequin's dances. "Here is a lovely clear day,—surely to-day they will come on deck and take a meridian!" No, nobody comes. The sun grows hot on the decks; but it is all one, nobody looks at the thermometer! [pg 162] "And so the poor ship was left all alone." Such gay times she has had with all these brave young men on board! Such merry winters, such a lightsome summer! So much fun, so much nonsense! So much science and wisdom, and now it is all so still! Is the poor "Resolute" conscious of the change? Does she miss the races on the ice, the scientific lecture every Tuesday, the occasional racket and bustle of the theatre, and the worship of every Sunday? Has not she shared the hope of Captain Kellett, of McClure, and of the crew, that she may break out well! She sees the last sledge leave her. The captain drives off his six dogs,—vanishes over the ice, and they are all gone "Will they not come back again?" says the poor ship. And she looks wistfully across the ice to her little friend the steam tender "Intrepid," and she sees there is no one there. "Intrepid! Intrepid! have they really deserted us? We have served them so well, and have they really left us alone? A great many were away travelling last year, but they came home. Will not any of these come home now?" No, poor "Resolute"! Not one of them ever came back again! Not one of them meant to. Summer came. August came. No one can tell how soon, but some day or other this her icy prison broke up, and the good ship found herself on her own element again; shook herself proudly, we cannot doubt, nodded joyfully across to the "Intrepid," and was free. But alas! there was no master to take latitude and longitude, [pg 163] no helmsman at the wheel. In clear letters cast in brass over her helm there are these words, "England expects each man to do his duty." But here is no man to heed the warning, and the rudder flaps this way and that way, no longer directing her course, but stupidly swinging to and fro. And she drifts here and there,—drifts out of sight of her little consort,—strands on a bit of ice floe now, and then is swept off from it,—and finds herself, without even the "Intrepid's" company, alone on these blue seas with those white shores. But what utter loneliness! Poor "Resolute "! She longed for freedom,—but what is freedom where there is no law? What is freedom without a helmsman! And the "Resolute" looks back so sadly to the old days when she had a master. And the short bright summer passes. And again she sees the sun set from her decks. And now even her topmasts see it set. And now it does not rise to her deck. And the next day it does not rise to her topmast. Winter and night together! She has known them before! But now it is winter and night and loneliness all together. This horrid ice closes up round her again. And there is no one to bring her into harbor,—she is out in the open sound. If the ice drifts west, she must go west. If it goes east, she must east. Her seeming freedom is over, and for that long winter she is chained again. But her heart is true to old England. And when she can go east, she is so happy! and when she must go west, she is so sad! [pg 164] Eastward she does go! Southward she does go! True to the instinct which sends us all home, she tracks undirected and without a sail fifteen hundred miles of that sea, without a beacon, which separates her from her own. And so goes a dismal year. "Perhaps another spring they will come and find me out, and fix things below. It is getting dreadfully damp down there; and I cannot keep the guns bright and the floors dry," No, good old "Resolute." May and June pass off the next year, and nobody comes; and here you are all alone out in the bay, drifting in this dismal pack. July and August,—the days are growing shorter again. "Will nobody come and take care of me, and cut off these horrid blocks of ice, and see to these sides of bacon in the hold, and all these mouldy sails, and this powder, and the bread and the spirit that I have kept for them so well? It is September, and the sun begins to set again. And here is another of those awful gales. Will it be my very last? all alone here,—who have done so much,—and if they would only take care of me I can do so much more. Will nobody come? Nobody?.... What! Is it ice blink,—are my poor old lookouts blind? Is not there the 'Intrepid'? Dear 'Intrepid,' I will never look down on you again! No! there is no smoke-stack, it is not the 'Intrepid.' But it is somebody. Pray see me, good somebody. Are you a Yankee whaler? I am glad to see the Yankee whalers, I remember the Yankee whalers very pleasantly. [pg 165] We had a happy summer together once.... It will be dreadful if they do not see me! But this ice, this wretched ice! They do see me,—I know they see me, but they cannot get at me. Do not go away, good Yankees; pray come and help me. I know I can get out, if you will help a little.... But now it is a whole week and they do not come! Are there any Yankees, or am I getting crazy? I have heard them talk of crazy old ships, in my young days.... No! I am not crazy. They are coming! they are coming. Brave Yankees! over the hummocks, down into the sludge. Do not give it up for the cold. There is coal below, and we will have a fire in the Sylvester, and in the captain's cabin.... There is a horrid lane of water. They have not got a Halkett. O, if one of these boats of mine would only start for them, instead of lying so stupidly on my deck here! But the men are not afraid of water! See them ferry over on that ice block! Come on, good friends! Welcome, whoever you be,—Dane, Dutch, French, or Yankee, come on! come on! It is coming up a gale, but I can bear a gale. Up the side, men. I wish I could let down the gangway alone. But here are all these blocks of ice piled up,—you can scramble over them! Why do you stop? Do not be afraid. I will make you very comfortable and jolly. Do not stay talking there. Pray come in. There is port in the captain's cabin, and a little preserved meat in the pantry. You must be hungry; pray come in! O, he is coming, [pg 166] and now all four are coming. It would be dreadful if they had gone back! They are on deck. Now I shall go home! How lonely it has been!"

It was true enough that when Mr. Quail, the brother of the captain of the "McLellan," whom the "Resolute" had befriended, the mate of the George Henry, whaler, whose master, Captain Buddington, had discovered the "Resolute" in the ice, came to her after a hard day's journey with his men, the men faltered with a little superstitious feeling, and hesitated for a minute about going on board. But the poor lonely ship wooed them too lovingly, and they climbed over the broken ice and came on deck. She was lying over on her larboard side, with a heavy weight of ice holding her down. Hatches and companion were made fast, as Captain Kellett had left them. But, knocking open the companion, groping down stairs to the after cabin they found their way to the captain's table; somebody put his hand on a box of lucifers, struck a light, and revealed—books scattered in confusion, a candle standing, which he lighted at once, the glasses and the decanters from which Kellett and his officers had drunk good by to the vessel. The whalemen filled them again, and undoubtedly felt less discouraged. Meanwhile night came on, and a gale arose. So hard did it blow, that for two days these four were the whole crew of the "Resolute," and it was not till the 19th of September that they returned to their own ship, and reported what their prize was. [pg 167]

All these ten days, since Captain Buddington had first seen her, the vessels had been nearing each other. On the 19th he boarded her himself; found that in her hold, on the larboard side, was a good deal of ice; on the starboard side there seemed to be water. In fact, her tanks had burst from the extreme cold; and she was full of water, nearly to her lower deck. Everything that could move from its place had moved; everything was wet; everything that would mould was mouldy. "A