The Discovery Of Slowness (21 page)

If his teacher could have known what John could do now and what he had done, he would have written a different essay. If a slow person, against all predictions, had managed to survive in a fast profession, that was better than anything else.

He turned to Franklin's System. His first points were already inscribed in the Logbook of Punishments:

‘I am the captain and I never leave any doubt about that, above all not in myself. All others must adjust to my speed, because it is the slowest. Only when respect is created on this point can there be safety and alertness. I am a friend to myself. I take seriously what I think and sense. The time I require for this is never wasted. I allow the same for others. Impatience and fear must be ignored if possible; panic is strictly forbidden. In shipwrecks, the first things that must be saved are:
MAPS, OBSERVATIONS AND REPORTS, PICTURES
.'

Almost every day brought new sentences to be added. The last two read: ‘The slower work is more important. It is the first officer who makes all normal, quick decisions.'

They were sailing back to England on painfully repaired ships and were glad to get back at all. Work at the pumps was even harder than it had been on the way out.

Perhaps the open sea at the Pole was a fairy tale. But John did not believe this had as yet been proved.

London received them with great joy. Actually, it was widely believed that they had come directly from the Sandwich Islands.

Buchan and Franklin delivered their first report to Sir John Barrow at the Admiralty. Buchan praised John Franklin highly, and he hardly knew where to look.

‘And now, Mr Buchan,' Barrow asked, ‘you'll probably want to get back to the ice soon?'

‘Not exactly,' Buchan replied. ‘To cruise in that region for half an eternity one must love the company of men more than I do.'

‘And you, Mr Franklin?'

John, thinking about Buchan's last remark, was a little startled, because Barrow's question had now obtained a secondary
meaning for which he needed more time. Confused, he only got out, ‘Oh, of course I will.'

‘Good,' Barrow responded with an amused drawl. ‘Then I'll probably have a new command for you.'

That afternoon, John Franklin appeared at Eleanor Porden's and proposed marriage – in well-prepared sentences. She felt both pressed and flattered, changed the topic for the moment, and asked about polar magnetism. ‘Actually,' she said, ‘I had only expected news of that.'

What John could offer on the subject of polar magnetism didn't seem satisfactory, even to himself. He therefore went back to his proposal. Suddenly Eleanor looked at him, seeming very grown-up, and said, ‘I believe you want to prove something.' But she declined for the time being – ‘for reasons of slowness', as she put it.

John thought it over and concluded that this pleased him quite well. In the evening he found himself with a not-inexpensive harbour whore. Before he could prove his most important point, she first wanted to know everything about Kamchatka and her colleagues over there.

‘Of course you were there,' she urged again and again. ‘Of course you were there. You just won't tell. Stubborn, like all officers.'

T
his time John Franklin was the sole commander of the expedition, although not as the captain of a ship, for it was to be a land journey. With him were the physician Dr Richardson, the midshipmen Back and Hood, as well as Seaman Hepburn. Bearers, guides, hunters, and food supplies were to be provided in Canada by the royal fur-trading companies.

On Exaudi Sunday, the sixth Sunday after Easter, 1819, they left the dock at Gravesend on the
Prince of Wales
, a small ship owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. John was prepared for everything he could think of. He had even practised marching, measuring the average length of his steps by pacing between two London mileposts. Moreover, he had equipped his compass with a retractable ring for his thumb, enabling him to take the bearings of a landmark above the line of his outstretched arm and the upper rim of the compass. Knife, drill, awl and whistle for emergency signals had been supplied to everyone, also wire for fastening snowshoes and, upon the advice of a postilion, stockings, undershirts, and ankle-length drawers made of lamb's wool, which itched fiercely.

John was glad that one person would be along whom he knew: George Back. He had volunteered, announcing that he would go with Franklin through thick and thin. Talk like that embarrassed John, but it was good to have a quick man to rely on. He decided to make Back his unofficial first officer, to whom he could delegate the ‘normal' fast decisions. Of course, he'd still have to prove himself. There would be others. John observed them closely, because he wanted to apply the system he had developed on the
Trent
to everyone in his party.

‘The captain of the
Blossom
might have remained a happy man, and the
Blossom
a happy ship, if they had not made him its captain – for he was no captain.' Dr Richardson paused and pulled on his too tightly packed pipe until the meagre glow turned into a reddish hue, illuminating his scrawny face. Thick puffs of smoke seemed to darken the weak evening light coming in through the mess window. Yes, the
Blossom
. Dr Richardson had been on her unfortunate voyage as the ship's doctor, and he told of it all in great detail. Franklin, of course, asked himself why.

‘A weak captain can be influenced by everyone who calls him strong. He listens to flattery and malicious insinuations, for truth is his enemy in any case.'

