Minds of Winter
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Synopsis
Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2017.
''Ed O''Loughlin is a skilled cartographer of both the Arctic and the human heart. What a magnificent novel'' Ron Rash
''A brilliant paean to the obsessions of the polar explorers . . . stupendously good'' Australian
''Vastly entertaining'' Sunday Times
FROM BOOKER-LONGLISTED ED O''LOUGHLIN: THE PERFECT NOVEL FOR FANS OF AMY SACKVILLE''S THE STILL POINT AND FRANCIS SPUFFORD''S I MAY BE SOME TIME.
It begins with a chance encounter at the top of the world.
Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada - 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle - searching for answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, Fay for her disappeared grandfather. They soon learn that these two men have an unexpected link - a hidden share in one of the greatest enduring mysteries of polar exploration.
Release date: August 25, 2016
Publisher: Quercus Publishing
Print pages: 512
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Minds of Winter
Ed O''Loughlin
HOROLOGISTS PONDER MYSTERY OF HOW 19TH-CENTURY CHRONOMETER SURVIVED FATAL ARCTIC EXPEDITION
Timepiece linked to Sir John Franklin’s fatal Arctic expedition returns to Britain disguised as a carriage clock
By Maev KennedyGuardian, London, Wednesday 20 May 2009, 15.26 BST
In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, a valuable marine chronometer sits on a workbench in London, crudely disguised as a Victorian carriage clock, more than 150 years after it was recorded as lost in the Arctic along with Sir John Franklin and his crew in one of the most famous disasters in the history of polar exploration.
‘I have no answers, but the facts are completely extraordinary,’ said the senior specialist on horology at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Jonathan Betts. ‘This is a genuine mystery.’
When and how did the timepiece return to Britain, is it evidence that somebody survived the disaster, or of a crime – even murder?
Betts has no idea – but he does know its shining brass mechanism could never have spent months in the ice, exposed to salt-laden Arctic gales. It must have been stolen from the ship, or from a crew member who cared for it up to the moment of their death.
‘This has never been lying around in the open air. I have handled a pocket watch recovered from the expedition, and it is so corroded it is not possible even to open the case. Conditions in the Arctic are so extreme this would have rusted within a day, and been a heap of rubbish within a month.’
The chronometer returned to the same building – once the Admiralty store from which it was issued, now Betts’ clocks workshop at the Royal Observatory.
The apparent fate of the superb timekeeper, made in London by John Arnold, after it was issued to Sir John’s ship, is clear from the official ledger also on Betts’ desk. Under ‘Arnold 294’, the faded sepia ink reads: ‘Lost in the Arctic Regions with the “Erebus”.’ In the final entry, on 26 June 1886, more than 40 years after it disappeared, it was officially written off.
The fate of Franklin in 1845, his two superbly equipped ships carrying two years’ worth of supplies, including barrels of lemon juice to ward off scurvy, his 129 men who starved, froze and were poisoned to death in the ice, and the suggestion that some survived for a time by cannibalism, haunted the Victorian imagination.
A record 32 rescue expeditions were sent, spurred on by his formidable widow, Jane.
Inuit witnesses described Englishmen dying where they fell in the ice, apparently without ever asking how the natives survived such extreme conditions.
Rescue expeditions brought back papers recording the death of Franklin, abandoned clothes and equipment, caches of supplies including poorly sealed tins of meat that may have killed many of the men, and eventually skeletons. Every scrap of evidence was recorded – but there is no record of anyone setting eyes on the chronometer again.
It is clear to Betts that whoever converted it into a carriage clock for a suburban mantelpiece knew they were dealing with stolen property. The evidence of a crime concealed is on the dial, where Arnold’s name was beaten flat, and an invented maker’s name substituted – and then changed back again when the clock was sold 30 years ago and a restorer spotted Arnold’s name on the mechanism.
The Observatory bought it when it came up for sale again 10 years ago, but its true history emerged when Betts dismantled it, and matched it with the 19th-century records. None of those who handled it after conversion could have guessed its connection with the Franklin expedition.
It will be on public display for the first time in an exhibition opening on Saturday at the National Maritime museum, on Britain’s obsessive quest to find the legendary North West Passage to the east through the Arctic ice, which over centuries cost the lives of Franklin, his men and hundreds of other explorers and sailors.
Among poignant artefacts, including a sledge flag embroidered by his widow with the motto ‘Hope on Hope Ever’, one of the still-sealed cans of meat and the revolting contents of another opened in the 1920s, visitors will see the rather dumpy carriage clock, with three fat little ball feet and a carrying handle crudely bolted onto the chronometer’s original brass case.
Betts believes the only possible explanation for the conversion was to make Arnold 294 literally unrecognizable. Stealing a valuable piece of government property from an official expedition would have been a serious crime, punishable by transportation if not death. He yearns to know who dunnit.
North West Passage: An Arctic Obsession, National MaritimeMuseum Greenwich, 23 May–20 January 2009
They were driving on the sea ice a mile from the shore when a little brown creature ran out in front of them. It was heading out to sea, but the headlights confused it and it dithered in their beam. Nelson stood on the brakes and the car lurched to a stop, throwing Fay against her seat belt.
‘What is it?’ she said. And Nelson, who found he wanted to impress her, got out of the car and stood over the little animal. It had tried to hide under a tongue of drift snow but they could both see it plainly, the size of a hamster, its fur turned grey by the veneer of snow.
Nelson put on his gloves and picked it up.
‘What is it?’ she said again, and he turned and held it up to her.
‘It’s a lemming. They live under the snow.’
She joined him in the funnel of the lights. I’m standing on the open sea, she thought. It’s the Arctic winter, a month of night, and I’m standing on a frozen ocean, and that man is holding a lemming.
The little rodent stopped struggling and sat quiet in Nelson’s palm, its nose twitching, staring at her with tiny black eyes. She reached out her hand then quickly withdrew it.
‘What’s it doing out here on the ice?’
‘I don’t know.’ He turned a full circle, studying the problem. A mile to the south the North American mainland came to its end, a low snow-covered hump on the snow-covered sea. A timber fishing cabin, shuttered for the winter, sat on its edge, the only visible detail. To the north the sea ice stretched off to infinity, its snow carved by wind into motionless ripples. But there was no wind today, just a tremendous cold, silent apart from their idling engine.
