Chapter 9 Chapter Nine A Message

Finally crossing the polar circle, the "Forward" passed near Holsteinberg at noon on April 30.Majestic mountains tower over the eastern horizon.It can be said that there is no more ice floes on the sea, or that these floes are easy to avoid.When the southeast wind blew, the ship put up the fore-sail, mizzen-sail, second-tier square sail, and third-tier sail, and sailed up the Baffin Sea. It was a very calm day and the crew could rest for a while. Numerous birds were cruising and circling around the ship. Among them the doctor noticed the alca-aua, which was almost identical to the mallard, with the same neck, wings, black back and white Breasted, they dive nimbly into the water, and they often dive for more than 40 seconds.

Nothing new happened that day, but for another incident aboard the ship, however unusual it seemed, it happened anyway. At six o'clock in the morning, when Richard Sandon returned to his cabin after his shift, he found a letter on the table with the following address: "Forward Commander Richard Sandon baffin sea. " Shanton could hardly believe his eyes, but before he knew the contents of this strange letter, he had the doctor, James Wall, and the bosun called for, and showed it to them. "It's weird," Johnson said. "That would be interesting," thought the doctor.

"Anyway," Shandon exclaimed, "we're about to find out the secret..." He quickly tore open the envelope and read the following: "commander, The Captain of the 'Forward' is very pleased with the coolness, wisdom and courage shown last time by your sailors, your officers, and yourself, and he asks you to thank the whole crew. Please sail straight north to Melville Sound, from where you are about to enter Smith Strait. Captain of the 'Forward' KZ Monday, April 30, near Walsingheim. " "Is it all here?" cried the doctor. "It's all here," Sandon replied.

The letter fell from his hand. "Well," said Wall, "this phantom captain doesn't even mention coming on board anymore, and I don't think he'll come again." "But this letter," Johnson said, "how did it come about?" Shandon was silent. "M. Wall is right," replied the doctor, picking up the letter and turning it over, "the captain had no good reason to come on board..." "What reason?" Sandon asked eagerly. "Because he's already on board," answered the doctor succinctly. "Already!" exclaimed Santon, "what do you mean?"

"If not, how do you explain the arrival of this letter?" Johnson nodded in agreement. "Impossible!" said Sandon impulsively. "I know all the crew. Could it be that this captain was among them when the ship set off? That's impossible, I've told you! There isn't a single man I haven't seen a hundred times in Liverpool over two years, yours Inference, doctor, is unacceptable!" "What do you think, then, Shandon?" "Anything else. I admit the captain or one of his men, how would I know? Sneak aboard in the dark or fog, whatever you can think of, we're not far from land, Eskimo The men's ship was invisible among the icebergs, and it is probable that they came to the ship and delivered the letter... The fog was heavy and favored the realization of the plan..."

"But the ship would be invisible, too," replied the Doctor. "How could he spot the Forward in the mist, if we hadn't seen an uninvited visitor aboard?" "It's obvious," Johnson said. "I'll stick to my hypothesis," said the doctor. "What do you think, Sandon?" "Look at it any way you want," said Sandon angrily, "except the supposition that this man is on board." "Perhaps," Wall added, "there is one of his men among the crew who takes his orders." "Perhaps," said the doctor.

"But who?" Sandon asked. "I know all my men, I tell you, for a long time." "In short," continued Johnson, "if the Captain appears, man or ghost, we accept him, but isn't there another lesson, or another message, to be drawn from this letter?" "What?" Sandon asked. "That's how we're going not only to Melville Bay, but to Smith Strait." "You are right," said the doctor again. "Smith Strait," repeated Richard Sandon mechanically. "Obviously," went on Sandon, "the purpose of the 'Forward' is not to seek the North-West Passage, for we are to throw the only entrance there to the left, which is Lancaster Sound. Difficult navigation in the sea."

"Yes, Smith Strait," Sandon replied, "this is the route that the American Kahn traveled in 1853. How dangerous it is! For a long time people thought that he disappeared in these terrible waters! Since we are going there, we must Go! But where? To the extreme?" "Why not?" cried the doctor. The bosun shrugged his shoulders at the thought of this madness. "Anyway," continued James Wall, "let's go back to the captain. If he existed, the only houses I've seen off the coast of Greenland are Disko Island or Urbana Vik, he might be in the Wait for us there, in a few days, we will know what's going on."

