Earlier, he had missed seeing the three walking men off. Mr. Male, Mr. Sinclair, and Samuel Honey — no relation to the recently deceased carpenter — had left before dawn on their proposed trek across the island to Terror Camp, carrying with them only their rucksacks, blanket sleeping bags, some ship’s biscuits, water, and one shotgun with cartridges. They had not so much as a single Holland tent for shelter and planned to build caves in the snow if serious winter weather reached them before they reached Terror Camp. Goodsir thought that they must have said their good-byes to friends the night before, since the three men were out of camp before the first grey light touched the southern horizon. Mr. Couch later told Dr. Goodsir that the party headed north, inland and directly away from the coast, and planned to turn toward the northwest on their second or third day.
In contrast, the surgeon was amazed by how heavily Hickey’s departing men had loaded their boat. Men all over camp, including Male, Sinclair, and Samuel Honey, had been abandoning useless items — hairbrushes, books, towels, writing desks, combs — bits of civilization they’d hauled for a hundred days and now refused to haul any farther, and, for some inexplicable reason, Hickey and his men had loaded many of these rejected pieces of junk into their pinnace along with tents, sleeping gear, and necessary food. One bag held 105 individually wrapped chunks of dark chocolate that was the shared accumulation of these sixteen men’s allotment of a secret store hauled all this way as a surprise by Mr. Diggle and Mr. Wall — six and a half pieces of chocolate per man.
Lieutenant Hodgson had shaken hands with Crozier, and a few of the other men had said clumsy farewells to old shipmates, but Hickey, Manson, Aylmore, and the most resentful of the group said nothing. Then Bosun’s Mate Johnson gave Hodgson the unloaded shotgun and a bag of cartridges and watched while the young lieutenant stowed them in the heavily loaded boat. With Manson in the lead and at least a dozen of the sixteen men lashed to the sledge and longboat by harnesses, they left the camp in silence broken only by the scrape of runners on gravel, then on snow, then on rock again, then again across ice and snow. Within twenty minutes they were out of sight over the slight rise to the west of Rescue Camp.
“Are you thinking about whether they’ll make it, Dr. Goodsir?” asked Mate Edward Couch, who had been standing next to the surgeon and observing his silence.
“No,” said Goodsir. He was so weary that he could only answer honestly. “I was thinking about Private Heather.”
“Private Heather?” said Couch. “Why, we left his body …” He stopped.
“Yes,” said Goodsir. “The Marine’s corpse is lying under a shred of canvas by the side of our sledge tracks this side of River Camp, not twelve days’ pull west of here — much less time than that at the rate Hickey’s large team is pulling the single pinnace.”
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” hissed Couch.
Goodsir nodded. “I just hope they do not find the subordinate officers’ steward’s body. I liked John Bridgens. He was a dignified man and deserves better than to be devoured by the likes of Cornelius Hickey.”
That afternoon, Goodsir was directed to come to a meeting near the four boats along the shore — the two whaleboats were inverted as always, the cutters still upright on their sledges but unloaded — out of the hearing of the men at their duties or drowsing in their tents. Captain Crozier was there, as were First Mate Des Voeux, First Mate Robert Thomas, Acting Mate Couch, Bosun’s Mate Johnson, Bosun John Lane, and Marine Corporal Pearson, who was too weak to stand and had to half recline against the splintered hull of an overturned whaleboat.
“Thank you for coming so promptly, Doctor,” said Crozier. “We’re here to discuss ways to guard against the return of Cornelius Hickey’s group and to look at our own options over the coming weeks.”
“Surely, Captain,” said the surgeon, “you don’t expect Hickey, Hodgson, and the others to come back here?”
Crozier held up his gloved hands and shrugged. Light snow whipped around and between the men. “He still might want David Leys. Or the corpses of Mr. Diggle and Mr. Honey. Or even you, Doctor.”
Goodsir shook his head and shared his thoughts about the bodies — starting with Private Heather — that lay along the return way to Terror Camp like frozen food caches.
