Finding John Rae

by Alice Jane Hamilton

  For some time, I had heard voices in the next room. I assumed they belonged to the men who came together and met as the Arctic Council. Was Sir James’ dismissive attitude shared by the others? Would more skepticism and irritation await me on the other side of the door? I began to dread the next round of questions. The first lord glanced at the clock. We had been engaged in this fruitless discussion for almost an hour. He sighed, and turned to face me again.

  “Do you, Doctor Rae, have absolute faith in these native accounts about the fates of Franklin’s men?”

  “I do, Sir.” My view on the matter was as simple as that. Nothing — no arguments, fits of temper or criticism — could move me from maintaining my steadfast belief in the truth of their testimony.

  Sir James sat down behind his desk again, clasped his hands together, rested his chin upon them and looked at me. This simple gesture made him seem more human, less imperious. I leaned slightly towards him, sensing his growing anguish. The tone of his voice softened.

  “Your report states that the white men observed by the Esquimaux looked emaciated, with the exception of one, whom you presume to have been an officer because of his attire, equipment and weapon. You also refer to someone matching that description being seen later at a British encampment, deceased. Am I correct?”

  “You are right, Sir. We cannot know with absolute certainty, however, that the marching man the natives first referred to is the one who later perished under the overturned boat.”

  I was unwilling to engage in conjecture concerning the appearance of an individual I had never seen, although the natives I interviewed at Repulse Bay suggested that the man under the boat looked like the leader of the group of marchers. Was he the commander? A captain? A lieutenant? Was he the man who purchased a piece of seal meat from the natives in 1848? I had a vague notion about who he may have been, but I kept my thoughts to myself. Whoever the man was, he, along with the others, had made a Herculean effort to survive. The names of the men the Esquimaux had seen meant absolutely nothing in the final analysis.

  The first lord pointed an unsteady index finger in my direction. “Based upon what you have been told by others, do you personally have any theories concerning the identity of the man with the telescope at his shoulder and a gun under his body, Doctor Rae?”

  “I cannot say because I do not know, Sir James. The natives referred to him as Aglooka.” I did not add that I had once heard of a young British naval officer who had long ago befriended an Esquimaux boy and his family in the region, while his party searched for the elusive Northwest Passage. Apparently, the native boy’s grandmother had expressed her affection for the young Kabloonan by bestowing the Esquimaux name upon him. There would likely be speculation in Britain, but it was impossible to know the identity of the officer under the boat without a body to examine. I changed the subject.

  “You have read, Sir, that it appeared many of the bodies had been methodically cut and dismembered.” It was all in the report.

  He nervously glanced over at the fireplace. The wood was hissing and crackling as it burned. “Wild animals, perhaps? Wolves? Foxes? A few moments ago, you mentioned that the natives were starving last year. Is it possible that those hungry people found our men and dismembered them?” His eyes were upon me again.

  “Sir, no. Absolutely not. The Esquimaux have strong spiritual reasons for choosing starvation over the alternative of eating human flesh. An Arctic native who indulges in such an act of desperation would be cast out of his group, indeed from all Esquimaux society, and in their view, he would forever be locked out of the spirit world.”

  “I will remind you, Doctor Rae, that we British hold the same damn beliefs!” It was a defensive, yet revealing statement. I confess that I was pleasantly surprised to hear it.

  Aha! I thought. You have just said it yourself, Sir James. We are not so different from the Esquimaux, after all.

  “I ask you, why should we believe what they say?” He banged his fist on the table to emphasize his growing frustration.

  “I know the Esquimaux and their values well, Sir James,” I said quietly. “And I believe them.”

  He slumped in his chair as emotion overcame him. His cool, professional mask fell away, and he emitted a surprised gasp as the man, not the first lord, suddenly perceived the horror and tragedy of it all. His eyes filled with tears, and he awkwardly raised a hand to cover his trembling lips. Sir James Graham personally knew every hand-picked officer aboard the Erebus and the Terror. I resisted an impulse to reach out and place a comforting hand on his arm. Instead, I nodded and sighed in sympathy. For a moment, at least, the tense atmosphere in his office had shifted from skepticism to grief. It was a relief to observe his human reaction to the news he was fighting so hard to discredit.

  The painful truth is that the extreme nature of the Arctic climate was consistently hostile to even the most extravagantly fitted British ships. By the mid-nineteenth century, the list of vessels lost in the Arctic had grown long. Sir John Franklin’s party had been extraordinarily well equipped according to British standards, but Royal Navy training, clothing, provisions and packaged food were no match for the fundamental tracking, hunting and self-preservation skills required for survival in the region. Even with iron reinforcements to strengthen their hulls and powerful steam engines with propellers to thrust them forward, the grandest of ships could not resist the irrepressible forces of moving Arctic pack ice.

  The first lord cleared his throat, wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief and collected himself. “Right. Come with me, Doctor Rae. Members of the Council are waiting to view the relics.”