‘It’s come from the land, I guess,’ he said. ‘Heading due north, right out to sea. I don’t know what it wants out there.’
To the west, from where they had come, the ice-road curved out of view between tongues of black stubble, the willows which grew on the last sandy spits of the Mackenzie delta. To the east a distant string of lights, hard in the dusk, revealed their destination: the coastal hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk. Another ten minutes and we’d have been there, thought Fay. Instead, this. She hugged herself and shivered, already missing the warmth of the car. The sky was a sad shade of silver, turning pink in the south where the sun had tried and failed to clear the horizon. To the north, the stars held firm against the civil twilight.
‘Perhaps it’s lost,’ she said.
Nelson cupped it in both hands. It sniffed between his fingers.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or maybe it’s trying to kill itself. They say lemmings do that.’
She had heard that too, of course. What else did anyone from London know about lemmings? But she had never expected to meet one. ‘I always assumed that thing about lemmings and suicide was just a legend.’
Nelson didn’t seem to hear her. Having transferred the lemming to his left glove, he was stroking its back with one finger. The little creature stretched out its neck as if liking the attention. Nelson smiled to himself, then looked up at Fay.
‘I’m going to turn it around,’ he said. ‘I’ll let it go, pointing back towards the mainland. With a bit of luck it’ll find its way back to the shore. It would only die out there.’ He jutted his chin to the north. ‘Nothing to eat. Nothing to nest in.’
That’s interfering with nature, Fay thought. But it was none of her business. The lemming was his.
She watched Nelson cross the ice-road. Bubbles of trapped air quivered like ghosts in the black depths beneath them. At the far side he knelt and pressed the back of his glove against the ice, uncurling his fingers so the lemming could escape. But now it wouldn’t leave his glove, clinging to the bridge between index and thumb.
‘It doesn’t want to go,’ said Fay. ‘They must tame very easily.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Nelson scooped the lemming from his palm, propelling it head first towards the foot of the snow bank. Startled, it vanished into its element, burrowing back towards the shore. Nelson peeled off a glove, took out a pack of cigarettes.
‘If you think about it,’ he said, ‘my hand is probably the only warm thing it’s ever come across in winter. No wonder it liked it.’
They stood there together, waiting to see if the lemming would double back, bound for the sea again, and when the cigarette was finished and it hadn’t reappeared they got in the car and drove on to Tuktoyaktuk.
It had been intended that they would take the carriage all the way to the ball, but the evening was so mild that Sir John gave in to Sophia’s pleading to finish the journey on foot. These are the lieutenant-governor’s botanical gardens, Sir John reasoned; I am the lieutenant-governor: why must I take a carriage to the end of my own garden?
So the party alighted at the magnetic observatory, that curious new wooden building crowning the hill, and – defying convention – old Sir John Franklin, viceroy of Van Diemen’s Land and famed Arctic explorer, set out on foot for a ball in his honour.
A footman with a lantern led them down the steep path to the Derwent, though it was still light enough to see through the trees. Sir John followed after him, a fat bouncing shadow on short sailor’s legs. I ought to walk with Uncle, thought Sophia, who – her Aunt Jane being then absent, travelling in New Zealand – was accompanying Sir John tonight. But for now it did not matter. There would be time enough to adjust their order of march before they reached the ball, when the ladies would pause to unpin their dresses and change their shoes for satin slippers.
Checking her pace, Sophia moved close to her younger cousin Eleanor and took her by the arm. They had quarrelled again that afternoon, and although Sophia was not yet quite ready to forgive her uncle’s daughter she needed her company now. Otherwise she might find herself walking alongside Henry Elliot, her uncle’s private secretary; it was to escape Elliot’s unwelcome proximity in the carriage that Sophia had campaigned to finish the journey on foot.
Eleanor, feeling her cousin’s touch, turned her head and smiled up at Sophia. Their dresses whispered together as they walked side by side. In the darkness behind them Lieutenant Kay, who had taken leave of his magnetic duties to attend the ball, was attempting to interest Elliot in his science, his phrases syncopated by the tramping of their shoes. And young Henry Elliot, son of the Earl of Minto and destined for high service, responded to the eager naval scientist with a lack of interest so beautifully polite, so drily amused, that Sophia had herself only teased out its meaning that morning.
It pained her still to think of that instant of revelation. It had occurred very close to where they were now, as she had walked in the gardens with Elliot, confiding to him her opinions of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, the winter sun bright on the Derwent Water, and she had glanced sideways for a moment, to assure herself of his enchantment, and had noticed for the first time, truly noticed, that he had long since fallen silent, and that, as he looked away from her, back towards the town itself and his place in the governor’s office, there was a curiously droll turn to the corners of his lips. She had herself fallen quiet, and to his credit Elliot had made every appearance of alarm and consideration when she had stammered an excuse – that she had left her book on a bench by Commander Crozier’s magnetic observatory, which stood in a clearing nearby – and went back to look for it. She would fetch it herself; Elliot’s duties must be calling him.
What a cold little person he was. Quite insubstantial and unromantic compared to the officers of Erebus and Terror, lately returned from their glorious Antarctic cruise. But why should she concern herself with Elliot, or feel slighted in any way? It was not as if she had set her cap at him. He was known to have an understanding with a young lady in England.
They passed out of a grove of native Australian gum trees which, not yet felled by the botanic custodians, screened the magnetic observatory from the river below. As one, Sophia and Eleanor came to a halt and even Lieutenant Kay fell silent. Sir John, taken aback, took off his cocked hat and wiped his forehead, which already glistened from the short walk. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Well now indeed.’
‘They are on fire, Sophia!’ whispered Eleanor, and she squeezed Sophia’s arm.
Beneath them, lashed together in the estuary, the Terror and the Erebus blazed from stem to stern. They are bomb ships, recalled Sophia, who had studied her uncle’s profession. That is why they were given such infernal names. Perhaps, being creatures of fire, that is why the Admiralty has opposed them to the ice.
Lieutenant Kay was beside them now, smiling. ‘It’s a clever device, is it not? There are hundreds of mirrors fixed in the rigging, multiplying the lights of the lanterns and candles. I was aboard Terror this morning when the boatswain collected the men’s shaving mirrors. The rest of the mirrors are trade goods, carried as gifts for any savages they should meet.’
