I sh-shall return at a more suitable time, stammered Sir John, and backed past us.
Captain Sir John Franklin looked shaken, but whether it was because of the young woman’s sensible Edenic Nakedness or something else he saw in the Sick Bay alcove, I could not say. He left the Surgery without another word.
A moment later McDonald called me into the rear alcove. The girl — young woman, I had noticed, although it has been scientifically shown that females from savage tribes reach puberty long before young ladies in civilized societies — had put her bulky parka and sealskin pants back on. Dr. McDonald himself looked agitated, almost upset, and when I queried him as to the problem, he gestured for the Esquimaux wench to open her mouth. Then he raised a lantern and a convex mirror to focus the light and I saw for myself.
Her tongue had been amputated near the roots. Enough was left, I saw — and McDonald concurred — to allow her to swallow and to eat most foods, after a fashion, but certainly the articulation of complex sounds, if one might call any Esquimaux language complex in any form, would be beyond her ability. The scars were old. This had not happened recently.
I confess that I pulled away in Horror. Who would do this to a mere child — and why? But when I used the word “amputation,” Dr.McDonald softly corrected me.
Look again, Dr. Goodsir, he all but whispered. It is not a neat surgical circular amputation, not even by so crude an instrument as a stone knife. The poor lass’s tongue was chewed off when she was very small — and so close to the root of the member that there is no possibility she did this to herself.
I took a step away from the woman. Is she mutilated elsewhere? I asked, speaking in Latin out of old habit. I had read of barbaric customs in the Dark Continent and among the Mohammedan in which their women were cruelly circumcised in a parody of the Hebrew custom for males.
Nowhere else, responded McDonald.
Then I thought I understood the source of Sir John’s sudden paleness and obvious shock, but when I asked McDonald whether he had shared this information with our commander, the surgeon assured me that he had not. Sir John had entered the alcove, seen the Esquimaux girl without her clothes, and left in some agitation. McDonald then began to give me the results of his quick physical inspection of our captive, or guest, when we were interrupted by Surgeon Stanley.
My first thought was that the Esquimaux man had died, but that did not turn out to be the Case. A crewman had come calling me to give my report before Sir John and the other Captains.
I could tell that Sir John, Commander Fitzjames, and Captain Crozier were disappointed in my Report of what I had observed of Lieutenant Gore’s death, and while this ordinarily would have Distressed me, this day — perhaps due to my great Fatigue and to the Psychological Changes which may have taken place during my time with Lieutenant Gore’s Ice Party — the disappointment of my Superiors did not Affect me.
I first reported again on the condition of our dying Esquimaux man and on the curious fact about the girl’s missing tongue. The three captains murmured among themselves about this fact, but the only questions came from Captain Crozier.
Do you know why someone may have done this to her, Dr. Goodsir?
I have no idea, sir.
Could it have been done by an animal? he persisted.
I paused. The idea had not occurred to me. It could have been, I said at last, although it was very hard to Picture some Arctic Carnivore chewing off a child’s tongue yet leaving her alive. Then again, it was well known that these Esquimaux tended to live with Savage Dogs. I had seen this myself at Disko Bay.
There were no more questions about the two Esquimaux.
They asked for the details of Lieutenant Gore’s death and about the Creature who killed him, and I told the truth — that I had been working to save the life of the Esquimaux man who had come out of the fog and been shot by Private Pilkington and that I had looked up only in the final instant of Graham Gore’s death. I explained that between the shifting fog, the screams, the distracting blast of the musket, and the report of the lieutenant’s pistol going off, my limited vision from the side of the sledge where I knelt, the rapidly shifting movement of both men and light, I was not sure what I had seen: only that large white shape enveloping the hapless officer, the flash of his pistol, more shots, then the fog enfolding everything again.
But you are certain it was a white bear? asked Commander Fitzjames.
I hesitated. If it was, I said at last, it was an uncommonly large specimen of Ursus maritimus. I had the impression of a bearlike carnivore — a huge body, giant arms, small head, obsidian eyes — but the details were not as clear as that description makes them sound. Mostly what I remember is that the thing seemed to come out of nowhere — just rise up around the man — and that it towered twice as tall as Lieutenant Gore. That was very unnerving.
I am sure it was, Sir John said drily, almost sarcastically, I thought. But what else could it have been, Mr. Goodsir, were it not a bear?
It was not the first time that I had noticed that Sir John never complimented me with my proper Rank as Doctor. He used the “Mr.” as he might with any mate or untutored warrant officer. It had taken me two years to realize that the aging expedition commander whom I held in such high esteem had no degree of reciprocal esteem for any mere ship’s surgeon.
I don’t know, Sir John, I said. I wanted to get back to my patient.
I understand you’ve shown an interest in the white bears, Mr. Goodsir, continued Sir John. Why is that?
I trained as an anatomist, Sir John. And before the expedition sailed, I had dreams of becoming a naturalist.
No longer? asked Captain Crozier in that soft brogue of his.
I shrugged. I find that fieldwork is not my forte, Captain.
Yet you’ve dissected some of the white bears we’ve shot here and at Beechey Island, persisted Sir John. Studied their skeletons and musculature. Observed them on the ice as we all have.
Yes, Sir John.
Do you find Lieutenant Gore’s wounds consistent with the damage such an animal would produce?
I hesitated only a second. I had examined poor Graham Gore’s corpse before we had loaded it onto the sledge for the nightmare journey back across the pack ice.