Chapter 26 Chapter 26 The Last Coal

It appeared that the bears were indeed out of reach; a few seals were killed on the 4th, 5th and 6th of November; then the wind changed and the temperature rose many degrees; Wreak havoc.It was impossible to leave the boat, and the people struggled with the damp.Over the weekend, the condenser was filled with bucket ice cubes. On 15 November the weather changed and the thermometer dropped to -31°C under the influence of certain atmospheric conditions.This is the lowest temperature ever measured.The cold was bearable in calm weather, but the wind blew up, and the wind pierced the sky like a knife.

The doctor regretted being thus imprisoned, for the snow was blown so hard that he was sure to walk, and he might have made a long journey. However, it should be said that any strenuous activity in this cold weather can quickly make you breathless.A man cannot do a quarter of his usual work; iron tools are soon unusable; superior. The crew were stuck on board and had to walk for two hours on the covered deck, where smoking was allowed but not in the common room. There, as long as the fire didn't rage, the ice invaded through the seams of walls and floors; not a nail, not a nail, not a sheet of metal, did not immediately form a layer of ice.

The vagaries of the weather puzzled the doctor.The breath the people exhaled condensed in the air, changed from liquid to solid, and fell back into snow around them.The cold gathered strength a few feet from the fire, and people stayed close to the fire, close together. The doctor, however, advised them to undergo exercise to acclimatize to this temperature, which was obviously not the lowest temperature yet; he advised them to gradually accustom their skin to severe pain, and set an example; but most of them stayed where they were because of laziness and numbness ; they don't want to move, preferring to sleep in the harsh temperatures.

But the doctor sees no danger in coming from a warm room into bitter cold; such a sudden switch is only harmful to a perspiring person; the doctor proves his point with examples, but his theory fails or is not very useful. As for John.Hatteras, it seems he is not affected by this temperature.He walked up and down in silence, neither slow nor fast.Doesn't his strong body feel the cold?Does he have in himself to the maximum the natural heat he seeks in sailors?Was he so stubborn that he gave such an impression outwardly?His men were not surprised to see him in the freezing cold of twenty-four degrees Fahrenheit; he had been away from the captain's quarters for hours, and when he returned there was no sign of cold on his face.

This man is very strange, the doctor said to Johnson, he surprised me!He has a stove on him!This is one of the harshest nature I have studied in my life! The fact is, replied Johnson, that he comes and goes, walks about in the open air, and wears no more clothes than he did in June. oh!Clothes are nothing, replied the doctor, and what is the use of being warm for those who cannot generate their own heat?That's trying to wrap a piece of ice in a woolen quilt and warm it up!But Hatteras doesn't need that; his physicality is what it is.I am not at all surprised that he was able to keep himself warm, as by the glowing coals.

Johnson, who cleared the wellhead each morning, found more than ten feet of ice had accumulated. Almost every night the doctor saw a beautiful aurora; and every evening from four to eight o'clock the northern sky showed a faint multicolored tint; Each end appears to be leaning on the ice rink.Gradually, the shiny area rises into the sky due to the magnetic force, and a darker streak appears; the beam becomes thinner and longer, flickering; Bathed in red, yellow or green shimmering light.This is a dazzling, incomparable scene.Soon the various curves merged into one point, forming a colorful aurora.Finally, the arcs overlapped with each other, the brilliant light dimmed, the intense light became pale, dim, erratic, and blurred, and the spectacular scene gradually weakened and almost disappeared, and finally disappeared silently into the black clouds in the south.

People cannot understand that such a strange phenomenon can occur at a high latitude less than eight degrees from the pole.The aurora seen in temperate regions makes no impression, not even a faint one; and it seems that Heaven intends to reserve to this climate its most wonderful spectacle. When the moonlight comes out, it is also accompanied by many phantom moons. Many moons appear in the sky, and the sky is much brighter.There is often a halo around the moon, and the moon shines brightly in the middle of the halo. On the twenty-sixth of November, there was a high tide, and the sea spurted violently from the mouth of the well; the thick ice seemed to be shaken by the rising tide, and there was a terrible crackling that foretold the confrontation on the bottom of the sea; fortunately the ship was firmly fixed on the ice. On the bed, only its rigging swayed and rattled; after all, Hatteras had secured the ship in anticipation of such a thing.

