“I received your earlier message detailing the troubles. Most peculiar. I’ve had one or two men lose their wits for a time but have not experienced such a mass breakdown.”

“It is damned perplexing,” Fitzjames replied with obvious discomfort. “I am just thankful to be off that lunatic asylum.”

“They are dead men now,” Crozier muttered. “And we might be as well, soon enough.”

“The pack ice. It’s fracturing.”

Crozier nodded. Pressure points in the ice pack ruptured frequently from the underlying movements. Though most of the fracturing occurred in the fall and early winter as the open seas initially froze, the spring pack was also witness to dangerous thaws and convulsions.

“The hull timbers are groaning in protest,” Crozier said. “It’s right upon us, I’m afraid. I’ve ordered the bulk of our food stores moved onto the ice and the remaining boats put off. Looks like we are destined to give up both ships earlier than planned,” he added with dread. “I just pray the storm blows out before we have to vacate in earnest.”

After sharing a measured meal of tinned mutton and parsnips, Fitzjames and his men joined the Terror’s crew in off-loading provisions onto the ice pack. The thunderous convulsions seemed to lessen in frequency, though they still bellowed over the blasting winds. Inside the Terror , the men listened to the unnerving creaks and groans of the ship’s wooden timbers straining against the shifting ice. When the last of the crates was placed on the ice, the men huddled in the murky interior and waited for nature to deal its hand.

For forty-eight hours, they anxiously listened to the fickle ice, praying that the ship would be spared. But it was not to be. The deathblow came quickly, striking with a sudden rupture that came without warning. The stout ship was pitched up and onto its side before a section of its hull burst like a balloon. Only two men were injured, but the destruction was beyond any hope of repair. In an instant, the Terror had been consigned to a watery grave, only the date of her interment left to be settled.

Crozier evacuated the crew and loaded provisions into three of the remaining lifeboats, each affixed with runners to help navigate the ice. With foresight, Crozier and Fitzjames had already hauled several boats topped with provisions to the nearest landfall during the past nine months. The cache on King William Land would be a welcome asset to the homeless crew. But thirty miles of rugged ice separated the weary crew from land and the stockpile.

“We could retake the Erebus,” Fitzjames suggested, peering at the masts of his former ship rising above the jagged crests of white.

“The men are too spent to fight each other and the elements,” Crozier replied. “She’ll either find her way to the bottom like the Terror or spend another wretched summer icebound, I have no doubt.”