In August 1897, the first scientific expedition to Antarctica left Antwerp, Belgium, aboard a small whaling ship called the Belgica. Its untested leader, 31-year-old Adrien de Gerlache, had assembled an international crew that included Belgian and Scandinavian sailors, Eastern European scientists, and two future legends of polar exploration: the Barnumesque American ship doctor, Frederick Cook, and the Viking-like Norwegian first mate, Roald Amundsen. The men of the Belgica were largely unprepared to confront one of the most hostile environments on earth. After a tumultuous, five-month journey south from Europe—during which de Gerlache had faced biblical storms, stared down mutinous sailors, and run aground in Tierra del Fuego—it felt like a miracle that the ship was even nearing Antarctica’s coasts.

The narrative excerpted here draws on the diaries and recollections of the Belgica’s survivors.

Antarctica was imagined before it was seen. The ancient Greeks, who already believed the earth to be spherical, reasoned that there must exist a great landmass on the far end of the globe to counterbalance the known continents of the Northern Hemisphere. This hypothetical land was given various names over the centuries, among them Terra Australis Incognita. The one that stuck—Antarctica—is an antonym of “Arctic,” itself derived from the Greek word ἄρκτος, or “bear,” because the northernmost regions of the planet lay squarely beneath the constellations Ursa Major (Greater Bear) and Ursa Minor (Lesser Bear).

According to Polynesian lore, the great seventh-century navigator Ui-te-Rangiora ventured so far south in a canoe, made in part from human bones, that he saw “bare rocks that grow out of the frozen sea”—icebergs, presumably. If this story is true, it would be almost a thousand years before another man felt the Antarctic’s chilling breath. That was the English privateer Francis Drake, who circumnavigated the earth at a time when cartographers populated the bottom of maps with chimerical monsters. Tasked with finding Terra Australis Incognita and claiming it for Queen Elizabeth (and keeping whatever Spanish treasure he could plunder on the way), Drake sailed the Golden Hind, one of the three galleons under his command, through Tierra del Fuego in 1578. As he exited into the Pacific, a terrible storm blew his ship into the uncharted waters south of Cape Horn.

“The winds were such as if the bowels of the earth had set all at liberty,” wrote Francis Fletcher, a priest aboard the Golden Hind, “or as if the clouds under heaven had been called together, to lay their force on that one place.” The 500 miles that separate Cape Horn from the South Shetland Islands became known as the Drake Passage. Another 65 miles—the Bransfield Strait—lie between those islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, or Graham Land, the continent’s outstretched tendril.

The Belgica left South America on January 14, 1899. It took her seven days to complete the stygian crossing between civilization and the planet’s icy underworld. At first the ship enjoyed relatively calm seas, experiencing little of the fury described by Fletcher and many navigators since. De Gerlache was able to keep the Belgica steady enough for the flinty Polish oceanographer Henryk Arctowski to take a series of depth soundings, some of the first-ever recorded south of Cape Horn.

As he worked some sailors amused themselves by plucking albatrosses out of the sky. Their method was curious: They would bait a fishhook and cast a line in the air. A bird would swoop down to catch the bait before it hit the water, only to be yanked aboard and killed. The albatrosses’ long, hollow wing bones, the men found, made beautiful pipes.

The crew had evidently forgotten their Coleridge. The Belgica’s luck with the weather turned almost immediately. The next day, oil bags were required to settle the angered sea. (In the 19th century, it was common practice to release oil onto the surface of the water, where it would spread into a wide but one-molecule-thick layer that would reduce the wind’s ability to gain purchase on the sea and whip up whitecaps.)

On January 19, a glimmer shone on the horizon, projected onto blackened skies. This was “landblink,” a reflection of the snow-covered South Shetland Islands that lay beyond the curvature of the earth. Later that day, every man aboard rushed to the deck to see the first iceberg float by, a white speck several miles away. Curiosity soon turned to dread. The fog thickened on the night of the 20th, and the Belgica proceeded at low speed into the darkness, out of which monstrous white masses, some taller than her masts, emerged with no warning, one after the other.

When the chief engineer, Henri Somers, lowered the engine pressure to fix the malfunctioning condenser one morning, the men could suddenly hear the thunderous collision of ice in the distance, rumblings of the Antarctic beast. A large iceberg materialized out of the mist. The 28-year-old captain, a brilliant but hot-tempered Belgian navigator named Georges Lecointe, attempted to dodge it, but it was too late: The ship’s keel slammed into the berg with a sickening crack. Fragments of wood floated to the surface.

Despite this warning, de Gerlache took the helm and powered ahead through exceptionally thick fog, anxious to reach his long-imagined destination. The cold and the danger seemed to invigorate him. Creditors, critics, mutinous sailors, and saboteurs were far behind—he was close enough to his destination to inhale its bracing air, and nothing would stop him from reaching it.

His boldness impressed Amundsen and even scared him a little. “The commander is not afraid. The engine is still running at 75 revolutions,” Amundsen wrote in his diary on the night of January 21. “I cannot help but admire his daring. Ahead always. I shall follow him cheerfully and try to do my duty.”

