Bridgens turned his pale square of a face toward Peglar as they walked. It was getting darker quickly now and the wind was holding out of the nor’west.
“It was just at supper time,” continued Peglar, “but the captain had all the men’s tables winched up again and made the men sit on the deck. No casks or chests – just on the bare deck – and had the officers, armed with sidearms, stand behind him. He held the Esquimaux girl by the arm, as if she was an offering he was going to throw to the men. Like a piece of meat to jackals. In a sense that’s what he did.”
“How do you mean?”
“He told the crew that if they were going to do murder, that they had to do it right then… at that moment. With their boat knives. Right there on the lower deck where they ate and slept. Captain Crozier said that they would all have to do it together – seamen and officers alike – because murder on a ship is like a canker and spreads unless everyone is already inoculated by being an accomplice.”
“Very strange,” said Bridgens. “But I am surprised that it worked to deter the men’s bloodthirst. A mob is a brainless thing.”
Peglar nodded again. “Then Crozier called Mr. Diggle forward from his place by the stove.”
“The cook?” said Bridgens.
“The cook. Crozier asked Mr. Diggle what was for supper that night… and for every night in the coming month. ‘Poor John,’ said Diggle. ‘Plus whatever canned things haven’t gone rotten or poisonous.’ ”
“Interesting,” said Bridgens.
“Crozier then asked Dr. Goodsir – who happened to be on Terror that day – how many men had shown up for sick call in the last three days. ‘Twenty-one,’ says Goodsir. ‘With fourteen sleeping nights in sick bay until you called them forward for this meeting, sir.’ ”
It was Bridgens’ turn to nod now, as if he could see where Crozier had been headed.
“And then the captain said, ‘It’s scurvy, boys.’ The first time any officer – surgeon, captain, even mates – had said the word aloud to the crew in three years,” continued Peglar. ‘We’re coming down with scurvy, Terrors,’ the captain said. ‘And you know the symptoms. Or if you don’t… or if you don’t have the balls to think about it… you need to listen.’ And then Crozier called Dr. Goodsir up front, next to the girl, and made him list the symptoms of scurvy.
“ ‘Ulcers,’ said Goodsir,” continued Peglar as they approached Erebus. “ ‘Ulcers and haemorrhages everywhere on your body. That’s pools of blood,’ he said, ‘under the skin. Flowing from the skin. Flowing from every orifice before the disease runs it course – your mouth, your ears, your eyes, your arse. Rictus of limbs,’ he said, ‘which means first your arms and legs hurt, then they become stiff. They won’t work. You’ll be clumsy as a blind ox. Then your teeth will fall out,’ said Goodsir and paused. It was so silent, John, that you couldn’t even hear the fifty men breathing, only the creaking and groaning of the ship in the ice. ‘And while your teeth are falling out,’ the surgeon went on, ‘your lips will turn black and pull back from any remaining teeth you might have. Like a dead man’s lips,’ he said. ‘And your gum tissue will bloom… that means swell. And stink. That’s the source of the terrible stench that comes from scurvy,’ he said, ‘your gums rotting and festering from the inside out.’
“‘But that’s not all,’ Goodsir went on,” continued Peglar. “ ‘Your vision and hearing will be impaired… compromised… as will your judgement. You’ll suddenly see no problem walking out in fifty-below-zero weather with no gloves and no hat. You’ll forget which way is north or how to drive a nail. And your senses will not only fail, they’ll turn on you,’ he says. ‘If we had a fresh orange to give you, when you have scurvy, the smell of the orange might make you writhe in agony or literally drive you mad. The sound of a sledge’s runner on ice might drop you to your knees in pain; the report of a musket could be fatal.’
“‘’Ere now!’ shouts one of Hickey’s legion into the silence,” continued Peglar. “‘We got our lemon juice!’
“Goodsir just shook his head sadly. ‘We won’t have it for much longer,’ he said, ‘and what we have is not worth much. For some reason no one understands, the simple antiscorbutics like the lemon juice lose their potency after months. It’s almost gone now after more than three years.’
“There was this second terrible silence then, John. You could hear the breathing then, and it was ragged. And there was a smell rising from the mob – fear and something worse. Most of the men there, including a majority of the officers, had seen Dr. Goodsir in the past two weeks with early symptoms of scurvy. Suddenly one of Hickey’s compatriots shouts out, ‘What’s all this got to do with getting rid of a Jonah of a witch?’
“Crozier stepped forward then, still holding the girl like a captive, still seeming to offer her to the mob. ‘Different captains and surgeons try different things to ward off or cure scurvy,’ Crozier said to the men. ‘Violent exercise. Prayer. Canned foods. But none of these things work in the long run. What is the only thing that works, Dr. Goodsir?’
“Every head on the lower deck turned to look at Goodsir then, John. Even the Esquimaux girl’s.
“‘Fresh food,’ said the surgeon. ‘Especially fresh meat. Whatever deficiency in our food brings on scurvy, only fresh meat can cure it.’
“Everyone looked back at Crozier,” said Peglar. “The captain all but thrust the girl at them. ‘There’s one person on these two dying ships who has been able to find fresh meat this autumn and winter,’ he says. ‘And she’s standing right in front of you. This Esquimaux girl… merely a girl… but one who somehow knows how to find and trap and kill seals and walruses and foxes when the rest of us can’t even find a track in the ice. What will it be like if we have to abandon ship… once we’re out on the ice with no food stores left? There is one person out of the hundred and nine of us remaining alive who knows how to get us fresh meat to survive… and you want to kill her.’ ”
Bridgens showed bleeding gums of his own when he smiled. They were at the ice ramp to Erebus. “Our successor to Sir John may be a common man,” he said softly, “with little formal education, but no one ever accused Captain Crozier – within my earshot at least – of being a stupid man. And I understand he has changed since his serious illness a few weeks ago.”
“A sea change,” said Peglar, enjoying both the pun and using a phrase Bridgens had introduced him to sixteen years earlier.
“How so?”
Peglar scratched his frozen cheek above the comforter. The mitten rasped on his stubble. “It’s hard to describe. My own guess is that Captain Crozier is completely sober now for the first time in thirty years or more. The whiskey never seemed to compromise the man’s competence – he’s a fine sailor and officer – but it put a… buffer… a barrier… between him and the world. Now he’s there more. Missing nothing. I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Bridgens nodded. “I presume there’s been no more talk of killing the witch.”
“None,” said Peglar. “The men gave her extra biscuits for a while, but then she left – moved out onto the ice somewhere.”
Bridgens started up the ramp and then turned back. When he spoke, his voice was very low so that none of the men on watch above could hear. “What do you think of Cornelius Hickey, Harry?”
“I think he’s a treacherous little shit,” said Peglar, not caring who heard him.
Bridgens nodded again. “He is that. I’ve known of him for years before I sailed on this expedition with him. He used to prey on boys during long voyages – turning them into little more than slaves for his needs. In recent years, I’ve heard, he’s chosen to bend older men to his service, like the idiot…”