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 odour 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
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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!
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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!