R
eid and Blanky walked the frozen sea for as far as Reid’s strength would allow. His feet were still bandaged, but the earlier padded dressing had been replaced by a much lighter one and he was able to pull on a pair of thin overboots. The bandages on his hands and his mouth pads had also been removed, and his healing wounds benefited from exposure to the clean air.
The two men carried staves to sound the ice, which they did at regular intervals, or whenever some feature along their course caught their eye.
They walked toward the southwest, all attention now being focused on this quarter, searching the ice for any indication of its breakup, and probing it for faults and any other weaknesses by which they might soon release themselves from its grip.
It was obvious to them both that the ice beneath them was neither thinning nor weakening in the usual manner. It was already the 2nd of August, and if dispersal was not already under way, then there ought at least to have been some indication that this was imminent.
“She’s here and there, up and down,” Blanky said, frustrated by the ever-changing pattern of the contorted ice beneath them, by its age and its clouded impenetrability.
“New has come in on top of old and then held,” Reid said, unscrewing the augured tip of his stave and studying the ice caught in its thread. “Nothing we didn’t already know before we set out.” He banged the iron rod to clear it.
Blanky inquired after his feet, and Reid lifted one and massaged it through the soft leather. As usual, he did not answer the inquiry and Blanky did not persist.
The chief problem in assessing the nature of the ice through which they might eventually have to cut a passage was that it was uniform in neither depth, density nor configuration. Layer upon layer of fractured and faulted accumulations had been folded one upon the other and then flattened over many years, creating a stratification which had more in common with rock than with ice. In places they could detect the movement of deep water where a slipped plane had allowed the buried sea to rise into an empty space, but elsewhere it would not have been difficult for them to believe that they were walking on ice which extended right down to the sea bed, and that it was keel-ground and anchored there for all time to come. It was this, the fact that a great deal of the ice all around them appeared to have neither thawed nor moved during recent years, perhaps not since the time of Parry, which caused the two men the greatest concern.
“Nine summers out of ten we wouldn’t have come halfway from Barrow Strait to here,” Blanky remarked. “She’s seen us coming, opened a door for us and then slammed it tight shut behind us.”
Reid nodded slowly in agreement.
The following day they intended making a similar search to the north in the hope of discovering how far they might have to retreat to come into open water in that direction if the necessity arose. Neither man was hopeful of this.
“And she’s not only slammed the door on us, but she’s piling up the furniture on the other side,” Blanky said.
They rested on a low mound and lit their pipes.
“He’s growing impatient,” Blanky said after several minutes of silence, distracting Reid from his thoughts.
“Crozier?”
Blanky drew up a ball of phlegm and spat it heavily to the ground.
“What does he suggest we do? Stamp our feet like Rumpelstiltskin and wait for the ice to open up beneath us?”
“I might suggest it to him.”
Reid examined the horizon to the southwest and then scored an arrow on the ice at his feet pointing in the direction they hoped to continue. “Safe harbors,” he said disparagingly. “We try too hard with these heavy boats to drive them into secure winter berths instead of letting them ride up and drift on the surface of the ice where it remains at its most vigorous. We need ships of shallow beam and less displacement to sit clear and to take full advantage of every new nip and lead.”
“It’s a risky business with so many men,” Blanky said.
“We push too hard,” Reid went on. “Weight and strength, weight and strength.” He rose suddenly and continued walking in the direction of the arrow he had drawn. Blanky followed him.
They stopped again an hour later. They were several hundred yards apart, and at the call to halt, Blanky saw Reid drop to his knees and then fall forward. Fearing that he had finally exhausted himself, he ran to him. At his approach, however, he saw Reid rise back to his knees and then stand upright. Reid apologized for having alarmed him and then pointed out to him what he had found.
Twelve or fifteen feet directly beneath them was a submerged stream of dark water, barely visible through the intervening ice. This was little more than a yard wide where they looked down at it, but following Reid’s arm, Blanky saw that this narrow channel quickly widened, and that within only a short distance of them it broadened to five or six times this width.
Blanky ran along the line of this buried flow, dropping to the ground himself and then calling out upon reaching a point where he believed he could see some indication of its movement, of its scouring along the underside of the surface ice.
Reid estimated their distance as a mile and a half from the ships.
“What do you think?” Blanky asked.
“If she’s moving, then she’s at least moving in the right direction.” Reid positioned himself at the center of the dark channel and pointed along its upstream course. In the distance, the
Erebus
and
Terror
rested on his palm.
Any other two men might have cheered this unexpected and heartening discovery, but Reid and Blanky were content to reassure
themselves that they were not exaggerating the significance of their find. They followed the line of the ice-capped fissure, one man upon each “bank,” until they were certain that it did not suddenly end against a dam of tilted ice, or that it did not drain deeper into the solid unfathomable mass beneath and become lost and useless to them.
At one point the underside of the ice-roof was raised above the water by a height of three feet, this empty vault having been gouged clear when the flow of water beneath was more vigorous.
The ice separating them from the moving water was still as hard as rock, but satisfied by the dark band stretching ahead of them that the channel might later prove to be navigable, they returned to the ships.
They parted, and having warned Blanky against appearing too optimistic in front of Crozier, Reid went in search of Fitzjames.
He found him with Des Voeux and the
Erebus’
quartermasters.
