Chapter Text
It began at the ending of all things.
The Tuunbaq lay dead, having heaved a last breath some hours ago; Francis had long since stopped trying to count the hours now that it was finished. It hadn’t moved in some time, and that was what mattered, despite the chain that linked him from the beast’s mouth to his battered, bloody arm.
He was too weak now—from blood loss, sickness, and starvation—to pull the chain free from the gullet of the animal that had stalked them since they had first sent the delicate slabs of pancake ice pinging from the hulls of their ships as they’d set out from Baffin Bay. Perhaps further, punishing them in their foolishness all the way from port in Greenhithe, cursing their expedition before they even left the familiar waters of the Thames.
Stupid man. Bloody superstitious fool.
He grunted, his breathing an uneven, low wheeze in his chest. This had been his fault.
Sophia had rejected him. Sir John had made the decision for her. He simply had not been worthy, in their eyes.
Just not under our banner.
And then, he, more fool him, had done his damnedest at proving them right. He spent the time at sea in a drunken stupor, sobering far too late to correct their course in a reasonable and rational manner. He had left James alone to oversee and care for men in a land he had never weathered before.
He had failed them all. Every single man, from James Fitzjames to John Hartnell, the first to pass. He had failed them as Captain and as commander of their expedition once Sir John had been killed.
Had he known the expedition was doomed from the start? Had he simply gone along to meet his own end? Francis could not have said for sure now, looking back on it. The lives of all these men had been a poor price to pay for his own haggard end.
Funny how, when he had become sober, he’d discovered he’d wanted to live after all.
The straps of his braces hung weakly in his fingers, mere centimeters from the keys he had been so desperate to hook to free himself. He twitched his hand with the thought he might try once more, and the braces fell away, the metal of their fastenings tinkling quietly against the shale as they slipped from his fingers.
The woman appeared, skimming across his vision like the aura of a sun dog, dark and fading where the other’s omen had been cold and bright.
He remembered her eyes, dark as black buttons, anger radiating off her like heat from the engines. She appeared like a phantom, hovering at his slack consciousness, though not close enough to blot out the ever-present summer sun. She stared down at him, her eyes snapping in rage, her mouth a bloody slash that gushed crimson down her chin.
He hadn’t even asked her name.
He stared up at the sky.
No, that hadn’t been the case. He’d asked. She’d declined to tell him.
Had time passed?
He peered up at the sky, attempting to tell the time of day. The date no doubt escaped him, his log book long abandoned as dead weight as soon as James had died—there had been no point keeping track afterwards. He wondered why he’d bothered before, when he had sat down to record the day’s events and the words would not come. He’d wrapped the log book and buried it with James.
It did not matter anymore.
He tried to tell the time again.
It was too bright, the air whipping in thin scurls and lashing against his unprotected face and making him squint harder. He could feel the blood soaking his shirt from where the Tuunbaq’s claws had caught him across his chest.
He was the last. He felt it as inexorably as the howl of the wind that keened across the shale.
We are gone.
The thought was a comforting one, if somewhat morbid. No one suffered anymore. Hickey and his mutineers all lay dead around him. He didn’t begrudge the men who’d followed Hickey. Panicked, hungry, desperate. They’d been sick and dying long before he’d gotten his spindly hooks into them.
It had been his fault, after all. While he had their trust, he was not a leader of men. That had always fallen to James, clever James who always seemed to know exactly what to do. It had all fallen apart before he could see it, could acknowledge it.
The men who had remained headed south on his orders, but who knew what had befallen them—had the Tuunbaq struck them first, like it had the exploratory expedition? Francis, though he thought himself awfully clever before, with his years of service and his arctic experience, could not have said. Perhaps they’d made it to civilization, as rough as it was. Either way, they were gone, never to return to this land. The great ships Terror and Erebus were part of the pack now, their creaking corpses fit for nothing but what remained of the rats. Their hubris had been duly punished and they had been flayed bare, stripped and spread across the great wild north of this accursed wilderness. The scavengers would chew their bones for the sake of England’s profit.
Something in him, that tenacious Irish rage in him, curled its lip at that. He found he couldn’t even muster the energy to really be annoyed. Hickey might have been pleased by the dark cast of his thoughts, but there was a mile of distance between their characters, though their fates would be the same.
His lids hovered at the half-way mark, both to avoid the brightness of the sky and the cut of the wind as he lay on the shale. His back was a mass of aches and pains, though they blended in a way that was a cacophony, his cold-blasted senses leaving him little and less to judge exactly how hurt he was; he simply had not the wherewithal to catalogue his many hurts.
It would not matter, soon enough.
With an effort, one that made his breath wheeze in a thin exhale that was lost to the scream of the wind, he turned his head, regarding the pile of corpses that remained where they had fallen. Hickey, bitten in half, stared at him with milky, sightless eyes. His entrails spilled onto the packed shale, the stones drowning in his offal as they’d slithered from his torso, wet and gleaming. They had gone purplish-grey as they rotted. Had they always been that color, under the dark blood? Or had that been Goodsir’s last hurrah?
Francis could not have said.
Try as he might, Francis could still not bring himself to feel hunger for the meat that lay beside him, within crawling distance. He was not there, in that realm of madness, that carved his men to the bone and ate them raw. He thought of poor Harry Goodsir again and closed his eyes briefly, bile flooding his mouth.
When he opened them again, nothing had changed. Not really, anyway. Hickey’s hair curled in the wind, his sightless eyes staring at Francis in censure, as though judging him to be too haughty for the caulker’s mate.
They’d shared a drink, what felt like ages ago.
Now they’d share a death.
Francis’s lips, cracked and dehydrated, split as he grinned to himself. It was a funny world. Sir John had been a stickler for religion, but he himself had placed more faith on his own hands and their works than he had upon God and His mercies. Look how much farther that had got him, eh?
He rolled his head back, looking up again at the brightness of the blue sky. There was not a cloud for miles up here, not unless the deadly hail were to return; that had reserved itself for the spring, not the summer. Now, there was only the endless, limitless blue.
