Finally, walking behind the sledge, there came a short, fur-parka-wrapped creature whose face was invisible under a hood but who could only be an Esquimaux.
But it was the sledge itself that made Captain Sir John Franklin cry out, “Dear God!”
This sledge was too narrow for two men to lie on side by side, and Sir John’s telescope had not lied to him. Two bodies lay atop each other. The one on top was another Esquimaux — a sleeping or unconscious old man with a brown, lined face and streaming white hair flowing back on the wolfskin hood that someone had pulled back and propped under his head like a pillow. It was to this figure that Goodsir was attending as the sledge approached Erebus. Beneath the Esquimaux man’s supine body was the blackened, distorted, and too-obviously dead face and form of Lieutenant Graham Gore.
Franklin, Commander Fitzjames, Lieutenant Le Vesconte, First Mate Robert Sergeant, Ice Master Reid, Chief Surgeon Stanley, and such petty officers as Brown, the bosun’s mate; John Sullivan, captain of the maintop; and Mr. Hoar, Sir John’s steward, all rushed to the sledge, as did forty or more of the seamen who had come up on deck upon the sound of the lookout’s hail.
Franklin and the others stopped in their tracks before closing with the sledge party. What had looked through Franklin’s telescope like a grey spattering of red wool comforters on the men turned out to be great smears of red on their dark greatcoats. The men were smeared with blood.
There was an explosion of babble. Some of the men in harness hugged friends who ran to them. Thomas Hartnell collapsed on the ice and was surrounded by men trying to help. Everyone was talking and shouting at once.
Sir John had eyes only for the corpse of Lieutenant Graham Gore. The body had been covered by a sleeping robe, but this had partially fallen away so that Sir John could see Gore’s handsome face, now absolutely white in places from drained blood, burned black by the arctic sun in other areas. His features were distorted, the eyelids partially raised and the whites visible and glinting with ice, the jaw sagging open, tongue protruding, and the lips already pulling back away from the teeth in what looked to be a snarl or expression of pure horror.
“Get that … savage … off Lieutenant Gore,” commanded Sir John. “Immediately!”
Several men hurried to comply, lifting the Esquimaux man by his shoulders and feet. The old man moaned and Dr. Goodsir exclaimed, “Careful! Easy with him! He has a musket ball near his heart. Carry him to the sick bay, please.”
The other Esquimaux’s parka hood was thrown back now and Sir John noted with shock that it was a young woman. She moved closer to the wounded old man.
“Wait!” cried Sir John, waving at his ship’s assistant surgeon. “The sick bay? You are seriously suggesting that we allow that … native person … into the sick bay of our ship?”
“This man is my patient,” Goodsir said with a brazen stubbornness that Sir John Franklin never would have guessed could reside in the short little surgeon. “I need to get him to a place where I may be able to operate — remove the ball from his body if that is possible. Stem the bleeding if it is not. Carry him in, please, gentlemen.”
The crewmen holding the Esquimaux looked to their expedition commander for a decision. Sir John was so flummoxed that he could not speak.
“Hurry along now,” commanded Goodsir in a confident voice.
Obviously taking Sir John’s silence as tacit assent, the men carried the grey-haired Esquimaux man up the ramp of snow and onto the ship. Goodsir, the Esquimaux wench, and several crewmen followed, some helping young Hartnell along.
Franklin, almost unable to hide his shock and horror, stood where he was, still looking down at the corpse of Lieutenant Gore. Private Pilkington and Seaman Morfin were unlashing the lines holding Gore in place on the sledge. “For God’s sake,” said Franklin, “cover his face.”
“Aye, sir,” said Morfin. The sailor pulled up the Hudson’s Bay Company blanket that had slipped away from the lieutenant’s face during their rough day and a half on the ice and pressure ridges.
Sir John could still see the concavity of his handsome lieutenant’s gaping mouth through the dry sag of the red blanket. “Mr. Des Voeux,” snapped Franklin.
