Two Captains (31 page)

I would not call myself an impatient person. But I think that only a genius of patience could have waded through those diaries. Obviously, they had been written during halts, by the light of smoky wicks burning seal oil, in forty-five degrees of frost, with a frozen and tired hand. In some places the hand could be seen to have slipped, tracing a long, drooping, meaningless line.

But I had to read them!

Again and again I tackled this arduous job. Every night-and on flight-free days from early morning-I sat down at the table with a magnifying glass, engaged in the slow, painful task of transforming the fish-hooks into human words-now words of despair, now of hope. At first I went straight through, just sat down and read. And then I hit on a bright idea. I started to read whole pages at a time instead of trying to decipher the separate words.

In going through the diaries I noticed that some of the pages were written much more legibly than others-the order, for example, which the doctor had copied out. I copied from these passages all the letters from a to z and compiled a "Navigator's ABC" in which I reproduced exactly all the variants of his handwriting. With the aid of this alphabet the work proceeded much more rapidly. Very often a correct guess of one or two letters -made with the help of this alphabet would make all the rest clear.

And so, day after day, I deciphered these diaries.

The Diaries of Navigating Officer Ivan Klimov

Wednesday, May 27. Started out late and did 4 versts in 6 hours. Today is a red-letter day for us. We reckon that we have covered a distance of 100

versts from the ship. Of course, this is not much for a month's trek, but the going has been much harder than we had expected. We celebrated the occasion by cooking a soup from dried bilberries seasoned with two tins of condensed milk.

Friday, May 29. If we do reach the shore, may those men-1 do not want even to name them-remember May 29th, the day of their deliverance from death, and mark it every year. But though the men were saved, they lost a double-barrelled gun and the stove on which we did our cooking. As a result we had to eat raw meat yesterday and drink cold water diluted with milk. May God help me to reach the shore safely with this bunch ofgaw-gaws!

Sunday, May 31. Here is the official document authorising me to leave with part of the crew:

"To Navigating Officer Ivan Klimov.

"I hereby order you and all those listed below, in accordance with your wishes and theirs, to leave the ship with the aim of reaching inhabited land, and to do this on the 10th inst., setting out across the ice on foot and taking with you sledges and kayaks as well as provisions for two months.

On leaving this ship you are to head south until you sight land; on sighting which you are to act according to circumstances, but preferably try to make the British Channel between the islands of Franz-Josef Land, following it, as being best known, down to Cape Flora where you are likely to find food and' shelter. After that, time and circumstances permitting, you are to head for Spitsbergen. On reaching Spitsbergen you will be confronted with the difficult task of finding people there, as we do not know where they are to be located, but hope that you will be able to find people in the southern part of the island or at least some fishing vessel off the coast. You are to be accompanied by thirteen men of the crew, who have expressed their wish to go with you. Captain of the schooner St. Maria

Ivan Tatarinov" "April 10,1914 Arctic Ocean."

God knows how hard it was for me to go, leaving him in such a difficult, almost hopeless plight.

Tuesday, June 2. On board ship Engineer Komev had improvised four pairs of spectacles for us against the snow glare, the glasses of which were made from gin bottles. The leading sledges are drawn by the lucky ones who can see, while the "blinded" ones trail in their wake with closed eyes, which they open from time to time to peer at the track. The pitiless glare hurts the eyes. Here is a picture of our progress, which I shall never forget: we are trudging along with measured step, shoulders hunched forward, the harness straps tight round our chests, while we hold on to the side of the kayak with one hand. We walk with eyes tightly closed. Each carries a ski-pole in his right hand which, with mechanical precision, he throws forward, draws back to the right and slowly trails behind him. How monotonously and distinctly the snow crunches under the disk of the ski-pole. In spite of oneself one listens to this crunching, which seems to be repeating clearly: "Long, long way." We walk as though in a trance, mechanically pushing our feet forward and throwing our weight against the straps. Today I fancied that I was walking along a quayside on a hot summer's day, in the shade of some tall houses. These houses were eastern fruit stores, their doors were wide open and the aromatic, spicy odour of fresh and dried fruits came from them. There was a heady scent of oranges, peaches, dried apples and cloves. Persian tradesmen watered the asphalt pavement which was soft from the heat, and I could hear their calm, guttural speech. God, how good it smelt, how pleasantly cool it was. Stumbling over my pole brought me back to earth. I clutched the kayak and stared around me-snow, snow, snow, as far as the eyes could see. The sun is as blinding and painful to the eyes as ever.