Twenty-year-old Carl August Wiencke was at the helm shortly before noon on January 22 when sudden gale-force winds blew the sea into a frenzy. Penguins bounded in and out of the chop. Adjusting the wheel constantly for the yaw, pitch, and roll, Wiencke did his best to keep the ship steady and on tack, and to dodge oncoming icebergs. He was new to the job. Hired as a cabin boy, the Norwegian had been promoted to sailor in Punta Arenas in recognition of his zeal and good cheer after four rebellious Belgians were dismissed.

Wiencke had grown attuned to the music of tempests, the way the winds “seemed to want to tear everything apart and screeched at the rigging with the highest treble right down to the deepest bass,” as he confided to his diary. He came alive in such storms, which reminded him of Beethoven’s sonatas. Beloved by crew and officers alike, Wiencke had proven worthy of his leaders’ faith. He volunteered for the most dangerous tasks, eager to show off his agility and all too often ignoring Amundsen’s pleas for caution.

Now he faced his most difficult challenge yet. Icebergs threatened to assail the ship from every direction. It began to snow, further limiting visibility. Sheets of spray slammed into Wiencke’s yellow sou’wester and oilskin coat.

Enormous waves broke over the Belgica amidships and flooded into the hold through the open main hatch. Wiencke heard Amundsen’s voice slicing through the noise of wind, calling him down from the bridge to help. After handing off the wheel to the Belgian sailor Gustave-Gaston Dufour, Wiencke descended the ladder and splashed into the knee-deep water that now inundated the deck. Normally, small openings in the bulwark called scuppers allowed seawater to drain from the deck, but now they were blocked by loose chunks of coal. As the vessel rocked, the water sloshed from one side of the deck to the other. The pool grew deeper with every wave that crashed over the railings. Wiencke ran to Amundsen’s side, struggling to keep his footing. The first mate ordered Wiencke to help his comrade Ludwig-Hjalmar Johansen unclog one of the scuppers. Various crew members had been jabbing at it with a wooden peg and had succeeded only in packing the coal more tightly. The two would have to get creative.

Johansen believed they had no choice but to go at the clog from the outside of the ship. He found a long iron rod, to which he lashed the wooden peg to create a mallet they could use to dislodge the coal. Wiencke would lie on the gunwale, hold the makeshift mallet over the railing, and align the peg with the scupper while Johansen, securely attached, would lean over the side of the ship and hammer at the peg.

Wiencke lay down across the wet gunwale in his slick yellow oilskin, gripping the railing with one hand. He held the mallet, and Johansen swung a large hammer at it, over and over, but the mass didn’t budge. Johansen stepped away from the railing to think about what to try next. He turned his back to Wiencke.

An iceberg appeared out of the dense fog ahead of the ship, just meters away. As the Belgica swerved to starboard to avoid it, the wind caught her sails, causing the ship to jolt ahead. Simultaneously, another gargantuan wave smothered the ship. When Johansen turned around, Wiencke was gone.

Johansen jumped up on the railing and looked below—nothing. Then he looked astern and caught a terrifying sight: his friend, flailing in the frigid water, receding quickly.

Johansen ran to the officers’ quarters, swung the doors open, and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Wiencke overboard! Wiencke overboard!”

At Johansen’s cry, de Gerlache and Lecointe rushed out onto the decks.

“Quickly, the oil bags!” shouted de Gerlache.

Johansen scampered up to the bridge and instructed Dufour to steer into the wind in order to slow the ship down, but the Belgian helmsman shot him a quizzical look and turned his attention back to the onslaught of icebergs. For the first time, the language barrier between the Belgians and the Norwegians aboard the Belgica had life-or-death consequences. Johansen resorted to hand signals, but Dufour still didn’t understand. With every wasted moment, Wiencke fell farther behind the ship.

Even in calm waters, at this latitude a man could die of hypothermia within minutes. In a storm, when the risk of drowning was just as high, he would have even less time to get back aboard before the consequences were irreversible.

Without a moment to spare, de Gerlache scrambled onto the bridge. He shouldered Dufour aside, took hold of the helm, and hove to, all while keeping an eye on a looming iceberg. Amundsen telegraphed the machinists to throw the engine in reverse.

The log line—the thin knotted cord that trailed behind the ship to measure its speed—slithered past Wiencke. He swam frantically to grab its end and twisted it around his wrist. The momentum of the ship yanked him forward. Cook gripped the deck end of the line and began steadily to reel him in, fighting against the sea. He dragged Wiencke through the waves, each one causing the boy’s weight to jerk the log line like a 200-pound fish struggling to swim free. Cook’s arms and back quivered. The rope dug into the flesh of his palms. Soon it began to slacken a little: The doctor could feel the sailor’s hands slipping. Johansen came to Cook’s aid. By the time he arrived at the side of the boat, Wiencke could barely stay afloat.

Amundsen urged Lecointe and de Gerlache to lower a lifeboat, his voice straining above the roar of the tempest. But the commandant deemed the storm far too powerful and refused to risk the lives of four or five sailors to save one. Lecointe volunteered to go in himself. He quickly tied a rope around his waist in a bowline knot and asked de Gerlache’s permission to jump.

