The Terror

⁷ FRANKLIN

Captain Sir John Franklin had rarely been so pleased with himself.

The previous winter frozen in at Beechey Island, hundreds of miles northeast of his present position, had been uncomfortable in many ways — he would be the first to admit that to himself or to a peer, although he had no peers on this expedition. The death of three members of the expedition, first Torrington and Hartnell so early in January, then Private William Braine of the Royal Marines on 3 April, all of consumption and pneumonia, had been a shock. Franklin was not aware of any other Navy expedition losing three men of natural causes so early in their endeavor.

It was Franklin himself who had chosen the inscription on the thirty-two-year-old Private Braine’s headstone — “Choose this day whom ye shall serve,” Joshua, ch. xxiv, 15 — and for a short while the words had seemed as much a challenge to the unhappy crews of Erebus and Terror, not yet near mutiny but neither so far away from it, as it was a message to the nonexistent passersby of Braine’s, Hartnell’s, and Torrington’s lonely graves on that terrible spit of gravel and ice.

Nonetheless, the four surgeons met and conferred after Hartnell’s death and decided that incipient scurvy might be weakening the men’s constitutions, allowing pneumonia and such congenital defects as consumption to rise to lethal proportions. Surgeons Stanley, Goodsir, Peddie, and McDonald recommended to Sir John that the men’s diet be changed — fresh food when possible (although there was almost none except polar bear possible in the dark of winter, and they had discovered that eating the liver of that great, ponderous beast could be fatal for some unknown reason) and, failing finding fresh meat and vegetables, cutting back on the men’s preferred salted pork and beef, or salted birds, and relying more on the tinned foods — vegetable soups and the like.

Sir John had gone along with the recommendation, ordering the diet on both ships changed so that no less than half the meals were prepared with tinned foods from stores. It seemed to have turned the trick. No more men died, or were even seriously sick, between Private Braine’s death in early April and the day both ships were freed from their icy imprisonment within the harbor of Beechey Island in late May of 1846.

After that, the ice broke up quickly and Franklin, following the paths through the leads chosen by his two fine ice masters, steamed and sailed south and west, going, as the captains of Sir John’s generation liked to say, like smoke and oakum.

Along with the sunlight and open water, animals, birds, and aquatic life returned in plenitude. During those long, slow, arctic summer days, where the sun remained above the horizon until almost midnight and the temperature sometimes rose above freezing, the skies were filled with migrating birds. Franklin himself could identify the petrels from the teals, eider ducks from the little auks, and the sprightly little puffins from all others. The ever-widening leads around Erebus and Terror were alive with right whales that would have been the envy of any Yankee whaler, and there was a profusion of cod, herring, and other small fish, as well as the large beluga and bowhead whales. The men put out the whaling boats and fished, often shooting some of the small whales just for sport.

Every hunting party came back with fresh game for the tables each night — birds, of course, but also those confounded ringed and harp seals, so impossible to shoot or catch in their holes in the winter, now brazen on the open ice and easy targets. The men did not enjoy the taste of the seals — too oily and astringent — but something about the blubber in the slimy beasts appealed to all their winter-starved appetites. They also shot the large bellowing walruses visible through telescopes tusking away for oysters along the shores, and some hunting parties returned with the pelts and flesh of the white arctic fox. The men ignored the lumbering polar bears unless the waddling beasts seemed ready to attack or contest the kill of the human hunters. No one really liked the taste of the white bears and certainly not when there was so much tastier game to be found.

Franklin’s orders included an option: if he “found his way toward the Southern Approach to the North-West Passage blocked by Ice or other Obstacles,” to turn north and to follow the Wellington Passage into “the Open Polar Sea” — in essence, to sail to the north pole. But Franklin did what he had done without question his entire life: he followed his primary orders. This second summer in the arctic, his two ships had sailed south from Devon Island, Franklin leading HMS Erebus and HMS Terror past Cape Walker into the unknown waters of an icy archipelago.

