I confess that, however Selfish it is, my own hope for the Expedition is that it may take us a bit longer to reach Alaska, Russia, China, and the warm waters of the Pacific. Although trained as an anatomist and signed on by Captain Sir John Franklin as a mere assistant surgeon, I am, in Truth, no mere surgeon but a Doctor, and I confess further that as amateurish as my attempts may be, I hope to become something of a Naturalist on this voyage. While having no personal Experience with arctic flora and fauna, I plan to become personally acquainted with the life-forms in the Icy Realms to which we set sail only a month from now. I am especially interested in the white bear, although most accounts of it one hears from whalers and old Arctic Hands tend to be too fabulous to credit.
I recognize that this personal Diary is most out of the ordinary — the Official Log that I shall begin when we depart next month will record all of the pertinent professional events and observations of my time aboard HMS Erebus in my capacity as Assistant Surgeon and as a member of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to force the North-West Passage — but I feel that something More is due, some other record, some more personal account, and even if I should never let another soul read this after my Return, it is my Duty — to myself if no other — to keep these notes.
All I know at this point is that my Expedition with Captain Sir John Franklin already promises to be the Experience of a Lifetime.
Sunday, 18 May, 1845 —
All the men are aboard, and although last-minute Preparation is still going on around the clock for tomorrow’s Departure — especially with the stowing of what Captain Fitzjames informs me is more than eight thousand cans of tinned food which have arrived only in the nick of time — Sir John conducted Divine Service today for us aboard Erebus and for as many of Terror’s crew who wished to join us. I noted that Terror’s captain, an Irishman named Crozier, was not in attendance.
No one could have attended the lengthy service and heard the very lengthy sermon by Sir John today without being deeply moved. I wonder if any Ship from any nation’s Navy has ever been captained by such a Religious Man. There is no doubt that we are truly and safely and irrevocably in God’s Hands on the voyage to come.
19 May, 1845 —
What a Departure!
Having never gone to sea before, much less as a member of such a Heralded Expedition, I had no Idea of what to Expect, but Nothing could have prepared me for the glory of this Day.
Captain Fitzjames estimates that more than ten thousand well-wishers and Persons of Importance crowded the docks at Greenhithe to see us off.
Speeches resounded until I thought we would never be allowed to depart while Daylight still filled the Summer Sky. Bands played. Lady Jane — who has been staying aboard with Sir John — went down the gangplank to a rousing series of Hurrahs! from we sixty-some Erebuses. Bands played again. Then the cheers started as all lines were cast off, and for several minutes the noise was so deafening that I could not have heard an order had Sir John himself shouted it in my ear.
Last night, Lieutenant Gore and Chief Surgeon Stanley were Kind enough to inform me that it is custom during sailing for the officers not to Show Emotion, so although only technically an officer, I stood with the officers lined up in their fine blue jackets and tried to restrain all Displays of emotion, however manly.
We were the only ones doing so. The Seamen shouted and waved handkerchiefs and hung from the ratlines, and I could see many a rouged dockside Doxie waving farewell to them. Even Captain Sir John Franklin waved a bright red-and-green handkerchief at Lady Jane, his daughter, Eleanor, and his niece Sophia Cracroft, who waved back until the sight of the docks was obstructed by the following Terror.
We are being towed by steam tugs and followed on this leg of our voyage by HMS Rattler, a powerful new steam frigate, and also a hired transport ship carrying our provisions, Baretto Junior.
Just before Erebus pushed away from the docks, a Dove landed high on the main mast. Sir John’s daughter by his first marriage, Eleanor — then quite visible in her bright-green silk dress and emerald parasol — cried out but could not be heard above the Cheers and Bands. Then she pointed, and Sir John and many of the Officers looked up, smiled, and then pointed out the Dove to others aboard ship.
Combined with the Words spoken in yesterday’s Divine Service, this, I have to assume, is the Best Possible Omen.
4 July, 1845 —
What a terrible Crossing of the North Atlantic to Greenland.
