Frozen in Time

by Owen Beattie

  The Twin Otter carrying Amy, Notman, Anderson and Schwe-ger at last swept over the camp. Beattie noticed right away that skis had been strapped onto the tundra wheels of the aircraft. The thin layer of snow on the island made landing there impossible; the plane would have to land offshore, on ice-covered Erebus Bay. That meant that the heavy load of equipment on board, over half of the 3,300 pounds (1,500 kg) of equipment to be used during the research, would have to be carried across the ice and up the beach to their camp. After brief greetings, the eleven-member team watched the Twin Otter leave, then spent the next two hours at that difficult task.

  Exhumation work resumed with the digging of a work area adjacent to the right side of the coffin. This exposed the coffin’s side for the first time, and immediately, something of interest was discovered: three “handles” were found spaced along the side of the coffin wall. However, these were not real handles like the ones on Torrington’s coffin, but symbolic representations made out of the same white linen tape that decorated the edges of the coffin.

  As in 1984, the team used heated water to accelerate the thawing process. There was no running water on the island, so Kowal developed a highly efficient method of melting snow, providing a constant, though meagre, water source. The water was heated, two buckets at a time, on naphtha stoves located in the adjacent autopsy/X-ray tent. When ready, Kowal carried the buckets across to Carlson and Nungaq, who would slowly pour the water over the dark-blue-wool-covered coffin. When too much water had accumulated in the bottom of the grave, making work virtually impossible, an electric sump pump was lowered in. The water drawn out of the grave was then directed through a hose away from the excavation area. It seemed to Beattie that the thawing was much more difficult than it had been in 1984; the time of year probably accounted for the difference. Although they did not test the temperature of the permafrost in 1984 or 1986, it seemed that at every depth it was colder in June than in August.

  After photographs of the cleaned coffin were taken and it was measured (79 by 19 by 13 inches/203.5 by 48 by 33 cm deep), the delicate task of loosening and removing the already damaged lid was started. When at last it was lifted, Beattie and Carlson could see immediately that Hartnell’s right arm area and face, both exposed in 1984, were again completely encased in ice. “Well, the water flowed back in, didn’t it?” Beattie said. The question had been answered. Standing by Hartnell’s ice-protected body, Beattie thought about the condition of John Torrington only a few steps away. He was now satisfied that the young petty officer was again suspended in time by the very process that had allowed them a brief, privileged glimpse in 1984.

  Damkjar, standing alongside the upper edge of the grave with the others, pointed out that the ice around Hartnell appeared quite discoloured. The ice in the centre of the block, about where Hartnell’s chest should be, was not an opaque white as with Torrington, but very brownish, even mottled.

  Soon the work of exposing the body began, the warm water quickly unveiling the features of the seaman’s face. This was an overwhelming experience for Spenceley, Hartnell’s great-great-nephew, who stood close by the grave’s edge, gazing in silence at his own family history over a distance of 140 years.

  There did not seem to be any major deterioration in the tissues during the two-year hiatus. One observation made in 1984 was that Hartnell’s left eye was well-preserved while his right eye appeared to be damaged, and it had been unclear whether this had happened while he lived or somehow shortly after his death. Inglefield’s reports on the exhumation that he and Sutherland had conducted in 1852 had not indicated any problem with Hartnell’s right eye. But in 1986, Beattie noticed immediately that, in addition to the shrunken right eye, Hartnell’s left eye showed some shrinkage as well. He concluded that it is likely that exposure, for even a brief period, causes changes peculiar to the eyes, leaving the rest of the external features unaffected. In other words, the exposure of Hartnell in 1852 probably induced changes in the right eye—the fact that the left eye appeared normal to the researchers in 1984 indicated that Inglefield and Sutherland probably did not expose the left side of the face. The shrinking of the left eye over the two years that had passed since its exposure in 1984 supported the theory.

  As the ice surrounding Hartnell thawed, it became apparent that he was wrapped in a white shroud from his shoulders down. The damaged shirt sleeve on his right arm was exposed through a tear in the sheet and pieces of the coffin lid appeared to have been driven forcibly into his right chest wall during the 1852 exhumation. When the obscuring ice was melted higher up the arm, the tears in the shroud, shirt sleeve and undergarments were visible as scissor or knife cuts. Obviously, to fully expose Hartnell’s arm, Sutherland had had to make cuts in the shroud and clothing. This evidence showed that the investigation of Hartnell’s body in 1852 was limited to his face and right arm. It would have been too difficult and taken too much time for Sutherland to do more.

  On Hartnell’s head was a toque-like hat, which in turn was resting on a small frilled pillow stuffed with wood shavings. Thawing of the ice surrounding the body continued until Hartnell was completely exposed. Nothing was moved by the group until the shrouded body had been thoroughly described and photographed. The next stage was the folding back of the shroud, which took a very long time because only the very thinnest layer of the exposed shroud and body was actually thawed and additional thawing of the fabric was required.