I’m sorry. The words weren’t spoken, his voice long gone from hunger and thirst, but the thought was there, skimmed from the surface as if plucked from the swirl of his thoughts by a gaff hook. I wish I had done better, been better.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other. He let out a low moan that was immediately drowned out by the screaming, incessant wind.
Francis’s first sensation was warmth. Not the warmth of wetting blood, or the false warmth that came from death of frostbite, but the warmth of a cabin that was nothing short of sumptuous after living on the shale for months.
He snorted, startling awake, and sat up. His shirt stuck to his face for a moment, and he battled with the sleeve, peeling it from his cheek.
His eyes were bleary, but no longer dry and cracking at the edges, his body aching due to age and the cold rather than wounds he had received. He placed a hand over his chest, no longer feeling the ridges opened by the Tuunbaq’s claws.
Hurriedly, he fumbled with the buttons that held his shirtwaist closed over his chest. His hand met smooth skin, his fingers tracing the line of his breastbone with puzzlement. His chest was unmarred save for his smattering of strawberry blond chest hair that was going grey and the freckles that marked him as Irish just as much as his voice did. He looked down at his hands, square and whole, his nails no longer discolored.
He was…alive. Or he was dead, and had gone to rest with his ship, as was his right as Captain. He hadn’t yet decided.
The lamps were low, and he felt like he’d fallen asleep on the desk again, judging from the crick in his back. He sat back, feeling the pop and giving the type of groan only an old man could make as he stretched. His joints were sore and aching, and his back twinged as he moved. He must be alive. He hurt too much to be dead.
He was still undecided because of the smell.
He sniffed his collar, wincing at the reek of whisky. It had been in his sweat, he realized; it wafted from his clothing, likely having seeped from his pores in his days spent pickling himself in his quarters. He remembered the night of the Carnivale. He stank like this then, too, despite all of poor Mister Jopson’s efforts. He’d washed twice before he’d dressed, and had felt all the better for it.
He stood from his cramped writing desk, and his heel kicked at the bottle left over from last night’s apparent binge.
Francis knelt, picking up the bottle, and his stomach rolled at the smell of the whisky. It called to him, in a way that made his hands shake, but he found the cork and stoppered the bottle. It was empty, but he did not trust himself to not smash the cursed thing and lick the shards bloody. His mouth went sandy at the thought and he placed the bottle back where it went on his sideboard, setting it down with a deliberate click.
He moved back to the desk, where his log sat open from the night before. He could barely read his cramped, shoddy handwriting, and that was saying something. He shook his head with disgust at himself.
Of course he’d thought nothing was wrong. The nothing that had been wrong was himself.
Francis had less than a moment to himself, however, as his door opened. His steward, Mister Jopson. Tom.
The freshest lieutenant of the Franklin expedition, dead outside his tent, crawling across the shale to something that could not be seen anymore. Now, however, the ever-competent young steward was peering at him through the crack in the door, as if deciding what kind of day they were to have.
Francis caught his breath, aware of how he stank. Embarrassment, that old friend to him, laid its hand on his shoulder, making his guts writhe. “Jopson.”
“Sir,” Tom said, his eyes lighting at what must be the sight of Francis up and about before nine in the morning. “Shall I fetch your clothes?”
“The wash basin and my kit as well,” Francis said. His voice was rough—from emotion, from his impromptu sleep at the desk, Francis could not say, but it was thick as he spoke, like molasses. Tom nodded and made to close the door. “Jopson.”
His steward paused, then thought better of it and stepped inside, shutting the door behind him.
Francis debated on what to say. Perhaps this was his own perpetual hell, doomed to relive the expedition he’d failed so thoroughly. Perhaps it had been a drunken nightmare. He could not say, not for sure, and hesitation stayed his tongue. He folded his arms behind himself, starching his spine.
“When was the last time my uniforms were laundered?”
“Three days ago, sir,” Tom said. “You have one more fresh set.”
“See to it that these are laundered as soon as you’re able,” Francis said, plucking at his own lapels. “If you can’t get the smell out, toss them on the fire. I’m sure that they’ve absorbed enough whisky they’ll burn well enough.”
Tom tilted his head at him, concern flickering across his features. Her Majesty’s Admiralty had seen fit to bless him with a man who knew how to roll with a punch, however, and he nodded as he digested this new information.
“Of course, sir,” he said.
“The date, if you please,” Francis said, realizing. He’d checked his log book but he hadn’t been able to read his own sloppy handwriting. “I seem to have fallen off of my log book.”
“It’s September the second, sir,” Tom replied.
“The year?” Francis asked, though from the sound of the pancake ice pattering off the hull of Terror, he could well guess.
Tom’s alarm was a little harder to disguise this time, as his steward looked him over. Francis was well aware of how mad he sounded, but needs must.
“Eighteen forty-six,” Tom replied.
“Good,” Francis said. “There’s time.”
[From the journal of Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, discovered tucked into a trunk at his historical home in Banbridge, Ireland in 1982 during a renovation project.]
September 2nd, 1846
It is a singular joy to be warm.
I say this, knowing what I know now, in that we shall be much colder yet. The winter will come, and then the next, and we will be hungry, and colder still. My men are my focus now, and I must ensure as many as possible weather this storm and this frozen land. I shall save as many as I can.
If I can convince James to listen to me--
[The text here is scratched out, a blot of ink on the edge of the page as though in haste, or the author's hand shakes.]
I am clear-headed in this second chance, of sound mind and body yet still. I may yet convince Sir John to turn us about and return to England, to resupply and perhaps prepare a much healthier food supply. That may be my best wager to convince him.
I fear his need for accolade will outweigh his good sense, even though I am returned to my own senses. But I must try and turn us about, for freezing into the pack will surely be our end. The--
[Another hasty, scrawled word, an attempt to spell it several times, perhaps. The most legible word seems to be 'tuunbaq', which does not translate in any known Inupiak dialect.]
The beast will hunt. And we will die. I have to try.
