There were torches burning at Terror Camp. Crozier was in the lead harness of the lead sledge as they approached. Everyone tried to stand tall — or at least stagger in an upright position — as they pulled the dead-weight sledges and the unconscious men on them the last hundred yards into camp.
There were men fully dressed in slops and outside the tents waiting for them. At first Crozier was touched by their concern, sure that the two dozen or so men he saw in the torchlight had been on the verge of sending out a rescue party in search of their overdue captain and comrades.
As Crozier leaned into the harness, pulling the last sixty feet or so into the light from the torches, his hands and bruises aflame with pain, he prepared a little joke for their arrival — something along the lines of declaring it Christmas again and announcing that everyone would sleep the next week through — but then Captain Fitzjames and some of the other officers stepped closer to greet them.
Crozier saw their eyes then: Fitzjames’s eyes and Le Vesconte’s and Des Voeux’s and Couch’s and Hodgson’s and Goodsir’s and the others’ there. And he knew — through Memo Moira’s Second Sight or his demonstrated captain’s sense or just through the clear, unfiltered-by-thought perception of a completely exhausted man — he knew that something had happened and that nothing would now be as he had planned or hoped and might never be again.
37
IRVING
There were ten Esquimaux standing there: six men of indeterminate age, one very old man with no teeth, one boy, and two women. One woman was old, with a collapsed mouth and a face that was a mass of wrinkles, and one was very young. Perhaps, Irving thought, they are mother and daughter.
The men were uniformly short; the top of the tallest man’s head barely came up to the tall third lieutenant’s chin. Two had their hoods back, showing wild thatches of black hair and unlined faces, but the other men stared at him from the depths of their hoods, some with their faces shrouded and surrounded by a luxuriant white fur that Irving believed might be from the arctic fox. Other hood ruffs were darker and more bristly and Irving guessed that the fur might be from wolverines.
Every male except the boy carried a weapon, either a harpoon or short spear with a bone or stone point, but after Irving had approached and shown his empty hands, none of the spears were now raised or pointed at him. The Esquimaux men — hunters, Irving assumed — stood easily, legs apart, hands on their weapons, with their sled being held back by the oldest man, who kept the boy close. There were six dogs harnessed to the sled, a vehicle much shorter and lighter than even the smallest folding sledges on Terror. The dogs barked and snarled, showing vicious canines, until the old man beat them into silence with a carved stick he carried.
Even while trying to think of a way to communicate with these strange people, Irving continued to marvel at their dress. The men’s parkas were shorter and darker than Lady Silence’s or her deceased male companion’s, but just as furry. Irving thought that the dark hair or fur might be from caribou or foxes, but the knee-length white trousers were definitely from the white bears. Some of the long, hairy boots seemed to be from caribou skins, but others were more supple and pliable. Sealskin? Or some sort of caribou hide turned inside out?
The mittens were visibly sealskin and looked both warmer and more supple than Irving’s own.
The lieutenant had looked to the six younger men to see who was the leader, but it wasn’t clear. Other than the old man and the boy, only one of the males stood out, and that was one of the older bare-headed men who wore a complicated white caribou fur headband, a thin belt from which many odd things dangled, and some sort of pouch around his neck. It was not, however, a simple talisman such as Lady Silence’s white stone bear amulet.
Silence, how I wish you were here, thought John Irving.
“Greetings,” he said. He touched his chest with his mittened thumb. “Third Lieutenant John Irving of Her Majesty’s Ship Terror.”
The men mumbled among themselves. He heard words that sounded like kabloona and qavac and miagortok, but had no clue whatsoever as to what they might mean.
The older bareheaded man with the pouch and belt pointed at Irving and said, “Piifixaaq! ”
Some of the younger men shook their head at this. If it was a pejorative term, Irving hoped that the others were rejecting it.
“John Irving,” he said, touching his chest again.
“Sixam ieua?” said the man opposite him. “Suingne! ”
Irving could only nod at this. He touched his chest again. “Irving.” He pointed toward the other man’s chest in a questioning manner.
The man stared at Irving from between the fringes of his hood.
In desperation, the lieutenant pointed to the lead dog that was still barking and growling while being held back and beaten wildly by the old man next to the sled.
“Dog,” said Irving. “Dog.”
The Esquimaux man closest to Irving laughed. “Qimmiq,” he said clearly, also pointing to the dog. “Tunok.” The man shook his head and chuckled.
Although he was freezing, Irving felt a warm glow. He’d gotten somewhere. The Esquimaux word for the hairy dog they used was either qimmiq or tunok, or both. He pointed at their sled.
“Sled,” he stated firmly.
The ten Esquimaux stared at him. The young woman was holding her mittens in front of her face. The old woman’s jaw hung down and Irving could see that she had precisely one tooth in her mouth.
“Sled,” he said again.
The six men in front looked at one another. Finally, Irving’s interlouctor to this point said, “Kamatik? ”
Irving nodded happily even though he had no idea if they had really begun communicating. For all he knew, the man had just asked him if he wanted to be harpooned. Nonetheless, the junior lieutenant could not stop grinning. Most of the Esquimaux men — with the exception of the boy, the old man who was still beating the dog, and the bare-headed older man with the pouch and belt — were grinning back.
“Do you speak English by any chance?” asked Irving, realizing that he was a bit tardy with the question.
The Esquimaux men stared and grinned and scowled and remained silent.
Irving repeated the query in his schoolboy French and atrocious German.
The Esquimaux continued to smile and scowl and stare.
Irving crouched and squatted and the six men closest to him squatted. They did not sit on the freezing gravel, even if a larger rock or boulder was near. After so many months up here in the cold, Irving understood. He still wanted to know someone’s name.
“Irving,” he said, touching his chest again. He pointed at the closest man.
“Inuk,” said the man, touching his chest. He tugged off his mitten with a flash of white teeth and held up his right hand. It was missing the two smaller fingers. “Tikerqat.” He grinned again.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Inuk,” said Irving. “Or Mr. Tikerqat. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He decided that any real communication would have to be through sign language and pointed back the way he had come, toward the northwest. “I have many friends,” he said confidently, as if saying this would make him safer with these savage people. “Two large ships. Two… ships.”