The previous summer, it had seemed as if he would have to settle for sailing to the north pole rather than finding the North-West Passage. Captain Sir John Franklin had reason to be proud of his speed and efficiency so far. During his shortened summer voyage time that year before, 1845 — they had departed England late and Greenland even later than planned — he had nonetheless crossed Baffin Bay in record time, passed through Lancaster Sound south of Devon Island, then through Barrow Strait, and found his way south past Walker Point blocked by ice so late in August. But his Ice Masters reported open water to the north, past the western reaches of Devon Island into the Wellington Channel, so Franklin obeyed his secondary orders and turned north toward what could be an ice-free passage into the Open Polar Sea and the north pole.

There had been no opening to the fabled Open Polar Sea. The Grinnell Peninsula, which might have been part of an unknown Arctic Continent for all the men of the Franklin Expedition knew, had blocked their way and forced them to follow open water north by west, then almost due west, until they reached the western tip of that peninsula, turned north again, and encountered a solid mass of ice that extended north from the Wellington Channel apparently to infinity. Five days of sailing along that high wall of ice convinced Franklin, Fitzjames, Crozier, and the ice masters that there was no Open Polar Sea north of the Wellington Channel. At least not that summer.

Worsening ice conditions made them turn south, around the landmass previously known as only Cornwallis Land but now understood to be Cornwallis Island. If nothing else, Captain Sir John Franklin knew, his expedition had solved that puzzle.

With pack ice quickly freezing in place that late summer of 1845, Franklin had finished circumnavigating the huge, barren Cornwallis Island, reentered the Barrow Strait north of Cape Walker, confirmed that the way south past Cape Walker was still blocked — now solid with ice — and sought out their winter anchorage at little Beechey Island, entering a little harbour they had reconnoitered two weeks earlier. They’d arrived just in time, Franklin knew, for the day after they anchored in the shallow water of that harbour, the last open leads in Lancaster Sound beyond closed up and the moving pack ice would have made any more sailing impossible. It was doubtful if even such masterpieces of reinforced iron-and-oak technology as Erebus and Terror would have survived the winter out in the channel ice.

But now it was summer and they had been sailing south and west for weeks, restoring their provisions when they could, following every lead, seeking out any glint of open water they could spy from the lookout’s position high on the main mast, and every day smashing and forcing their way through the ice when they had to.

HMS Erebus continued to lead the way in the ice-breaking, as was her right as the flagship and her logical responsibility as the heavier ship with a more powerful — five horsepower more powerful — steam engine, but — confound it! — the long shaft to the screw had been bent by underwater ice; it would neither retract nor work properly, and Terror had moved into the lead position.

And with the icy shores of King William Land visible no more than fifty miles ahead of them to the south, the ships had moved out from under the protection of the huge island to their north — the one which had blocked their way directly to the southwest past Cape Walker, where his orders had directed him to sail, and instead had forced him south through Peel Sound and previously unexplored straits. Now the ice to the south and west had become active and almost continuous once again. Their pace had slowed to a crawl. The ice was thicker, the icebergs more frequent, the leads thinner and farther apart.

This morning of 3 September, Sir John had called a conference of his captains, top officers, engineers, and ice masters. The crowd fit comfortably into Sir John’s personal cabin; where this space on HMS Terror served as a Great Cabin for the officers, complete with libraries and music, the width of the stern of HMS Erebus was Sir John Franklin’s private quarters — twelve feet wide by an amazing twenty feet long, with a private commode “seat of ease” in a room to itself on the starboard side. Franklin’s private privy was almost exactly the size of Captain Crozier’s and all the other officers’ entire cabins.