FRMC
Francis stood aboard the deck of the Terror, his eyes fixed on the pancake ice in the dark water below. There was still time. He could change things. He just had to be convincing, strident in his arguments. His mind spun as he formed the first of those arguments, knowing that revealing the future would out him as barking mad, lost to the drink, or perhaps both.
Though he was stone cold sober, Past Francis had not made his current course an easy one.
While he’d warned Sir John privately about the ice, his superior had not listened. There was still time to turn about, however, and Francis intended to make himself known at supper tonight, if he could. This was a fool’s errand, and more besides – he already knew how this long, bloody tale would end.
Forearmed with knowledge felt a little like swinging a sword in the dark, however. It would slice through so many of them if he’d gotten it wrong. He remembered standing on the deck in much the same way, as the flags had signaled that Sir John and the Erebus officers would be arriving for dinner.
He did not feel any joy in his prediction coming true; in fact, there was a blackening rancor in his guts that indicated that much of it and more would get worse before it got better. His dour mood was not improved with the plume of fog that escaped his nose on every exhale. September in his home of County Down was cool with the promise of winter’s bite to come, the heat seeping from the land slowly as the leaves turned crisp with the apples on the tree; September here in the arctic was chilled with the bite of ice and snow already fallen, with only more to come, and gales of freezing winds to drive it home besides.
They were so far north that their compasses were going erratic, the closeness of the pole enough to send the lodestones seeking for it out of confusion, causing the needles to spin in erratic eddies as they worked to determine their correct home once more. The men were forced to rely on the sun and stars as their guides, much like the sailors of eld, and Francis was comforted with the whirling presence of the stars above and their predictability.
He'd taken his time to stride through Terror’s cramped hold, taking in the very live faces of all his men, recalling names and dates, places of birth, places of death. All of his men, save the three they had buried at Beechey, lived to tell the tale so far. It was dizzying, maddening, and yet Francis welcomed it like he welcomed the warm burst of heat as he passed the engine room before he moved back topside.
He double checked his recollection of the past, though he cursed the blank spots brought about by his reliance on the drink. Now, the officers of the HMS Erebus were to dine with him tonight; a weekly meal Sir John had insisted would build camaraderie between his officers.
Perhaps, when Francis had been young and idealistic, he might have believed that. He knew what it was now—a way for Sir John to remind them of the pecking order. He had borne it, as he had most of this expedition, at the behest of Miss Cracroft.
While he was not a toothsome young man, he had a lot to offer to the young lady. He had been courting her for many years now, and this was one promise of many he had made. It would not do to back down on his word to look after her uncle, after all.
Especially knowing what would happen if he didn’t. It was his duty to return them to England hale and whole, and if that meant that he had to bear the sharp side of Sir John’s disregard to do it, he had debased himself far worse the first time around. He was no longer interested in Miss Cracroft’s soft regard—that was now not even tertiary in his mind, specifically due to the living, breathing dead men who surrounded him.
He could yet save them. He just had to figure out how.
His breath steamed in the frigid air; so did his temper. He remembered the feeling, irritation at the cutting remarks from Sir John and James, his overbearing exhaustion and malaise. He had been drinking heavily since they left port. It was like he was feeling the ghost of the emotions—or the memory. He swallowed the feeling down, renewed with his sober clarity of purpose.
Francis was often considered squat and imposing, built much like a barrel, with a broad chest and a swayback walk that denoted the seasoned sailors among the men. It was true that the crew gave him a wide berth, but that was rather more to do with his demeanor rather than his stature. Curt, straight to the point, and sparing with his praise, the captain of the Terror was its namesake in every way, if one believed the whispers of the men.
He certainly cut a different figure, he thought, than the man currently climbing aboard the Terror now, right behind Sir John Franklin. Commander James Fitzjames, his greatcoat stark black against the greying backdrop of the sky and the falling snow. His hair blew into his face, and Francis had to wonder at the vanity that would keep his hair that long even now.
A bitter mouthful, perhaps, chased with the knowledge that Sir John favored James, doted on him much like a son. To the point that his presence on the Terror felt much maligned, as though his experience being in the arctic was the only thing that kept him in his place with purpose. He remembered these feelings, echoes of echoes, a half a world away and deeply in the past.
They were coated in sawdust, as though they’d been packed away and put aside. Perhaps they had. He felt the shale dig into his back as he looked over the Erebus’s officers. He owed it to them to try.
Sir John Franklin came forward, all but buried in his greatcoat, his cheeks ruddy with the cold. His eyes were still bright, though they were rheumy, and he took Francis’s hand and shook it with a vigor that was optimistic. Francis tried to stifle his remembered rancor, knowing that his anger at Sir John would not help them survive, not this winter or next.
James would not meet his eyes, his gaze skipping over his face but never stopping. It was a difference that cut like a knife, Francis remembering the frank, sobering gaze of James’s eyes on him—never far, not really, on the shale.
You’ve got holes in you, James.
He shook it off. He had not risen in James’s estimations, likely. They had not seen eye to eye until after Carnivale, James’s abortive idea of raising morale amongst the men. The chaos of that night had not left Francis, not yet.
He would have to play his part. The doddering drunkard, placed here because James himself was too young to lead the expedition. He watched James bite his cheek, then cut his eyes away, inhaling the cold air and coming back to himself with purpose as the shrill whistle announced officers on board.
“Sir John,” he said, offering a tight smile. “Welcome aboard. Commander Fitzjames.”
The former was said with a cooler air, but neither man seemed to notice as Neptune bowled his way through the men on deck, huge paws thumping as he chased his way to the railing. He let out a loud, booming bark.
The sound echoed strangely, clustered with the ever groaning, creaking of the ice. Francis suppressed a shudder. Ice rippled around them, the not-quite-frozen crusts breaking off the bergs to shatter against the larger hunks, plashing into the water with another eerie echo.
James didn’t seem to notice Francis’s gaze or his disquiet at the ice, ruffling the Newfoundland’s head with practiced, eager fingers, the dog eating up the attention. Francis felt sour at that, too. He would not hesitate to kneel to greet the dog, but shunned the master.