  I returned the remaining relics to my satchel, rolled up the map, rose and followed the first lord to the door. As he reached for the handle, I attempted to raise the topic of my promising discovery the previous spring. “There is one more thing, Sir… when I was travelling with my two guides on the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula, I am quite certain that we located a section of what might be the missing link in the Northwest Passage. Perhaps you would consider a different approach the next time — ”

  He interrupted me. “We shall see about that much later, Dr. Rae.”

  If the meeting with the first lord was uncomfortable, the next one was nothing short of a nightmare. I glanced heavenward and prayed that my good friend and colleague Sir John Richardson would be in the meeting. I had been pleasantly surprised in 1847, when the celebrated scientist and explorer personally chose me to assist him in leading an expedition in search of the lost Franklin ships and men. We had travelled many hundreds of miles together in the Arctic, and during that time we became fast friends. He knew my ways and respected my professional opinion, and I felt the same way about him. I looked for his face as soon as we entered the meeting room, but I was profoundly disappointed to see that he was not in attendance.

  “Sir James, I do not see Sir John Richardson in the group.”

  The first lord leaned in and said, “He was unable to join us. He had plans with his family, and London is too far for him to travel on the Sabbath. By the way, the young man you see over there is a reporter for the Times.” With that, Sir James Graham left me standing there, alone.

  At least a dozen pairs of eyes which had simultaneously watched me come through the doorway were then lowered towards the heavy leather satchel in my hand. The moment was unnerving; it was as if time had stopped. I felt as though I had divested myself of my clothing in the other room and walked through the door naked. The oddest aspect of my entrance was the silence that greeted me. I had expected to be acknowledged and peppered with questions about my journey and experiences, but to my great surprise and embarrassment, none was forthcoming. The men appeared to be curious about the contents of the satchel, but once they had first laid eyes upon me, they seemed to dismiss my presence altogether, as if I were invisible. I recognized a number of them: Sir Francis Beaufort, Sir James Clark Ross, William Parry, Frederick Beechey, Sir George Back, all survivors of earlier Royal Navy Arctic e
xplorations.

  I set about assembling the relics on the large table around which the Council members were gathered. While they were examining them, making sketches and murmuring amongst themselves, the Times reporter approached me and introduced himself as Mr. John Barrow. He requested an interview, but given the unsettling fact that the others had yet to even acknowledge my presence, I was reluctant to say anything. What was going through their minds?

  Barrow held up a piece of paper. His voice sounded unnecessarily loud in that quiet room. “Doctor Rae, might I ask you to comment on this?” He quoted: “From the mutilated state of many of the corpses and the contents of the kettles… a means of prolonging existence…” I was taken aback when I heard the very words I had penned in my private report to the Admiralty and my employer, news that I had never intended to be released to the public.

  “I beg your pardon?” I was incredulous. “That is confidential information. This is not the report I sent to the Times! My report to your newspaper simply states that the men have all perished. You cannot…”

  I looked around the room at expressionless faces, suddenly understanding what the assembled group already knew: a copy of my private report had indeed been given to the press. Why? I wondered. Why would they want such a scandalous story about their own colleagues to be publicized? It didn’t make sense to me, and the worst part was that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I was the last one to know, and in that moment I felt as though I was being played for a fool. At the best of times I am not a man of many words; I could not think of anything to say, but the reporter was persistent.

  “Surely, you wish to make a statement before the news goes to press, Sir. Many of our readers will wonder about the veracity of your shocking announcement, and whether your sources of information can be relied upon at all.” It was clear that he had already been counselled about who could not be trusted. All eyes were upon me. I realized that it was essential for me to think on my feet, because there was no time at all to digest what was happening.

  I fought to hide the shock I felt about such scandalous information being made public. My heart was pounding. “Very well, then, Mr. Barrow, I will give you a statement. Once I had collected the artifacts you see here today, along with two hundred hours of testimony from the Arctic residents, I prepared a private report for the Secretary of the Arctic Council and Sir George Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company. You just quoted a passage from it, Mr. Barrow. I believed that the most sensitive contents contained therein would remain confidential to spare the public and families of the lost men from further anguish. As you are no doubt aware, I sent a shorter report to your editor, excluding those details.”

  I paused, hoping that at least one man in the room would speak up and lend support to my statement. There was silence. I knew then, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was on my own. Realizing I had nothing to lose by speaking my mind, I pressed on: “Wouldn’t you agree that confirmation of their deaths is news enough? That the memory of the men who suffered such misery should be honoured, and not tainted with sordid details about their last moments?” The reporter John Barrow did not respond to my question; indeed, the room was quiet, save for the odd cough and clearing of a throat. I picked up the satchel and began to collect the relics.

  “Gentlemen…” I began. I feared that the Council members would lay claim to the relics and that the objects would disappear, along with what little remained of my credibility. “As you can see, many of these objects are personal. The identifiable ones will be returned to the families of the lost men. I will take them with me today, because they were purchased with Hudson’s Bay Company funds, and my employers will wish to examine them as well. They will be made available to you for further viewing, in due course.”

