Bitter Passage

by Colin Mills

In May 1845, Sir John Franklin left the Thames in command of two Royal Navy ships—HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—to seek a navigable sea route across the top of the Americas.

HMS Enterprise, commanded by Captain Sir James Clark Ross, and HMS Investigator, under Captain Edward Bird, left England in 1848 to search for Franklin.

“This place permits us nothing,” said Adams. “No food. No shelter. No warmth.” He looked at the sky. “Should you die here, it even begrudges you a grave.”

“I think I have begun to envy Franklin.” Adams opened his eyes. “You?” Robinson spoke slowly, groping for the words. “I can issue an order or follow one. I can have a man’s obedience. But to earn his devotion . . . I do not know how to do that. Franklin endears himself to people who have never met him. They worry for him and pray for his safe return. They write poems and songs for him.” He stopped and puffed once more on his pipe. “I find that extraordinary. How on earth does he get them to do that?” Adams was unsure whether he was asleep or awake. The words were in his mind, on his tongue. Perhaps he said them aloud. It might have been only a whisper, or merely a thought. “He is doing God’s work.”

“We know so little,” said Adams. “Tell them we became stuck in the ice and could not escape.” “They will want to know more.” “Tell them we went out bravely, like Royal Navy men. Tell them the conduct of the men was exemplary when Providence was unkind. That they accepted their fate with dignity and did nothing to bring shame upon their families.” He relaxed against the cushions. “Give some thought to the story. Knead it and bake it into something palatable. Thus, heroes are born of men.”

It seemed to him that he and Adams orbited each other, separated by their polarities yet captured and held by the gravity of their mission. Each unable to break free of the other but destined never to intersect.

“Understand this: your faith is your greatest strength. I envy the courage it lends you.” Robinson coughed and winced. “But you said yourself, all is as God wills it. I doubt He will smile upon you merely because you find a lost captain or a waterway through the ice. I suggest you cease trying to bend Him to your will. It smacks of hubris.”