The knife sliced just that much deeper. He had to trust it would find bone soon, otherwise he would indeed go mad.
“Shall we?” Francis said, shaking himself from his reverie once more.
Sir John preceded them inside, though Francis could not help stopping to take one long, last look at the dark water and its encroaching bergs.
There was time.
“By that point I was up and about in an arm sling smiling for the official portrait. Have you seen it—?”
James took another swallow of his drink.
Francis tried not to watch him for too long. For one, he was supposed to be blind stinking drunk by this point, but he was stone cold sober by his own choice. Jopson himself had cast Francis with a discerning eye when he’d declined alcohol for tonight, but truly, the smell alone would make him heave up whatever they were eating. He looked down at his plate, the way his fork pushed his food about. Beef, right, the calf’s head, the last of his stores.
Funny how he could not recall that, but he could recall how restless James had been that last night in the tent.
For a moment, as James sat back, his grin stretched wide across his face—the image doubled in his head. James, out on the shale, already trembling from scurvy and hunger, Francis’s hands on his shoulders. James’s eyes in the cabin, so bright and full of life, but missing the sheen in them from the day out on the walk to the cairn; he would not look Francis in the eye.
Are we brothers, Francis? I should like that very much.
His voice a quiet warble, like he was afraid to even admit that much. Francis felt his hand clench on his thigh as he watched the tines of the fork disappear into James’s mouth, as he chewed and swallowed.
He cast his eyes away, down onto his plate.
He remembered the way he’d had to massage James’s throat, to make the coca wine take. The quiet, sure way that James Fitzjames held his gaze as he swallowed what would be his death. The feel of James’s skin under his hands, the soft susurrus of his fading breath. How he’d closed James’s eyes, when it was just the two of them, his head laid on the thin chest, heedless of the wreck of the man’s body, clinging to him as he would a life raft. He had spent the night.
It had only seemed right.
In front of him, James Fitzjames took another long draught of his Alsop’s. His eyes met Francis’s at long last, as he held out his glass to Gibson to refill.
Francis felt like he was going to peel out of his own skin.
Sir John must have noticed his white-knuckled grip on his tableware. He cleared his throat, blotting his lips with his napkin as he quietly interrupted James holding court. He leaned in to speak with Francis.
“Mr. Reid and I chatted about the ice today. He tells me we’ve started sailing past slabs he thinks are not part of the summer break-up.”
Francis, his attention pulled with gale force from the challenge in James’s eyes, looked over. Sir John’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. It was the smile reserved for a grandfather, but Francis could feel the irritation beneath, like a berg that hadn’t surfaced yet. He had been caught lacking, and the note had been added to his long list of grievances. Because of course it had.
“Old ice?” he asked, fumbling for clarification.
“He’s not concerned. He thinks we’re close to an intersection with some bigger channel coming down from the north, bringing bergy bits with it.” Sir John took a sip of his tea, noting the teacup beside Francis’s hand with the same gesture, a flicker of his gaze to where Francis’s snifter would normally sit. “But it means our little summer straight is likely coming to an end. It has yet to be named so I thought Sir James Ross could be honored thusly.”
“Here, here,” James said, brightening and lifting his glass in a toast. “Would that he were with us now, but for being a newlywed—”
James’s eyes bored into him now, hot and eager, his smile sideways.
Francis felt as though he’d been gut shot. It was a mean little comment, forgotten in the scope of things, but considering what he’d just been thinking about, it was a slap in the face. He picked up his teacup and toasted, draining it of its hot, sweet contents. The tang of the lemon was not ignored; he felt it hitting his tongue with a bracing of extra bitterness, and he requested for Tom to refill him with a little gesture of his hand.
James had known of his failed proposals. The fact that he had not said so until Francis was deep in his cups spoke of his breeding, but at the same time, the backhanded comment had been meant to sting him and him alone. He felt the old anger, hot and cloying like a bout of indigestion, threatening to boil up.
They don’t know.
He took a deep breath, and then another sip from his refilled cup.
“Do you approve, Francis?” Sir John asked, his eyebrows lifting.
“He’ll be very pleased,” Francis replied, offering a much more genuine smile than he had the time before. James’s eyes didn’t leave his face.
Francis watched them lower David Young into the gig, his eyes flinty. His breath steamed in the cold, and he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them from grabbing hold of anything or anyone, for he would surely make a scene. He ground his teeth, wondering how he ever managed this drunk, as sober it was unbearable.
You cannot save everyone. It rattled around in his mind, making him want to scream with it. He knew the boy was done for, had been done for long before they’d even left Beechey perhaps, but at the same time, it was…
Unfair. Unjust.
He looked out to the dark water, with the encroaching ice floes, his brows knit.
Those words had no meaning out here, he knew. He knew what awaited them, in the dark. His head ached, his heart surging painfully against his ribs. He knew what awaited them.
You cannot save everyone.
Francis resolved to try anyway.
Sir John prepared to descend into the gig, and he turned to Francis.
“Tell your cook yes to the calf head, no to the capers he cooked it with.” He adjusted his greatcoat. “For future visits.”
Francis nodded, shooting a look to the bundled David in the boat. Hearing that would demoralize him further, but he could not help the callousness now. It was built into Sir John like a reflex, long before he’d ever made his acquaintance. Francis huffed out a breath of fog through his nose.
James stopped by his shoulder, leaving Francis feeling as though he’d been flayed open. He swallowed, hard, trying to get a rein on his emotions before they showed on his face. As the sun set, it was haloed in a ring of light. Not the first sun dog he’d seen, but the one that disquieted him the most. He remembered the feeling of dread that encompassed him, and it was no less so now.
The difference was in knowing what was coming.
James leaned in, his smile all good cheer, but flat. It did not reach his eyes and Francis missed it.
“Good night, Francis,” he said. “Do try to shake your brown study. All is well!”
Francis turned his head to regard James, looking him in the eye. “And if I told you that it wasn’t?”
