The Terror

38 CROZIER

His men collapsed into tents and slept the sleep of the dead as soon as they reached Terror Camp, but Crozier did not sleep at all the night of 24 April.

First he went to a special medical tent that had been erected so that Dr. Goodsir could do the postmortem and prepare the body for burial. Lieutenant Irving’s corpse, white and frozen after its long voyage back to camp on the savages’ requisitioned sledge, did not look quite human. Besides the gaping wound on the throat – so deep that it exposed the white vertebrae of his spine from the front and made the head yaw back as if on a loose hinge – the young man had been emasculated and disemboweled.

Goodsir was still awake and working on the body when Crozier came into the tent. The surgeon was inspecting several organs removed from the corpse, poking at them with some sharp instrument. He glanced up and gave Crozier a strange, thoughtful, almost guilty look. Neither man said anything for a long moment as the captain stood over the body. Finally Crozier brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen over John Irving’s forehead. The lock had been almost touching Irving’s open, clouded but still staring blue eyes.

“Have his body ready for burial at noon tomorrow,” said Crozier.

“Yes, sir.”

Crozier went to his tent, where Fitzjames was waiting.

When Crozier’s steward, the 30-year-old Thomas Jopson, had supervised the loading and transport of “the captain’s tent” to Terror Camp some weeks ago, Crozier had been furious to learn that Jopson had not only had a double-sized tent sewn for the purpose – the captain had anticipated just a regular brown Holland tent – but had also had the men haul an oversized cot and several solid oak and mahogany chairs from the Great Room, as well as an ornate desk that had belonged to Sir John.

Now Crozier was glad for the furniture. He arranged the heavy desk between the tent entrance and the private bunking area with the two chairs behind the desk and none in front. The lantern hanging from the tall tent’s peak harshly illuminated the empty space in front of the desk while leaving the area for Fitzjames and Crozier in semidarkness. The space had the feel of a court-martial room.

That’s exactly what Francis Crozier wanted.

“You should go to bed, Captain Crozier,” said Fitzjames.

Crozier looked at the younger captain. He did not look young any longer. Fitzjames looked like a walking corpse – pale to the point of his skin becoming transparent, bearded with whiskers and dried blood from leaking follicles, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. Crozier had not looked at himself in a mirror for several days and had avoided the one hanging at the rear of this tent of his, but he hoped to Christ he did not look as bad as the former wunderkind of the Royal Navy, Commander James Fitzjames.

“You need some sleep yourself, James,” said Crozier. “I can interrogate these men myself.”

Fitzjames shook his head tiredly. “I questioned them, of course,” he said, his voice a dead monotone, “but haven’t visited the site or really interrogated them. I knew you would want to.”

Crozier nodded. “I want to be at the site by first light.”

“It’s about two hours’ brisk walk to the southwest,” said Fitzjames.

Crozier nodded again.

Fitzjames pulled his cap off and combed back his long, greasy hair with dirty fingers. They had used the boat stoves that had been transported here to melt water for drinking and just enough to shave by should an officer want to shave, but there was none left for bathing. Fitzjames smiled. “Caulker’s Mate Hickey asked if he could sleep until it was his time to report.”

“Caulker’s Mate Hickey can fucking well stay awake like the rest of us,” said Crozier.

Fitzjames said softly, “That’s more or less what I told him. I put him on guard duty. The cold should keep him awake.”

“Or kill him,” said Crozier. His tone suggested that this would not be the worst turn of events. In a loud voice, shouting to Private Daly who stood guard at the tent’s door, Crozier said, “Send in Sergeant Tozer.”

Somehow the large, stupid Marine managed to stay beefy even when all the men were starving on one-third rations. He stood at attention, minus his musket, as Crozier conducted the interrogation.

“What was your impression of today’s events, Sergeant?”

“Very pretty, sir.”

“Pretty?” Crozier remembered the condition of Third Lieutenant Irving’s throat and body as he lay in the postmortem tent immediately behind Crozier’s own tent.

“Aye, sir. The attack, sir. Went off like clockwork. Like clockwork. We come walking down that big hill, sir, muskets and rifles and shotguns lowered as if we had no harsh feelings in the world, sir, and them savages watched us come. We opened fire at less than twenty yards and raised pure holy Cain amongst their motley God-be-damned ranks, sir, that I can tell you. Raised pure holy Cain.”

“Were they in ranks, Sergeant?”

“Well, no, Captain, not as you might say on a Bible, sir. More like standing around like the savages they was, sir.”

“And your opening salvos cut them down?”

“Oh, aye, sir. Even the shotguns at that range. It was a sight to behold, sir.”

“Like shooting fish in a rain barrel?”

“Aye, sir,” said Sergeant Tozer with a huge grin on his red face.

“Did they put up any resistance, Sergeant?”

“Resistance, sir? Not really. Not any you might speak of, sir.”