“Can we blast and haul our way toward it?” Fitzjames asked, having listened to all Reid had to say, and disappointed that the probing edge of the submerged fissure was still such a great distance from them.
To Crozier, however, who was now undecided between forging their release and abandoning at least one of the ships and continuing overland, the discovery of the lead came as little short of a godsend, and he was unable to conceal his enthusiasm at the prospect of making headway toward it.
Later he sought out Fitzjames and informed him that in view of the short amount of time still remaining to them, he would take over the command of the
Erebus
and she alone would attempt to push her way through into open water. He admitted that the
Terror
was not up to the task, but added quickly that the repair work on her hull would continue until she was capable of following in the
Erebus’
wake. No one who heard him was convinced that this would now happen.
Fitzjames woke Gore and Goodsir early and they went to join Crozier’s party at the
Terror’
s bow. With the exception of the recent
storm, nighttime temperatures had not dropped below 10 degrees for two months, but the dawn air still felt sharp as they took advantage of the early light to inspect the
Terror
.
Crozier was waiting for them, along with Hodgson and Irving and an assortment of petty officers and seamen, most of whom were already engaged on the repair work.
A sail had been fixed over the ruptured hull, and this was drawn back to reveal the full extent of the damage. Twenty feet of broken planking had been cut away, at least half of this below the
Terror’
s waterline. Her bow rose proud of the ice and the damage was exposed in its entirety. Two of her forward spars had been loosened, and it was these structural supports which caused the carpenters and blacksmiths the most concern. Any repair to the bolted timbers could only be temporary and imperfect, and they would remain a dangerous weakness, with the likelihood of giving completely the next time any real pressure was placed on them.
The carpenters explained all this to Crozier and Fitzjames, and pointed out where they had so far repaired the internal damage, including the replacement of the forecastle wall. A wedge of ice still protruded into the forward hold and could not be removed without causing the
Terror
to tilt and fall lower in her frozen cradle, which now served as scaffolding while the outside work progressed. This intrusive ice had been of some assistance while the internal repairs had been carried out, but later it had become a hindrance, forcing the carpenters to work around it, ever conscious of the fact that it might suddenly slip back beneath the surface as quickly and as destructively as it had first appeared.
Crozier became impatient with all these explanations, making it even more evident that his real interest now lay elsewhere, and he drew Goodsir to one side to discuss the use of explosives to speed up the approach of the advancing fissure.
Fitzjames, Gore and Irving remained with the blacksmiths, warming themselves on their braziers, the ground around them studded with fallen coals.
Samuel Honey, the
Terror’s
smith, stood with them, explaining in greater detail some of the more intricate repairs they were attempting.
They were joined by Thomas Watson from the
Erebus.
“We can seal her,” Honey pointed out, drawing imaginary planking over the hole. “But we can’t make her strong.”
“Can you strengthen her sufficiently so that she might sit on the ice if she were to be left here to await rescue?” Fitzjames asked him.
“You mean abandoned?” Watson said anxiously.
“Could she be supported from outside so that she might at least be free of the ice?” Fitzjames said, his words still directed at Honey, who himself became suddenly concerned at the prospect of abandonment. “Answer me.”
“She might.”
In addition to the coals at their feet, shattered timbers also rose from the ice, upon which the workmen hung their tools and lanterns.
The damage had occurred on the
Terror’s
starboard bow, shaded from the sun for most of the day, and it was not difficult for Fitzjames to understand why the men once berthed inside had preferred to abandon their quarters and take their chances out on the ice, nor why others, less threatened or discomfited by the damage, had later chosen to go with them.
“Mr. Goodsir is fully agreed with my plan,” Crozier said loudly, returning to join them, ushering Goodsir ahead of him, one glance at whom indicated that he was considerably less enthusiastic about his role in the proceedings than Crozier suggested.
“We’ll start blasting,” Goodsir said, silencing them all.
Pausing only long enough to take note of their response to this, Crozier left.
When he had gone, Goodsir said they might broaden the submerged lead and bring it more quickly toward them by the detonation of explosions along its projected course. He believed that this was preferable to trying to free the
Erebus
from her cradle before the ice was ready to slacken its grip naturally.
“Where will you start?” Fitzjames asked him, aware of the risks involved in disturbing the ice around the ships.
“Midway between where we now stand and the head of the approaching stream.”
“Will it work?” Irving asked.
“Captain Crozier certainly believes so,” Fitzjames said quietly.
“I know,” Goodsir said. “But it is a perfectly feasible strategy, and if it goes well we should at least get the
Erebus
free.”
“And the
Terror
?” Hodgson asked, conscious of the stares of the men all around him.
Goodsir did not answer; instead he dug his heels into the ice beneath the braziers, looked hard at the impression he made, and then left them.
Over the next few days the sick and injured on the
Erebus
were transferred to the
Terror,
where there was now more space for them. In total, these numbered thirty-six. As a consequence of this, both Stanley and Goodsir spent more time there, largely ministering to the growing number who were bedridden, but also performing further small amputations.
Only Fairholme remained on the
Erebus
, his days of unconsciousness and delirium now outnumbering those when he was rational and calm, like an exhausted swimmer surfacing less and less frequently in a heavy sea. He had lost three stone and his skin had acquired the sheen and color of tallow. His swollen joints bruised every time he moved them, suppurating with pus in places and bleeding in others. He could still keep nothing down and was by then completely bald.