Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Franklin

Latitude 70 degrees 3 minutes 29 seconds north, longitude 98 degrees 20 minutes west About twenty-eight miles north-northwest of King William Island September 3, 1846 Captain Sir John Franklin was seldom so pleased with himself. Being stuck the previous winter on Beech Island (about a few hundred miles northeast of where he is now) had been a real embarrassment for him.He would have liked to admit it to himself or to a friend of his own generation, but on this expedition he had no such friends.Three men were killed, first Torrenton and Hartney at the beginning of January, and then Private William Blaney of the Royal Marines on April 3rd.All died of tuberculosis complicated by acute pneumonia.It was quite a shock to him.Franklin had never heard of a naval expedition in which three men died of natural disease early in the voyage.

The inscription on the tombstone of the thirty-two-year-old private soldier Blaney was chosen by Franklin himself: "Today you can choose who you want to serve", "Joshua" 24:15.No passerby will pass the three lonely tombs of Blaney, Hartney, and Torrunton on the isthmus of mixed gravel and ice, so this passage seems to be addressed to readers who do not exist. A challenge from the less than mutinous but not far off disgruntled crew of the Erebus and the Terror. After Hartney's death, four of the ship's doctors met to confer and judged that the incipient scurvy had weakened them and allowed birth defects such as acute pneumonia and tuberculosis to turn fatal.The four ship doctors Stanley, Goodser, Patty and Macdonald suggested to Sir John to change everyone's diet.Preferably with fresh food (except for the occasional few polar bears that show up in the dark of winter, there is almost nothing they can eat, and they have also discovered that eating the liver of this huge, hulking beast can be fatal for unknown reasons), In the absence of fresh meat and fruit, the crew should be asked to reduce the portion of their favorite bacon, corned beef or bacon, and eat more canned food such as vegetable soup.

Sir John heeded the advice and ordered that the menus on both ships be changed so that at least half of the food would come from stock cans.It seems to be working.From the death of Second Soldier Blaney in early April to the release of the two ships in late May, 1846, from the cove of Beach Island, no one died or even became seriously ill. . After that, the ice quickly disintegrated, and Franklin followed the waterway route chosen for him by two excellent ice and snow experts, using both steam engines and sails, sailing south and west.To paraphrase the words that Franklin's generation liked to use, they walked "like smoke and fluff".

Along with the sunshine and unfrozen waters came a host of animals, birds and aquatic life.During the long, eeriely slow Arctic summer days, the sun stays on the horizon almost until midnight, temperatures sometimes exceed freezing and the sky is filled with flocks of migratory birds.Franklin could tell petrels from teals, eiders from puffins, and lively puffins from all birds.In the widening channels around the Erebus and the Terror, there were whales that would have dazzled the eyes of Native American whalers, as well as an incredible abundance of cod, herring, and other small fish, and Larger belugas and arctic whales.The crew put the whaling boats out on the sea to go fishing, and often shot smaller whales for recreation.

Every night each hunting party returned with fresh game for supper.There must have been bird meat, and the hideous ringed and harp seals, impossible to shoot or catch while hiding in their holes for the winter, but now sitting shamelessly on the ice of unfrozen waters, becoming visibly shooting target. The crew did not like the taste of seal meat because it was greasy and dry.Still, the abundance of subcutaneous fat in these streamlined animals appeals to winter-starving stomachs.They also shot some giant elephants seen through binoculars, howling and tusks along the shore looking for oysters.Some hunting parties bring back the fur and meat of the white arctic fox.But the slow-moving polar bears are generally ignored unless the shambling beasts are about to attack or kill them.No one really likes the taste of white bears, and there are so many tastier meats available these days.

"We've been avoiding the fresh ice that forms along the coast, that's more threatening. And then there's the fast-moving ice, which can smash the hull of any ship, even the heavily fortified Erebus or lead ship. The same goes for the Terror. However, as I said, we've also avoided the fast-moving ice... so far." Rhett was sweating, obviously wishing he hadn't talked so long, knowing he hadn't answered Sir John's question.He cleared his throat and continued. "Speaking of moving ice, Sir John and gentlemen, we haven't come across too many fragments of ice floes, thicker drift ice, and icebergs, the little ones that break off from the real icebergs. We Avoided because we've always been able to find wide open channels and open water that didn't freeze. But it's coming to an end, sirs. As the night grows longer, the thin circular ice is now at any moment , and we are encountering more and more small drifting icebergs and ice mounds. It is these drifting ice mounds that worry me and Mr. Blanche very much."