They stood a few moments longer, admiring the scene. The two little ships, dressed with every scrap from their flag lockers, were merely the brightest stars in a constellation of lights. Braced thirty yards offshore in a web of taut cables, they were approached by a pontoon made of row-boats lashed together, decked with planks, roofed with canvas and decorated with silver wattles. This floating bridge was set on either side with lines of burning torches that danced with their own reflections in the tide. The river too flickered with fireflies – the boats of guests who arrived by water, or of uninvited townsfolk who had come to watch and listen from outside the circle of light. Music was loud across the water: the band of the 51st Regiment of Foot striking up an air. Sophia, entranced, heard the notes step out boldly then artfully trip themselves, like a pretty girl with a club-foot, at once jaunty, romantic and sad. She found herself fixed to the spot, listening, while her uncle and Lieutenant Kay hurried after the footman who had continued down the path. Perhaps it is just this occasion that moves me, Sophia thought, and the lights on the water. Perhaps it is not that music at all.
‘Do come on, girls,’ urged Sir John, looking back at them. ‘That tune is our signal that it is time for us to show ourselves. Crozier arranged it. If I’d had my way they’d have fired a gun.’
Starting after them, Sophia turned to Eleanor. ‘Nell, do you know the name of that charming air?’ And Eleanor replied that she did not, though she was sure she had heard it before. Then young Elliot, whom Sophia had completely forgotten, spoke in the darkness at her side.
‘I believe it is called “The Brighton Camp”. A very old melody. It is the lament of a young man who must forsake his darling and sail off to war. It is very popular with soldiers and sailors, I believe.’
Sophia drew her shawl a little tighter round her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Elliot. You are always so well informed.’
She held Eleanor closer still and hurried on to join her uncle. And Elliot, left with only the second footman for company, smiled to himself unseen.
*
The band stopped playing as they crossed the pontoon, the boards rocking and flexing under their feet. Sir John led the way with Sophia while Elliot followed with Eleanor on his arm. A cool wind flowed down the river, bringing with it the smell of eucalyptus from the hills. They are all watching us, thought Sophia, adjusting her grey silk shawl. They are all watching me. She pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin, as she had seen her aunt do on such occasions, and she averted her gaze from the faces which crowded the rail of the ship. One of those faces, she knew, must belong to Captain James Clark Ross, captain of Erebus and commander of the Antarctic expedition.
A fit of dizziness assailed her. But if I look down at my feet I might stumble or trip, perhaps fall into the river. If that were to happen, she thought, I should not wish to be rescued. The only escape from such an embarrassment would be to do the correct thing and drown. And perhaps, to increase the effect of distraction, I ought to drag my famous uncle down with me. At that, she could not helping smiling to herself. And several of those at the rail, seeing her smile, murmured together: such pleasant ease of character, to go with such beauty and poise!
The boatswains piped them aboard in a blur of light and faces, of whispered advice and discreet steering touches. Masts and rigging made a fairy roof above Sophia, gleaming with mirrors and lights. She saw Sir John touch his hat to the quarterdeck, and everyone fell silent as the band of the 51st Regiment, the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, played the vice-regal salute. The ships’ marines, drawn up on the quarterdeck, presented arms. Sir John paced their ranks in token of inspection and then he returned to Sophia’s side. And now, she thought, I shall be presented to the officers, and Captain Ross shall be the first of all.
She saw him there, waiting on his quarterdeck, his blue uniform trimmed with gold braid. He was too slim and handsome for his forty hard years. The dark, hawk-like face was smiling at her. And as she started for the quarterdeck, in step with Sir John, she felt hundreds of eyes on her back, on the thin white silk of her dress, the black curls arranged at the nape of her neck, and she shivered with a strange new pleasure. No, I am not at all cold. She stopped before James Ross, the famed discoverer of magnetic north, veteran of seven Arctic expeditions and of the late glorious voyage to the fabled Antarctic, and she let her shawl slip down her bare shoulders, just a little, and gracefully extended her hand.
But someone had stepped between them. A heavyset officer with a homely face and bushy whiskers had moved into her path, leaning forward to whisper to the guest of honour. ‘If you’d care for a little refreshment, Sir John, before we set off the dancing, please step over for a minute to my cabin on Terror – James’s cabin has been reserved for the ladies tonight, to serve them as a dressing room.’
It seemed to Sophia that not many officers of the Royal Navy would have presumed, even in confidence, to address a lieutenant-governor as anything other than ‘excellency’, or to refer to his immediate commander by his Christian name. But she ought to excuse Commander Crozier his impertinence. Though he did not enjoy their rank, birth or wealth, he was, she knew, accepted by both Ross and Sir John as a friend and a peer, one of the navy’s intimate circle of polar explorers.
Sir John released Sophia’s arm so he could grasp the commander’s hand. ‘Indeed, Frank, there’s an idea for you! On a cool night like this it will be just the thing.’
Crozier turned and smiled at Sophia. ‘Miss Cracroft,’ he said, ‘how delighted I am to welcome you aboard tonight. Your first dance must of course be reserved for Captain Ross, but I believe that as deputy commander I am entitled to the second. I now present my claim.’
His soft Irish consonants were butchered by harsh Ulster vowels. Yet her Aunt Jane, Sophia knew, was charmed by Crozier’s rustic way of speaking, and had become a great friend and champion of the Terror’s shy captain. That’s quite a pretty speech for poor Crozier, thought Sophia. He must have practised it ahead of time.
‘I believe that the second dance is due to my uncle, as governor,’ she replied, ‘but I would be honoured to pledge you the third.’ She was inwardly calculating, in spite of her better sense: after my first dance with Captain Ross, with how many other men must I dance before I might come to Ross again? But after all, what harm was there in that? It was merely for her own amusement: she knew very well that he was said to be engaged.
*
Sophia had, to her credit, done her best to avoid it, had wriggled and squirmed like a worm on a hook, but she could not escape it: she must open the dancing on the night of the ball.
But the ladies of Hobart will scorn me, she had protested. It is well known that I am helping to direct the preparations for the ball. If I stand up at the head of the dance, the ladies will flutter their fans to hide their mouths, and whisper together that it is a place of rare honour which I occupy, having appointed me to it myself.
