Dan Simmons - The Terror

“Gentlemen,” said the captain, “we have a burial to attend. Shall we head back?”

On the long trek back, Harry Peglar mulled over what he had seen – the frozen entrails of an officer he liked, the bodies and still-bright blood in the snow, the missing parkas and weapons and tools, Dr. Goodsir’s ghoulish examinations, Captain Crozier’s odd statement that he might “require your knowledge of these facts at some future time” as if he was preparing them to act as jurors at some future court-martial or court of inquiry.

Peglar anticipated writing all this down in the commonplace book he had been keeping for so long. And he hoped that he would find the opportunity to talk to John Bridgens after the burial service, before the groups of men from both boats went back to their own tents and mess circles and man-hauling teams. He wanted to hear what his dear wise Bridgens might have to say about all this.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’”

Lieutenant Irving had been Crozier’s officer, but Captain Fitzjames had a better voice – the lisp had all but disappeared – and a better way with Scripture, so Crozier was grateful that he was doing a majority of the burial-service reading.

All of the men in Terror Camp had turned out except those on watch, those in sick bay, or those performing essential services such as Lloyd in sick bay and Mr. Diggle and Mr. Wall and their mates labouring over the four whaleboat stoves cooking up some of the Esquimaux’s fish and seal meat for dinner. At least eighty men were at this graveside about a hundred yards from camp, standing like dark wraiths in the still-swirling fog.

“ ‘The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’”

The other surviving officers and two mates were to carry Irving to the grave. There was not enough wood at Terror Camp to make a coffin, but Mr. Honey, the carpenter, had found enough wood to knock together a door-sized pallet on which Irving’s body, now securely sewn into canvas, could be transported on and upon which the body could be lowered into the grave. Although the ropes were set across the grave in proper Naval fashion, as they would be for any land burial, there would not be much lowering to do. Hickey and his men had been unable to dig deeper than three feet – the ground below that level was as hard-frozen as solid stone – so the men had gathered scores of large stones to lay over the body before piling on the frozen topsoil and gravel, then more stones to lay over that. No one had real hopes that it would keep the white bears or the other summer predators out, but the labour was a sign of most of the men’s affection for John Irving.

Most of the men.

Crozier glanced over at Hickey, standing next to Magnus Manson and the Erebus gunroom steward who had been flogged after Carnivale, Richard Aylmore. There was a cluster of other malcontents around these men – several of the Terror seamen who had been eager to kill Lady Silence even if it took a mutiny to do so back in January – but, like all the others standing around the pathetic hole in the ground, they had their Welsh wigs and caps off and their comforters pulled up to their noses and ears.

Crozier’s middle-of-the-night interrogation of Cornelius Hickey in the captain’s command tent had been tense and terse.

“Good morning to you, Captain. Would you like me to tell you what I told Captain Fitzjames and…”

“Take off your slops, Mr. Hickey.”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“You heard me.”

“Aye, sir, but if you want to hear how it was when I saw the savages murderin’ poor Mr. Irving…”

“It’s Lieutenant Irving, Caulker’s Mate. I heard your story from Captain Fitzjames. Do you have anything to add or retract from it? Anything to amend?”

“Ah… no, sir.”

“Take those outer slops off. Mittens too.”

“Aye, sir. There, sir, how’s ’at? Shall I just set ’em over on the…”

“Drop them on the floor. Jackets off too.”

“My jackets, sir? It’s bloody cold in here… yes, sir.”

“Mr. Hickey, why did you volunteer to go search for Lieutenant Irving when he hadn’t yet been gone much more than an hour? No one else was worried about him.”

“Oh, I don’t think I volunteered it, Captain. My recollection is that Mr. Farr asked me to go look for…”

“Mr. Farr reported that you asked several times if Lieutenant Irving wasn’t overdue and volunteered to go find him on your own while the others rested after their meal. Why did you do that, Mr. Hickey?”

“If Mr. Farr says that… well, we must’ve been worried about him, Captain. The lieutenant, I mean.”

“Why?”

“May I put my jackets and slops back on, Captain? It’s bloody freezing in…”

“No. Take off your waistcoat and sweaters. Why were you worried about Lieutenant Irving?”

“If you’re concerned… that is, thinking I was wounded today, Captain, I wasn’t. The savages never saw me. No wounds on me, sir, I assure you.”

“Take that sweater off as well. Why were you worried about Lieutenant Irving?”

“Well, the lads and me… you know, Captain.”

“No.”

“We was just concerned, you know, that one of our party was missin’, like. Also, sir, I was cold, sir. We’d been sittin’ around to eat what little cold food we had. I thought that walkin’, following the lieutenant’s tracks to make sure he was all right, would warm me up, sir.”

“Show me your hands.”

“Pardon me, Captain?”

“Your hands.”

“Aye, sir. Pardon my shaking, sir. I ain’t been warm all day and with all my layers off but this shirt and…”

“Turn them over. Palms up.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Is that blood under your nails, Mr. Hickey?”

“Could be, Captain. You know how it is.”

“No. Tell me.”

“Well, we ain’t had real water what to bath ourselves in for months, sir. And what with the scurvy and dysentery-like, there’s a certain amount of bleedin’ when we see to the necessaries…”

“Are you saying that a Royal Navy petty officer on my ship wipes his arse with his fingers, Mr. Hickey?”

“No, sir… I mean… may I put my layers back on now, Captain? You can see I ain’t wounded or anything. This cold is enough to shrink a man’s…”

“Take your shirts and undershirts off.”

“Are you serious, sir?”

“Don’t make me ask a second time, Mr. Hickey. We don’t have a brig. Any man I send to the brig will spend time chained to one of the whaleboats.”

“Here, sir. How’s this. Just me flesh, freezing as it is. If my poor missus could see me now…”

“It didn’t say on your muster papers that you were married, Mr. Hickey.”

“Oh, my Louisa’s been dead going on seven years now, Captain. Of the pox. God rest her soul.”

“Why did you tell some of the other men before the mast that when it came time to kill officers, Lieutenant Irving should be the first?”

“I never said no such thing, sir.”

“I have reports of you saying that and other mutinous statements going back to before the Carnivale on the ice, Mr. Hickey. Why did you single out Lieutenant Irving? What had that officer ever done to you?”

“Why, nothing, sir. And I never said no such thing. Bring in the man who said I did and I’ll dispute it to his face and spit in his eye.”