by Robert Edric
Fitzjames was more outraged at this than Reid, and he searched the surface of the sea for any sign that the marksmen had found their targets. At first he saw nothing, but then his attention was drawn to a flock of gulls gathering astern of the Terror, and to the stain he was then able to make out on the water.
“What in God’s name is Crozier thinking of?” he said aloud.
Attracted by the noise, others came to the rail and some cheered at the sight of this first kill.
A man with a pistol climbed their own rigging and fired into the water at the nearest of the small whales. Fitzjames ordered him to stop and a chorus of aggrieved disapproval rose around him.
The whales, apparently unconcerned, or perhaps oblivious to what was happening, made no attempt to leave the ships or dive out of range.
Franklin and Gore arrived to look. The others dispersed, and Franklin asked Fitzjames if he knew why the men on the Terror were still shooting at the fish. As he spoke, the whales passing them by decreased in number until they were gone completely. The shooting ceased and the Terror sailed on in silence, leaving only her stains and echoes and small dabs of gunsmoke astern.
Fitzjames reported their day’s progress and the distance they had made during the previous four hours of drifting and sailing.
Franklin appeared distracted, his eyes still on the distant ice beneath which the whales had finally disappeared.
“What do they tell us, Mr. Reid?” he asked, silencing Fitzjames, who did not immediately understand what was meant by the remark.
Reid considered his answer for a moment before giving it. “I’d be a happier man if they’d passed us going south, Sir John.”
“My thoughts precisely. And yet the current still draws us on.”
All around them the build-up of grounded and floating ice was narrowing both their choice of channels and the channels themselves. They were, in effect, sailing into a funnel, their course now determined by the most promising-looking of the leads still available ahead of them.
The horizon they referred to as their “western shore” was not in fact land, but old dark ice ruptured and mounded in the semblance of land, stretching from north to south as far as they could see. It offered them a possible refuge, and everyone took comfort in its presence in a seascape whose more immediate features changed from one hour to the next.
Vesconte had taken readings as best he could from their moving platform, estimating that the uppermost peak of this western ridge approached a height of 500 feet. From this he concluded that it was ancient and undisturbed ice, remarking that if they were caught too close among it then they themselves might grow ancient and remain undisturbed for just as long.
The Boothia Peninsula still lay invisible to the east, and they had detected no current to suggest that any inlet or navigable passage lay between themselves and Prince Regent’s Inlet on its distant shore.
Franklin left them and returned to his cabin.
The men remaining on deck considered the channel ahead of them. It had narrowed considerably during the past two days, its banks of ice growing ever more solid, and soon the two ships would be forced to sail close together if they were to avoid being separated. When sailing abreast became impossible, they would line up astern and follow a single course.
Vesconte said that his magnetic instruments had become unreliable and that his azimuth compasses and dipping needles were now useless, so close had they come to the shifting Magnetic Pole. They took some consolation from the fact that they were the first men to approach this since James Ross had marched to it from the trapped Victory fifteen years earlier.
Their conversation was cut short by Gore, who pointed out to them a new and prominent peak which had just then come into view above their southern horizon, and which they immediately all examined through their glasses.
Realizing that their unhindered drift might be about to come to an end sooner than he had imagined, Fitzjames ordered their winch ropes to be coiled, and then signaled for the Terror to take note of what lay ahead. At best the distant peak might be the ice-capped summit of an island; at worst it might represent the highest point of a land mass blocking their way forward.
At first he believed they had once again come within sight of land and that they might make for this through the thickening floe and establish their winter quarters there. But as the afternoon progressed and the sun fell lower in the sky, he saw the way in which this new landmark reflected the light, and knew that like the “land” off their starboard bow, this too was mounded, mountainous ice.
As anticipated, the ice-packed channel continued to narrow during the following days, and on the 4th of October the Terror came astern. All around them the smaller pieces of ice began to crash against both ships with increasing frequency and force.
On the 7th of October, after twenty-four hours during which they had sailed less than two miles, they spent their first full day warping themselves into a secure position within the ice field ahead.
They could not allow themselves to be caught on the thickening fringes of the floe where fractures and collisions were more frequent, and where the probability of damage among the large and unstable ice masses was correspondingly greater. Bulk attracted bulk, and the bergs now gathering around them varied from the size of their own boats to islands the size of cathedrals, and all of them shifting and grinding together in a bed of shattering and reforming surface ice already several feet thick.
At noon Fitzjames gave the order for what little remained of their sail to be taken in, and for Reid and his party to go out on the ice. A second party led by Thomas Blanky climbed down from the Terror. The two groups congregated for a moment and then dispersed.
Reid and a dozen men returned to within hailing distance of the Erebus and the slack of her two hawsers was pulled tight across the fixed ice. A few minutes later their first anchorage point was gouged out and the anchors secured. Winching parties then rewound the ropes, and hauled the Erebus into the ice shelf, crushing it beneath her as she went.
