“Golding, I thought you were with Mr. Des Voeux’s group on the ice.”
“Yes, sir. I am, Mr. Thomas. I was.”
“Is Des Voeux back already?”
“No, Mr. Thomas. Mr. Des Voeux sent me back with a message for the captain.”
“You can tell me.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Mr. Des Voeux said I was to report only to the captain. Just the captain, sorry, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“What in hell is all the commotion out here?” asked Crozier, crawling out of his tent.
Golding repeated his instructions from the second mate to report only to the captain, apologized, stuttered, and was led away from the ring of tents by Crozier. “Now tell me what’s going on, Golding. Why aren’t you with Mr. Des Voeux? Has something happened to him and the reconnaissance group?”
“Yes, sir. I mean… no, Captain. I mean, something has happened, sir, out there on the ice. I wasn’t there when it did – we was left behind to hunt seals, sir, Francis Pocock and Josephus Greater and me, while Mr. Des Voeux went on farther south with Robert Johns and Bill Mark and Tom Tadman and the others yesterday, but this evenin’ they come back, just Mr. Des Voeux and a couple of the others, I mean, about an hour after we heard the shotguns.”
“Calm down, lad,” said Crozier, setting his hands firmly on the boy’s shaking shoulders. “Tell me what Mr. Des Voeux’s message was, word for word. And then tell me what you saw.”
“They’re both dead, Captain. Both of them. I saw the one – Mr. Des Voeux had her body on a blanket, sir, it was all tore up – but I ain’t seen the other one yet.”
“Who’s both dead, Golding?” snapped Crozier, although the “her” had already told him part of the truth.
“Lady Silence and the thing, Captain. The Esquimaux bitch and the thing from the ice. I seen her body. I ain’t seen its yet. Mr. Des Voeux said it’s next to a polyp about another mile out beyond where we was shootin’ at seals, and I’m to bring you and the doctor out to see it, sir.”
“Polyp?” said Crozier. “You mean polynya? One of the little lakes of open water in the ice?”
“Yes, Captain. I ain’t seen that yet, but that’s where the thing’s carcass is according to Mr. Des Voeux and Fat Wilson, who was with him and carrying and pulling the blanket like it was a sled, sir. Silence, she was in the blanket, you see, all tore up and dead. Mr. Des Voeux says to bring you and the doctor and no one else and for me not to tell no one else or he’ll have Mr. Johnson flog me when he gets back.”
“Why the doctor?” said Crozier. “Are some of our people hurt?”
“I think so, Captain. I’m not sure. They’re still out at the… the hole in the ice, sir. Pocock and Greater went on back south with Mr. Des Voeux and Fat Alex Wilson like Mr. D. V. said for them to, but he sent me back here and said to bring just you and the doctor, no one else. And not to tell no one else neither. Not yet. Oh… and for the surgeon to bring his kit with knives and such and maybe some larger knives for carvin’ up the thing’s carcass. Did you hear the shotgun blasts this evenin’, Captain? Pocock and Greater and me heard ’em, and we was a mile away from the polyp at least.”
“No. We wouldn’t make out shotgun reports from two miles away over the damnable constant cracking and breaking of the ice here,” said Crozier. “Think hard, Golding. Why exactly did Mr. Des Voeux say it should just be Dr. Goodsir and myself that come out to see… whatever it is?”
“He said he’s fairly sure the thing’s dead, but Mr. Des Voeux said it ain’t what we thought it was, Captain. He said it’s… I forget the words he used. But Mr. Des Voeux says it changes everything, sir. He wants you and the doctor to see it and know what happened there before anyone in the camp hears about it.”
“What did happen out there?” pressed Crozier.
Golding shook his head. “I don’t know, Captain. Pocock and Greater and me was hunting seals, sir… we shot one, Captain, but it slipped through its hole in the ice and we couldn’t get to it. I’m sorry, sir. Then we heard the shotguns to the south. And a little later, an hour maybe, Mr. Des Voeux shows up with George Cann, who was bleeding on his face, and Fat Wilson, and Wilson was pulling Silence’s body on a blanket he was draggin’ and she was all torn to pieces, only… we’re supposed to hurry back, Captain. While the moon’s up.”
Indeed, it was a rare, clear night after a rare, clear, red sunset – Crozier had been taking his sextant out of its box to get a star fix when he’d heard the commotion – and a huge, full, blue-white moon had just risen over the icebergs and ice jumble to the southeast.
“Why tonight?” asked Crozier. “Can’t this wait for morning?”
“Mr. Des Voeux said it can’t, Captain. He said to give you his compliments and would you be so kind as to bring Dr. Goodsir and come out about two miles – it ain’t longer than two hours’ walk, sir, even with the ice walls – to see what’s there by the polyanna.”
“All right,” said Crozier. “You go tell Dr. Goodsir I want him and for him to bring his medical kit and to dress warmly. I’ll meet the two of you at the boats.”
Golding led the four men out onto the ice – Crozier ignored the message from Des Voeux to come just with the surgeon and had ordered Bosun John Lane and Captain of the Hold William Goddard to come along with their shotguns – and then into the jumble of bergs and ice boulders, then over three high pressure ridges, and finally through serac forests where Golding’s earlier path back to the camp was marked not only by his boot prints in the blowing snow but also by the bamboo wands they’d hauled with them all the way from Terror. Des Voeux’s group had carried the wands with them two days earlier to mark their way back and to show the best pathway through the ice should they find open water and want the others to follow them with the boats. The moonlight was so bright that it threw shadows. Even the narrow bamboo wands were like moon dials throwing slashes of shadow lines onto the white-blue ice.
For the first hour there was only the sound of the laboured breathing, their boots crunching on snow and ice, and the cracking and groans all around them. Then Crozier said, “Are you sure she’s dead, Golding?”
“Who, sir?”
The captain’s frustrated exhalation became a small cloud of ice crystals gleaming in the moonlight. “How many ‘she’s’ are there around here, God-damn it? Lady Silence.”
“Oh, yes, sir.” The boy snickered. “She’s dead all right. Her titties was all tore off.”
The captain glared at the boy as they climbed another low pressure ridge and passed into the shadow of a tall blue-glowing iceberg. “But are you sure it’s Silence? Could it be another native woman?”
Golding seemed stumped by that question. “Is there more Esquimaux women out here, Captain?”
Crozier shook his head and gestured for the boy to continue leading.
They reached the “polyanna,” as Golding continued calling it, about an hour and a half after leaving camp.
“I thought you said it was farther out,” said Crozier.
“I ain’t never been even this far before,” said Golding. “I was back there hunting seals when Mr. Des Voeux found the thing.” He gestured vaguely behind and to the left of where they now stood by the opening in the ice.
“You said some of our people were injured?” asked Dr. Goodsir.
“Yes, sir. Fat Alex Wilson had blood on his face.”
“I thought you said it was George Cann who had a bloody face,” said Crozier.
Golding shook his head emphatically. “Uh-uh, Captain. It was Fat Alex who were bloody.”
“Was it his own blood or someone or something else’s?” asked Goodsir.