In 1912, the
Saint Anna, led by Lieutenant Brusilov, sets out for the Northeast Passage (it's like the Northwest Passage but less interesting), which has been navigated once before; he's mostly interested in hunting walrus and polar bear, etc. They get iced in and drift north for over a year. Albanov, the navigator, is "dismissed from duty" in late 1913 (but is stuck on the ship with everyone else). Early in 1914 he asks to venture south on his own, to avoid being stuck in another winter. About half the crew volunteers to come with him. Most of his party makes it to the Franz Josef Archipelago to the south, but as they're moving east across the archipelago, people get sick or the party just gets split; only Albanov and Alexander Konrad survive. They get picked up by another Russian polar vessel that's also been out of touch for two years, and when they get back, they have to be informed WWI has started. Albanov kept a diary of his trek, and wrote this up in 1917 using that as a basis; he died two years later, from either typhoid or an exploding munitions boxcar (the Russian Revolution was a fun time).
They had to make their own sledges and kayaks before setting off, because Brusilov didn't have any of that kind of stuff, and Albanov spends a lot of time yelling at the guys not to just leave them behind and go on skis, we actually need these to navigate, fools. I can sort of visualize loading kayaks on sledges to cross ice, but lashing sledges to the kayaks to cross the water gaps is impressive! (Later he talks more about "we lashed them on crosswise," but it was hard for me to visualize at first. They start with five sledges and also five kayaks that take turns riding on each other, it's not five sledge-cum-kayak-vehicles.)
Albanov was definitely a member of the Fridtjof Nansen fan club; they have basically no books on the
Saint Anna, but they do have a map of Nansen's travels from "Farthest North." He and Johansen had approached the Franz Josef Archipelago from the east (rather than from the west like Albanov), Albanov is trying to find the supplies where they'd made camp, in the middle.
There's one woman on the
Saint Anna, Yerminiya Zhdanko. She was originally hired as a nurse, and apparently took very good care of Brusilov during his illness, but also is the crew's "hostess" at meals. Is this just men defaulting to "oh of course the woman will be doing the ~feminine~ jobs"?
Denisov, a harpooner who stays with the
Saint Anna, gets about as much biographical background as anyone. He "was half Ukrainian and half Norwegian." But because this is a Russian narrator writing in 1917, Denisov's father's home is in "the Ukraine," oof.
There's probably a spectrum to draw rating all the expedition leader+second-in-command dynamics. But Brusilov is new levels of awful. His POV on the crew asking to leave:
"At first I tried to talk them out of their plan...A small but increasing number of them decided to stay, more than I actually would have liked, but I did not want to force anyone to leave."
AKA our supplies are so limited, he needs some of the crew to leave so the remaining supplies will go farther, and then too many people stayed back with him.
And here's Albanov shortly before their departure:
Late in the evening the lieutenant called me once more into his cabin to give me a list of items we would be taking with us and which I must, if possible, return to him at a later date. Here is that list as it was entered into the ship's record: 2 Remington rifles, 1 Norwegian hunting rifle, 1 double-barreled shotgun, 2 repeating rifles, 1 ship's log transformed into a pedometer for measuring distances covered, 2 harpoons, 2 axes, 1 saw, 2 compasses, 14 pairs of skis, 1 first-quality malitsa, 12 second-quality malitisi [a footnote explains that malitisi are sacklike garments used in lieu of sleeping bags], 1 sleeping bag, 1 chronometer, 1 sextant, 14 rucksacks, and 1 small pair of binoculars.
Brusilov asked me if he had forgotten to list anything. His pettiness astounded me.
Albanov's general tone throughout (and I guess this is feasible to put into print if all but one of your comrades are dead) is "why am I surrounded by idiots, you are all so lazy, don't sleep, get up and start sledging." But when they leave someone behind who's dying and unable to be carried, he sends a sledge to go back for him. He says that he's become more religious; he carries an icon of Saint Nicholas, and has a dream of him that he interprets as miraculous.
As they're marching across the ice, two guys steal a bunch of supplies on the guise of a "scouting expedition" and disappear. Albanov is furious, but reasons that they can't waste time trying to track them down. A week later, they reach land, it's great, there is fresh food and flowers and everything is wonderful. Turns out the thieves are also there.
My inner voice whispered the oath I had taken to "shoot the ignominous thieves on the spot if ever I encountered them." Anger rose up inside me again. Then I took a closer look at the fellow: He was truly pitiful and his pleas went straight to the heart. I thought of the miracle that had delivered us from an icy death and how I had just now so deeply felt the beauty of the earth and of life, like thought someone brought back from the dead. Swayed by the overwhelming power of such emotions, I decided to pardon the man. Yet had I met him only a few hours earlier, on the ice, I would most certainly have executed him, which alone could expiate his crime.
(But also, Albanov never mentions the names of the two miscreants. Was one of them the one who survived?)
You know how some people really bond together and become friends while facing ordeals together? Yeah nope:
During the most critical moments I was always essentially alone, and it was then that I understood the profound truth of the precept: "It is when you are alone that you are free. If you want to live fight for as long as you have strength and determination. You may have no one to help you with your struggle, but you will at least have no one dragging you under. When you are alone, it is always easier to stay afloat."
I mean, personally, I've definitely...been there. It's just odd to find that expressed as a
precept. Maybe it's a Russian thing.
Worsley when they're almost to Elephant Island :handshake meme: Albanov when they're almost to Northbrook Island
not like this, we're so freaking close
During that brief instant, every stage of our journey flashed vividly through my mind with the speed of lightning. I saw the deaths of our three comrades; I saw Lunayev and Shpakovsky carried away in the midst of the storm, and finally myself and Konrad about to be drowned. I can remember exactly what I was thinking: "Who will ever know how we died?" "No one!" I told myself. The idea that no one would ever know how we had fought against these indominable elements, and that our end would remain a mystery forever, was an unspeakable torture to me. My last ounce of strength rebelled against such an unsung disappearance.
Illness triggers the third man factor:
I also had persistent nightmares and imagined that there were three of us on the island. During these mild hallucinations I would get up and hurry over to my sole companion, busy with his excavations, and ask about our third comrade without even knowing who it might be.
But shortly after this, the narrative starts switching between a last-name and a first-name basis for Alexander. :)
The footnotes are detailed and useful, so is the index. (Every time he uses the phrase "white death," take a shot.)
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