Raw men

A sudden shock threw Walton to the deck. The schooner’s bow leaped upward with a terrible grinding of ice against the armor of iron. Shattered bergs spumed up from the boiling sea as the schooner hurdled the barrier into the lead beyond. The engines stopped racing; once more the craft forged ahead.

“Consider,” he said to himself, “the Eskimo. He is greasy, filthy, drinks ripe seal-oil--and I have seen him eat clams from the stomach of a walrus. His code crushes the weak; self-preservation is the first law of nature, but it is ten thousand years removed from mine. He should be civilized and no mistake, but the fact remains he is a savage. What can he teach me? Nothing, unless I wish to drink seal-oil.

“Consider that Hanson! Colorless, silent, a bohunk from which an educated man can learn nothing, unless he wishes to sail a schooner or scrub decks.”

One by one he considered the men with whom he had rubbed shoulders the past few months. Queer creatures, all--even the little old Dutchman who spent his life in the engine-room, where the air was always blue and foul from burning oil. The engines seemed eternally on the verge of falling apart, but by merely a laying-on of hands, old Schwartz always contrived to make them respond in the pinch. Of course if one wished to become an engineer--

Walton never entered the engine-room. It was too dirty, greasy and practical. The Eskimo spent hours there. Below were stowed baled furs now pleasing neither to nostrils or eyes, but which eventually were to know the rarest of perfumes and grace the shoulders of soft and lovely women. Walton groped about mentally seeking a lesson in transition, some comparison between raw furs and raw men. There was none. The furs could rise to great heights. They began on the backs of slinking wild creatures, and ended with God’s greatest creation--woman. But the men were plodders, born to their lot, wresting from life whatever they could with bare hands, never to rise above themselves. It was unfortunate, but it was life.

Left to his reflections, Walton might have plucked from the cold Arctic air a line of philosophy that would have gone down in history as a classic. He was groping for it, when the greatest crash of all again sent him to the deck. The schooner trembled and crumpled from the mortal blow.

Walton fought and clawed his way from the wreckage to the floe. There were men below in the fo’c’stle, but they died silently. The blue-eyed Swede burst from the wheelhouse and tore the covering from the narrow, squarish opening leading down to the engine-room. Old Schwartz was down there with his rheumatism, stiff-legged, unable to climb a ladder. A bit of blue haze came from below as the Swede disappeared; the screaming of the splintering schooner was like some living thing dying in agony. The greasy silken cap worn by the engineer protruded just above the hatch an instant as if he were being lifted from below, then disappeared. No cry came from the hatch as the craft went under--just a final puff of blue smoke. The old Dutchman and the colorless Swede died in silence--men of the sea.

Shattered bits of wood amid shattered ice was all that remained of the schooner. The food, shelter and warmth that had been Walton’s a few minutes before, had vanished: he stood on the ice unarmed, without food. Strange words came from behind him, startling him into the realization that he was not alone. The greasy Eskimo stood there, muttering in dialect. His words, “Men die and you live,” meant nothing to Walton, but the glitter in the native’s dark eyes placed him on the defensive. Then he laughed at his fears as the Eskimo’s thin frame was racked with a cough. No danger there; if they reverted to the primitive he could tear the miserable wretch apart. Again the Eskimo repeated: “Men die and you live.”

At the native’s feet lay a section of walrus-skin, sufficient to wrap one man warmly. In his arms he held a skin filled with seal-oil--rancid stuff that would sicken a white man, though an Eskimo could live on it for a time. An ivory-headed spear was slung across his shoulders, and somewhere beneath his parka he carried a knife. Against this was Walton’s pocketknife and his youth. Which would survive? Walton knew the answer: neither! But one would go like a savage, and the other would go like a civilized man. He resolved he would remain true to his teachings, his code, and not become a beastly savage.

The Eskimo wasted no time in sorrowful reflection, but started over the ice, hugging the sealskin bag to his breast, dragging the walrus-hide behind him. Dick followed. In the past few minutes he had experienced a change. He had seen raw men rise to great heights of courage, and die in silent bravery. The colorless Swede could have saved himself, throttled the Eskimo with his bare hands and taken the skin of oil, the walrus-hide and the spear, and with them food, warmth and protection. With the spear or without it, he could have beaten Walton to his knees, for he was a physical giant. Instead, he had given his life for another; and greater heights no man can attain. Before him Walton bowed in humble silence.

In the slow progress over the floe, Walton again reflected on the different codes of the two survivors. The code of Dick Walton protected and cared for the aged. The primal code of the Eskimo was self-preservation--the first law of Nature. Like the majority of civilized people, Walton did not know of the strange code more ancient than that of self-preservation.

Alone, Walton would have fought his way to the ice-armored shore. The Eskimo ignored it and crossed the floe. As aboard the schooner, he considered many things--then leaped to a small berg. Unconsciously Walton found himself considering the skin of seal-oil, and wondering if he could drink it. Of course the native possessed it, along with the ivory-headed spear and walrus-hide, but he was aged and weak, while Walton was young and strong. Age must sleep sometime. Walton leaped to the berg. Neither man spoke.

The berg floated alone in the blue lead, fringed by floes on three sides. Hour after hour, the strange pair huddled in the scant protection of a small ice-hummock while the berg drifted. The Eskimo drew the walrus-hide about him to break the wind seeking access to his age-weary limbs. The spear lay on the ice in front of him within reach. He continued to ignore the white man; yet it was apparent he tried to read his thoughts. Walton found some solace in his pipe. His tobacco-pouch was nearly full; the matchbox had been refilled that morning. Hours dragged slowly, but darkness came too soon.

Walton had read that men freeze to death without realizing what is taking place, but he found the cold aroused him even when he dozed. Then he would leap to his feet and stamp about until warmth was restored. He was desperately hungry, but not hungry enough to drink seal-oil. In any event, when starvation drove him to the point of drinking the nauseous stuff, the Eskimo would have finished the last of it.

Day came, sunless. The sky was over-cast with the dreary gray of a casket. The native stirred slightly and leaped to his feet. The calculation he had made the day before was correct; the berg had become a part of another floe, the vastness of which the eye could not measure.

The Eskimo squirmed cautiously to the highest point in the immediate vicinity, then as cautiously returned, his eyes gleaming, the spear gripped tightly. He grunted in dialect, and glanced about; then Walton understood. A polar bear had sensed their presence and was making his way to them, hunting instead of being hunted. The native gripped his spear tighter as the bear drew near. It was an ordeal a strong man would have shunned.