Killigrew and the North-West Passage Read online

  ‘That’s “Sir Edward” to you,’ Killigrew chided him, stripping the gutta-percha covering from the copper wires. He had had to take off his chamois-lined leather gauntlets to handle the knife, but the weather continued to be mild and there was little danger of frostbite. He connected the wires to the tin canister – six inches in diameter, containing two and a half pounds of gunpowder – and carefully lowered it into the hole drilled in the ice, about three feet deep. ‘Gather some snow off the top of the ice and pack it in the hole, tightly. Be careful not to break the connection with the canisters.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Killigrew picked up the reel of wire and spooled it out, retreating to where Pettifer stood with Osborne, Ågård, Endicott and O’Houlihan by the galvanic batteries. ‘All ready, Killigrew?’ asked Pettifer.

  ‘Molineaux’s just finishing the last one now, sir.’

  They had placed no fewer than eight charges in the ice, strategically positioned at points in the dock that the carpenter’s mate had mapped out on the ice. Killigrew handed the red end of the last wire to Osborne, who connected it to another. ‘Now, you’re sure this will work?’ Killigrew asked him.

  ‘The galvanic batteries will explode the charges, sir,’ asserted the bombardier. ‘Whether or not they successfully blast out a dock sufficiently large to take the Venturer – and strong enough to resist the pressures of the pack where it meets the shore ice – remains to be seen.’

  More of an engineer than an artilleryman, Bombardier Bernard Osborne had been assigned to the Venturer to work the various newfangled devices they had brought with them in their quest to find Franklin. He had great faith in modem technology, and believed there was nothing that could not be achieved by technical know-how. Killigrew preferred to reserve his judgement: it puzzled him that a civilisation that could invent the telegraph and the steam-engine could not come up with a better plan for finding Franklin than an unmanned balloon for scattering useless messages.

  Molineaux had finished packing in the last charge and was walking across the ice towards them. Pettifer waved impatiently for him to get a move on, and the petty officer broke into a gentle trot, taking care not to slip on the ice.

  ‘Are you sure you used enough gunpowder?’ asked Pettifer.

  ‘In my experience, sir,’ Ågård said, grinning, ‘the danger with Mr Killigrew is not whether he used too little explosive, but too much.’

  ‘We are safe here, aren’t we?’ asked the commander. ‘I mean, we’re not too close?’

  ‘Trust me, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘I’ve been blowing things up for years.’

  ‘Is everyone else clear?’ Pettifer asked as Molineaux approached.

  Ågård handed Killigrew a telescope so he could sweep the ice to make sure that everyone else was back on board the Venturer, anchored to the pack ice a safe distance away. ‘Looks clear, but let’s make sure, shall we? A shrill warning blast on your call, Molineaux, if you please.’

  Molineaux blew into his call. ‘All clear,’ he announced.

  ‘Everyone knows to stay where they are until we signal the all clear?’ asked Pettifer.

  ‘Everyone knows, sir.’

  ‘All right, let’s, er… let’s do it.’

  Osborne crouched over the galvanic batteries. ‘Now, I’ve connected the charges in parallel, so they should all explode simultaneously when you touch these two wires together.’ He offered the wires to Pettifer.

  The commander shook his head. ‘Good Lord, no! Gunpowder I don’t mind, but this dashed electricity stuff… Killigrew, perhaps you’d care to do the honours?’

  ‘With pleasure, sir.’

  ‘Your hands are wet, sir,’ observed Osborne. ‘Dry them with your handkerchief. Salt water is an electrical conductor. There. Now, be sure to hold the wires by the covering; don’t touch the wires themselves or you’ll get a shock.’

  ‘Ready?’ asked Killigrew.

  Everyone nodded. Osborne turned his back on the charges, folding his arms over his ears, eyes screwed shut.

  Killigrew touched the wires together.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again, and again. Still nothing.

  ‘Get on with it, man!’ said Pettifer.

  ‘It’s not working, sir,’ said Killigrew. He tapped Osborne on the shoulder.

  The bombardier looked up. ‘Did it work?’

  Killigrew touched the wires together in front of his face. ‘No.’

