86 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



I went back to bed, but not to sleep. Elting had 

 been in his berth ever since leaving Welen, and was 

 awake, so I told him the trouble and we wedged our- 

 selves firmly into our bunks to await the morning. 



By breakfast time the crew had chained two long 

 heavy planks, which we happened by luck to have on 

 board, over the stern so that their ends trailed in the 

 water, and could be steered by the wheel chains which 

 were made fast to tackles running to their outboard 

 ends. The worst of the matter, however, was that the 

 old rudder still held fast at the keel shoe and lashed 

 from side to side, making the slender grip of the emer- 

 gency planks almost powerless. The old rudder stock 

 had parted just above the rudder and the mate had dis- 

 covered the accident by noticing that the wheel in the 

 pilot house turned freely, as it naturally would after the 

 strain of the rudder had been broken off. It was the 

 slapping of the tiller against its stop blocks that we had 

 first heard. 



All day long we tried to free the old rudder while we 

 were drifting and steering as best we could straight 

 before the wind. We hauled up on the guy ropes, we 

 rigged a tackle to the spanker boom; Lovering even 

 suggested shooting the pintle loose as the stern rose on 

 a wave. But it was useless; the encumbrance now 

 jammed at one side or the other, now followed docilely 

 in the midst of the wake, but off it did not come until 

 six o'clock that evening. Meantime we had picked up 

 land: East Cape looming through the fog a few miles 

 off. The gale still drove us before it on a wobbling 

 course toward the Diomede Islands. 



Fortunately the damaged rudder finally freed itself. 

 Just after supper the Captain rushed into the saloon. 



