The Broken Lands

by Robert Edric

  At first they saw nothing, but were then alerted by a noise coming from within the empty hulk. They were reluctant to wander too far inside in search of their prey, and so two men were sent to the far side of the ship to shout and throw pieces of timber in an attempt to flush the creature out toward the hunters waiting opposite.

  The fox appeared several minutes later at a hole in the Terror’s side, and in its mouth it held a length of cloth. It stood motionless for a few seconds, assessing the ground ahead of it, and conscious only of the noise of the men behind. It came down a broad sloping spar to the ice, stopped again, sniffing the air, and then left the ship at a steady trot toward where Wilkes and the others were hiding.

  It came close to another of the marines who knelt behind an upturned chart table, and as it passed by him he rose, fired and shouted all in a single action. His shot scared the fox, but did not hit it, and the animal turned and ran, this time directly toward Henry Wilkes and the man beside him. At its approach both men rose and confronted it. Wilkes was the first to fire, but the charge in his pistol failed to detonate, and he called for the man beside him to shoot, which he did, hitting and instantly killing the fox, which fell where it stood. Wilkes cheered and called to the others. The successful marksman picked up the small animal by its brush and swung it above his head.

  Wilkes retrieved the piece of cloth it had been carrying and saw that it was a collar. He examined this more closely before suddenly realizing where it might have come from. Then, enraged by what he had deduced, he grabbed the fox and threw it back to the ground, and cocking the hammer of his failed pistol he crouched down, pressed it hard against the animal’s head and fired again. This time the charge detonated, but instead of firing the ball, the stock and barrel exploded in Wilkes’ hand and the full force of the blast caught him in the face, throwing him backward, his cheeks and forehead glossy with blood. The others ran to help him, but he was dead before they reached him. His face smoked with powder burns and blood seeped onto the ice from the back of his head; all four fingers and the thumb of his right hand had been severed.

  His body was carried back to the camp, where the incident was reported to Tozer. Wilkes’ pistol was retrieved, its shattered barrel peeled back like the petals of a steely flower, its walnut butt splintered and frayed. Tozer guessed that it hadn’t been fired since the last time Wilkes had hunted, and that meantime he had become careless and allowed ice to penetrate either the firing mechanism or the barrel, fatally sabotaging the weapon.

  Wilkes’ body was covered and left outside, awaiting inspection by Peddie prior to its removal to the Terror. The man who had killed the fox showed Tozer the collar the animal had been carrying, and Tozer immediately snatched it from him and threw it into the fire.

  They skinned, gutted and cooked the animal whole, each of the ten hunters receiving barely half a pound of edible flesh and gristle for his trouble.

  When the time came to wash, dress and remove the small wasted body of George Chambers, Stanley was visited by the carpenters John Weeks and Thomas Honey, who had built a coffin in which the boy might be carried to the Terror with more dignity than their other recent fatalities. Crozier officiated at the ceremony, and two dozen men followed the pall-bearers across the ice. The loss of the boy saddened them all.

  Their remaining losses during March came on the 28th and the 30th with the deaths of two of the Terror’s petty officers—Luke Smith, engaged originally as a stoker, and Samuel Honey, blacksmith and younger brother of Thomas, who set about making another coffin so soon after the last.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  On the morning of Saturday the 2nd of April, Crozier called his lieutenants and other senior officers together and informed them of his intention to abandon the Erebus completely and for them all to make the short crossing to the southeast to the shore of King William Land, where a camp would be established. They would take with them as much as they required or could carry, making several return journeys if necessary. He spoke quickly and firmly, allowing no one to interrupt him. Once established on the land they would survey the situation and then the strongest of them would make the hundred-mile journey farther south to the estuary of Back’s River, where there was a good chance they would make contact with the natives known to be living in that region, and by that means communicate their situation to someone in a position to come to their assistance.

  If necessary, he went on, a second camp would be set up on either the southern shore of King William Land or on the mainland itself. Depots of stores would then be laid down between these two points and communication between them maintained. No one was about to be abandoned, he insisted, but nor would those who had become their greatest liability now be allowed to hold back those others upon whom rested the greatest chance of them all being saved.

  He stopped abruptly and, stunned into silence by this announcement, those around him began to consider what he had proposed, and to wonder into which of the two categories they themselves fell.

  However drastic and sudden this decision might have seemed to some, it was not entirely unexpected by those more fully apprised of the true extent of the damage to the Erebus, and who, along with Crozier, had come to the realization that what had happened to the Terror during the previous year would almost certainly be her fate if she did not get free during the coming season. What did surprise some of them, however, was that Crozier had decided upon abandonment so soon, and that it was to involve them all and at the expense of their ship, rather than be undertaken by a smaller party in conjunction with their continued efforts to free the Erebus.

  Crozier’s own experience of Arctic marching had been gained with Franklin on his last overland expedition, and it was this, and the knowledge that they were so close to where he and Franklin had once stood, that convinced him he had made the right decision.