  Osborne peered towards the charges. ‘I don’t understand it… There must be a break in the circuit.’

  ‘Can you find it?’

  ‘Of course! We’ll have to test each of the wires individually, mind you…’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ snapped Pettifer. ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘A few hours at the most, sir,’ Osborne assured him.

  ‘In a few hours, sir, the dock we’ve laid out will be level with the shore ice,’ warned Ågård.

  ‘Suggest we proceed with Bickford’s, sir?’ said Killigrew.

  ‘I agree,’ said Pettifer. ‘Damn your blasted newfangled galvanic batteries, Osborne! We’ll do it the old-fashioned way.’

  ‘Fetch a spool of Bickford’s safety fuse from the Venturer, O’Houlihan,’ ordered Killigrew. ‘And ask for four volunteers: it’ll take eight of us to light all the fuses at once.’

  ‘Why not have all the fuses connected to a central point, where you can light them all at once?’ asked Pettifer.

  Killigrew smiled. ‘I’d have to check, sir, but I’m fairly certain we don’t have eight hundred yards of safety fuse on board. Disconnect those batteries, Osborne, Molineaux, Endicott – you two start digging up those charges so we can connect the fuses to them.’

  Molineaux and Endicott started to walk towards the charges, but Endicott stopped after a couple of paces and turned back. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but how can we be sure the charges won’t go off while we’re digging them up?’

  ‘The wires are disconnected from the batteries, Endicott,’ Osborne assured him. ‘There’s no possibility of the charges going off.’

  ‘Mightn’t there be a delayed reaction, sir?’

  ‘You’re quite safe,’ Pettifer assured him, and glowered at Osborne.

  ‘The entire point of igniting gunpowder by galvanic charge is that the explosion is instantaneous.’

  Molineaux and Endicott were still leery about returning to the charges, until Killigrew going with them helped to put their minds at ease. They dug the charges out of the ice, and O’Houlihan returned, carrying the safety fuse and accompanied by Able Seamen Hughes, Smith and Smith. The last two – both baptised John, differentiated by their shipmates as Jacko and Johnno – even looked alike, despite the disparity in their ages; they might have been mistaken for father and son. They were not related, but they had served as shipmates together for so long that sometimes they caught themselves talking in unison.

  Measuring the safety fuse between his outstretched arms, Killigrew cut it into eight lengths. When he had finished, all that was left was a five-inch length of fuse that he thrust into one of his pockets. ‘These should give us three minutes to get clear,’ he told the men, handing out the fuses. ‘I don’t suppose you thought to bring any slow matches, O’Houlihan?’

  ‘Right here, sir.’

  ‘Well done.’

  They fixed the fuses to the charges, and gathered around Killigrew at the centre. The lieutenant struck an ordinary match, and lit eight slow matches. ‘I’ll give the signal by firing a shot from my pepperbox,’ he told them, handing out the smouldering matches. ‘When you hear that, light your fuse and move back to where the captain’s waiting. Walk, don’t run, hoist in? If anyone slips and cracks his skull on the ice, he needn’t expect me to come back for him. You’ve got three minutes to get clear: that’s all the time in the world, so there’s no hurry. All right, cut along.’

  He waited until they were all in position. ‘Ready?’ he called.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir!’
they chorused.

  ‘Stand by!’ Killigrew drew his pepperbox and aimed it at the ice by his feet. He pulled the trigger and the report echoed through the Arctic silence. The ratings lit their respective fuses and set off back to where Pettifer waited with Osborne and Ågård. Killigrew lingered, making sure all eight of them were ahead of him, so that if anyone did stumble and injure himself, he would see and be able to go to the man’s assistance before it was too late.

  ‘I said walk, don’t run, Smith!’ he bellowed.

  ‘I am walking, sir!’ protested Johnno.

  Killigrew grimaced. ‘The other Smith!’

  Jacko checked his pace.