The days that followed were colder; the sky was thick with mist; the wind raised the snow; and if there were lumps of snow in the air or on the ice-fields it was difficult to see; it was an indescribable confusion. The crew was busy with various in-house jobs, chief among them was the preparation of seal fat and grease; they were all turned into blocks of ice, which had to be hacked with axes; the ice was broken up so that it was as hard as marble; .Containers of any kind, as it has been seen, are useless; for they will burst under the action of the liquid whose temperature changes it. On the twenty-eighth, the temperature dropped to minus thirty-six degrees Celsius; there were only ten days' worth of coal left, and everyone was watching in horror at the moment when the fuel would run out.

Hatteras, out of economy, had the fire in the poop put out, and from then on Sandon, the doctor, and he had to share the quarters with the crew.So Hatteras came into more frequent contact with his men, who cast dull and timid glances at him.He heard their complaints, their reproaches, their threatening words, but could not punish them.Plus, he seems deaf to all of it.He does not take the place closest to the fire.He stayed in a corner, arms folded, not saying a word. Penn and his friends refused to take any exercise against the advice of their doctors; Bad influence, a dreadful bout of scurvy arose on board.

Physicians long ago began to dispense lemon juice and tablets of calcium each morning; but these usually very effective preventive measures were of little use to the patients, and the disease, in its course, soon displayed its most dire symptoms. What a sight the sinews and muscles of these unfortunates writhe in agony!Their legs were terribly swollen, covered with great black and blue spots; their bleeding gums and swollen lips could only make indistinct sounds; Clifton was the first to contract the dreadful disease; soon Gripper, Brenton, and Strong had to leave their hammocks.Those who were not afflicted could not escape this painful scene; there was no shelter but the common room; they could only stay there; and this place was soon transformed into a hospital, for some of the eighteen sailors on board the Thirteen were not long in contracted with scurvy, and Penn appeared to have escaped the infection; his strong constitution spared him; Sandon also showed the first symptoms of the disease; but the disease did not progress. , He maintains a certain level of fitness through exercise.

The doctor devotes himself to the care of the patient, and it pains him to see that he cannot relieve the suffering of the patient.But he brought as much joy as he could to these mourning crew; That prodigious memory furnished him with amusing tales, and those who were still healthy cuddled round the fire; but the groans, complaints, and cries of despair of the sick sometimes interrupted him, and his story came to an abrupt end, He became a dedicated doctor again. But his health was tolerable; he hadn't lost weight; his fat body was his best clothes, he said, and he thought it would be nice to dress like a seal or a whale, thanks to their thick layer of blubber. , in order to easily resist the polar climate. Hatteras was indifferent, both physically and mentally.The pain of his crew seemed to have little effect on him.It may be that he does not allow his feelings to show in his face; but a careful observer will sometimes catch a beating human heart beneath his steely exterior. The doctor analyzed and researched him, but finally he couldn't classify this strange personality and supernatural nature. The temperature was still dropping; the corridors on the deck were deserted except for the scurrying and barking of the huskies' dogs. Someone was always in charge of the fire, and was in charge of the cooking; it was essential that the fire not go out; as soon as the fire fell a little, the cold crept into the house, the ice condensed on the walls, and suddenly the condensed moisture turned into snowflakes and fell on the ship. on these unfortunate occupants. It was amidst these indescribable torments that one endured until the eighth of December; on this morning, as usual, the doctor looked at the thermometer outside.He found that the mercury in the mercury tank was completely frozen. Minus forty-four degrees Fahrenheit!He murmured to himself in horror. On this day, people threw the last coal from the ship into the fire.