“Yes, sir.” Second Mate Des Voeux, who had been overseeing the unlashing of the lieutenant’s body, shuffled over and knuckled his forehead. Franklin could see that the whisker-stubbled man, his face sunburned a raw red and sandblasted by the wind, was so exhausted that he could only just raise his arm to salute.
“See to it that Lieutenant Gore’s body is brought to his quarters, where you and Mr. Sergeant will see that the body is prepared for burial under the supervision of Lieutenant Fairholme here.”
“Aye, sir,” said Des Voeux and Fairholme in unison.
Ferrier and Pilkington, exhausted as they were, shook off efforts at assistance and lifted the body of their dead lieutenant. The corpse seemed as stiff as a piece of firewood. One of Gore’s arms was bent and his bare hand, turned black from the sun or decomposition, was raised in a sort of frozen clawing gesture.
“Wait,” said Franklin. He realized that if he sent Mr. Des Voeux off on this errand, it would be hours before he could receive an official report from the man who had been second in command on this party. Even the confounded surgeon was out of sight, taking the two Esquimaux with him. “Mr. Des Voeux,” said Franklin, “after you’ve seen to Lieutenant Gore’s initial preparation, report to me in my cabin.”
“Aye, Captain,” the mate said tiredly.
“In the meantime, who was with Lieutenant Gore at the end?”
“We all were, sir,” said Des Voeux. “But Seaman Best was there with him — just the two of them — for most of the last two days we were on and near King William Land. Charlie saw everything there that Lieutenant Gore did.”
“Very well,” said Sir John. “Go on about your duties, Mr. Des Voeux. I will hear your report soon. Best, come with me and Commander Fitzjames now.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said the sailor, cutting away the last of his leather harness because he was too exhausted to untie the knots. He did not have the strength to raise his arm in a salute.
The three Preston Patent Illuminators were milky overhead with the never-setting sunlight as Seaman Charles Best stood to make his report to a seated Sir John Franklin, Commander Fitzjames, and Captain Crozier — the captain of HMS Terror had arrived for a visit by convenient accident just minutes after the sledge party had come aboard. Edmund Hoar, Sir John’s steward and sometime secretary, sat behind the officers, taking notes. Best stood, of course, but Crozier had suggested that the exhausted man could do with some medicinal brandy, and while Sir John’s expression showed his disapproval, he had agreed to ask Commander Fitzjames to provide some out of his private stock. The liquor seemed to have revived Best somewhat.
The three officers interrupted from time to time with questions while the teetering Best made his report. When his description of the team’s laborious sledge trip to King William Land threatened to stretch on too long, Sir John hurried the man to the events of the last two days.
“Yes, sir. Well, after that first night of lightning and thunder at the cairn and then finding them … tracks, marks … in the snow, we tried to sleep a couple of hours but didn’t really succeed, and then Lieutenant Gore and I set off to the south with light rations while Mr. Des Voeux took the sledge and what was left of the tent and poor Hartnell, who was still out cold then, and we said our ‘until tomorrows’ and the lieutenant and I headed south and Mr. Des Voeux and his people headed out to the sea ice again.”
“You were armed,” said Sir John.
“Aye, Sir John,” said Best. “Lieutenant Gore had a pistol. I had one of the two shotguns. Mr. Des Voeux kept the other shotgun with his party and Private Pilkington carried the musket.”
“Tell us why Lieutenant Gore divided the party,” commanded Sir John.
Best seemed confused by the question for a moment but then brightened. “Oh, he told us he was following you
r orders, sir. With the food at the cairn camp destroyed by lightning and the tent damaged, most of the party needed to get back to sea camp. Lieutenant Gore and me went on to cache that second message container somewhere south along the coast and to see if there was any open water. There wasn’t any, sir. Open water, I mean. Not a hint. Not a fu— … not a single reflection of dark sky to suggest water.”
“How far did the two of you go, Best?” asked Fitzjames.
