Читать книгу Adventures in Journalism - Philip Gibbs - Страница 7

Table of Contents

In spite of my long and fairly successful career as a journalist, I have rarely achieved what is known as a “scoop,” that is to say, an exclusive story of sensational interest. On the whole, I don’t much believe in the editor or reporter who sets his soul on “scoops,” because they create an unhealthy rivalry for sensation at any price—even that of truth—and the “faker” generally triumphs over the truthteller, until both he and the editor who encouraged him come a cropper by being found out.

That is not to say that a man should not follow an advantage to the utmost and his luck where it leads him. It is nearly always luck that is one of the essential elements in journalistic success, and sometimes, as in a game of cards, it deals a surprisingly fine hand. The skill is in making the best use of this chance and keeping one’s nerve in a game of high stakes.

The only important “scoop” that I can claim, as far as I remember, was my discovery of Doctor Cook after his pretended discovery of the North Pole. That was due to a lucky sequence of events which led me by the hand from first to last. The story is amusing for that reason, and this is the first time I have written the narrative of my strange experiences in that affair.

My first stroke of luck, strange as it may seem, was my starting twenty-four hours later than forty other correspondents in search of the explorer at Copenhagen. If I had started at the same time, I should have done what they did, and perhaps taken the same line as they did. As it was, I had to play a lone hand and form my own judgment.

I had arrived at the Daily Chronicle office from some country place when E. A. Perris, the news editor, now the managing editor, said in a casual way:

“There’s a fellow named Doctor Cook who has discovered the North Pole. He may arrive at Copenhagen to-morrow. Lots of other men have the start of you, but see if you can get some kind of a story.”

I uttered the usual groan, obtained a bag of gold from the cashier, and set out for Copenhagen by way of the North Sea. On a long and tiresome journey I repeated the name “Doctor Cook,” lest I should forget it, wondered if I knew anything about Arctic exploration, and decided I didn’t, and accepted the probability that I should be too late to find the great explorer, and shouldn’t know what to ask him if I found him.

I arrived in Copenhagen dirty, tired, and headachy in the evening. I wanted above all things a cup of strong coffee, and with the German language, communicated my desire to a taxi driver. He took me to a rather low-looking café, filled with men and women and tobacco smoke. That was my second stroke of luck, for if I had not gone to that particular café I should never have met Doctor Cook in the way that happened.

Over my cup of coffee I looked at the Danish paper, and could read only two words, “Doctor Cook.” A young waiter served me, and when I found that he spoke English, I asked him if Doctor Cook, the explorer, had arrived in Copenhagen.

“No,” said the waiter. “He ought to have been here at midday. But there’s a fog in the Cattegat, and his boat will not come in until to-morrow morning. All Denmark is waiting for him.”

So he had not arrived! Well, I might be in time, after all. I looked round for any journalist I might know, but did not see a familiar face.

Presently, as I sat smoking a cigarette, I perceived a suddenly awakened interest among the people in the café. It was due to the arrival of a very pretty lady in a white fur toque, with a white fox-skin round her neck, accompanied by another young lady, and a tall Danish fellow with tousled hair. They took their seats at the far end of the café.

The young waiter came up to me and whispered with some excitement:

“Did you see that beautiful lady? That is Mrs. Rasmussen!”

The name meant nothing to me, and when I told him so, he was shocked.

“She’s the wife of Knud Rasmussen, the famous explorer. It was he who provided Doctor Cook with his dogs before he set out for the North Pole. They are great friends.”

I was aware that luck was befriending me. From that lady, if I had the pluck to speak to her, I could at least find out something about the mysterious Doctor Cook, and perhaps get a good story about him, whether I could meet him or not.

I struggled with my timidity, and then went across the café and made my bow to the pretty lady, explaining that I was a newspaper man from London, who had come all the way to interview Doctor Cook, who was, I understood, a friend of her distinguished husband. Could she tell me how to find him?

Mrs. Rasmussen who was highly educated and extremely handsome, spoke a little French, a little German, and a very little English. In a mixture of these three tongues we understood each other, helped out by the young Dane, who was Peter Freuchen, a well-known traveler in the Arctic regions, and a very good linguist.