“Yet they were armed with knives and spears and harpoons.”

“Oh, aye, sir. A couple of the godless savages threw their harpoons and one got a spear off, but them what flung them was already wounded and it done them no good but a little nick in the leg of young Sammy Crispe, who took his shotgun and blew the savage who nicked him straight to Hell, sir. Straight to Hell.”

“Yet two of the Esquimaux got away,” said Crozier.

Tozer frowned. “Aye, sir. I apologize about that. They was a lot of confusion, sir. And two of ’em who went down got up when we was shooting those pox-besotted dogs, sir.”

“Why did you shoot their dogs, Sergeant?” It was Fitzjames who asked this question.

Tozer looked surprised. “Why, they was barking and snarling and lunging at us, Captain. They was more wolves than dogs.”

“Did you consider, Sergeant, that they might have been useful to us?” asked Fitzjames.

“Yes, sir. As meat.”

Crozier said, “Describe the two Esquimaux that got away.”

“A little one, Captain. Mr. Farr said that he thought it might have been a woman. Or a girl. She had blood on her hood but obviously she wasn’t dead.”

“Obviously,” Crozier said drily. “What about the other one who escaped?”

Tozer shrugged. “A little man with a headband is all I know, Captain. He’d fallen behind the sledge there, and we all thought he was a deader. But he got up and run with the girl when we was busy shooting the dogs, sir.”

“Did you pursue them?”

“Pursue them, sir? Oh, yes, absolutely. We run our ar-… we run after them hard, Captain. And we was reloading and firing as we went, sir. I think I hit that little Esquimaux bitch again, but she didn’t slow down one whit, sir. They was just too fast for us. But they won’t be coming back this way no time soon, sir. We saw to that.”

“How about their friends?” Crozier said drily.

“Pardon, sir?” Tozer was grinning again.

“Their tribe. Village. Clan. Other hunters and warriors. These people came from somewhere. They haven’t been out on the ice all winter. Presumably they’ll return to that village, if they’re not there already. Did you consider that the other Esquimaux hunters – men who kill every day – might take it personally that we killed eight of their kindred, Sergeant?”

Tozer looked confused.

Crozier said, “You’re dismissed, Sergeant. Send in Second Lieutenant Hodgson.”

Hodgson looked as miserable as Tozer had complacent. The young lieutenant was obviously distraught over the death of his closest friend on the expedition and sickened by the attack he had ordered after he had come across Irving’s reconnaissance group and been led to Irving’s body.

“At ease, Lieutenant Hodgson,” said Crozier. “Do you need a chair?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell us how you came to join up with Lieutenant Irving’s group. Your orders from Captain Fitzjames were to go on a hunting expedition south of Terror Camp.”

“Yes, Captain. And we did that much of the morning. There was not so much as a rabbit track in the snow along the coast, sir, and we couldn’t get out onto the sea ice because of the height of the bergs piled up along the shore ice. So around ten a.m. we turned inland, thinking maybe there’d be sign of some caribou or foxes or musk oxen or something.”

“But there wasn’t?”

“No, sir. We came across the tracks of about ten people wearing soft-soled Esquimaux-type boots instead. That and their sledge and dog tracks.”

“And you followed those tracks back northwest instead of continuing hunting?”

“Yes.”

“Who made that decision, Second Lieutenant Hodgson? You or Sergeant Tozer, who was second in your party?”

“Me, sir. I was the only officer there. I made that and all the other decisions.”

“Including the final decision of attacking the Esquimaux?”

“Yes, sir. We spied on them a minute from the ridge where poor John had been murdered and gutted, and… well, you know what they did to him, Captain. The savages looked like they were preparing to leave, heading back to the southwest. That’s when we decided to attack them in force.”

“You had how many weapons, Lieutenant?”

“Our group had three rifles, two shotguns, and two muskets, sir. Lieutenant Irving’s group just had the one musket. Oh, and a pistol we fetched from John’s… from Lieutenant Irving’s greatcoat pocket.”

“The Esquimaux left the weapon in his pocket?” asked Crozier.

Hodgson paused a moment as if he had not considered this before. “Yes, sir.”

“Was there any other sign of theft of his personal possessions?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Hickey had reported to us as to how he’d seen the Esquimaux rob John… Lieutenant Irving… of his telescope and valise before they killed him up on the ridge, sir. When we got to that ridge, I could see through our own glass that the natives were going through his valise and passing his telescope around down there in the valley where I guess they’d stopped after murdering and… mutilating… him.”

“Were there tracks?”

“Pardon me, sir?”

“Tracks… of the Esquimaux… going down from the bare ridgeline where you found the lieutenant’s body to where the natives were going through his possessions.”

“Uh… yes, sir. I think so, Captain. I mean, I can remember a thin line of tracks that I thought were just John’s at the time but must have been the rest of theirs as well. They must have gone up and down in a line, sort of, Captain. Mr. Hickey said that they were all around him up on the bare ridge there as they cut his throat and… did the other things, sir. He said that it wasn’t all of them… not the women and the boy, maybe… but it was six or seven of the heathens. The hunters, sir. The younger men.”

