Dan Simmons - The Terror

Thirty-nine Erebuses and thirty-five Terrors remained, for a total muster of seventy-four men out of the one hundred twenty-six who had sailed from Greenland in the summer of 1845.

But four of these had suffered one or both of their feet being amputated in the last twenty-four hours and at least another twenty were almost certainly too sick, too injured, too starved, or too bone- and soul-weary to go on. A third of the expedition had reached their limit.

It was time for a reckoning.

“Almighty God,” intoned Crozier in his exhausted rasp, “with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity: We give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother John Diggle, age thirty-nine, out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching thee, that it it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, all of us here if it pleases thee, and thus to hasten thy kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of thy holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” croaked the sixty-two men still able to stand at muster stations.

“Amen,” came a few voices from the other twelve lying in tents.

Crozier did not dismiss the assembled men.

“Men of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror , members of the John Franklin Discovery Service Expedition, shipmates,” he rasped loudly. “Today we have to decide which way our paths shall carry us. You all remain – under both the Ship’s Articles and the Articles of the Royal Discovery Service which you signed with your oaths of honour – under my command and will continue to be so until you are released by me. You’ve followed Sir John, Captain Fitzjames, and me this far, and you have done well. Many of our friends and shipmates have gone home to Christ, but seventy-four of us have persevered. I am resolved in my heart that every man of you here at Rescue Camp today should survive to see England, home, and your families again, and God shall be my witness that I have done my best to make sure that this shall be the outcome of our efforts. But today I release you to decide your own path by which to reach that goal.”

The men murmured to one another. Crozier let that go on for a few seconds and then continued. “You’ve heard what we are doing – Dr. Goodsir to remain here with those too ill to travel, the healthier men to continue toward Back’s River. Are there any among you who still wish to attempt to find some other way to rescue?”

There was a silence as men looked down and scuffled their booted feet on the gravel, but then George Hodgson hobbled forward.

“Sir, some of us do, sir. Want to head back that is, Captain Crozier.”

The captain just looked at the young officer for a long moment. He knew that Hodgson was a stalking horse for Hickey, Aylmore, and a few of the more rebellious sea lawyers who had been stirring up the men with resentment for so many months, but he wondered if young Hodgson knew it.

“Back to where, Lieutenant?” Crozier asked at last.

“To the ship, sir.”

“Do you think Terror is still there, Lieutenant?” As if to punctuate his query, the sea ice south of them exploded in a series of shotgun blasts and earthquake rumbles. An iceberg hundreds of yards from shore crumbled and fell.

Hodgson shrugged like a boy. “Terror Camp will be, Captain, whether the ship still is or not. We left food and coal and boats at Terror Camp.”

“Aye,” said Crozier, “so we did. And we’d all welcome some of that food now – even some of the tinned food that killed some of us so terribly. But, Lieutenant, that was some eighty or ninety miles and almost one hundred days ago when we left Terror Camp. Do you and the others really think you can walk or haul your way back there into the teeth of winter? It would be late November by the time you made your way even to the camp. Total darkness. And you remember the temperatures and storms of last November.”

Hodgson nodded and said nothing.

“We ain’t going to walk ’til no late November,” said Cornelius Hickey, stepping out of the ranks to stand next to the slumped young lieutenant. “We think the ice is open along the shore back the way we come. We’ll sail and row around that fuckin’ cape we hauled five boats over like ’Gyptian slaves and be home in Terror Camp in a month.”

The assembled men mumured furtively among themselves.

Crozier nodded. “It may indeed open for you, Mr. Hickey. Or it may not. But even if it does, it’s more than a hundred miles back to a ship that may well be crushed and most certainly will be frozen fast by the time you get there. It’s at least thirty miles closer to the mouth of Back River from here and the odds of the inlet being free of ice south of here, near the river, are much greater.”

“You ain’t talking us out of this, Captain,” Hickey said firmly. “We talked it over ’mongst ourselves, and we’re going.”

Crozier stared at the caulker’s mate. The captain’s usual instinct to put down any insubordination immediately and with great strength and decisiveness rose in him, but he reminded himself that this was what he wanted. It was past time to get rid of the malcontents and to save those others who trusted his judgement. Besides, this late in the summer and in their escape attempt, Hickey’s plan might even be workable. It all depended upon where the ice broke up – if it broke up anywhere before the winter set in. The men deserved to choose their own last, best chance.

“How many are going with you, Lieutenant?” asked Crozier, speaking to Hodgson as if he would actually be the commander of the group.

“Well…,” began the young man.

“Magnus is going,” said Hickey, gesturing the giant forward. “And Mr. Aylmore.”

The sullen gunroom steward swaggered forward, his face filled with defiance and visible contempt toward Crozier.

“And George Thompson…,” continued the caulker’s mate.

Crozier was not surprised that Thompson would be part of Hickey’s cabal. The seaman had always been insolent and lazy and – as long as the rum lasted – drunk whenever possible.

“I’m going along, too,… sir,” said John Morfin, stepping up with the others.

William Orren, just turned 26, stepped forward without a word and stood with Hickey’s group.

Then James Brown and Francis Dunn – Erebus ’s caulker and caulker’s mate – joined the group. “We think it’s our best chance, Captain,” said Dunn and looked down.

Waiting for Reuben Male and Robert Sinclair to declare their intentions – realizing that if the majority of men standing at muster joined this group that all of his own plans for flight south were gone for good – Crozier was surprised when William Gibson, Terror ’s subordinate officers’ steward, and Stoker Luke Smith walked slowly forward. They’d been good men aboard ship and stalwart haulers.

Charles Best – a reliable Erebus seaman who had always been loyal to Lt. Gore – stepped forward with four other seamen in tow: William Jerry, Thomas Work, who had been sorely injured at Carnivale, young John Strickland, and Abraham Seeley.

The sixteen men stood there.

“Is that it then?” asked Crozier, feeling a hollow sense of relief that gnawed at his belly like the hunger that was always with him now. Sixteen men were standing there; they would need one boat, but they were leaving behind enough loyal men to head for Back River with him while also leaving enough to take care of the ill here at Rescue Camp. “I’ll give you the pinnace,” he said to Hodgson.