Dan Simmons - The Terror

“God-damn it to God-damn fucking hell,” cried Hickey, pacing back and forth. “I wanted to put that last bullet into the high-and-mighty king’s fucking face while he watched, God- damn him. He robbed me.”

“Look, Mr. Hickey, sir,” said Golding, giggling. He pointed to what might be a body floating facedown in the dark water.

“It’s only the fucking coat,” said Aylmore, who had come cautiously out of the shadows with his shotgun raised.

“Only the fucking coat,” repeated Robert Golding.

“So he’s dead down there,” said Aylmore. “Can we get out of here before Des Voeux or someone comes to the sound of all the shooting? It’s two days back to the others and we still have the bodies to cut up before we can leave.”

“No one’s going anywhere yet,” said the caulker’s mate. “Crozier may still be alive.”

“All shot up like that, without his coat?” asked Aylmore. “And look at the greatcoat, Cornelius. The shotgun tore it apart.”

“He may still be alive. We’re going to make sure he’s not. And maybe the body will float to the surface.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Aylmore. “Shoot his dead body?”

Hickey wheeled on the man and glared, making the much-taller Aylmore step back. “Yes,” said Cornelius Hickey. “That’s precisely what I’m going to do.” To Golding he barked, “Go bring Thompson and Magnus and the surgeon. We’ll tie up the doctor tight to one of them seracs while Aylmore and Thompson and me search and you watch over Magnus and cut Lane and Goddard into small enough to haul easylike bits.”

“Me cut ’em up?” cried Golding. “You told me that’s why we were grabbin’ Goodsir, Cornelius. He was s’posed to do all the cutting up, not me.”

“Goodsir will do the carving in the future, Bobby,” said Hickey. “Tonight you have to do it. We can’t trust Dr. Goodsir yet… not until we get him back with our people and many miles away from here. You be a good boy and go get the doctor and tie him up to a serac, tight, use your best knots, and tell Magnus to bring the carcasses over here where you can carve ’em. And get blades from Goodsir’s kit and the big knives and carpenter’s saw I brung that are over in the bag.”

“Oh, all right,” said Golding. “But I’d rather search.” He trudged back out of the serac field.

“The captain must have left half his blood between where you shot him and here, Cornelius,” said Aylmore. “If he didn’t go into the water, he can’t hide anywhere here without leaving a trail.”

“That is precisely correct, Dickie my dear,” said Hickey with a strange smile. “If he’s not in the water he might crawl, but he cannot stop losing blood with wounds like that. We are going to search until we are sure he ain’t under the water nor curled up somewhere here in the seracs where he crawled and hid and bled himself to death. You start over there on the south side of the polynya , I’ll look to the north. We’ll go clockwise. If you see any wee sign, even a drop of blood, even a scuff in the snow, shout and stop. I’ll join you. And be careful. We don’t want the dying fucker jumping out of the shadows and grabbing one of our guns now, do we?”

Aylmore looked surprised and alarmed. “Do you really think he could be strong enough to do that? With three bullets and all those shotgun pellets in him, I mean? Without his coat, he’d freeze to death in a few minutes anyway. It’s getting much colder and the wind’s getting stronger. Do you really think he’s lying in wait for us, Cornelius?”

Hickey smiled and nodded toward the black pool. “No. I think he’s dead and drowned and down there. But we’re going to make fuckin’ sure. We’re not leaving here until we’re sure, even if we got to search until the God-poxed sun comes up.”

In the end, they searched for three hours under the light of the rising and then descending moon. There were no signs at all near the polynya nor amid the seracs nor on the open ice fields beyond the seracs in all directions nor on the high pressure ridges to the north and south and east: no blood trails, no footprints, no drag marks.

It took Robert Golding the full three hours to hack John Lane and William Goddard into the size pieces that Hickey had asked for, and even then the boy made a dreadful mess of it. Ribs, heads, hands, feet, and sections of spinal cord lay around him on all sides as if there had been an explosion in an abattoir. And young Golding himself was so covered with blood that he looked like a player in a minstrel show by the time Hickey and the others got back. Aylmore, Thompson, and even Magnus Manson were taken aback by their young apprentice’s appearance, but Hickey laughed long and hard.

The gunnysacks and burlap bags were filled with meat wrapped in oilcloths they’d brought. Yet still the bags leaked.

They untied Goodsir, who was shaking from the cold or shock.

“Time to go, Surgeon,” said Hickey. “The other chaps are waiting ten miles west of here on the ice to welcome you home.”

Goodsir said, “Mr. Des Voeux and the others will come after you.”

“No,” said Cornelius Hickey, his voice showing his absolute certainty, “they won’t. Not with them knowing that now we got at least three shotguns and a pistol. And that’s if they ever find out we was here, which I think they won’t.” To Golding, he said, “Give our new crewmate a sack of meat to carry, Bobby.”

When Goodsir refused to accept the bulging sack from Golding, Magnus Manson knocked him down, almost breaking the surgeon’s ribs. On the fourth attempt to hand him the dripping bag, after two more serious cuffings, the surgeon took it.

“Let’s go,” said Hickey. “We’re done here.”

First Mate Charles Des Voeux could not restrain himself from grinning as he and his eight men returned to Rescue Camp on the morning of Saturday, 19 August. For a change, he had nothing but good news to deliver to his captain and the men.

The ice pack had opened to floes and navigable leads only four miles out, and Des Voeux and his men had spent another day following the leads south until the strait became open water all the way to the Adelaide Peninsula and almost certainly to the inlet to Back River farther east around that peninsula. Des Voeux had seen the low hills of the Adelaide Peninsula less than twelve open-water miles away from an iceberg they’d climbed at their farthest-south extension of the ice pack. They could go no farther without a boat, which had made First Mate Des Voeux grin broadly then and which made him grin again now.

Everyone could leave Rescue Camp. Everyone there now had a chance at survival.

Almost better news to bring home was the fact that they had spent two days shooting seals on the floes at the edge of the new open sea out there on the strait. For two days and nights, Des Voeux and his men had gorged themselves on seal meat and blubber, their bodies craving the fat so much that even though the rich food made then sick – after weeks of only ship’s biscuit and slivers of old salt pork – vomiting just made them hungrier, and they laughed and began gorging again almost immediately.

Each of his eight men was dragging a carcass of a seal behind him now as they followed the bamboo wands across the last mile of coastal ice to the camp. The forty-six men in Rescue Camp would eat well tonight, as would again the eight triumphant explorers.

All in all, Des Voeux thought as they came up the shingle past the boats, hallooing and hurrahing to get the camp’s attention, other than the young squirt Golding turning back on his own that first day because of a belly ache, it had been almost a perfect expedition. For the first time in months – in years – Captain Crozier and the others would have news to celebrate.