"Why, Mr Rhett?" asked Sir John.You could tell by his expression that he was, as usual, uninterested in hearing reports on various ice conditions.To Sir John, ice was ice, something to be dashed, bypassed, and conquered. "It's the snow, Sir John," said Rhett. "The snow that's piled up on those things, sir, and the tidelines on their sides, all tell us that we're dealing with old ice, really. Troublesome ice. It is this ice that freezes us, do you know? As far as we have seen, or scouted south and west by sleigh, sirs, it is all ice. Except in King William Far to the south of the landmass, there seemed to be some glimmers of unfrozen water."

"Northwest Passage!" Lieutenant Colonel Fitzjian said softly. "Perhaps!" said Sir John. "Very likely. But to get there we'd have to go through more than a hundred miles, maybe even two hundred miles of ice. I've heard the Terror's ice experts have a theory, Can explain why the ice has gotten so bad to the west of us, Mister Blanky?" Thomas Blange did not blush.The older ice and snow expert's words were composed of intermittent bursts of syllables, and the sound was as thick as the sound of a musket. "Going into that pile of ice is a dead end, and we've gone too far. In fact, since we got out of Peel Sound, we've faced an ice stream that's as bad as any glacier north of Baffin Bay, And the ice is getting worse every day."

"Why is this happening, Mr. Blanky?" Lieutenant Colonel Fitzjian asked.There was a slight stutter in his confident voice. "Although the season is already very late, I know that before the sea water completely freezes, we should still be able to find unfrozen waterways, and in places close to the mainland, for example, in the southwest of the King William Land Peninsula, in a Within a month or so, we should still be able to find unfrozen seas.” Ice and snow expert Blanche shook his head. "No, we're not talking about thin round ice or sponge ice, gentlemen, we're dealing with a pile of ice. It's coming from the northwest. We can think of it as a chain of great glaciers that flow in its direction. Icebergs continue to break off along the South Stream and freeze hundreds of miles of sea. We've just been protected from being confronted directly."

"Protected by what?" Lieutenant Graham Gower asked.He is a rather handsome and likeable officer. The person who answered was Captain Crozier, who nodded to Blanky, indicating that he should return to his original position first. "The islands to the west of us protect us as we go south, Graham," said the Irishman. "Just as a year ago we discovered that the Cornwallis Landmass was actually an island, we now know that the Prince of Wales Landmass is actually Prince of Wales Island. This large landmass held back the power of the ice flow until we Out of Peel Sound. Now we can see that there's a whole mass of ice pushing southwards, across those islands to the north-west of us called what-the-name, and then probably all the way to the continent ahead of us. Whatever We can't last long in whatever unfrozen water we find south along the continental coast. If we insist on going forward, we end up wintering in open ice piles, and the result is: we can't last long either. .”