“Lieutenant Gore figured we’d traveled about four miles south across that snow and frozen gravel when we reached a big inlet, sir … rather like the bay at Beechey where we wintered a year ago. But you know what four miles is like in the fog and wind and with ice, sirs, even on land around here. We probably hiked ten miles at least to cover the four. The inlet was frozen solid. Solid as the pack ice here. Not even that usual bit of open water you get between shore and ice in any inlet during the summer up here. So we crossed the mouth of her, sirs, and then went another quarter of a mile or so out along a promontory there where Lieutenant Gore and me built another cairn — not as tall or fancy as Captain Ross’s, I’m sure, but solid, and high enough that anyone would see it right away. That land is so flat that a man is always the tallest thing on it. So we piled the rocks about eye-high and set in that second message, same as the first the lieutenant told me, in its fancy brass cylinder.”
“Did you turn back then?” asked Captain Crozier.
“No, sir,” said Best. “I admit I was worn out. So was Lieutenant Gore. The walking had been hard all that day, even the sastrugi were hard to kick our way through, but it’d been foggy so we only got glimpses of the coast along there from time to time when the fog lifted, so even though it was already afternoon by the time we finished building the cairn and leaving the message, Lieutenant Gore, he had us walk about six or seven more miles south along the coast. Sometimes we could see, most of the time we couldn’t. But we could hear.”
“Hear what, man?” asked Franklin.
“Something following us, Sir John. Something big. And breathing. Sometimes woofin’ a bit … you know, sirs, like them white bears do, like they’re coughing?”
“You identified it as a bear?” asked Fitzjames. “You said that you were the largest things visible on land. Certainly if a bear was following you, you could see it when the fog lifted.”
“Aye, sir,” said Best, frowning so deeply that it appeared he might start crying. “I mean, no, sir. We couldn’t identify it as no bear, sir. We could have, normal like. We should have. But we didn’t and couldn’t. Sometimes we’d hear it coughin’ right behind us — fifteen feet away in the fog — and I’d level the shotgun and Lieutenant Gore would prime his pistol, and we’d wait, sort of holding our breath, but when the fog lifted we could see a hundred feet and nothing was there.”
“It must have been an aural phenomenon,” said Sir John.
“Aye, sir,” agreed Best, his tone suggesting that he did not understand Sir John’s comment.
“The shore ice making noise,” said Sir John. “Perhaps the wind.”
“Oh, aye, yes, sir, Sir John,” said Best. “Only there weren’t no wind. But the ice … could’ve been that, m’lord. Always could be that.” His tone explained that it could not have been.
Shifting as if he was feeling irritation, Sir John said, “You said at the outlet that Lieutenant Gore died … was killed … after you rejoined the other six men on the ice. Please proceed to that point in the narrative.”
“Yes, sir. Well, it must’ve been close to midnight when we reached as far south as we could go. The sun was gone from the sky ahead of us but the sky had that gold glow … you know how it is around midnight up here, Sir John. The fog had lifted well enough for a short while that when we climbed a little rocky nub of a hill … not a hill, really, but a high spit maybe fifteen feet above the rest of the flat, frozen gravel there … we could see the shore twisting away farther to the south to the blurry horizon with glimpses of bergs poking up from over the horizon from where they’d piled up along the shoreline. No water. Everything frozen solid all the way down. So we turned around and started walking back. We didn’t have no tent, no sleeping bags, just cold food to chew on. I broke a good tooth on it. We were both very thirsty, Sir John. We didn’t have a stove to melt snow or ice, and we’d started with only a little bit of water in a bottle that Lieutenant Gore kept under his coats and waistcoat.
“So we walked through the night — through the hour or two of sort of twilight that passes for night here, sirs, and then on for more hours — and I fell asleep walking half a dozen times and would’ve walked in circles until I dropped, but Lieutenant Gore would grab me by the arm and shake me a bit and lead me the right way. We passed the new cairn and then crossed the inlet, and sometime around six bells, when the sun was full up high again, we reached the spot where we’d camped the night before near the first cairn, Sir James Ross’s cairn I mean — actually it’d been two nights before, during the first lightning storm — and we just kept trudging on, following the sledge tracks out to the heaped shore bergs and then out onto the sea ice.”
