Dan Simmons - The Terror

“Surely, Captain,” said the surgeon, “you don’t expect Hickey, Hodgson, and the others to come back here?”

Crozier held up his gloved hands and shrugged. Light snow whipped around and between the men. “He still might want David Leys. Or the corpses of Mr. Diggle and Mr. Honey. Or even you, Doctor.”

Goodsir shook his head and shared his thoughts about the bodies – starting with Private Heather – that lay along the return way to Terror Camp like frozen food caches.

“Aye,” said Charles Des Voeux, “we’ve thought of that. It’s probably the main reason that Hickey thought he could get back to Terror . But we’re still going to mount a round-the-clock watch here at Rescue Camp for a few days and send Bosun’s Mate Johnson here out with a man or two to follow Hickey’s group for three or four days – just to be sure.”

“As for our future here, Dr. Goodsir,” rasped Crozier, “what do you see?”

It was the surgeon’s turn to shrug. “Mr. Jopson, Mr. Helpman, and Engineer Thompson will not live more than a few days,” he said softly. “Of my other fifteen or so scurvy patients, I simply do not know. A few might survive… the scurvy, I mean. Especially if we find fresh meat for them. But of the eighteen men who may stay here at Rescue Camp with me – Thomas Hartnell has volunteered to stay on as my assistant, by the way – only three, perhaps four, will be capable of going out to hunt seals on the ice or foxes inland. And they not for long. I would presume that the rest of those who remain here will have died of starvation no later than fifteen September. Most of us sooner than that.”

He left unstated that some might survive awhile longer here by eating the bodies of the dead. He also did not mention that he, Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir, had decided that he would not turn cannibal to survive, nor help those who found need to. His dissection instructions at the previous day’s muster assembly were his last words on the subject. Yet he would also never cast judgement on the men here at Rescue Camp or on the expedition south who did end up eating human flesh to last a short while longer. If any man on the Franklin Expedition understood that the human body was a mere animal vessel for the soul – and only so much meat once that soul had departed – it was their surviving surgeon and anatomist, Dr. Harry Goodsir. Not extending his own life a few weeks or even months longer by partaking of such dead flesh was his own decision, for his own moral and philosophical reasons. He had never been an especially good Christian, but he preferred to die as one nonetheless.

“We may have an alternative,” Crozier said softly, almost as if reading Goodsir’s thoughts. “I’ve decided this morning that the Back’s River party can stay here at Rescue Camp another week – perhaps ten days, depending upon the weather – in hopes that the ice will break up and that we can all depart here on boats… even the dying.”

Goodsir frowned dubiously at the four boats around them. “Can so many of us fit in these few craft?” he asked.

“Don’t forget, Doctor,” said Edward Couch, “there are nineteen fewer of us now after the malcontents’ departure this morning. And two more dead since yesterday morn. That’s only fifty-three souls for four good boats, ourselves included.”

“And, as you say,” said Thomas Johnson, “more will die in the coming week.”

“And we have almost no food to haul now,” said Corporal Pearson from where he sprawled against the inverted whaleboat. “I wish to God it was otherwise.”

“And I’ve decided to leave all the tents behind,” said Crozier.

“Where will we shelter in a storm?” asked Goodsir.

“Under the boats on the ice,” said Des Voeux. “Under the boat covers on open water. I did it during my attempt to reach the Boothia Peninsula last March, in the middle of winter, and it’s warmer under or in a boat than in those fucking tents… excuse my language, Captain.”

“You’re excused,” said Crozier. “Also, the Holland tents each weigh three or four times what they did when we started this voyage. They never dry out. They must have soaked up half the moisture in the arctic.”

“So has our underlinens,” said Mate Robert Thomas.

Everyone laughed to one extent or another. Two of them ended the laughter with coughs.

“I’m also planning to leave all but three of the big water casks behind,” said Crozier. “Two of them will be empty when we set out. Each boat will have only one of the small casks for storage.”

Goodsir shook his head. “How will your men slake their thirst while you’re in the strait waters or on the ice there?”

“ Our thirst, Doctor,” said the captain. “If the ice opens, remember that you and the sick men will be coming along, not staying here to die. And we’ll refill the casks regularly when we get to the fresh water of Back’s River. Until then, I have a confession. We – the officers – did hoard one thing we did not confess to yesterday at the Dividing Up. A bit of spirit stove fuel hidden under the false bottom of one of the last rum casks.”

“We’ll melt ice and snow for drinking water on the ice,” said Johnson.

Goodsir nodded slowly. He had been so reconciled to the certainty of his own death in the coming days or weeks that even the thought of potential salvation was almost painful. He resisted the urge to allow his hopes to rise again. Odds were overwhelming that everyone – Hickey’s group, Mr. Male’s three adventurers, Crozier’s south-rowing group – would be dead in the coming month.

Again as if reading his thoughts, Crozier said to Goodsir, “What will it take, Doctor, to give us a chance to survive the scurvy and weakness for the three months it may take us to row upriver to Great Slave Lake?”

“Fresh food,” the surgeon said simply. “I am convinced that we can beat back the disease in some of the men if we can get fresh food. If not vegetables and fruits – which I know are impossible up here – then fresh meat, especially fat. Even animal blood will help.”

“Why will meat and blubber arrest or cure such a terrible disease, Doctor?” asked Corporal Pearson.

“I have no idea,” said Goodsir, shaking his head, “but I am as certain of it as I am that we will all die of scurvy if we do not get fresh meat… even before starvation will kill us.”

“If Hickey or the others reach Terror Camp,” said Des Voeux, “will the tinned Goldner food serve the same purpose?”

Goodsir shrugged again. “Possibly, although I agree with my late colleague, Assistant Surgeon McDonald, that fresh food is always better than canned. Also, I am convinced that there were at least two types of poisons in the Goldner tins – one slow and nefarious, the other, as you remember with poor Captain Fitzjames and some others, very quick and terrible. Either way, we’re better off seeking and finding fresh meat or fish than they are pinning their hopes on aging tins from the Goldner victuallers.”

“We hope,” said Captain Crozier, “that once out on the open water of the inlet, amidst the free-floating floes, seals and walruses will be available in plentitude before the real winter sets in. Once on the river, we’ll put in from time to time to hunt deer, foxes, or caribou, but may have to pin our hopes on catching fish… a real probability according to such explorers as George Back and our own Sir John Franklin.”

“Sir John also ate his shoes,” said Corporal Pearson.

No one reprimanded the starving Marine, but neither did anyone laugh or respond until Crozier said, his rasping voice sounding totally serious, “That’s the real reason I brought along hundreds of extra boots. Not just to keep the men’s feet dry – which, as you have seen, Doctor, was an impossibility. But to have all that leather to eat during the penultimate portion of our trek south.”