Mrs. Rasmussen was friendly and amused. She told me it was true her husband was a great friend of Doctor Cook, and that he was the last man who had seen him before he went toward the North Pole. For that reason she wanted to be one of the first to greet him. A launch, or tug, belonging to the director of the Danish-Greenland Company, had made ready to go down the Cattegat to meet the Hans Egede with Doctor Cook on board, and she had hoped to make that journey. But the fog had spoiled everything, and the launch would leave in the morning instead at a very early hour. It was very disappointing!

“Surely,” I said, “if you really want to go, it would be excellent to travel to Elsinore to-night, put up at a hotel, and get on board the launch at dawn. If you would allow me to accompany you——”

Mrs. Rasmussen laughed at my adventurous plan.

According to her, the last train had gone to Elsinore.

“Let us have a taxi and drive there!”

She told me that no motor car was allowed to drive at night beyond a certain distance from Copenhagen. It would mean a fine, or imprisonment, for the driver without special license.

It seemed incredible.

I summoned my friendly young waiter, and asked him to bring in a taxi driver. In less than a minute a burly fellow stood before me, cap in hand. Through the waiter I asked him how much he wanted to drive a party that night to Elsinore. He shook his head, and, according to the waiter, replied that he could not risk the journey, as he might be heavily fined.

“How much, including the fine?” I asked.

If he had demanded fifty pounds, I should have paid it—with Daily Chronicle money.

To my amazement, he asked the modest sum of five pounds, including the fine.

I turned to Mrs. Rasmussen, Peter Freuchen, and the other lady, and invited them all to make the journey in “my” motor car.

They hesitated, laughed, whispered to each other, and were, as I could see, tempted by the lure of the adventure.

“But,” said Mrs. Rasmussen, “when we get there, supposing you were not allowed on the launch by the Director of the Danish-Greenland Company? He is our friend. But you are, after all, a stranger!”

“I should have had an amusing drive,” I said. “It would be worth while. Perhaps you would tell me what Doctor Cook says, when you return.”

They laughed again, hesitated quite a time, then accepted the invitation. It was arranged that we should start at ten o’clock, when few people would be abroad outside the city, where we should have to travel with lights out to avoid the police. There still remained an hour or so. We had dinner, talked of Doctor Cook, and at ten o’clock started out in the taxi, and I thought how incredible it was that I should be sitting there, opposite a beautiful lady with a silver fox round her throat, with a laughing girl by her side, and a young Danish explorer next to the driver, riding through Denmark with lights out, to meet a man who had discovered the North Pole, and whose name I had never heard two days before. These things happen only in journalism and romance.

We had not gone very far when, driving through a village, we knocked over a man on a bicycle. People came running up through the darkness. Peter Freuchen leaped down from his seat to pick up the man, who seemed to be uninjured, and there was a great chatter in the Danish tongue, while I kept on shouting to Freuchen, “How much to pay?” After a while he resumed his seat and said, “Nodings to pay!” So we went on again, and after a long, cold drive without further incident, reached Elsinore, where Hamlet saw his father’s ghost.

At the hotel there we had something hot to drink, and then Mrs. Rasmussen caught sight of a dapper little man who was the Director of the Danish-Greenland Company and the owner of the launch which was to meet Doctor Cook.

I was left in the background while my three companions entered into conversation with him. From the expression on their faces, I soon saw that they were disappointed, and I resigned myself to the thought that I had the poorest chance of meeting the explorer’s ship at sea.

Presently Mrs. Rasmussen came back.

“He won’t take us,” she said.

“Hard luck!”

“But,” she added, “he will take you!”

That sounded ridiculous, but it was true. The pompous little man, it seemed, had had applications from half the ladies of Copenhagen, including his own wife, perhaps, to take them on his tug to meet the hero of the North Pole. He had refused them all, in order to favor none at the expense of others. It was impossible for him to take Mrs. Rasmussen and her friends. He very much regretted that. But when they told him that I was an English journalist, he said there would be a place for me with two or three Danish correspondents.