Edmund Hoar, Sir John’s steward, had lengthened the dining table until it could accommodate all the officers present — Commander Fitzjames, Lieutenants Gore, Le Vesconte, and Fairholme from Erebus, Captain Crozier and Lieutenants Little, Hodgson, and Irving from Terror. Besides those eight officers seated on either side of the table — Sir John sat at its head near the starboard bulkhead and entrance to his private head — also present, standing at the foot of the table, were the two ice masters, Mr. Blanky from Terror and Mr. Reid from Erebus, as well as the two engineers, Mr. Thompson from Crozier’s ship and Mr. Gregory from the flagship. Sir John had also asked one of the surgeons, Stanley from Erebus, to be in attendance. Franklin’s steward had set out grape juice, cheeses, and ship’s biscuits, and there was a short period of chatting and relaxing before Sir John called the conference to order.

“Gentlemen,” said Sir John, “I am sure you all know why we are gathered here. Our expedition’s advance the last two months, thanks to the graciousness of God, has been wonderfully successful. We have left Beechey Island almost three hundred and fifty miles behind us. Lookouts and our sledge scouts still report glimpses of open water far to our south and west. It still may be in our power — God willing — to reach this open water and to navigate the North-West Passage this very autumn.

“But the ice to our west is increasing, I understand, in both thickness and frequency. Mr. Gregory reports that Erebus’s main shaft has been damaged by ice and that although we can make headway under steam, the flagship’s effectiveness has been compromised. Our coal supplies are dwindling. Another winter will soon be upon us. In other words, gentlemen, we must decide today what our course of action and direction shall be. I think it is not unfair to say that the success or failure of our expedition shall be determined by what we decide here.”

There was a long silence.

Sir John gestured to the red-bearded ice master of HMS Erebus. “Perhaps it would be helpful, before we venture opinions and open discussion, to hear from our ice masters, engineers, and surgeon. Mr. Reid, could you inform the others of what you told me yesterday about our current and projected ice conditions?”

Reid, standing on the Erebus side of the five men at the end of the table, cleared his throat. Reid was a solitary sort and speaking in such exalted company made his face flush redder than his beard.

“Sir John, … Gentlemen… it ain’t no secret that we’ve been Godda—… that is… darned lucky in terms of ice conditions since the ships was released from ice in May and since we left Beechey Island harbour around the first of June. While we was in the straits, we been plowing through mostly sludge ice. That ain’t no problem. Nights — them few hours of darkness we have what’s called nights up here — we cut through pancake ice, that’s like what we been seeing the last week as the sea’s always on the verge of freezing, but that ain’t no real problem either.

“We been able to stay away from the young ice along the shores — that’s more serious stuff. Behind that’s the fast ice that’ll tear the hull off even a ship as reinforced as this here and Terror in the lead. But as I say, we stayed away from fast ice… so far.”

Reid was sweating, obviously wishing he hadn’t gone on so long but also knowing that he hadn’t fully addressed Sir John’s question yet. He cleared his throat and continued.

“So with the moving ice, Sir John and your honours, we ain’t had much problem with the brash ice and thicker drift ice, and the bergy bits — them little bergs what broke off from the real bergs — we been able to avoid them because of the wide leads and open water we’ve been able to find. But all that’s coming to an end, sirs. What with the nights getting longer, the pancake ice is always there now and we’re running into more and more of them growlers and hummocky flows. And it’s the hummocky flows that’s got Mr. Blanky and me worried.”

“Why is that, Mr. Reid?” asked Sir John. His expression showed his habitual boredom at discussions of the different ice conditions. To Sir John, ice was ice — something to be broken through, gone around, and overcome.

“It’s the snow, Sir John,” said Reid. “The deep snow atop ’em, sir, and the tidemarks on the side. Such always signifies old pack ice ahead, sir, real screwed pack, and that’s where we get frozen in, you see. And as far as we can see or sledge ahead to the south and west, sirs, it’s all pack ice, except for the possible glint of open water way down south of King William Land.”

“The North-West Passage,” Commander Fitzjames said softly.

“Perhaps,” said Sir John. “Most probably. But to get there we shall have to cross through more than a hundred miles of pack ice — perhaps as much as two hundred miles of it. I am told that the ice master of Terror has a theory about why the conditions worsen to our west. Mr. Blanky?”

