Chapter 21 Chapter 21 Bello's Death

On July 3rd and 4th the temperature remained at 14°C; this was the highest recorded during the voyage.But by Thursday the 5th, the wind was blowing to the southeast, and with it came violent snowballs.The temperature had dropped to twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit the night before.Hatteras, ignoring the displeasure of the crew, gave the order to sail.For thirteen days, that is, since the Cape of Dundas, the Admiral had not gone a degree northward; The Killington Canal agreed, and they sailed without much difficulty. It was not easy to set sail; but fore-, second-, and third-sails were spread by night, and Hatteras made bold advances among the icebergs, which the current dragged southward.The crew was so exhausted on the tortuous course that they had to handle the sails in reverse.

The Wellington Strait is not too wide; it is sandwiched between the South Dion coast to the east and Cornwallis to the west; the island has always been considered a peninsula.John.Sir Franklin circled it in 1846 via the west coast to the northern headland of the strait. The Wellington Strait expedition was completed in 1851 by Captain Benny with the whaling ships Lady Franklin and Sophie; At Cape Beecher, a clear sea was found.Clear seas, which is what Hatteras wanted. What Stuart found, I will too.He said to the doctor, I can sail to the North Pole. But, replied the Doctor, are you not afraid of your crew?

my crew!Haderas said bluntly. Then he said in a low voice: Poor people!He murmured that the doctor was surprised. This was the first time the latter had discovered such feelings in the captain's heart. but not!The latter said firmly that they want to follow me!They will follow me! But even though the Vampire wasn't afraid of colliding with ice packs, she barely made it to the north because headwinds made her often have to stop.It rounded Cape Spencer and Cape Innis with difficulty; and on Tuesday the 10th it crossed the seventy-fifth parallel, to Clifton's great delight. The Forward came to a point where Captain Haven's two American ships, the Rescue and the Forward, were in dire peril.Dr. Kane took part in the voyage; and at the end of September, 1850, the ships, surrounded by a great pack of ice, were thrown with irresistible force into the Lancaster Channel.

Sandon to James.Wall narrated the terrible disaster, and several of the ship's people were present. The Onward and the Rescue, he told them, were rocked, pitched, and rocked by the ice pack so badly that they ended up not lighting the ships; but the temperature dropped to minus eighteen degrees Fahrenheit!During the whole winter, the unfortunate crew was imprisoned in the ice pack, ready to lose their ship, and for three weeks they didn't even take off their clothes!It was under such dire circumstances that after a yaw of more than four hundred nautical miles, they reached the middle of the Baffin Sea!

One can imagine the effect these words had on the minds of the bewildered crew. In the course of the conversation Johnson was talking to the doctor of an incident which had occurred in these waters; and the doctor, at his request, reminded him of the exact moment when the ship had reached latitude 75°30. right here!right here!"This is that miserable place," cried Johnson! At this point, tears welled up in the eyes of the grave bosun. Please tell the story of Lieutenant Bello's death, the doctor told him. Well, Mr. Crawburn, what boldness and courage this honorable officer has!

Right here, you say, where the disaster happened? Right here, in this part of the North Déon coast!oh!This is largely God's will, if Captain Pallen had returned to the ship earlier, such a misfortune would not have happened! Listen to me, Mr. Crawburn, you will see what life often depends on.You know that Lieutenant Bello made the first expedition in 1850 to find Franklin? Yes, Johnson, on the Prince Albert. Well, he came back from France in 1853, and got permission to go aboard the Felix, where I was sailor, and the captain was Eaglefield.We went with the Bridal Barney to deliver supplies to Beecher Island.

We are unfortunately missing these! That's all, Mr. Crawburn.We arrived at Beecher Island at the beginning of August; on the tenth of this month Captain Eaglefield left the Felix to join Captain Pallen, a month since he had left his ship the North Star.When he came back, he planned to send urgent documents from the Admiralty to Edward who was wintering in the Wellington Strait.Sir Bilcher's hands.But no sooner had our captain set off than Captain Palen returned to his ship.Why didn't he come back before Captain Eaglefield started!Lieutenant Bello was worried that our captain's absence would prolong, and knowing that the Admiralty's document was very urgent, he decided to send it in person.He left command of both ships to Captain Pallen, and on August 12th he set out with sleds and dinghies.He took Corporal Harvey from the Northern Star, three sailors, Madden, David, and me.We expect Edward.Sir Bilcher would be near Cape Beecher, on the northern side of the Channel; and from this coast we started, in sledges, clinging to the eastern bank.On the first day we bivouacked three miles from Cape Innis; on the second day we stopped on an ice floe about three miles from Cape Burden.On a night as bright as day, with land three miles away, Lieutenant Bello decided to camp there; They were more fortunate; they had prepared a rope, by which they connected the shore to the sledge, and by this rope the three articles were brought; but on the fourth time we felt the iceberg begin to move; Mr. Bello greatly Noisily told his companions to drop the rope, we included the lieutenant, David.Hook and I, were dragged a long way offshore.At this time, the southwest wind blew violently, and it began to snow.But we haven't been in great danger yet, and he should have come back, because the rest of us have already!

