Dan Simmons - The Terror

“Someone’s been here,” said Lieutenant Hodgson.

“What do you mean?” asked Crozier.

“Some of the bodies have been moved,” said the young lieutenant, pointing to a man and then to another man and then to an old woman. “And their outer coats – the fur coats, such as Lady Silence wears – and even some of their mittens and boots are gone. So are several of the weapons… harpoons and spears. See, you can see the imprint in the snow where they were lying yesterday. They’re gone.”

“Souvenirs?” rasped Crozier. “Did our men…”

“No, sir,” Farr said quickly and firmly. “We threw some baskets and cooking pots and other things off the sled to make room and took that sled up the hill to load Lieutenant Irving’s body. We were all together from then until we reached Terror Camp. No one lagged behind.”

“Some of those pots and baskets have gone missing as well,” said Hodgson.

“There seem to be some newer tracks here, but it’s hard to tell since the wind was blowing last night,” said Bosun’s Mate Johnson.

The captain was going from corpse to corpse, rolling them over when they were facedown. He seemed to be studying each dead man’s face. Peglar noticed that they were not all dead men – one was a boy. One was an old lady whose open mouth – as if frozen by Death into an eternal silent scream – looked like a black pit. There was much blood. One of the natives had received the full force of a shotgun blast at what must have been very short range, perhaps after he had already been hit by musket or rifle fire. The back of his head was gone.

After inspecting each face as if hoping to find answers there, Crozier stood. The surgeon, Goodsir, who had also been looking carefully at the dead, said something softly into the captain’s ear, pulling down his comforter scarf and the captain’s as well while whispering. Crozier took a step back, looked at Goodsir as if in surprise, but then nodded.

The surgeon went to one knee by a dead Esquimaux and removed several surgical instruments from his bag, including one very long, curved, and serrated knife that reminded Peglar of the ice saws they used to cut chunks from the iron tanks of frozen water on the hold deck of Terror .

“Dr. Goodsir needs to examine several of the savages’ stomachs,” Crozier said.

Peglar imagined that nine others besides himself were wondering why. No one asked the question. The squeamish – including three of the Marines – looked away as the small surgeon tore open fur or animal-skin garments and began sawing on the first corpse’s abdomen. The sound of the saw cutting into hard-frozen flesh reminded Peglar of someone sawing wood.

“Captain, who do you think might’ve fetched up the weapons and clothing?” asked First Mate Thomas. “One of the two who got away?”

Crozier nodded distractedly. “Or others from their village, although it’s hard to imagine a village on this godforsaken island. Perhaps these were part of a larger hunting group camped nearby.”

“This group had so much food with them,” said Lieutenant Le Vesconte. “Imagine how much the main hunting party might have with them. We might be able to feed all one hundred and five of us.”

Lieutenant Little smiled over his breath-rimed coat collars. “Would you like to be the one to walk into their village or larger hunting party and politely ask them for some food or hunting advice? Now? After this?” Little gestured toward the sprawled, frozen bodies and patches of red on the snow.

“I think we have to get away from Terror Camp and this island now ,” said Second Lieutenant Hodgson. The young man’s voice was quavering. “They’re going to kill us in our sleep. Look what they did to John.” He stopped, visibly abashed.

Peglar studied the lieutenant. Hodgson showed all the signs of starvation and exhaustion that the rest of them did, but not as many signs of scurvy. Peglar wondered if he would become unmanned like this if and when he saw a spectacle similar to what Hodgson had seen less than twenty-four hours earlier.

“Thomas,” Crozier said softly to his bosun’s mate, “would you be so kind as to go over that next ridge and see if you can see anything? Specifically tracks leading away from here… and if so, how many and what kind?”

“Aye, sir.” The large mate jogged uphill through deep snow and onto the dark-gravel ridge.

Peglar found himself watching Goodsir. The surgeon had cut open the greyish pink, distended stomach of the first Esquimaux man and then had gone on to the old woman and next the young boy. It was a terrible thing to watch. In each case, Goodsir – his hands bare – used a smaller surgical instrument to slit the stomach open and lifted out the contents, kneading through the frozen chunks and gobbets as if searching for a prize. Sometimes Goodsir snapped the frozen stomach contents into smaller bits with an audible crack. When he was finished with the first three corpses, Goodsir idly wiped his bare hands in the snow, tugged on his mittens, and whispered in Crozier’s ear again.

“You can tell everyone,” Crozier said loudly. “I want everyone to hear this.”

The little surgeon licked his cracked and bleeding lips. “This morning I opened Lieutenant Irving’s stomach…”

“Why?” shouted Hodgson. “That was one of the few parts of John that the fucking savages did not mutilate! How could you?”

“Silence!” barked Crozier. Peglar noticed that the captain’s old authoritative voice had returned for that command. Crozier nodded to the surgeon. “Please continue, Dr. Goodsir.”

“Lieutenant Irving had eaten so much seal meat and blubber that he was literally full,” said the surgeon. “He’d had a larger meal than any of us have had in months. Obviously it came from the Esquimaux’s cache on their sledge. I was curious if the Esquimaux had eaten with him – if the contents of their stomachs would show they also had eaten seal blubber shortly before they died. With these three, it is obvious they did.”

“They broke bread with him… ate their meat with him… and then killed him as he was leaving?” said First Mate Thomas, obviously confused by this information.

Peglar was also confused. It made no sense… unless these savages were as mercurial and treacherous in their temperament as some natives he had come across in the South Seas during the five-year voyage of the old Beagle . The foretop captain wished that John Bridgens were here to give his opinion on all this.

“Gentlemen,” said Crozier, obviously including even the Marines, “I wanted you all to hear this because I may require your knowledge of these facts at some future time, but I don’t want anyone else to hear about it. Not until I say that it should be public knowledge. And I may never do so. If any of you tells anyone else – a single soul, your closest chum, if you so much as mumble this in your sleep – I swear to Christ I’ll find out who disobeyed my order to silence and I’ll leave that man behind on the ice without so much as an empty pan to shit in. Do I make myself clear, gentlemen?”

The other men grunted affirmation.

Thomas Johnson returned then, puffing and wheezing his way down the hill. He paused and looked at the silent clump of men as if to ask what was wrong.

“What did you see, Mr. Johnson?” Crozier asked briskly.

“Tracks, Captain,” said the bosun’s mate, “but old ones. Heading southwest. The two who got away yesterday – and whoever came back to the valley to loot the parkas and weapons and pots and such – must have followed that track as they ran. I saw nothing new.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” said Crozier.

The fog whirled around them. Somewhere to the east, Peglar heard what sounded like big guns firing in a Naval engagement, but he’d heard that many times out here over the past two summers. It was distant thunder. In April. With the temperature still twenty degrees below freezing, at least.