Nonsense, said her uncle. The invitation is not yours, nor even mine, but comes from the hosts of the ball, Ross and Crozier. In any case, Lady Jane being absent, you are the mistress of my household and therefore take precedence; Eleanor may be my own daughter, but she is still too young. And to be quite frank, my dear Sophia, as we are both aware, Eleanor does not dance half so well as do you. Her education in such matters has been neglected since we left Lincolnshire. So let us send for a dancing master, if a respectable one can be found in this town.
Alas, there could not. Such dancing masters as there were then in Hobart Town were of a low character – men of the theatre, or poets or journalists, most of them tickets-of-leave or emancipated convicts. Two very fine dance teachers had lately arrived from London and Bath but neither could be engaged, as the one had been transported for poncing, the other for unnatural crime, and – the assignment system having been lately abolished by London – it was now quite impossible for the lieutenant-governor, as guardian of the law, to requisition their service, even in the character of gardener or groom.
This difficulty had scarcely presented itself before it was overcome by means unlooked for and external. Within days of the ball’s announcement an army of dancing masters had invaded the colony. So swift was their arrival that Captains Ross and Crozier, who were staying with Sir John at Government House, got out their charts and puzzled over the prodigious winds and currents that could have sped word of the ball so quickly to New South Wales. The newcomers were for the most part men of unknown character – a circumstance which must, in an Australian penal colony like New South Wales or Van Diemen’s Land, have its advantages – and so were able to pass into the employment of the wealthiest colonial households and even those of the garrison and government.
By great exertion Sophia was able to find a man whose character was without proven blemish, having arrived into New South Wales two years before as a free settler. Before that, of course, his history was obscure, but whatever his origins, Mr Snow was a very fine dancer and a patient teacher. Classes were held each day in the breakfast room of Government House, cleared of all furniture. Sir John’s maids, a trio of transported prostitutes who still sometimes dabbled in that trade, would make excuse to sweep the veranda outside, peering in through the half-open windows, as Eleanor and Sophia and several other daughters of the colonial establishment practised the country dance, the quadrille, the new Schottische and the daring waltz, with Mr Snow and Sophia taking turns at the pianoforte.
Sophia had come out very well in London and had little to learn about dancing; indeed, she might have set up as an instructor herself, and saved Sir John a portion of his quite inadequate stipend, but for her want of patience and her habit, when angered, of revealing the sharpness of her tongue. This was apparent to no one more than to poor Captain Ainsworth of the 51st who, having already had a marriage proposal rejected by Sophia, had attempted to join in the lessons himself, claiming – falsely, as Sophia well knew – that he had never learned to dance. Assuming the character of her aunt, Sophia had coldly enquired of the lovestruck captain whether he considered it appropriate that he should be present, a gentleman in a red coat, at a gathering of girls who were there without chaperones, and had he not better wait until the night of the ball? He had departed, quite crestfallen, and Sophia, soon repenting of her scorn, had sent him a short but friendly note, advising him of the other times when Mr Snow’s services might be privately engaged. In reaching out to him thus, having already dismissed him, she believed in all innocence that she was being kind.
For weeks the dancing masters prospered in Hobarton and Launceston, instructing the sons and daughters of the colony in the latest points of the terpsichorean art, direct from the ballrooms of London and Paris. Even those with no hope of attending the ball were swept up in the fashion for hopping and stepping and bowing, until the lessons became an end in themselves, informal social occasions for which invitations were not the less ruthlessly sought and withheld.
Then came the week of the great disappointment, when a mere two hundred and fifty cards were sent out requesting the company of the recipients aboard Terror and Erebus on the first night of June 1841. The bubble was burst, and the disbanded host of dancing masters straggled back to Hobart port, counting its takings – all but a few who had found positions on the island, or who had fallen in love with their students, or resolved to go into business, and who would stay in Van Diemen’s Land: for every army must have its deserters. Mr Snow also remained, bringing his charges to the point of perfection, and then on the last day of May he too departed, intending to establish a school or hotel in the new mainland village of Melbourne. Like many who passed through Van Diemen’s Land in those years of its decline he was never seen in Hobart Town again.
*
The ball would open with a country dance; the free settlers would expect it, having most of them quit England at a time when the quadrille was new and the waltz was still scandalous. And so, with a great deal of chatter and flirting (the officers and their partners) or grim-faced froideur (the free settlers, who were determined to be set in old ways half remembered) two lines were formed on the main deck of Erebus, the men facing the ladies.
At the head of the line stood Sophia Cracroft, fanning herself with her dance card, not because she was hot but to conceal the fact that her hand was a-tremble. She looked down the lines of the dancers, the men in their coats of black or blue or red, the ladies in dresses of muslin or tulle, trimmed with silk flowers and ribbons, their slippers bright with hand-stitched roses, and she heard the musicians finish their tuning – a last few scrapes of a bow on a cello, a toot of the bassoon. The lights in the rigging, the lamps above the rails, shone on the jewels of the ladies, gleamed in the medals and orders of soldiers and sailors and softened the harshest colonial faces, making them young again. The watchers fell silent around the ship’s rail. All faces turned to Sophia, waiting for her to open the ball. And Captain Ross, at whom she hardly dared to look, her partner for the long, formal evolutions of this opening set, made his bow and addressed her.
‘Now, Miss Cracroft, what is it to be? We have cleared our deck for action: please do us the honour of giving the word to commence the engagement. With what music would you have us begin?’
She was prepared for this. Her choice had not been difficult and the musicians were already informed. She smiled at Captain Ross, made her own curtsy. ‘On such a rare occasion as this,’ she said, ‘aboard two of Her Majesty’s ships of war, there can only be one fitting commencement: let us have please “Nelson’s Victory”!’
Those close enough to hear her – the next in line were Sir John and his partner for this dance, a debutante daughter of the 51st Regiment, and then Commander Crozier, who stood up with Eleanor – warmly approved her decision. Captain Ross spoke to the band leader, then turned to his friends. ‘A most excellent choice, Miss Cracroft, particularly in our present company. For although I have heard it disputed whether the victory celebrated in that tune was Nelson’s victory at Copenhagen or that of Trafalgar, His Excellency Sir John has very politely smoothed over the question tonight, by having had the foresight to serve gallantly in both.’