Thomas Blanky did not blush. The older ice master’s voice was a staccato explosion of syllables as blunt as musket fire.

“It’s death to enter that pack ice. We’ve come too far already. The fact is, since we came out of Peel Sound, we’ve been looking at an ice stream as bad as anything north of Baffin Bay and it’s getting worse every day.”

“Why is that, Mr. Blanky?” asked Commander Fitzjames. His confident voice showed a slight lisp. “This late in the season, I understand that we should still have open leads until the sea actually freezes, and close to the mainland, say southwest of the peninsula of King William Land, we should have some open water for another month or more.”

Ice Master Blanky shook his head. “No. This isn’t no pancake ice or sludge ice, gentlemen, it’s pack ice we’re looking at. It’s coming down from the northwest. Think of it as a series of giant glaciers — calving bergs and freezing the sea for hundreds of miles as it flows south. We’ve been protected from it, is all.”

“Protected by what?” asked Lieutenant Gore, a strikingly handsome and personable officer.

It was Captain Crozier who answered, nodding at Blanky to step back. “By all the islands to our west as we’ve come south, Graham,” said the Irishman. “Just as we discovered a year ago that Cornwallis Land was an island, we know now that Prince of Wales Land is really Prince of Wales Island. The bulk of it has been blocking the full force of the ice stream until we came out of Peel Sound. Now we can see that it’s full pack ice being forced south between whatever islands are up there to our northwest, possibly all the way to the mainland. Whatever open water is down there along the coast to the south won’t last long. Nor will we if we forge ahead and try to winter out here in the open pack ice.”

“That is one opinion,” said Sir John. “And we thank you for it, Francis. But we must decide now on our course of action. Yes, … James?”

Commander Fitzjames looked, as he almost always did, relaxed and in charge. He had actually put on weight during the expedition so his buttons appeared ready to pop from his uniform. His cheeks were rosy and his blond hair hung in longer curls than he’d worn in England. He smiled at everyone along the table.

“Sir John, I agree with Captain Crozier that to be caught out in the pack ice we’re facing would be unfortunate, but I do not believe that will be our fate should we forge on. I believe that it is imperative that we get as far south as we can — either to reach the open water to realize our goal of finding the North-West Passage, which I think we shall do before winter sets in, or simply to find safer waters near the coast, perhaps a harbour where we can winter in relative comfort as we did at Beechey Island. At the very least, we know from Sir John’s earlier expeditions overland and from previous Naval expeditions that the water tends to stay open much later near the coast because of the warmer waters coming in from the rivers.”

“And if we don’t reach open water or the coast by going southwest?” Crozier asked softly.

Fitzjames made a deprecating gesture. “At least we will be closer to our goal come the thaw next spring. What’s our alternative, Francis? You aren’t seriously suggesting returning up the strait to Beechey or trying to retreat to Baffin Bay?”

Crozier shook his head. “Right now we can as easily sail to the east of King William Land as to the west — more easily, since we know from our lookouts and scouts that there is still ample open water to the east.”

“Sail to the east of King William Land?” said Sir John, his voice incredulous. “Francis, that would be a dead end. We would be sheltered by the peninsula, yes, but frozen in hundreds of miles east of here in a long bay that might not thaw next spring.”

“Unless…,” said Crozier, looking around the table, “unless King William Land is also an island. In which case we would have the same protection from the pack ice flowing from the northwest that Prince of Wales Island has been giving us the past month of travel. It would be probable that the open water on the east side of King William Land will extend almost to the coast, where we can sail west along the warmer waters there for more weeks, perhaps find a perfect harbour — perhaps at a river’s mouth — if we have to spend a second winter in the ice.”

There was a long silence in the room.

Erebus lieutenant H. T. D. Le Vesconte cleared his throat. “You believe in the theories of that eccentric Dr. King,” he said softly.

