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Show 1; 1ft jf, 5i f By ELMO SCOTT WATSON '' Tk N AUGUST 26, 1SS1, a frr9! ll little group of white men F( jt' two Eskimos stood kvy on the shore of an Ice-Si Ice-Si ; locked bay fifteen dun-Si dun-Si . dred miles north of the Arctic circle and watched a little steamer push its way cautiously through a "lead," a dark streak of open water which ran irregularly across the surface sur-face of the frozen sea. The steamer was the "Proteus," which had been held in the ice there for sis days while Captain Pike waited in vain for a "lead" to cleave a path through the ice of Lady Franklin bay so that be could start south towards civilization. The men who stood watching the ship until it disappeared from sight were members of the party officially known as the Lady Franklin Eay Expeditionary Ex-peditionary Force, which had been sent out by the United States government govern-ment In the interests of science. But It was more commonly knowD as the Greely Expedition, in honor of its commander, First Lieut. Adolphus W. Greely, of the Fifth cavalry of the United States regular army. His subordinates sub-ordinates were Second Lieutenants Fredericq F. Kislingbury, of the Eleventh Elev-enth infantry, and James B. Lock-wood, Lock-wood, of the Twenty-third infantry. These with Octave Pavy, assistant army surgeon, eight sergeants, two corporals and nine privates, most of whom had lately been serving in the IndiaD wars on the western frontier, and two dog-drivers, Jens Edward and Frederik Thorley Christiansen, comprised com-prised the personnel of the party. The departure of the "Proteus" marked the beginning of what has been aptly called "one of the supreme adventure stories of the world," a story of almost unbelievable human grit and endurance which forms one of the brightest pages In the annals of the American army. For two years this party was as much lost from contact con-tact with their fellow men as if they had been od another planet, and when finally the third attempt to rescue Greely succeeded, of the original twenty-five there were Just seven left alive and one of these died within twenty-four hours. The other eighteen eight-een had perished of starvation or ac-. ac-. cident after a series of adventures marked by incredible suffering and incredible in-credible heroism. The official records of the Greely expedition ex-pedition were made public soon after Commander W. S. Schley (Admiral Schley, of Spanish-American war fame) and brought its survivors back to the United States on the "Thetis," but It was not until nearly half a century cen-tury later that the heroic human side i of the story became known. For more 1 than forty-five years the diary of Sergeant Ser-geant David L. Brainard, one of the seven survivors, lay unused in an old trunk. Recently it was brought to light and under the title of "The Outpost Out-post of the Lost" it was published by the Bobbs-Merrill company. Today there are but two survivors of the Lady Franklin Bay Expeditionary Force. They are MaJ. Gen. A. W. Greely, retired, the commander of the Ill-fated expedition, and the man who .erred as a sergeant under him, now Erlg. Gen. David L. Brainard, retired. It is therefore especially appropriate that his old commander, who once called Brainard "the most remarkable of a number of remarkable men of that expedition," should write in the book a "salutation" to remind himself how "Together with our comrades we faced for nine months the prospect of death day by day and were harassed by the sight of our associates perishing perish-ing of starvation or from vicissitudes In the polar field." According to the plans for the expedition. ex-pedition. It was to establish a station Rescue ofthe Survivors In the northern part of Grant or Grin-nell Grin-nell Land to study the meteorology of the polar regions. Such a station was established, named Fort Conger and then the "Proteus" which had brought them, sailed away. The "Proteus" was to return the next year, if possible, pos-sible, to carry them away. If not, another relief expedition would be sent for them in August, 1SS3. In case It should fail, Greely's orders were to leave Fort Conger not later than September 1, 1SS3 and "retreat southward by boat until the relieving vessel Is met or Little island is reached," or until a sledge party from tie Little Island base was met As a matter of fact the "Proteus" failed to reach them In August, 18S2. But, says the foreword to the book, "The first year had not passed disagreeably, dis-agreeably, and it Is doubtful if anyone any-one regretted the experience, future uncertainty thrown into the bargain. The entire party had had the distinction distinc-tion of spending a winter farther north than any Arctic explorers had ever wintered, with the exception of an English outfit that had wintered on shipboard. Moreover