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Authors: Robert Edric

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O
f the 104 officers and men who landed with Crozier on King William Land, only sixty-eight set off with him for Back’s River on the 26th of April.
Commanded by Fitzjames, and including Gore, Goodsir, Reid and mate Des Voeux, a party of sixteen prepared to return across the ice to the
Erebus.
With the exception of the
Terror
’s two boys, all had been members of her original crew.
The remaining twenty men, under the command of Vesconte and Stanley, included their most seriously ill, those who could not walk, those who could barely stand, and none of whom would survive either the return journey to the ship or Crozier’s overland march. Of these, four had remained unconscious and delirious since their arrival ashore. None had eaten, and it seemed likely to everyone who attended them that they would all soon die. Upon agreeing that the four men were beyond salvation, Stanley and Peddie stopped administering their valuable drugs.
Having prepared the boats and unloaded all their unnecessary supplies, Crozier’s party started to leave at six in the morning, with the first liquid glimmer of the rising sun to guide them. Their farewells were prolonged and emotional, and filled with promises to return.
George Hodgson and clerk Edwin Helpman led the first group, harnessing themselves to one of their boats along with a dozen others, including Tozer and the marines who were still capable of pulling.
Men walked ahead of them, alongside them and behind them, pacing a path along which the boat was slowly hauled. At first this route was erratic, weaving left and right to take advantage of firm ice and to avoid those patches of exposed ground which already threatened to turn soft.
The mates Robert Thomas and Frederick Hornby harnessed themselves in lead position in the second boat, followed by Macdonald and second master Macbean. The four men were relatively healthy, and had recovered sufficiently from their march across the frozen sea to now have some real hope for their prospects in the days ahead. Thomas Blanky, weakened by the progression of scurvy, and limping from a fall, walked alongside Macdonald. He was to be their guide, following the tracks left by the leading boat and rerouting them whenever he saw fit. He and James Reid said their own brief farewells, each handing over letters to be delivered to their respective wives upon their return home. Others had urged Blanky to remain behind and begin marching when he was more fully recovered, but Crozier had made a personal appeal to his ice-master, and Blanky had agreed to accompany him.
Those going on foot with Crozier gathered up their supplies and moved among their crewmates and friends offering hope and encouragement, severing their ties and then separating only slowly, as though they were flotsam pulled apart by some unstoppable drift. Many knelt and prayed together for a final time.
Crozier was one of the last to leave. He said his farewells to Fitzjames and the others, and left written instructions to be opened only in the event of the
Erebus
coming free of the ice and being in a condition to continue sailing later that summer. He knew as well as any of them how unlikely this was considering the damage she had sustained and the massive reduction in her crew, but neither he nor Fitzjames remarked on the fact, the seal on the papers as unbreakable now as the seal of their unbroachable deceptions.
A quantity of medical supplies was left behind with Stanley, both for those remaining on the land and those returning to the
Erebus,
and Crozier warned Fitzjames and the surgeon to be judicious in their use.
Edward Couch and purser Charles Osmer waited until Crozier had finished before saying their own farewells. Osmer dragged behind him a sack stuffed with money, handed it over to Fitzjames and asked for a receipt, confessing that he had no idea of how it might still be of any use to him, but that he could not bring himself to abandon it. Fitzjames said he understood and the two men shook hands. Osmer then turned and followed Crozier, calling for the boy David Young to accompany him. As yet the sixteen-year-old showed no sign of the sickness which had killed George Chambers, and from which the two other apprentices were now suffering.
One by one, individually and in small groups, all those who were leaving rose from the beach, gathered up their belongings and began walking south. Some were delayed, and some returned several times to take again their leave of old friends before finally departing. Some stopped after only a few yards and lightened their loads by throwing down clothing and other unnecessary weights.
Those remaining behind watched them go, the drama of the separation prolonged by the tortuously slow progress of the teams pulling the boats and by the low-lying nature of the land over which they went.
Fitzjames gazed along the line of men and saw that some of them were carrying umbrellas to keep off the sun, looking to him at that distance like the smooth black caps of toadstools marking out the course of some otherwise invisible spoor-line.
At noon even the leading boat was little more than a mile distant from them, the second closing on it. They could see every one of the walking men, now drawn out along a struggling half mile, some following the boats, others finding their own paths over the hummocky ground and across the frozen shallows. A small sail had been rigged up on the second boat, but this had so far proved ineffective in the absence of any wind.
Making a full inspection of the thirty-six men now under their command, Fitzjames and Vesconte ordered those who were able to walk to gather up everything that had been left strewn upon the shore and bring it all back into the center of their camp. The bulk of this detritus consisted of clothing of all descriptions, from dressand
dinner-jackets to countless sets of woolen underwear, at least three hundred cotton shirts and ninety pairs of boots and overboots. The best of these pieces were sorted through and exchanged for those of poorer quality. Mattresses were built of coats and groundsheets, and tents were erected to protect the unconscious and those unable to stand.
When this gleaning was done, Fitzjames, Vesconte and Reid walked inland to the first of the ridges, where they turned and inspected the scene before them: Crozier’s two boat crews were still in sight to the south, but some of those walking ahead had already disappeared into the thin sunlit haze which surrounded them in that direction. It was a warm bright day and the gelid glitter of the frozen sea blinded them every time they looked back in the direction of the
Erebus.
There was already some danger of a surface thaw, and because of this, Fitzjames declared his intention of setting out for the ship the following morning.
Vesconte said he would build a more substantial shelter and wait a fortnight or three weeks before making a decision on his own march south. He spoke with little enthusiasm for the task, knowing as well as any of them that a dangerous and unpredictable balance had been struck—a balance between the rate of recovery of those who were sick and exhausted, if they recovered at all, and the speed with which those who had so far suffered the least now began to deteriorate. He said he would wait until those who were already close to death died and thus reduced the burden on the others.
“You could return to the
Erebus,”
Fitzjames suggested, knowing that this contravened Crozier’s orders.
“And what if some of those who set off with Crozier discover the going too hard and return to take their chances with us?” Vesconte answered, having considered the possibility of his own retreat.
“Either way, they’ll stop you from moving,” Fitzjames said, immediately regretting the observation.
“There’s a great deal can do that,” Vesconte told him.
They were interrupted by Reid, who had left them to walk a short distance to the east. He told them he had seen fresh caribou tracks, and that he believed the animals had passed them moving north
during the night. Several hunters hidden low against the ridge might have some chance of success if other animals followed the same path. The caribou might not be at their best after the winter, but a single carcass would provide them all with several pounds of fresh meat each.
They then turned their attention to the scene below where, despite their earlier efforts, the shoreline was still littered with abandoned stores and possessions as far as they could see, and where, from their vantage-point, the mounds of clothing piled over the men on the beach looked ominously like freshly dug graves.
Later, Fitzjames asked Vesconte if there were any letters or journals he wanted taking back to the
Erebus
. Vesconte declined the offer, and after a pause admitted that he had already handed these over to Crozier. Fitzjames silently considered the implications of this and made no further mention of it.
Afterward, Vesconte spoke of his wife and daughters at some length, creating a succession of small pleasures out of all that was happening around him, and then swallowing the names when he could no longer bear to savor their fond taste.
An hour before sunset they answered a wet-powder signal in the south with one of their own. They built several small fires, divided their remaining stores and tended to the sick. During his tour of inspection, Goodsir discovered that one of the men who had remained unconscious since coming ashore had finally died.
Four hunters led by David Bryant spent a sleepless night on the ridge, but despite a number of shots fired blindly at noises and imagined movement in the pitch dark, nothing was killed.
There was one further fatality during the night: Thomas Armitage, the
Terror’
s gunroom steward, was found in the morning bent double and with his blankets thrown aside. His mouth was open in silent rictal agony and he was clutching his stomach. He had also taken off his boots and his toes were curled and darkened with frostbite. Unable to straighten him out from this grotesque position, Vesconte and Goodsir covered him over with clothing until he was hidden from sight.
 