Crozier frowned. He knew that the theories of Dr. Richard King, not even a Navy man, a mere civilian, were disliked and discarded, primarily because King believed — and had very vocally expressed — that such large Naval expeditions as Sir John’s were foolish, dangerous, and absurdly expensive. King believed, based upon his mapping and experience with Back’s overland expedition years before, that King William Land was an island, while Boothia, the ostensible island even farther to their east, was actually a long peninsula. King argued that the easiest and safest way to find the North-West Passage was to send small parties overland in northern Canada and to follow the warmer coastal waters west, that the hundreds of thousands of square miles of sea to the north were a dangerous maze of islands and ice streams that could swallow up a thousand Erebuses and Terrors. Crozier knew that there was a copy of King’s controversial book in Erebus’s library — he had checked it out and read it and it was still in Crozier’s cabin on Terror. But he also knew that he was the only man on the expedition who had, or would, read the book.

“No,” said Crozier, “I’m not subscribing to King’s theories, I am merely suggesting a strong possibility. Look, we thought that Cornwallis Land was huge, perhaps part of the Arctic Continent, but we sailed around it in a few days. Many of us thought that Devon Island continued north and west directly into the Open Polar Sea, but our two ships found the western end of it and we saw the open channels north.

“Our orders instructed us to sail directly southwest from Cape Walker, but we found that Prince of Wales Land was directly in the way — and what is more pertinent, that it is, almost without doubt, an island. And the low strip of ice we glimpsed to our east while heading south may well have been a frozen strait — separating Somerset Island from Boothia Felix and showing that King was wrong, that Boothia is not a continuous peninsula all the way north to Lancaster Sound.”

“There is no evidence that the low area of ice we saw was a strait,” said Lieutenant Gore. “It makes more sense to consider it a low ice-covered isthmus such as we saw on Beechey Island.”

Crozier shrugged. “Perhaps, but our experience on this expedition has been that landmasses previously thought to be very large or connected have in truth been shown to be islands. I suggest that we reverse course, avoid the pack ice to the southwest, and sail east and then south down the eastern coast of what may well be King William Island. At the very least, we will be sheltered from this… seaborne glacier that Mr. Blanky talks about… and should we discover the worst, that it is a long, narrow bay, odds are very great that we could sail north again around the point of King William Land next summer and be right back here and none the worse for wear.”

“Except for the coal burned and the precious time lost,” said Commander Fitzjames.

Crozier nodded.

Sir John rubbed his round and well-shaved cheeks.

In the silence, Terror’s engineer, James Thompson, spoke. “Sir John, gentlemen, since the issue of the ships’ coal reserves has been brought up, I would like to mention that we are very, very close to reaching — and I mean this quite literally — a point of no return in terms of our fuel. Just in the past week, using our steam engines to force a way through the fringes of this pack ice, we’ve gone through more than a quarter of our remaining coal reserves. We are now just above fifty percent of our coal remaining… less than two weeks of normal steaming, but only days’ worth trying to force the ice as we have. Should we be frozen in for another winter, we will be burning much of that reserve just to heat the ships again.”

“We could always send a party ashore to cut trees for firewood,” said Lieutenant Edward Little, sitting at Crozier’s left.

For a minute every man in the room except Sir John laughed heartily. It was a welcome break in the tension. Perhaps Sir John was remembering his first overland expeditions north to the coastal regions now to their south. The mainland tundra extended for nine hundred barren miles south from the coast before one would see the first tree or serious shrub.

“There is one way to maximize our steaming distances,” Crozier said softly into the more relaxed silence following the laughter.

Everyone’s head turned toward the captain of HMS Terror.

“We transfer all the crew and coal from Erebus to Terror and make a run for it,” continued Crozier. “Either through the ice to the southwest or to reconnoiter down the east coast of King William Land or Island.”

“Go for broke,” said Ice Master Blanky into the now stunned silence. “Aye, that makes sense.”

