The caulker’s mate swung up and around so quickly with his arm fully extended that for a second or two Irving thought he was resuming his dance.
But there had been a sharp boat knife in that extended hand.
Irving felt a sudden sharp pain in his throat. He started to speak again, found that he couldn’t, raised both hands to his throat, and looked down.
Blood was cascading over Irving’s hands and down onto his chest, dripping onto his boots.
Hickey swung the blade again in a wide, vicious arc.
This blow severed the lieutenant’s windpipe. He fell to his knees and raised his right arm, pointing at Hickey through vision that had suddenly been narrowed by a dark tunnel. John Irving was too surprised even to feel anger.
Hickey took a step closer, still naked, all sharp knees and thin thighs and tendons, crouching now like some pale, bony gnome. But Irving had fallen to his side on the cold gravel, vomited an impossible amount of blood, and was dead before Cornelius Hickey ripped away the lieutenant’s clothing and began wielding the knife in earnest.
38 CROZIER
His men collapsed into tents and slept the sleep of the dead as soon as they reached Terror Camp, but Crozier did not sleep at all the night of 24 April.
First he went to a special medical tent that had been erected so that Dr. Goodsir could do the postmortem and prepare the body for burial. Lieutenant Irving’s corpse, white and frozen after its long voyage back to camp on the savages’ requisitioned sledge, did not look quite human. Besides the gaping wound on the throat – so deep that it exposed the white vertebrae of his spine from the front and made the head yaw back as if on a loose hinge – the young man had been emasculated and disemboweled.
Goodsir was still awake and working on the body when Crozier came into the tent. The surgeon was inspecting several organs removed from the corpse, poking at them with some sharp instrument. He glanced up and gave Crozier a strange, thoughtful, almost guilty look. Neither man said anything for a long moment as the captain stood over the body. Finally Crozier brushed back a strand of blond hair that had fallen over John Irving’s forehead. The lock had been almost touching Irving’s open, clouded but still staring blue eyes.
“Have his body ready for burial at noon tomorrow,” said Crozier.
“Yes, sir.”
Crozier went to his tent, where Fitzjames was waiting.
When Crozier’s steward, the 30-year-old Thomas Jopson, had supervised the loading and transport of “the captain’s tent” to Terror Camp some weeks ago, Crozier had been furious to learn that Jopson had not only had a double-sized tent sewn for the purpose – the captain had anticipated just a regular brown Holland tent – but had also had the men haul an oversized cot and several solid oak and mahogany chairs from the Great Room, as well as an ornate desk that had belonged to Sir John.
Now Crozier was glad for the furniture. He arranged the heavy desk between the tent entrance and the private bunking area with the two chairs behind the desk and none in front. The lantern hanging from the tall tent’s peak harshly illuminated the empty space in front of the desk while leaving the area for Fitzjames and Crozier in semidarkness. The space had the feel of a court-martial room.
That’s exactly what Francis Crozier wanted.
“You should go to bed, Captain Crozier,” said Fitzjames.
Crozier looked at the younger captain. He did not look young any longer. Fitzjames looked like a walking corpse – pale to the point of his skin becoming transparent, bearded with whiskers and dried blood from leaking follicles, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. Crozier had not looked at himself in a mirror for several days and had avoided the one hanging at the rear of this tent of his, but he hoped to Christ he did not look as bad as the former wunderkind of the Royal Navy, Commander James Fitzjames.
“You need some sleep yourself, James,” said Crozier. “I can interrogate these men myself.”
Fitzjames shook his head tiredly. “I questioned them, of course,” he said, his voice a dead monotone, “but haven’t visited the site or really interrogated them. I knew you would want to.”
Crozier nodded. “I want to be at the site by first light.”
“It’s about two hours’ brisk walk to the southwest,” said Fitzjames.
Crozier nodded again.
Fitzjames pulled his cap off and combed back his long, greasy hair with dirty fingers. They had used the boat stoves that had been transported here to melt water for drinking and just enough to shave by should an officer want to shave, but there was none left for bathing. Fitzjames smiled. “Caulker’s Mate Hickey asked if he could sleep until it was his time to report.”