  As Hartnell was unwrapped from the shroud his left arm was exposed, followed by his right arm. Immediately, Amy and Beattie could see that the arms had been bound to the body in the same manner as was seen on Torrington, though this time the material used was light brown wool. However, his right hand was lying on an outside fold of the binding. It was clear that his right arm had been extracted by Sutherland, who, when his examination was complete, had not tucked the hand back underneath the binding but left it lying on top.

  Hartnell’s blue-and-white-striped shirt was of a similar pattern to that seen on Torrington, though the stripes were not printed but woven (a more expensive material than that found on Torrington) and the design was also different from Torrington’s. It was a pullover style, and some of the front buttons were missing, the buttonholes being tied shut with loops of string. The lower portion of the shirt had two letters embroidered on it in red and the date “1844.” The letters appeared to be “TH,” and it may be that the shirt had originally belonged to John Hartnell’s younger brother and expedition companion, Thomas.

  Underneath the shirt was a wool sweater-like undergarment, and beneath that a cotton undershirt. He was not wearing trousers, stockings or footwear. Beattie and Schweger were puzzled that Hartnell should have had three layers of clothing covering his upper body and nothing on below the waist. They suspected that there may have been a viewing of the body aboard the Erebus prior to burial, with the man’s lower half covered by the shroud.

  John Hartnell: He was wrapped in a shroud, wearing a cap which, when removed, revealed a full head of dark brown hair.

  The bottom of Hartnell’s shirt was embroidered with the date 1844 and the initials “th,” suggesting that the shirt may have belonged to his brother, Thomas.

  Hartnell’s legs and feet were slightly darkened and very shrunken and emaciated by illness and in part by the freezing. Like Torrington, his toes were tied together. In preparation for the temporary removal of Hartnell’s body for the X-ray examination and autopsy, the shroud was completely pulled back and Hartnell’s cap removed, revealing a full head of very dark brown, nearly black, hair, parted on his left. Without his hat, Hartnell lost much of the sinister look that first confronted the scientists in the summer of 1984. Instead, he appeared to be simply a young man who, for some mysterious reason, had died at the age of twenty-five on 4 January 1846.

  Now began the most difficult and unpleasant phase of the exposure. Even as Hartnell lay in the coffin, apparently ready to be gently lifted out, his
body was still part of the permafrost, solidly frozen to the mass of ice below. Slowly and carefully, water had to be directed underneath the body, freeing it a fraction of an inch at a time. The permafrost had a grip that would not let go without a fight. But finally, the scientists won the battle and the body was freed.

  Before lifting Hartnell from his coffin, his right thumbnail was removed and samples of hair from his scalp, beard and pubic area were collected for later examination and analysis. Beattie, Carlson, and Nungaq then lifted the body out of the grave onto a white linen sheet, where it was immediately wrapped. Hartnell was carried a distance of 10 feet (3 metres) to the autopsy/X-ray tent, where Notman and Anderson prepared to take a series of X-rays while he was clothed. Still frozen to the bottom of the coffin were Hartnell’s nineteenth-century shroud, and beneath that, a folded woollen blanket. Damkjar, over the next day, struggled to remove these two items. When they were finally freed, they were handed over to Schweger for analysis and sampling.

  Notman and Anderson had already set up their X-ray “clinic” inside the autopsy tent. The next order of business was the assembly of the darkroom tent. Beattie had provided them with the inside dimensions of the long-house tent months before and, using these, they had designed a unique, collapsible and portable darkroom. The structure consisted of a tubular metal frame that was screwed together; over this, a double layer of thick black plastic (cut, formed and taped together) was pulled and tucked in along the floor. On one side they had fashioned a door from a double overlap of the plastic cover, forming a light trap. Inside the darkroom, Anderson had just enough room to stand and manoeuvre around the chemical tubs. A mechanical timer was hung inside as well as a battery-operated safe light.

  Kowal gave them a hand in melting the 110 gallons (500 litres) of clean, strained water required for the X-ray film development. Four large Coleman stoves were running in the tent constantly, and Kowal would bring in buckets of snow to melt. When a bucket was ready it was poured through a fine strainer directly into the large plastic garbage bins they had brought as chemical holders. When the tubs were finally filled with water (which took a whole day), Anderson mixed his chemicals. He then made wood-framed structures to hold the film sheets in their development frames, and these were lowered into the tubs. A 200-watt aquarium heater was then immersed in the liquid, which would bring the temperature up to the 68˚F (20˚C) thought necessary to provide controlled development.

  Larry Anderson in the autopsy/X-ray tent. He is leaning on the portable X-ray unit; the black structure is a portable darkroom.

  The X-ray unit was a remarkably compact yet powerful instrument mounted on four tubular steel legs. Too fragile to risk being sent from their clinic at the Park Nicollet Medical Centre in Minneapolis as normal freight, Notman and Anderson had bought an airplane ticket for it, and everyone had a good laugh when they told how the machine, named Fragile Bulky Notman on its ticket, had “sat” in the first-class section at the front of the plane during the flight into Canada while they had to sit back in economy class.

