Across Frozen Seas (11 page)

The flowers are beautiful. The ground is a flat carpet of yellow and red. There are still patches of snow in the hollows, but now small streams run here and there at random. The air seems full of birds of all different kinds. Most incredibly, the horizon is a single moving mass of life: deer (reindeer the whalers call them) in a single moving river of brown bodies. The sound is like a low groan as thousands of hooves rise and fall on the soft ground. It is interspersed with a low clack as the antlers of the male deer knock together. It is almost impossible to believe that this paradise of life and colour can exist so close to the dull world of black and grey we have been inhabiting for so long.

The deer are so thick that they are difficult to hunt. Small groups of men are scattered all along the edge of the herd waiting for an animal to stray off. When one does, there is invariably a sharp musket crash and a scuttle of activity as it is dragged clear and cleaned.

Behind me, makeshift racks are already full of meat hanging in the weak sun. The Commander was right, the men have livened up with the activity and fresh meat. It is almost enough to make me believe that all will be well in the end.

“Well, this is better than that rat-infested hulk,” George says, standing beside me watching the scene. It is summer, 1848. “We should have come down here long ago. Damned officers don't seem to know what they're doing.”

“I don't know George,” I reply defensively. “Mister Crozier and Mister Fitzjames seem like good men. In any case, this game won't stay here forever, and then we will be better off back in the ships.”

“Davy! You have been listening to the high-andmighty's too much. You never used to pay no heed to old Marback, and now its
Mister
Crozier and
Mister
Fitzjames. They only care for themselves and their good life. We have to look after ourselves. We always have and we can't change now. Anyhow, things are going to be different around here soon and you had best be sure you know which side you're on.”

“What do you mean?” But it is too late, George turns on his heel and is already several steps ahead.

“We're not going back to rot for another year on those God-forsaken hulks of yours.” There is a general murmur of agreement at Seeley's words. The cuts on
his cheek where Neptune bit him have scarred, but they are still a livid red and give his face a twisted look. “You officers and any men who ain't got the guts to stay can go if you want, but the rest of us is staying here. Right boys?” The murmur turns to a low roar which sweeps through the ranks of men standing on the shore beside the stretch of water we have named Plenty Bay.

“This is mutiny,” Crozier's voice is colder than the chunks of ice floating in the wide bay behind him. “It is also stupidity. The game will not stay here forever and then where will you go? Will you walk to Canada over the Barren Lands or perhaps swim Baffin Bay to seek shelter with the natives of Greenland? Your best chance—our best chance—is to return to the ships and, when the ice frees them, sail the
Erebus
home through the passage as we were ordered to do.”

“And if the ice don't free her?” Seeley has taken a step forward and is looking hard at Crozier. “What if the ice crushes her? Then you are stuck where there ain't no game at all. I say stay here where at least a man can eat fresh meat. If they don't come to rescue us this summer, they'll come next for sure.”

“Seeley, you're a fool.” Crozier says it calmly, but the men tense at his words. “And you men are fools as well to listen to him. The game will be gone when the first snow falls. You cannot store enough now to see you through the winter and you don't have the natives' skills to catch seals on the ice. You'll starve long before any help arrives. The officers and I, and any men who
wish to come are taking two sleds and returning to the ships. Those who stay will be charged with mutiny when we return to England. Any who try to stop us will be shot.”

The men behind Seeley look restless and uncertain as Crozier's small group handle their muskets.

“Let them go,” Seeley almost commands the men, “and any who wants to join them can. I for one ain't going back for a fourth winter on those hellish ships. Soon enough these boys'll be back begging us for some fresh meat and then we'll see who's going to be charged with mutiny.”

“Will anyone else join us?” Crozier asks the crowd behind Seeley. A few men look uncertain but Seeley's hard eye travels over them and no one comes over. I look hard at George standing in the front row and try to will him to come over. But he is firm, not even looking in my direction.

So we turn and set off. Fifteen officers and twenty-three men dragging two boats over the peninsula and back up the island to what we hope are the waiting ships. Only time will tell us who is right and who is wrong. Will I ever see my friend George again?