“Caulker’s Mate Hickey can fucking well stay awake like the rest of us,” said Crozier.
Fitzjames said softly, “That’s more or less what I told him. I put him on guard duty. The cold should keep him awake.”
“Or kill him,” said Crozier. His tone suggested that this would not be the worst turn of events. In a loud voice, shouting to Private Daly who stood guard at the tent’s door, Crozier said, “Send in Sergeant Tozer.”
Somehow the large, stupid Marine managed to stay beefy even when all the men were starving on one-third rations. He stood at attention, minus his musket, as Crozier conducted the interrogation.
“What was your impression of today’s events, Sergeant?”
“Very pretty, sir.”
“Pretty?” Crozier remembered the condition of Third Lieutenant Irving’s throat and body as he lay in the postmortem tent immediately behind Crozier’s own tent.
“Aye, sir. The attack, sir. Went off like clockwork. Like clockwork. We come walking down that big hill, sir, muskets and rifles and shotguns lowered as if we had no harsh feelings in the world, sir, and them savages watched us come. We opened fire at less than twenty yards and raised pure holy Cain amongst their motley God-be- damned ranks, sir, that I can tell you. Raised pure holy Cain.”
“Were they in ranks, Sergeant?”
“Well, no, Captain, not as you might say on a Bible, sir. More like standing around like the savages they was, sir.”
“And your opening salvos cut them down?”
“Oh, aye, sir. Even the shotguns at that range. It was a sight to behold, sir.”
“Like shooting fish in a rain barrel?”
“Aye, sir,” said Sergeant Tozer with a huge grin on his red face.
“Did they put up any resistance, Sergeant?”
“Resistance, sir? Not really. Not any you might speak of, sir.”
“Yet they were armed with knives and spears and harpoons.”
“Oh, aye, sir. A couple of the godless savages threw their harpoons and one got a spear off, but them what flung them was already wounded and it done them no good but a little nick in the leg of young Sammy Crispe, who took his shotgun and blew the savage who nicked him straight to Hell, sir. Straight to Hell.”
“Yet two of the Esquimaux got away,” said Crozier.
Tozer frowned. “Aye, sir. I apologize about that. They was a lot of confusion, sir. And two of ’em who went down got up when we was shooting those pox-besotted dogs, sir.”
“Why did you shoot their dogs, Sergeant?” It was Fitzjames who asked this question.
Tozer looked surprised. “Why, they was barking and snarling and lunging at us, Captain. They was more wolves than dogs.”
“Did you consider, Sergeant, that they might have been useful to us?” asked Fitzjames.
“Yes, sir. As
Crozier said, “Describe the two Esquimaux that got away.”
“A little one, Captain. Mr. Farr said that he thought it might have been a woman. Or a girl. She had blood on her hood but obviously she wasn’t dead.”
“Obviously,” Crozier said drily. “What about the other one who escaped?”
Tozer shrugged. “A little man with a headband is all I know, Captain. He’d fallen behind the sledge there, and we all thought he was a deader. But he got up and run with the girl when we was busy shooting the dogs, sir.”
“Did you pursue them?”
“Pursue them, sir? Oh, yes, absolutely. We run our ar-… we run after them hard, Captain. And we was reloading and firing as we went, sir. I think I hit that little Esquimaux bitch again, but she didn’t slow down one whit, sir. They was just too fast for us. But they won’t be coming back this way no time soon, sir. We saw to that.”
“How about their friends?” Crozier said drily.
“Pardon, sir?” Tozer was grinning again.
“Their tribe. Village. Clan. Other hunters and warriors. These people came from somewhere. They haven’t been out on the ice all winter. Presumably they’ll return to that village, if they’re not there already. Did you consider that the other Esquimaux hunters – men who kill every day – might take it personally that we killed eight of their kindred, Sergeant?”
Tozer looked confused.
Crozier said, “You’re dismissed, Sergeant. Send in Second Lieutenant Hodgson.”