Thursday, June 4. Today, following in Dunayev's tracks, I noticed that he was spitting blood. I examined his gums. The last few days he has been complaining about his legs.

Friday, June 5. I can't get Captain Tatarinov out of my mind. During the little speech he made when seeing us off he suddenly stopped, clenched his teeth and looked round with a sort of helpless smile. He was ill; I had left him when he was just out of his sickbed. God, what a frightful mistake it was! But I can't very well turn back.

Saturday, June 6. Morev has kept at me these three last days, saying that he has spotted, from the top of an ice-hummock, a perfectly level stretch of ice running far out to the south. "I saw it with my own eyes.

Sir. As flat as flat can be." This morning he was missing from the tent. He had gone off without his skis and the tracks of his snow-shoes were faintly visible in the thin layer of dry snow. We searched for him all day, shouting, whistling and firing shots. He would have answered us, as he had a magazine rifle with a dozen cartridges. But we heard nothing.

Sunday, June 7. We made a mast about ten metres high out of kayaks, skis and ski-poles, attached two flags to it and hoisted it on a hilltop. If he is alive he will see our signals.

Tuesday, June 9. On our way again. Thirteen men left-an unlucky number.

When shall we make land, be it even barren and inhospitable land, but land that stands still and on which you have no fear of being carried away to the north?

Wednesday, June 10. This evening I had another vision of a southern town, the sea front, a cafe by night with people in panama hats. Sukhumi?

Again that spicy, aromatic ordour of fruit, and the bitter thought: "Why did I go on this voyage to a cold, icebound sea, when it was so good sailoring in the south? There it was warm. One could go about in a shirt, and even barefooted. One could eat lots of oranges, grapes and apples." Strange, why was I never particularly fond of fruit? But chocolate, too, is good stuff, eaten with ship's biscuits, the way we eat it at our midday halt. Only we get very little of it-just one square each from the bar. How good it would be to have a plateful of these biscuits in front of you and a whole bar of chocolate all to yourself. How many more miles, how many hours, days and weeks before this will become possible!

Thursday, June 11. The going is hell. Deep snow with a lot of water under it. Open water blocks our path all the time. Did no more than three versts today. All day a mist and that dull light that makes the eyes hurt so much. I see this notebook now as though through a film and hot tears run down my cheeks. It will be Whitsun soon. How good it will be "there" this day, somewhere down south, and how bad here, on the floating ice, all cut up by open stretches of water, in latitude 82°! The ice shifts right before our eyes. One glade disappears to give way to another, like giants playing a game of chess on a gigantic chessboard.

Sunday, June 14. I have made a discovery of which I have said nothing to my companions: we are drifting past the land. Today we reached the latitude of Franz-Josef Land and are continuing to push south, but there is no sign of any island. We are being carried past the land. lean tell this both from my utterly useless chronometer, from the prevailing winds and from the direction of the line lowered in the water.

Monday, June 15. I abandoned him, a sick man, in a state of despair, which only he was capable of concealing. This robs me of all hope for our deliverance.

Tuesday, June 16. I now have two men with scurvy. Sotkin has fallen ill too, his gums are bleeding and swollen. I treat them by sending them forward on skis to find a way for us and giving them each at night a quinine water.