“Aye,” said Charles Des Voeux, “we’ve thought of that. It’s probably the main reason that Hickey thought he could get back to Terror. But we’re still going to mount a round-the-clock watch here at Rescue Camp for a few days and send Bosun’s Mate Johnson here out with a man or two to follow Hickey’s group for three or four days — just to be sure.”
“As for our future here, Dr. Goodsir,” rasped Crozier, “what do you see?”
It was the surgeon’s turn to shrug. “Mr. Jopson, Mr. Helpman, and Engineer Thompson will not live more than a few days,” he said softly. “Of my other fifteen or so scurvy patients, I simply do not know. A few might survive … the scurvy, I mean. Especially if we find fresh meat for them. But of the eighteen men who may stay here at Rescue Camp with me — Thomas Hartnell has volunteered to stay on as my assistant, by the way — only three, perhaps four, will be capable of going out to hunt seals on the ice or foxes inland. And they not for long. I would presume that the rest of those who remain here will have died of starvation no later than fifteen September. Most of us sooner than that.”
He left unstated that some might survive awhile longer here by eating the bodies of the dead. He also did not mention that he, Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir, had decided that he would not turn cannibal to survive, nor help those who found need to. His dissection instructions at the previous day’s muster assembly were his last words on the subject. Yet he would also never cast judgement on the men here at Rescue Camp or on the expedition south who did end up eating human flesh to last a short while longer. If any man on the Franklin Expedition understood that the human body was a mere animal vessel for the soul — and only so much meat once that soul had departed — it was their surviving surgeon and anatomist, Dr. Harry Goodsir. Not extending his own life a few weeks or even months longer by partaking of such dead flesh was his own decision, for his own moral and philosophical reasons. He had never been an especially good Christian, but he preferred to die as one nonetheless.
“We may have an alternative,” Crozier said softly, almost as if reading Goodsir’s thoughts. “I’ve decided this morning that the Back’s River party can stay here at Rescue Camp another week — perhaps ten days, depending upon the weather — in hopes that the ice will break up and that we can all depart here on boats … even the dying.”
Goodsir frowned dubiously at the four boats around them. “Can so many of us fit in these few craft?” he asked.
“Don’t forget, Doctor,” said Edward Couch, “there are nineteen fewer of us now after the malcontents’ departure this morning. And two more dead since yesterday morn. That’s only fifty-three souls for four good boats, ourselves included.”
“And, as you say,” said Thomas Johnson, “more will die in the coming week.”
“And we have almost no food to haul now,” said Corporal Pearson from where he sprawled against the inverted whaleboat. “I wish to God it was otherwise.”
“And I’ve decided to leave all the tents behind,” said Crozier.
“Where will we shelter in a storm?” asked Goodsir.
“Under the boats on the ice,” said Des Voeux. “Under the boat covers on open water. I did it during my attempt to reach the Boothia Peninsula last March, in the middle of winter, and it’s warmer under or in a boat than in those fucking tents … excuse my language, Captain.”
“You’re excused,” said Crozier. “Also, the Holland tents each weigh three or four times what they did when we started this voyage. They never dry out. They must have soaked up half the moisture in the arctic.”
“So has our underlinens,” said Mate Robert Thomas.
Everyone laughed to one extent or another. Two of them ended the laughter with coughs.
“I’m also plannin
g to leave all but three of the big water casks behind,” said Crozier. “Two of them will be empty when we set out. Each boat will have only one of the small casks for storage.”
Goodsir shook his head. “How will your men slake their thirst while you’re in the strait waters or on the ice there?”
“Our thirst, Doctor,” said the captain. “If the ice opens, remember that you and the sick men will be coming along, not staying here to die. And we’ll refill the casks regularly when we get to the fresh water of Back’s River. Until then, I have a confession. We — the officers — did hoard one thing we did not confess to yesterday at the Dividing Up. A bit of spirit stove fuel hidden under the false bottom of one of the last rum casks.”
“We’ll melt ice and snow for drinking water on the ice,” said Johnson.
