The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras
CHAPTER XII.CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
The _Forward_ was advancing rapidly under steam between the ice-fieldsand the mountains of ice. Johnson was at the helm. Shandon wasexamining the horizon with his snow-spectacles; but his joy was brief,for he soon saw that the passage was blocked up by a circle ofmountains.
Nevertheless, he preferred to take his chances with pushing on, toreturning.
The dog followed the brig on the ice, but he kept at a respectfuldistance. Only, if he lagged too far, there was to be heard a singularwhistle which at once brought him on.
The first time that this whistle was heard, the sailors looked around;they were alone on the deck, talking together; there was no unknownperson there; and yet this whistle was often repeated.
Clifton was the first to take alarm.
"Do you hear that?" he said; "and do you see how the dog starts assoon as he hears it?"
"It's past belief," said Gripper.
"Very well!" cried Pen; "I'm not going any farther."
"Pen is right," said Brunton; "it's tempting Providence."
"Tempting the Devil," answered Clifton. "I should rather give up allmy share of the pay than go on."
"We shall never get back," said Bolton, dejectedly.
The crew was exceedingly demoralized.
"Not a foot farther!" cried Wolston; "is that your opinion?"
"Yes, yes!" answered the sailors.
"Well," said Bolton, "let's go find the commander; I'll undertake totell him."
The sailors in a dense group made their way to the quarter-deck.
The _Forward_ was then advancing into a large arena, which had adiameter of about eight hundred feet; it was completely closed, withthe exception of one place through which the ship entered.
Shandon saw that he was locking himself in. But what was to be done?How could he retreat? He felt all the responsibility, and his handnervously grasped his glass.
The doctor looked on in silence, with folded arms; he gazed at thewalls of ice, the average height of which was about three hundredfeet. A cloud of fog lay like a dome above the gulf.
Then it was that Bolton spoke to the commander.
"Commander," said he in a broken voice, "we can't go any farther."
"What's that you are saying?" said Shandon, who felt enraged at theslight given to his authority.
"We have come to say, Commander," resumed Bolton, "that we have doneenough for this invisible captain, and that we have made up our mindsnot to go on any farther."
"Made up your minds?" cried Shandon. "Is that the way you talk to me,Bolton? Take care."
"You need not threaten," retorted Pen, brutally, "we are not going anyfarther."
Shandon stepped towards the mutinous sailors, when the boatswain saidto him in a low voice,--
"Commander, if we want to get out of this place, we have not a momentto lose. There's an iceberg crowding towards the entrance; it mayprevent our getting out and imprison us here."
Shandon returned to look at the state of affairs.
"You will account for this afterwards," he said to the mutineers."Now, go about!"
The sailors hastened to their places. The _Forward_ went aboutrapidly; coal was heaped on the fires; it was necessary to beat theiceberg. There was a race between them; the brig stood towards thesouth, the berg was drifting northward, threatening to bar the way.
"Put on all the steam, Brunton, do you hear?" said Shandon.
The _Forward_ glided like a bird through the broken ice, which herprow cut through easily; the ship shook with the motion of the screw,and the gauge indicated a full pressure of steam, the deafening roarof which resounded above everything.
"Load the safety-valve!" cried Shandon.
The engineer obeyed at the risk of bursting the boilers.
But these desperate efforts were vain; the iceberg, driven by asubmarine current, moved rapidly towards the exit; the brig was stillthree cable-lengths distant, when the mountain, entering the vacantspace like a wedge, joined itself to its companions, and closed themeans of escape.
"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who was unable to restrain that unwisespeech.
"Lost!" repeated the crew.
"Lower the boats!" cried many.
"To the steward's pantry!" cried Pen and some of his set; "if we mustdrown, let us drown in gin!"
The wildest confusion raged among these half-wild men. Shandon feltunable to assert his authority; he wanted to give some orders; hehesitated, he stammered; his thoughts could find no words. The doctorwalked up and down nervously. Johnson folded his arms stoically, andsaid not a word.
Suddenly a strong, energetic, commanding voice was heard above thedin, uttering these words:--
"Every man to his place! Prepare to go about!"
Johnson shuddered, and, without knowing what he did, turned the wheelrapidly.
It was time; the brig, going under full steam, was about crashingagainst the walls of its prison.
But while Johnson instinctively obeyed, Shandon, Clawbonny, the crew,all, even down to Warren the fireman, who had abandoned his fires, andStrong the cook, who had fled from his galley, were collected on thedeck, and all saw issuing from the cabin, the key of which he alonepossessed, a man.
This man was the sailor Garry.
