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around two hundred tons, m’lord.”
    Ross squinted again. “Ninety tons each for
Erebus
and
Terror,
to be precise,” he rasped. “And that’s when you’re topped off in Greenland, before you cross Baffin Bay, much less get into the real ice.”
    Franklin smiled and said nothing.
    “Say you arrive at where you winter in the ice with seventy-five percent of your ninety tons unburned,” continued Ross, boring ahead like a ship through soft ice, “that leaves you what… how many days’ steam under normal conditions, not ice conditions? A dozen days? Thirteen days? A fortnight?”
    Captain Sir John Franklin had not the slightest idea. His mind, although professional and nautical, simply did not work that way. Perhaps his eyes revealed his sudden panic — not over coal but over appearing an idiot in front of Sir John Ross — for the old mariner clamped a steel vise grip on Franklin’s shoulder. When Ross leaned closer, Captain Sir John Franklin could smell the whiskey on his breath.
    “What are the Admiralty’s plans for your rescue, Franklin?” rasped Ross. His voice was low. All about them was the laughter and chatter of the reception in its late hour.
    “Rescue?” Franklin said, blinking. The idea that the two most modern ships in the world — reinforced for ice, powered by steam, provisioned for five years or more in the ice, and manned by crews handpicked by Sir John Barrow — would or could require rescue simply did not register in Franklin’s brain. The idea was absurd.
    “Do you have plans to cache depots along your way in through the islands?” whispered Ross.
    “Caches?” said Franklin. “Leave our provisions along the way? Why on earth would I do that?”
    “So you can get your men and boats to food and shelter if you have to take to the ice and walk out,” Ross said fiercely, eyes gleaming.
    “Why would we walk back toward Baffin Bay?” asked Franklin. “Our objective is to complete the transit of the North-West Passage.”
    Sir John Ross had pulled his head back. His grip tightened on Franklin’s upper arm. “Then there’s no rescue ship or plan in place?”
    “No.”
    Ross grabbed Franklin’s other arm and squeezed so tightly that the portly Captain Sir John almost winced.
    “Then, laddie,” whispered Ross, “if we’ve not heard from ye by 1848, I’ll come looking for you myself. I swear it.”
    Franklin slammed awake.
    He was soaked with sweat. He felt dizzy and weak. His heart was pounding, and with each reverberation his headache tolled like a church bell against the inside of his skull.
    He looked down at himself in horror. Silk covered the lower half of his body.
    “What is this?” he cried in alarm. “What is this? There’s a flag thrown over me!”
    Lady Jane stood, aghast. “You looked cold, John. You were shivering. I put it over you as a blanket.”
    “My God!” cried Captain Sir John Franklin. “My God, woman, do you know what you’ve done? Don’t you know they lay the Union Jack over a corpse!”

3
    CROZIER
    Lat.
70°-05′
N., Long.
98°-23′
W.
    October, 1847
    C aptain Crozier descends the short ladder to the lower deck, pushes through the sealed double doors, and almost staggers in the sudden blast of warmth. Even though the circulating hot-water heat has been off for hours, body heat from more than fifty men and residual warmth from cooking have kept the temperature here on the lower deck high — just below freezing — almost 80 degrees warmer than outside. The effect on someone who’s been out on deck for half an hour is the equivalent of walking into a sauna fully clothed.
    Since he’s continuing down to the unheated orlop and hold decks and thus keeping his cold-weather slops on, Crozier doesn’t tarry long here in the heat. But he does pause for a moment — as any captain would — taking the time to glance around and make sure that everything hasn’t gone to hell in the half hour he’s been away.
    Despite the fact that this is the only