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“All of you will leave this place alive!” Francis Crozier declares, as the sun takes its place firmly in the sky, and it’s more a statement of morale than anything but the crew eat it up, cheering and shouting in joy.
“Is that a promise?” someone calls out, and Francis cannot make that promise, but someone else follows it up, almost overtop the first man, “Is that an order?” and Francis cannot promise but he sees no reason not to strengthen their resolve as much as he is able.
“Yes,” he decides. “That is an order. I’ll not have another man die before we see the banquet the Admiralty is sure to put on for our return.”
They take up the cheer again, both crews, and he can feel the approving gaze from James, and he allows himself to smile just a little.
They set out on foot and Francis cannot help but worry. He watches his men and his officers, waits for the telltale signs of scurvy or of lead poisoning or of the myriad other things that will kill a man in this place. He sees nothing, and can’t be sure if he’s failed to look closely enough or they have hidden it too well or they have truly gotten so lucky.
Can’t be sure, that is, until the day he and James go to find the Cairn.
“It’s strange,” James offers, unprompted, as they begin their walk back to camp. “Before we ever left the ships, I knew I lived on borrowed time.”
Francis stops walking. He turns to look at James head on, concern drawing his brows together. “What are you on about James?” he asks.
“I haven’t gotten any worse, is what I’m on about. I was bleeding, Francis. From my hairline, every morning, and I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t have you worried about me when you needed to be worried about the men. But it’s been long enough now that I would have expected worse. ”
James looks, for once, utterly earnest. Francis frowns. “Come here,” he says, sharper than he quite means to, and hauls James closer by the arm so that he can run his fingers through his hair himself, check for proof of whatever momentary madness has taken his Second.
He finds what he hopes very much not to. His fingertips come away bloodied. But only a little, and all James’s hair stays firmly where it is, and he frowns deeper. “We’re not any better off than we were on the ships,” he says, and he can’t decide between confusion and concern so it merely comes off frustrated.
“I know, Francis. But tell me the Tuunbaq is merely a polar bear. Things out here are clearly not as they are in England. The same rules are not followed.”
Francis inhales a single, bracing breath. “And you think-”
“I don’t entirely know what I think,” James says, “but I know that I have my fair share of old wounds for poetic justice to tear open, and I know that all of them remain rather determinedly shut.”
Francis chews over the issue in his mind. “Right,” he says after a moment, because he can’t think of what else to say to this. “I’ll- keep that in mind.”
The camp is in an uproar when they return. The hunting parties have returned but Irving and Hodgson are nowhere to be seen, and Jopson and Le Vesconte have gathered the men in the center and are keeping order by the skin of their teeth.
Francis pushes his way through the crowd. “All of you settle down!” he orders, voice raised and pitched to carry, and he’s sure he can be heard well beyond the bounds of the camp. And the men do in fact settle, albeit reluctantly. He turns to Jopson, though he doesn’t entirely look away from the rest of the men. “Jopson, report.”
Jopson, for perhaps the first time in Francis’s knowing him, hesitates to follow an order. It’s enough to turn Francis’s attention to him fully, and the uncertainty there is somehow more disconcerting than the panicked crewmen all around.
“Jopson,” he repeats, pointedly.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jopson shakes his head, and Francis can tell exactly how much he doesn’t want to be disobeying an order. “You need to hear this from Lieutenant Irving.”
“Where is he?” Francis asks, with the feeling that whatever’s wrong here is even more wrong than he’d originally expected.
“The doctors have got him, sir, and Mr Farr too,” Jopson says, and that feeling becomes a certainty.
“James, keep an eye on this,” he says, gesturing to the gathered men standing on the knife’s edge of obedient attention and an outright free-for-all. He waits just long enough to see James step forward and take up a position at the center of it with Jopson and Le Vesconte before he turns and makes a beeline for the medical tent.
He steps through the flap and the iron tang of blood is almost strong enough to turn his stomach. Mr Farr is on the stool with his head between his knees and Doctor McDonald is kneeling next to him with a hand on his shoulder, speaking in low tones that Francis can’t make out. Lieutenant Irving is sitting up on the bed, chest bare and eyes wide as dinner plates. He’s clutching at Doctor Stanley’s wrist with one hand, knuckles white, and gingerly prodding at his wounds with the other.
“Lieutenant Irving,” Francis says, steady and calm despite the knot of shock in his chest. Stanley has a needle and catgut in hand, waiting tensely for Irving to grant him access, and Francis can see by the amount of blood soaking into the blanket underneath him that it needs to be soon or risk losing the patient entirely.
Irving’s head snaps up, and Francis very deliberately keeps his expression neutral as he makes eye contact.
“Doctor Stanley needs to administer sutures,” he says. Irving’s gaze flicks to where he’s keeping Stanley captive, and he nods jerkily. And his fingers very slowly release their grip.
