Dan Simmons - The Terror

The thing on the ice had killed men with about every variation of violence imaginable, and if the physical damage to poor Lieutenant Irving was vicious enough, no one on either ship would give a second thought as to what happened. Lieutenant John Irving would be just another canvas-wrapped corpse for Terror ’s Dead Room.

Magnus Manson was not a born killer – just a born idiot – but he’d murdered men for his caulker’s-mate lord and master before. It would not bother him to do so again. Cornelius Hickey doubted that Magnus would even ask himself why the lieutenant had to die – it was just another order from his master to be obeyed. So Hickey was surprised when the physical giant pulled him aside when Lieutenant Irving was out of earshot and whispered with some urgency, “His ghost won’t haunt me, will it, Cornelius?”

Hickey patted his huge partner on the back. “Of course not, Magnus. I wouldn’t tell you to do nothing that led to having a ghost haunt you, now would I, love?”

“No, no,” rumbled Manson, shaking his head in agreement. His wild hair and beard seemed to leap out from under the wool comforter and Welsh wig. His heavy brow furrowed. “By why won’t his ghost haunt me, Cornelius? Me killin’ him while not having nothing against him and all?”

Hickey thought fast. Bates and Sinclair were walking farther on to where a work party from Erebus was erecting a snow-block fence along a twenty-yard stretch where the wind always blew. More than one man had gotten lost in whiteouts there, and the captains thought that a snow fence would improve the couriers’ chances of finding the next cairns. Irving would make sure that Bates and Sinclair were busy on their task there, and then he’d walk back to where he and Magnus were working alone on the last cairn before the clearing.

“That’s why the lieutenant’s ghost won’t haunt you, Magnus,” he whispered to the stooping giant. “You kill a man in heat of temper, now that’s a reason for that man’s ghost to come back and try to get even with you. It resents what you did. But Mr. Irving’s ghost now, it’ll know there was nothing personal in what you had to do, Magnus. It won’t have no reason to come back to bother you.”

Manson nodded but did not look completely convinced.

“Besides,” continued Hickey, “the ghost won’t be able to find its soddin’ way back to the ship now, will it? Everyone knows that when someone dies outside here, so far from the ship, the ghost goes straight up. It can’t figure its way through all the ice ridges and bergs and such. Ghosts ain’t the smartest blokes around, Magnus. Take my word on that, m’love.”

The huge man brightened at hearing this. Hickey could see Irving returning through the torchlit gloom. The wind was coming up and causing the torch flames to dance wildly. Better if there’s wind , thought Hickey. If Magnus or Irving make some noise, no one’ll hear .

“Cornelius,” whispered Manson. He looked worried again. “If I die out here, does that mean my ghost won’t be able to find its way back to the ship? I’d hate to be out here in the cold so far away from you.”

The caulker’s mate patted the slop-shrouded wall of the giant’s back. “You ain’t going to die out here, love. You have my solemn promise as a Mason and a Christian on that. Now hush and get ready. When I take off my cap and scratch my head, you grab Irving from behind and drag him to where I showed you. Remember – don’t leave no boot prints behind and don’t get no blood on you.”

“I won’t, Cornelius.”

“That’s a good love.”

The lieutenant came closer in the darkness, moving into the dim circle of light thrown by the lantern on the ice here near the cairn. “Almost finished with this cairn, Mr. Hickey?”

“Aye, sir. Just set these last blocks up here and it’s done, Lieutenant. Solid as a lamppost in Mayfair.”

Irving nodded. He seemed to be uncomfortable to be alone with the two seamen, even though Hickey was using his most affable and charming voice. Well, fuck you , thought the caulker’s mate as he continued to show his gap-toothed smile. You ain’t going to be around much longer to put on such dandified airs, you blond-haired, apple-cheeked bastard. Five minutes and you’ll be just another frozen side of beef to hang down in the hold, boyo. Too bad them rats are so hungry these days that they’ll eat even a fucking lieutenant, but nothing I can do about that .

“Very good,” said Irving. “When you and Manson are finished, please join Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Bates on working on the wall. I’m going to walk back and bring up Corporal Hedges with his musket.”

“Aye, sir,” said Hickey. He caught Magnus’s eye. They had to intercept Irving before he walked back along the dimly visible line of torches and lanterns. It would do no good to have Hedges or another Marine up here.

Irving walked to the east but paused at the edge of the light, obviously waiting for Hickey to set the last two blocks of ice in place at the top of the rebuilt cairn. As the caulker’s mate bent to lift the penultimate square of ice, he nodded to Magnus. His partner had moved into position behind the lieutenant.

Suddenly there was an explosion of shouts from the darkness to the west. A man screamed. More voices joined in the shouting.

Magnus’s huge hands were hovering just behind the lieutenant’s neck – the big man had removed his mittens for a better grip, and his undergloves loomed black just beyond Irving’s pale face in the lantern light.

More shouts. A musket fired.

“Magnus, no !” shouted Cornelius Hickey. His partner had been about to break Irving’s neck despite the commotion.

Manson stepped back into the darkness. Irving, who had taken three steps toward the shouting in the west, whirled in confusion. Three men came running along the ice path from the direction of Terror . One of them was Hedges. The roly-poly Marine was wheezing as he ran, his musket held in front of his massive bulge of belly.

“Come!” said Irving and led the way toward the shouting. The lieutenant was carrying no weapon, but he’d grabbed up the lantern. The six of them ran across the sea ice, out of the seracs, into the starlit clearing where several men were milling. Hickey could make out the familiar Welsh wigs of Sinclair and Bates and recognized one of the three Erebuses already there as Francis Dunn, his caulker’s-mate counterpart on the other ship. He saw that the musket that had fired belonged to Private Bill Pilkington, who’d been in the hunting blind when Sir John was killed last June and who had been shot in the shoulder by one of his fellow Marines during those moments of chaos. Now Pilkington was reloading and then aiming the long musket into the darkness beyond a fallen section of the snow fence wall.

“What has happened?” Irving demanded of the men.

Bates answered. He, Sinclair, and Dunn, as well as Abraham Seeley and Josephus Greater from Erebus , had been working on the wall under the command of Erebus ’s first mate, Robert Orme Sergeant, when suddenly one of the larger blocks of ice just beyond the circle of lantern and torchlights had seemed to come alive.

“It lifted Mr. Sergeant ten feet into the air by his head,” said Bates, his voice shaking.

“It’s the God’s truth,” said Caulker’s Mate Francis Dunn. “One minute ’e was standin’ among us, next minute ’e’s flying up into the air so alls we can see is the bottom of ’is boots. And the noise… the crunching…” Dunn broke off and continued breathing hard until his pale face was all but lost in a halo of ice crystals.

“I was coming up to the torches when I saw Mr. Sergeant just… disappear,” said Private Pilkington, lowering the musket with shaking arms. “I fired once as the thing went back into the seracs. I think I hit it.”