I asked, Then should we not have left them behind at the ships?
He shook his head. No. We need to choose which boats will best serve to allow 100 men to survive for several weeks or months at sea, or even on the river. Did you know that Boats… all of these Boats… have to be Rigged differently for sailing on the sea or catching the Wind going upriver, Doctor?
It was my turn to shake my head.
No matter, said Captain Fitzjames. We’ll get into the niceties of river rigging versus sea rigging some other time, preferably on a Sunny, Warm day far South of here. These last 8 Boats… the first Two are Pinnaces, the next Four are Ship’s Boats, and the final Two are Dinghies.
The Dinghies seem much shorter, I said.
Captain Fitzjames puffed on his literally execrable pipe and nodded as if I had revealed Some Pearl of Wisdom from Holy Scripture. Aye, he said sadly. The Dinghies are only 12 feet Long, as opposed to the Pinnaces’ 28-foot Length and the Ship’s Boats 22 feet. But none of them can be rigged for masts and sailing and they’re all lightly Oared. The men in these Boats would be in for some Hard Times if we went to the Open Sea, I am afraid. I would not be surprised if Captain Crozier chooses to Leave them Behind.
I thought, Open Sea? The idea of actually sailing any of these craft on anything more expansive than Back’s Great Fish River, which I imagined rather like the Thames, had never occurred to me before tonight, even though I had been present at various war councils discussing such possibilities. It seemed to me, looking at the smaller and rather delicate-looking Dinghies and Ship’s Boats lashed on their Sledges, that the men going to sea in these would be doomed to watch the Pinnaces with their Two Masts and the Whaleboats with their single Tall Masts simply sail away over the horizon.
The men in these Smaller Boats would be Doomed. How would the crews be chosen? Had they been chosen already, in secret, by the Two Captains?
And which boat — and which Fate — had I been assigned?
If we take the Smaller Boats, we’ll draw lots for them, said the Captain. The places in the pinnaces, jolly boats, and whaleboats would be assigned according to man-hauling teams.
I must have looked at him in alarm.
Captain Fitzjames laughed — a laugh that turned into a racking cough — and knocked out the ashes from his pipe against his Boot. The wind was coming up, and it was very cold. I had no idea of the time — sometime after Midnight. It had been dark for at least seven hours.
Don’t worry, Doctor, he said softly. I wasn’t reading your mind. Only your expression. As I say, we’ll Draw Lots for the smaller boats, but we may not take the Smaller Boats. In either case, we won’t leave anyone behind. We’ll tie the ships together on the Open Water.
I smiled at this, hoping that the Captain could see my smile in the lantern light but not my Bleeding Gums. I didn’t know that ships under sail could be tied to other ships not under sail, I said, showing my ignorance again.
Most of the time, they cannot, said Captain Fitzjames. He touched me lightly on the back — a touch I could hardly feel through my outer Slops. Now that you’ve learned the Nautical Secrets of all 18 Boats that might end up in our little Fleet, Doctor, shall we get back? It’s rather cold, and I have to get some Sleep before I rise at Four Bells to check on the Watch.
I bit my lip, tasting blood. I do have one last question, Captain, if you don’t mind.
Not at all.
When will Captain Crozier choose the boat we take and when will he put those boats in the water? I said. My voice was very hoarse.
The Captain moved slightly and was silhouetted against the light from the bonfire near the Seamen’s Mess Tent. I could not see his face.
I don’t know, Dr. Goodsir, he said at last. I doubt if Captain Crozier could tell you. Lady Luck may be with us and the Ice may break up in a few Weeks… if it does, I’ll sail you to Baffin Island myself. Or we could be launching some of these craft against the current at the Mouth of the Great Fish River in three months… conceivably there could still be time to get to Great Slave Lake and the outpost there before Winter fully sets in, even if it takes until July to reach the River.
He patted the curved side of the Pinnace closest to him. I felt a strange, quiet pride in being able to identify it as a Pinnace.
Or perhaps it was one of the 2 Jolly Boats.
I tried not to think of the condition of Edmund Hoar and what it forecast for all the rest of us if we did not begin the 850-mile Venture up Back’s River… the river they also call the Great Fish River… for another Three Months. Who could possibly be left Alive if a boat made it to Great Slave Lake months later than that?
Or, he said softly, if Lady Luck is not with us, these hulls and keels may never feel water under them again.
There was nothing to say to that. It was our Death Sentence. I turned from the light to walk back to the Sick Bay Tent. I respected Captain James Fitzjames and I did not want him to see my face at that Moment.
Captain Fitzjames’s hand fell on my shoulder, stopping me.
Should that be the case, he said, his voice fierce, we’ll just have to bloody well walk home, shan’t we?
34
CROZIER
Pulling toward the arctic sunset, Captain Crozier knew the mathematics of this purgatory. Eight miles this first day on the ice to Sea Camp One. Nine miles the next, if all went well, ending in a midnight arrival at Sea Camp Two. Eight miles — including some of the hardest going near the coast where the sledges had to be hauled up over the barrier where pack ice met coastal ice — the third and final day. And there the tentative safe haven of Terror Camp.
Both crews would be together for the first time. If Crozier’s sledge teams survived this ice crossing — and kept ahead of the thing following them on the ice — all 105 men would be together on the wind-scoured northwestern coast of the island.
The early sledge trips to King William Land in March — most of them in darkness — had made such slow going that often the men with their sledges had camped the first night on the ice within sight of the ship. One day, with a storm blowing in their faces out of the southeast, Lieutenant Le Vesconte had made less than a mile after twelve hours of constant effort.
But it was much easier in the sunlight with the sledge trail laid down and the path through pressure ridges reduced in difficulty, if not actually leveled.
Crozier had not wanted to end up on King William Land. His visits to Victory Point had not convinced him, despite the huge dump of food and gear there and the preparation of tent circles, that the men could survive there for long. The weather blowing almost always out of the northwest was murderous in winter, atrocious in the spring and brief autumn, and life threatening during the summer. The late Lieutenant Gore’s experience of wild lightning storms during the first visit to the landmass in the summer of 1847 had been repeated again and again that summer and early autumn. One of the first things Crozier authorized hauling to land the previous summer had been the ship’s extra lightning rods along with brass curtain rods from Sir John’s quarters to jury-rig more.