Captain Francis Crozier

by Michael Smith

  Magnetic observations were completed a few weeks later and on 7 August the expedition sailed to New Zealand. The expedition remained in the area for three months, taking copious observations, indulging in abundant local foodstuffs and keeping a wary eye on the restless Maori population. Officers and men carried guns whenever they ventured ashore, but the only casualty was a marine who drowned when his dinghy capsized.

  An odd incident occurred soon after sailing when a seaman leapt overboard in high seas in the hope of avoiding a flogging for ‘mutinous conduct’. He was plucked from the water and, according to Davis, ‘got his deserts besides his ducking’.

  Dispatches were sent back to London, outlining future sailing plans and recommending promotion for several officers, including McMurdo and Davis. ‘The ships are now in the best possible condition, have on board about two years and a half provisions up to Febry [sic] 1844’, a confident Ross informed the Admiralty. ‘The crews are in the most perfect health’, he added.

  The expedition sailed back towards Antarctic waters for a second time on 23 November 1841, with the target of reaching the edge of the pack ice along the 146th meridian by mid-December. This would bring the ships to the point on the Barrier where they had turned back during the previous season.

  Right on target, Erebus and Terror met the pack on 17 December. Christmas Day, the third since leaving Britain, was an occasion for a splendid dinner of roast beef and goose, accompanied by the disturbing sight of the vessels completely surrounded on all sides by dense ice. Picking a path through the tightly packed ice in freezing conditions was treacherous and Cunningham reported that Christmas was ‘anything but a pleasant one’.

  New Year’s Day 1842 found the ships about 250 miles (400 kilometres) into the pack and still hopeful of emerging into open water. But when heavy ice brought the ships to a standstill, the officers and crew took the opportunity of improvising a New Year’s celebration – one that lasted for two days.

  A few hands climbed aboard a nearby iceberg and hollowed out a rectangular-shaped ‘ballroom’. At one end of the dance floor, magnificent thrones were chiselled from the ice for Crozier and Ross. The artistic Hooker and Davis carved an 8-foot (2.4-metre) statue of a woman from the ice and named it Venus de Medici.

  Drink flowed freely as the party ignored their predicament, singing and dancing into the early hours. Crozier and Ross entered into the spirit of this bizarre occasion by dancing a quadrille in heavy boots and cold-weather clothing.

  When the party broke up at 1 a.m., the ‘Two Captains’ were light-heartedly pelted with snowballs as they made their way back to their cabins. In the meantime, ‘Venus de Medici’ drifted slowly away towards the melting waters of the north carrying a goodwill message signed by Crozier, Ross and the other officers.

  ‘Venus de Medici’ did not bring the expedition any luck. Erebus and Terror remained trapped in the ice for almost three weeks and on 20 January a hurricane hit the ships with astonishing ferocity. Ross reported the vessels ‘rolling and groaning amidst heavy fragments of crushing bergs’ and both ships lost their rudders at the height of the storm.

  Terror suffered the worst. Although a spare rudder was made ready, the ice encasing the ship was too thick for the carpenters to work. Then, a potentially catastrophic fire broke out near the Sylvester stove and the quick-thinking Crozier was forced to flood the hold to a depth of 2 feet (0.6 metres) to douse the flames.

  Following a consultation between Crozier and Ross, it was decided to take a huge risk by steering the ships back into the thickest area of ice, where it was expected the heavily packed ice would reduce turbulence and make it easier to effect repairs. Terror’s rudder was eventually replaced and the relieved expedition resumed the journey south, steering a fresh path through the endless miles of pack.

  The damaging storm was a serious blow to the expedition, slowing the ships’ progress through the pack and curtailing the season when the seas would be safe to navigate. It was not until 1 February, 47 days after entering the pack, that Erebus and Terror finally managed to locate clear water. A year earlier, the ships cleared the pack in less than five days. Battered, broken but unbowed, Erebus and Terror had survived the Antarctic’s most deadly assault and by late February the ships were running alongside the familiar sight of the Barrier. Ice conditions were tolerably good and as expected the ships steered east beyond the point where they had turned back twelve months earlier.