There were laughs and a round of applause, and Sir John, wiping his forehead, called out: ‘I fear that the victory in question was that of the Nile, Captain Ross. From which I was absent.’
How prettily Ross put things. Sophia would have to remember his words, stow them in a mind already confounded by lights and confused by impressions, so that she could recount them to her Aunt Jane who, like Sophia herself, admired nothing in a man so much as wit and learning. It was merely a superfluity of charm that made Captain Ross so handsome, so calm in command, so esteemed and graceful in his bearing. Yet it was said that he had a fiancée and that she was qu
Timepiece linked to Sir John Franklin’s fatal Arctic expedition returns to Britain disguised as a carriage clock
By Maev KennedyGuardian, London, Wednesday 20 May 2009, 15.26 BST
In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, a valuable marine chronometer sits on a workbench in London, crudely disguised as a Victorian carriage clock, more than 150 years after it was recorded as lost in the Arctic along with Sir John Franklin and his crew in one of the most famous disasters in the history of polar exploration.
‘I have no answers, but the facts are completely extraordinary,’ said the senior specialist on horology at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Jonathan Betts. ‘This is a genuine mystery.’
When and how did the timepiece return to Britain, is it evidence that somebody survived the disaster, or of a crime – even murder?
Betts has no idea – but he does know its shining brass mechanism could never have spent months in the ice, exposed to salt-laden Arctic gales. It must have been stolen from the ship, or from a crew member who cared for it up to the moment of their death.
‘This has never been lying around in the open air. I have handled a pocket watch recovered from the expedition, and it is so corroded it is not possible even to open the case. Conditions in the Arctic are so extreme this would have rusted within a day, and been a heap of rubbish within a month.’
The chronometer returned to the same building – once the Admiralty store from which it was issued, now Betts’ clocks workshop at the Royal Observatory.
The apparent fate of the superb timekeeper, made in London by John Arnold, after it was issued to Sir John’s ship, is clear from the official ledger also on Betts’ desk. Under ‘Arnold 294’, the faded sepia ink reads: ‘Lost in the Arctic Regions with the “Erebus”.’ In the final entry, on 26 June 1886, more than 40 years after it disappeared, it was officially written off.
The fate of Franklin in 1845, his two superbly equipped ships carrying two years’ worth of supplies, including barrels of lemon juice to ward off scurvy, his 129 men who starved, froze and were poisoned to death in the ice, and the suggestion that some survived for a time by cannibalism, haunted the Victorian imagination.
A record 32 rescue expeditions were sent, spurred on by his formidable widow, Jane.
Inuit witnesses described Englishmen dying where they fell in the ice, apparently without ever asking how the natives survived such extreme conditions.
Rescue expeditions brought back papers recording the death of Franklin, abandoned clothes and equipment, caches of supplies including poorly sealed tins of meat that may have killed many of the men, and eventually skeletons. Every scrap of evidence was recorded – but there is no record of anyone setting eyes on the chronometer again.
It is clear to Betts that whoever converted it into a carriage clock for a suburban mantelpiece knew they were dealing with stolen property. The evidence of a crime concealed is on the dial, where Arnold’s name was beaten flat, and an invented maker’s name substituted – and then changed back again when the clock was sold 30 years ago and a restorer spotted Arnold’s name on the mechanism.
The Observatory bought it when it came up for sale again 10 years ago, but its true history emerged when Betts dismantled it, and matched it with the 19th-century records. None of those who handled it after conversion could have guessed its connection with the Franklin expedition.
It will be on public display for the first time in an exhibition opening on Saturday at the National Maritime museum, on Britain’s obsessive quest to find the legendary North West Passage to the east through the Arctic ice, which over centuries cost the lives of Franklin, his men and hundreds of other explorers and sailors.
Among poignant artefacts, including a sledge flag embroidered by his widow with the motto ‘Hope on Hope Ever’, one of the still-sealed cans of meat and the revolting contents of another opened in the 1920s, visitors will see the rather dumpy carriage clock, with three fat little ball feet and a carrying handle crudely bolted onto the chronometer’s original brass case.
Betts believes the only possible explanation for the conversion was to make Arnold 294 literally unrecognizable. Stealing a valuable piece of government property from an official expedition would have been a serious crime, punishable by transportation if not death. He yearns to know who dunnit.
North West Passage: An Arctic Obsession, National MaritimeMuseum Greenwich, 23 May–20 January 2009
They were driving on the sea ice a mile from the shore when a little brown creature ran out in front of them. It was heading out to sea, but the headlights confused it and it dithered in their beam. Nelson stood on the brakes and the car lurched to a stop, throwing Fay against her seat belt.
‘What is it?’ she said. And Nelson, who found he wanted to impress her, got out of the car and stood over the little animal. It had tried to hide under a tongue of drift snow but they could both see it plainly, the size of a hamster, its fur turned grey by the veneer of snow.
Nelson put on his gloves and picked it up.
‘What is it?’ she said again, and he turned and held it up to her.
‘It’s a lemming. They live under the snow.’
She joined him in the funnel of the lights. I’m standing on the open sea, she thought. It’s the Arctic winter, a month of night, and I’m standing on a frozen ocean, and that man is holding a lemming.
The little rodent stopped struggling and sat quiet in Nelson’s palm, its nose twitching, staring at her with tiny black eyes. She reached out her hand then quickly withdrew it.
‘What’s it doing out here on the ice?’
‘I don’t know.’ He turned a full circle, studying the problem. A mile to the south the North American mainland came to its end, a low snow-covered hump on the snow-covered sea. A timber fishing cabin, shuttered for the winter, sat on its edge, the only visible detail. To the north the sea ice stretched off to infinity, its snow carved by wind into motionless ripples. But there was no wind today, just a tremendous cold, silent apart from their idling engine.
‘It’s come from the land, I guess,’ he said. ‘Heading due north, right out to sea. I don’t know what it wants out there.’
To the west, from where they had come, the ice-road curved out of view between tongues of black stubble, the willows which grew on the last sandy spits of the Mackenzie delta. To the east a distant string of lights, hard in the dusk, revealed their destination: the coastal hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk. Another ten minutes and we’d have been there, thought Fay. Instead, this. She hugged herself and shivered, already missing the warmth of the car. The sky was a sad shade of silver, turning pink in the south where the sun had tried and failed to clear the horizon. To the north, the stars held firm against the civil twilight.
