The Terror

“Well I’ll be damned and dressed in cheap motley,” said Crozier. “Is it Graham’s?”

“It has to be,” said Fitzjames. Tugging his mitten off with his teeth, he clumsily unfurled the parchment note and began to read.

28 of May 1847. HM Ships Erebus and Terror… Wintered in the Ice in Lat. 70°05? N. Long. 98°23? W. After having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in Lat. 74°43? 28? N Long…

Fitzjames interrupted himself. “Wait, that’s incorrect. We spent the winter of 1845 to ’46 at Beechey, not the winter of ’46 to ’47.”

“Sir John dictated this to Graham Gore before Gore left the ships,” rasped Crozier. “Sir John must have been as tired and confused then as we are now.”

“No one has ever been as tired and confused as we are now,” said Fitzjames. “Here, later, it goes on – ‘Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. All well.’ ”

Crozier did not laugh. Or weep. He said, “Graham Gore deposited the note here just a week before Sir John was killed by the thing on the ice.”

“And one day before Graham himself was killed by the thing on the ice,” said Fitzjames. “‘All well.’ That seems like another lifetime, does it not, Francis? Can you remember a time when any of us could write such a thing with an easy conscience? There’s blank space around the edge of the message if you want to write there.”

The two huddled on the lee side of the stone cairn. The temperature had dropped and the wind had come up, but the fog continued to swirl around them as if unaffected by mere wind or temperature. It was beginning to get dark. To the northwest, the sound of guns rumbled on.

Crozier breathed on the tiny portable ink pot to warm the ink, dipped the pen through the scrim of ice, rubbed the nib against his frozen sleeve, and began writing.

(25^th April) – HM’s ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on the 22^nd April 5 leagues NNW of this, having been beset since 12^th Septr. 1846. The Officers and Crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F.R.M. Crozier landed here – in Lat. 69° 37? 42? Long. 98° 41?. This paper was found by Lt. Irving under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831, 4 miles to the Northward, where it had been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 1847. Sir James Ross’ pillar has not however been found, and the paper has been transferred to this position which is that in which Sir J Ross’ pillar was erected -

Crozier stopped writing. What the hell am I saying? he thought. He squinted to reread the last few sentences – “Under the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James Ross in 1831”? “Sir James Ross’s pillar has not however been found”?

Crozier let out a tired sigh. John Irving’s first order upon ferrying the first load of materiel from Erebus and Terror long ago last August to begin the stockpile that would become Terror Camp was to find Victory Point and Ross’s cairn again, then set up the cache for Terror Camp a few miles south of it along a more sheltered inlet. Irving had marked the cairn on their earliest crudely drawn maps as four miles from the cache point rather than the actual two miles, but they’d quickly discovered their mistake during subsequent man-haulings. In Crozier’s fatigue now, his mind kept insisting that the canister with Gore’s message had been moved from some false James Ross cairn to this real James Ross cairn.

Crozier shook his head and looked at Fitzjames, but the other captain was resting his arms on his raised knees and his head on his arms. He was snoring softly.

Crozier held the sheet of paper, pen, and tiny ink pot in one hand and scooped up snow with his other mittened hand, rubbing some on his face. The shock of the cold made him blink.

Concentrate, Francis. For the sake of Christ, concentrate. He wished he had another sheet of paper so that he could start over. Squinting at the cramped scrawl moving around the margins of the paper, words crawling like tiny ants – the center of the paper already filled with the official typeset information stating officiously WHOEVER finds this paper is requested to forward it to the Secretary of the Admiralty, then several more paragraphs repeating the instruction in French, German, Portugese, and other languages, then with Gore’s scrawl above that – Crozier did not recognize his own handwriting. The script was palsied, cramped, tenuous, obviously the hand of a terrified or freezing or dying man.

Or of all three.

It doesn’t matter, he thought. Either no one is ever going to read this or they will read it long after we are all dead. It doesn’t matter at all. Perhaps Sir John always understood this. Perhaps this is why he left none of the brass message canisters behind on Beechey. He knew all along.

He dipped the pen in the rapidly freezing ink and wrote again.

Sir John Franklin died on 11^th of June 1847 and the total loss by deaths on the Expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 Men.