  But it was now colder than it had been at that time the previous year. Cunningham reported layers of ice on the decks far deeper than twelve months earlier and the 1-5-inch (4-centimetre) ropes had swollen to around 12 inches (32 centimetres) thick with ice.

  A fish dashed into Terror’s side by a wave was instantly frozen against the hull of the ship, though Dr Richardson, Terror’s surgeon and naturalist, was thwarted in his attempts to analyse the fish when the ship’s cat pounced and darted off with the prize.

  The ships edged cautiously along the Barrier. On 22 February, Erebus and Terror reached 78° 10′ south, about 6 miles (10 kilometres) further south than on the previous voyage and the most southerly point that any human had attained. ‘No one will ever beat that in this longitude, that I may safely say’, Davis wrote.

  He was correct as regards the 1842 season. Ice conditions grew rapidly worse and as February drew to a close, Crozier and Ross faced a difficult decision. As the ships came to the end of the Barrier, it was discovered that the land swerved to the north and brushed into the encircling pack. It was too late in the season to consider another encounter with the ice and on 24 February, helped by a favourable breeze from the southeast, it was decided to cut and run.

  It had been a disappointing season truncated by the tortuous journey through the pack, though the expedition had reached a new ‘furthest south’ and, more importantly, lived to fight another day.

  Erebus and Terror turned north, hoping for a quick voyage through the pack before exit routes were closed off by the colder autumn weather. Luck was on their side and the ships made a surprisingly easy passage, crossing the Antarctic Circle on 6 March. Ross ordered a new course to the east to take the shortest route to Cape Horn and the Falkland Islands, where they intended to spend the winter. Most on board relaxed, assuming that the worst had passed. Cunningham blithely noted: ‘Have not seen any ice these two days. I think we are clear of it.’ It was an unfortunate prediction.

  In late-evening darkness on 12 March, the barometer plunged, heavy snow fell and hefty chunks of ice began to appear alongside. Seas became very rough and ice-blink – a reflection of ice in the distance – indicated pack ice directly ahead. Ross ordered Erebus to slow down by taking in his topsails, but Crozier was still running full sails on Terror, unaware of the imminent danger.

  At 1 a.m. on 13 March, a line of massive icebergs – one standing about 200 feet (60 metres) out of the water – suddenly loomed in front of Erebus.

  Ross turned away sharply and ran directly into the path of the faster-moving Terror. The two vessels collided with a sickening crunch in the pitch black. Men were knocked off their feet by the impact, wood splintered and the ships’ riggings became entangled in the heavy rolling seas.

  Erebus suffered badly, with the bowsprit, foretopmast and other smaller spars ripped away in the collision. Terror was carried to the top of heavy waves, almost exposing the ship’s keel to the terrified men on Erebus. In an instant, the roles were reversed, with Erebus jerked out of the water on a rising wave and threatening to smash down on Terror.

  By a miracle, the broken masts and rigging were separated as the ships rose and fell in the heaving seas. But the danger had not passed. Both ships were still perilously close to a pair of massive bergs – one at least 120 feet (35 metres) high, the other 200 feet (60 metres) out of the water. Davis remembered ‘A dreadful shipwreck and death then appeared inevitable’.

  Crozier reacted quickly. He spotted a dark shape between the two icebergs bearing down on his ship and gambled that it was an opening
between the floating mountains of ice. Men, many of them still half-dressed after being summoned from their hammocks, flew to the ropes and sails as Terror steered for the small gap between the perpendicular walls of ice.

  The dramatic collision of Erebus and Terror while trying to avoid icebergs in the Southern Ocean, 13 March 1842.

  The ship ran so close that heavy sea spray hit the bergs and splashed back over the decks and froze. Officers and crew held their breath as Terror passed through the slender opening as though threading a needle. The gap, said Davis, was ‘not twice the breadth of the ship’.

  The ‘horror and despair’ of the incident was etched on the faces of the terrified men and Davis recalled a ‘truly horrible time that will never be effaced from my memory’. One seaman went berserk with fear and three others wept uncontrollably.