  Barrow, the reporter, called after me as I prepared to exit the room. “Doctor Rae, why did you return to England now with these relics, instead of remaining there to search for the bodies of Sir John and his men? Are you aware of the £10,000 reward being offered by the British government to the person who ascertains the fate of the Franklin Expedition?” Stung, I could think of nothing further to say. I had simply run out of words.

  Dusk was approaching as I descended the steps of Admiralty House, crossed the Horse Guards Parade Grounds, and walked towards St. James’s Park. The satchel containing the relics felt even heavier than it had two hours earlier, as though the Royal Navy’s decision to make my report public added further weight to its sad contents.

  I entered the park and lowered myself onto one of the benches overlooking the pond. I had always enjoyed listening to Sunday evening church bells and street sounds in London, particularly after spending months or years of relative silence in the Arctic, but I felt no joy on this late afternoon. It grieved me to think of mothers, fathers, wives, brothers, sisters and children suffering and weeping upon hearing the tragic news of cannibalism among the last survivors. These poor people might wonder forever if their own loved ones had participated in — or been victims of — these final desperate acts to prolong their lives.

  I tried to understand why such melancholy tidings would be released in the newspapers, and concluded that there had to be some sort of reasoning behind it. For an hour or so, I took a scientific approach to examining my confusion by picturing myself in Lord Graham’s shoes. Firstly, it was well known that the obsessive British search for a sea link across the North American Arctic had failed time and again. On previous expeditions, then-lieutenant John Franklin had succeeded in charting considerable stretches of the North American coastline, but his three separate attempts to locate the Northwest Passage had been fruitless. On one disaster-plagued journey between 1819 and 1822, eleven of his twenty men had perished from starvation and violence. Nonetheless, the romantic Franklin Expedition was enormously popular with the people of Britain because it symbolized ambition, wealth, and indisputable naval dominance across the globe. After 1848, when it was feared that the Erebus and Terror were in peril, many British ships and men were subsequently lost in searches for the missing vessels and their crews.

  I sifted through the facts as I understood them, and formed my own hypothesis. Nine years after the ships’ departure and disappearance, I surmised that the British government wished to let go — once and for all — of its fanciful and wildly expensive quest for completing the Northwest Passage to the Far East. Lord Graham appeared to have little interest when I attempted to tell him that I believed I had located a section of the correct sea link. The authorities wanted to make their past failures disappear from Britain’s collective consciousness, and turn the public’s heads towards current and future endeavours. They had already issued a proclamation declaring that all of the men had bravely given up their lives, in the name of God, the Queen and their country. Less than seven months after the declaration was made and the subject was ostensibly closed, however, I came along and threw a wrench into the government’s efforts to make the story go away quietly. The missing men were dead all right, but they had become desperate enough to eat each other!

  I remained on that bench for a long time, brooding. Queen Victoria and her advisors closely followed the news, of course, so they would have been aware of my report and the Admiralty’s decision to publish it. Whatever the public reaction, I suspected that the notion of finding a sea passage across the roof of the North American continent would soon die in the hearts and minds of the British public.

  I also considered the fact that Britain and France had recently become engaged in a war between Turkey and Russia, an event forged by tricky alliances, power, politics and mutual concerns about Russian expansionism on the continent. Such a complex land and sea enterprise required great numbers of men, weapons, horses, ships and expensive equipment to battle the Russian Bear, along with a measure of goodwill from the public. Nine years ago, the government had enjoyed the support of the British people when the Erebus and Terror had set sail in search of the Northwest Passage. Now the authorities needed the public to let g
o of its failed Arctic dream, and somehow believe in the necessity of Great Britain’s engagement in the Crimean conflict.

  Perhaps the Admiralty hoped that my scandalous report would provide the government with benefits on two major fronts: a wave of shock would run through the minds of the British public, but the news would not directly reflect on their storied institution. Instead, I would be the recipient of distrust, derision and ridicule for believing the words of the Esquimaux. I would play the unfortunate role of scapegoat, a distraction which would likely keep Lady Franklin busy for some time to come. She had been constantly pestering the Admiralty to find her lost husband, even after the official announcement of his death. Were they banking on Lady Franklin leaving them alone, and turning her attentions towards discrediting me?

  It had pained me terribly when the Times reporter asked me about my motive for travelling to England instead of organizing another expedition and pushing west to collect more proof. His reference to my return to London as soon as I could because of the reward money was insulting, to say the least.

  The air became damp, so I finally gathered my things and set out in the direction of the Covent Garden Hotel where I sometimes lodged when I was visiting London. In the morning when the dreadful news took the country by storm, I would quietly go to the Hudson’s Bay Company offices and book the earliest available passage home to Orkney.

  London, England

  [OCTOBER 23, 1854]

  I awoke with a start the next morning, my mind in a fog. Where was I? At sea? In the Arctic? In England? Scotland? It took me a few moments to realize that I was staying at the Covent Garden Hotel, and that it was almost daylight. Even though I had lodged at the hotel previously, the surroundings felt strangely unfamiliar, as if I had never before occupied this comfortable space. I had tossed and turned throughout the night, slipping in and out of disturbing dreams. Now raindrops tapped steadily at the window. I briefly considered rolling over and going back to sleep.