Fatal North (11 page)

The ship's two mates, William Morton and Hubbard Chester, took turns sitting up with their commander. Morton had the first shift; Chester relieved him at 2:00
A.M.

Chester had a difficult time believing that the sick man lying before him was the same individual with whom he had just spent two weeks exploring by sledge. He had enjoyed his time with Hall, whom he found to be an energetic and compassionate leader. The traveling had been bad, however. The snow was deep and soft in the beginning, and later, they came upon places with little snow over which they had struggled to pull the sledges. Their progress had also been blocked at times by mounds of ice and hampered by fog and freezing rain. Everyone, Hall included, had to assist with pulling the sledges. They had made six encampments on the way up, and stopped overnight at several of them on the way back. The Eskimos had built an igloo at each stop to provide protection from the adverse elements, and one night they all nearly suffocated inside their shelter. As was customary, after entering the snow hut for the night, they securely blocked up the entrance by a large wall of snow. But they had neglected to make a hole for ventilation, and the igloo, being very well built, was perfectly airtight. When, hours later, the kerosene lamp and candle went out, Hall attempted to relight them only to have the matches go out immediately upon being struck. While Hall was trying to account for this oddity, he began to feel the suffocating effects of the deoxygenated air and called out, “Kick down the door,” which Joe at once obeyed.

In six days they reached a point that Hall named Cape Brevoort after a longtime friend and Arctic supporter, J. Carson Brevoort of Brooklyn. It was located at the northern tip of a large bay that Hall christened Newman's Bay in honor of The Reverend Newman who had shown such kindness to
Polaris
and her crew. They could go no higher with the sledges due to thin ice, but they walked across the frozen bay. On the other side, near the beach where it could be seen by someone landing by ship, they built up a cairn and buried a cylinder containing a record of their journey. Joe and Hans shot at several seals, but were not successful in securing them. Traces of musk oxen had been seen, and also foxes, lemmings, an owl, and a few hawks.
A large litter of Newfoundland pups had been devoured by the dog teams as soon as the pups were born. Leaving the Eskimos with the dogs and gear, Hall and Chester had walked north for eight hours in the deepening twilight. They reached the headlands of another bay, and then ascended to the high ground. From that vantage point, they could see the land heading off to the east, and the eastern shore of Robeson Channel, with a prominent cape, beyond which they could see nothing. On the west side they could see land stretching up for sixty miles. That, Hall said, was the direction he would go on his next trip. After spending that night at their encampment, they headed back in the morning. Hall's health, on the journey, had been first-rate. The lowest temperature they had endured was 25 degrees below zero, but they had adequate clothing and sleeping gear.

When they had arrived back at
Polaris,
Chester had gone below to the cabin he shared with Buddington, Tyson, Morton, engineer Alvin Odell, and Joe and Hannah. His first priority was to clean the party's sleeping bags and make sure they got properly dried so mold didn't set in. During the sledge trip, their bags, vestments, and virtually every article of clothing they wore had become saturated with moisture and frozen stiff, as they hadn't carried enough fuel with them to keep a fire going to dry them at each stop. They adopted a plan of taking their smaller articles, such as mittens and socks, to bed with them. By placing them inside their sleeping bags next to their bodies, the items became partially dry by morning. Whenever they unpacked their sleeping gear, the bags had to be worked a long time before they could be unrolled, so solidly frozen were they.

Below, Chester was pleased to find the interior of the ship at a comfortable sixty-five degrees; each compartment had its own small, coal-burning stove. Going about his chores to secure their equipment, Chester was surprised to hear, an hour later, that the commander was sick in bed.

When Hall awoke the next morning, his paralysis was mostly gone.

He ate some arrowroot for breakfast; and the smooth, starchy
food went down well, although he complained of continued numbness of the tongue. Emil Bessels came in and administered another cathartic.

After the doctor left, Hall asked to see Joe. The Eskimo came into the cabin looking concerned for his old friend.

“Very sick last night,” Hall told him.

“What is the matter?” asked Joe, who knew Hall had a good constitution. He had rarely seen him sick in the past ten years.

