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 atmospheric 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.