CHAPTER XII
CAPTAIN HATTERAS
The _Forward_, under steam, rapidly made its way between theice-mountains and the icebergs. Johnson was at the wheel. Shandon,with his snow spectacles, was examining the horizon, but his joy wasof short duration, for he soon discovered that the passage ended ina circus of mountains. However, he preferred going on, in spite ofthe difficulty, to going back. The dog followed the brig at a longdistance, running along the plain, but if he lagged too far behinda singular whistle could be distinguished, which he immediatelyobeyed. The first time this whistle was heard the sailors looked roundabout them; they were alone on deck all together, and no strangerwas to be seen; and yet the whistle was again heard from time to time.Clifton was the first alarmed.
"Do you hear?" said he. "Just look how that animal answers when hehears the whistle."
"I can scarcely believe my eyes," answered Gripper.
"It's all over!" cried Pen. "I don't go any further."
"Pen's right!" replied Brunton; "it's tempting God!"
"Tempting the devil!" replied Clifton. "I'd sooner lose my bountymoney than go a step further."
"We shall never get back!" said Bolton in despair.
The crew had arrived at the highest pitch of insubordination.
"Not a step further!" cried Wolsten. "Are you all of the same mind?"
"Ay! ay!" answered all the sailors.
"Come on, then," said Bolton; "let's go and find the commander; I'llundertake the talking."
The sailors in a tight group swayed away towards the poop. The_Forward_ at the time was penetrating into a vast circus, whichmeasured perhaps 800 feet in diameter, and with the exception of oneentrance--that by which the vessel had come--was entirely closed up.
Shandon said that he had just imprisoned himself; but what was heto do? How were they to retrace their steps? He felt his responsibility,and his hand grasped the telescope. The doctor, with folded arms,kept silent; he was contemplating the walls of ice, the mediumaltitude of which was over 300 feet. A foggy dome remained suspendedabove the gulf. It was at this instant that Bolton addressed his speechto the commander.
"Commander!" said he in a trembling voice, "we can't go any further."
"What do you say?" replied Shandon, whose consciousness ofdisregarded authority made the blood rise to the roots of his hair.
"Commander," replied Bolton, "we say that we've done enough for thatinvisible captain, and we are decided to go no further ahead."
"You are decided?" cried Shandon. "You talk thus, Bolton? Take care!"
"Your threats are all the same to us," brutally replied Pen; "we won'tgo an inch further."
Shandon advanced towards the mutineers; at the same time the matecame up and said in a whisper: "Commander, if you wish to get outof here we haven't a minute to lose; there's an iceberg drifting upthe pass, and it is very likely to cork up all issue and keep usprisoners."
Shandon examined the situation.
"You will give an account of your conduct later on, you fellows,"said he. "Now heave aboard!"
The sailors rushed to their posts, and the _Forward_ quickly veeredround; the fires were stuffed with coals; the great question was tooutrun the floating mountain. It was a struggle between the brig andthe iceberg. The former, in order to get through, was running south;the latter was drifting north, ready to close up every passage.
"Steam up! steam up!" cried Shandon. "Do you hear, Brunton?"
The _Forward_ glided like a bird amidst the struggling icebergs, whichher prow sent to the right-about; the brig's hull shivered under theaction of the screw, and the manometer indicated a prodigious tensionof steam, for it whistled with a deafening noise.
"Load the valves!" cried Shandon, and the engineer obeyed at the riskof blowing up the ship; but his despairing efforts were in vain. Theiceberg, caught up by an undercurrent, rapidly approached the pass.The brig was still about three cables' length from it, when themountain, entering like a corner-stone into the open space, stronglyadhered to its neighbours and closed up all issue.
"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who could not retain the imprudentwords.
"Lost!" repeated the crew.
"Let them escape who can!" said some.
"Lower the shore boats!" said others.
"To the steward's room!" cried Pen and several of his band, "and ifwe are to be drowned, let's drown ourselves in gin!"
Disorder among the men was at its height. Shandon felt himselfovercome; when he wished to command, he stammered and hesitated. Histhought was unable to make way through his words. The doctor waswalking about in agitation. Johnson stoically folded his arms andsaid nothing. All at once a strong, imperious, and energetic voicewas heard to pronounce these words:
"Every man to his post and tack about!"
Johnson started, and, hardly knowing what he did, turned the wheelrapidly. He was just in time, for the brig, launched at full speed,was about to crush herself against her prison walls. But while Johnsonwas instinctively obeying, Shandon, Clawbonny, the crew, and all downto the stoker Warren, who had abandoned his fires, even black Strong,who had left his cooking, were all mustered on deck, and saw emergefrom that cabin the only man who was in possession of the key, andthat man was Garry, the sailor.