  When in use, the machine would be lifted over the body, its legs positioned firmly in the gravel. A focusing light beam on the bottom of the unit would then be turned on to illuminate and define the area to be X-rayed before a film plate was slid under the body.

  Notman and Anderson tested their X-ray set-up on a polar bear scapula, found lying on one of the beach ridges near the gravesite. The results were very encouraging: holding the X-ray up, Notman described the bony details of the scapula to the others. Although they had been told by a number of experts that they were not likely to succeed in getting satisfactory X-rays under such difficult field conditions, his voice betrayed a note of gleeful triumph and self-satisfaction. Anderson’s face also seemed to say, “Well, they were all wrong! I knew we could do it!”

  With this air of success, Notman and Anderson began the difficult job of X-raying the clothed John Hartnell. The X-ray area on the ground adjacent to the door was the same as where the autopsy was to be performed. When an exposure was to be made, either Notman or Anderson would put on a heavy, full-length lead apron and all other people in the tent would line up behind their protector. A loud call of “exposing” would be made for the benefit of people working outside the tent, so that they could move away to a distance of at least 100 feet (30 metres) before the exposure was made.

  Anderson would then take the film plate into the darkroom for processing. Ten to fifteen minutes later he would emerge with the dripping film, which he hung by pegs to clotheslines stretched across the length of the tent. He and Notman would then examine the quality of the film and decide if there was any need to change their technique.

  When the initial X-raying of Hartnell had been completed, Notman, Anderson and Amy stood in front of the row of hanging film to begin the preliminary examination. Anderson quickly pointed to the first X-ray: “He’s got a solid block of ice in his head.” The frozen brain tissue obscured the X-ray image, meaning they’d have to X-ray again after further thawing. Looking at the chest X-rays, Notman pointed to a small feature near Hartnell’s neck. “We’ve got our first metallic object,” he said. “It looks like a ring on its side.” (In fact, the metal was the frame of a decorative, embroidered button.) The chest X-rays were also confusing in that the internal organs appeared uncharacteristic and of unusual and varied densities—an unexpected series of observations on the first X-rays ever to be taken under such circumstances.

  The bone structure was largely unremarkable, with the exception of a suspected compression fracture of one of the vertebrae in the lower part of the neck, representing a subacute injury that would not have been fatal. Hartnell may have fallen on the expedition. Some degenerative bone changes were also identifiable in the left shoulder and left elbow; found in someone so young, these sorts of bone changes (spurring and lipping) usually indicate a response to some form of injury. Also, one of the small long bones of the left foot showed evidence of osteomyelitis, or a bone infection, which could have made Hartnell susceptible to systemic infections (blood poisoning). Any of these injuries or conditions could have resulted in Hartnell being confined to sick bay, where he would have been given tinned foods as a medical comfort.

  However, except for the details of the bones, little could be determined, let alone identified, from these first X-rays. Beattie wondered if the soft tissue preservation, which appeared so good to the eye, was in fact not good enough to allow X-ray information to be collected. Notman was frustrated with these first findings for, even in the desiccated and eviscerated Egyptian mummies he had studied in the past, there had always been some recognizable details in his X-rays. Only the autopsy would provide the answers.

  It had been difficult to position the body with the clothing still on, and, spurred on by the confusing results of the first X-rays, Notman and Anderson wanted to try again after the clothing had been removed. Beattie, Amy, Nungaq and Schweger began the difficult task of unclothing Hartnell. “What we’ll do is ask the patient to sit up,” Amy said, a request for Beattie and Schweger to support the body while he attempted to remove the outer shirt. Trained in the medical field, Amy, Notman and Anderson always referred to the sailors as patients, reflecting their strictly professional attitude towards medical procedures and research, even in these extraordinary circumstances. After some initial attempts to slip the clothes over Hartnell’s head and off his limbs, it was decided that it would be necessary to cut the fabric. To minimize damage to the clothes, Beattie made a single vertical cut up the back of each garment. Doing this avoided the over-extension of the limbs and prevented any stress being placed on the material, which could have caused tearing both in the fabric and along the seams.

  As the clothes slipped off the body the scientists made a truly astonishing discovery.

  “Son of a bitch, he’s already been autopsied! Son of a gun!” said Amy. “We’ve got an upside down ‘Y’ incision. This sort of thing has not
been seen before, this is absolutely unique.”

  Running down John Hartnell’s chest and abdomen was a sutured incision that left no doubt that, in the short hours after his death, a surgeon on the Erebus, probably assistant-surgeon Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir, an anatomist by training, had attempted to establish the cause of death. It’s no wonder Amy was so excited at this discovery. Here he had an unprecedented opportunity to view the handiwork of a medical predecessor of long ago. By conducting his own autopsy, Amy would actually be assisting this long-dead doctor. The surgeon of the Erebus certainly anticipated that he would bring the information from his autopsy back to England. Now the full extent of that information would finally be known.

  Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir.