Conan Doyle’s sisters were constantly on his mind. Annette (‘Tottie’), two years older than him, was working as a governess in Portugal now, and sending her pay home to help with her younger sisters’ schooling—it being understood that they would follow in that genteel if humble line of work themselves once they were old enough. From his sisters Conan Doyle learned about the nature and also the occasional perils of their work, and made one of Sherlock Holmes’s most endearing clients a governess, Violet Hunter in ‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’. ‘I confess,’ Holmes tells Miss Hunter after hearing about the new position she has been offered, ‘that it is not the situation which I should like to see a sister of mine apply for.’
To economize Conan Doyle had striven to compress five years of study into four, but when his classmate C. A. Currie was unable to go as the ship’s surgeon on the Hope, an Arctic whaler, he leapt at the chance, despite the postponement it meant for graduating on his original schedule.
He spent some six months at sea, from the end of February to midAugust 1880, in the first ‘glorious’ adventure of his life, one that he recorded not only in two letters home, but in a handwritten illustrated diary as well. He turned twenty-one years old during the arduous voyage under Captain John Gray of Peterhead, Scotland, coming of age (as he wrote later) ‘at 80 degrees north latitude’. The voyage gave him real responsibility, and in addition to doctoring the crew, he also took an active part in the sealing and whaling on which the Hope’s success, and the crew’s pay, depended. He worked harder than ever before, experiencing intense loneliness and comradeship alike in what seemed like another world. ‘I went on board a big, straggling youth,’ he said in Memories and Adventures, but ‘I came off it a powerful, well-grown man.’
to Mary Doyle LERWICK, SCOTLAND, FEBRUARY 1880
Here goes by the aid of a quill pen and a pot of ink to let you know all the news from the North: The mail steamer came in yesterday with your letter and a very kind one from that dear girl Letty, who seems to have a vague idea that I am going to Greenland to pass an examination or face some medical board, judging from her wishes for my success and talk about coming back quite a finished doctor. What a jolly little soul she is though! The Scotsman came too as also did the forceps. Now as to your inquiries I’ll answer them as best I can.
1st I got your letters, parcels, etc.
2nd I have not got my ms but want it.
3rd I was not sick
4th I have answered Mrs Hoare’s letter
5th I went and saw the Rodgers like a good little boy as I am. And the baby too, at least I saw a pair of enormous watery eyes staring at me from a bundle of clothes, a sort of female octopus with four tentacles (Octopus Dumplingiformis). It was far from dumb though ‘Son et oculi et prosterea nihil’, except a slightly mawkish odour. Oh yes Beelzebub is a fine child—I beg its pardon—Christabel.
And now that I have satisfied your perturbed spirit by soothing answers, let me fish about for something to interest you. And first of all you will be glad to hear that I never was more happy in my life. I’ve got a strong Bohemian element in me, I’m afraid, and the life just seems to suit me. Fine honest fellows the men are and such a strapping lot. You’ve no idea how self-educated some of them are. The chief engineer came up from the coal hole last night & engaged me upon Darwinism, in the moonlight on deck. I overthrew him with great slaughter but then he took me on to Colensa’s objections to the Pentateuch and got rather the best of me there. The captain is a well informed man too.
There are nearly 30 sail of whalers in Lerwick Bay now. There are only 2 Peterhead ships, ‘The Windward’ & ‘Hope’; there is a lot of bad blood between the two sets, Gray and Murray being both looked upon as aristocrats. Colin McLean our 1st Mate was at the Queen’s on Saturday when half a dozen Dundee officers began to run down the Hope. Colin is a great red bearded Scotchman of few words, so he got up slowly and said ‘I’m a Hope man mysel’,’ and began to run amuck through the assembly. He floored a doctor & maimed a captain & got away in triumph. He remarked to me in the morning ‘It’s lucky I was sober, Doctor, or there might have been a row.’ I wonder what Colin’s idea of a row may be.
Lerwick is the town of crooked streets, and ugly maidens, and fish. A most dismal hole, with 2 hotels & 1 billiard table. Country round is barren & ugly. No trees in the island. Went to Tait our agent for dinner on Friday, heavy swell feed, champagne & that sort of thing, but rather tiresome. By the way we carry capital champagne & every wine on board, & feed like prize pigs. I haven’t known what it was to eat with an appetite for a long time, I want some more exercise, that’s what I want. I box a little but that is positively all.
We just got in in time to avoid the full fury of that gale the other day. The captain says if we had stayed out we would have lost our boats and bulwarks, possibly our masts. The weather is better now, I fancy we will sail about Thursday.
There, my dear, that’s about my sum total of news. God bless you all while I’m away. You’ll hear from me in little more than a couple of months. There is an Act of Parliament forbidding us to kill a seal before April 2nd, so that is why we are kicking about here.
[P.S.] I’ve got the Captain’s leave to go with a few of the biggest of the petty officers to the Queen’s today to see if we can’t have a row.
to Mary Doyle LATITUDE 73° 10 N. LONGT. 2° E. APRIL 7, 1880
Here I am as well and as strong and as ugly as ever off Jan Mayen’s Island in the Arctic Circle. We started from Shetland on the 10th of March, & had a splendid passage without a cloud in the sky, reaching the ice upon the 16th. We went to bed with a great stretch of blue water before us as far as the eye could reach, & when we got on deck in the morning there was the whole sea full of great flat lumps of ice, white above and bluish green below all tossing & heaving on the waves. We pushed through it for a day but saw no seals, but on the second day we saw a young sea elephant upon the ice, and some schools of seals in the water swimming towards N.W. We followed their track and on the 18th saw the smoke of 6 steamers all making in the same direction, in the hope of reaching the main pack. Next morning eleven vessels could be seen from the deck, and a lot of sea elephants or bladdernose seals were lying about. These always hang on the skirts of a pack of true seals so we felt hopeful. You must know that no blood is allowed to be shed in the Arctic Circle before April 3rd.
On the 20th we saw the real pack. They were lying in a solid mass upon the ice, about 15 miles by 8, literally millions of them. On the 22nd we got upon the edge of them and waited. 25 vessels were in sight doing the same thing. On the 29th a gale broke and the pack was sadly scattered, and a couple of Norwegian lubbers came steaming through them, frightening those that had not pupped away. On the 3rd the bloody work began and it has been going on ever since. The mothers are shot and the little ones have their brains knocked out with spiked clubs. They are then skinned where they lie and the skin with blubber attached is dragged by the assassin to the ships side. This is very hard work, as you often have to travel a couple of miles, as I did today, jumping from piece to piece before you find your victim, and then you have a fearful weight to drag back. The crew must think me a man of extraordinary tastes to work hard and with gusto at what they all consider the most tiring task they have, but I think it encourages them. My shoulders are all chafed with the Lourie-tow or dragging rope.
By the way in the last four days I have fallen into the sea five times which is a pretty good average. The first time I tried to get on to the ice, there was a fine strong piece alongside, and I was swinging myself down on to it by a rope, when the ship gave a turn of her propeller sending me clear of the ice and into the sea