by Robert Edric
“And you knew the depth of the shingle was sufficient to support you?”
“I had but the one way to find out. We were shipping faster than we were pumping for the full hundred miles.”
“You could have jettisoned your cargo then,” Reid said with a smile. “Has this ended your hopes of a second hunt?”
Herrick looked slowly along the full length of his vessel. “I hope not. The wound is clean now and we have only to fill and dress it before a week tonight when the high tide will suck us back out whether we’re ready for it or not.”
“And if you’re not, it will suck you grinding and cursing straight to the bottom.”
“As you say. Our cargo stays ashore until we’re safely afloat.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of the blacksmith, who carried a dozen heated rivets on a shovel. These were immediately seized by men with pliers and hammered into the edges of the torn hull, their glowing heads cooling and turning black against the timbers.
“Look at this,” Herrick said, dragging a hessian sack from the exposed bilge. He opened it and tipped out a lump of dirty ice. Reid kicked at this and then picked up a piece weighing several pounds. He licked it, spat, gnawed briefly at a corner of it and then spat again.
Herrick brought his lantern closer. The ice was opaque, and coated along one edge with yellow clay in which pebbles were embedded.
“You were lucky not to lose your rudder,” Reid said.
“At first I thought we had. The ice struck us and then lodged against us instead of floating free. I was forced to shake her fully rigged to clear it.”
“And all the while other pieces were coming up around you?”
“I counted forty. All of them in the space of half an hour.”
“They say the Guinea Fool was lost with all her crew last year when she was cut in half by a star,” Reid said.
“I heard. I gave it little credence at the time.”
There was a loud grinding sound, followed by the noise of spilling pebbles.
“The wind,” Herrick said. “She settles to port and then to starboard. We have her well enough shored to prevent her falling. Our tops are down and we’ve sufficient cable and pulleys to manhandle her if she looks like tipping too far.”
Hearing the man speak, Fitzjames could only wonder at the enormity of the task ahead of him, and wonder too what might happen to the Erebus if she suffered similar damage once they were beyond the reach of any accommodating beach.
From the mound of the cargo came the unexpected sound of a fiddle, and Gore asked Herrick if he might introduce himself to the player. He left them, and Herrick suggested to Reid and Fitzjames that they might climb aboard and join him in his cabin. There he told them of his past month in the upper bay, of the whales he had sighted and those he had chased and killed. He told them too of the ice he had encountered, and of his surprise at finding the bay emptier than he had ever seen it in twenty years of coming.
“It may be running broken across the mouth of Lancaster, but you should have no trouble in getting up close to it from here. When do you leave?”
“On the Wednesday tide,” Reid told him.
Several vessels had already followed the summer leads north and west, Herrick said, but the breaking ice would be pouring out of the spawning grounds beyond Lancaster Sound at such a rate as to make it impossible for any fish to be safely pursued amid it.
They were joined by Gore, who held a pencil and sheet of paper, upon which were written the names of a dozen songs he had never before heard.
“Your fiddle player is superb.”
“How do you think we attract so many fish?” Herrick replied, winking at Reid. “Mr. Agnew stands upon our cap and fiddles hour after hour to them until they are enchanted by the sound and gather to listen. Whereupon we pounce upon them and spear them as easy as catfish in a barrel.”
“What a remarkable idea,” Gore said. “According to Scoresby, they themselves whistle to each other beneath the ice.”
“Any tune in particular?” Herrick asked him.
Gore carefully folded the piece of paper and buttoned it in his pocket.
They left the Potomac an hour later, and Taddeus Herrick accompanied them back to their boat. The marines had been joined by some of the whalers and a second small fire burned on the beach.
Reid was the last to take his leave of Herrick. He thanked him for his news of the ice and wished him well with his repairs. In return, Herrick said he would pray for their own safe delivery.
As Reid was climbing into the boat, Herrick called out to him, and all five men turned to look.
“See, you have your luck already—the nigger-goose is waving you off.” Herrick pointed to where a solitary cormorant, its neck craned and its wings held stiffly against the breeze, stood perched on a post like some stone portal griffin in the light of the fire.
THREE
Upon watching the passing of her husband’s ships off Harwich quay in a May rainstorm, Jane Franklin wrote in her diary that she had witnessed a voyage of many departures, a broken string of sad arrivals and farewells.
She continued in this same uncharacteristic vein later in the month when, upon completing a letter intended to await her husband’s arrival in Kirkwall, she wrote of these repeated farewells that they had been transacted in kisses as precious as pearls.
She carried with her at all times a photograph of her husband, taken at her insistence upon learning of his appointment as leader of the expedition. Seeing the result, Franklin had been unable to keep his disappointment from her, and when he told her it made him look older than his fifty-nine years, she comforted him by saying that he had always looked older than his years. She then listed for him the qualities she believed the portrait to have captured. To Franklin, however, it made him appear too solemn, and did nothing to disguise how uncomfortable he had felt during the sitting in the photographer’s studio. In his right hand he held a telescope, and it seemed to him every time he looked at the portrait that he was holding this like a man who had never before held one. His medals were pinned at his throat and across his chest, and he looked off to one side, his neck and shoulders as solid as a bull’s.
