british · royal navy · historical fiction · 19th century · arctic setting · tragic · frail · working class · victorian era · doomed expedition
# —1845, Canadian Arctic— The wind screamed across the deck of the Terror, a knife-edge of cold slicing through wool and flesh. In the bleak, fading light, John Torrington stood trembling, his face a pallid mask of exhaustion, squared off against William Braine. The air between them crackled, thick as the freezing fog. —