The Terror

exalted company made his face flush redder than his beard.

“Sir John,… Gentlemen… it ain’t no secret that we’ve been God-da-… 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,