Sir John could only blink. When he finally found his voice, it still sounded incredulous, as if Crozier had made a second joke that he could not understand. “Abandon the flagship?” he said at last. “Abandon Erebus?” He glanced around as if just having the other officers look at his cabin would settle this issue once and for all — the bulkheads lined with shelves and books, the crystal and china on the table, the three Preston Patent Illuminators set into the width of the overhead, allowing rich late-summer light to stream into the cabin.

“Abandon Erebus, Francis?” he said again, his voice stronger but spoken in a tone of someone who wants to be let in on a rather obscure joke.

Crozier nodded. “The main shaft is bent, sir. Your own engineer, Mr. Gregory, has told us that it cannot be repaired, nor retracted any longer, outside of a dry dock. Certainly not while we are in pack ice. It will only get worse. With two ships, we have only a few days’ or a week’s worth of coal for the battle necessary to fight the pack ice. We’ll all be frozen in — both ships — if we fail. If we freeze into the open sea to the west of King William Land, we have no idea where the current will move the ice of which we will be a part. The odds are great that we could be thrown into the shallows along the lee shore there. That means the destruction of even such wonderful ships as these.” Crozier nodded around him and at the skylights above.

“But if we consolidate our fuel in the less damaged ship,” continued Crozier, “and especially if we have some luck finding open water down the east side of King William Land, we will have much more than a month’s fuel for steaming west along the coast as fast as we can. Erebus would have been sacrificed, but we might — we will — reach Point Turnagain and familiar points along the coast within a week. Complete the North-West Passage into the open Pacific this year instead of next.”

“Abandon Erebus?” repeated Sir John. He did not sound cross or angry, only perplexed by the absurdity of the notion being discussed.

“Conditions would be very cramped aboard Terror,” said Commander Fitzjames. He seemed to be seriously considering the notion.

Captain Sir John turned to his right and stared at his favorite officer. Sir John’s face was slowly assuming the cold smile of a man who has not only been left out of a joke on purpose but may well be the butt of it.

“Crowded, but not intolerably so for a month or two,” said Crozier. “My Mr. Honey and your ship’s carpenter, Mr. Weekes, will supervise the breaking down of interior bulkheads — all officers’ quarters to be dismantled except for the Great Room, which could be turned into Sir John’s quarters aboard Terror, and perhaps the officers’ mess. That would give us ample room, even for another year or more on the ice. These old bomb ships have a great amount of space belowdecks, if nothing else.”

“It would take some time to transfer the coal and ship’s stores,” said Lieutenant Le Vesconte.

Crozier nodded again. “I’ve had my purser, Mr. Helpman, work out some preliminary figures. You may remember that Mr. Goldner, the expedition’s provisioner of canned foods, failed to deliver the bulk of his goods until less than forty-eight hours before we sailed, so we had to repack both ships to a great extent. We did so in time to meet our departure date. Mr. Helpman estimates that with both crews working through the long daylight, sleeping on halfwatch schedules, that everything we can hold on one ship can be transferred to Terror in just under three days. We’d be a crowded family for some weeks, but it would be as if we’re starting anew on the expedition — coal reserves topped off, food for another year, a ship in full working condition.”

“Go for broke,” repeated Ice Master Blanky.

Sir John shook his head and chuckled as if he had finally had enough of this particular joke. “Well, Francis, that is a very… interesting… speculation, but of course we shall not be abandoning Erebus. Nor Terror either, should your ship suffer some minor misfortune. Now, the one thing I’ve not heard at this table today is a suggestion to retreat to Baffin Bay. Am I correct in the assumption that no one is suggesting that?”

The room was silent. Overhead came the rumble and scrape of crewmen holystoning the decks for the second time that day.

“Very well then, it is decided,” said Sir John. “We shall press forward. Not only do our orders direct us to do this, but as several of you gentlemen have pointed out, our safety increases the closer we get to the coast of the mainland, even if the land itself there is every bit as inhospitable as the dreadful islands we have passed up here. Francis, James, you may go tell your crews of our decision.”