The solid-looking ice gave easily beneath the ship’s weight, and the men ashore ran ahead of the splintering deltas which spread around them.
After an hour, her winching crews exhausted, the Erebus had been warped seventy yards and had reached her anchors.
Aboard the Terror, the work was again made easier by following the path already cleared through the ice, and she was pulled by her boats into the gap behind the leading ship.
The ice closed quickly around them, and they moored that night having warped themselves 150 yards into the field. When the temperature fell the displaced water froze all around them and a watch was posted to warn them of any further movement in the ice which might threaten their planned route the following day.
For the first time since leaving Beechey, they felt as well as heard the movement of the ice, felt as it squeezed their timbers, and as it knocked against them with a drumming sound where fresh ice, unable to rise to the covered surface, rolled along their hulls in its attempt to float clear.
That night a powerful collision woke everyone and they gathered on deck to see that a slab of ice twelve feet thick and rising to a height equal to their own had been suddenly and violently pushed up fifty feet off their port bow. Their lanterns were reflected in the lustrous surface of this slab, and in the darkness its upper edge could not be discerned. They heard and felt the more distant collisions where the larger masses ran together or broke up, and heard too the unsettling groan of trapped air skimming beneath the thickening surface. Those who watched were deafened by the noise of all this, and shaken by the vibrations which gripped both ships and spilled the mounds of stores on their decks.
The upended slab continued to rise as though it were being squeezed up from some vast underwater machinery. Though some returned to their bunks and the warmth of the stoves, most remained on deck to watch what might happen next, ready to take to the boats until the danger had passed.
With the first light of day they saw that
the risen slab was wedged and held fast by a series of lesser blocks which had appeared around its base, and which now supported it upright where it stood. To some it rose in silhouette like the prow of a sinking ship.
The sun was fully risen by ten, and at eleven Reid and Blanky met on the ice to plan their route past this disturbance.
The warping crews were on the ice at noon, and by three the jagged eruption had been reduced to a small mount three hundred yards astern.
For a further hour they forced their way across a broad and level plain using only their engines. Their progress by this means was comparatively effortless, but they were frequently forced to reverse where the ice would not give to their gentle shoving. There was no longer any possibility of turning back into the rapidly freezing channels they left behind them.
They steamed until darkness, driving themselves into the ice until it became impossible to go any farther.
They were further hindered by a storm which lasted for two days, and when this finally abated on the morning of the 14th, they emerged to find themselves sitting on a vast plain barely distinguishable, or so Franklin remarked, from the snow-covered Lincolnshire landscape of his home. In support of this comparison, he pointed out to them the low rounded mounds of the Wolds, the level horizon of the frozen North Sea, and here and there the jagged spire of an otherwise concealed village church.
It being Sunday, a service was held and hymns sung, and afterward their bells were tolled, pealing hour after hour to celebrate their arrival, and as though in determined summons of some other, more stubborn congregation in that so-far Godless place.
Following a stocktake of their provisions, Fitzjames reported to Franklin that they still possessed enough fuel to keep their stoves burning for the next thirty-six months. Alternatively, he suggested, they had sufficient for twelve months’ heat and 200 miles’ steady steaming at six knots. Franklin told him to overhaul their boiler and engine in readiness for further use. He still anticipated a drift to the south in the coming winter and was determined to be ready to move with it when it came.
They finally abandoned all hope of winching themselves any farther on the 21st of October, after six hours during which they were able to make no progress whatsoever.
That evening both ice-masters reported that they were now deeply embedded in a field of ice which extended for at least ten miles behind them and possibly ten times that distance ahead.
Over the previous days, parties had explored in all directions, returning with the news that there were no major fissures or recent upheavals for at least five miles on either side of them. They brought back samples, from which Goodsir deduced the age and density of the ice, and this too reassured them, convincing Franklin that they had reached a secure position on the plain, and one from which they might continue south with the breakup the following summer.
When asked to calculate the depth of the thickening ice beneath them, both Reid and Blanky were confident that it extended to at least forty feet. Vesconte silently added a further ten to that, disappointed that he did not possess sufficient bits and drilling rods to find out for certain. All three men were united in their belief that there was moving water far beneath this, and that these submerged currents would remain flowing through the winter, exerting their pull, however slight, on the ice above.
On that final day of warping there was an accident when one of the Erebus’ winching ropes parted, frayed by the strain imposed upon it during the previous two weeks.
The six men hauling on the rope were thrown to the ice, and one of them, seaman William Orren, hit his head on the claw and knocked himself out. He also gashed his cheek and forehead and bled badly until Stanley and Goodsir were able to reach him and stem the flow. Reid inspected the broken rope and found it to be useless, angry with himself that he had not spotted the wear on it sooner.