"It is only an opinion," said Sir John. "Thank you for the idea, Francis. But we must now decide what action to take. Er... James?" Lieutenant Colonel Fitzjian looked as usual, relaxed and in control.He had put on so much weight since the expedition that the buttons were almost popping off his uniform.His cheeks were rosy, and his wavy blonde hair was grown longer than it had been in England.He smiled at everyone around the long table. "Sir John, I agree with Captain Crozier that it would be very bad not to be able to land and be stuck in this pile of ice in front of us, but I don't think that's the inevitable result of us pushing forward. I believe what we have been taught The order is to go south as far as we can, instead of sailing to unfrozen waters to complete the mission of discovering the Northwest Passage. I personally think that this task can be completed before winter comes, or to find a safer water near the coast. A bay, perhaps, to allow us to have a more comfortable winter, as we did at Beech Island. At least, we know from Sir John's first two overland expeditions, and others' previous sailing expeditions, that the coastal Seawater usually freezes later, if not later, because rivers bring warmer water." "What if we head southwest and can't reach clear water or shore?" Crozier asked softly. Fitzjian made a gesture of disapproval. "In doing so, we'll be closer to our goal, at least when the ice melts next spring. Do we have any other options, Francis? Don't you really want to suggest that we take the boat back down the channel to Beach Island, Or retreat back to Baffin Bay?" Crozier shook his head. "It is now no more difficult to steer a ship to the east of the King William Land than to the west of it. In fact, it is easier to sail to the east, since, as far as we know and reports from the scouting party, there is no And there's a whole lot of unfrozen water." "To the east of the King William landmass?" Sir John's tone revealed surprise. "Francis, this is a dead end. Yes, we'll be protected by this peninsula, but we'll probably be frozen to the east, in a long fjord a few hundred miles away, where next spring's ice isn't likely to melt inside." "Perhaps..." said Crozier, looking around the long table, "maybe the King William Landmass is also an island. In that case, it would protect us from the ice drifting from the northwest." from the immediate impact of Prince of Wales Island, as we have been protected by Prince of Wales Island for the past month, and there is a good chance that the ice-free waters east of King William Land will extend to the coast. In this way, we can smoothly A few weeks more sailing west with warmer waters, we may find a perfect harbor, perhaps the mouth of a river, if we have to spend a second winter in the ice." There was another long silence in the room. Lieutenant Visconti of the Nereus cleared his throat. "Do you believe in the theory of the weird Dr. King?" he asked softly. Crozier frowned.He knew Dr. Richard King's theory.Jin was no sailor at all, just a commoner.People disliked him and took his word for it, because he thought—and voiced his opinion aloud—that Sir John's great voyage was foolish, dangerous and costly.According to the map he made and the experience of participating in Baker's land expedition a few years ago, King believed that the King William landmass was actually an island, and Busia, which looked like an island further east of them, was actually a long peninsula.King argued that the easiest and safest way to find the Northwest Passage was to send small teams overland north of Canada, heading west along the warmer seas along the coast.He also believed that the hundreds of thousands of square miles of ocean to the north were so full of labyrinthine islands and ice streams that they could swallow a thousand Nereus and Terror.Crozier knew of a controversial book by King in the Erebus's library—he had borrowed it, read it, and now kept it in his stateroom on the Terror.He also knew that he was the only member of the expedition who had read or would read the book. "No," Crozier said, "I don't accept King's theory, I just put forward a very feasible suggestion. Think about it, everyone, we used to think that the Cornwallis landmass was very large and most likely belonged to the Arctic continent , but we circumnavigated it in a few days. Many of us thought that Devon would go all the way north and west into the ice-free arctic sea, but our two boats made it to its western extremity , and also found several unfrozen channels to the north. "We were instructed to sail directly southwest from Walker Point, but we found the King William Landmass directly in our way. More importantly, it was definitely an island. And we were heading south While traveling, I glimpsed to the east a belt of lower ice, probably the frozen strait that separates Somerset from the Busia peninsula, proving King was wrong that Busia did not go straight north. connected peninsula to Lancaster Sound." "There's nothing to tell us that the lower ice level is a strait," said Lieutenant Gore. "Think of it as ice-covered, low-lying gravel, as we saw at Beech Island. It’s more reasonable.” Crozier shrugged. "Perhaps, but our experience with this expedition is that landmass previously thought to be very large or connected turned out to be nothing more than islands. I would suggest turning around to avoid the ice piles to the southwest and first Sailing east, then south, along the east coast of what is likely to be King William Island. That way at least we'll be protected from that... glaciers drifting in the sea that Mr. Blanky was talking about ...even if it turned out to be wrong and it's actually a long narrow fjord, there's still a good chance we'll be able to go north around the King William Landmass again next year and get back to where we are now, and things haven't changed worse." "Except for the coal burned and the precious time wasted," Lieutenant Colonel Fitzjian said. Crozier nodded. Sir John rubbed his round, clean-shaven cheeks. In the silence, James Thompson, Terror's engineer, spoke. "Sir John, gentlemen, now that you're talking about the coal stocks on board, I think I'll say that our stocks are very, very close to the point of no return, and I mean