Ilatsiak - 48 - Crozier's Escape

The others followed and Qayaq began to prepare a place to eat for David and the strangers inside their tent. Seated around the food, David noted that Crozier settled quickly into eating the food, although Asher picked here and there at the fish, ignoring the caribou closer to him.
“There is a river further upstream which leads almost to Hudson’s Bay,” David began. “but it is a long way to go. I have been there once following the caribou. It will lead you to another river which empties into a huge lake which flows into the Bay. There are Inuit there, but I don’t know them. There are no white people over there that I know of. I don’t think you should go there.”
“How are we to get home, then?” Crozier asked.
“I have heard of white people coming from Repulse Bay, only a few years ago. That may be the way to go, back the way you came and then eastwards along the coast. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard about people going that way.”
“We have also heard about white people in that area, or at Igloolik where I wintered with Parry, but people were afraid to take us there. You are our only hope, David. We don’t have the strength to last out another winter like this past one. We need to get home.” Crozier was clearly a spent man. David could tell. He would never make it home no matter which way he ventured. It was simply too far and the season too late. They would get trapped along the way by a winter storm.
“Where are the other expedition members, sir?” David kept using language remembered from being on the Erebus, but which seemed to be out of place now. “Are any still alive?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it. We have seen no one. The Terror went to the bottom last summer. We tried once to sail one of the Erebus’s boats back to Terror Bay, but the winds and ice prevented our getting very far, then we lost the boat when we stopped to hunt. They may have been able to get her out this past summer. The old Erebus was nearly free of the ice the last we saw of her. Fitzjames was to sail her west if he could. He was to wait for our hunting party to return, but, of course, we never did. We couldn’t without our boat. He probably thought us dead like the others and left. I hope so. If he makes it to England, he’ll probably become a hero while we’re left rotting in this God awful wasteland.”
“I hope so, sir. It would be what he wanted to accomplish. He often spoke that this trip would set him up and he could retire from the sea. But you should wait until next year to get to Repulse Bay...”
Crozier was edgy and becoming more and more upset with the lack of a clear offer of help. David recognized this from the early days of the expedition. He recalled the arguments with Franklin and the constant pushing for action that Crozier had shown on numerous occasions. These traits had not left him. “Well, Asher, we will stay the night here with Mr Young and push on south in the morning, with or without him. Damn foolish to remain here. Back went up this river in late August and we can too. Probably meet the rescue party around the next bend!”
Sure enough Crozier made his departure the next morning. Qayaq loaded his pack with as much dried caribou and fish as she was able to find among the families at the camp. It wasn’t much, but David knew it would prolong their lives a few days longer. Perhaps Crozier was right. Maybe there was a rescue party looking for them and this river that Back had travelled down might be a possible route for rescuers to use. It led into the country where the Hudson’s Bay Company maintained supply posts and was mentioned more than once as one of the possible escape routes to be used if anything happened to the ships that first winter they had been beset.
Watching the two men work their way along the edge of the lake, David turned to Qayaq, “We must leave this place. I don’t want to be rescued!” he laughed when she looked at him quizically, wondering what he was going to be rescued from. It soon became clear that others in the camp were glad to be rid of the two sailors. Their edginess and quickness to anger was upsetting the harmony that was so important to life in the camp. Still, the next day, David noticed that several families had found reasons to move. Within a few days, the camp was deserted with little indication of where the people living there had gone.
Two weeks later Crozier and Asham stumbled back into the camp finding no one there. Searching for food, they found a sealskin pouch of dried fish which David had hidden in case they returned, but there was little else.