For thirty stormy days, even while under tow, the Ship has been tossing, rolling, and wallowing, its tightly sealed Gunports on each side barely four feet out of the water during the downward rolls, sometimes barely making Headway. I have been terribly seasick for Twenty-eight of the last Thirty days. Lieutenant Le Vesconte tells me that we never made more than five knots, which — he assures me — is a Terrible time for any ship merely under Sail, much less for such a Miracle of Technology as Erebus and our companion craft, Terror, both capable of steaming along under the Impetus of their invincible Screws.
Three days ago we rounded Cape Farewell at the southern tip of Greenland, and I confess that the glimpses of this Huge Continent, with its rocky cliffs and endless glaciers coming right down to the Sea, lay as heavily on my Spirits as the pitching and rolling did upon my Stomach.
Good God, this is a barren, cold place! And this in July.
Our morale is Top Notch, however, and all aboard trust to Sir John’s Skill and Good Judgement. Yesterday Lieutenant Fairholme, the youngest of our lieutenants, said to me in Confidence, “I never felt the Captain was so much my companion with anyone I have sailed with before.”
Today we put in at the Danish whaling station here in Disko Bay. Tons of supplies are being transferred from Baretto Junior, and ten live oxen transported aboard that ship were slaughtered this afternoon. All the men of both Expedition ships shall feast on fresh meat tonight.
Four men were dismissed from the Expedition today — upon advice of the four of us surgeons — and will be returning to England with the tow and transport ship. These include one man from Erebus — a certain Thomas Burt, the ship’s armourer, and three from Terror — a Marine private named Aitken, a seaman named John Brown, and Terror’s primary sailmaker, James Elliott. That brings our total muster down to 129 men for the two ships.
Dried fish from the Danes and a cloud of Coal Dust hang over everything this afternoon — hundreds of bags of coal were transferred from Baretto Junior today — and the seamen aboard Erebus are busy with the smooth-sided stones they call Holy Stones, scrubbing and rescrubbing the deck clean while the Officers shout encouragement. Despite the extra work, All Hands are in High Spirits because of the promise of Tonight’s Feasting and extra rations of Grog.
Besides the four men to be invalided home, Sir John will be sending the June musters, official dispatches, and all personal letters back with Baretto Junior. Everyone will be busy writing the next few days.
After this week, the next letter to reach our loved ones will be posted from Russia or China!
12 July, 1845 —
Another departure, this time perhaps the Last One before the North-West Passage. This morning we slipped our cables and sailed west from Greenland while the crew of Baretto Junior gave us three hearty Hurrahs! and waved their caps. Surely these shall be the last White Men we see until we reach Alaska.
26 July, 1845 —
Two whalers — Prince of Wales and Enterprise — have anchored nearby to where we have tied up to a floating Ice Mountain. I have enjoyed many hours talking to the captains and crewmen about white bears.
I also had the distinct terror — if not Pleasure — of climbing that huge iceberg this morning. The sailors scrambled up early yesterday, chipping steps into the vertical ice with their axes and then rigging fixed lines for the less agile. Sir John ordered an Observatory be set up atop the giant berg, which towers more than twice as tall as our Highest Mast, and while Lieutenant Gore and some of the officers from Terror take atmosp
heric and astronomical measurements up there — they have erected a tent for those spending the night atop the Precipitous Ice Mountain — our Expedition Ice Masters, Mr. Reid from Erebus and Mr. Blanky from Terror, spend the daylight hours staring west and north through their brass telescopes, seeking, I am informed, the most likely path through the near-solid sea of ice already formed there. Edward Couch, our very Reliable and Voluble Mate, tells me that this is very late in the Arctic Season for ships to be seeking any passage, much less the Fabled North-West Passage.
The sight of both Erebus and Terror moored to the iceberg below us, a maze of ropes — what I must remember to call “lines” now that I am an old nautical hand — holding both ships fast to the Ice Mountain, the two ships’ highest crow’s nests below my precarious and icy perch so high above everything, created a sort of sick and thrilling Vertigo within me.