Goodsir nodded slowly. He had been so reconciled to the certainty of his own death in the coming days or weeks that even the thought of potential salvation was almost painful. He resisted the urge to allow his hopes to rise again. Odds were overwhelming that everyone — Hickey’s group, Mr. Male’s three adventurers, Crozier’s south-rowing group — would be dead in the coming month.
Again as if reading his thoughts, Crozier said to Goodsir, “What will it take, Doctor, to give us a chance to survive the scurvy and weakness for the three months it may take us to row upriver to Great Slave Lake?”
“Fresh food,” the surgeon said simply. “I am convinced that we can beat back the disease in some of the men if we can get fresh food. If not vegetables and fruits — which I know are impossible up here — then fresh meat, especially fat. Even animal blood will help.”
“Why will meat and blubber arrest or cure such a terrible disease, Doctor?” asked Corporal Pearson.
“I have no idea,” said Goodsir, shaking his head, “but I am as certain of it as I am that we will all die of scurvy if we do not get fresh meat … even before starvation will kill us.”
“If Hickey or the others reach Terror Camp,” said Des Voeux, “will the tinned Goldner food serve the same purpose?”
Goodsir shrugged again. “Possibly, although I agree with my late colleague, Assistant Surgeon McDonald, that fresh food is always better than canned. Also, I am convinced that there were at least two types of poisons in the Goldner tins — one slow and nefarious, the other, as you remember with poor Captain Fitzjames and some others, very quick and terrible. Either way, we’re better off seeking and finding fresh meat or fish than they are pinning their hopes on aging tins from the Goldner victuallers.”
“We hope,” said Captain Crozier, “that once out on the open water of the inlet, amidst the free-floating floes, seals and walruses will be available in plentitude before the real winter sets in. Once on the river, we’ll put in from time to time to hunt deer, foxes, or caribou, but may have to pin our hopes on catching fish … a real probability according to such explorers as George Back and our own Sir John Franklin.”
“Sir John also ate his shoes,” said Corporal Pearson.
No one reprimanded the starving Marine, but neither did anyone laugh or respond until Crozier said, his rasping voice sounding totally serious, “That’s the real reason I brought along hundreds of extra boots. Not just to keep the men’s feet dry — which, as you have seen, Doctor, was an impossibility. But to have all that leather to eat during the penultimate portion of our trek south.”
Goodsir could only stare. “We’ll have only one cask of water but hundreds of Royal Navy–issued boots to eat?”
“Yes,” said Crozier.
Suddenly all eight men began laughing so hard that they could not stop; when the others ceased, someone would begin laughing again and then everyone would join in.
“Shhh!” Crozier said at last, sounding like a schoolmaster with boys but still chuckling himself.
Men at their duties in the camp twenty yards away were looking over with curiosity painted on their pale faces staring out from under Welsh wigs and caps.
Goodsir had to wipe away tears and snot before they froze to his face.
“We’re not going to wait for the ice to open all the way up to the shore here,” Crozier said into the sudden silence in the group. “Tomorrow, as Bosun’s Mate Johnson secretly follows Hickey’s group northwest along the coast, Mr. Des Voeux will take a group of our ablest men south across the ice, moving with just rucksacks and sleeping blankets — with luck, traveling almost as quickly as Reuben Male and his two friends — going at least ten miles out onto the strait, perhaps farther, to see if there is any open water. If a lead opens to within five miles of this camp, we are all leaving.”
“The men have no strength … ,” began Goodsir.
“They will if they know for certain that there’s only a day or two’s haul between them and open water all the way to rescue,” said Captain Crozier. “The two surviving men who’ve had their feet amputated will be on their bloody stumps and pulling with a will if we know the water is out there waiting for us.”
“And with only a little luck,” said Des Voeux, “my group will bring back some seals and walruses and blubber.”
Goodsir looked out at the cracking, shifting, pressure-ridge surging ice jumble stretching south below low, grey snow clouds. “Can you haul seals and walruses back across that white nightmare?” he asked.
Des Voeux just grinned broadly in answer.
“We have one thing to be thankful for,” said Bosun’s Mate Johnson.
“What’s that, Tom?” asked Crozier.
“Our friend from the ice seems to have lost interest in us and wandered away,” said the still-muscular bosun. “We’ve not seen or heard him for certain since before River Camp.”
