AFLOAT ON ICEBERG

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 12021, 26 December 1924, Page 11

AFLOAT ON ICEBERG

TRIP OF 600 MILES. DANES’ -STRANGE VOYAGE; • LOSS OF A DANISH SHIP. JAMMED IN lOE-PACK. Twenty-one white-clad Danes. . with high seal-hide boots came tramping over the cobbles of Reykjavik, in Iceland, in the first, week in September. They were a queer sight, and all the Icelanders stood, by the wharf-side to stare at them, for these men had sailed trie. Arctic seas not, on a ship but on .an icabeirg, and had: been plucked from death by ,a miracle. They had lost their ship, their ■ iceberg had- split beneath their feet, a’ storm had carried- them to intmiment destruction! and "then tile wind, veering round, had carried them within, sight of safety. Peril from drowning, peril from freezing, peril from, starving to death, they had survived them all, and here they were back in Iceland, safe and well..'No wonder the Iceland, sailors and 1 fishermen, who know whiat’ peril means, stared; ait them. GIVEN UP FOR'LOST.

They were the crew <*£ the Danish ship Teddy, which was sent last year with fur trappers and explorers to see whether Greenland could be lived in. They ' got there, did 1 thdirjob, started back in August, ißid were caught in trie ice-pack eleven days out at sea, and stayed there till at. home they .wore given up for lost. ... • Beans; caught in an ice-pack is all in the day’s work for an Arctic expedition The ships are built for.it. but the crew of the Teddy had an , experience such as no men ever , had before. , Their .ship was jammed there for : a month. ,Luok might have got it out. but-it did not. The Teddy cracked under - the . strain. She leaked l so tfiat the pumps ;couldi not keep the watei" diown. The first thing to do was to put the beat men they had in command. So tire crew elected trie, youpg-.tflird officer,. !Louis Jejisen, oaiptain. Jensen was !oifiy 28, “kjiiifc he was the, square peg iu the leahy. hole. “We’ll get to Arigmak-, slik for Christmas/’, said he. Arid .he did. Angmaikslik is, a eattleimerit'. fin ■Greenland. - • The first thing Jensen dad-was to take his’men off-trie ship on 'to the. biggest iceberg that had crushed them. It was a tidy-looking, iberg, 300 ft across, a'good- deal .bigger than the ’ little Teddy, which it .towedi beside it like a; dinghy, and the strange companions, bore south 1 at about a mile an hour. ', 'A VISIT FROM THE BEARS. • ' The deckhouse and all the stores were moved to the iceberg. In the middle pteod trie deckhouse, with the hammocks sl'ung inside, the stores packed , behind, and* a workshop put 1 ; rip wripre.; sledges and sleeping bags and winter clothing could all -be got. ready. What a ’life they led in those* desolate ice-packed seas. Not entirely deeodate;. for polar bears would-sometimes join flihem. As the cnew wdre short of i'jeeh meat, the visitors were some-times-shot. On the other hand, if they had not been shot, they would prob- ' ably have eaten the explorers • But it is pleasant to record that one shaggy old polar bear who came, prying about ! theidefekhouKe when therfi; was, no, meat '.shortage was treated' as a 4 -visiter. Bomeona played a tune ofi a concertina tor him. He slept. He .left next morning without breakfast, _ That was . all .very yßeJl' kwhe-n ;-the weather Was! fine, thbrfgfi ohances *f reaching An.gmaksllk, tjUO miles away, by Christmas, were . not rosy. Suppose the ,'weather . changed, qpa: tfi© wind 1 blew?.. It did. It blow fi hurricane. . A ship, in, a.-. Greenland hurricane is no bed of .rose©. . But., a brittle • iceberg 1 In the.. dark waste and middle of the night ; when .all but the watch wetn© in then? -hammocks, there was a;crack like a cannon shot. Soanleone cried: .“We’re flooded!” In the middle’ of’ the declcliotisetho iceberg had split. A, crevasse six feet wide irad opened beneath the - -hammocks, and Hie water was flooding upThe deckrhouse broke in half. . The men, slipping: and falling, made for the Teddy, their only raft in the storm. - , .THE LAST OF THE TEDDY. , Morning came,! and; the .Teddy broke anvay, .giving ■ them only just .fiinie. to soramblo back to oine-lialf. of .the iceberg.' • The Teddy drifted!, away half a mile to the south. There' was hut one desperate chance for them. They must sledge it over the broken fragments of'thb iqe-pack; if they'could, and try to reach the; distant shore or Greenland.' When they got there it might*, be merely to starve, hut it was the only way. So they started out with the sledges, and in the first day they made qnly half , a mile I The next day proved l to be a little better. They actually overtook the. (Teddy, boardfed 1 her to take ’off stores,' and left her. She sank'two days later. ' The men were hearing their 1 worst day now, for after another blizzard the ice to the south \desierted them, and left them drifting’ toward the the certain, death of the Arctic Sea. • Then again - the wind changed; and bore thein to the coast, arid after' a last threat to smash them against the granite cliffs, a sudden calm allowed them to land. , Maury . perils and hardships still awaited trie crew, hut then came another miracle which led them to an Eskimo settlement. The worst was now over. : They, did reach AnginakT •slik by Christmas, and there they were found hy the relief ship sent to look for them. The ship • brought them . home. Was Stoaekleton’s' Quest; arid'surely'it "Was a‘fitting thing for Such a ship to do ?