“And the old man?” asked Crozier. “I understand that there was a toothless old man among the bodies when you were done.”

Hodgson nodded. “He had one tooth left, Captain. I can’t remember if Mr. Hickey said the old man was part of the group that killed John.”

“How was it that you first came upon Mr. Farr’s group – Lieutenant Irving’s reconnaissance party – if you had been following the Esquimaux’s tracks north, Lieutenant?”

Hodgson nodded briskly as if relieved to be asked a question he could answer with certainty. “We lost the natives’ footprints and sledge tracks about a mile south of where Lieutenant Irving was attacked, sir. They must have been moving more east then, across the low ridgetops where there was ice, but mostly rock, sir… you know, that frozen gravel. We couldn’t find their sledge or dog tracks or footprints anywhere in the valleys, so we continued due north, the way they’d been going. We came down off a hill and found Thomas Farr’s group – John’s reconnaissance party – just finishing their dinner. Mr. Hickey had come back to report on what he’d seen just a minute or two earlier, and I guess we frightened Thomas and his men… they thought we were the Esquimaux coming for them.”

“Did you observe anything odd about Mr. Hickey?” asked Crozier.

“Odd, sir?”

Crozier waited in silence.

“Well,” continued Hodgson, “he was shaking very hard. As if palsied. And his voice was very agitated, almost shrill. And he… well, sir… he was laughing some. Giggling, like. But all that’s to be expected from a man who’d just seen what he’d just seen, isn’t it, Captain?”

“And what did he see, George?”

“Well…” Hodgson looked down to regain his composure. “Mr. Hickey had told Captain of the Maintop Farr, and he repeated to me, that he’d been out to check on Lieutenant Irving and came over a ridge just in time to see these six or seven or eight Esquimaux stealing the lieutenant’s belongings and stabbing and mutilating him. Mr. Hickey said – he was still shaking hard, sir, very upset – that he’d seen them cut off John’s private parts.”

“You saw Lieutenant Irving’s body just a few minutes later, didn’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Aye, sir. It was about a twenty-five-minute walk from where Farr’s group had been eating dinner.”

“But you didn’t start shaking uncontrollably after you saw Irving’s body, did you, Lieutenant? Shaking for twenty-five minutes or more?”

“No, sir,” said Hodgson, obviously not understanding the reason for Crozier’s question. “But I threw up, sir.”

“And when did you decide to attack the Esquimaux group and kill all of them?”

Hodgson swallowed audibly. “After I spied them from the ridge through my glass going through John’s valise and playing with his telescope, Captain. As soon as we all took a look – Mr. Farr, Sergeant Tozer, and myself – and realized that the Esquimaux had turned their sledge around and were getting ready to leave.”

“And you gave the order to take no prisoners?”

Hodgson looked down again. “No, sir. I didn’t really think about it one way or the other. I was just so… angry.”

Crozier said nothing.

“I did tell Sergeant Tozer that we had to ask one of the Esquimaux about what happened, Captain,” the lieutenant continued. “So I guess I thought before the action that some would be alive after. I was just so… angry.”

“Who gave the actual order to fire, Lieutenant? You or Sergeant Tozer or Mr. Farr or someone else?”

Hodgson blinked several times, very rapidly. “I don’t remember, sir. I’m not sure there was an order given. I just remember that we got to within about thirty yards, perhaps less, and I saw several of the Esquimaux men grab their harpoons or spears or whatever they were, and then everyone along our line was firing and reloading and firing. And the natives were running and the women were screaming… the older woman kept screaming like, well, like the banshees you’ve told us about, Captain… a high, warbling, constant scream… even after several balls had hit her, she kept up that God-awful screaming. Then Sergeant Tozer walked up and stood over her with John’s pistol and… it all happened very fast, Captain. I’ve never been involved in anything like that.”

“Nor have I,” said Crozier.

Fitzjames said nothing. He’d been the hero of several wild land campaigns during the Opium Wars. His gaze now was downcast and seemed to be turned inward.

“If mistakes were made, sirs,” said Hodgson, “I take full responsibility. I was the ranking officer of the two groups with Jo-… with Lieutenant Irving dead. It’s all my responsibility, sirs.”

Crozier looked at him. The captain could feel the dead flatness of his own gaze. “You were the only officer present, Lieutenant Hodgson. For good or ill, it was and is your responsibility. In about four hours, I want to lead a party to the site of the murder and shootings. We’ll leave by lantern light and follow your sledge tracks back to the place, but I want to be there by the time the sun rises. You and Mr. Farr will be the only men from today’s actions that I want along with us. Get some sleep and be fed and ready to go by six bells.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And send in Caulker’s Mate Hickey.”