David Bryant is a minor character in AMC's The Terror. He is a sergeant in the Royal Marines on HMS Erebus.
In The Show[]
Bryant first appears in episode 1 briefly seen alongside John Morfin as David Young is screaming from the sick bay. After Young's death he is on the main deck of Erebus when Sir John Franklin gives his eulogy/speech to his sailors. Later after the ships get stuck in the ice, Bryant can be seen praying in his hammock as the ship creaks from the pressure of the surrounding ice.
In the next episode he is sent out with Lt. Graham Gore's sledge party to find the Ross cairn on King William Island. Afterwards, both he and Gore trek on to find the second cairn and later return during a hailstorm to find the sledge boat overturned. Bryant believes a bear is nearby tracking them and he shoots what he thinks was the bear but later is revealed to be a Netsilik Shaman. The shaman's daughter begins searching for a creature called the Tuunbaq which confuses Bryant. The Tuunbaq then appears and kills Gore very shortly after.
At the beginning of episode 3 he and George Chambers are discussing the creature and Bryant plans to ask Lt. Henry Le Vesconte to be part of the hunting party and wants another shot at it. Chambers is startled by a loud creaking sound but Bryant assures him it's only the ice. Chambers then asks Bryant what it's like shooting a man and he replies that shooting someone is more fun when you actually mean to do it. Bryant later becomes part of the group tasked with killing the creature and he gets his photograph taken alongside Sir John, Sgt. Solomon Tozer, Pte. William Heather, and two other men by Dr. Henry Goodsir. Tozer asks if Sir John would like to stay with them for a while and when he agrees, Bryant gives up his seat so he could sit. Almost immediately after, Bryant is killed by the Tuunbaq when it takes him away from above and decapitates him by tearing off everything above the lower jaw.
Bryant's death leaves Sgt. Tozer in overall command of the surviving Royal Marines present on the expedition.
In The Book[]
Trivia[]
- Some sources list Bryant's first name as Daniel.
- A shoulder plate that belonged to Bryant was recovered from the wreck of Erebus in 2015.
- In Episode three Bryant remarked "That Mary Anne doesn't know what he saw." The real David Bryant's wife's name was Mary Anne Bryant.