It was exhilarating standing up there hundreds of feet above the sea. The summit of the iceberg was almost the size of a cricket pitch and the tent holding our Meteorological Observatory looked quite incongruous on the blue ice — but my hopes for a few moments of Quiet Revery were shattered by the constant Shotgun Blasts as the men all over the Summit of our Ice Mountain were shooting birds — arctic terns, I am told — by the hundreds. These heaps and heaps of fresh-killed birds shall be salted and stored away, although Heaven Alone Knows where those additional casks shall be Stored, since both our ships are already Groaning and riding low under the weight of all their Stores.
Dr. McDonald, assistant surgeon aboard HMS Terror — my counterpart there as it were — has theories that heavily salted food is not as efficient and antiscorbutic as fresh or nonsalted Victuals, and since the regular seamen aboard both ships prefer their Salted Pork to all other meals, Dr. McDonald worries that the heavily salted birds will add little to our Defenses against Scurvy. However, Stephen Stanley, our Surgeon aboard Erebus, dismisses these worries. He points out that besides the 10,000 cases of preserved cooked meats aboard Erebus, our tinned rations alone include boiled and roast mutton, veal, all forms of vegetables including potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and mixed vegetables, wide varieties of Soups, and 9,450 pounds of Chocolate. An equal weight — 9,300 pounds — of lemon juice has also been brought as our primary antiscorbutic measure. Stanley informs me that even when the juice is sweetened with liberal dollops of sugar, the common men hate their daily ration and that one of our Primary Jobs as surgeons on the Expedition is to ensure that they swallow the stuff.
It was interesting to me that almost all of the hunting by the officers and men of both our ships is done almost exclusively with Shotguns. Lieutenant Gore assures me that each ship carries a full arsenal of Muskets. Of course, it only makes sense to use Shotguns to hunt birds such as those killed by the hundreds today, but even back at Disko Bay, when small parties went out hunting Caribou and Arctic Fox, the men — even the Marines obviously trained in the use of Muskets — preferred to take along Shotguns. This, of course, must be the result of Habit as much as Preference — the officers tend to be English Gentlemen who have never used muskets or Rifles in their hunting, and except for the use of single-shot weapons in Close Quarters Naval Combat, even the Marines have used Shotguns almost exclusively in their past hunting experience.
Will Shotguns be enough to bag the Great White Bear? We’ve not seen one of those Wondrous creatures yet, although every Experienced Officer and Hand reassures me that we shall encounter them as soon as we enter the Pack Ice, and if not then, certainly when we Winter Over — should we be compelled to do so. Truly the tales the whalers here tell me of the elusive White Bears are Wonderful and Terrifying.
As I write these words, I am informed that current or wind or perhaps the necessities of the whaling business itself have carried both whalers, Prince of Wales and Enterprise, away from our moorings here at our Ice Mountain. Captain Sir John shall not be dining with one of the whaling captains — Captain Martin of Enterprise, I believe — as had been planned for this evening.
Perhaps more Pertinent, Mate Robert Sergeant has just informed me that our men are bringing down the astronomical and meteorological instruments, striking the tent, and reeling in the hundreds of yards of fixed rope — line — which allowed my Ascent earlier today.
Evidently the Ice Masters, Captain Sir John, Commander Fitzjames, Captain Crozier, and the other Officers have determined our Most Promising Path through the ever-shifting pack ice.
We are to cast off from our little Iceberg Home within minutes, sailing Northwest as long as the seemingly endless Arctic Twilight allows us to.
We shall be beyond the reach of even the Hardy Whalers from this point on. As far as the World Beyond our intrepid Expedition is concerned, as Hamlet said, The rest is silence.
5
CROZIER
Lat. 70°-05′ N., Long. 98°-23′ W.
9 November, 1847
Crozier is dreaming about the picnic to the Platypus Pond and of Sophia stroking him under water when he hears the sound of a shot and comes crashing awake.
He sits up in his bunk not knowing what time it is, not knowing if it is day or night, although there is no line between day and night any longer since the sun has disappeared this very day, not to reappear until February. But even before he lights the small lantern in his berth to check his watch, he knows that it is late. The ship is as quiet as it ever gets; silent except for the creak of tortured wood and frozen metal within; silent except for the snores, the mumbles, and the farts from the sleeping men, and curses from Mr. Diggle the cook; silent save for the incessant groaning, banging, cracking, and surging of the ice outside; and, added to those exceptions to silence this night, silent but for the banshee screech of a high wind.
