The steward went to the wall of books set into the stern bulkhead and pulled two large volumes, bringing them over to the table and setting them down with a thud. “I know you’re aware, Captain, that in 1829, Sir John Ross and his nephew James sailed their ship Victory down the east coast of Boothia Felix – the peninsula they discovered and which we now call Boothia Peninsula.”
“I am very aware of this, Mr. Bridgens,” Crozier said coldly. “I know Sir John and his nephew Sir James very well.” After five years in the ice of Antarctica with James Clark Ross, Crozier thought he was understating the acquaintance.
“Yes, sir,” said Bridgens, nodding but not seeming abashed. “Then I’m sure you know the details of their expedition, Captain Crozier. They spent four winters in the ice. That first winter, Sir John anchored Victory in what he named Felix Harbour on the east coast of Boothia… almost due east of our position here.”
“Were you on this expedition, Mr. Bridgens?” asked Crozier, willing the old man to get on with it.
“I did not have that honor, Captain. But I have read these two large volumes written by Sir John detailing his expedition. I wondered if you have had the time to do the same, sir.”
Crozier felt his Irish anger building. This old steward’s brashness was skirting on impertinence. “I have looked at the books, of course,” he said coolly. “I have not had the time to read them carefully. Is there a point to this, Mr. Bridgens?”
Any other officer, warrant officer, petty officer, seaman, or Marine under Crozier’s command would have received the message and been backing out of the Great Cabin while bowing low by now, but Bridgens seemed oblivious of his expedition commander’s irritation.
“Yes, Captain,” said the old man. “The point is that John Ross…”
“Sir John,” interrupted Crozier.
“Of course. Sir John Ross had much the same problem we do now, Captain.”
“Nonsense. He and James and Victory were frozen in on the east side of Boothia, Bridgens, precisely where we’d like to sledge to if we have the time and wherewithal. Hundreds of miles east of here.”
“Yes, sir, but at the same latitude, although Victory didn’t have to face this God-cursed pack ice coming down from the northwest all the time, thanks to Boothia. But she spent three winters in the ice there, Captain. James Ross sledged more than six hundred miles west across Boothia and the ice to King William Land just twenty-five miles sou’southeast of us, Captain. He named Victory Point… the same point and cairn site that poor Lieutenant Gore sledged to last summer before his unfortunate accident.”
“Do you think I don’t know that Sir James discovered King William Land and named Victory Point?” demanded Crozier. His voice was taut with irritation. “He also discovered the God-damned north magnetic pole during that expedition, Bridgens. Sir James is… was… the most outstanding long-distance sledger of our era.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bridgens. His small steward’s smile made Crozier want to strike him. The captain knew – had known before sailing – that this old man was a well-known sodomite, at least on shore. After the caulker mate’s near mutiny, Captain Crozier was sick of sodomites. “My point is, Captain Crozier, that after three winters in the ice, with his men as sick with scurvy as ours will be by this summer, Sir John decided that they would never get out of the ice and sank Victory in ten fathoms of water there off the east coast of Boothia, due east of us, and they headed north to Fury Beach, where Captain Parry had left supplies and boats.”
Crozier realized that he could hang this man, but he could not shut him up. He frowned and listened.
“You remember, Captain, that Parry’s supplies of food and boats were there at Fury Beach. Ross took the boats and sailed north along the coast to Cape Clarence, where from the cliffs there they could see north across Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound to where they hoped to find whaling ships… but the sound was solid ice, sir. That summer was as bad as our last two summers have been and as this coming one may be.”
Crozier waited. For the first time since his deathly illness in January, he wished he had a glass of whiskey.
“They went back to Fury Beach and spent a fourth winter there, Captain. Men were close to dying of scurvy. The next July… 1833, four years after they had entered the ice up there… they set out in the small boats north and then east down Lancaster Sound past Admiralty Inlet and Navy Board Inlet, when on the morning of twenty-five August, James Ross… Sir James now… saw a sail. They waved, hallooed, and fired rockets. The sail disappeared east over the horizon.”
“I remember Sir James mentioning something about that,” Crozier said drily.
“Yes, Captain, I imagine he would,” said Bridgens with his maddening little pedant’s smile. “But the wind calmed, and the men rowed like smoke and oakum, sir, and they caught up to the whaler. She was the Isabella, Captain, the same ship that Sir John had commanded way back in 1818.
“Sir John and Sir James and the crew of Victory spent four years in the ice at our latitude, Captain,” continued Bridgens. “And only one man died – the carpenter, a Mr. Thomas, who had a dyspeptic and disagreeable disposition.”
“Your point?” asked Crozier again. His voice was very flat. He was too aware that more than a dozen men had died under his command on this expedition.
“There are still boats and stores at Fury Beach,” said Bridgens. “And my guess is that any rescue party sent out for us – last year or this coming summer – will leave more boats and stores there. It’s the first place the Admiralty will think of to leave caches for us and for future rescue parties. Sir John’s survival assured that.”
Crozier sighed. “Are you in the habit of thinking like the Admiralty, Subordinate Officers’ Steward Bridgens?”
“Sometimes, yes,” said the old man. “It’s a habit of decades, Captain Crozier. After a while, proximity to fools forces one to think like a fool.”
“That will be all, Steward Bridgens,” snapped Crozier.
“Aye, sir. But read the two volumes, Captain. Sir John lays it all out – how to survive on the ice. How to fight the scurvy. How to find and use Esquimaux natives to help in the hunting. How to build little houses out of blocks of snow…”
“That will be all, Steward!”
“Aye, sir.” Bridgens knuckled his forehead and turned toward the companionway, but not before sliding the two thick volumes closer to Crozier.
The captain sat alone in the freezing Great Cabin for another ten minutes. He listened to the Erebuses clatter up the main ladderway and stomp across the deck above. He heard shouts as Terror officers on deck bid their comrades farewell and wished them a safe crossing of the ice. The ship quieted except for the bustle of men settling down after their supper and grog forward. Crozier heard the tables ratcheted up in the crewmen’s berthing area. He heard his officers clump down the ladderway, hang their slops, and come aft for their own supper. They sounded more chipper than they had at breakfast.
Crozier finally stood – stiff with cold and body aches – lifted the two heavy volumes, and carefully set them back in their place on the shelf set into the aft bulkhead.
31 GOODSIR
The surgeon woke to shouts and screaming.