In the moment, as the salt spray needled his face, de Gerlache hesitated: He couldn’t abandon Wiencke, yet he couldn’t afford to lose his second-in-command, whose navigational expertise was irreplaceable. Lecointe took the commandant’s perplexed silence for a yes. In an act of unfathomable courage, he stepped onto the gunwale, timed his jump to the ship’s swing, and threw himself into the sea.

The screaming of the wind and the shouts of his shipmates were muffled the instant Lecointe plunged underwater. He could hear only the swirl of the ocean. His boots and clothes dragged him down and slowed his rise to the surface. The sea was barely 28.4 degrees, the freezing point of saltwater. At that temperature, the dominant sensation isn’t cold but a burning pain.

Lecointe surfaced next to Wiencke and gasped for air. The younger sailor’s eyes were wide open, staring into nothingness. He was paralyzed by the cold but breathing hard through his nose, expelling seawater. Lecointe wrapped his arms around Wiencke. Several men tried to hoist them back aboard. The captain had been in the water for just a few seconds, but he could already feel his own muscles seizing up. Tremendous waves lifted Lecointe and Wiencke almost to the Belgica’s gunwales before dropping them to the end of the rope, as if they had been hung from a gallows. Each time the rope snapped taut, Lecointe’s hold on Wiencke loosened a little more. Wiencke was deadweight, and his waterlogged clothing made him even heavier. The rope flicked them two or three more times before Lecointe let go.

Lecointe dangled helplessly. Below him, the log line uncoiled itself from Wiencke’s wrist, in which it had left deep, discolored furrows. The Belgica rolled so widely now that Wiencke came within reach of the deck with each wave. Johansen leaned over the railing, and with Emile Danco and Amundsen holding him back, he was able to grab Wiencke’s left hand. But as soon as the ship swung away to port, Wiencke’s unbuoyed weight became too great to bear. Johansen’s grip on his friend’s limp, wet hand weakened. When the Belgica rocked back to starboard and slammed into the water, Johansen lost his hold. The sea fell away and took Wiencke with it.

Wiencke was now floating on his back. The men finally got a clear look at him. They were met with a ghastly sight: The young man they knew was no longer recognizable. His face was black and swollen, and he was foaming at the mouth.

A wave washed Wiencke farther away from the ship and he began to sink. His companions watched from the deck until they could no longer see the yellow of his hat.

In his laboratory, beneath rattling test tubes and beakers that he had had the foresight to lock away in cabinets, the Romanian naturalist Emil Racovitza was lying on the floor in an effort to stave off seasickness. A figure suddenly appeared at the door, and Racovitza turned his head to see Arctowski, pale and shaking.

“Wiencke is dead!”

“Dead?” Racovitza said, bolting to his feet.

“Yes, drowned, swept overboard by a wave!”

Racovitza hurried to the wardroom, where he found Lecointe. The captain had been helped back inside after the trauma of his failed rescue attempt. He was half-naked and trembling, and weeping uncontrollably. “Raco, I couldn’t, he slipped from my hands.”

The captain had to be soothed and dressed, as Racovitza later put it, “like a child.”

Back on deck, there was no time to grieve. The tempest still raging, de Gerlache took control of the ship. He had to get out of this storm. He spotted land off the Belgica’s port bow. Consulting the fragmentary maps that were his only guides to the region—one from the British Admiralty, the other drawn a few years earlier by a German whaler named Eduard Dallmann—de Gerlache identified it as Low Island, the southernmost of the South Shetland Islands. He veered toward it to find shelter from the storm. With the wind pushing at her stern, the Belgica slalomed deftly between a gauntlet of icebergs to reach the lee of the island, where she moored.

The ship was becalmed at last.

That night, a suffocating pall was cast on the Belgica. In the cabins and the forecastle, the men replayed Wiencke’s final moments in their minds. For many, this was their first experience with violent death. Even those, like the doctor, who were not strangers to the sight of a corpse, were unprepared for the nauseating vision of Wiencke’s grotesquely disfigured face in his final moments.

Racovitza hadn’t witnessed the accident, but he was haunted nonetheless. Unable to sleep, he went to his laboratory, sat in his chair, and thought about the sudden, tragic turn the expedition had just taken: “The endeavor had barely begun and already we’d left a body on our path,” he later wrote. “Who would be next to go among the eighteen that remained to struggle against the menacing unknown?… Nature always claims what she’s owed.”

Most troubled by the boy’s death was the man who had done the most to save him. Lecointe had risked his own life by jumping into the frigid, raging waters. He had held the boy in his arms. But his heroic efforts had proven insufficient. The captain couldn’t help regretting that he had not been able to hold on tighter. “I kept seeing Wiencke,” Lecointe wrote, “his lifeless eyes wide open, washed away forever.”

From the book MADHOUSE AT THE END OF THE EARTH: The Belgica’s Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night by Julian Sancton. Copyright © 2021 by Julian Sancton. Published by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

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