Sir John stood.

For a dazed second the other captains, officers, ice masters, engineers, and surgeon could only stare, but then the Naval officers stood quickly, nodded, and began filing out of Sir John’s huge cabin.

The surgeon Stanley was plucking at Commander Fitzjames’s sleeve as the men went forward along the narrow companionway and stomped up the ladder to the deck.

“Commander, Commander,” Stanley said, “Sir John never called on me to report, but I wanted to tell everyone about the increasing numbers of putrid foodstuff we’ve been finding in the tinned goods.”

Fitzjames smiled but freed his arm. “We’ll arrange a time for you to tell Captain Sir John in private, Mr. Stanley.”

“But I’ve told him in private,” persisted the little surgeon. “It’s the other officers I wanted to inform in case…”

“Later, Mr. Stanley,” said Commander Fitzjames.

The surgeon was saying something else, but Crozier passed beyond earshot and waved to John Lane, his bosun, to bring his gig alongside for the sunny ride back up the narrow lead to where Terror’s bow was wedged in the thickening pack ice. Black smoke still poured from the leading ship’s funnel.

Heading southwest into the pack ice, the two ships made slow headway for another four days. HMS Terror burned coal at a prodigious rate, using its steam engine to throw itself against the ever-thicker pack ice. The glint of possible open water far to the south had disappeared, even on sunny days.

The temperature dropped suddenly on 9 September. The ice on the long thin line of open water behind the trailing Erebus covered over with pancake ice and then froze solid. The sea around them was already a lifting, surging, static white mass of growlers, real icebergs, and sudden pressure ridges.

For six days, Franklin tried every trick in his arctic inventory — spreading black coal powder on the ice ahead of them to melt it more quickly, backing sail, sending out fatigue parties day and night with their giant ice saws to remove the ice in front of them block by block, shifting ballast, having a hundred men at a time hack away with chisels, shovels, picks, and poles, setting kedge anchors far ahead of them in the thickening ice and winching Erebus—which had resumed the lead ahead of Terror on the last day before the ice had suddenly thickened — a yard at a time. Finally Franklin ordered every able man onto the ice, rigged lines for everyone and sledge harnesses for the largest men among them, and tried hauling the ships forward a sweating, cursing, shouting, spirit-killing, gut-wrenching, back-breaking inch at a time. Always, promised Sir John, was the reality of open coastal water just another twenty or thirty or fifty miles ahead of them.

The open water might as well have been on the surface of the moon.

During the lengthening night of 15 September, 1846, the temperature plummeted to below zero and the ice began moaning and scraping against both ships’ hulls. In the morning, everyone who came on deck could see for themselves that in each direction the sea had become a white solid stretching to the horizon. Between sudden snow squalls, both Crozier and Fitzjames were able to get adequate sun sightings to fix their positions. Each captain figured that they were beset at roughly 70 degrees 5 minutes north latitude, 98 degrees, 23 minutes west longitude, some twenty-five miles off the northwest shore of King William Island, or King William Land, whichever the case might be. It was a moot point now.

They were in open sea ice — moving pack ice — and stranded directly in front of the full onslaught of Ice Master Blanky’s “moving glacier,” bearing down on them from polar regions to the northwest from all the way to the unimaginable North Pole. There was not a sheltering harbour, to their knowledge, within one hundred miles and no way to get there if there were one.

At two o’clock that afternoon, Captain Sir John Franklin ordered the boiler fires to be drawn on both Erebus and Terror. Steam was let down in both boilers. Just enough pressure would be kept up to move warmed water through the pipes heating the lower decks of each ship.

Sir John made no announcement to the men. None was required. That night as the men settled into their hammocks on Erebus and as Hartnell whispered his usual prayer for his dead brother, thirty-five-year-old Seaman Abraham Seeley, in the hammock next to him, hissed, “We’re in a world of shit now, Tommy, and not your prayers nor neither Sir John’s is going to get us out of it… not for another ten months at least.”