Dan Simmons - The Terror

“Perhaps,” said the surgeon, his voice sounding both firm and tentative to Crozier, “if conditions continue to worsen.”

“How could they get worse?” asked Second Lieutenant Hodgson.

The young man obviously had meant it as a joke to lessen the tension but was rewarded with baleful and angry stares.

Crozier did not want the council of war to end on that note. The officers, warrant officers, petty officers, and civilian at the table had looked at their choices and seen that they were as bleak as Crozier had known they would be, but he did not want his ships’ leaders’ morale to get any lower than it already was.

“By the way,” Crozier said in a conversational tone, “Captain Fitzjames has decided to conduct Divine Service next Sunday on Erebus – he’ll be giving a special sermon that I’m interested in hearing, although I have it on good authority that it will not be a reading from the Book of Leviathan – and I thought that since the ships’ companies will be assembled anyway, we should have full rations of grog and dinner that one day.”

The men smiled and bantered. None of them had expected to bring back good news to their specialized portions of the crews from this meeting.

Fitzjames raised one eyebrow very slightly. His “special sermon” and this Divine Service five days away, Crozier knew, were news to him, but Crozier thought it would probably do the thinning captain good to be preoccupied with something and to be the center of attention for a change. Fitzjames nodded ever so slightly.

“Very well then, gentlemen,” Crozier said a bit more formally. “This exchange of thoughts and information has been very helpful. Captain Fitzjames and I will consult and perhaps talk to several of you again, one to one, before we make up our minds on a course of action. I will let you Erebuses get back to your ship before our midday sunset. Godspeed, gentlemen. I shall see you all on Sunday.”

The men filed out. Fitzjames came around, leaned close, and whispered, “I may want to borrow that Book of Leviathan from you, Francis,” and followed his men forward to where they were struggling into their frozen slops.

Terror ’s officers went back to their duties. Captain Crozier sat for a few minutes in his chair at the head of the table, thinking about what had been discussed. The fire for survival burned hotter than ever in his aching chest.

“Captain?”

Crozier looked up. It was the old steward from Erebus , Bridgens, who had filled in on the serving because of both captains’ stewards’ illnesses. The man had been helping Gibson clean up the pewter plates and teacups.

“Oh, you can go, Bridgens,” said Crozier. “Go on with the others. Gibson will attend to all this. We don’t want you walking back to Erebus on your own.”

“Yes, sir,” said the old subordinate officers’ steward. “But I wonder if I might have a word with you, Captain.”

Crozier nodded. He did not invite the steward to sit down. He’d never felt comfortable around this old man – far too old for Discovery Service. If Crozier had been the one to make the decision three years earlier, Bridgens never would have been included on the roster – certainly not listed with an age of “ 26” to fool the Navy – but Sir John had been amused by having a steward aboard even older than himself and that had been that.

“I couldn’t help but hear the discussion, Captain Crozier – the three options of staying with the ships and hoping for a thaw, heading south to Fish River, or crossing the ice to Boothia. If the captain doesn’t mind, I’d like to suggest a fourth option.”

The captain did mind. Even an egalitarian Irishman like Francis Crozier bridled a bit at having a subordinate officers’ steward give advice on life-and-death command problems. But he said, “Go ahead.”

The steward went to the wall of books set into the stern bulkhead and pulled two large volumes, bringing them over to the table and setting them down with a thud. “I know you’re aware, Captain, that in 1829, Sir John Ross and his nephew James sailed their ship Victory down the east coast of Boothia Felix – the peninsula they discovered and which we now call Boothia Peninsula.”

“I am very aware of this, Mr. Bridgens,” Crozier said coldly. “I know Sir John and his nephew Sir James very well.” After five years in the ice of Antarctica with James Clark Ross, Crozier thought he was understating the acquaintance.

“Yes, sir,” said Bridgens, nodding but not seeming abashed. “Then I’m sure you know the details of their expedition, Captain Crozier. They spent four winters in the ice. That first winter, Sir John anchored Victory in what he named Felix Harbour on the east coast of Boothia… almost due east of our position here.”

“Were you on this expedition, Mr. Bridgens?” asked Crozier, willing the old man to get on with it.

“I did not have that honor, Captain. But I have read these two large volumes written by Sir John detailing his expedition. I wondered if you have had the time to do the same, sir.”

Crozier felt his Irish anger building. This old steward’s brashness was skirting on impertinence. “I have looked at the books, of course,” he said coolly. “I have not had the time to read them carefully. Is there a point to this, Mr. Bridgens?”

Any other officer, warrant officer, petty officer, seaman, or Marine under Crozier’s command would have received the message and been backing out of the Great Cabin while bowing low by now, but Bridgens seemed oblivious of his expedition commander’s irritation.

“Yes, Captain,” said the old man. “The point is that John Ross…”

“ Sir John,” interrupted Crozier.

“Of course. Sir John Ross had much the same problem we do now, Captain.”

“Nonsense. He and James and Victory were frozen in on the east side of Boothia, Bridgens, precisely where we’d like to sledge to if we have the time and wherewithal. Hundreds of miles east of here.”

“Yes, sir, but at the same latitude, although Victory didn’t have to face this God-cursed pack ice coming down from the northwest all the time, thanks to Boothia. But she spent three winters in the ice there, Captain. James Ross sledged more than six hundred miles west across Boothia and the ice to King William Land just twenty-five miles sou’southeast of us, Captain. He named Victory Point… the same point and cairn site that poor Lieutenant Gore sledged to last summer before his unfortunate accident.”

“Do you think I don’t know that Sir James discovered King William Land and named Victory Point?” demanded Crozier. His voice was taut with irritation. “He also discovered the God-damned north magnetic pole during that expedition, Bridgens. Sir James is… was… the most outstanding long-distance sledger of our era.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bridgens. His small steward’s smile made Crozier want to strike him. The captain knew – had known before sailing – that this old man was a well-known sodomite, at least on shore. After the caulker mate’s near mutiny, Captain Crozier was sick of sodomites. “My point is, Captain Crozier, that after three winters in the ice, with his men as sick with scurvy as ours will be by this summer, Sir John decided that they would never get out of the ice and sank Victory in ten fathoms of water there off the east coast of Boothia, due east of us, and they headed north to Fury Beach, where Captain Parry had left supplies and boats.”

Crozier realized that he could hang this man, but he could not shut him up. He frowned and listened.

“You remember, Captain, that Parry’s supplies of food and boats were there at Fury Beach. Ross took the boats and sailed north along the coast to Cape Clarence, where from the cliffs there they could see north across Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound to where they hoped to find whaling ships… but the sound was solid ice, sir. That summer was as bad as our last two summers have been and as this coming one may be.”