“I’d simply tell you that you have spent too much time sounding your alarum,” James replied. Francis frowned, removing his hand from his pocket. He reached out, clapping him on the shoulder and squeezing.
“Tell me that when the lad passes tonight,” he said. “I’ll expect the flags in the morning.”
James’s eyes widened, and he stepped back, as though struck. “Francis!”
They’d been speaking in low voices, but now James’s reached a pitch that would carry. Francis seized his shoulder and pulled him closer, speaking in an urgent whisper.
“Hush,” he said, his voice low and commanding. James quieted, biting his cheek, even though it was clear what Francis was saying was far beyond the pale. “David Young will pass tonight. Mister Goodsir will be attending and we will bury him on Boothia the day after.”
James’s eyes were wild, his jaw twitching. Francis kept a firm grip on his greatcoat, a mastiff with his jaws locked.
“If you don’t believe me then, believe this. William Orren—Billy Orren—one of your ABs, will fall from the rigging in less than a half an hour. You’ll try to save him, but you won’t be able to reach him with the hook. You’ll get there too late, the gig is too slow.”
You can’t save them all you can’t save them all you can’t save them all —
“I need your help, James,” Francis said. He could hear the thunder of his heart in his ears, the adrenaline keeping James tethered to him. “I need you. This whole thing falls apart without you. Can I count on you?”
James pulled away from him at last, shaking his head. “All is well, Francis. You’ll see.”
He was pale and shaken, his greatcoat wrinkled from the grip Francis had held him in. Francis watched him hurry down the ladder fast enough that he was in danger of tipping the gig. He paused, looking up at him with his big, dark eyes. Francis shook his head minutely. He didn’t think James would speak about it, but he couldn’t know. This early on in their acquaintance, James must surely hate him still. Hell, he hadn’t even hit the man yet, as he remembered.
After a moment, James resumed his climb down and descended gracefully into the gig, seating himself beside Sir John. He watched the shadows creep across the bergs as the Erebus clipped back its speed to intercept the gig.
Francis turned and went back inside.
He would wait for the flags.
You cannot save them all.
He resolved again to try.
[From the journal of Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, discovered in a trunk at his historical home in Banbridge, Ireland, in 1982 during a renovation project. Scans have finally been made available on the National Archives website, to very little fanfare.]
September 3rd, 1846
Erebus injured. One man lost.
That is the extent of my logbook for today. Upon review, I find that I cannot recall the events of the day, and while that has become the normalcy of the time I spent in the drink, it still causes me no end of grief. The blank page of my log book means that I have no forewarning of things to come, signs to look for, and it causes me no end of troubling thoughts.
AB William Orren was lost to the water today. I remembered as much from the first time around—if what is what happened can be called. He fell from the rigging and into the water; up here, the water is so cold that only a moment will freeze a man to his death. The gig did not reach him in time, as I recalled.
We will lose David Young tonight, too, due to the consumption. He was too far gone by this date for me to have prevented his arrival aboard the ship, and he did indeed hide it well from the ship’s doctors.
This endeavor disquiets me. I have resolved to save them, and yet I cannot prevent these men’s deaths any more than I could prevent—
[Here the writing stills, and there is a big blot of ink upon the page, dried to illegibility.]
The beast perhaps hunts us even now. It is made of spell and muscle, and perhaps is in the ice itself, watching us flounder closer and closer to King William Land.
The Northwest Passage does not exist, or if it does, it was not where we were looking. But I know what does exist out there, and I fear that I will lose many and more before this voyage is through.
I wish—[This is crossed out, with a vicious stroke of the pen.]
No. I cannot wish.
I will save who I can. I must try.
I am here for a reason, even if this is my purgatory. If I can pull them from it and free them, it will have been well worth it, even if I am to remain here.
FRMC
Francis boarded Erebus without much preamble, his lieutenants and Mister Blanky close behind. He already knew why he was here; Erebus had struck a piece of ice and was hobbled—and two men were dead, one whom would never be recovered to be buried.
He removed his hat and stepped down into Erebus’s hold, striding toward the great cabin. Sir John had called the meeting almost as soon as Collins had come up from the depths of the dark water, and Francis had the horrible, deceptive hope that perhaps the leader of the expedition could be reasoned with this time.
He poked his head into the room, then entered, nodding at everyone around the table. His lieutenants filed in behind him, Blanky joining Reid along the wall as the officers sat.
“I’ve brought Mister Blanky, so that both Ice Masters would be here,” Francis said.
“Then we’ll be sure to reach a consensus,” Sir John said, pleasant as always. As tea was served, Franklin looked at them all with a serious expression. “I think it not unfair to say the success or failure of this expedition may be determined by what is decided here now. The news is in about Erebus.”
Francis shifted in his seat, catching James’s eye. The other was watching him with an intense stare, as though looking to see right inside his head. Francis found it unsettling, though he had no doubt he would have ignored it, had he been drinking still.
He gave James a minute nod; James looked away.
“While she can still make headway under steam, the flagship’s effectiveness has been compromised. Outside of a dry dock, she will not be repaired,” Sir John said.
Though he knew the answer, Francis asked.
“How badly compromised?” he asked.
Sir John looked at Mister Gregory, who answered. “She can still pull two knots, maybe three, with the boilers full up.”
“So,” Francis said, that dread settling behind his breastbone. “Half-power, more or less.”
“As well, we know the ice ahead is increasing dramatically, in thickness and amount, but we must be nearly in sight of King William Land and then it isn’t but another 200 miles before we can pick up the western charts and draw in this final piece of the puzzle for the world once and for all.” Sir John leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful.
Francis seized his own tongue with his teeth, to avoid blurting everything out. Instead, he looked to James, whose expression was more troubled than it had been the first time. The first time, James had been so cocksure, so ready for glory—
But there was no glory to be had out here.
“Our situation is more dire than you may realize,” Francis said.
A dramatic opening shot!
He waited a beat, expecting it.
But no, there was silence from James; letting him speak his piece. The other officers on the Erebus shot James a questioning glance, but he ignored them. Francis pushed through, knowing that there was some trust there, and that had to count for something. He’d held out what he knew to James. It would be the key to their salvation, he hoped.