"Sir!" cried Shandon, becoming pale. "Garry--you--by what right doyou command here?"
"Dick," called out Garry, reproducing that whistle which had so muchsurprised the crew. The dog, at the sound of his right name, jumpedwith one bound on to the poop and lay quietly down at his master'sfeet. The crew did not say a word. The key which the captain of the_Forward_ alone possessed, the dog sent by him, and who came thusto verify his identity, that commanding accent which it was impossibleto mistake--all this acted strongly on the minds of the sailors, andwas sufficient to establish Garry's authority.
Besides, Garry was no longer recognisable; he had cut off the longwhiskers which had covered his face, which made it look more energeticand imperious than ever; dressed in the clothes of his rank whichhad been deposited in the cabin, he appeared in the insignia ofcommander.
Then immediately, with that mobility which characterised them, thecrew of the _Forward_ cried out--"Three cheers for the captain!"
"Shandon!" said the latter to his second, "muster the crew; I am goingto inspect it!"
Shandon obeyed and gave orders with an altered voice. The captainadvanced to meet his officers and men, saying something suitable toeach, and treating each according to his past conduct. When he hadfinished the inspection, he returned on to the poop, and with a calmvoice pronounced the following words:
"Officers and sailors, like you, I am English, and my motto is thatof Nelson, 'England expects that every man will do his duty.' As anEnglishman I am resolved, we are resolved, that no bolder men shallgo further than we have been. As an Englishman I will not allow, wewill not allow, other people to have the glory of pushing furthernorth themselves. If ever human foot can step upon the land of theNorth Pole, it shall be the foot of an Englishman. Here is ourcountry's flag. I have equipped this vessel, and consecrated myfortune to this enterprise, and, if necessary, I shall consecrateto it my life and yours; for I am determined that these colours shallfloat on the North Pole. Take courage. From this day, for every degreewe can gain northwards the sum of a thousand pounds will be awardedto you. There are ninety, for we are now in the seventy-second. Countthem. Besides, my name is enough. It means energy and patriotism.I am Captain Hatteras!"
"Captain Hatteras!" exclaimed Shandon, and that name, well known toEnglish sailors, was whispered amongst the crew.
"Now," continued Hatteras, "anchor the brig to the ice, put out thefires, and each of you return to your usual work. Shandon, I wishto hold a council with you relative to affairs on board. Join me withthe doctor, Wall, and the boatswain in my cabin. Johnson, dispersethe men."
Hatteras, calm and haughty, quietly left the poop. In the meantimeShandon was anchoring the brig.
Who, then, was this Hatteras, and f
or what reason did his name makesuch a profound impression upon the crew? John Hatteras was the onlyson of a London brewer, who died in 1852 worth six millions of money.Still young, he embraced the maritime career in spite of the splendidfortune awaiting him. Not that he felt any vocation for commerce,but the instinct of geographical discoveries was dear to him. He hadalways dreamt of placing his foot where no mortal foot had yet soiledthe ground.
At the age of twenty he was already in possession of the vigorousconstitution of a thin and sanguine man; an energetic face, with linesgeometrically traced; a high and perpendicular forehead; cold buthandsome eyes; thin lips, which set off a mouth from which words rarelyissued; a middle stature; solidly-jointed limbs, put in motion byiron muscles; the whole forming a man endowed with a temperament fitfor anything. When you saw him you felt he was daring; when you heardhim you knew he was coldly determined; his was a character that neverdrew back, ready to stake the lives of others as well as his own.It was well to think twice before following him in his expeditions.
John Hatteras was proud of being an Englishman. A Frenchman once saidto him, with what he thought was refined politeness and amiability:
"If I were not a Frenchman I should like to be an Englishman."
"And if I were not an Englishman," answered Hatteras, "I should liketo be an Englishman."
That answer revealed the character of the man. It was a great griefto him that Englishmen had not the monopoly of geographicaldiscoveries, and were, in fact, rather behind other nations in thatfield.
Christopher Columbus, the discoverer of America, was a Genoese; Vascoda Gama, a Portuguese, discovered India; another Portuguese,Fernando de Andrada, China; and a third, Magellan, the Terra del Fuego.Canada was discovered by Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman; Labrador,Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira, Newfoundland,Guinea, Congo, Mexico, Cape Blanco, Greenland, Iceland, the SouthSeas, California, Japan, Cambodia, Peru, Kamtchatka, the Philippines,Spitzbergen, Cape Horn, Behring's Straits, Tasmania, New Zealand,New Brittany, New Holland, Louisiana, Jean Mayen Island, werediscovered by Icelanders, Scandinavians, French, Russians,Portuguese, Danes, Spaniards, Genoese, and Dutch, but not one by anEnglishman. Captain Hatteras could not reconcile himself to the factthat Englishmen were excluded from the glorious list of navigatorswho made the great discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries.