There had been an insidious cargo officer on board the
Blossom
, Cattleway by name, who liked to spy on people and then spread his ill-gotten knowledge. If he didn't find anything he could use, he simply made things up. The captain, however, believed him. Two lieutenants were put in irons because of supposed disloyalty. When they were later prosecuted in a court martial, the court condemned not the officers but the captain himself, and the slanderous seaman was sent in irons to Van Diemen's Land. John thought of that island south of Australia which Matthew had circled and explored. Not a bad punishment, he thought, to work under an open sky and to help cultivate new land. For that's how he imagined what happened to the convicts.

‘And why was this captain weak?' asked Richardson, quickly answering himself: ‘He lacked the blessings of faith. He who does not let the Lord guide him cannot guide a ship.' Again he busied himself lighting his pipe, perhaps so as not to watch John while the story took its effect. And it was doing that. He wants me to say something about it, thought John; but he was cautious. If this man Richardson was so devout, he would not be easy to deal with. He derived authority from God – that was dangerous to Franklin's System. There are too many interpretations of God's will. Generally, John found religion useful when it was a matter of maintaining understanding and order. Passionate visionaries
and witnesses, on the other hand, made him uncomfortable. He therefore replied only, ‘Guiding a ship, that's navigation. That's all I know.'

The expedition was to reach the northernmost edge of the continent and then push east along the unexplored shore up to Repulse Bay, where a Captain Parry would be waiting for them with his ship. If the project proved successful, the North-west Passage for which Europe had been looking for two centuries would be found. And for that there would be a fat purse of twenty thousand pounds. The ‘crucial bay', then, was the bay that opened to a canal: John had never wavered from this dream since his return from Australia. In addition, the Admiralty expected careful descriptions of all Indian and Eskimo tribes they encountered. Friendly attitudes were desired; barter of alcohol against furs permitted; no firearms. It was important to see that the natives became accustomed to helping stranded passenger ships by supplying them with food if necessary – it would do them no harm.

‘It'll do them harm in any event,' Back suggested casually. ‘Let's just hope they don't find out while we depend on them.'

The briefest sentence of all was spoken by Hepburn, a Scotsman from near Edinburgh. ‘It'll happen,' he said. Hepburn had been going to sea since childhood. After the wreck of his packet ship he was fished out by a warship and pressed into the navy. Four times he tried to desert, but he had volunteered for this expedition. Only he knew why.

In the dock at Stromness, in Orkney, they encountered the brig
Harmonie
, belonging to the Herrnhuter Brotherhood. Franklin, Back and Richardson were rowed over for a visit. They met a few recently wedded Eskimo couples – Christians, of course – and a Lutheran missionary who was busy teaching them how to improve their prayers even further. He understood only German and Inuit. Without an interpreter nothing could be done.

Inuit, that was what the Eskimos called themselves. It meant simply ‘humans'. They appeared modest, clean and obliging, and
Richardson suggested that the blessings of religion were already apparent. One could see it in their eyes.

Back smiled. But he did this often enough, for he was pleased with himself and wanted to please others, Franklin above all. John sensed this. But if Back could do something to contribute to an atmosphere of confidence and trust, it would be welcome. Morale was high.

After a collision with an iceberg, which smashed the rudder, the
Prince of Wales
eventually anchored at York Factory on the western shore of Hudson's Bay.

On land, new names and faces had to be impressed upon their memory: Frenchmen, Indians, officials of the fur-trading company, as well as a major of the Royal Engineers named By, who was explaining the feasibility of digging canals from the bay to the Great Lakes. He also told of the
Frontenac
, a steamer which cruised around Lake Superior emitting black smoke. Technology was winning everywhere, and By was its man.

‘If you don't find the North-west Passage, gentlemen, I'll simply build a canal with a hundred shiploads of explosives.' That's the kind of fellow he was, that By. John didn't like him much, and answered only, ‘It'll be difficult to find captains and crews for such ships.'

They started almost at once, after only a few days, for it was September and Franklin wanted to get as far as possible before winter. They paddled against the current with a few Indians and French-Canadian trappers up rivers and lakes to Lake Winnipeg, then on the Saskatchewan River to the trading-post called Cumberland House. Women came along, too.

The trappers, who spoke only French, called themselves
voyageurs
. They weren't friendly to anyone, except possibly their dogs. François Samandré owned two women, whom for the duration of the trip he loaned to companions for money. Two other
voyageurs
had only one woman between them, undoubtedly beaten twice as often as the others. Drunkenness put these sullen fellows into an incredible rage about everything: themselves, the women, the boats, even the dogs. One morning John assembled
the crew and told them he would send away any ruffian who got into fights. When in one case he actually did so, things got a little better.

