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Authors: Robert Edric
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swung them slowly apart.
“Passed right over,” Reid said, raising his own arms in answer.
Vesconte called for their own depth and was answered with a cry of six fathoms. This surprised him, conflicting as it did with the few scattered soundings of his chart, and he recommended to Franklin that they should steer a course into deeper water.
They turned to starboard and the Terror moved closer to them, holding her course until she was alongside.
“I believe we sliced a grounded berg by the full length of our keel,” Crozier shouted to them, his voice amplified in the still air.
“And your rudder?” Fitzjames called back.
“Lifted the second we touched,” Crozier shouted. “First blood to Terror, I believe, gentlemen. Let the ice lick its wounds and tremble before us.”
Elated, he raised three cheers for the Terror, and the shouts and applause of the men around him crossed the water to the Erebus like the sound of fighting punctuated by gunfire.
An hour after darkness during their second night the Erebus herself was struck by a piece of floating ice, which caught her amidships on her port side and then slid slowly to her stern. Deep in her hull, men listened without speaking, the newcomers almost without breathing, as the knock of the collision became a drawn-out scraping, rising and then fading as the ice eventually drifted free of them.
Fitzjames was with Goodsir and Reid in the narrow corridor between his own and Goodsir’s cabin when the ice struck, and all three waited in silence until it moved off.
“An icy finger sent out of the darkness to prod us as we sleep,” Goodsir announced with a flourish.
“To prod the atrocious poet in your soul,” Fitzjames said, releasing the tension now that the danger had passed.
One of the Erebus’ boys appeared, stopping when he saw them in the narrow passage. He had been woken and frightened by the collision. Goodsir told him to return to his bunk and he left them without speaking. They watched him go, each of them momentarily lost in his own thoughts.
There were no further collisions during the night, and the following morning they rose to find that the field in which they had anchored the previous evening was no longer in sight, having been drawn away from them during the brief spell of darkness.
They continued along their previous course in full sail. News of the Erebus’ encounter with the ice was communicated to the Terror, and John Irving shouted back to ask if they were sure it was ice that had struck them and not a fish that had come too close in search of scraps from their galley.
The Erebus led the way that day, maintaining a course which kept them out of sight of land to both north and south.
In the falling dusk they sailed several degrees to port and moored for the night to a massive grounded berg. This rose as high as a small hill above them and was larger than anything they had so far encountered. In a precisely calculated maneuver, both ships sailed alongside the edge of the ice until they were pressed close upon it, whereupon claws were thrown to secure them.
At first light Vesconte took his surveying equipment ashore and
made a series of measurements. He was accompanied by Goodsir, who hammered at the ice in a dozen places and collected samples. He also netted the water along the edge of the berg and took the bottled results of this back aboard with him too.
Later, when they were ready to sail and both ships had drawn clear of their moorings, Goodsir conducted another experiment involving packages of explosive set along a line in the ice. Those watching from the ships were disappointed by the small size of the explosions when they finally came, and with the undramatic and short-lived plumes of powder-smoke and steam they threw up. The noise broke the morning silence for many miles around, but apart from this nothing else appeared to have been achieved, and as he climbed back aboard, Fitzjames asked Goodsir what he had expected. Goodsir
“Passed right over,” Reid said, raising his own arms in answer.
Vesconte called for their own depth and was answered with a cry of six fathoms. This surprised him, conflicting as it did with the few scattered soundings of his chart, and he recommended to Franklin that they should steer a course into deeper water.
They turned to starboard and the Terror moved closer to them, holding her course until she was alongside.
“I believe we sliced a grounded berg by the full length of our keel,” Crozier shouted to them, his voice amplified in the still air.
“And your rudder?” Fitzjames called back.
“Lifted the second we touched,” Crozier shouted. “First blood to Terror, I believe, gentlemen. Let the ice lick its wounds and tremble before us.”
Elated, he raised three cheers for the Terror, and the shouts and applause of the men around him crossed the water to the Erebus like the sound of fighting punctuated by gunfire.
An hour after darkness during their second night the Erebus herself was struck by a piece of floating ice, which caught her amidships on her port side and then slid slowly to her stern. Deep in her hull, men listened without speaking, the newcomers almost without breathing, as the knock of the collision became a drawn-out scraping, rising and then fading as the ice eventually drifted free of them.
Fitzjames was with Goodsir and Reid in the narrow corridor between his own and Goodsir’s cabin when the ice struck, and all three waited in silence until it moved off.
“An icy finger sent out of the darkness to prod us as we sleep,” Goodsir announced with a flourish.
“To prod the atrocious poet in your soul,” Fitzjames said, releasing the tension now that the danger had passed.
One of the Erebus’ boys appeared, stopping when he saw them in the narrow passage. He had been woken and frightened by the collision. Goodsir told him to return to his bunk and he left them without speaking. They watched him go, each of them momentarily lost in his own thoughts.
There were no further collisions during the night, and the following morning they rose to find that the field in which they had anchored the previous evening was no longer in sight, having been drawn away from them during the brief spell of darkness.
They continued along their previous course in full sail. News of the Erebus’ encounter with the ice was communicated to the Terror, and John Irving shouted back to ask if they were sure it was ice that had struck them and not a fish that had come too close in search of scraps from their galley.
The Erebus led the way that day, maintaining a course which kept them out of sight of land to both north and south.
In the falling dusk they sailed several degrees to port and moored for the night to a massive grounded berg. This rose as high as a small hill above them and was larger than anything they had so far encountered. In a precisely calculated maneuver, both ships sailed alongside the edge of the ice until they were pressed close upon it, whereupon claws were thrown to secure them.
At first light Vesconte took his surveying equipment ashore and
made a series of measurements. He was accompanied by Goodsir, who hammered at the ice in a dozen places and collected samples. He also netted the water along the edge of the berg and took the bottled results of this back aboard with him too.
Later, when they were ready to sail and both ships had drawn clear of their moorings, Goodsir conducted another experiment involving packages of explosive set along a line in the ice. Those watching from the ships were disappointed by the small size of the explosions when they finally came, and with the undramatic and short-lived plumes of powder-smoke and steam they threw up. The noise broke the morning silence for many miles around, but apart from this nothing else appeared to have been achieved, and as he climbed back aboard, Fitzjames asked Goodsir what he had expected. Goodsir
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