The endgame had always been the weakest part of John Bridgens’s chess skills. He rarely enjoyed it.
On the evening before they were scheduled to leave River Camp at dawn, Bridgens neatly packed away his personal gear – including the thick journal he had kept over the past year (he had left five longer ones on Terror the previous 22 April) – set it in his sleeping bag with a note that anything useful should be shared by his mates, took Harry Peglar’s journal and his comb, added an old clothes brush that Bridgens had carried for many years, put them in his peacoat pocket, and went to Dr. Goodsir’s small medical tent to say good-bye.
“What do you mean you’re going for a walk and might not be back by the time we leave tomorrow?” demanded Goodsir. “What kind of talk is that, Bridgens?”
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I just have a strong desire to take a stroll.”
“A stroll,” repeated Goodsir. “Why, Mr. Bridgens? You are thirty years older than the average surviving seaman on this expedition, but you are ten times healthier.”
“I’ve always been lucky when it came to health, sir,” said Bridgens. “All due to heredity, I fear. No thanks to any wisdom I may have shown over the years.”
“Then why…,” began the surgeon.
“It’s just time, Dr. Goodsir. I confess to considering trodding the boards as a thespian long ago when I was young. One of the few things I learned about that profession was that the great actors learn how to make a good exit before they wear out their welcome or overplay a scene.”
“You sound like a Stoic, Mr. Bridgens. A follower of Marcus Aurelius. If the emperor is displeased with you, you go home, draw a warm bath…”
“Oh, no, sir,” said Bridgens. “While I admit I’ve always admired the Stoic philosophy, the truth is, I’ve always had a fear of knives and blades. The emperor would’ve had my head, my family, and lands for certain, I’m such a coward when it comes to sharp edges. I just wish to take a walk this evening. Perhaps a nap.”
“ ‘Perchance to dream’?” said Goodsir.
“Aye, there’s the rub,” admitted the steward. The rue and anxiety – and perhaps fear – in his voice were real.
“Do you really think we have no chance to reach help?” asked the surgeon. He sounded sincerely curious and only a little sad.
Bridgens did not answer for a minute. Finally he said, “I truly do not know. Perhaps it all depends upon whether a rescue party has already been sent north from Great Slave Lake or one of the other outposts. I would think they might have – we have been out of touch for three years now – and if so, there may be a chance. I do know that if anyone on our expedition could get us home, Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier is that man. He’s always been underrated by the Admiralty, is my humble opinion.”
“Tell him that yourself, man,” said Goodsir. “Or at least tell him that you’re leaving. You owe him that.”
Bridgens smiled. “I would, Doctor, but you and I both know that the captain would not let me go. He is stoic, I think, but no Stoic. He might put me in chains to keep me… going on.”
“Yes,” agreed Goodsir. “But you’ll be doing me a favour if you stay, Bridgens. I have some amputations coming up that will require your steady hand.”
“There are other young men who can help you, sir, and who have hands far steadier – and stronger – than mine.”
“But no one as intelligent,” said Goodsir. “No one I can talk to as I have with you. I value your advice.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Bridgens. He smiled again. “I didn’t want to tell you, sir, but I’ve always been queasy around pain and blood. Since I was a boy. I’ve very much appreciated the opportunity to work with you these past weeks, but it’s gone against my basically squeamish nature. I’ve always agreed with St. Augustine when he said that the only real sin is human pain. If there are amputations coming, it’s best I’m going.” He extended his hand. “Good-bye, Dr. Goodsir.”
“Good-bye, Bridgens.” The doctor used both of his hands to shake the older man’s.
Bridgens walked northeast out of camp, climbed up out of the shallow river valley – as with everywhere else on King William Island, no hill or ridgeline was much higher than fifteen or twenty feet above sea level – found a rocky ridgeline free of snow, and followed it away from camp.
Sunset now came sometime around 10:00 p.m., but John Bridgens had decided that he would not walk until dark. About three miles from River Camp, he found a dry spot on the ridge, sat, and took a ship’s biscuit – his day’s ration – from his peacoat pocket and slowly ate it. Completely stale, it was one of the most delicious things he’d ever tasted. He had neglected to bring water with him, but now he scooped up a bit of snow and let it melt in his mouth.
The sunset to the southwest was beautiful. For an instant the sun actually emerged in the gap between low grey cloud and high grey gravel, hung there as an orange ball for a moment – the kind of sunset that Odysseus, not Lear, would have seen and enjoyed – and then disappeared.
The day and air grew grey and mellow, although the temperature, that had held in the twenties all day, was dropping very quickly now. A wind would come up soon. Bridgens would like to be asleep before the nightly wind howled out of the northwest or the nightly lightning storms rolled across the land and ice strait.
He reached into his pocket and removed the last three items there.
First was the clothes brush that John Bridgens had used as steward for more than thirty years. He touched the bits of lint on it, smiled at some irony understood only by himself, and set it in his other pocket.
Next was Harry Peglar’s horn comb. A few light brown hairs still clung to the teeth of it. Bridgens held the comb tightly in his cold, bare fist for a moment and then set it in his coat pocket with the clothes brush.
Last was Peglar’s notebook. He flipped it open at random.
Oh Death whare is thy sting, the grave at Comfort Cove for who has any doubt now… the dyer sad.
Bridgens shook his head. He knew that the last word should be “said,” whatever else the water-stained and illegible part of the message should have read. He had taught Peglar to read but had never succeeded in teaching Harry how to spell. Bridgens suspected – since Harry Peglar was one of the most intelligent human beings he’d ever known – that there had been some problem with the constitution of the man’s brain, some lobe or lump or grey area unknown to medical learning, that controlled the spelling of words. Even in the years after he’d learned to decode the alphabet and read the most challenging of books with a scholar’s insight and understanding, Harry had been unable to pen the shortest letter to Bridgens without reversing letters and misspelling the simplest words.
Oh Death whare is thy sting…
Bridgens smiled a final time, set the journal in his front jacket pocket where it would be safe from small scavengers because he would be lying on it, and stretched out on his side on the gravel, laying his cheek on the backs of his bare hands.
He stirred only once, to tug his collar up and his hat down. The wind was coming up and it was very cold. Then he resumed his napping position.
John Bridgens was asleep before the last of the grey twilight died in the south.
51 CROZIER
They’d hauled for two weeks to the southeastern-most tip of the island – the point where the King William Island shoreline abruptly began curving north and east – and then they’d stopped to set up tents, send out hunting parties, and catch their breath while waiting and watching for openings in the sea-strait ice to the south. Dr. Goodsir had told Crozier that he needed time to deal with the sick and injured they’d been hauling in their five boats. They named the campsite Land ’s End.