Sawing parties worked for a week after the Erebus had stopped moving, chopping out the ice in ton blocks, until it was sufficiently weakened and opened up for the Terror to continue pushing forward behind her. So rapidly was the water refreezing now, that the men on the ice had also to cut it free of the Terror’s stern, where it clung to her timbers and worked against them as they pulled her forward.
The blocks they sawed free were dragged away over the lubricated surface and positioned around both ships to act as supports when they rose in the ice. A lift of six to eight feet would prove sufficient, and to assist in this the bulk of their stores were unloaded and stacked out on the stable ice.
The Terror began to rise only four days after coming to rest, slowly at first, and controllably, but then with a succession of tremors which shook her along her full length and damaged both her fore- and main-royals. This damage was not serious, but the show of destructive strength acted as a warning to everyone who congregated out on the ice to watch. She was lifted six feet clear of her unloaded waterline, her stern at first staying down until it too eased itself up and she came level. When she had finally settled into this new position her supporting blocks were wedged more firmly against her until she was sitting as tight as a hen on a nest.
The Erebus was lifted where she sat two days later, and to assist in this she was pumped dry of all the water she had shipped. In a single day they cleared thirty-six tons from her bilges, pumping this overboard, where it froze in an icy talus over their own supporting blocks, sealing her tight.
Having been heavily sedated, William Orren did not regain consciousness until the next day after his accident. He studied his bandaged face in a mirror and asked Goodsir about his chances of making a full recovery. Goodsir expressed his surprise at the man’s cultivated accent, and by the informed nature of the questions he asked. Taking him into his confidence, Orren confessed that he was an Oxford graduate and that he held a degree in Law. He had practiced for two years and had failed, after which he had enlisted as a seaman. His father was an acquaintance of George Back’s and he himself had sailed with Back on the Terror as a boy ten years earlier before entering university. Of all the others, only Graham Gore, Back’s mate, was aware of his background and he too had been sworn to secrecy.
A week after both ships had settled in their cradles and been tented, Franklin outlined his plans for the winter ahead.
There was little alternative now than to remain anchored to the ice and take their chances with it. He estimated their present position to be somewhat less than a hundred miles north-northeast of Point Victory, James Ross’ Farthest West on King William Land, and with any luck they would come within sight of that same place early the following summer. Prior to that, when spring signaled its approach, he intended to dispatch a number of expeditions to explore to the south and the southwest of where they were now beset. They were all encouraged by this plan, by its simplicity and the momentum it sustained, and they toasted it and themselves before communicating it to the lower ranks, leavened as it passed from man to man by their enthusiasm and determination, and by the knowledge that they had already achieved so much where many before them had failed, that they had come farther along the true course of the Passage in a single season than anyone before them. They were convinced they had not driven themselves into the blind alleys of Frobisher and Hudson and Parry and Ross, forced only to endure and then retreat in the new season. And nor did the unknown stretch so far ahead of them as it had during their previous wintering. It was even possible, Crozier suggested, that next year they might meet men coming toward them from Bering, unhindered by the open coastal waters they themselves had yet to enjoy in completing their dash to the west.
FIFTEEN
Following a month of calm, their days were again disturbed by upheavals in the surrounding ice.
“The Day of Creation,” Goodsir said absently, watching a particularly violent eruption far to the north of them.
They felt nothing of this, but heard the noise it made, like that of an avalanche. They saw too the flashes of light as pieces of shattered ice were thrown up into the low and concentrated rays o
f the sun, rising like disembodied flames against the dull horizon all around them.
An hour earlier, Franklin had led them in their first church service out on the ice, officers and men congregating between the two ships to take advantage of the protection they offered, and where an altar of ice had been built, upon which was fixed a wooden cross. “The Day of Creation indeed, Mr. Goodsir,” Franklin said aloud, walking ahead of the small party of officers as they came out from the shadow of the ships and stretched their legs on the ice.
Goodsir’s instinct was to apologize in case Franklin had misinterpreted his remark as blasphemous. He waited to see what Franklin might say next, expecting him to turn and confront him.
Franklin, however, continued walking. It had been a week since he had left the Erebus, having complained of feeling unwell, a pain in his chest and a cold in his head, which Stanley had diagnosed as a recurrence of his previous year’s influenza. It was against his surgeon’s advice that Franklin had left his cabin that morning to conduct his service.
“Or perhaps not the Day of Creation; perhaps we are now looking out upon the landscape of the Day of Judgment,” he called back, pausing for those following to gather around him. His sermon earlier had concerned the duties of Man to God and the acceptance of God’s trials. “What do you say, Mr. Crozier?”
Crozier, who had been walking at a tangent from the main party called out that he believed Franklin was right.
“I once spoke to a missionary,” he said, coming forward. “An American in Reykjavik, who warned me never to communicate the true nature of Hell to any Eskimo.”
“And why was that?” Fitzjames asked him, entering into the discussion with some enthusiasm, invigorated by the cold air after five days of overheated confinement.
