Читать книгу Beyond Adventure - Roy Chapman Andrews - Страница 19

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In the early winter of 1898, Peary began sledging his equipment to Fort Conger. He did not believe that he could reach the Pole, starting from such a great distance to the south, but he determined to do his best on behalf of his sponsors. Establishing a chain of caches, he worked all during the Arctic night, whenever there was moonlight, relaying his supplies northward.

"No one," writes Peary, "who has not had the actual experience, can imagine the work and annoyance involved in transporting in semi- or complete darkness, these supplies along the frightful ice-foot which everywhere lines the ragged Grinnell Land waste." December was intensely cold, and very nearly ended Peary's career as an explorer. "The light of the moon lasted for only a few hours out of twenty-four," he says, "and at its best was not sufficient to permit us to select a route on the sea ice . . . Just south of Cape Defosse we ate the last of our biscuit; just north of it, the last of our beans . . .

"The moon had left us entirely now, and the ice-foot was utterly impracticable, and we groped and stumbled through the rugged sea ice as far as Cape Baird. Here we slept for a few hours in a burrow in the snow, then started across Lady Franklin Bay. In complete darkness, and over a chaos of broken and heaved-up ice, we stumbled and fell and groped for eighteen hours, till we climbed upon the ice-foot of the north side. Here a dog was killed for food.

"Absence of suitable snow put an igloo out of the question, and a semi-cave under a large cake of ice was so cold that we could stop only long enough to make tea. Here I left a broken sledge and nine exhausted dogs. Just east of us a floe had been driven ashore, and forced up over the ice-foot till its shattered fragments lay a hundred feet up the talus of the bluff. It seemed impassable, but the crack at the edge of the ice foot allowed us to squeeze through; and soon after we rounded the point, and I was satisfied by the 'feel' of the shore, for we could see nothing, that we were at one of the entrances of Discovery Harbour, but which, I could not tell.

"Several hours of groping showed that it was the eastern entrance. We had struck Bellot Island, and at midnight of January 6th, we were stumbling through the dilapidated door of Fort Conger.

"A little remaining oil enabled me by the light of our sledge cooker, to find the range and the stove in the officers' quarters and, after some difficulty, fires were started in both. When this was accomplished a suspicious 'wooden' feeling in the right foot led me to have my kamiks pulled off, and I found, to my annoyance, that both feet were frosted.

". . . it was evident that I should lose parts or all of several toes, and be confined for some weeks. The minimum mean temperature during the trip was -51.9°F., the lowest -63°F."

Peary wrote that the interior of the Greely camp, which had been abandoned fifteen years before, was ". . . a scene of the utmost confusion. The floors of the officers' and men's rooms, kitchen, and vestibule were littered and blocked with boxes, empty and packed, trunks, cast-off clothing and rubbish of various descriptions. In the kitchen, cans containing remnants of tea, coffee, etc. were scattered about, with the rest of what had been their contents spilled on the floor and table. In the men's room, dishes remained on tables just as left after lunch or dinner on the day when the fort was deserted. Biscuits scattered in every direction, overturned cups, etc. gave indications of a hasty departure."

Most of the great quantity of supplies had spoiled, and the delicate scientific instruments and specimens were ruined beyond recovery. They had been left in a lean-to instead of being stored in the house, where they would have been safe.

It is not surprising that Greely should have bitterly resented it when Peary published this report. Greely had been enjoying the status of an Arctic hero. Instead he was shown to be an incompetent leader who was responsible for the death of most of his command at Starvation Camp, where they had fled in panic. Peary also demonstrated by his own sledging trips and discovery of game that the tragedy was completely unnecessary.