Hatteras consoled himself a little when he turned to more modern times.Then Englishmen had the best of it with Sturt, Burke, Wills, King,and Grey in Australia; with Palliser in America; with Cyril Graham,Wadington, and Cummingham in India; with Burton, Speke, Grant, andLivingstone in Africa.
But for a man like Hatteras this was not enough; from his point ofview these bold travellers were _improvers_ rather than _inventors_;and he was determined to do something better, and he would haveinvented a country if he could, only to have the honour of discoveringit. Now he had noticed that, although Englishmen did not form amajority amongst ancient discoverers, and that he had to go back toCook in 1774 to obtain New Caledonia and the Sandwich Isles, wherethe unfortunate captain perished in 1778, yet there existed,nevertheless, a corner of the globe where they seemed to have unitedall their efforts. This corner was precisely the boreal lands andseas of North America. The list of Polar discoveries may be thuswritten:
Nova Zembla, discovered by Willoughby, in 1553; Weigatz Island, byBarrough, in 1556; the West Coast of Greenland, by Davis, in 1585;Davis's Straits, by Davis, in 1587; Spitzbergen, by Willoughby, in1596; Hudson's Bay, by Hudson, in 1610; Baffin's Bay, by Baffin, in1616.
In more modern times, Hearne, Mackenzie, John Ross, Parry, Franklin,Richardson, Beechey, James Ross, Back, Dease, Simpson, Rae,Inglefield, Belcher, Austin, Kellett, Moore, McClure, Kennedy, andMcClintock have continually searched those unknown lands.
The limits of the northern coasts of America had been fixed, and theNorth-West passage almost discovered, but this was not enough; therewas something better still to be done, and John Hatteras had twiceattempted it by equipping two ships at his own expense. He wantedto reach the North Pole, and thus crown the series of Englishdiscoveries by one of the most illustrious attempts. To attain thePole was the aim of his life.
After a few successful cruises in the Southern seas, Hatterasendeavoured for the first time, in 1846, to go north by Baffin's Sea;but he could not get beyond the seventy-fourth degree of latitude;he was then commanding the sloop _Halifax_. His crew sufferedatrocious torments, and John Hatteras pushed his adventurousrashness so far, that, afterwards, sailors were little tempted tore-commence similar expeditions under such a chief.
However, in 1850 Hatteras succeeded in enrolling on the schooner_Farewell_ about twenty determined men, tempted principally by thehigh prize offered for their audacity. It was upon that occasion thatDr. Clawbonny entered into correspondence with John Hatteras, whomhe did not know, requesting to join the expedition, but happily forthe doctor the post was already filled up. The _Farewell_, followingthe track taken in 1817 by the _Neptune_ from Aberdeen, got up tothe north of Spitzbergen as far as the seventy-sixth degree oflatitude. There the expedition was compelled to winter. But thesufferings of the crew from the intense cold were so great that nota single man saw England again, with the exception of Hatteras himself,who was brought back to his own country by a Danish whaler after awalk of more than two hundred miles across the ice.
The sensation produced by the return of this one man was immense.Who in future would dare to follow Hatteras in his mad attempts?However, he did not despair of beginning again. His father, the brewer,died, and he became possessor of a nabob's fortune. Soon after ageographical fact bitterly stirred up John Hatteras. A brig, the_Advance_, manned by seventeen men, equipped by a merchant namedGrinnell, under the command of Dr. Kane, and sent in search of SirJohn Franklin, advanced in 1853 through Baffin's Sea and Smith'sStrait, beyond the eighty-second degree of boreal latitude, muchnearer the Pole than any of his predecessors. Now, this vessel wasAmerican, Grinnell was American, and Kane was American. TheEnglishman's disdain for the Yankee will be easily understood; inthe heart of Hatteras it changed to hatred; he was resolved to outdohis audacious competitor and reach the Pole itself.
For two years he had been living incognito in Liverpool, passinghimself off as a sailor; he recognised in Richard Shandon the manhe wanted; he sent him an offer by an anonymous letter, and one toDr. Clawbonny at the same time. The _Forward_ was built, armed, andequipped. Hatteras took great care to conceal his name, for had itbeen known he would not have found a single man to accompany him.He was determined not to take the command of the brig except in amoment of danger, and when his crew had gone too far to draw back.He had in reserve, as we have seen, such offers of money to make tothe men that not one of them would refuse to follow him to the otherend of the world; and, in fact, it was right to the other end of theworld that he meant to go. Circumstances had become critical, andJohn Hatteras had made himself known. His dog, the faithful Dick,the companion of his voyages, was the first to recognise him. Luckilyfor the brave and unfortunately for the timid, it was well and dulyestablished that John Hatteras was the captain of the _Forward_.