 
Fitzjames and his party set off back across the ice on the morning of the 28th.
The weather remained good for the crossing, with a light following wind, and of the sixteen men in the party, all were able to walk for the first day, making six miles by late afternoon.
The boy Robert Golding spent an uncomfortable, sleepless night, complaining of stomach cramps, pain in his feet and hands and a violent headache. Goodsir tended to him, finally administering a small dose of morphine to help him sleep. The only other man to suffer badly was Thomas Watson, carpenter’s mate, who, already weakened by the long tight squeeze of scurvy, now developed severe nausea and could not keep down any of the food he ate. He complained of pain in his knees and thighs which kept him awake, until he too was sedated by Goodsir.
Of the remainder, no one was unaffected by their labors of the previous week, but so far Reid, Goodsir, Edward Couch and the carpenter John Weekes appeared to be suffering from scurvy in only its earliest and mildest manifestations.
The two carpenters had volunteered to return to undertake repairs to the
Erebus
to keep her sound enough for them to remain aboard. The more severe damage to her hull was already beyond them, and any work they were now able to carry out would be only makeshift and temporary.
Des Voeux complained of increasing periods of dizziness, and moments when he felt his strength drain from him, and both Philip Reddington and seaman Thomas McConvey had difficulty walking for more than twenty minutes at a time.
Fitzjames continued to limp from his injured ankle, and this was attended to by Goodsir, who could do nothing more than keep the swelling down until they reached the
Erebus
. Graham Gore walked alongside him, ready to lift him when he fell.
Their number was completed by Joseph Andrews, captain of the hold, steward Hoar, and Robert Hopcraft, one of Bryant’s marines.
The second day they moved more slowly, covering only four and a half miles. Thomas Watson and Robert Golding were carried, Watson on a stretcher, and the boy in the arms of whoever was strong
enough to hold him, passed from man to man as they all quickly weakened.
Two hours before nightfall, Fitzjames twisted his ankle and fell again, this time heavily, landing on his shoulder and the side of his face, which rose in a bruise from his temple to his chin. Gore and Reid helped him back to his feet and supported him between them as they went on.
He tried to make light of these new injuries, but the pain from his foot grew worse and he was forced to call a halt. Goodsir inspected his ankle, and as he unwound the bandages, Fitzjames passed out.
He came to several hours later. Thomas McConvey lay beside him, asleep, a small pool of vomit by his face. The light was beginning to fade and he saw that most of the others were asleep around a small fire. Goodsir came and knelt beside him. He told Fitzjames that McConvey had collapsed and was bleeding from his bowels and his ears. It was Goodsir’s opinion that the man had put on a pretense of being healthier than he actually was to avoid being left behind with the others.
They came within sight of the
Erebus
at two o’clock the following day, having crossed only a mile and a quarter of ice in five hours, frequently stopping to change stretcher bearers, to pass on Robert Golding, and to rest and recover from their increasing exhaustion.

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