“That is not just ice ahead,” he said. “That is pack ice. And you’re proposing we cross it in September. Even with leads, we could spend weeks picking through it. And we will not have weeks.”
He hadn’t meant to speak with such finality, but it came out of his mouth all the same. James’s eyes bored into his, and he glanced his way just for a moment.
What are you doing, Francis? His eyes seemed to say.
“Weeks, at most,” James ventured.
“At half-speed, not half-coal.” Francis hoped James understood enough. He glanced at Graham Gore, still hale and whole and not the first to die to the Tuunbaq’s claws. “Graham, you’ve seen the sun dogs. There’s been three this year so far, and it was colder than the last.”
Graham shifted, uncomfortable, but he nodded.
“I’ve been to the arctic, Francis,” John chided him.
“I know, sir,” Francis said. There was no John, no familiarity. No, this was the time to play this as light as he knew how, though he was brutish and unused to such things. “On foot, and almost all of your expedition faced casualties. I mean this with all due respect, Sir John. This winter will be like nothing we’ve experienced.”
Sir John’s eyes narrowed minutely. “Francis, this is not—”
“With all due honor, Sir John,” Francis said, his voice rough. “This winter will see us trapped in the pack. The leads will close and we will be frozen. We’ll be lucky if we’re not sliced in half or smashed to atoms on the shore of King William Land. We’ll be at the mercy of the currents dragging the ice whither they will go.”
Ruffled, Sir John adjusted his coat, jerking it down against his chest a little straighter. “A captain is due his candor, I suppose. But what do you propose instead? We wait out the winter here?”
Hope flared in Francis’s chest. “No, sir. The exact shape of King William Land is unknown. As we discovered with Cornwallis Land it could be King William Island, with a chance to sail around its eastern shore.”
“East would add miles,” Sir John said, brows drawing down. “We would not be out this year after all.”
“Only because Erebus is lame,” Francis said, spreading his hands flat on the table. His skin buzzed with remembered anger, but he tamped the coals with the knowledge that he might still convince them to turn around. “If we consolidate our coal in the less damaged ship, we’d have enough to go for broke and get east of King William Land—possibly around it. It’s our best, and probably only chance to get around it before winter.”
“Abandon Erebus? Is that what you’re saying?” James fixed him with a hard stare, but instead of the irritation he felt once before, Francis realized it was James attempting to understand his thinking. This wasn’t a boy mocking his betters—not through the lifted veil of sobriety, anyway.
“If needs must,” Francis said. He inhaled, looking around the table. “As a friend of mine once said, this place wants us dead. This is no melodrama, gentlemen. This will be the longest, hardest winter of our lives if we continue our current course. We may spend it wintering in some sheltered bay and continue our course come spring and breakup. Tired of one another, no doubt, but certainly alive.”
Sir John was already shaking his head. “That is interesting speculation, Francis, but of course we shall not be abandoning Erebus. Nor shall we abandon Terror should she fall under some minor misfortune. We are almost there—”
“Hear me, John,” Francis said, his palms sweating despite the chill in the great cabin. “Even oak and iron are no match for what lies ahead. We will be enclosed in the pack, and we will not be able to struggle free in spring if we are out of position when the thaw comes. Please, err on the side of caution, especially when we are this close. We will overwinter, hunt seal and supplement our stores with fresh food. The Passage will be there in spring as it is in winter.”
“No, Francis,” Sir John said, shaking his head. “Your caution is commendable, but we needs must press on. We have been charged with a duty to the crown and we will oversee it with the same rigor that we would in a warmer clime. We will break through, make our way to the Sandwich Islands, and when we are on that beach, you will think yourself foolish for wanting to wait, you will see.”
“John, I—”
Sir John held up a hand.
“We will continue onward, Francis,” he said, mildly, but clearly exerting his own control. Francis ground his teeth.
“Will you not see reason?” he asked.
“There is no reason to wait,” Sir John replied.
“We are about to commit an act of hubris we will not survive,” Francis snarled. He slammed his hand down on the table, making the crockery jump. Jacko, who’d been nibbling a biscuit, shrieked and leapt from the table into Lieutenant Gore’s arms. James’s eyes were a brand on his skin, and he ignored it in favor of pressing his point. “You, myself, Mister Blanky and Mister Reid are the only sailors aboard with any arctic experience. You know what becomes of men when they are desperate. We both do. I implore you, please—”
“That’s enough, Francis,” Sir John snapped. “I have allowed your dour countenance, and your candor. This expedition will continue under my direction, as has been handed over to me by the Admiralty. We have been tasked with finding the Passage, and I mean to complete it sooner rather than later, in spite of your fatalistic proclamations. Now, I will hear no more of—”
Francis shoved back from the table and stood, his chair falling over behind him, and clattering to the floor, the silence that followed ringing in his insubordination. He shoved his hand in his jacket, pulling forth his service pistol; he aimed it at Sir John’s chest and fired.
Shock devolved into chaos, and noise erupted around him as the officers all began yelling. They leaped from their chairs; Gore and Hodgson dogpiled him to wrestle his pistol from his hand. Mister Reid was frantically shouting for Doctor Stanley to attend Sir John, though there was no need. Francis could see, from where he was pinned to the wall, that John’s head slumped to his chest, the red stain spreading across his white jacket.
There was a sick sort of satisfaction to it, finally doing what his impulse had wanted him to do the first time the madman had condemned them to this frozen hell. He stared at James, unrepentant as the man came for him, hands fisting in his jacket.
“All of you, out!” James roared, his voice shocking the others into silence. Commander—no, Captain Fitzjames—was now the highest ranking officer aboard both Erebus and Terror, as Francis Crozier had committed the grossest act of treason any of them, himself included, had ever witnessed.
The lieutenants straightened, shuffling amongst themselves, but James, his eyes blazing, repeated the order. Blanky tugged Reid away from John’s body, dragging him from the Great Cabin. One by one, the officers shuffled away, Hodgson with Francis’s pistol clutched in bloodless fingers.