‘Perhaps it’s lost,’ she said.
Nelson cupped it in both hands. It sniffed between his fingers.
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Or maybe it’s trying to kill itself. They say lemmings do that.’
She had heard that too, of course. What else did anyone from London know about lemmings? But she had never expected to meet one. ‘I always assumed that thing about lemmings and suicide was just a legend.’
Nelson didn’t seem to hear her. Having transferred the lemming to his left glove, he was stroking its back with one finger. The little creature stretched out its neck as if liking the attention. Nelson smiled to himself, then looked up at Fay.
‘I’m going to turn it around,’ he said. ‘I’ll let it go, pointing back towards the mainland. With a bit of luck it’ll find its way back to the shore. It would only die out there.’ He jutted his chin to the north. ‘Nothing to eat. Nothing to nest in.’
That’s interfering with nature, Fay thought. But it was none of her business. The lemming was his.
She watched Nelson cross the ice-road. Bubbles of trapped air quivered like ghosts in the black depths beneath them. At the far side he knelt and pressed the back of his glove against the ice, uncurling his fingers so the lemming could escape. But now it wouldn’t leave his glove, clinging to the bridge between index and thumb.
‘It doesn’t want to go,’ said Fay. ‘They must tame very easily.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Nelson scooped the lemming from his palm, propelling it head first towards the foot of the snow bank. Startled, it vanished into its element, burrowing back towards the shore. Nelson peeled off a glove, took out a pack of cigarettes.
‘If you think about it,’ he said, ‘my hand is probably the only warm thing it’s ever come across in winter. No wonder it liked it.’
They stood there together, waiting to see if the lemming would double back, bound for the sea again, and when the cigarette was finished and it hadn’t reappeared they got in the car and drove on to Tuktoyaktuk.
It had been intended that they would take the carriage all the way to the ball, but the evening was so mild that Sir John gave in to Sophia’s pleading to finish the journey on foot. These are the lieutenant-governor’s botanical gardens, Sir John reasoned; I am the lieutenant-governor: why must I take a carriage to the end of my own garden?
So the party alighted at the magnetic observatory, that curious new wooden building crowning the hill, and – defying convention – old Sir John Franklin, viceroy of Van Diemen’s Land and famed Arctic explorer, set out on foot for a ball in his honour.
A footman with a lantern led them down the steep path to the Derwent, though it was still light enough to see through the trees. Sir John followed after him, a fat bouncing shadow on short sailor’s legs. I ought to walk with Uncle, thought Sophia, who – her Aunt Jane being then absent, travelling in New Zealand – was accompanying Sir John tonight. But for now it did not matter. There would be time enough to adjust their order of march before they reached the ball, when the ladies would pause to unpin their dresses and change their shoes for satin slippers.
Checking her pace, Sophia moved close to her younger cousin Eleanor and took her by the arm. They had quarrelled again that afternoon, and although Sophia was not yet quite ready to forgive her uncle’s daughter she needed her company now. Otherwise she might find herself walking alongside Henry Elliot, her uncle’s private secretary; it was to escape Elliot’s unwelcome proximity in the carriage that Sophia had campaigned to finish the journey on foot.
Eleanor, feeling her cousin’s touch, turned her head and smiled up at Sophia. Their dresses whispered together as they walked side by side. In the darkness behind them Lieutenant Kay, who had taken leave of his magnetic duties to attend the ball, was attempting to interest Elliot in his science, his phrases syncopated by the tramping of their shoes. And young Henry Elliot, son of the Earl of Minto and destined for high service, responded to the eager naval scientist with a lack of interest so beautifully polite, so drily amused, that Sophia had herself only teased out its meaning that morning.
It pained her still to think of that instant of revelation. It had occurred very close to where they were now, as she had walked in the gardens with Elliot, confiding to him her opinions of the novels of Sir Walter Scott, the winter sun bright on the Derwent Water, and she had glanced sideways for a moment, to assure herself of his enchantment, and had noticed for the first time, truly noticed, that he had long since fallen silent, and that, as he looked away from her, back towards the town itself and his place in the governor’s office, there was a curiously droll turn to the corners of his lips. She had herself fallen quiet, and to his credit Elliot had made every appearance of alarm and consideration when she had stammered an excuse – that she had left her book on a bench by Commander Crozier’s magnetic observatory, which stood in a clearing nearby – and went back to look for it. She would fetch it herself; Elliot’s duties must be calling him.
What a cold little person he was. Quite insubstantial and unromantic compared to the officers of Erebus and Terror, lately returned from their glorious Antarctic cruise. But why should she concern herself with Elliot, or feel slighted in any way? It was not as if she had set her cap at him. He was known to have an understanding with a young lady in England.
They passed out of a grove of native Australian gum trees which, not yet felled by the botanic custodians, screened the magnetic observatory from the river below. As one, Sophia and Eleanor came to a halt and even Lieutenant Kay fell silent. Sir John, taken aback, took off his cocked hat and wiped his forehead, which already glistened from the short walk. ‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Well now indeed.’
‘They are on fire, Sophia!’ whispered Eleanor, and she squeezed Sophia’s arm.
Beneath them, lashed together in the estuary, the Terror and the Erebus blazed from stem to stern. They are bomb ships, recalled Sophia, who had studied her uncle’s profession. That is why they were given such infernal names. Perhaps, being creatures of fire, that is why the Admiralty has opposed them to the ice.
Lieutenant Kay was beside them now, smiling. ‘It’s a clever device, is it not? There are hundreds of mirrors fixed in the rigging, multiplying the lights of the lanterns and candles. I was aboard Terror this morning when the boatswain collected the men’s shaving mirrors. The rest of the mirrors are trade goods, carried as gifts for any savages they should meet.’
They stood a few moments longer, admiring the scene. The two little ships, dressed with every scrap from their flag lockers, were merely the brightest stars in a constellation of lights. Braced thirty yards offshore in a web of taut cables, they were approached by a pontoon made of row-boats lashed together, decked with planks, roofed with canvas and decorated with silver wattles. This floating bridge was set on either side with lines of burning torches that danced with their own reflections in the tide. The river too flickered with fireflies – the boats of guests who arrived by water, or of uninvited townsfolk who had come to watch and listen from outside the circle of light. Music was loud across the water: the band of the 51st Regiment of Foot striking up an air. Sophia, entranced, heard the notes step out boldly then artfully trip themselves, like a pretty girl with a club-foot, at once jaunty, romantic and sad. She found herself fixed to the spot, listening, while her uncle and Lieutenant Kay hurried after the footman who had continued down the path. Perhaps it is just this occasion that moves me, Sophia thought, and the lights on the water. Perhaps it is not that music at all.
