But the signs of coming winter made it absolutely necessary that some sheltered place should be found in which the long dreary months might be passed. Day after day the Erebus and Terror sought such a resting-place, and found none. Any advance was now out of the question; the “massing” ice prevented that, and threatened them daily. At length it was decided to run for shelter to Beachey Island, and in Erebus and Terror Bay the expedition was made as snug as possible for the winter. The daily record of the passed months tells us of a continual struggle with ice and snow; checks and renewed efforts; storm-tossed seas, and icebergs innumerable.
At Beachey Island the vessels remained after their exploration of nearly three hundred miles of new ground. Plans, no doubt, were made for the following year, while the cold death-like hand of winter came and grasped everything in its iron grip. The sun, of course, left the ships, and after climbing the hills to see the last of him, the crews went back in darkness to the vessels. How the crews amused themselves during the winter we can imagine, and we find plenty of testimony to the games, the acting, the reading, and study, in which time was passed. The great thing to be aimed at was occupation—action. Stagnation meant death.
Three men died during the winter, and when the sun reappeared, when the creeks in the ice warned the crews that the time of release was at hand, a good and anxious look-out was kept. At length the ice-floes moved away, and after a while the channel was cut out for the release of the Erebus and Terror. The open water was at length gained, the instructions were to go south-west from Cape Walker, and that was now the point aimed at. When the Cape had been gained, and quitted for Cape Herschel, the ships fell into the Melville Island ice-stream, and they struggled on till King William’s Land was sighted. But unfortunately by that time another winter had began to reform the ice. So there was nothing to do but find winter quarters, which were finally established northward of Cape Felix, in anything but a happy place, for the ice there is described as of a most fearful nature, and of terrible pressure.
Here there was a fearful prospect—nothing but ice in mountains, and in masses which tossed the ships—slowly indeed—and threatened to “nip” them in halves. But notwithstanding all the hardships, the men bore up, and prepared for the overland journey to Cape Herschel—a hundred miles only!—as soon as the spring should open. As soon as possible, a pioneer party, under Lieutenant Gore and Mr Des Voeux, of the Erebus, started off to see the channel or path by which they might reach America. When they rapidly returned to tell their comrades the good news they had gathered, they found Sir John Franklin dead!
Shortly afterwards, in a deep crevasse in the ice, the body was laid while the burial service was read over it by Captain Fitzjames. Franklin, “like another Moses, fell when his work was accomplished—with the long object of his life in view.”
The movement of such ice as was still around the vessels would not take place till very late. The ice will move, but winter may again shut the ships in before they have traversed one half of the ninety miles still remaining. Captains Fitzjames and Crozier consult accordingly.
The floe moves, and the imbedded ships go south with it, but there is no water. No sailing is possible. Drifting helpless with the ice, the Erebus and Terror are carried along, but unless open water be found, they will drift back again in the autumn, or at any rate remain imprisoned in it.
Autumn has arrived—the new ice is forming, the floe no longer moves at all. Thirty miles have been passed over by the floe; the explorers are so much nearer, but then the drift ceases. Sixty miles or less of ice intervene, and then the open sea will be reached. But the doom has gone forth. Winter closes again on the brave, the sick, and the suffering; cold, disease, and privation are fast decimating the available hands. The snow-cloud settles down upon the vessels, darkness shrouds them; and when the curtain again rises, and the sun shines out, we find twenty-one officers and men had been laid to their long, last rest in the Arctic solitudes. One hundred and four men still remain—hungry, frozen, patient, brave. Alas that all the bravery was no avail!
It is pitiful to dwell upon the remainder of the sad story of the expedition. We can picture the band now reduced to such extremity that they must all remain to die, or struggle on across the ice and snow to Cape Herschel. They must go. They pack the boats, and put them upon sleighs, and then wait for spring to set about their weary work.
April comes, and has nearly gone, when the command is given. The men look their last upon the Erebus and Terror, give them three cheers, and go away into the desolate waste—to die! Point Victory their object. They gained it, and then their helplessness came and stared them in the face. In a cairn on the point Fitzjames placed a brief record, and that is all. They have only food for a month more, and day by day the strong are growing weak and the weak are dying.