The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash by John Henry Goldfrap

Author:John Henry Goldfrap
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781776599233
Publisher: The Floating Press

Chapter XVI - A Polar Storm

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Early in February the voyagers, whose progress had been slow, found themselves in a veritable sea of "Pancake ice." Everywhere in a monotonous waste the vast white field seemed to stretch, with only a few albatrosses and petrels dotting its lonely surface. The thermometer dropped to ten below zero, and the boys found the snug warmth of the steam-heated cabins very desirable. There was a fair wind, and sail had been set on the Southern Cross to aid the work of towing her, and she was driving through the ice with a continuous rushing and crashing sound that at first was alarming, but to which her company soon grew accustomed.

Captain Barrington announced at noon that day that they were then in lat. 60 degrees 28 minutes, and longitude 59 degrees 20 minutes West—bearings which showed that they would be, before many days had past, at the Great Barrier itself. Excitement ran high among the boys at the receipt of this news, and Frank and Harry, who had fitted up a kind of work-room in the warmed hold, worked eagerly at their auto-sledge, which was expected to be of much use in transporting heavy loads to and from the ship to the winter quarters.

Before the two vessels reached the Barrier, however, they were destined to encounter a spell of bad weather.

One evening Ben Stubbs announced to the boys, who had been admiring a sunset of a beauty seldom seen in northern climes, that they were in for a hard blow, and before midnight his prediction was realized. Frank awoke in his bunk, to find himself alternately standing, as it seemed, on his head and his feet. The Southern Cross was evidently laboring heavily and every plank and bolt in her was complaining. Now and again a heavy sea would hit the rudder with a force that threatened to tear it from its pintles, solidly though it was contrived.

Somewhat alarmed, the boy aroused the others, and they hastened out on deck. As they emerged from the cabin the wind seemed to blow their breath back into their bodies and an icy hand seemed to grip them. It was a polar-storm that was raging in all its fury.

As she rose on a wave, far ahead the boys could see the lights of the Brutus. Only for a second, however, for the next minute she would vanish in the trough of a huge comber, and then they could hear the strained towing cable "twang" like an overstretched piano wire.

"Will it hold?" That was the thought in the minds of all.

In order to ease the hawser as much as possible, Captain Barrington, when he had noted the drop of the barometer, had ordered a "bridle," or rope attachment, placed on the end of the cable, so as to give it elasticity and lessen the effect of sudden strains, but the mountainous seas that pounded against the blunt bows of the Southern Cross were proving the stout steel strand to the uttermost.

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