G. A. Henty – The Complete Collection

Chapter 24

"When I came to myself it was daylight. For a bit I could not move, and I thought my ribs were staved in; but at last, after much trouble, I made a shift to work myself out and found that I was about fifty feet above the water. The wave had carried me upon its crest as it swept up the face of the berg, and just as it was at its highest had, by God's mercy, jammed me in between two pinnacles of ice, and though I daresay others had swept up as high, none of them had moved me. I sat for a time dazed and stupid, and then began to take a view of my position. The ship was gone. There was not a sign of a bit of floating timber or any of my messmates. I suppose all the wreckage had been swept away by the current.

"The iceberg had, I reckon, been floating a long time, for it was seamed all over with cracks and crevices. It had been up under a pretty hot sun before the long gale blew it and us south, and the surface was rough and honey-combed. I did not feel as grateful as I ought to have done, lads, that I had been cast up, for I saw nothing but death before me; and thought that it would have been better to have died when I lost my senses in the water than to have to die again as it were by cold or hunger on the berg. However I set-to to climb over the berg and down to the other side so as to get under its lee. It took me two or three hours of hard work, but by the end of that time my clothes were dry, and I got some spirit and hope in me again.

"Once over there I was pretty comfortable; the berg sheltered me from the wind, and the sun began to shine out a bit through the clouds, and in the afternoon, although it was still blowing hard, there was a blue sky overhead. There were a good many other bergs in sight, but none of them seemed near as big as the one that I was on. Fortunately I had a couple of biscuits in my pocket, having thrust them in there when I ran up when there was a call for an extra hand at the helm. One of these I ate, then I lay down on a broad ledge and went off sound asleep. When I awoke it was night. I was warmly clad when we struck, having my thick oil-skin over my pea-jacket, but I felt a bit cold. However I was soon off again, and when I awoke morning had broken. I ate half my last biscuit, took a drink out of a pool--I do not know whether it was melted ice or rain-water--and then climbed up to the top of the berg and looked round.

"I had not expected to see a sail, and I didn't, for we were far out of the track of ships. Still it was just possible one might have been driven south as we had been. The wind had pretty well dropped now, and the sea was going down. I could see by some small bergs near us that we were driving through the waters at a good rate. When a great mountain of ice like that, you know, gets way on it, it will keep it for a mighty long time. It did not make much difference to me which way we were going; I had only half a biscuit left, and no chance of getting more. I sat down and wondered how long I should last, and whether it would not be easier to go down and jump off into the water than to sit there and die by inches. As I was thinking I was looking at what I had taken for another big berg, away in the distance, right on the course we were making, and it suddenly came to me that it was not the same colour as the others. I looked up to see if there was a bit of a cloud anywhere about that might have thrown it into shadow, but there weren't, and at last I felt sure that it wasn't no iceberg at all, but an island.

"I jumped on my feet now quick enough. An island would be better than this berg anyhow. There might be shell-fish and fruit--though fruit did not seem likely so far south--and birds and seals. I had heard tales from others as to islands in the South Seas, and though I knew well enough that I should not find cocoa-nuts and such like, I thought I might get hold of something with which to make a shift to hold on until some whaler happened to pass along. For an hour or two I stood watching; at the end of that time I was sure it was land, and also that we were driving pretty straight towards it. As we got near I could see it was a big island that stretched right across our course, but was still a long way off. I felt sure we should ground somewhere in the night, for I had heard that icebergs drew a tremendous lot of water, and were two or three times as deep below the surface as they were above it. We were two or three hundred feet high, so unless the water kept deep right up to the island we should take ground a good way off it.

"When it got dark I went down on the other side of the berg, for I had sense enough to know that just in the same way as the masts of a ship went straight forward when she struck, the pinnacles of the berg would go toppling down towards the island when she grounded. I was hungry enough, I can tell you, that day, but I kept my last half-biscuit until the morning, so as to give me strength to swim. I dosed off for a bit, but about eight bells, as near as I can guess, I heard a deep grating sort of noise. Then I felt myself rising up. I went higher and higher, till I began to wonder whether there was any chance of the berg turning over. There was a noise like thunder as the pieces of ice broke off and went crashing down the other side. Then slowly I began to sink down again, and I should say for an hour the berg rolled up and down. Then I went off to sleep.

