Dan Simmons - The Terror

On that midnight-black morning of 26 December, Crozier and First Lieutenant Edward Little left the supervision of the shoveling and surface parties to Hodgson, Hornby, and Irving and made the long walk through the drifts to Erebus . Crozier was mildly shocked to find that Fitzjames had continued to lose weight – his waistcoat and trousers were several sizes too large for him now despite more obvious attempts by his steward to take them in – but he was even more shocked during their conversation when he realized that Erebus ’s commander was not fully paying attention most of the time. Fitzjames seemed distracted, rather like a man pretending to converse but whose actual attention was riveted on music being played in some adjoining room.

“Your men are dyeing sail canvas out on the ice,” said Crozier. “I saw them preparing large vats of green, blue, and even black dye. For perfectly good spare sail. Is this acceptable to you, James?”

Fitzjames smiled distantly. “Do you really think we shall need that sail again, Francis?”

“I hope to Christ we will,” grated Crozier.

The other captain’s serene and maddening little smile remained. “You should see our hold deck, Francis. The destruction has proceeded and accelerated since our last inspection the week before Christmas. Erebus would not stay afloat an hour in open water. The rudder is in splinters. And it was our spare.”

“New rudders can be jury-rigged,” said Crozier, fighting the urge to grind his teeth and clench his fists. “Carpenters can shore up sprung timbers. I’ve been working on a plan for digging a pit in the ice around both ships, creating dry docks about eight feet deep in the ice itself before the spring thaw. We can get to the outer hulls that way.”

“Spring thaw,” repeated Fitzjames and smiled almost conde-scendingly.

Crozier decided to change the subject. “You’re not worried about the men conducting this elaborate Venetian Carnivale?”

Fitzjames defied his gentleman’s heritage by shrugging. “Why should I be? I can’t speak for your ship, Francis, but Christmas on Erebus was an exercise in misery. The men need something to raise their morale.”

Crozier couldn’t argue the point about Christmas being an exercise in misery. “But a carnivale masque on the ice during another day of total darkness?” he said. “How many hands will we lose to the thing waiting out there?”

“How many will we lose if we hide in our ships?” asked Fitzjames. Both the small smile and the distracted air remained. “And it worked out all right when you had the first Venetian Carnivale under Hoppner and Parry in ’24.”

Crozier shook his head. “That was only two months after we were first frozen in,” he said softly. “And both Parry and Hoppner were fanatics about discipline. Even with all the frivolity and both captains’ love of theatrics, Edward Parry used to say, ‘masquerades without licentiousness’ and ‘carnivals without excess!’ Our discipline has not been so well maintained on this expedition, James.”

Fitzjames finally lost his distracted air. “Captain Crozier,” he said stiffly, “are you accusing me of allowing discipline to become lax aboard my ship?”

“No, no, no,” said Crozier, not knowing if he was accusing the younger man of that yet or not. “I am just saying that this is our third year in the ice, not our third month as it was with Parry and Hoppner. There’s bound to be some loss of discipline to go along with illness and sagging morale.”

“Would that not be all the more reason for allowing the men to have this diversion?” asked Fitzjames, his voice still brittle. His pale cheeks had coloured at his superior’s implied criticism.

Crozier sighed. It was too late to stop this God-damned masque now, he realized. The men had the bit in their teeth, and those on Erebus who were heading up the Carnivale preparations most enthusiastically were precisely those men who would be the first to foment mutiny should the time come. The trick as captain, Crozier knew, was never to allow that time to come. He honestly did not know whether this carnivale would help or hurt that cause.

“All right,” he said at last. “But the men have to understand that they may not waste even a lump, drop, or drip of coal, lamp oil, pyroligneous fuel, or ether for the spirit stoves.”

“They promise that it will be torches only,” said Fitzjames.

“And there’s no extra spirits or food for that day,” added Crozier. “We’ve just gone on the severely reduced rations today. We’re not changing that on the fifth day for a masque carnivale that neither of us fully endorsed.”

Fitzjames nodded. “Lieutenant Le Vesconte, Lieutenant Fairholme, and some of the men who are better than average rifle shots will go on hunting parties this week before the carnivale in hopes of finding game, but the men understand that it is rations as usual – or rather, the new, reduced fare – should the hunters return empty-handed.”

“As they have every other time in the past three months,” muttered Crozier. In a friendlier voice, he said, “All right, James. I’ll be getting back.” He paused at the doorway of Fitzjames’s tiny cabin. “By the way, why are they dyeing the sails green, black, and those other colours?”

Fitzjames smiled distractedly. “I have no idea, Francis.”

The morning of Friday, 31 December, 1847, dawned cold but still – although of course there was no real dawn. Terror ’s morning watch under Mr. Irving registered the temperature as −73 degrees. There was no measurable wind. Clouds had moved in during the night and now concealed the sky from horizon to horizon. It was very dark.

Most of the men seemed eager to head off to Carnivale as soon as breakfast was finished – a faster meal on the new rations, consisting of a single ship’s biscuit with jam and a reduced scoop of Scotch barley mush with a dollop of sugar – but all ship’s duties had to be attended to and Crozier had agreed to liberty for general attendance at the gala only after the day’s work and supper were finished. Still, he’d agreed that those men without specific duties that day – holystoning the lower deck, the usual watches, deicing the rigging, deck shoveling, ship repair, cairn repair, tutoring – could go work on final preparations for the masque, and about a dozen men headed off into the darkness after breakfast, two Marines with muskets accompanying them.

By noon and the issuing of the further-diluted grog, the excitement of the remaining ship’s company was a palpable thing. Crozier released six more men who’d finished their day’s duties and sent Second Lieutenant Hodgson along with them.

That afternoon, while pacing the stern deck in the dark, Crozier could already see the bright glow of torches just beyond the largest iceberg rising between the two ships. There still was no wind or starlight.

By supper time, the remaining men were as fidgety as young children on Christmas Eve. They finished their meal in record time, although with the reduced rations – since this Friday was not a “flour day” with baking, they were eating little more than Poor John, some Goldner canned vegetables, and two fingers of Burton’s ale – and Crozier didn’t have the heart to hold them in the ship while the officers finished their more leisurely mess. Besides, the remaining officers on board were as eager as the seamen to go to Carnivale. Even the engineer, James Thompson, who rarely showed interest in anything outside the machinery in the hold and who had lost so much weight he resembled an ambulatory skeleton, was on the lower deck and dressed and ready to go.

So by 7:00 p.m., Captain Crozier found himself bundled in every layer he could add on, making the final inspection of the eight men left to watch the ship – First Mate Hornby had the duty but would be relieved before midnight by young Irving, who would return with three seamen so that Hornby and his watch could attend the gala – and then they were descending the ice ramp to the frozen sea and walking briskly through −80-degree air toward Erebus . The crowd of thirty-some men soon strung out into a long line in the dark, and Crozier found himself walking with Lieutenant Irving, Ice Master Blanky, and a few petty officers.