“Don't know. Drank a cup of coffee when we came back. In a little while I was very sick and vomiting.”

Hall signaled Joe to come closer. When he did, Hall lowered his voice. “Now, Joe, did you drink bad coffee?”

“No. Cook gave me cup. No feel sick.”

“There was bad stuff in my coffee. Felt it after a while. It burned my stomach.”

A little later, when Hannah came to help with the commander, he also spoke of the cup of coffee that had been brought up from the galley for him.

“The coffee was too sweet,” he told her. “It made me vomit.”

Hannah regularly made coffee and tea for the commander. She knew he liked one lump of sugar to a cup. “Too much sugar in it, Father?” she asked.

“Not sugar. Never tasted anything in coffee like that before.”

That evening, Hall again became very sick, and was in great pain from his constant efforts to vomit. He had a restiess night, and hardly any appetite in the morning. He asked for some arrowroot, but when it was prepared for him he would not eat it. Instead, he had a few bites of preserved fruits—peaches and pineapple. He was also very thirsty.

When Bessels came in to see him, Hall complained of being chilled. The doctor checked and found Hall had a temperature.

Next to Hall's bunk, Bessels heated some little white crystals in a small glass bowl. He carefully mixed it in a clear solution
that came from a bottle in his medicine bag, filled a hypodermic with the compound mixture, and gave Hall an injection in the leg. The doctor said it was quinine, a standard nineteenth-century treatment for fever.

Hall's temperature began to level off and returned to normal.

The following day, Hall's temperature remained normal and his appetite improved, but the numbness in his tongue returned. Bessels gave him another injection.

The next day, Hall's condition worsened. He had continued numbness of his tongue and mouth, difficulty speaking, and for the first time his mind began to wander. He accused people of trying to do him in. First, he pointed the finger at Buddington, saying the sailing master was after him with a gun. Then he saw “blue vapor” coming out of the mouths of several visitors to his cabin, and believed it was lethal.

His fears and suspicions soon focused on one man: Dr. Emil Bessels, whom he accused of poisoning him, and even of possessing “an infernal machine” that produced the mysterious vapor. From October 29 until November 4, Hall banned the German doctor from his bedside. During that time Hall, believing there was a conspiracy afoot to poison him, did not eat anything except canned food, and he wanted to open the cans himself. If he was unable to get a can open, he would call on Hannah or Joe to do so, or William Morton, in whom he confided: “They are poisoning me. You won't leave me, will you?” Hall would oftentimes ask those attending to him to taste his food before he would eat it.

On November 1, Hall seemed better, and was gaining strength. He was eating more and devoured with gusto a thigh and leg of a grilled hare. He was well enough one afternoon to dress and appear on deck—to the delight of the crew.

Seaman Noah Hayes wrote in his journal that day: “Captain Hall has grown rapidly better. He seemed to almost literally awake from his sickness, so sudden was the change.”

Hall called four officers into his cabin—Buddington, Chester,
Morton, and Tyson. The commander had something important on his mind. He explained that he intended to resign command of the ship and turn it over to Buddington, while he would retain control over the expedition's movements. He said he was having the necessary papers drawn up.

“I think I could stand it better without day-to-day responsibility for the ship,” Hall told the assembled officers. “The responsibilities of command have been great upon me, and I have had much worry on my mind. I think I will get well faster, and once I am fit I would have more time to devote to the exploring part of the expedition.”

Tyson knew only three weeks had elapsed since Hall nearly suspended Buddington due to incompetence, and now he was considering giving the sailing master even more responsibility and control? Because of the measure of this man, Buddington, Tyson knew it would be a mistake. But Hall didn't ask any of the officers for their opinions that day. Granted, the situation had changed in those few weeks; they now had to consider Hall's deteriorating health. If this change would help him regain his strength, then by all means he should make it. Far worse would befall the expedition should Hall not recover. Tyson dreaded to think of it.