Amazing chance! But hard on the little party I had brought to Elsinore! They were very generous about the matter, and wished me good luck when I embarked on the small tug which was to steam out to a lightship in the Cattegat and at dawn go out to meet the Hans Egede, as Cook’s ship was called. Like a fool, I left my overcoat behind and nearly perished of cold, until an hour later I had climbed up an iron ladder to the lightship in a turbulent sea and descended into the skipper’s cabin, where there was a joyous “fugg” and some hot cocoa spiced with a touch of paraffin.

At dawn we saw, far away up the Cattegat, a little ship all gay with bunting. It was the Hans Egede. We steamed toward it, lay alongside, and climbed to its top deck up a rope ladder. There I saw a sturdy, handsome Anglo-Saxon-looking man, in furs, surrounded by a group of hairy and furry men, Europeans and Eskimos, and some Arctic dogs. There was no journalistic rival of mine aboard, except the young Danes with us.

I went up to the central figure, whom I guessed to be Doctor Cook, introduced myself as an English press man, shook hands with him, and congratulated him on his heroic achievement.

He took my arm in a friendly way, and said, “Come and have some breakfast, young man.”

I sat next to him in the dining saloon of the Hans Egede, which was crowded with a strange-looking company of men and women, mostly in furs and oilskins, with their faces burned by sunlight on snow. The women were missionaries and the wives of missionaries, and their men folk wore unkempt beards.

I studied the appearance of Doctor Cook. He was not bearded, but had a well-shaven chin. He had a powerful face, with a rather heavy nose and wonderfully blue eyes. There was something queer about his eyes, I thought. They avoided a direct gaze. He seemed excited, laughed a good deal, talked volubly, and was restless with his hands, strong seaman’s hands. But I liked the look of him. He seemed to me typical of Anglo-Saxon explorers, hard, simple, true.

In response to my request for his “story,” he evaded a direct reply, until, later in the morning, the Danes and I pressed him to give us an hour in his cabin.

It was in the saloon, however, that he delivered himself, unwillingly, I thought, into our hands. As the two or three young Danes knew but little English, the interview became mainly a dialogue between Doctor Cook and myself. I had no suspicion of him, no faint shadow of a thought that all was not straightforward. Being vastly ignorant of Arctic exploration, I asked a number of simple questions to extract his narrative; and, to save myself trouble and get good “copy,” I asked very soon whether he would allow me to see his diary.

To my surprise, he replied with a strange defensive look that he had no diary. His papers had been put on a yacht belonging to a man named Whitney, who would take them to New York.

“When will he get there?” I asked.

“Next year,” said Doctor Cook.

“But surely,” I said, still without suspicion, “you have brought your journal with you? The essential papers?”

“I have no papers,” he said, and his mouth hardened.

“Perhaps I could see your astronomical observations?” I said, and was rather pleased with that suggestion.

“Haven’t I told you that I have brought no papers?” he said.

He spoke with a sudden violence of anger which startled me. Then he said something which made suspicion leap into my brain.

“You believed Nansen,” he said, “and Amundsen, and Sverdrup. They had only their story to tell. Why don’t you believe me?”

I had believed him. But at that strange, excited protest and some uneasy, almost guilty, look about the man, I thought, “Hullo! What’s wrong? This man protests too much.”

From that moment I had grave doubts of him. I pressed him several times about his papers. Surely he was not coming to Europe, to claim the greatest prize of exploration, without a scrap of his notes, or any of his observations? He became more and more angry with me, until for the sake of getting some narrative from him, I abandoned that interrogation, and asked him for his personal adventures, the manner of his journey, the weights of his sledges, the number of his dogs, and so on. As I scribbled down his answers, the story appeared to me more and more fantastic. And he contradicted himself several times, and hesitated over many of his answers, like a man building up a delicate case of self-defense. By intuition, rather than evidence, by some quick instinct of facial expression, by some sensibility to mental and moral dishonesty, I was convinced, absolutely, at the end of an hour, that this man had not been to the North Pole, but was attempting to bluff the world. I need not deal here with the points in his narrative, and the gaps he left, which served to confirm my belief....

In sight of Copenhagen the Hans Egede was received by marvelous demonstrations of enthusiasm. The water was crowded with craft of every size and type, from steam yachts to rowing boats, tugs to pinnaces, with flags aflutter. Cheers came in gusts, unceasingly. Sirens shrieked a wailing homage, whistles blew. Bands on pleasure steamers played “See the Conquering Hero Comes.”