"Sir!" cried Shandon, turning pale, "Garry--by what right do you giveorders here?"
"Duke!" said Garry, repeating the whistle which had so surprised thecrew.
The dog, on hearing his real name, sprang on the quarter-deck, and laydown quietly at his master's feet.
The crew did not utter a word. The key which the captain alone shouldpossess, the dog which he had sent and which had identified him, so tospeak, the tone of command which it was impossible to mistake,--allthis had a strong influence on the minds of the sailors, and wasenough to establish firmly Garry's authority.
Besides, Garry was hardly to be recognized; he had removed the thickwhiskers which had surrounded his face, thereby giving it a moreimpassible, energetic, and commanding expression; he stood before themclothed in a captain's uniform, which he had had placed in his cabin.
So the crew of the _Forward_, animated in spite of themselves,shouted,--
"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for the captain!"
"Shandon," he said to his first officer, "have the crew put in line; Iwant to inspect them."
Shandon obeyed, and gave the requisite orders with an agitated voice.
The captain walked in front of the officers and men, saying a word toeach, and treating him according to his past conduct.
When he had finished his inspection, he went back to the quarter-deck,and calmly uttered these words:--
"Officers and sailors, I am an Englishman like you all, and my mottois that of Lord Nelson,--'England expects every man to do his duty.'
"As Englishmen, I am unwilling, we are unwilling, that others shouldgo where we have not been. As Englishmen, I shall not endure, we shallnot endure, that others should have the glory of going farther norththan we. If human foot is ever to reach the Pole, it must be the footof an Englishman! Here is the flag of our country. I have equippedthis ship, I have devoted my fortune to this undertaking, I shalldevote to it my life and yours, but this flag shall float over theNorth Pole. Fear not. You shall receive a thousand pounds sterling forevery degree that we get farther north after this day. Now we are atthe seventy-second, and there are ninety in all. Figure it out. Myname will be proof enough. It means energy and patriotism. I amCaptain Hatteras."
"Captain Hatteras!" cried Shandon. And this name, familiar to themall, soon spread among all the crew.
"Now," resumed Hatteras, "let us anchor the brig to the ice; let thefires be put out, and every one return to his usual occupation.Shandon, I want to speak with you about the ship. You will join me inmy cabin with the doctor, Wall, and the boatswain. Johnson, dismissthe men."
Hatteras, calm and cold, quietly left the poop-deck, while Shandon hadthe brig made fast to the ice.
Who was this
Hatteras, and why did his name make so deep an impressionupon the crew?
John Hatteras, the only son of a London brewer, who died in 1852,worth six million pounds, took to the sea at an early age, unmindfulof the large fortune which was to come to him. Not that he had anycommercial designs, but a longing for geographical discovery possessedhim; he was continually dreaming of setting foot on some spotuntrodden of man.
When twenty years old, he had the vigorous constitution of thin,sanguine men; an energetic face, with well-marked lines, a highforehead, rising straight from the eyes, which were handsome but cold,thin lips, indicating a mouth chary of words, medium height, well-knitmuscular limbs, indicated a man ready for any experience. Any one whosaw him would have called him bold, and any one who heard him wouldhave called him coldly passionate; he was a man who would neverretreat, and who would risk the lives of others as coldly as his own.One would hence think twice before following him in his expeditions.
John Hatteras had a great deal of English pride, and it was he whoonce made this haughty reply to a Frenchman.
The Frenchman said with what he considered politeness, and evenkindness,--
"If I were not a Frenchman, I should like to be an Englishman."
"If I were not an Englishman, I should like to be an Englishman!"
That retort points the nature of the man.
He would have liked to reserve for his fellow-countrymen the monopolyof geographical discovery; but much to his chagrin, during previouscenturies, they had done but little in the way of discovery.
America was discovered by the Genoese, Christopher Columbus; the EastIndies by the Portuguese, Vasco de Gama; China by the Portuguese,Fernao d'Andrada; Terra del Fuego by the Portuguese, Magellan; Canadaby the Frenchman, Jacques Cartier; the islands of Sumatra, Java, etc.,Labrador, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira,Newfoundland, Guinea, Congo, Mexico, White Cape, Greenland, Iceland,the South Pacific Ocean, California, Japan, Cambodia, Peru,Kamschatka, the Philippine Islands, Spitzbergen, Cape Horn, BehringStrait, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New Britain, New Holland, theLouisiana, Island of Jan-Mayen, by Icelanders, Scandinavians,Frenchmen, Russians, Portuguese, Danes, Spaniards, Genoese, andDutchmen; but no Englishmen figured among them, and it was a constantsource of grief to Hatteras to see his fellow-countrymen excluded fromthe glorious band of sailors who made the great discoveries of thefifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Hatteras consoled himself somewhat when he considered modern times:the English took their revenge with Stuart, McDougall Stuart, Burke,Wells, King, Gray, in Australia; with Palliser in America; withHavnoan in Syria; with Cyril Graham, Waddington, Cunningham, in India;and with Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Livingstone in Africa.