it. Just last week with the steam engine Bumping your way out on the edge of the ice pile used up more than a quarter of the coal stock. The current stock is only a little over 50 percent... If the steam engine is running normally, it will last less than two weeks. If we want to break through the ice like before, we can only last for a few days. If we are trapped here for another winter, it will use up most of the coal just to provide heating for the two ships." "We can send men ashore at any time to cut trees for firewood," said Lieutenant Edward Liddell, seated to Crozier's left. Everyone in the room except Sir John laughed, which eased the tension considerably.Perhaps Sir John remembered his first overland expedition to the northern shore of the American continent.The tundra of the North American continent extends southward from the shore for a full nine hundred miles deep before the first tree or true shrub appears! "There's a way to maximize steam-powered travel," Crozier whispered in the lighter silence that followed the laughter. All heads turned to the captain of the Terror. "We moved all the men and coal from the Erebus to the Terror, and then we gave it our all," Crozier continued, "either through the ice packs to the southwest, or along the King William landmass or the island. Go down to the east bank to investigate." "Go all out." When everyone was still silent because of surprise, Blanji, the ice and snow expert, repeated Crozier's words. "Yes, that makes sense." Sir John could only blink for a moment.When he was finally able to make his voice again, his tone still couldn't hide his surprise, as if Crozier had just made another incomprehensible joke. "Abandon our flagship?" he finally said. "Give up the Nether?" He looked around the entire cabin, as if the problem would be solved if he just asked the officer to appreciate his cabin with him.There are rows and rows of display shelves and books on the bulkhead, exquisite crystal and porcelain on the table, and three Preston patent luxury skylights are installed in the entire deck above the head, which can make the light in late summer fully Spilled into the cabin. "Give up the Erebus, Francis?" he said again, his voice stronger than before, but his tone sounded like he was asking for some dark joke he didn't understand to be explained to him. Crozier nodded. "Its main drive shaft has been bent, sir. Your own engineer, Mr. Gregg, just told us that even a shipyard moved to dry land couldn't be repaired, couldn't be pulled out, let alone our boat now Still stuck in the ice pile. It's only going to get worse. Considering both ships at the same time, then we only have a few days or a week of coal to fight the ice pile. Failing that, both ships will be frozen in In the sea. If we were frozen in the open sea to the west of the King William landmass, we would have no idea where the currents would take that whole piece of ice and us. It would be very likely that we would be pushed into a shallow bay on the leeward side of the landmass , which means complete destruction, even if these two ships are the top ships." Crozier nodded while looking at the surrounding things and the light coming in from the skylight. "But if we concentrate all the coal on the less damaged ships," Crozier continued, "especially if we're lucky enough to find unfrozen waterways east of King William Island, we'll have more than a month's worth of coal. Coal can be sailed west along the coast at the fastest speed. The Erebus was sacrificed, but may - will - reach the turning point in a week, and then return to the several coasts we are familiar with Cape. And this year, not next year, through the Northwest Passage into the unfrozen Pacific." "Give up the Erebus?" repeated Sir John.There was no displeasure or anger in his voice, he was just confused, the idea that everyone was discussing was so absurd. "It's going to get very crowded on Terror," Lieutenant Colonel Fitzjian said.He appeared to be seriously considering Croz's offer. Captain Sir John turned to the right, looked at his favorite officer, and slowly a grim smile appeared on his face, as if they had not only deliberately told a joke he could not understand, but that he himself had been the butt of it . "Yes, it will be crowded, but it's only a month or two, and everyone should be able to bear it." Crozier said, "Mr. Harney on my ship and Vikis, the carpenter on your ship, will supervise the internal bulkheads. Dismantling. All the officers' quarters to be dismantled, except the large meeting room, which can be converted into Sir John's quarters on the Terror, and the officers' mess, which may remain. There will be plenty of space, even on the ice Stay for a year or more. These two ships were originally designed as gunboats, not to mention other advantages, at least the cabin space is very large." "It will take a while to move the coal and the ship's stores to the Terror," said Lieutenant Visconti. Crozier nodded again. "I have had a preliminary estimate of the time required by my comptroller, Mr. Hipman. You may recall that Mr. Gardner, the cannery contractor for this expedition, did not deliver the food until less than forty-eight hours before our voyage. Come on, so the inventory had to be relocated dramatically at that time. But we did it in real time, so the ship could sail on schedule. Heppamen estimated that if the crews of both ships were working at full capacity during the long day, only half would be left at night when they slept Guards, it will take less than three days to move all that a ship can carry aboard the Terror. We'll probably be huddled like a large family for a few weeks, but then it'll be like a fresh start: Coal is plentiful, food is enough to feed us for another year, and the ship is functioning properly." "Give it your all." Blanji, the ice and snow expert, said again. Sir John shook his head and smiled, as if he had finally had enough of the joke. "Well, Francis, that's a really...interesting... idea, but we're certainly not abandoning the Erebus. Of course, we're not abandoning the Terror, if your ship suffers a little misfortune. Well, The one proposal I haven't heard at this meeting today is to retreat back to Baffin Bay. Can I assume no one wants to propose that?"