  Crozier remained perfectly composed throughout the crisis, standing resolutely on deck, calmly issuing orders and displaying a measured authority that left his junior officers gaping in admiration. Davis observed that Crozier behaved ‘as coolly as if he were steaming up the Derwent [in Tasmania]’. They were lucky to escape, as Crozier later explained to Davis:

  The Captain himself, when it was all over, said that he had not the slightest idea what he did during the time or how we got through.5

  Crozier ordered a blue lamp to be lit as a beacon for the crippled Erebus, which, an hour later, managed to battle through the small gap between the icebergs thanks to the outstanding seamanship of Ross. Hooker, on board Erebus, concluded that ‘no naval annals in the world could record such a narrow escape’. Davis simply admits, ‘Never till those moments did I really know what fear was’.

  The first light of dawn gave both ships an opportunity to inspect the damage. Time was also taken for a brief service of thanksgiving for surviving the close brush with disaster.

  Apart from the loss of masts and sails, Erebus’ bow anchor had been driven into the hull, penetrating the extra planks and copper plating that had been used to reinforce the ship against the ice. It remained embedded in the hull until another howling gale hit the ship five days later.

  Patched up as effectively as could be managed on the high seas, Erebus and Terror resumed their journey north towards the Falkland Islands. At night, sails were brought in to avoid another unfortunate encounter with icebergs.

  Days later, the expedition was hit by another blow. James Angelly, quartermaster on Erebus, fell overboard during a storm and was drowned. It was the ship’s third loss. Crozier had not lost a man on Terror.

  Next day, the two ships rounded Cape Horn and on 6 April 1842 Erebus and Terror ran into Berkeley Sound on East Falkland and anchored at Port Louis, the island’s main settlement. The ships, which had been at sea for 135 days, entered Port Louis and arrived unnoticed under a blanket of dense fog. Thomas Hallett, Erebus’ purser, went ashore to buy supplies of fresh beef and vegetables and to pick up the mail. To universal disappointment, the post had not arrived.

  But Hallett brought back great news for Crozier. According to the Navy List in the lieutenant governor’s office, Commander Francis Crozier had been promoted to the rank of captain, effective from August 1841 when the expedition was stationed in New Zealand. It had taken 31 years of loyal service to the navy to reach the cherished status of captain and Crozier wrote to Lord Minto at the Admiralty expressing his ‘heartfelt thanks’ for the promotion.

  chapter thirteen

  Trembling Hands

  Crozier’s joy at being elevated to the rank of captain was overshadowed by growing signs of discontent aboard Erebus and Terror, where the first serious cracks had begun to appear in the expedition’s façade. The ships, now at the end of their third year at sea, had been gone too long for many on board. A number of the men felt that the expedition had been forgotten back home and Hooker complained that the English newspapers were ‘more full of D’Urville’s and Wilkes’ expeditions than ours’.

  The agitation increased further when the men discovered there was no mail from home and that Crozier was the only officer to be awarded promotion. While no one begrudged Crozier’s elevation, some felt that other deserving cases had been overlooked. Both Hooker and McCormick anticipated promotion and McCormick moaned that he had been ‘left in the cold’.

  Morale was at its lowest ebb as the ships docked at the Falklands, particularly when the crew learned that it was intended to remain at the miserable, run-down colony for many months. Speculation was rife that a number of men had been planning to desert at the next port of call and that Ross had only decided to spend the winter in the Falklands because no sailor in his right mind would jump ship in such a dire and desolate spot 8,000 miles (12,800 kilometres) from home. To add to the gloom, a number of crewmen became insensibly drunk on cheap rum during their first run ashore in five months and had to be carried back to the ships.

  The strain had been evident even before the ships had reached the Falklands. In January, Crozier had taken the rare step of ordering John Barclay, Terror’s steward, to be punished with 48 strokes for ‘drunkenness and general irregular conduct’. Discipline on board was generally very good throughout the long voyage and it was unusual for Crozier or Ross to hand out severe punishments.

  Morale among the officers was also under strain. Quarrels and disagreements were regular fare and both Hooker and McCormick felt the sulphurous lash of Ross’ tongue over minor issues. Davis reported the normally composed Ross looking ‘anxious and careworn’ in the days before the ships reached dry land.