‘Do come on, girls,’ urged Sir John, looking back at them. ‘That tune is our signal that it is time for us to show ourselves. Crozier arranged it. If I’d had my way they’d have fired a gun.’
Starting after them, Sophia turned to Eleanor. ‘Nell, do you know the name of that charming air?’ And Eleanor replied that she did not, though she was sure she had heard it before. Then young Elliot, whom Sophia had completely forgotten, spoke in the darkness at her side.
‘I believe it is called “The Brighton Camp”. A very old melody. It is the lament of a young man who must forsake his darling and sail off to war. It is very popular with soldiers and sailors, I believe.’
Sophia drew her shawl a little tighter round her shoulders. ‘Thank you, Mr Elliot. You are always so well informed.’
She held Eleanor closer still and hurried on to join her uncle. And Elliot, left with only the second footman for company, smiled to himself unseen.
*
The band stopped playing as they crossed the pontoon, the boards rocking and flexing under their feet. Sir John led the way with Sophia while Elliot followed with Eleanor on his arm. A cool wind flowed down the river, bringing with it the smell of eucalyptus from the hills. They are all watching us, thought Sophia, adjusting her grey silk shawl. They are all watching me. She pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin, as she had seen her aunt do on such occasions, and she averted her gaze from the faces which crowded the rail of the ship. One of those faces, she knew, must belong to Captain James Clark Ross, captain of Erebus and commander of the Antarctic expedition.
A fit of dizziness assailed her. But if I look down at my feet I might stumble or trip, perhaps fall into the river. If that were to happen, she thought, I should not wish to be rescued. The only escape from such an embarrassment would be to do the correct thing and drown. And perhaps, to increase the effect of distraction, I ought to drag my famous uncle down with me. At that, she could not helping smiling to herself. And several of those at the rail, seeing her smile, murmured together: such pleasant ease of character, to go with such beauty and poise!
The boatswains piped them aboard in a blur of light and faces, of whispered advice and discreet steering touches. Masts and rigging made a fairy roof above Sophia, gleaming with mirrors and lights. She saw Sir John touch his hat to the quarterdeck, and everyone fell silent as the band of the 51st Regiment, the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, played the vice-regal salute. The ships’ marines, drawn up on the quarterdeck, presented arms. Sir John paced their ranks in token of inspection and then he returned to Sophia’s side. And now, she thought, I shall be presented to the officers, and Captain Ross shall be the first of all.
She saw him there, waiting on his quarterdeck, his blue uniform trimmed with gold braid. He was too slim and handsome for his forty hard years. The dark, hawk-like face was smiling at her. And as she started for the quarterdeck, in step with Sir John, she felt hundreds of eyes on her back, on the thin white silk of her dress, the black curls arranged at the nape of her neck, and she shivered with a strange new pleasure. No, I am not at all cold. She stopped before James Ross, the famed discoverer of magnetic north, veteran of seven Arctic expeditions and of the late glorious voyage to the fabled Antarctic, and she let her shawl slip down her bare shoulders, just a little, and gracefully extended her hand.
But someone had stepped between them. A heavyset officer with a homely face and bushy whiskers had moved into her path, leaning forward to whisper to the guest of honour. ‘If you’d care for a little refreshment, Sir John, before we set off the dancing, please step over for a minute to my cabin on Terror – James’s cabin has been reserved for the ladies tonight, to serve them as a dressing room.’
It seemed to Sophia that not many officers of the Royal Navy would have presumed, even in confidence, to address a lieutenant-governor as anything other than ‘excellency’, or to refer to his immediate commander by his Christian name. But she ought to excuse Commander Crozier his impertinence. Though he did not enjoy their rank, birth or wealth, he was, she knew, accepted by both Ross and Sir John as a friend and a peer, one of the navy’s intimate circle of polar explorers.
Sir John released Sophia’s arm so he could grasp the commander’s hand. ‘Indeed, Frank, there’s an idea for you! On a cool night like this it will be just the thing.’
Crozier turned and smiled at Sophia. ‘Miss Cracroft,’ he said, ‘how delighted I am to welcome you aboard tonight. Your first dance must of course be reserved for Captain Ross, but I believe that as deputy commander I am entitled to the second. I now present my claim.’
His soft Irish consonants were butchered by harsh Ulster vowels. Yet her Aunt Jane, Sophia knew, was charmed by Crozier’s rustic way of speaking, and had become a great friend and champion of the Terror’s shy captain. That’s quite a pretty speech for poor Crozier, thought Sophia. He must have practised it ahead of time.
‘I believe that the second dance is due to my uncle, as governor,’ she replied, ‘but I would be honoured to pledge you the third.’ She was inwardly calculating, in spite of her better sense: after my first dance with Captain Ross, with how many other men must I dance before I might come to Ross again? But after all, what harm was there in that? It was merely for her own amusement: she knew very well that he was said to be engaged.
*
Sophia had, to her credit, done her best to avoid it, had wriggled and squirmed like a worm on a hook, but she could not escape it: she must open the dancing on the night of the ball.
But the ladies of Hobart will scorn me, she had protested. It is well known that I am helping to direct the preparations for the ball. If I stand up at the head of the dance, the ladies will flutter their fans to hide their mouths, and whisper together that it is a place of rare honour which I occupy, having appointed me to it myself.
Nonsense, said her uncle. The invitation is not yours, nor even mine, but comes from the hosts of the ball, Ross and Crozier. In any case, Lady Jane being absent, you are the mistress of my household and therefore take precedence; Eleanor may be my own daughter, but she is still too young. And to be quite frank, my dear Sophia, as we are both aware, Eleanor does not dance half so well as do you. Her education in such matters has been neglected since we left Lincolnshire. So let us send for a dancing master, if a respectable one can be found in this town.
