Across Frozen Seas by John Wilson Page A

muskets.
    â€œLet 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.”
    â€œWill 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 andjoy 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 suchhigh 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