  In the discussion which followed he received support both from those who had given up all hope of ever freeing the Erebus, and from those who knew that any overland journey must begin before the onset of the heavy summer thaw made marching treacherous. Acknowledging the truth in this, those who argued against the abandonment of the Erebus focused their argument on the poor condition of so many of their number and the effort Crozier was about to ask them to make, even those who would only cross the short distance to the northern shore of King William Land and await their rescue there.

  Rather than answer these individual points, Crozier called for silence so that he might outline his plans in greater detail.

  He proposed that they should aim to make landfall in three weeks’ time, preferably by Easter Sunday, which fell that year on the 23rd of April. The date struck them all as propitious. In addition to gaining for themselves as long as possible to make their way farther south, this would also allow them to recover some of their strength before crossing the ice to where Gore and Blanky had already made landfall the previous year, and then to bridge any other ice-locked strait which might lie between King William Land and the mainland before the ice started to break up beneath them.

  He intended to dispatch a small party within the next few days to establish that no new barrier had been created between themselves and the land. This expedition would direct itself to Gore’s marker cairns, and then plot a route across the ice by which they would later haul their boats. The blacksmiths would build detachable runners upon which these might be dragged, sturdy enough to withstand the roughest terrain, and easily removable in case they encountered open water.

  If upon reaching King William Land the going proved harder than anticipated, they would return to the ice-bound sea, and follow this, rather than the land, south. On reaching Back’s estuary a party would then be dispatched upstream to make contact with whoever lived on its banks. Another boat might also be sent west along the coast toward the Coppermine until contact was also established in that direction.

  Most voiced their doubts at this over-optimistic assessment, but in reply Crozier argued that if anyone had already set out to di
scover their whereabouts, then they were just as likely to be sailing east from Bering and Icy Cape in the open coastal waters as they were to be seeking a path south or west via Lancaster Sound.

  Their biggest problem concerned the small number of men who might be accommodated in their remaining boats should they be forced to take these, and this was compounded by the fact that for much of the time these would be laden not only with their stores but also with the men who were unable to walk. Stanley and Peddie calculated that there were already a dozen of these, and that this number might easily double before they made landfall. Thereafter it would increase with every day’s marching and hauling. Crozier countered this by saying that he intended to increase all their rations over the next three weeks, both to assist the recovery of the sick and to reduce the load with which they would be burdened over the first part of their journey.

  Gore and Blanky volunteered their services to lead the preliminary route-finding expedition, and while accepting Blanky’s application, Crozier turned down Gore in favor of one of the Terror’s lieutenants, finally choosing George Hodgson. Fitzjames also volunteered, but was refused on the grounds that Hodgson was the stronger, fitter man.

  Harboring the suspicion that he had been rejected because of the failure of his own expedition the previous summer, Fitzjames did not argue his case, but later, upon confiding his feelings to Goodsir, he was told that Crozier had been right to choose Hodgson, that he himself probably was too weak to lead the expedition, however short or straightforward.

  Goodsir had been suffering more than usual over the previous week with his injured hand. The partial amputation of his thumb had not prevented further infection, and having delayed for as long as possible, he urged Stanley to amputate the remainder of the rotten flesh. Because of this delay the extent of the gangrene was worse than Stanley had feared, and in addition to removing the lower bones of Goodsir’s thumb, he was forced to cut away the diseased bone and flesh of both his fore- and index-finger. It was his opinion that the remaining two fingers might also later be lost, and that to prevent any further suffering Goodsir ought to have his whole hand amputated as a precaution. Goodsir agreed to this, aware that once the gangrene entered his arm under those conditions it would be impossible to stop.

  He was in acute pain for five days and nights after the operation, dosed with laudanum to help him gain brief periods of fitful sleep, and closely watched by Stanley throughout. He became feverish and lost more weight, but recovered well enough to start eating again, and then to sit and talk with his frequent visitors.

  He was visited by Hodgson and Blanky on the morning of their departure for King William Land, and he reminded Blanky to attempt some measurement of the ice close to the shore, and to assess the depth of the wind-driven blocks on the land. Blanky agreed to collect this information and, following several awkward handshakes, he and Hodgson departed.

  Leaving mid-morning, the expedition was within sight of land as the sun set late that same evening. The distinction between the ice-covered shore and the frozen sea which surrounded it was not so marked as when Gore and Blanky had been there the previous year. The contours of the intervening ice had also changed, having gone from a smooth and unbroken surface to one of ridges and scarps, few of these taller than a man, but forcing them either to scramble over these or to make wide detours in search of a broader passage through which they might later drag their boats to the shore. There were indications that the movement of the ice had been more vigorous where it was forced upon the land, but no sign of any current movement or disturbance.

  Blanky discovered one of Gore’s cairns and, searching for its marker stone, he calculated that they had come ashore less than a quarter of a mile south of where he had landed the previous year.