Doctor Cook, the hero, was hiding in his cabin. He had to be almost dragged out by a tall and splendid Dane named Norman Hansen, poet and explorer, who afterward constituted himself Doctor Cook’s champion and declared himself my enemy, because of my accusations against this man.

Doctor Cook came out of his cabin with a livid look, almost green. I never saw guilt and fear more clearly written on any human face. He could hardly pull himself together when the Crown Prince of Denmark boarded his ship and offered the homage of Denmark to his glorious achievement.

But that was the only time in which I saw Cook lose his nerve.

Landing on the quayside, I had to fight my way through an immense surging crowd, which almost killed the object of their adoration by the terrific pressure of their mass, in which each individual struggled to get near him. I heard afterward that W. T. Stead, the famous old journalist of the Review of Reviews, which afterward I edited, flung his arms round Doctor Cook, and called upon fellow journalists to form his bodyguard, lest he should be crushed to death.

On the edge of the crowd I met the first English journalist I had seen. It was Alphonse Courlander, a very brilliant and amusing fellow, with whom I had a close friendship. When he heard that I had been on Cook’s ship and had interviewed him for a couple of hours, he had a wistful look which I knew was a plea for me to impart my story. But this was one of the few times when I played a lone hand, and I ran from him, and jumped on a taxi in order to avoid the call of comradeship. I knew that I had the story of the world.

In a small hotel, distant from the center of the city, I wrote it to the extent of seven columns, and the whole of it amounted to a case of libel, making a definite challenge to Cook’s claim and ridiculing the narrative which I set forth as he had told it to me. When I had handed it into the telegraph office I knew that I had burned my boats, and that my whole journalistic career would be made or marred by this message.

During the time I had been writing, Doctor Cook had been interviewed by forty journalists in one assembly. W. T. Stead, as doyen of the press, asked the questions, and at the end of the session spoke on behalf of the whole body of journalists in paying his tribute of admiration and homage to the discoverer of the North Pole. Spellbound by Stead’s enthusiasm, and not having had my advantage of that experience on the Hans Egede, there was not a man among that forty who suggested a single word of doubt about the achievement claimed by Cook. By a supreme chance of luck, I was alone in my attack.

I will not disguise my sense of anxiety. I had a deep conviction that my judgment was right, but whether I should be able to maintain my position by direct evidence and proof, was not so certain in my mind. I knew, next day, that my dispatch had been published by my paper, for great extracts from it were cabled back to the Danish press and they caused an immense sensation in Copenhagen, and as the days passed in an astounding fortnight, when I continued my attack by further and damning accusations against Cook, I was the subject of hostile demonstrations in the restaurants and cafés, and the Danish newspaper Politiken published a murderous-looking portrait of me and described me as “the liar Gibbs”—a designation which afterward they withdrew with handsome apologies.

The details of the coil of evidence I wove about the feet of Cook need not be told in full. He claimed that he had told his full story to Sverdrup, a famous explorer in Copenhagen, and that Sverdrup pledged his own honor in proof of his achievement.

Afterward I interviewed Sverdrup and obtained a statement from him that Cook had given no proof whatever of his claim.

He professed to have handed his written narrative and astronomical observations to the University of Copenhagen, and it was claimed on his behalf by the Danish press that these papers had been examined by astronomical and geographical experts who were absolutely satisfied that Cook had reached the North Pole.

From the head of the University I obtained a statement that Cook had submitted no such papers and had advanced no scientific proof.

Using his own narrative to me, which I had scribbled down as he talked, I enlisted the help of Peter Freuchen and other Arctic travelers, to analyze his statements about his distances, his sledge weights, the amount of food drawn by his dogs, and his time-table. They proved to be absurd, and when he contradicted himself to other interviewers, I was able, with further expert advice, to contradict his contradictions. It was a great game, which I thoroughly enjoyed, though I worked day and night, with only snatches of rest for food and sleep.

But I had some nasty moments.

