Two seamen on the third sledge had literally dropped in their traces and were on their knees in the rutted snow. One man was weeping loudly and the other had unleashed a string of the most imaginative sailor curses Crozier had ever heard – and the captain had heard his fill over the decades.
“God-damn it!” shouted Crozier. “You’ve seen arctic mirages before. Belay that sniveling and cursing or you’ll be man-hauling that God-damn sledge by yourselves and I’ll be sitting on it with one boot up each of your arses. Get on your feet, by God! You’re men, not weak sisters. Fucking act like it!”
The two seamen got to their feet and clumsily brushed off ice crystals and snow. Crozier couldn’t immediately identify them by their slops and Welsh wigs and he did not want to.
The line of sledges started up again with much grunting but no cursing. Everyone knew that the high pressure ridge ahead of them, carved out as it had been by countless previous trips in the past weeks, was still going to be a Christ-fucking cob. They would have to lift and wrestle the heavy sledges up at least fifteen feet of steep incline between the perilous sixty-foot ice cliffs on either side. The threat of tumbling ice boulders would be very real then.
“It’s as if there’s some dark God who wants to torment us,” Thomas Blanky said almost cheerily. The ice master had no pulling duties and was still stumping alongside Crozier.
The captain did not respond to this, and after a minute Blanky fell back to stump along beside one of the outriding Marines.
Crozier called for one of the extra men to take his place in harness – something they had rehearsed doing without stopping the forward motion of the sledges – and when the extra hand took over, he stepped aside out of the ruts and checked his watch. They had been pulling about five hours. Looking behind, Crozier saw that the real Terror had been out of sight for some time, at least five miles and several low pressure ridges behind them. The mirage image had been a final offering from some evil arctic god that seemed intent on tormenting them all.
Still leader of this ill-fated expedition, Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier realized for the first time that he was no longer captain of a ship in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy Discovery Service. That part of his life – and being a seaman and Naval officer had been his life since he was a boy – was over forever. After being responsible for losing so many men and both his ships, he knew the Admiralty would never give him another command. In terms of his long Naval career, Crozier knew, he was now a dead man walking.
They were still two hard days of man-hauling away from Terror Camp. Crozier fixed his gaze on the tall pressure ridge ahead and trudged forward.
33 GOODSIR
From the private diary of Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir:
22 April, 1848 -
I have been four Days at this place we are calling Terror Camp. I believe it lives up to its name.
Captain Fitzjames is in Charge of sixty men here, including Myself.
I confess that when I first sledged within sight of the place last week, the first Image that came to mind was something out of Homer’s Iliad. The camp is set along the edge of a wide Inlet about two Miles south of a cairn raised almost two Decades ago at Victory Point by James Clark Ross. It is somewhat more Sheltered from the Wind and Snow blowing off the ice pack here.
Perhaps scenes from the Iliad were evoked by the 18 long boats pulled up in a row by the edge of the sea ice – 4 boats lying on their sides in the gravel, the other 14 Boats tied upright on Sledges.
Behind the Boats are 20 tents, ranging in Size from the small Holland tents of the Design we used almost a Year Ago when I accompanied the late Lieutenant Gore to Victory Point – each Holland tent is large enough for six men to sleep in, three per bag in the 5-foot-wide Wolfskin Blanket-Robe sleeping bags – to the somewhat larger tents made by the sailmaker, Murray, including tents meant for Captain Fitzjames and Captain Crozier and their personal stewards, and the largest two tents, each roughly the size of the Great Cabins on Erebus and Terror, one serving as Sick Bay, the other as the Seamen’s Mess Tent. There are other mess tents for warrant officers, petty officers, and the officers and their Civilian Counterparts, such as Engineer Thompson and Myself.
Or perhaps the Iliad was evoked because when one approaches Terror Camp at Night – and all of the Sledging Parties coming from HMS Terror to the Camp arrived after dark on their Third Day – one is first struck by the number of bonfires and campfires. There is no wood to burn, of course, except for some spare Oak brought from the crushed Erebus precisely for that Purpose, but many of the Last Remaining sacks of Coal had been ferried across the ice from the Ships over the past month, and many of these coal Fires were burning when I first saw Terror Camp. Some were in Fire Rings made from rocks; some were in four of the tall Braziers salvaged from the Carnivale Fire.
The effect was flames and light, added to by the occasional torch and lantern.
After spending several days in Terror Camp, I have decided that the place more resembles a Pirate Encampment than any camp of Akilleus, Odysseus, Agamemnon, and the other Homeric Heroes. The Men’s clothes are ragged, frayed, and many times repaired. Most are Ill or Limping or both. Their faces are Pale under sometimes Thick beards. Their eyes stare out of Sunken Sockets.
They swagger or stagger around with their Boat Knives dangling from crude belts set around their outer Slops in clanking Sheaths made from cut-down Bayonet Scabbards. It was Captain Crozier’s idea, as were the Goggles improvised from Wire Mesh that the men wear on sunny days to safeguard them from Sun blindness. The overall effect is one of a ragtag group of Ruffians.
And most now show signs of Scurvy.
I have been very busy in the Sick Bay Tent. The sledge teams had spent the Extra Energy to haul a Dozen Cots with them across the ice and over the Frightful Pressure Ridges (plus two more cots for their Captains’ tents), but at the moment I have 20 men in Sick Bay, so 8 are on Blanket Pallets set onto the cold ground itself. Three oil lamps provide us with Illumination during the long nights.
Most of the men sleeping in the Sick Bay have collapsed from Scurvy, but not all. Sergeant Heather is back in my care, complete with the gold sovereign Dr. Peddie had screwed into his skull to replace the bone Dashed Out with some of his brains by the Thing from the Ice. The Marines have been taking care of Heather for months and planned to continue to do so here at Terror Camp – the Sergeant was transported here on his Own Little Sled designed by Mr. Honey – but a possible Chill during the three days and nights of the Crossing has brought on a Pneumonia. This time, I do not expect the Marine Sergeant, who has been a disturbing Miracle of Survival, to Survive much longer.
Also here is David Leys, whom his crewmates call Davey. His catatonic condition has not changed in Months, but after the Crossing this week – he came Across with my group – he has not been able to keep down even the Thinnest Gruel or water. Today is Saturday. I do not expect Leys to be alive by this time Wednesday.