  Once they were clear of the charges, Molineaux fell into step beside him. ‘Reckon it’ll work this time, sir?’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  The charges did not explode simultaneously – using fuses instead of the galvanic batteries had made that impossible – but it was a testament to the efficiency of Bickford’s safety fuse that they all went off within a couple of seconds of one another. There was a succession of overlapping blasts, flames shooting fountains of ice spicules high into the air, and the roar of the explosions echoed off the granite, snow-capped cliffs on the Greenland shore. A great cheer went up from the men watching on the deck of the Venturer.

  Travelling through the floe like a ripple through water, the shock wave hit the men standing on the ice a moment later. They were all thrown to the ice. Killigrew sat up and let out a whoop of exhilaration.

  ‘All right, Killigrew, try to show some decorum,’ chided Pettifer.

  The lieutenant grinned boyishly. ‘Sorry, sir. Got caught up in the excitement of the moment.’

  Pettifer picked himself up and rubbed his posterior gingerly. ‘Is everyone all right?’

  They all replied in the affirmative.

  ‘Good! Let’s see if that’s done the trick.’

  As they approached, Killigrew’s heart sank when he could see no difference except some holes blown in the ice. ‘It hasn’t worked!’ protested Osborne, disappointed.

  ‘Yes it has – look!’ Ågård pointed. The ice had fractured throughout the area they had marked off, the great chunks resting where they had started like the pieces of a jigsaw.

  It was the work of an hour to float all the pieces out of the dock, erecting masts on some of the larger chunks so they could sail them out like rafts. One segment had not been blown free of the surrounding ice, but it took only three hours for two teams of a dozen men each to cut away the remaining chunks using ice saws suspended from tripods and weighted at the bottom.

  The dock was less than half a mile from where the pack ground against the shore ice by the time they manoeuvred the Venturer inside under steam. The men on the ice packed up all their gear and passed it back to the ship, which moored to the ice at the rear of the dock using ice-anchors. Killigrew was making sure no one had been left behind when he saw Ågård wandering about on the ice behind the mouth of the dock.

  ‘Everything all right, Ågård?’

  ‘You realise, sir, that if the explosive charges have fractured the surrounding ice, then dock or no dock, the floes will collapse on the ship and crush her as if she were made of balsa?’

  Killigrew smiled thinly. ‘I was trying not to think about it.’

  Chapter 4

  The North Water

  They returned on board the Venturer. Now there was nothing to do but wait for the pack itself to carry them through to the North Water – or else crush them like an egg in a meat-grinder.

  The moving pack seemed to take for ever to carry them round to where it ground against the shore. Everyone was on deck, wrapped up in their warmest clothing, watching, waiting to see what would happen, well aware of how badly things might go wrong. Like the crew of the Carl Gustaf, the Venturer’s men had had spare sets of clothes stowed on the upper deck in kitbags ever since they had rounded Cape Farewell, and the ship’s boats were all in their davits ready for any emergency.

  Cavan stood at the bulwark and watched the grinding ice approach in the distance, squinting against the glare of the sun on the snow. ‘What do you reckon our chances of making it through are, Latimer?’

  ‘Oh, I should say about three to one,’ the clerk replied cheerfully. Despite his chronic hypochondria, Latimer was a young man of sanguine temperament, one of life’s eternal optimists. Perhaps because he spent so much time worrying about imaginary ailments, he had no fear left when it came to real dangers.

  Or perhaps he was just too daft to realise how much danger they were in.

  Killigrew turned to Pettifer. ‘I suggest we start bringing some provisions up from the hold, sir, in case we have to “do a flit”.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ acknowledged Pettifer. ‘Latimer! Organise the men into work parties. I want six months’ victuals brought up on deck.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  The boatswain set the men to their work. Whether or not it would do them any good if the Venturer was nipped remained to be seen: if they went down as fast as the Carl Gustaf must have done, they were probably wasting their time. But at least it kept the men from watching the maelstrom of ice drawing ever closer and dwelling on thoughts of what might go wrong if luck was against them.

  ‘Here comes the moment of truth.’ Ågård nodded to where they approached the grinding ice. The cacophony was awful as the edges of the pack twisted, buckled, bent, rose up over one another and then crashed down again, shattering into smithereens. Standing nearby on deck, Molineaux began to recite Coleridge in a doom-filled monotone:

  ‘The ice was here, the ice was there,

  The ice was all around:

  It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

  Like noises in a swound!’

