The Bright Eyes of Danger
The First Flight Across the Polar Sea. By Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth. (Hutchinson. 21s. net.)
The Perilous Adventures and Vicissitudes of a Naval Officer. Edited by Harold Burrows, (Blackwood. 15s. net.) Seamarks and Landmarks. By Surg.-Captain D. W. Andrews. (Been. 18s.)
DANGER is a mistress who never loses her charm. She can afford to laugh at the soft seductions of advancing civilization. The best men are still at her beck and call. In simpler times she led her captives a dance round the world, and now that that path has grown safe and familiar she is luring them into the sky. The stories which concern her bright eyes never lose their spell : they entrance the young who expect to conquer her some day, and the old who dare not court, but love to dream of her.
No man who has not the heart of a stone will read The First Flight Across the Polar Sea without emotion, without, indeed, actual physical :sensations of elation, awe and terror.
Early in the morning from Svalbaar in the extreme north of Norway the " Norge " started on her great adventure.
We were a little world to ourselves, swaying lightly and freely in space," writes Amundsen. "Who could tell what was before us, who dared prophesy ?" Scarcely, however, had the sixteen inhabitants of this little world realized their isolation than the " Fokker " whizzed past them. . " It was quite a comforting sight, there were still other human beings in the World." But the other human beings turned back after an hour and the Norge' was alone, sailing through the intense cold over layers of mist into brilliant sunshine, and back into seas of fog. Fog above them and fog below them, and below the fog, ice—and no people. They are in the flesh but out of the world. As the flight goes on there comes " a feeling of safety," and a joyful sense of the wonderful seizes upon the airship's company when Amundsen receives a wireless Message. Then, and then only, there was shouting on the ` Norge.'
Life on board during the 70 hours of the flight was nightless. Most of the men never slept at all, we arc assured, and others Only for half-hoUrs at a time. They eat and drank—coffee out of thermos flasks, and sandwiches and meat cakes which they thawed in their trousers pockets, but there were no regular meals. The space was extremely cramped and their work exacting, and such.as to strain the attention. The ten men in the gondola could not " step freely from side to side." They had to squeeze past one another. Those who desired exercise flood up and marked time. The Italian mechanics, whose duty it was to see to the gas valves, climbed at intervals on to the outside of the airship, among them the circus artist, our Alesandrini," who, " with slight exaggeration," could, 14 are told, " hang on by his eyelashes and work with feet
and hands." The rest of the men were in the chart room of the commander's cabin, and here again there was " indescrib- able industry," and no elbow room. The only person of whom we hear that he was free and unoccupied is Amundsen himself, upon whom in the last resort every man depended ; " his gaze is far away and dreamy."
Absolute quiet seems to have prevailed. When they found themselves " as near the geographical Pole as any human beings can determine with instruments," they threw down flags. " A light breeze unfolded the Norwegian colours. Amundsen at the same moment turned round and grasped Wisting's hand. No word was uttered."
The company who passed the long hours in such amity belonged to four nations. The Italians and Norwegians were about equally divided, there was one American and ime Swede. The latter, we read, was easily the most popular man of the party, but they were all very fond of the " vivacious and good humoured " Italians.
Of General Nobile, who built the Norge' and navigated her, we learn that in contrast to his compatriots, he was a silent man who " rarely smiles, so one accepts it as a benediction when he does."
The general feeling towards Amundsen seems to have been something akin to worship. Riiser Larsen (the book. be it remembered, is a composite one containing contributions by several hands) tells us that all the commander's subordinates felt " the joy of working under him," and repeats that Wisting his companion on many voyages, said of him " If we were in want of food and he said one must sacrifice himself fur the others, I would gladly go out into the snow-drift and die."
When once the Norge' had passed the Pole the fog became too thick to take observations. Then a wind arose and they were driven out of their course. The reader sees with their eyes " the ragged sides of mountains," and once, for a happy moment, " an Esquimaux with a dog." At last, at Tellen, upon the coast of Alaska, they are able to land, lapwing accomplished their journey " without any injury whatsoever to anyone." Amundsen returns thanks to God in words of grave piety full of the dignity of humility.
It is with a certain effort that one returns to mundane adventures after reading such a book as this, yet The Brother- hood of the Sea contains some thrilling sea stories both old and new, and should delight any schoolboy. Admiral George Vernon Jackson, whose recollections of life as a midshipman more than a hundred years ago his kinsman Mr. Burrows has edited, are reminiscent of Marryat and have much of his charm. Seamarks and Landmarks can perhaps hardly be called a book of adventure ; rather it is the pleasant reminis- cences of a doctor familiar with danger by land and sea, knoW• ing her in her plainest dress, at her least attractive moments— when it takes perhaps the most courage to approach her.
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