But this was not enough; for Hatteras these men were rather finishersthan discoverers; something better was to be done, so he invented acountry in order to have the honor of discovering it.
Now he had noticed that if the English were in a minority with regardto the early discoveries, that if it was necessary to go back to Cookto make sure of New Caledonia in 1774, and of the Sandwich Islandswhere he was killed in 1778, there was nevertheless one corner of theglobe on which they had centred all their efforts.
This was the northern seas and lands of North America.
In fact, the list of polar discoveries runs as follows:--
Nova Zembla, discovered by Willoughby in 1553. Island of Wiegehts, discovered by Barrow in 1556. West Coast of Greenland, discovered by Davis in 1585. Davis Strait, discovered by Davis in 1587. Spitzbergen, discovered by Willoughby in 1596. Hudson's Bay, discovered by Hudson in 1610. Baffin's Bay, discovered by Baffin in 1616.
During recent years Hearne, Mackenzie, John Ross, Parry, Franklin,Richardson, Beechey, James Ross, Back, Dease, Simpson, Rae,Inglefield, Belcher, Austin, Kellet, Moore, MacClure, Kennedy,MacClintock, were incessantly exploring these unknown regions.
The northern coast of America had been accurately made out, theNorthwest Passage nearly discovered, but that was not enough; therewas something greater to be done, and this John Hatteras had twicetried, fitting out ships at his own expense; he wanted to reach thePole itself, and thus to crown the list of English discoveries by aglorious success.
To reach the Pole itself was the aim of his life.
After many successful voyages in the southern seas, Hatteras tried forthe first time in 1846 to reach the North through Baffin's Bay, but hecould get no farther than latitude 74 degrees; he sailed in the sloop_Halifax_; his crew suffered terribly, and John Hatteras carried histemerity so far that henceforth sailors were averse to undertaking asimilar expedition under such a leader.
Notwithstanding, in 1850, Hatteras succeeded in obtaining for theschooner _Farewell_ about twenty determined men, but who werepersuaded especially by the high pay offered their boldness. It wasthen that Dr. Clawbonny began to correspond with John Hatteras, whomhe did not know, about accompanying him; but the post of surgeon wasfilled, fortunately for the doctor.
The _Farewell_, following the route taken by the _Neptune_ of Aberdeenin 1817, went to the north of Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 76degrees. There they were obliged to winter; but their sufferings weresuch, and the cold so intense, that of all on board, Hatteras alonereturned to England. He was picked up by a Danish whaler after he hadwalked more than two hundred miles across the ice.
The excitement produced by the return of this man alone was intense;who, after this, would accompany Hatteras in his bold attempts? Stillhe did not abandon the hope of trying again. His father, the brewer,died, and he came into possession of an enormous fortune.
Meanwhile something had happened which cut John Hatteras to the heart.
A brig, the _Advance_, carrying seventeen men, equipped by Mr.Grinnell, a merchant, commanded by Dr. Kane, and sent out in search ofFranklin, went as far north, through Baffin's Bay and Smith's Sound,as latitude 82 degrees, nearer to the Pole than any of hispredecessors had gone.
Now this was an American ship. Grinnell was an American, Kane was anAmerican!
It is easy to understand how the customary disdain of the Englishmanfor the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made uphis mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and to reach the Poleitself.
For two years he lived at Liverpool incognito. He was taken for asailor. He saw in Richard Shandon the man he wanted; he presented hisplans by an anonymous letter to him and to Dr. Clawbonny. The_Forward_ was built and equipped. Hatteras kept his name a secret;otherwise no one would have gone with him. He resolved only to takecommand of the brig at some critical juncture, and when his crew hadgone too far to be able to retreat; he kept in reserve, as we haveseen, the power of making generous offers to the men, so that theywould follow him to the end of the world.
In fact, it was to the end of the world that he wanted to go.
Now matters looked very serious, and John Hatteras made himself known.
His dog, the faithful Duke, the companion of his expeditions, was thefirst to recognize him, and fortunately for the bold, andunfortunately for the timid, it was firmly established that thecaptain of the _Forward_ was John Hatteras.
"John Hatteras."]