Sumner falls into Arctic water and is rescued

Sumner’s fall into Arctic water and rescue by Black is a near-fatal interruption of the sealing hunt aboard the Volunteer. Separated from his boat while hauling skins across moving floes, he falls through a gap and is unable to get himself out. Black eventually finds him and summons help; Otto and two other men join the effort to return him to the ship. The episode makes the ice both a workplace and an immediate threat, while placing Sumner’s damaged leg, exhaustion, and dependence on others at the center of his struggle to survive.

The Sealing Hunt and Separation

The accident follows a demanding hunt north of Lerwick. After days of fog, sleet, wind, and two gales, the crew encounters sea ice near Jan Mayen Island. They prepare rifles and knives, then lower the boats when they reach the seal pack. On the floes, Henry Drax works alone, killing seals and removing their skins. The labor is productive but physically taxing, and the five boats return laden with skins. Brownlee counts the catch and estimates its potential value, while also recognizing that competing ships and the dispersing pack make the opportunity time-sensitive.

During a later hunt, the men spread out over the ice. The cabin boy stays behind to flense dead seals, while Sumner walks east. He kills two seals, skins them, makes eyelets in the hides, and ties them together with a rope so that he can drag them back. By noon he has killed six more and is about a mile from the boat, hauling roughly a hundred pounds of skins over loose floes. Cavendish is visible ahead, and another man is farther to the right, but neither responds when Sumner calls. The distance from the boat and the divided search party leave him to manage the crossing alone.

The Fall and Failed Attempts to Escape

At a gap about a yard wide, Sumner throws the rope across and prepares to jump. He knows from experience that his injured leg is the worse one to push off from, so he plans to take off from it and land on the sound leg. As he steps forward, however, his standing foot slips sideways. He pitches into the black water instead of reaching the opposite floe.

The fall leaves him submerged and disoriented. He reaches the ice edge and tries to haul himself up, but the surface is too slippery and his arms are weakened by the morning’s work. The water reaches his neck; snow falls more heavily, and the floes shift around him. He recognizes two immediate dangers: moving ice could crush him, while remaining in the water could lead to unconsciousness and drowning. He tries again, but loses his grip and falls back. The skins attached to the rope are within reach, yet he knows they cannot bear his weight. Although he calls for Cavendish twice, no one comes, and Sumner understands that he must rely on his own strength.

On a third attempt, he uses both legs to push upward and gets an elbow and a hand onto the floe. He inches farther out, believing briefly that he may succeed. The ice then jolts sideways, his support slips, and he falls back into the water. The sequence narrows the hunt’s broad, productive landscape to the small margin of ice he can grip: his prior injury and fatigue, which had been part of the day’s work, now sharply limit his chances of escape.

Black’s Discovery and the Return to the Ship

Black finds Sumner wedged in a narrow crack between two floes, with his head and shoulders above the water and the rest of his body below. Unable to tell at first whether Sumner is breathing, Black secures a sealing rope around his chest. He pulls sideways to free him from the crevice, then hauls upward. Sumner’s body comes free; Black drops the rope, grabs the greatcoat, and draws him onto the ice. When Sumner does not respond, Black slaps his face twice, the second time harder, until an eyelid flickers open.

Black fires his rifle twice to alert the others. About ten minutes later, Otto and two other members of the search party arrive. The four men each take a limb and carry Sumner back across the ice as quickly as they can. His wet clothes have frozen solid in the cold, making the carry difficult. At the ship, the crew lifts him aboard with a block and tackle and lays him on deck. Brownlee looks down at him and asks whether he is breathing; Black nods, and Brownlee reacts with wonder. The rescue therefore depends first on Black’s initiative and then on the search party’s combined effort to get Sumner off the floe and back aboard.

Recovery and Significance

Sumner’s survival does not end the consequences of the fall. Three weeks later, on the voyage from Jan Mayen Island to Cape Farewell, he is recovering but still bears raw frostbite on his cheeks and nose. His color, energy, and appetite have returned, and he walks the deck for exercise or sketches in his journal. The account presents recovery as gradual: the man who was carried aboard almost motionless is again moving around the ship, though the cold has left visible marks.

Later, during the whale hunt, Sumner is assigned the strenuous task of carrying blocks of blubber from the foredeck to the hold. He slips several times and is saved from falling into the hold by Otto. At the end of the day he is bruised and aching, but takes satisfaction in having completed work that tests his body; that night he sleeps without laudanum. This later episode does not erase the danger of his fall, but it shows him resuming demanding labor and finding a measure of confidence in physical effort. The rescue is thus both a literal return from the ice and an early point in Sumner’s recovery aboard the Volunteer.