One was when a statement was published in every newspaper of the world that the Rector of the Copenhagen University had flatly denied my interview with him and reiterated his satisfaction with the proofs submitted by Doctor Cook.

The Daily Chronicle telegraphed this denial to me and said, “Please explain.”

I remember receiving that telegram shortly after reading the same denial in the Danish newspapers, brought to me by Mr. Oscar Hansen, the Danish correspondent of my own paper, who was immensely helpful to me. I was thunderstruck and dismayed, for if the Rector of the University denied what he had told me, and maintained a belief in the bona fides of Cook, I was utterly undone.

At that moment W. T. Stead approached me and put his hand on my shoulder. He, too—still the ardent champion of Cook—had read that denial.

“Young man,” he cried, in his sonorous voice, “you have not only ruined yourself, which does not matter very much, but you have also ruined The Daily Chronicle, for which I have a great esteem.”

“Mr. Stead,” I said, “I am a young and obscure man, compared with you, and I appeal to your chivalry. Will you come with me to the Rector of Copenhagen University and act as my witness to the questions I shall put to him, and to the answers he gives?”

“By all means,” he said, “and to make things quite beyond doubt, we will take two other witnesses—the correspondent who issued the statement about the denial, and another of established character.”

The two other witnesses were a French count, acting as the correspondent of a great French newspaper and the representative of a news agency who had issued the university statement, and believed in its truth.

It was a strange and exciting interview with that Rector. For a long time he refused to open his lips to say a single word one way or the other about the Cook case. He relented slowly when W. T. Stead made an eloquent plea on my behalf, and said that my honor was at stake on his word.

The correspondent who had published the denial of my interview tried to intervene, speaking in rapid German which I could hardly follow, endeavoring to persuade the Rector to uphold the statement issued with regard to the University. But the Frenchman, acting as my second, as it were, sternly bade him speak in English or French which all could understand, and to give me the right of putting my questions. This was upheld by Stead.

I put my questions exactly word for word as I had done in the first interview.

Had Doctor Cook submitted any journal of his travels to the University?

Had he submitted any astronomical observations?

Had he presented any proof at all of his claim to have reached the Pole?

The Rector hesitated long before answering each question in the negative. The man was profoundly disturbed. Undoubtedly, as I knew later, the University, with the King as its President, had deeply involved itself by offering an honorary degree to Cook. As its chief representative, this man was in a difficult and dangerous position, if he turned down Cook’s claim. It was at least five minutes before he answered the last question. Then, as an honest man, he answered, as he had done before when I saw him alone, “No!”

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. If he had been a dishonest man, my reputation and career would have been utterly ruined.

I asked him to sign the questions and answers as I had written them down, but for a long time he refused to put his signature. Then he signed, but as he handed me the paper, he said: “Of course that must not be published in the newspapers.”

I protested that in that case it was useless, and both Stead and the French correspondent argued on my behalf. I had the paper in my breast pocket, and when the Rector gave a timorous consent to its publication, I left the room with deep words of thanks, and fairly ran out of the gate of the University lest he should change his mind, or the paper should be taken from me. It was published in The Daily Chronicle, and in hundreds of other papers.

A second blow befell me.

I had resumed acquaintanceship with Peter Freuchen and Mrs. Rasmussen, and at lunch one day she showed me a long letter which she had received from her husband, the explorer who, as I have told, had been Cook’s best friend, and had provided his dogs and Eskimos.

Mrs. Rasmussen, smiling, said: “You, of all men, would like to read that letter.”

“Alas that I do not know Danish!” I answered.

She marked one paragraph with a pencil, and said, “Perhaps I will let you copy out those words.”

It was Peter Freuchen who copied out the words in Danish, and Oscar Hansen who translated them into English, on a bit of paper which I tore out of my notebook.

They were a repudiation by Knud Rasmussen of his faith in Cook, and a direct suggestion that he was a knave and a liar.

These words were, of course, vitally interesting to me, and, indeed, to the world, for the fame and honor of Rasmussen were high, and his name had been used as the best guarantee of Cook’s claim. With Mrs. Rasmussen’s permission, I telegraphed her husband’s words in my message that day. They were immediately reproduced in all the Danish papers, and made a new sensation.