"But," asked the doctor, "don't you want the crew to know the contents of this letter?" "As long as the commander allows it," Sandon replied, "I have no objection." "Why is that?" asked the doctor. "Because everything strange and unreal is fundamentally unnerving to our people, who are already very anxious about their fate in this way of sailing. Therefore, if they are pushed into the supernatural, it will have bad consequences. , we can no longer count on them at critical moments. What do you think, Commander?" "And you, doctor, what do you think?" asked Sandon.

"Mr. Johnson," replied the doctor, "is quite reasonable, in my opinion." "What about you, James?" "Unless there is a better idea," replied Wall, "I agree with these gentlemen." Sandon thought for a while, and he read the letter carefully again. "Gentlemen," said he, "you have very good ideas, but I cannot adopt them." "Why is that, Shandon?" asked the doctor. "Because the instructions of this letter are very specific, and all they require of the crew to know is the captain's compliment, and, as I have hitherto blindly obeyed his orders, in whatever manner they were communicated to me, I cannot……"

"But . . . " Johnson went on, worrying about the effect such a communication would have on the sailors' psyches. "My good Johnson," went on Sandon, "I understand your obstinacy, and your reasons are very good, but read this: "He asked you to thank the crew." "Just do it," Johnson continued, a man of discipline after all. "Should the entire crew be assembled on deck?" "Go ahead," Sandon replied. News of the captain's letter spread quickly through the ship.The sailors arrived at the patrol post punctually, and the commander read the mysterious letter aloud. The letter brought a gloomy silence, and the crew's individual imaginations gave way to Clifton's superstitious imagination, who believed that Captain Dog played a considerable role in the matter when he happened to be on the When he met it, he didn't forget to say hello to it. "What did I tell you," he repeated to the sailors, "this beast can write." Everyone was powerless to refute this view, even Bell, the carpenter, was speechless. But one thing was indisputable to each, that though the captain was not on board, his shadow and his spirit were on board, and the wisest men never exchanged their opinions with one another. At noon on May 1, the observed latitude is 68° and longitude is 56°32′.The temperature has risen, and the thermometer indicates -4°C. The doctor was amused to see a mother bear and two cubs playing on the edge of a land-bound ice floe.Accompanied by Wall and Simpson, he tried to hunt it in a small boat, but the animal was not aggressive, and immediately fled with her children, so the doctor had to give up. Rounding Cape Chidley at night with a favorable wind, the high mountains of Disko Island immediately appeared on the horizon, and Godavan Bay, the residence of the Danish Governor, was left to the right. Lost the canoe of the Eskimos trying to keep up. Disko Island is also called Whale Island. It was on this island that Sir John Franklin wrote his last letter to the Admiralty on July 12, 1845. It was also on this island that Captain Mark Clintock returned and brought The conclusive evidence of that voyage wreck. The coincidence of the two events was such that the doctor should have noticed that the tragic resemblance was much in his memory, but the high mountains of Disko Island soon faded from his vision. There are many icebergs on the coast, which belong to the kind that cannot be melted even by the maximum thawing. This series of continuous peaks is really strange. At about three o'clock the next day, passing Sanderson-Cape Hope in the northeast, the land was thrown 15 nautical miles to starboard, and the mountains were reddish brown.At night, many finned whales play among the icebergs, blowing air and water out of their nostrils. On the night of May 3rd-4th, the doctor saw the sun for the first time brushing the horizon, without sinking its bright disk into the horizon. At the moment it glows continuously. To the unaccustomed viewer, the constant daylight has always been a surprising, even exhausting thing, and one cannot believe how vital the night is to the health of the eyes. I felt real pain from the light, made all the more scorching by the reflection from the iceberg. On May 5, the "Forward" passed the 72nd latitude.In two months, it will encounter many whalers operating at high latitudes, but the channel is still not clear enough to allow large ships to enter the Baffin Sea. The next day the ship passed the Isle of Mujeres before arriving at Urbana Vik, the northernmost Danish colony on this coast.