Our small group stands along the rail of the
Erebus.
It is July I849 and I have been sixteen for a scant three weeks. At last, after three winters in this place, we are in free water once more. What should be elation and
joy are tempered by the sight before us.

It is one of the saddest things in the world to see a ship sink. Especially one which has been so much a part of one's life for so long. The ice is loosening its grip on the poor, holed
Terror.
The old ship who began her life fighting against Napoleon has served us well. But now she is going to rest. She lies heeled over a full thirty-five degrees and her masts are broken. The ice cracks and groans and roars as it reluctantly sets her free and she screams a last farewell as her timbers, broken by the pressure of years, are painfully released. We watch in silence as she slowly tips farther over. Now the bow is sinking and the blunt stern is being slowly forced up into the air. A sudden, horrible noise announces that the boiler has broken free. With frightening rapidity now, the poor ship rises almost to the vertical and sinks below the dark, cold water. Nothing remains except a few supplies discarded on the ice around that awful black hole.

But we do not have time to mourn. We too are free, and our ship is unholed, so we must make the most of it. There has been some discussion about retracing our route north back through Lancaster Sound into Baffin Bay, but that would mean abandoning what men may be left at Plenty Bay. As Captain Crozier said, “They may be mutineers, but they are still my crew and I will not abandon any of them who wish to come with us.”

So we will continue on the route fate has mapped out for us and which we began so long ago with such
high hopes. Perhaps it is open all the way through and we will still sail out in triumph to Alaska. But it will be a hollow triumph at best after all that has befallen us. I do not want to think of George or of what may await us at Plenty Bay, so I busy myself with the tasks at hand.

I can see the tents from the rail but, fortunately, the frightfulness of that camp is hidden by the distance. What a cruel jest the name Plenty Bay seems now.

The shore party found three men. Three men from the sixty-seven we said farewell to last year, and they too sick with scurvy to move. They are a sorrowful sight. They are swollen and covered with sores. They can barely move their limbs for the pain and their teeth may be pulled free with ease. Most strange, they bleed freely from wounds which healed years before. They have been brought on board and tell a tale we can hardly bear to hear.

True to Captain Crozier's prediction, the game vanished with the first snow. At first they still dined well on the preserved meat and the provisions we carried down with us, but as the weather grew worse and the supplies grew short, sickness broke out and the men became weak. A party took three boats and attempted to return to the ships. We will never know what happened to them.

As the horrible winter wore on, Seeley became more and more crazed, berating even the sick for getting him
into this predicament. To disagree with him was enough to earn a beating or even worse. Eventually the food ran out. Some of the men went mad and ran about screaming until they dropped. Others gave up, lay down and stared silently into space until they too died. Still others, led and organized by Seeley, resorted to a more frightful means to stave off death— they ate the remains of their comrades.

As soon as the worst of the winter storms abated, Seeley led a group of survivors, no more than thirty half-starved men, east in an attempt to reach the whaling grounds. The three men we found were too sick to go and had been part of a group left behind to die. That would have been their fate in a very short time had we not come along.

Our way too is clear now. We have come down here through uncertain passages and leads, but the ice has closed firm behind us. There is no way back and we must go on now regardless. Seeley and his devils must fend for themselves as best they can in the wilderness. And George, where is he? Did he join the unfortunate party who perished attempting to return to the ship, or did he stay at camp and die here, or is he somewhere out there with Seeley, still alive?

This is the end, we can go no farther. The
Erebus
still floats free but, as far as the eye can see there is impenetrable ice. We know the way back is blocked so there is only
one option left to our small party—Simpson Strait. If we can sail through it we may still be able to cross to the Gulf of Boothia and meet up with whalers before 1849 is out. We must, for another winter will be the death of us all. It will be a hard journey in our weakened state, but better than trying to cross the Barren Lands.

The problem is that the strait is too shallow for the
Erebus
so we must abandon her and take to the small boats. They are loaded now and we are hauling on the oars looking back at the
Erebus
where she sits, calm and peaceful, at anchor in a flat open sea. On our left looms the mainland shore of the Adelaide Peninsula. On our right the bleak, hopeless rock of King William Land which has become a grave to so many of our friends. Will it be ours too before this hellish journey is over?