But this is no sound of ice or wind that wakes Crozier. It is a gunshot. A shotgun — muffled through the layers of oak planks and overlaying snow and ice, but a shotgun blast without doubt.
Crozier was sleeping with most of his clothes on and now has pulled on most of the other layers and is ready for his cold-weather slops when Thomas Jopson, his steward, knocks on the door with his distinctive soft triple rap. The captain slides it open.
“Trouble on deck, sir.”
Crozier nods. “Who’s on watch tonight, Thomas?” His pocket watch shows him that it is almost 3:00 a.m., civilian time. His memory of the month’s and day’s watch schedule gives him the names an instant before Jopson speaks them aloud.
“Billy Strong and Private Heather, sir.”
Crozier nods again, lifts a pistol from his cupboard, checks the priming, sets it in his belt, and squeezes past the steward, out through the officers’ dining cubicle that borders the captain’s tiny cabin on the starboard side, and then quickly forward through another door to the main ladderway. The lower deck is mostly dark at this time in the morning — the glow around Mr. Diggle’s stove the primary exception — but lamps are being lit in several of the officers’, mates’, and stewards’ quarters as Crozier pauses at the base of the ladder to pull his heavy slops from the hook and struggle into them.
Doors slide open. First Mate Hornby walks aft to stand next to Crozier by the ladder. First Lieutenant Little hurries forward down the companionway, carrying three muskets and a saber. He’s followed by Lieutenants Hodgson and Irving, who are also carrying weapons.
Forward of the ladder, seamen are grumbling from deep in their hammocks, but a second mate is already turning out a work party — literally tumbling sleeping men from their hammocks and shoving them aft toward their slops and the waiting weapons.
“Has anyone been up top yet to check out the shot?” Crozier asks his first mate.
“Mr. Male had the duty, sir,” says Hornby. “He went up as soon as he sent your steward to fetch you.”
Reuben Male is captain of the fo’c’sle. A steady man. Billy Strong, the seaman on port watch up there, has been to sea before, Crozier knows, on HMS Belvidera. He wouldn’t have shot at phantoms. The other man on watch was the oldest — and in Crozier’s est
imation, the stupidest — of the surviving Marines, William Heather. At age 35 and still a private, frequently sick, too often drunk, and most frequently useless, Heather had almost been sent home from Disko Island two years before when his best friend Billy Aitken was discharged and sent back on HMS Rattler.
Crozier slips the pistol into the oversized pocket of his heavy woolen outer coat, accepts a lantern from Jopson, wraps a comforter around his face, and leads the way up the tilted ladder.
Crozier sees that it is as black as the inside of an eel’s belly outside, no stars, no aurora, no moon, and cold; the temperature on deck registered sixty-three degrees below zero six hours earlier when young Irving had been sent up to take measurements, and now a wild wind howls past the stubs of masts and across the canted, icy deck, driving heavy snow before it. Stepping out from beneath the frozen canvas enclosure above the main hatch, Crozier holds his mittened hand alongside his face to protect his eyes and sees a lantern gleam on the starboard side.
Reuben Male is on one knee over Private Heather, who is lying on his back, his cap and Welsh wig knocked off and, Crozier sees, part of his skull knocked away as well. There seems to be no blood, but Crozier can see the Marine’s brains sparkling in the lantern light — sparkling, the captain realizes, because there is already a sheen of ice crystals on the pulped grey matter.
“He’s still alive, Captain,” says the fo’c’sle chief.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” says one of the crewmen crowded behind Crozier.
“Belay that!” cries the first mate. “No fucking profanity. Speak when you’re fucking spoken to, Crispe.” Hornby’s voice is a cross between a mastiff’s growl and a bull’s snort.
“Mr. Hornby,” says Crozier. “Assign Seaman Crispe to get below double-quick and bring up his own hammock to carry Private Heather below.”