  The mood worsened when the party discovered that the Falklands were in a state of near anarchy, just nine years after Britain had annexed the islands. Organised farming had collapsed and many of the 75 inhabitants were starving.

  Richard Moody, the inexperienced 28-year-old lieutenant governor, was struggling to maintain a semblance of law and order and to keep his community alive. The tiny population – civil servants, vagabond sailors and smallholders – was more than doubled by the arrival of the crews from Erebus and Terror, which added further strain on the island’s flimsy resources.

  Crozier and Ross paid a visit to Governor Moody, who informed them that he was unable to give the expedition any fresh milk even though herds of wild cattle roamed freely across the islands. To their astonishment, Crozier and Ross also learned that the island’s farms could only produce enough fresh vegetables for one helping a day.

  The appalling state of affairs on the Falklands left Crozier and Ross in a bizarre position. Instead of replenishing their supplies after months below the Antarctic Circle, they were forced to dip into their own provisions to provide Moody with bread and flour for his abject community.

  The dismal weeks and months spent on the Falklands was the most unhappy episode of the entire voyage. Ross considered the islands a ‘rather retrograding’ place and Hooker said the wet and windy Kerguelen Islands were ‘paradise’ compared with the Falklands.

  The most pressing task was to repair and refit the ships after the torrid time in the Southern Ocean and to build an observatory. Fortunately, a navy ship arrived at Port Louis and was able to carry an urgent message requesting a new bowsprit for the damaged Erebus.

  Work began immediately to repair the ships. Erebus was emptied and hauled up the beach as far as possible and carpenters worked day and night mending the damaged hull. A similar task was performed on Terror and on 23 June the warship Carysfort arrived with a new bowsprit for Erebus. By the end of July, the two ships were ready for sea again.

  In addition to overseeing work on the ships, Crozier and Ross were recruited to assist Moody in his quest to find a new capital for the Falklands. Crozier and Ross, two of the navy’s most distinguished seafarers, were ideally suited to locating a new capital for a community that had to rely heavily on shipping to sustain itself, though the atrocious weather meant the simple task of surveying the landscape took a week. The choice was between two sites on East Falkland: the existing Port Louis in Berkley Sound or the more sheltered deep-wat
er harbour of Port William in Jackson’s Harbour. Although the swampy land around Port William was a tricky place to build new settlements, Crozier and Ross believed the anchorage facilities outweighed the disadvantages.

  Port William was duly chosen as the new capital and renamed Port Stanley after the colonial secretary. Today, two streets running alongside Stanley Harbour bear the names Crozier Place and Ross Road.

  After five months on the islands, Erebus and Terror finally left the Falklands on 8 September 1842 for the stormy waters of Cape Horn. Few had regrets. Ross had fallen out with Moody on a grand scale and McMurdo, Crozier’s deputy on Terror, had taken ill and was left behind to be invalided home on the next passing ship.

  Many dreamed of accompanying McMurdo on his journey home. ‘You can hardly conceive how earnestly we longed at the Falklands that the Admiralty would have recalled us, or ordered us on another direction’, wrote Hooker.

  With Lieutenant John Sibbald of Erebus now installed as Crozier’s first lieutenant on Terror, the intention was to conduct more magnetic observations around Tierra del Fuego, linked to readings taken in the Falklands. But the notoriously rough weather around the Horn hampered work. On Hermite Island, an isolated dot at the tip of South America, the observatory was erected in stormy weather under the bemused eye of local Fuegian natives.

  Erebus and Terror caught in a storm in 1843 during the last stages of the momentous four-year journey to the Antarctic.

  Erebus and Terror returned briefly to the Falklands in mid-November before making final preparations for their third voyage into Antarctic waters. At Port Louis, Crozier picked up his mail, including an official notification from the Admiralty confirming his appointment to the rank of captain.

  A ceremonial gun salute was fired as the ships sailed from Port Louis on 17 December 1842, though the volley could not disguise the sheer relief at leaving the depressing Falklands. Ross observed that ‘not one individual in either ship [felt] the smallest regret at leaving the Falkland Islands’.