  They continued to search the shore for several hours, assessing the extent and condition of the ice over which they would later travel en masse. Hodgson then traced their own route on the map Gore had compiled the previous year, marking on it the area of more recently contorted ice, and plotting the path by which they might make their least difficult approach to the shore.

  It was too late to begin their return journey, so they spent the night on land. A few patches of immature lemon-grass were discovered, more root than actual growth, and this was fastidiously collected and cooked.

  The following day they retraced their steps to the Erebus in a march lasting seventeen hours, arriving back just as the sun set behind them.

  Hodgson joined Crozier for dinner, showed him the revised chart, and told him at great length about everything they had seen. Blanky went to Gore and Reid, and then the three men sought out Fitzjames, who was sitting with Goodsir.

  The next morning Crozier announced to the assembled men that they would now leave the Erebus as soon as the weakest among them were sufficiently recovered to attempt the first stage of their journey. The lower ranks cheered him, and he felt gratified and vindicated by this, gesturing to them and prolonging their applause.

  They had one more shock to endure before the eventual abandonment of the Erebus on Easter Eve. On the morning of April the 12th, John Irving was found dead, having died in his sleep. Stanley and Peddie agreed that an apoplectic fit resulting in heart seizure was the cause. No post-mortem was carried out to confirm this, and an hour after he was found, Irving was washed and dressed and taken from his cabin. Because the Terror was finally so close to complete disintegration, he was taken instead to the Erebus’ empty forward hold, where he was laid out on trestles, and where the others came to pay their last respects.

  Steward Hoar had been the last to see him alive the previous evening, having called on him at nine. He wept upon hearing of the death and related how Irving had told him that earlier in the evening he could have sworn he had heard a nightingale somewhere out in the darkness on the ice. Both men had laughed at the ridiculous notion.

  Fitzjames felt the loss more acutely than many, having lost a friend and an ally, and one of the few remaining officers who might have sided with him against the more ill-considered of Crozier’s preparations for their overland march.

  The following day all the accessible corpses were retrieved from the Terror and brought back to the Erebus. Careful records had been kept, and only three of the frozen bodies—those deposited first, before the destruction of the Terror had seemed so inevitable—were not located.

  On the 17th of April they felt the first faint reverberations of that year’s breakup. As a precaution, their two heavier boats, which had already been fixed upon their runners, were pulled a short distance from the Erebus and loaded with part of their stores. It quickly became evident that hauling the boats over even level ice was going to prove more difficult than they had expected. In addition to the 750-pound weight of the boats themselves, Fitzjames estimated their bolted-on runners to weigh another 650 pounds. The boats were thirty feet in length with a seven-foot beam. A pulling harness for fourteen men had been attached to each, and he wondered if they now had twenty-eight men with strength enough for the task.

  It was also clear that they would not be able to cross the ice in a single body as Crozier had hoped, and that this could not be achieved in a single day’s march.

  They were delayed by strong winds and a further succession of faint shocks passing through the ice all around them, but on the morning of the 22nd, Easter Eve, they doused their boiler and stoves and gathered out on the ice to the boatswain’s piping of “abandon ship,” followed by the signal to drag ropes.

  Crozier supervised all this activity from the vantage-point of the Erebus’ rail, dividing the two crews into those who would take their turn in the harnesses and those who were too weak and would need assistance from the others. Eight of their number were unable to walk. Six of these were to be carried on stretchers, the remaining two pulled in the boats.

  Hodgson, Tozer and his marines went ahead with posts to mark out the route Hodgson had followed three weeks earlier.

  An hour after this advance party had
left, and while they were still within view, a second party of three dozen men set off dragging supplies on sledges. They had orders to march as far as possible, make a depot of their provisions and then return with their empty sledges to relieve the men hauling the boats of part of their load. When these depots were reached a new hauling party would be formed and the process repeated. In this way Crozier hoped to move as much as possible in the time available to them, and to ensure that not only were the strongest men undertaking the most work, but that supplies were available to anyone falling behind on the march.

  Next the men hauling the boats departed, making good progress for the first mile over the smooth ice which had been cleared in that direction, but then slowing as the first of the troughs and ridges were reached.

  There was some argument over what they should take with them, and inspecting the line of marchers, Fitzjames saw men dragging two of their heavy cooking stoves and others with their copper lightning conductor, and even the brass curtain rails from the cabins. Ordering them to leave these and find something more useful to carry, the men argued that the pieces of metal were to be used to barter with the Eskimos. They appealed to Crozier, who decided in their favor. All of these heavier loads quickly sapped the strength of those who carried them.

  By noon they had crossed three of their estimated twelve miles.

  Those helping the injured began to fall behind, conscious of the pain caused to the suffering by every jolt of the rough terrain. Word was sent back for them to rest and then continue at their own speed.

  By mid-afternoon the drawn-out column was almost four miles long, Hodgson and the marines having already come within sight of the distant low shoreline, while the stragglers at the rear were only just out of sight of the Erebus. Small depots were laid for those beginning to fall behind, and men coming out of the boat harnesses rested and then waited to take over with the carrying of the sick.