“Terror is signaling, sir. Captain Crozier requests an ice report.”
Is he? Let’s have a look at those flags. They do seem to say “Ignorance of the ice” i.e a request for an ice report. Just another example of the details hidden in this show.
The flags look like Marryat's, which was a flag system used primarily for commercial vessels. The flags represented numbers and the numbers could correspond to ship names, geographical locations, sentences or words. These were all listed in the Marryat’s signal book (bibliography under the cut).
Note: TE stands for Telegraph, seems to indicate the start of new number sequence
Problem: The British Royal Navy used the Popham’s system which was invented in the late 1700′s and most famously used by Nelson at Trafalgar (”England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty”). I would expect Terror and Erebus to use that system not Marryat’s. However, I could not find the revised Popham’s from the 1820′s for comparison. It definitely does not appear to be the 1806 version. Anyone with expertise here, please chime in!