This may be a harsh method of treatment, but I think the only possible one for a man whose morale has not broken down. The worst form of scurvy I had seen was that from which Captain Tatarinov had suffered. He had had it for close on six months and only by a superhuman effort of will did he force himself to recover, that is, he simply forbade himself to die. And this will, this broad, free mind and indomitable moral courage are doomed to perish.

Thursday, June 18. Latitude 81°. The rapidity of our southward drift is amazing.

Friday, June 19. At about four o'clock, E.S.-E. of our halting place I spotted "something". It was two pinkish cloudlets on the horizon, which did not change shape until hidden in the mist. I don't think we were ever surrounded by so many open lanes of water as now. Lots of pochards and screaming white gulls are flying about. Oh, these gulls! How often, at night, they keep me awake with their fuss and bustle and bickering over the entrails of a shot seal thrown out onto the ice. Like evil spirits they mock at us, laughing hysterically, screeching, whistling and all but cursing. How long, I wonder, will I be haunted by these "cries of the snow-white gull", by these sleepless nights in a tent, by this sun which never sets and shines through its canvas!

Saturday, June 20. During the week we have been halted we have drifted a whole degree southward with the ice.

Monday, June 22. In the evening, as usual, I climbed to the top of some pack-ice to scan the horizon. This time, E. of where I stood, I saw something which made me so excited that I had to sit down on the ice and start hastily rubbing both my eyes and my binoculars. It was a bright strip like a neat stroke made by a brush on a light-blue ground. At first I took it for the moon, but the left segment of that moon grew gradually dimmer while the right one became more sharply etched. During the night I went out four or five times to look through my binoculars and each time I found this piece of moon in the same place. I am surprised none of my companions saw it. How hard it was for me to restrain myself from running into the tent and shouting at the top of my voice: "What are you sitting here like dummies, why are you sleeping, don't you see we are being carried towards land?" But for some reason I kept it to myself. Who knows, maybe it was a mirage too.

Hadn't I seen myself on the sea-front of a southern town on a hot summer's day, in the shade of tall buildings!

The first notebook ended on this sentence. The second started on July 11.

Saturday, July 11. We killed a seal from which we drew two bowls of blood. With this and some pochards we made a very good soup. When we are making tea or soup we are usually very serious about it. This morning we ate a pailful of soup and drank a pailful of tea; for dinner we ate a pailful of soup, drank a pail of tea; and now for supper we have eaten over a pound of meat each and are waiting impatiently for our pail of tea to boil. Our pail is a big one, shaped like a truncated cone. I daresay we wouldn't mind cooking and eating another pail of soup right now, only we feel we must restrict ourselves, "economise". Our appetites are more than wolfish; it is something abnormal.

And so we are now sitting on an island, and beneath us is not ice, on which we have been these last two years, but earth and moss. All is well but for one thought, which gives me no peace: why did the Captain not come with us? He did not want to leave his ship, he couldn't go back empty-handed.

"They'll make short work of me if I come back empty-handed." And then that childish, foolhardy idea:

"Should desperate circumstances compel me to abandon ship I shall make for the land which we have discovered." Lately, I think, he had that land on the brain. We sighted it in April 1913.

Monday, July 13. To E.S.-E. the sea is free of ice right up to the horizon. Ah, St. Maria, this is where we could do with you, my beauty! This is where you could bowl along without using your engines!

Tuesday, July 14. Today Sotkin and Korolkov went to the tip of the island where they made a surprising discovery. Slightly inshore they saw a small mound built of stones. They were struck by its regular shape. On coming closer they saw an empty English beer bottle with a screw cap. The men quickly uncovered the mound and found an iron container under the stones. In it was a well-preserved British flag, and beneath it another bottle. This bottle had a paper pasted on it with several names and inside it was a note written in English. With some difficulty and by the joint efforts of Nils and myself, I made out that the British polar expedition led by Jackson, having sailed from Cape Flora in August 1897 had arrived at Cape Mary Harmsworth, where it had placed this flag and the note. The note said that all was well on the good ship Windward.