Their diet consisted mostly of pemmican – a mixture of fat and minced dried meat blended with sugar and berries – an odd paste, but it gave strength. It was sewn into steer hides in packages weighing eighty pounds each.

All those loads, all that hauling. Often the boats had to be portaged to get round waterfalls, up hills without paths or footholds. The battle against the current alone made their shoulders ache; dampness and cold made it worse. The doctor couldn't do much about this with his pious talk. But he had taken some good ointments along, too.

Back was efficient but much too impatient. True, they didn't progress very fast, but they had to adjust to that. The
voyageurs
rested after each full hour and smoked a pipe. If they needed that – well and good. They measured the length of the river segments by the number of pipes smoked: they had to smoke, or else their standard of measurement wouldn't work.

When for once they had the current with them at last, on the Echimamish river, the Indians suddenly didn't want to go on. Their souls had not kept up with them; they had to wait.

John understood Back's urgency, but in private he admonished him to respect local custom. Besides, Back couldn't stand boredom and didn't want to be boring himself – he was a comedian and always went for the joke, even if it hurt – but he didn't understand that on such a long journey justice mattered more.

John began to find the other midshipman, Robert Hood, much more pleasant. Hood, like Back, had received instruction in drawing and painting and was (supposed) to capture in sketches anything that might be of importance. But what was of importance? Hood was a dreamy, quiet man. He concerned himself not with the actual goal of the expedition but rather with anything that stirred his imagination: reflections of light in the shallow water of a river bend, the cleft palate of a
voyageur
, the figure created by a flight of birds. Back made fun of him, and Hood's good-naturedness only spurred him on. John realised that
Hood was not the quick man he could make into his first officer, but he was most like himself and John therefore believed in him the most.

At the end of October they reached Cumberland House. Here they had to stay, for the smaller rivers were already frozen over solid. The local company manager or governor assigned them an unfinished building which they could complete and equip for the winter. Hood built the fireplace; he knew how to do that. ‘He's a fire-maker,' said the Cree Indians, who valued him highest among the Europeans, whom otherwise they didn't think much of. Rifle bullets had decimated their once-powerful tribe, and alcohol had held the remainder in its merciless grip.

‘The power of the whites will grow and grow,' one of the Crees told Robert Hood. ‘No one will be able to stop them. They will perish only when they have destroyed everything. For then the warriors of the Great Rainbow will chase them away and put everything back the way it was.'

‘I destroy nothing,' Hood replied quietly. ‘I don't want to leave traces behind. At most a few pictures.'

They sat round the fireplace every night: the leather-faced doctor reading his Bible; heavy, sleepy Hepburn; and slim Hood, who whenever he thought of something blinked and opened his mouth without saying anything.

It became obvious that no one liked George Back. The beautiful young man who always wanted to say the unexpected soon had everyone against him, though he was never openly discussed. Just for that reason he edged closer and closer to John. He kept him informed, admired him, wanted to be admired in turn. It was like an offer: he wanted to get something back for his admiration. But since he could exchange only actions for Franklin's admiration, he became more and more nervous. Great deeds could not be accomplished in a winter camp.

While they were walking to a tea given by the local business manager, Back said to him over the crunch of the snow under their feet, ‘Sir, I simply love you. If that's a problem, it's still
no catastrophe.' He said it so – facetiously. John sensed with annoyance that his ears were turning red while he was searching for an answer which would end the conversation in one knockout punch. But that would have led nowhere. John knew his own head. If he reacted too quickly, the situation would shift in directions he could not manage. Calm and caution, then.

Their steps continued with their crunching noise. Their breath formed clouds of mist. They had nearly reached the business manager's blockhouse. ‘A catastrophe, I daresay, it is not,' said John. ‘But I'd like to see something good come of it. You exaggerate too much, Mr Back. Must you?' He slowed his steps because they were approaching their host's door too quickly. He recalled a motto he had learned from the shepherd in Spilsby: ‘Between overstatement and understatement lies one hundred per cent.' Alas, the shepherd hadn't adhered to it himself.

They arrived at Mr Williams's with red ears. Indian tea, ship's zwieback, and corned beef, but no good news about provisions for the expedition. On the way home, John considered whether part of the crew might not still travel ahead to Fort Chipewyan that winter to procure supplies at the fur-trading posts there.

Back agreed enthusiastically. ‘The two of us, sir.' But as the day of their departure drew near, John decided that in addition to Back he wanted Hepburn to go with him. Back's hunger could not be stilled with justice and reason, but anything else would be out of the question for a commander. Fate must take its course.

The three men left Cumberland House on 15 January 1820, on snowshoes and with two
voyageurs
and two dog-sleds, guided by Indians, piled so high with food that there was barely room for the sextant. Some tracks had to be dug in the deep snow ahead of time to keep the dogs from jumping around and bothering each other.