The door clicked shut behind them. James threw the locks and then stalked right back to where Francis stood against the wall, as though he’d been pinned.
“What have you done?” James demanded, shoving Francis at a chair. Surprisingly strong, he thought, but Francis allowed himself to be bulled back into a seat. He was satisfied, at least, that he’d done what he should have done the first time.
“I’ve ended this expedition before we lose more than just Mister Young and AB Orren,” Francis said. James shook his head, his hair whipping about his face as his mouth worked, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I did what I had to do, James, you have to understand that—”
“I don’t,” James snapped. “I don’t understand, and you explaining it to me sounds like the ravening of a madman. How much have you had to drink today?”
Francis, stung though he knew it was a reasonable question, answered. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?” James asked, gesturing at him. “Are you quite certain, or did you drink it all last night and you are soused this morning still?”
“Do I smell of alcohol, James?” Francis asked, tired. “The first time through, I know I must have reeked of whisky.”
He gestured at himself, inviting James to come closer. The younger man obliged him, stepping within reach before he stopped, looking at Francis’s unbound hands.
“I’ve no more fight in me, James,” Francis said, patient. “And it’s not you who doomed us all the first time.”
James frowned harder, and leaned in, his breath soft and warm against Francis’s cheek as he inhaled. Francis knew what he would smell. Sweat, gunpowder, the harsh soap they used. No drink.
“You’re telling the truth,” James said, after a long, hesitant minute. His voice was low, a wobble to it that made Francis’s chest clench. “Then why?”
“Because this is a fool’s errand,” Francis said. “The expedition not only ends in failure, but the deaths of us all. You have to understand, I—”
He sounded like a lunatic.
“I’ve already been through it,” he said. “Sir John gets us stuck in the pack, and after wintering, we are unable to free ourselves. We struggle to release ourselves from the ice, and invite something terrible into our midst blundering about out there.”
“No,” James said, his voice wracked with grief. Francis looked up, watching a tear roll down James’s cheek. “You didn’t have to—to do this.”
He gestured at John’s still form.
“No woman is worth this,” James said.
Francis blinked. “Sophia?”
“Yes, Miss Cracroft,” James snapped. “She’s not worth this!”
Francis felt like he’d been struck across the face. It was then he realized that James wouldn’t understand. Not without going through the same thing he had, out there on the shale. It was a curious experience, like being stuck a few inches out of his body, almost able to touch things before they slipped from his grasp.
“You’re right,” Francis said, his voice heavy. “She’s not.”
James ran a hand through his hair, chewing his cheek as he paced back and forth across the Great Cabin. He kept his head turned from John’s corpse, eyes tightly shut as he passed him.
“James—”
“Be quiet, Francis.”
Francis subsided, his gaze on John’s body. He half-expected the motionless man to jerk awake, berate them both for their bickering. Instead, the blood from the wound soaked into his white coat, turning it bright red and seeping downward as it darkened. John listed to the side, as though he were rudderless on the water and about to capsize.
“You know the punishment for this, Francis,” James said. He inhaled, seeming to come back to himself, and clasped his arms behind his back. He turned away from him, leaving him in profile. Francis watched his stark, lined face as James gazed out the window. “You’ll be hanged.”
“I know,” Francis said. “I was prepared for the eventuality, if it would turn us back.”
In truth, he was. Something about the way that John had spoken...it had awoken that rage again, and also the hopeless despair. There would be no saving John. But he could save the rest of them, and that would be enough, at the cost of his own life.
“I cannot turn us back,” James said.
“James—”
“I cannot,” he said. “I would be stripped of my commission and court martialed if I allowed this to set us back.”
Francis shook his head. “No one would blame you for coming back. It was a fool’s errand, with two commanders who were at each other’s throats and fighting constantly. I was driven to drink and eventually murdered Sir John. You did not expect it, no one did. There’s no shame in returning and reporting and having me hauled into court—”
“And abandoning our charge from the Admiralty besides,” James said, his voice hardening. “No, I think not. Unlike you, I believe in Sir John’s mission, regardless of your terrifying accuracy in prediction. I don’t know what you thought you’d prove, but I will redouble our efforts to find the Passage.”
“James, this is madness,” Francis said.
“I agree,” James replied. “You said this could not work without me. Did you ever not stop to think that it works in the reverse? I cannot do this without you, either, and yet I must shoulder this burden alone now, thanks to you. You have done nothing but delayed the journey and forced me to hang a man I thought I respected...before I met him.”
Francis shut his eyes, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“You’ll be held on the Erebus,” James said. “I cannot trust you on Terror, not with how loyal the men are to the idea of you.”
Francis winced, but it was a fair assessment. He looked down at his hands, his thumbs finally betraying his exhaustion by how they trembled.
“I don’t blame you, James,” Francis said.
“But I blame you, Francis,” James said. “You’ve left me adrift here, and I fear I shall never recover.”
“Then listen to me now,” Francis said. “Turn back from here. Take the ships, go for broke, escape and return to England. Repair Erebus. Let the navy try again but leave—save yourselves.”
“You drunken coward,” James spat. He rubbed the heel of his palm against his eye, shaking his head again. “Look what you’ve done.”
He strode to the door, unlocking it and sticking his head out.
“Lieutenant Gore,” he called.
“Sir,” Gore answered from the Officer’s Mess.
“Clear a space in the hold for a makeshift brig,” James said. “We’ve a prisoner to see to in the morning. Once there’s a place to secure him, return to me for further instructions. We must bury Sir John with haste.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Francis closed his eyes. So he’d failed. They would continue, and they would die.
When he looked up, it looked like Sir John wore a wry smile, from where he slumped in his seat.
The morning, one of the last before winter set in, dawned cold and clear. Francis hadn’t slept, crammed into Erebus’s hold and barred in. Someone had left him a blanket, though he hadn’t used it much. He’d merely sat in the dark, awaiting his fate.
It clutched at his chest, a stone on his heart. He’d failed somehow worse than before, his failure echoing like the gunshot the day prior.