"As you may guess, I was on the top of the berg at daybreak, and saw we had drifted into a big bay, and had grounded about midway. The cliffs in most places rose sheer up out of the water, but here and there there were breaks, and I could see that the land beyond was rough and desolate-looking. I ate my last half-biscuit, and then made my way down to the water's edge. The shore seemed to me about half a mile away--a longish swim in cold water; but I was a good swimmer, and the sea between the berg and the land was as smooth as a pond. I took off my clothes, put them in the middle of my oil-skin and wrapped it round them, tying one of my stockings round the neck of the bag to keep it all together. I had bought the oil-skin just before I started on that voyage, and knew that it would keep out the water tidy. I could not get down nearer than twenty feet of the sea, so I dropped the bag in and then jumped.

"As I had hoped, the thing floated light. I pushed it before me as I swam, and found that by putting my hands on it it would keep me up well when I wanted to rest. However, I did not want much of that. The water was too cold to be idle in, and I never stopped swimming until I got to shore at the point I had marked out as easiest to land on. I wasn't long opening the bag and getting into my things, which were perfectly dry. My first thought was of food. While I had been swimming I thought I heard a sort of barking noise, and I wasn't long in seeing that there were a lot of seals on the rocks. I picked up a goodish chunk of stone, and then lay down and set to crawling towards them. I had heard from sailors who had been whaling that the way to kill a seal was to hit him on the nose, and I kept this in my mind as I crawled up. They did not seem to notice me, and I got close among them without their moving. Then I jumped up. There was a young seal lying not ten feet from me, and before he had time to turn I smashed down my bit of rock between his eyes, and there he lay dead.

"Raw seal's flesh ain't a sort of food as you would take for choice, but I was too hungry to think about cooking, and I ate as big a meal as ever I had in my life. Up till then I hadn't really thought as there was any chance of my being saved in the long run. Now I felt as there was, and for the first time I felt really grateful that I had not shared in the fate of my messmates, and I knelt down and thanked God for having brought me safe to shore. Then I set-to to climb up to the top of the cliffs. It was hard work, and, as I afterwards found, I had just hit, by God's mercy, on the only spot on that part of the island where I could have got up, for in most places the cliffs rose pretty near straight up four or five hundred feet above the sea.

"When I got to the top I saw that there were some mighty high hills covered with snow to the south-east, which might have been fifteen or twenty miles away. It was a dreary kind of country--rocky and desolate, with tufts of thin grass growing in the crevices of the rocks; and I saw that there was precious little chance of picking up a living there, and that if I was to get grub it was to the sea I must look for it. I thought the best thing to do was to try and find out some sheltered sort of cove where, perhaps, I might find a bit of a cave, for I knew that when winter came on there would be no chance for me in the open; so I set out to walk. I brought up with me a big hunk of flesh that would last me for three or four days, and what I had got to look for was fresh water. I walked all that day, keeping along pretty close to the edge of the cliff. I found plenty of little pools of rain-water among the rocks, and did pretty well. I was not hungry enough to tackle raw flesh that night, and had nothing to make a fire with. I had got matches in my pocket in a tight-fitting brass box which had kept them dry, but there was no fuel.

"The next morning I started again, and after walking for four or five hours came to a spot where the cliffs broke away sudden. Getting to the edge I saw that there was a narrow bay stretching some way up into the island. An hour's walk brought me to its head. Here, as I had hoped, I found a little stream running down into it. When you find a bay, most times you will find water running in at its head. The ground sloped gradually here in great terraces; the rock was hard and black, and looked as if it had been burnt. I have heard since that it was what they call volcanic. Being so sheltered there were more things growing here, wherever a little earth had gathered; and I saw some things for all the world like cabbages, and made up my mind to try them, when I got a chance, with my seal-meat.