Captain Crozier and Captain Fitzjames now find themselves without three of their Four Surgeons and without the Advice and Services of two of their most trusted officers.
Eighteen other men were injured – six seriously – during the Venetian Carnivale Nightmare. Of those six – Ice Master Mr. Blanky from Terror; Carpenter’s Mate Wilson, also from that ship (the men affectionately call him “Fat Wilson”); Seaman John Morfin, with whom I Traveled to King William Land some months ago; Erebus’s purser’s steward, Mr. William Fowler; Seaman Thomas Work, also from Erebus; and Terror boatswain Mr. John Lane – I am pleased to report that all should survive. (Although it is another irony that Mr. Blanky, who had suffered less serious injuries from the Same Creature only less than a Month Ago – injuries to which all four of us Surgeons applied our time and expertise – had not been burned at the Carnivale Mayhem but was injured yet again in the right leg – mauled or bitten by the thing from the ice, he believes, although he says that he was cutting his way through burning Canvas and Rigging at the time. This time I had to amputate his right leg just below the knee. Mr. Blanky remains remarkably Chipper for a man who has sustained so much damage in so Short a Time.)
Yesterday, Monday, all of us Survivors witnessed Floggings. It was the first such Naval Corporal Punishment I have ever seen and I Pray God that I shall never see more.
Captain Crozier – who has been visibly consumed by an Anger Beyond Words since the Fire last Friday night – assembled every Surviving Crew Member of both ships on the lower deck of Erebus at 10:00 a.m. yesterday. The Royal Marines made a line with muskets at the vertical. Drums were beaten.
Erebus gunroom steward Mr. Richard Aylmore and Terror caulker’s mate Cornelius Hickey, as well as a truly huge common Seaman named Magnus Manson, were marched bareheaded and wearing only their trousers and undershirts to a place in front of the ship’s Stove, where a wooden Hatch Cover had been rigged vertically. One by one, starting with Mr. Aylmore, they were Tied to this Hatch.
But before this, the men were made to stand there, Aylmore’s and Manson’s heads bowed, Hickey’s upright and defiant, as Captain Crozier read the charges.
For Aylmore, it was fifty lashes for Insubordination and Reckless Behavior endangering his ship. If the quiet gunroom steward had simply come up with the idea for the coloured tents – an Idea he acknowledged had come from some Fantastical American Magazine Story – the Punishment would have been certain but less Severe. But in addition to being a Primary Planner of the Grand Venetian Carnivale, Aylmore had made the Mistake of costuming himself as the Headless Admiral – a Major Impropriety, given the circumstances surrounding Sir John’s death, and one we all understood could have resulted in Aylmore’s hanging. We had each heard tales of Aylmore’s private Testimony before the Captains in which he had described how he had Screamed and then Fainted in the Ebony Room upon Realizing that the Thing from the Ice was there in the Darkness with the mummers.
For Manson and Hickey, it was fifty lashes for Sewing and Wearing the Dead Bears’ animal skins – a violation of all of Captain Crozier’s previous Orders about not wearing such Heathen Fetishes.
It was understood that fifty or more other men were Complicit in the Planning, Rigging, Dyeing of Sails, and Staging of the Grand Carnivale, and that Crozier could have handed out an Equal Number of Lashes to all. In a sense, this Sad Trinity of Aylmore, Manson, and Hickey was receiving Punishment for the Entire Crew’s bad judgement.
As the drums stopped beating and the Men stood in a line before the Assembled Crews, Captain Crozier spoke. I hope that I remember his words exactly here:
These men are about to Receive the Lash for Violations of Ship’s Articles and for the Unwise Behavior in which every man here participated. Including myself.
Let it be known and remembered by All here Assembled, that the Ultimate Responsibility for the folly that claimed the lives of Five of Our Crewmates, the Leg of Another, and which will leave Scars on almost a Score More, was mine. A captain is responsible for everything that happens on his Ship. The leader of an Expedition is doubly responsible. The fact that I allowed these plans to proceed without my Attention or Intervention was Criminal Negligence, and I will admit as much during my Inevitable Court-Martial… inevitable, that is, if we Survive and escape from the ice that Binds Us. These lashes – and more – should be mine and will be mine when falls the inevitable Punishment meted out by my superiors.
I glanced then at Captain Fitzjames. Certainly any Self-Blame that Captain Crozier would cast upon himself would also apply to the commander of Erebus, since it was he, not Crozier, who had overseen most of the Carnivale’s arrangements. Fitzjames’s face was impassive and Pale. His gaze seemed unfocused. His thoughts seemed elsewhere.
Until such a day of my own reckoning for Responsibility, Crozier concluded, we proceed with the Punishment of These Men, duly tried by Officers of HMSs Erebus and Terror and Found Guilty of Violation of the Ship’s Articles and of the Additional Crime of Endangering the lives of their Comrades. Boatswain Mate Johnson…
And here Thomas Johnson, large and Capable boatswain mate of HMS Terror, old Shipmate of Captain Crozier – having served five years in the South Polar Ice on Terror with him – stepped forward and nodded for the first man, Aylmore, to be tied to the Grate.
Bosun Johnson then laid out on a cask a leather-bound Box and unlatched its ornate brass snaps. Incongruously, the interior lining was of Red Velvet. Set into its Proper Receptacle in this Red Velvet Lining was the palm-darkened leather grip and folded Tails of the Cat.
While two Seamen bound Aylmore securely, Bosun’s Mate Johnson lifted out the Cat and tested it with a preparatory Flick of his thick Wrist. It was not a Motion done for Show but a true preparation for the Hideous Punishment to come. The nine leather tails – of which I had heard so many Shipboard Jokes – flicked out with distinct and Audible and terrible cracks. There were small Knots at the end of each tail.
Part of me could not believe that this was happening. It seemed impossible in this crowded, sweat-stinking Gloom of the Lower Deck, with the low Overhead Beams and Lumber and Gear hanging lower, that Johnson could possibly manage the Cat so as to effect any Punishment. I had heard the phrase “not Enough Room to Swing a Cat In” since I was a boy, but never had I Understood it until this Moment.
Execute the punishment for Mr. Aylmore, said Captain Crozier. The drums beat again briefly and stopped abruptly.
Johnson took a broad sideways stance, setting his feet like a Boxer in the Ring, then swung the Cat back, and then Forward in a Violent, Sudden but Smooth Sidearm Motion, the knotted Tails passing less than a Foot from the Front Ranks of Assembled Men.
The sound of the Cat’s tails striking Flesh is something I shall never Forget.
Aylmore screamed – a more Inhuman Sound, some said later, than the roar they had heard from the creature in the Ebony Room.