Johnson paused a moment, looking at the deadly shore, and went on: After our companions had disappeared from view, we first resolved to take shelter under a sledge tent, but there was no; so we set to work with our knives to build a house on the ice.Bello sat for half an hour and talked to us about the dangerous situation we were in; I told him I wasn't afraid.God protects us, he replied, not a hair will fall from our heads.I asked him what time it was, and he replied, about a quarter past six.It was a quarter past six in the morning on Thursday, August 18th.So Mr. Bello bundled up his books, and said he wanted to see how the ice drifted; and he had hardly walked four minutes before I went to him, and made a circle round the ice where we were hiding; But I saw him no more; and returning to our perch, I found his crutch on the opposite bank of a crevasse about five inches wide, where the ice was all broken.I yelled, but no one answered.At this time, a strong wind blew up.I searched around the ice floes, but I found no sign of the poor lieutenant.

What do you think is going on here?asked the doctor, becoming agitated by the account. I think, when Mr. Bellow came out of his hiding-place, the wind swept him into the crevasse, his jacket buttoned up, and he couldn't swim to the surface!Oh, Mr. Crawburn, I feel the greatest sorrow of my life!I don't want to believe it!This honest officer sacrificed his life for his loyalty to duty!You must know that he wanted to go to land before the thaw in order to follow the orders of Captain Palen!Upright young man, loved by everyone on board, kind and brave!All England wept for him, and even the Eskimos, who heard of the good lieutenant's death from Captain Eaglefield on his return from Pound Sound, wept, as did I: Poor Bellow !Poor Bello!

But your companion and you, Johnson, asked the doctor, moved by this touching account, how did you get back to land? We, sir, are insignificant; we were on the ice floe another twenty-four hours, with no food and no one; With one oar remaining, we climbed onto an ice floe that would stand us, and we steered it like a raft.And so we were back on shore, but by ourselves, without our honorable officer! Having said this, the Vanguard passed the unfortunate coast, and Johnson could not see the site of this terrible calamity.The next day, left Griffin Bay to starboard, and two days later, rounded Cape Grinnell and Cape Helpman; The ship dropped anchor in the Bering Bay at one end of the strait; Hatteras encountered a sea almost as unimpeded as that which Belcher had used to winter with the Pioneer and the Rescue to latitude seventy-seven.This was his first winter from 1852-1853.For, the next year, from 1853 to 1854, he wintered in Bering Bay, where the Vanguard now anchored.

Again, after a series of most dire perils and perils, he was obliged to leave the Rescue among the perpetual ice floes. Sandon likewise recounted the disaster to the distraught sailors.Did Hatteras know of his first officer's treachery?Can't say; in any case, he's kept silent on the subject. At the height of the Bering Bay there is a narrow passage linking the Wellington Strait and the Queens Strait.There, packs of ice floes were firmly huddled together.Hatteras tried in vain to find a northern sea route to Hamilton Island; the wind was against him; he had to pass between Hamilton Island and Cornwallis Island; five precious days were lost by futile efforts.The temperature began to drop, and on the nineteenth of July it even dropped to minus four degrees;The wind began to turn to the west, hindering the ship's course.but.He was anxious to get to that place of unimpeded sea that Stuart had found.On the nineteenth, he decided to enter the channel at any cost; the wind was raging ahead of the ship, and the ship's propellers could withstand the violent rain and snow, but Hatteras had to think of his fuel first; The law uses fiber to pull the boat.Hatteras failed to take into account the exhaustion of the crew, and resorted to what whalers would have done in similar circumstances.He had the skiffs lowered in the water; and at the same time hung them from the tackle on the reverse side of the ship; and they were fastened securely from fore to aft; some oars to starboard, some to port; Everyone took turns sitting in the paddling position and rowing hard so that the boat could sail against the wind. The Forward plods along the course; one can understand how exhausting such labor can be; someone murmurs.Sailing in this way for four days, until June 23rd, we arrived at Bering Island in Queens Strait. Still a headwind.The crew could take it no longer.The doctor felt that the health of the crew could not be guaranteed, and he saw in some the first signs of scurvy; for use. Hatteras knew very well that his crew should be no longer to be expected; that persuasion was of no avail; that he was determined to prevail with sternness, and that he showed no mercy at such times;Shandon was particularly distrustful, even to James.Wall didn't trust him either, although the latter dared not speak up.Hatteras had on his side the Doctor, Johnson, Bell, Simpson, men who were devoted to him wholeheartedly, and he decided that among those who hesitated were Foucault, Bourdain, Officer Walson, First Mechanic Boo Renton, at certain moments, they will turn against him; as for the others, Penn, Gripper, Clifton, Warren, they openly discuss their plans for rebellion; they want to take their Companions, forcing the Forward back to England. Hatteras could see clearly that he couldn't let these restless and especially tired crew members continue to do their old jobs.For twenty-four hours, he watched Bering Island without moving a step forward.However, the temperature has dropped, and in July at this high latitude, the effects of the coming winter can already be felt.On the 24th, the temperature dropped to minus six degrees Celsius.New ice floes form at night and are 135 to 180 millimeters thick. If snow falls on it, it quickly becomes strong enough to support the weight of a person.The surface of the sea has taken on this dirty color, indicating that ice edges are starting to form. Hatteras could not be mistaken for this disturbing omen; if the seaway was blocked, he would have to spend the winter in this place so far from the destination he was sailing, without even catching a glimpse that he was supposed to be so close.The unimpeded ocean recorded in previous reports.He resolved to go forward little by little, a few degrees to the north; and seeing that he could neither keep his exhausted crew at the oars nor sail with the constant head wind, he ordered the fires to be lit.