  Even with a hull reinforced with three overlapping layers of wood that made it a total of ten inches thick, and strengthened with iron stanchions as opposed to more conventional wooden ones, the Venturer was not immune to a nip. Throughout the voyage from England, Pettifer had put his men through countless drills so that each and every man knew his role in the event of an emergency. But in their present position, there was nothing for them to do but wait and watch tensely, praying it never came.

  Killigrew remembered reading the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes when he had been a boy, including how the Argo had sailed through the Symplegades – the clashing rocks – and wondering how he could have passed such a test had he been in Jason’s shoes; or his single sandal, at any rate. This was the closest equivalent he was ever likely to encounter in the real world; he wondered if he had found the right solution.

  The ice creaked all around them under the strain of the massive pressure. Osborne was muttering the Lord’s Prayer under his breath, over and over again, while Marine Private Arthur Walsh told the beads on his rosary. Killigrew thrust his hands in his pockets so he could cross his fingers without anyone noticing. Ågård stood a short way in front of the lieutenant, his hands clasped behind his back, his knuckles white. Could it possibly be that even the fearless Swede was worried?

  Killigrew had known stress before – pursuing slavers off the Guinea Coast, the drawn-out tension of a prolonged stem-chase that could end in a bloody skirmish – but nothing like this. It was always the helplessness that got to him, and he had never felt more helpless than he did now: the die was cast, and he could only wait to see how it fell.

  Minutes crawled past like hours. Where the floes ground against one another, the edges of the iron-hard ice crumbled into powder. Then a loud screech – like the crack of doom – sounded above the groans of the grinding floes, and a chunk of ice broke away from the pack to the immediate left of the dock.

  ‘The ice!’ yelled someone. ‘It’s giving way!’

  Something snapped inside Ågård. ‘That’s it!’ he screamed. ‘Abandon ship! ’

  Killigrew was so stunned by the ice quartermaster’s outburst that at first all he could do was stare open-mouthed. Then Ågård started to r
un for the side, galvanising the lieutenant into action. He strode across the deck and caught up with the ice quartermaster by the bulwark, seizing his arm and holding him cast.

  ‘Belay that, Ågård!’ said Killigrew. ‘We’re not nipped yet!’ Normally he would not have been able to restrain a man as big as the Swede, but one glare into Ågård’s fear-filled eyes warned the ice quartermaster to get a grip on himself. ‘Stand fast, lads!’ he called to the men.

  Everyone on deck – which was everyone on board, the Venturer’s entire crew of thirty plus Frau Weiss and Jakob Kracht – was staring at Ågård. Killigrew knew what the hands were thinking: if Ågård had cause to be afraid, then perhaps they really were in trouble.

  In spite of the cold weather, he could feel sweat trickling down his spine as he watched the huge chunk of ice – a right-angled triangle fifty feet on its longest side – being forced into the mouth of the dock by the shore ice. One angle of the floe came within ten yards of the Venturer’s bows, thrusting towards them like the blade of a dagger. Then the triangle was caught in the mouth of the dock, wedged, unable to come any deeper. The shore ice got under the far edge of the triangle somehow, tipping it up with a ghastly crackling noise so that the angle towards the ship was forced under the water. There was another loud snap, like the blast of a carronade, and then the pack was floating free of the shore ice. On the other side of the triangle of ice, a lead of open water threaded its way northwards between the pack and the shore ice.

  Killigrew breathed again.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Petty Officer Qualtrough, the senior ice quartermaster. ‘We’re through.’

  A huge cheer went up from the men on the deck. ‘We made it!’ exclaimed Yelverton. ‘By God, we actually made it!’

  In his excitement, Osborne forgot himself and grasped Killigrew by the hand, pumping it vigorously. ‘Well done, sir! My hat off to you. It actually worked!’

  Killigrew took out his handkerchief to mop away the sweat that trickled down from beneath the brim of his cap, before it froze on his face. ‘Did you ever doubt it?’ he asked with a sickly grin.