But my private sensation was far more emotional when, in crossing a square the following evening, a Danish journalist showed me a paper and said, “Have you seen this?”

It was a formal denial by Mrs. Rasmussen that she had ever shown me a letter from her husband, or that he had ever written the words I had published.

That was a severe shock to me. I could not understand it, or indeed believe it. That very day Peter Freuchen and Mrs. Rasmussen had been my guests at lunch, and as friendly as possible. Probably some malicious journalist had invented the letter....

It was late at night, and I could not find either Peter Freuchen or Mrs. Rasmussen, nor did I ever see the lady again, because, on account of certain high influences, she disappeared from Copenhagen.

I remembered the bit of paper on which the words had been written down in Danish by Peter Freuchen and translated into English by Oscar Hansen. That document was very precious, and my only proof, but I couldn’t find it in my pockets or my room. My room at the hotel was a wreck of papers, but that one scrap evaded all search. At last, down on my hands and knees, I found it screwed up under the bed, and gave a cry of triumph.

My old friend and true comrade, Oscar Hansen, made an affidavit that he had translated Freuchen’s words, the editor of a news agency swore to Freuchen’s handwriting, and I issued an invitation to Mrs. Rasmussen to submit her husband’s letter to a committee of six, half appointed by herself and half by me. If they denied that the letter contained the words I had published, I would pay a certain heavy sum, which I named, to Danish charities. That invitation was not accepted, and my words were believed.

I have already described in a previous column of these memories the banquet to Doctor Cook which I attended in the dress clothes of my young friend the waiter. It was an historic evening, for, in the middle of that dinner came the famous message from Peary in which he announced his own arrival at the Pole and repudiated Cook’s claim.

I stood close to Doctor Cook when that message was handed to him, and I am bound to pay a tribute to his cool nerve. He read the message on the bit of flimsy, handed it back, and said, “If Peary says he reached the Pole, I believe him!”

His manner at all times, after that temporary breakdown on the Hans Egede was convincing. It was marvelous on the day when the doctor’s degree—the highest honor of the University—was conferred upon him, and before all the learned men there he ascended the pulpit of the University chapel and in a solemn oration stretched out his arms and said, “I show you my hands—they are clean!”

At that moment I was tempted to believe that Cook believed he had been to the North Pole. Sometimes, remembering the manner of the man, I am tempted to think so still—though now there is no doubt that he never went anywhere near his goal.

I used to meet him on neutral ground at the American Minister’s house in Copenhagen, where I handed round Miss Egan’s tea cakes. Doctor Cook would never accept any cake from me! Maurice Egan, the Minister, was immensely courteous and kind, and Miss Egan confided to me that if I proved to be right about Doctor Cook, in whom she believed, she would lose her faith in human nature. Since then, though I was proved right, she has regained her faith in human nature, as I know from her happy marriage in the United States.

One other slight shock disturbed my mental poise in this fortnight of sensation. It was when I read in the Politiken a challenge to a duel, publicly addressed to me by Norman Hansen, the poet and explorer. He was a tall man, six foot three or so in his socks, and very powerful. I am five-foot-six or so in my boots. If we met, I should die. I did not answer that challenge! But on the day when Doctor Cook left Copenhagen, with a wreath of roses round his bowler hat, and when I had done my job with him, the crowd which had gone down to the quayside to see the last of him, parted, and I found myself face to face with Norman Hansen.

Some one in the crowd said:

“When is that duel to be fought?”

Norman Hansen came toward me, and held out his hand, with a great jolly laugh.

“We will never fight with the sword,” he said, “but only with the pen!”

We didn’t even fight with the pen, for he lost all faith in Cook, and sometimes from northern altitudes I get kind and generous messages from him.

W. T. Stead maintained his belief in Cook until the University of Copenhagen formally rejected Cook’s claim and canceled his honorary degree, when the evidence of his own papers, which afterward arrived, and the story of his own Eskimos, left no shred of doubt in his favor.

Then I had a note from the great old journalist.

“I have lost and you have won,” he wrote, and after that used generous words which I need not publish.

Truly it was a queer, exciting incident in my journalistic life, and looking back upon it, I marvel at my luck.