two of their number (Lieutenant Lockwood and Sergeant Brainard on May 13, 1S82) had set a new Farthest North record in the centuries-old race to the pole. "That first winter there was weather weath-er In which Medford rum froze solid and the kerosene oil had to be thawed out before the lamps could be lighted. . . . At first there had been plenty to do, and the work was Intelligently organized by the commanding officer and tackled with zeal by th8 men. . . . But in a few weeks cold and darkness put an end to practically all outside work except the instrument tending near the station. The monotony mo-notony of the Arctic night produces strange effects on white men. They become melancholy, sleepless and very Irritable. . . Every diversion twenty-five minds could think of was tried out and dropped. "Checkers are all the rage now," wrote Sergeant Brainard, the faithful diarist. "But nothing lasts like long, loud arguments. argu-ments. Today the subject was the relative merits of the fire departments of Chicago and New York." However, "the second winter was harder to bear than the first," and "on June 17, 1883, Sergeant P.ralnard wrote that although 'It In a few weeks too early for a relief ship, we cannot keep our eyes from wandering hopefully hope-fully to the south.'" But again they were disappointed and they began the tragic retreat related by P.ralnard. On August 0, 1883, they Bet out In small boats through a "lead" which had finally formed In the ice after they had walled for It for several days. Their course was through Kennedy Ken-nedy channel, which was filled with grinding floes of Ice upon which Greely's force camped when there was no open water through which to , push the boats. Whenever they could use the boats they hugged the coast of Grinnell Land through Kane sea. Early In September they were forced to abandon their boats and for thirty-four thirty-four days they were adrift on floating ice. Finally they managed to reach Smith sound and landed south of Cape Sabine, north of and opposite Littleton island, which two hundred and fifty miles away. It was near here that the first year relief ship had been forced to turn back and far south of Cape Sabine, the second year rescue ship had been crushed In the Ice and all provisions lost. The record of their stay at Cape Sabine Sa-bine is one Ion? story of terrible suffering. suf-fering. Here for eighteen months they lived on two months' rations. The simple record of Sergeant Bral-nard's Bral-nard's diary reveals the horrors of those days as can no extended description. de-scription. On October 2 he writes: 1 took an Inventory of the comm!?-ary comm!?-ary store" last evening and found only 35 d.iys full rations of bread and meat remained. These rations can be extended ex-tended to 50 days, if we publert ourselves our-selves to a greatly reduced diet, but the surTerinp will be extreme in t h If low temperature where a man requires from two to three times the normal diet. Also, we have some very hard labor ahead o." us incident to the building build-ing of winter quarters. October 28: What are we to do? As far as 1 can see, there Is nothing ahead of us except ex-cept starvation. Every hope of rescue this fall haa failed us. How can we hope for anything now from a relb-f expedition? The civilized world has forgotten us In our hour of need. March 4. 1881: Lieut. Oreely reduced the bread Issue Is-sue to eight ounres per man. Occasionally members of the party-were party-were able to shoot a fox to supplement their rations and Sergeant Brainard rigged up a device for catching shrimps. But as the weary weeks passed the inadequate food, severe cold nnd the conditions under which they lived took their toll. One by one eighteen of the members of the party Including Lieutenants Kislingbury and Lockwood died. On the evening of June 22, 188-1, Sergeant Brainard lay in the little fly tent which had blown down upon him and his six comrades. Beside them lay the dead body of another. But they were too weak to move It or even try to raise the pole of the tent. Suddenly a voice called out "Greely, are you there?" Brainard raised himself him-self In his sleeping bug. He knew that voice 1 It was the voice of Norman, Nor-man, first officer of the "Proteus" In 1881. "It's Normnn !" he shouted In a weak voice. He crawled from beneath the tent and Norman thrust a hardtack hard-tack In his hand.- A moment later Lieutenant Colwcll came running over the hill. P.ralnard was sitting on the ground gnawing at the hardlack. but as he saw an nltlcer approaching, the old habits .of the regular army sergeant ser-geant asserted Itself. He tottered In his feet and attempted to salute! Hut Colwcll clasped his hand and they went together Into the tent, there to rouse I he dazed Greely arid to tell him that the ship "Thetis" had arrived ar-rived with relief at .last. |