In his final letter to his wife from Whalefish, Franklin apologized for his lack of enthusiasm upon receiving her gift, saying that he felt forever fixed in the eyes of the world as an overgrown child filled with nothing but its own self-importance.
A month before his departure, when preparations were at their most feverish, Jane Franklin had made a Union Jack for him to raise from the highest point overlooking the final stretch of the Northwest Passage. Taking this to present to him, she found him asleep in a chair in his study. The room was cold, and after closing all the windows, she folded the flag over her sleeping husband as though it were a traveling-rug, and then waited silently beside him. Upon waking, Franklin saw the bright colors draped over his chest and legs and quickly pulled it from him and threw it to the floor. Concerned that he might have misunderstood her intentions, she asked him what was wrong. Franklin remained where he sat, staring down at the crumpled cloth at his feet. “That,” he said to her, slowly regaining his composure, “is how they treat a corpse.”
He had afterward apologized for the violence of his reaction, but for a full five minutes he had trembled at the shock of it and had been unable to continue with his correspondence owing to his shaking hands.
Later, Jane Franklin had presented the Erebus with both a monkey and a dog, the former intended as a mascot, the latter as a companion to the Newfoundland bitch already on board the Terror.
Fitzjames, Vesconte and Goodsir climbed a gulley in the low cliff and then rested on the flat top, looking down over the water. They had been given leave ashore and were making a half-day journey inland following the course of a map Goodsir had been given by an old Orcadian during their stay in Kirkwall. A cross marked their objective, but the man had been reluctant to tell Goodsir what it signified. Fitzjames and Vesconte had agreed to acc
ompany him, both convinced that he was about to become the victim of a hoax.
Vesconte carried the map and tried to make some sense of its directions, and of its distances marked in unreliable paces. Confirming that the Orcadian had been a short man, he compensated accordingly. He was the expedition cartographer and surveyor, and boasted that his step from heel-mark to heel-mark measured precisely a yard and that the others were welcome to measure any number of these to confirm this. He had sailed with Fitzjames for eight years in the South China Sea, but had only been once before in Arctic waters.
They walked for an hour, leaving behind them the prospect of the sea and then the curved rim of its horizon as the land swallowed them. Distant peaks rose through the haze and vanished into cloud, and where the sun pierced this it rose in tatters from the land like smoke from a heath fire.
Several minutes later, Vesconte, who had walked ahead of the others, suddenly called out “Success,” and waved to them.
Goodsir was the first to reach him, disappointed to see that all they had been led to was a shallow mound, barely distinguishable from the irregularities all around it.
“A grave,” Vesconte said before Goodsir could begin to speculate.
Fitzjames arrived as he said this, and he saw immediately that Vesconte was right.
“Buried with his head to the sea. A sailor.” Vesconte rose from where he squatted and walked around the mound. “A friend of your Orcadian, perhaps.”
“His son,” Goodsir said, remembering something the old man had told him, but thinking nothing of it at the time.
“But why here, for pity’s sake?” Fitzjames asked, swinging his arm to encompass the desolate terrain all around them. “Why not in the settlement graveyard?”
“Perhaps because a father knew it was no place for his son to rest in peace.” Vesconte said.
They took off their caps and Fitzjames said a short prayer.
Afterward they searched for a headboard, but found nothing.
Walking back to the sea, Vesconte told the story of how the body of a Norse settler had been found in the abandoned Eastern Settlement a century after the man had died, and that upon being lifted for burial the disturbed corpse had given off the odor of its own slight putrefaction, as well-preserved as its skin and hair in that frigid place, and powerful enough to sicken every member of the burial party.
Their transports left them on the morning of July the 11th, taking with them a man who had broken his leg in a fall from the Erebus’ rigging, and another with severe stomach cramps, diagnosed by Stanley as appendicitis. Also on board were the Terror’s armorer and sailmaker, both sent home at Crozier’s insistence as being useless not only at their trades but also at everything else they were called upon to do. The two vessels expected to be back in London in ten days’ time.
On the eve of their own departure all strong liquors were collected from the lower ranks and thrown overboard. Some argued for their disposal ashore, but Franklin insisted. A still was discovered on the Terror, along with sixty gallons of barely distilled rum, which in Fitzjames’ opinion was better suited for caulking than for drinking. A rat hunt was organized, Gore with his flute playing the part of the Pied Piper, and 246 of the creatures were killed, a shilling bounty being paid on the presentation of each severed tail.
FOUR
The men on the decks of both ships moved to the starboard side as they passed the concealed entrance to Uppernavik harbor. Twenty vessels sat closely moored in the deepwater cleft, their masts and rigging visible against the sheer wall of ice behind them. Tiny figures moved upon the ships, and thin pillars of smoke rose in a ghostly coppice.
In the open water the floating ice grew thicker, and for the first time since their departure an ice-watch was posted. Less than an hour after altering course, both ships were forced to maneuver independently through a field of small bergs which flowed all around them.
