Dan Simmons - The Terror

“Yet two of the Esquimaux got away,” said Crozier.

Tozer frowned. “Aye, sir. I apologize about that. They was a lot of confusion, sir. And two of ’em who went down got up when we was shooting those pox-besotted dogs, sir.”

“Why did you shoot their dogs, Sergeant?” It was Fitzjames who asked this question.

Tozer looked surprised. “Why, they was barking and snarling and lunging at us, Captain. They was more wolves than dogs.”

“Did you consider, Sergeant, that they might have been useful to us?” asked Fitzjames.

“Yes, sir. As meat .”

Crozier said, “Describe the two Esquimaux that got away.”

“A little one, Captain. Mr. Farr said that he thought it might have been a woman. Or a girl. She had blood on her hood but obviously she wasn’t dead.”

“Obviously,” Crozier said drily. “What about the other one who escaped?”

Tozer shrugged. “A little man with a headband is all I know, Captain. He’d fallen behind the sledge there, and we all thought he was a deader. But he got up and run with the girl when we was busy shooting the dogs, sir.”

“Did you pursue them?”

“Pursue them, sir? Oh, yes, absolutely. We run our ar-… we run after them hard, Captain. And we was reloading and firing as we went, sir. I think I hit that little Esquimaux bitch again, but she didn’t slow down one whit, sir. They was just too fast for us. But they won’t be coming back this way no time soon, sir. We saw to that.”

“How about their friends?” Crozier said drily.

“Pardon, sir?” Tozer was grinning again.

“Their tribe. Village. Clan. Other hunters and warriors. These people came from somewhere. They haven’t been out on the ice all winter. Presumably they’ll return to that village, if they’re not there already. Did you consider that the other Esquimaux hunters – men who kill every day – might take it personally that we killed eight of their kindred, Sergeant?”

Tozer looked confused.

Crozier said, “You’re dismissed, Sergeant. Send in Second Lieutenant Hodgson.”

Hodgson looked as miserable as Tozer had complacent. The young lieutenant was obviously distraught over the death of his closest friend on the expedition and sickened by the attack he had ordered after he had come across Irving’s reconnaissance group and been led to Irving’s body.

“At ease, Lieutenant Hodgson,” said Crozier. “Do you need a chair?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell us how you came to join up with Lieutenant Irving’s group. Your orders from Captain Fitzjames were to go on a hunting expedition south of Terror Camp.”

“Yes, Captain. And we did that much of the morning. There was not so much as a rabbit track in the snow along the coast, sir, and we couldn’t get out onto the sea ice because of the height of the bergs piled up along the shore ice. So around ten a.m. we turned inland, thinking maybe there’d be sign of some caribou or foxes or musk oxen or something.”

“But there wasn’t?”

“No, sir. We came across the tracks of about ten people wearing soft-soled Esquimaux-type boots instead. That and their sledge and dog tracks.”

“And you followed those tracks back northwest instead of continuing hunting?”

“Yes.”

“Who made that decision, Second Lieutenant Hodgson? You or Sergeant Tozer, who was second in your party?”

“Me, sir. I was the only officer there. I made that and all the other decisions.”

“Including the final decision of attacking the Esquimaux?”

“Yes, sir. We spied on them a minute from the ridge where poor John had been murdered and gutted, and… well, you know what they did to him, Captain. The savages looked like they were preparing to leave, heading back to the southwest. That’s when we decided to attack them in force.”

“You had how many weapons, Lieutenant?”

“Our group had three rifles, two shotguns, and two muskets, sir. Lieutenant Irving’s group just had the one musket. Oh, and a pistol we fetched from John’s… from Lieutenant Irving’s greatcoat pocket.”

“The Esquimaux left the weapon in his pocket?” asked Crozier.

Hodgson paused a moment as if he had not considered this before. “Yes, sir.”

“Was there any other sign of theft of his personal possessions?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Hickey had reported to us as to how he’d seen the Esquimaux rob John… Lieutenant Irving… of his telescope and valise before they killed him up on the ridge, sir. When we got to that ridge, I could see through our own glass that the natives were going through his valise and passing his telescope around down there in the valley where I guess they’d stopped after murdering and… mutilating… him.”

“Were there tracks?”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Tracks… of the Esquimaux… going down from the bare ridgeline where you found the lieutenant’s body to where the natives were going through his possessions.”

“Uh… yes, sir. I think so, Captain. I mean, I can remember a thin line of tracks that I thought were just John’s at the time but must have been the rest of theirs as well. They must have gone up and down in a line, sort of, Captain. Mr. Hickey said that they were all around him up on the bare ridge there as they cut his throat and… did the other things, sir. He said that it wasn’t all of them… not the women and the boy, maybe… but it was six or seven of the heathens. The hunters, sir. The younger men.”

“And the old man?” asked Crozier. “I understand that there was a toothless old man among the bodies when you were done.”

Hodgson nodded. “He had one tooth left, Captain. I can’t remember if Mr. Hickey said the old man was part of the group that killed John.”

“How was it that you first came upon Mr. Farr’s group – Lieutenant Irving’s reconnaissance party – if you had been following the Esquimaux’s tracks north, Lieutenant?”

Hodgson nodded briskly as if relieved to be asked a question he could answer with certainty. “We lost the natives’ footprints and sledge tracks about a mile south of where Lieutenant Irving was attacked, sir. They must have been moving more east then, across the low ridgetops where there was ice, but mostly rock, sir… you know, that frozen gravel. We couldn’t find their sledge or dog tracks or footprints anywhere in the valleys, so we continued due north, the way they’d been going. We came down off a hill and found Thomas Farr’s group – John’s reconnaissance party – just finishing their dinner. Mr. Hickey had come back to report on what he’d seen just a minute or two earlier, and I guess we frightened Thomas and his men… they thought we were the Esquimaux coming for them.”

“Did you observe anything odd about Mr. Hickey?” asked Crozier.

“Odd, sir?”

Crozier waited in silence.

“Well,” continued Hodgson, “he was shaking very hard. As if palsied. And his voice was very agitated, almost shrill. And he… well, sir… he was laughing some. Giggling, like. But all that’s to be expected from a man who’d just seen what he’d just seen, isn’t it, Captain?”

“And what did he see, George?”

“Well…” Hodgson looked down to regain his composure. “Mr. Hickey had told Captain of the Maintop Farr, and he repeated to me, that he’d been out to check on Lieutenant Irving and came over a ridge just in time to see these six or seven or eight Esquimaux stealing the lieutenant’s belongings and stabbing and mutilating him. Mr. Hickey said – he was still shaking hard, sir, very upset – that he’d seen them cut off John’s private parts.”

“You saw Lieutenant Irving’s body just a few minutes later, didn’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir. It was about a twenty-five-minute walk from where Farr’s group had been eating dinner.”