All eight men, including Johnson, suddenly reached over to one of the nearby boats and rapped their knuckles on the wood.
53
GOLDING
Rescue Camp
17 August, 1848
Twenty-two-year-old Robert Golding rushed into Rescue Camp just after sunset on Thursday, the 17th of August, agitated, shaking, and almost too excited to speak. Mate Robert Thomas intercepted him outside of Crozier’s tent.
“Golding, I thought you were with Mr. Des Voeux’s group on the ice.”
“Yes, sir. I am, Mr. Thomas. I was.”
“Is Des Voeux back already?”
“No, Mr. Thomas. Mr. Des Voeux sent me back with a message for the captain.”
“You can tell me.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Mr. Des Voeux said I was to report only to the captain. Just the captain, sorry, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“What in hell is all the commotion out here?” asked Crozier, crawling out of his tent.
Golding repeated his instructions from the second mate to report only to the captain, apologized, stuttered, and was led away from the ring of tents by Crozier. “Now tell me what’s going on, Golding. Why aren’t you with Mr. Des Voeux? Has something happened to him and the reconnaissance group?”
“Yes, sir. I mean … no, Captain. I mean, something has happened, sir, out there on the ice. I wasn’t there when it did — we was left behind to hunt seals, sir, Francis Pocock and Josephus Greater and me, while Mr. Des Voeux went on farther south with Robert Johns and Bill Mark and Tom Tadman and the others yesterday, but this evenin’ they come back, just Mr. Des Voeux and a couple of the others, I mean, about an hour after we heard the shotguns.”
“Calm down, lad,” said Crozier, setting his hands firmly on the boy’s shaking shoulders. “Tell me what Mr. Des Voeux’s message was, word for word. And then tell me what you saw.”
“They’re both dead, Captain. Both of them. I saw the one — Mr. Des Voeux had her body on a blanket, sir, it was all tore up — but I ain’t seen the other one yet.”
“Who’s both dead, Golding?” snapped Crozier, although the “her” had already told him part of the truth.
“Lady Silence and the thing, Captain. The Esquimaux bitch and the thing from the ice. I seen her body. I ain’t seen its yet. Mr. Des Voeux said
it’s next to a polyp about another mile out beyond where we was shootin’ at seals, and I’m to bring you and the doctor out to see it, sir.”
“Polyp?” said Crozier. “You mean polynya? One of the little lakes of open water in the ice?”
“Yes, Captain. I ain’t seen that yet, but that’s where the thing’s carcass is according to Mr. Des Voeux and Fat Wilson, who was with him and carrying and pulling the blanket like it was a sled, sir. Silence, she was in the blanket, you see, all tore up and dead. Mr. Des Voeux says to bring you and the doctor and no one else and for me not to tell no one else or he’ll have Mr. Johnson flog me when he gets back.”
“Why the doctor?” said Crozier. “Are some of our people hurt?”
“I think so, Captain. I’m not sure. They’re still out at the … the hole in the ice, sir. Pocock and Greater went on back south with Mr. Des Voeux and Fat Alex Wilson like Mr. D. V. said for them to, but he sent me back here and said to bring just you and the doctor, no one else. And not to tell no one else neither. Not yet. Oh … and for the surgeon to bring his kit with knives and such and maybe some larger knives for carvin’ up the thing’s carcass. Did you hear the shotgun blasts this evenin’, Captain? Pocock and Greater and me heard ’em, and we was a mile away from the polyp at least.”
“No. We wouldn’t make out shotgun reports from two miles away over the damnable constant cracking and breaking of the ice here,” said Crozier. “Think hard, Golding. Why exactly did Mr. Des Voeux say it should just be Dr. Goodsir and myself that come out to see … whatever it is?”
“He said he’s fairly sure the thing’s dead, but Mr. Des Voeux said it ain’t what we thought it was, Captain. He said it’s … I forget the words he used. But Mr. Des Voeux says it changes everything, sir. He wants you and the doctor to see it and know what happened there before anyone in the camp hears about it.”