stefansson-wrangel-09-25-004-007

- 7 -

Hadley's Narrative

The evening of January 4th (1914) there was a crack like a
shot that brought everybody out on deck with a startled look. We found the
ice had split with a narrow crack from the ship's stem right out ahead. When
we returned to the cabin there was a gret discussion started among the scien-
tific staff. Each one had his theory about it but it seemed to be finally
decided that the tides were at the bottom of the trouble. The Doctor asked
me what I thought of it and I answered him that, as the wind was blowing
pretty fresh from the north, I thought that might acocunt for the pressure.
Whenever there was pressure during our drift there was always a dicussion
about it.

The next Saturday about five A.M. all hands were awak-
ened by a loud crashing and groaning of the ship and for a few minutes she
was writhing in her ice dock as if her last hour had come. But after a while
things quieted down. It happened to be blowing rather strong from the north
and everybody was in the alert that evening. About seven P.M. we got a
strong squeesing which seemed to lift the ship several inches. Fifteen
minutes later there was a loud cracking of timbers, she heeled to star-
board several degrees, and water commenced to pour into the engine room.
A few minutes later the Captain gave orders to abandon the ship.

The only food that was taken out of the ship at this
time was [pemmican]. The Captain detailed me to look out for all the bags
of clothing that were in Mr. Stefansson's cabin, and also the rifles,
ammunition, etc. We took also a twelve-gauge shotgun, but the ammunition
that was passed out of the ship with this shotgun wwas all sixteen-gauage
loaded shells and the mistake was not discovered until too late.