Throughout the night, he’d heard footsteps outside the door, though none had spoken to him. Each tread had been different, as though several different men had moved back and forth in front of his door. He hadn’t memorized all their footfalls.
He wondered if any of those footfalls had been James. He wondered if any of them were his own lieutenants, struggling with his fate.
He hated that for them the most.
They came to get him just past dawn, and he shrugged into his greatcoat. It would be the last time he wore it, after all. He would meet his death with dignity, even if it changed nothing in the end.
There were a clutch of officers on deck, both from Terror and Erebus. Oddly, Doctor Stanley and Mister Goodsir were present as well, and Francis realized—they meant to have a court martial. A full court martial. Sailors not on urgent duties were gathered, all eyes on him.
He felt an odd swell of pride for James Fitzjames, though Francis himself was a cause of much misery. He could only hope James heeded him and went home, instead of continuing. He thought of the Tuunbaq, waiting in the ice.
It would hunt them, and it would feed.
Francis was prodded up on deck by a squad of ABs who ringed him to keep him from approaching too closely to the officers. He kept his head up, his gaze on the knot of lieutenants ringing James.
“Mister Crozier,” James began, and the Francis of before would have bristled at the drop of his title. Instead, he saw it for what it was, James restoring order on his ship. “You have been caught committing the heinous crime of murder. Yesterday morning at our officer’s meeting to discuss the fate of Erebus, you pulled your pistol and shot our commander Sir John Franklin stone dead in a fit of rage.”
Francis said nothing, but gave a slow nod. There was murmuring from the sailors on deck. Blanky wouldn’t meet his eyes, though he chewed furiously on the stem of his pipe. They must have all spent the night aboard Erebus, to avoid a mutiny before James could establish command there.
“Myself and all the lieutenants present witnessed this act,” James said, his voice ringing out in the cold snap of the air. “And as such, we have convened for a court martial and to decide your punishment. Lieutenant Gore. Do you agree with the charges?”
Gore wouldn’t meet his eyes, but his voice was steady. “Aye, sir, I agree with the charges.”
“Lieutenant Le Vesconte, do you agree with the charges?”
“Aye, sir, I agree with the charges.”
“Lieutenant Fairholme, do you agree with the charges?” James said, his voice traveling to the farthest reaches of the deck. It was likely so that Terror could hear him, too, or at least the gist of it—and Francis glanced over, where his ship floated like a hulk of shadow in the black water. There were many men gathered at the rails; word must have spread quickly.
And now, their loyalty would be tested to the breaking point.
“Lieutenant Little, do you agree with the charges?” James asked.
Francis approved; it would cement James as commanding officer. Little met his gaze, then his eyes skittered away.
“Aye, sir. I agree with the charges.”
“Lieutenant Hodgson, do you agree with the charges?”
Hodgson nodded, his gaze even on Francis. Francis gave him a subtle nod. “Aye, sir, I agree with the charges.”
“Lieutenant Irving, do you agree with the charges?”
“I—” Irving faltered, his gaze shooting to Francis, and Francis shook his head. “I abstain.”
“You may not abstain in this court martial, Lieutenant Irving.” James’s voice was solid as steel. “Do you or do you not agree with the charges?”
Their eyes locked, and Francis watched how James’s jaw jumped, his eyes dark and furious as they stared down Irving. Irving swallowed hard, and then finally nodded before squaring his shoulders.
“Aye, sir. I agree with the charges.”
“A full total of seven officers aboard this ship agree that the charges are just and fair in our approximation,” James said. “Therefore, as current highest ranking officer on this expedition, I am obliged to sentence you to hang by the yardarm. You may address the crew and defend yourself, but as there are multiple witnesses to the act—”
The implication held weight in the air, though James didn’t speak the words. There would be no reprieve. Francis nodded, and glanced at the ABs. They parted, warily, and he stepped forward, where everyone could see him.
“It has been an honor to serve as your second in command on this expedition,” he said. “Though at the time, I did not treat it with the due respect I should have. My actions yesterday were an attempt to save your lives from what waits out in the Pack. It will be cold, hungry work, as you’ve never known.”
There were murmurs among the sailors, eyes darting here and there as he spoke.
“Captain Fitzjames is correct. What I have done is unconscionable. In my desperation to preserve your lives, I forgot myself and my conduct was not befitting of an officer. For that, you have my deepest regret,” he said. “Captain Fitzjames, I leave them in your capable hands.”
James’s jaw twitched, but his eyes bored into Francis’s.
Take care of them.
Francis nodded once, then twice, and stood ramrod straight, his arms clasped behind his back.
“I accept the judgment of this court martial and my due punishment,” he said, looking around him.
“Mister Terry,” James bit out.
The boatswain stepped forward, with a rough noose. He looped it over Francis’s head, and they led him to the base of the mast as one of the sailors ran the rope up the rigging to the yardarm. Francis turned away from those watching, though he could still see James from the corner of his eye. Instead, he looked out over the water to the Terror, squatting in the water like a bulldog.
Despite her current motionless state, Francis could not help but think she was a beautiful ship. She had been his home longer than most, and he would miss her. His eyes were on her silhouette as he heard the rope hit the deck behind him.
“On my count!” Mister Terry barked the order as several ABs gathered a length of rope, preparing to pull. “One, two, three!”
The pain was unlike anything he’d felt before. The noose went taut around his neck, tightening so fast he could not breathe. Francis was lifted bodily off the ground, swinging in an involuntary parabola from the violence of the men hauling on the other end of the line. His back slammed into the mast and he lost what air he had left on an explosive exhale, his legs kicking.
The issue with being hung by the yardarm was that it was not a quick nor merciful death. Instead, Francis’s vision doubled and tripled, the sun forming an involuntary sun dog as his vision began to grey at the edges. He kept his eyes on Terror, hands fisted in the rope at his throat as his body fought to stay conscious just that much longer.
Slowly, however, he slackened, the fight leaving him. The world went dark, and it was then no longer Francis’s concern.
Godspeed, James.