At times Hall seemed well on the way to recovery. When he was clearheaded, he talked eagerly to anyone who would listen about his plans for continued exploration of the Far North, and he worked diligently with a clerk to bring his journals up to date. A number of crewmen heard him in his cabin laughing and rejoicing at news that the Eskimo hunters had killed a five-hundred-pound seal, meaning fresh meat aplenty for weeks. Other times, he didn't act like himself—he would begin a sentence and not finish it, or he would start to talk about one subject and go off onto something else. His “disease” had been pronounced by the doctor as apoplexy, which Tyson thought strange. He had known only one person dying of apoplexy in the north, the engineer on an earlier expedition, and he had died very suddenly after suffering a stroke. He'd gone to bed
well at 9:00 P.M. and was found dead in his cabin the next morning. Hall seemed to be afflicted with something more lingering, more chronic.

Nevertheless, since he was beginning to feel better, he shelved his plans to resign command of the ship. Tyson learned this indirectly from the steward, who had witnessed Buddington and Hall arguing loudly. At one point Buddington seized Hall and began choking him because he wouldn't sign some paper Buddington had put in front of him. Even in his weakened state, Hall had flung Buddington halfway across the cabin.

On November 4, after much persuasion by the doctor, Hall agreed to let Bessels treat him again. He received another injection and ate a large quantity of cooked seal meat for dinner.

For the next two nights Bessels dozed in a chair beside Hall's bunk, with one end of a string attached to his arm and the other to Hall's. If Hall needed anything, he could pull the string without awakening the other men in the cabin.

On the 6th, Hall looked and felt well, and strong hopes circulated among the crew for his recovery. Although counseled to remain quiet by Bessels, Hall got up and dressed after the doctor gave him an injection of quinine that afternoon. He remained up nearly all day, and was to all appearances getting stronger. A portion of the day he spent getting in order the handwritten records of his sledge journey. He dictated for several hours to Joseph Mauch, the German seaman serving as his clerk, and began to show interest in the ordinary duties of the ship.

Hall went to bed that night in apparent good spirits. Before turning in, he told his officers he would be joining him them in the morning for breakfast. He made a point of asking that Morton and Chester not sit up with him that night—he didn't like others losing sleep on his account—but Chester insisted anyway.

Around midnight, Chester noticed that Hall was having difficulty breathing.

Alarmed, the first mate awakened Bessels, who was asleep in his berth at the opposite end of the cabin. He told the doctor about Hall's troubling symptoms.

Bessels dressed hurriedly, passed Hall with barely a glance, pronounced he would be all right, and to Chester's amazement quickly departed for the Observatory.

Chester returned to his commander's bedside. Within a few minutes Hall rose in his berth and tried to say something, but it was incomprehensible. With horror Chester realized that Hall's tongue was swollen. He ran out on deck, spotted a crewman out on the ice taking tidal observations, and ordered the man to go the Observatory and bring back the doctor without delay.

On his way back to Hall's cabin, Chester stopped and awakened Buddington in the lower cabin. Buddington quickly joined the first mate in Hall's cabin.

To their surprise, they found Hall trying to write in his journal. He looked awful, sitting up in his berth, alternating between pale and flushed, feet dangling over the edge, head lolling one way and the other, eyes glassy. He had a frightful look, not unlike a living corpse.

“Tell me, how do you spell murder?” Hall asked.

When Bessels came into the cabin a few minutes later, Hall looked steely-eyed at the doctor. “Doctor, I know everything that's going on. You can't fool me.”

Before Bessels could respond, Hall demanded some water. Presented with a glass, he undertook to swallow the water but couldn't get it down.

“I know you're all in it,” Hall said, looking at Buddington. “You've all joined in with that little German dancing master to disgrace me. I don't care. I'm perfectly willing to leave this world.”

Hall fell back on his bunk, breathing very hard. When he had calmed down some, Bessels asked Hall how he felt.

“Worse,” Hall groaned.

The doctor examined him and found his left eye was dilated and his right contracted—a sign, Bessels announced, of another attack of apoplexy.

Hall soon lapsed into unconsciousness, and remained comatose most of the next day, lying flat on his stomach, breathing laboriously.