Crozier stopped again. Was that correct? Had he included John Irving in the total? He couldn’t do the arithmetic. There had been 105 souls under his care yesterday… 105 when he had left Terror, his ship, his home, his wife, his life… he would leave the number.

Upside down at the top of the sheet, on the bit of white space left, he scrawled F. R. M. Crozier and after it wrote Captain and Senior Officer.

He nudged Fitzjames awake. “James… sign your name here.”

The other captain rubbed his eyes, peered at the paper but did not seem to take time to read it, and signed his name where Crozier pointed.

“Add ‘Captain HMS Erebus,’ ” said Crozier.

Fitzjames did so.

Crozier folded the paper, slid it back into the brass canister, sealed it, and set the cylinder back in the cairn. He pulled his mitten on and fumbled the stones back into place.

“Francis, did you tell them where we are headed and when we’re leaving?”

Crozier realized that he had not. He started to explain why… why it seemed to be a sentence of death for the men whether they stayed or went. Why he had not decided yet between man-hauling for distant Boothia or toward George Back’s fabled but terrible Great Fish River. He started to explain to Fitzjames how they were fucked coming and fucked going and why no one was ever going to read the fucking note anyway, so why not just…

“Shhh!” hissed Fitzjames.

Something was circling them, just out of sight in the rolling, swirling fog. Both men could hear heavy footsteps in the gravel and ice. Something very large was breathing. It was walking on all fours, not more than fifteen feet from them in the thick fog, the sound of huge paws clearly audible over the heavy-gun rumble of distant thunder.

Hu-uf, hu-uf, hu-uf.

Crozier could hear the exhalations with each heavy footfall. It was behind them now, circling the cairn, circling them.

Both men got to their feet.

Crozier fumbled his pistol out. He pulled off his mitten and cocked the weapon as the footsteps and breathing stopped directly ahead of them but still out of sight in the fog. Crozier was certain he could smell its fish-and-carrion breath.

Fitzjames, who was still holding the ink pot and pen Crozier had given back to him and who had no pistol with him, pointed at the fog to where he thought the thing waited.

Gravel crunched as the thing moved stealthily toward them.

Slowly a triangular head materialized in the fog five feet above the ground. Wet white fur blended with the mist. Inhuman black eyes studied them from only six feet away.

Crozier aimed the pistol at a point just above that head. His hand was so firm and steady that he did not even have to hold his breath.

The head moved closer, floating as if it were unattached to any body. Then the giant shoulders came into view.

Crozier fired, making sure to shoot high so as not to strike that face.

The report was deafening, especially to nervous systems set on edge by scurvy.

The white bear, little more than a cub, let out a startled woof, reared back, wheeled, and ran off on all fours, disappearing into the fog in seconds. The scrabbling, running paw steps on gravel were audible for a long minute after, heading toward the sea ice to the northwest.

Crozier and Fitzjames started laughing then.

Neither man could stop. Every time one of them would slow in the laughter, the other would begin and then both would be caught up again in the mad, senseless hilarity.

They clutched their own sides from the pain of the laughter against their bruised ribs.

Crozier dropped the pistol and both men started laughing harder.

They clapped each other’s backs, pointed toward the fog, and laughed until the tears froze on their cheeks and whiskers. They clutched each other for support while they laughed harder.

Both captains collapsed on the gravel and leaned back against the cairn, that action alone causing the laughter to return in force.

Eventually the guffaws turned to giggles and the giggles into embarrassed snorts, the snorts into a few final laughs, and finally those died into a mutual gasping for air.

“You know what I would give my left bollock for right now?” asked Captain Francis Crozier.

“What?”

“A glass of whiskey. Two glasses, I mean. One for me and one for you. The drinks would be on me, James. I’m standing you to a round.”

Fitzjames nodded, wiping ice from his eyelids and picking frozen snot from his reddish mustache and beard. “Thank you, Francis. And I’d lift the first toast to you. I’ve never had the honour of serving under a better commander or a finer man.”

“Could I please have the ink pot and pen back?” said Crozier.

Pulling his mitten back on, he fumbled the stones out, found the canister, opened it, spread the sheet of paper out upside down on his knee, tugged his mitten off again, cracked the ice in the ink pot with the pen, and in the tiny space remaining under his signature, wrote,