Reid stood at the Erebus’ headboards and watched closely as she pushed into the flux of opening and closing channels ahead. The ice, he told Mate Des Voeux, was a mix of old and new, the new still dispersing from the Middle Pack, the old having been grounded for the winter and now starting to disintegrate and refloat. His greatest concern was that they had arrived in an area where both types were converging. To the west of them the currents and this flotsam would combine and begin to move steadily south, and he recommended a more northerly course, aware that if they turned west too soon they might encounter the unbroken heart of the Middle Pack and be forced to retreat along its perimeter. He was also aware that too many crossings of the bay had been attempted by men anxious to avoid this solid heart only to find themselves caught and then carried south in its unstoppable drift.
He resumed his position, signaling the presence of ice ahead to Graham Gore and Philip Reddington, captain of the forecastle, both of whom stood at the wheel and translated his signals into evasive action.
Neither of the heavily laden ships responded quickly to their controls and there were several small collisions, none of which did any damage to their reinforced bows.
They sailed through the ice field for six hours, and just as suddenly as they had encountered it, so they found themselves free of it and entering an expanse of cobalt-blue water clear to the horizon.
They continued until the late dusk, when they dropped anchor in twenty fathoms to sit out the short night.
At two the following morning, Philip Reddington woke Fitzjames with the news that he had seen a light off their starboard bow. Fitzjames, sleeping fully dressed, returned above deck with him to see for himself.
At first there was nothing. Then a call from the watch aboard the Terror alerted them to a distant flash amid the grounded ice. This reappeared at regular intervals, suggesting that someone was signaling to them.
“Signal back,” Fitzjames called to their own watch. In two hours it would be light enough to see. He checked that all their own mast lamps were showing and then returned to his bunk, asking Reddington to wake him again at first light.
At four, Fitzjames and Reid met on deck. Visibility was poorer than Fitzjames had anticipated, and at first they could make out little more than the distant horizon and the junction of the ice with the open sea.
“A whaler waiting until he’s certain of a clear way out. He isn’t signaling: he’s put out a single light and it’s rocking in the swell,” suggested David Bryant, sergeant of the Erebus’ marines, as he climbed down from his look-out post to join them.
Fitzjames was ready to agree with this, but before he could say so, Reid said that he could see something else, and directed them once again to the flashing light.
“A hulk,” Reddington said, as the outline became clearer to them. “Some poor soul lost his rigging. He’s probably held fast in the ice, driven ashore by it. Damaged, most likely, or he could have cut his way out over that short distance.”
“You’re right.” They were surprised by the voice of Thomas Blanky, who had rowed across to them, and who now stood behind them on a pile of cases and examined the shore through his glass. “He has half a fore but no other rigging. His main is lying from his deck to the ice.”
Fitzjames climbed up beside him. “Is he signaling for help? Two days in the water will see him safe in Uppernavik, a week overland at the most.”
The light from the rising sun was confusing rather than illuminating, creating shadows more substantial than the features from which they fell, and another hour passed before they could see more clearly the beached hull with its felled mast.
“She’s been lifted and punched over,” Reid said dispassionately.
“They’re dragging out a boat,” Reddington shouted, indicating the ice a short distance from the ship, where two men struggled with a boat too large for them to handle. Several others stood back and looked on, making no effort to help them.
“Why don’t they go to their assistance?” Bryant said. “It’ll hold a dozen of them and they could launch it in no time with all hands.”
Fitzjames, aware of their obligations toward other mariners in distress, but also conscious of the fact that Franklin intended to sail in an hour’s time, ordered one of their own boats to be lowered. He asked Reid and Reddington to accompany him. Two of their marines were called up to row and Bryant told them to bring their muskets.
“You think it necessary?” Fitzjames asked him.
In reply, Bryant looked at James Reid, who nodded his agreement. By now there were others upon the decks of both vessels. Franklin arrived and stood with Gore and Fairholme, and all three watched without intervening.
A hundred yards from the ice Fitzjames gave the order to stop rowing. He rose and inspected the boat approaching them. Since launching themselves, the two men had made little progress in the heavy craft, and after every five or six weak and uncoordinated strokes they stopped rowing and allowed themselves to be carried on the drift. Those now gathered behind them on the ice stood and watched in silence.
As the boat drew closer, Fitzjames called for the men to identify themselves. It was clear to everyone who awaited them that they were exhausted by their labors. One of the men rose unsteadily to his feet and shouted back that he was Captain Wilson of the Benjamin Lee, that she had been caught in the ice for the past eight months and that she had lost her rigging and been badly crushed.
Fitzjames saw how thin the man was, his soiled clothes hanging from his frame. He trembled uncontrollably and held his arms across his chest as he spoke. The man beside him also tried to stand, but was unable to and fell backward from his seat.
“Do you have any injuries?” Fitzjames asked him, aware of the demands the man might yet make on him. He was conscious too of the delay caused by the encounter, and of Franklin’s growing impatience. Crozier, he knew, would have argued against any communication whatsoever with the stranded men.