Alas, there could not. Such dancing masters as there were then in Hobart Town were of a low character – men of the theatre, or poets or journalists, most of them tickets-of-leave or emancipated convicts. Two very fine dance teachers had lately arrived from London and Bath but neither could be engaged, as the one had been transported for poncing, the other for unnatural crime, and – the assignment system having been lately abolished by London – it was now quite impossible for the lieutenant-governor, as guardian of the law, to requisition their service, even in the character of gardener or groom.
This difficulty had scarcely presented itself before it was overcome by means unlooked for and external. Within days of the ball’s announcement an army of dancing masters had invaded the colony. So swift was their arrival that Captains Ross and Crozier, who were staying with Sir John at Government House, got out their charts and puzzled over the prodigious winds and currents that could have sped word of the ball so quickly to New South Wales. The newcomers were for the most part men of unknown character – a circumstance which must, in an Australian penal colony like New South Wales or Van Diemen’s Land, have its advantages – and so were able to pass into the employment of the wealthiest colonial households and even those of the garrison and government.
By great exertion Sophia was able to find a man whose character was without proven blemish, having arrived into New South Wales two years before as a free settler. Before that, of course, his history was obscure, but whatever his origins, Mr Snow was a very fine dancer and a patient teacher. Classes were held each day in the breakfast room of Government House, cleared of all furniture. Sir John’s maids, a trio of transported prostitutes who still sometimes dabbled in that trade, would make excuse to sweep the veranda outside, peering in through the half-open windows, as Eleanor and Sophia and several other daughters of the colonial establishment practised the country dance, the quadrille, the new Schottische and the daring waltz, with Mr Snow and Sophia taking turns at the pianoforte.
Sophia had come out very well in London and had little to learn about dancing; indeed, she might have set up as an instructor herself, and saved Sir John a portion of his quite inadequate stipend, but for her want of patience and her habit, when angered, of revealing the sharpness of her tongue. This was apparent to no one more than to poor Captain Ainsworth of the 51st who, having already had a marriage proposal rejected by Sophia, had attempted to join in the lessons himself, claiming – falsely, as Sophia well knew – that he had never learned to dance. Assuming the character of her aunt, Sophia had coldly enquired of the lovestruck captain whether he considered it appropriate that he should be present, a gentleman in a red coat, at a gathering of girls who were there without chaperones, and had he not better wait until the night of the ball? He had departed, quite crestfallen, and Sophia, soon repenting of her scorn, had sent him a short but friendly note, advising him of the other times when Mr Snow’s services might be privately engaged. In reaching out to him thus, having already dismissed him, she believed in all innocence that she was being kind.
For weeks the dancing masters prospered in Hobarton and Launceston, instructing the sons and daughters of the colony in the latest points of the terpsichorean art, direct from the ballrooms of London and Paris. Even those with no hope of attending the ball were swept up in the fashion for hopping and stepping and bowing, until the lessons became an end in themselves, informal social occasions for which invitations were not the less ruthlessly sought and withheld.
Then came the week of the great disappointment, when a mere two hundred and fifty cards were sent out requesting the company of the recipients aboard Terror and Erebus on the first night of June 1841. The bubble was burst, and the disbanded host of dancing masters straggled back to Hobart port, counting its takings – all but a few who had found positions on the island, or who had fallen in love with their students, or resolved to go into business, and who would stay in Van Diemen’s Land: for every army must have its deserters. Mr Snow also remained, bringing his charges to the point of perfection, and then on the last day of May he too departed, intending to establish a school or hotel in the new mainland village of Melbourne. Like many who passed through Van Diemen’s Land in those years of its decline he was never seen in Hobart Town again.
*
The ball would open with a country dance; the free settlers would expect it, having most of them quit England at a time when the quadrille was new and the waltz was still scandalous. And so, with a great deal of chatter and flirting (the officers and their partners) or grim-faced froideur (the free settlers, who were determined to be set in old ways half remembered) two lines were formed on the main deck of Erebus, the men facing the ladies.
At the head of the line stood Sophia Cracroft, fanning herself with her dance card, not because she was hot but to conceal the fact that her hand was a-tremble. She looked down the lines of the dancers, the men in their coats of black or blue or red, the ladies in dresses of muslin or tulle, trimmed with silk flowers and ribbons, their slippers bright with hand-stitched roses, and she heard the musicians finish their tuning – a last few scrapes of a bow on a cello, a toot of the bassoon. The lights in the rigging, the lamps above the rails, shone on the jewels of the ladies, gleamed in the medals and orders of soldiers and sailors and softened the harshest colonial faces, making them young again. The watchers fell silent around the ship’s rail. All faces turned to Sophia, waiting for her to open the ball. And Captain Ross, at whom she hardly dared to look, her partner for the long, formal evolutions of this opening set, made his bow and addressed her.
‘Now, Miss Cracroft, what is it to be? We have cleared our deck for action: please do us the honour of giving the word to commence the engagement. With what music would you have us begin?’
She was prepared for this. Her choice had not been difficult and the musicians were already informed. She smiled at Captain Ross, made her own curtsy. ‘On such a rare occasion as this,’ she said, ‘aboard two of Her Majesty’s ships of war, there can only be one fitting commencement: let us have please “Nelson’s Victory”!’
Those close enough to hear her – the next in line were Sir John and his partner for this dance, a debutante daughter of the 51st Regiment, and then Commander Crozier, who stood up with Eleanor – warmly approved her decision. Captain Ross spoke to the band leader, then turned to his friends. ‘A most excellent choice, Miss Cracroft, particularly in our present company. For although I have heard it disputed whether the victory celebrated in that tune was Nelson’s victory at Copenhagen or that of Trafalgar, His Excellency Sir John has very politely smoothed over the question tonight, by having had the foresight to serve gallantly in both.’
There were laughs and a round of applause, and Sir John, wiping his forehead, called out: ‘I fear that the victory in question was that of the Nile, Captain Ross. From which I was absent.’
How prettily Ross put things. Sophia would have to remember his words, stow them in a mind already confounded by lights and confused by impressions, so that she could recount them to her Aunt Jane who, like Sophia herself, admired nothing in a man so much as wit and learning. It was merely a superfluity of charm that made Captain Ross so handsome, so calm in command, so esteemed and graceful in his bearing. Yet it was said that he had a fiancée and that she was qu
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