“You said ‘during the first lightning storm,’” interrupted Crozier. “Were there more? We had several here while you were gone, but the worst seemed to be to the south.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” said Best. “Every few hours, even with the fog so heavy, the thunder would start rumblin’ again and then our hair would start flying about, trying to lift off our heads, and anything metal we had — belt buckles, the shotgun, Lieutenant Gore’s pistol — would start glowing blue, and we’d find a place to hunker down in the gravel and we’d just lie there trying to disappear into the ground while the world exploded around us like cannon fire at Trafalgar, sirs.”
“Were you at Trafalgar, Seaman Best?” Sir John asked icily.
Best blinked. “No, sir. Of course not, sir. I’m only twenty-five, m’lord.”
“I was at Trafalgar, Seaman Best,” Sir John said stiffly. “As signals officer on HMS Bellerophon, where thirty-three of the forty officers were killed in that single engagement. Please restrain from using metaphors or similes from beyond your experience for the remainder of your report.”
“Aye, aye, s-sir,” stammered Best, weaving now not only from exhaustion and grief but with terror at making such a faux pas. “I apologize, Sir John. I didn’t mean … I mean … I shouldn’t … that is …”
“Continue with your narrative, seaman,” said Sir John. “But tell us about the last hours of Lieutenant Gore.”
“Yes, sir. Well … I couldn’t’ve climbed the iceberg barrier without Lieutenant Gore helping me — God bless him — but we did, eventually, and then got out onto the ice itself to where it was just a mile or two to sea camp, where Mr. Des Voeux and the others were waiting for us, but then we got lost.”
“How could you possibly get lost,” asked Commander Fitzjames, “if you were following the sledge tracks?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said Best, his voice flattened by exhaustion and grief. “It was foggy. It was very foggy. Mostly we couldn’t see ten feet in any direction. The sunlight made everything glow and made everything flat. I think we climbed the same ice ridge three or four times, and every time we did our sense of direction got more distorted. And out on the sea ice, there were long patches where the snow had blown away and the sledge’s runners hadn’t left no marks. But the truth is, sirs, I think we were both, Lieutenant Gore and me, marching along while asleep and just lost the tracks without knowing it.”
“Very well,” said Sir John. “Continue.”
“Well, then we heard the shots … ,” began Best.
“Shots?” said Commander Fitzjames.
“Aye, sir. Both musket and shotgun they were. In the fog, with the sound bouncin’ back from the bergs and ice ridges all around, it sounded like the shots were coming from everywhere at once, but they were close. We started hallooing into the fog and pretty soon we hear Mr. Des Voeux hallooing back and thirty minutes later — it t
ook that long for the fog to lift a bit — we stumbled into the sea camp. The boys had got the tent patched in the thirty-six hours or so we were gone — more or less patched — and it was set up next to the sledge.”
“Were the shots to guide you in?” asked Crozier.
“No, sir,” said Best. “They was shooting bears. And the old Esquimaux man.”
“Explain,” said Sir John.
Charles Best licked his torn and ragged lips. “Mr. Des Voeux can explain better than me, sirs, but basically they got back to sea camp the day before to find the tins of food all broken into and scattered and spoiled — by the bears, they reckoned — so Mr. Des Voeux and Dr. Goodsir decided to shoot some of the white bears that kept sniffing around the camp. They’d shot a sow and her two cubs just before we got there and had been dressing the meat. But they heard movement around them — more of that coughin’, breathin’ in the fog I described, sirs — and then, I guess, the two Esquimaux — the old man and his woman — came over a pressure ridge in the fog, just all more white fur, and Private Pilkington fired his musket and Bobby Ferrier fired his shotgun. Ferrier missed both targets, but Pilkington brought down the man with a ball to the chest.
“When we got there, they’d brought the shot Esquimaux and the woman and some of the white bear meat back to the sea camp — leaving bloody swaths on the ice, sirs, which is what we followed in for the last hundred yards or so — and Dr. Goodsir was trying to save the life of the old Esquimaux man.”
“Why?” asked Sir John.
Best had no answer to that. No one else spoke.