“Captain,” Irving gets out as Stanley presses him to lie down, voice heavy with an uncharacteristic lack of surety. Francis places himself on the side of the bed opposite Stanley and takes his grasping hand. His fingers scrabble for purchase, nails scraping at the flesh of Francis’s wrist as he sucks in shallow, urgent gasps of air.
“Lieutenant,” Francis says sharply. Irving looks at him again, desperation in his eyes. “Breathe. You’re going to be alright.”
Irving shuts his eyes and shakes his head, a sob catching in his chest.
“You must be still, Lieutenant Irving,” Stanley says, annoyance and urgency all pressed together in his voice.
Francis turns Irving’s head. “John,” he commands. “Look at me.”
Irving opens his eyes.
“You must be still so that Doctor Stanley can make you well. Be still, Lieutenant.”
Irving nods, forcing his breath even. “I can be still, Captain.”
“I know,” Francis says.
He doesn’t break eye contact with Irving until Stanley finishes his work and sits him up again to be wrapped in bandages. Irving sits up and drops his legs over the edge of the bed and raises his arms, and he’s calmer now than before by leaps and bounds, so Francis takes the moment to look over to Mr Farr and Doctor McDonald. Farr looks as bloodied as Irving, and his eyes are as wide as McDonald hands him a small cup. McDonald catches Francis’s gaze and offers a nod and half smile that he takes to be a good prognosis.
Lieutenant Irving clears his throat self-consciously. “Captain, I apologize for my… indignity.”
“I assure you there’s no need, Lieutenant,” Francis says, turning back. Irving is bandaged now, but he’s looking over his bloody, torn shirt with something not quite like despair. Francis waits until he sets it aside with a frustrated shake of his head to ask, “What happened?”
Irving breathes deep. “We were hunting. There were a group of- of Netsilik. I left Mr Farr and Mr Hickey on the ridge while I went to speak with them. They offered me food. I looked up and Mr Farr and Mr Hickey were- I couldn’t see them, so I asked the Netsilik to stay where they were and went to see what had happened. Mr Farr was on the ground, and Mr Hickey was sitting over him with his back turned. He- he had a knife. He stabbed me, over and over. I-” He swallows. Shakes his head. “Lieutenant Hodgson showed up. With Mr Armitage and Mr Pocock. They- He had Mr Hickey bound so we could bring him back to camp.”
Francis frowns. “Mr Hickey attempted to kill you and Mr Farr?”
Irving nods.
Francis is, very abruptly, furious. “Get some rest, Lieutenant,” he says, and turns on his heel to handle this.
McDonald catches him at the door. “Captain,” he says, low and urgent, and Francis looks at him expectantly. “Those men should be dead. In fact, I can’t see a single reason why they aren’t, given how much blood was lost and how many vital organs punctured.”
Francis stops walking so he can think for a moment. He thinks of Mr Morfin, who just the other night had narrowly escaped death when a ball had grazed his skull. He thinks of James who should by all rights be dying of scurvy but remains as hale as he was when they made their plan to walk out. And he thinks of Irving and Farr behind him in pools of their own blood, by any reasonable metric stabbed to death but incongruously well enough to sit and speak.
He feels distinctly as though he’s going mad, but he’d felt that way when the Tuunbaq started hunting them too.
“Right,” he says to McDonald. “Thank you doctor.”
Hickey is bound in chains when Francis gets to the tent they’re keeping him in, two marines standing guard outside the door and two inside. Lieutenant Hodgson is inside as well, and as soon as Francis enters he comes close enough to whisper. “Any word of Lieutenant Irving’s condition?” he asks, worry writ all over his face.
“He should be fine, luckily,” Francis tells him. “What happened, on your side?”
Hodgson crosses his arms. “We split up. Groups of three, half an hour out and then meet back where we split off from. I went with Mr Armitage and Mr Pocock, and when we got back to the rendezvous point Mr Hickey was there alone. He told us the Netsilik had killed Mr Farr and Lieutenant Irving. We went with him to where he said the bodies were. When we got there, Farr and Irving were both conscious and the Netsilik were trying to help them. Hickey pulled a knife, so Armitage pulled his gun, and gun trumps knife, so he had no choice but to stand still while we tied his hands.”
Francis nods. “And where are the Netsilik now?”
“They helped us bring Mr Farr and Lieutenant Irving back to camp. I’d imagine they’re somewhere with Mr Goodsir and Lady Silence now.”
“Good. Don’t let him out of your sight, Lieutenant. I’ll deal with him in a moment.”
Mr Hickey and his band of mutineers take off into the fog to escape his execution. Francis doesn’t watch them go, is too busy trying to do something to protect his men from the Tuunbaq for that to be anywhere near priority. He counts casualties when James has driven it off with rockets and the fog clears up. He counts off bloody wounds and missing limbs and yet another man gone mysteriously catatonic, but he counts no dead.
The doctors frown over Mr Collins, after they’ve done up everyone else’s injuries to the best of their abilities. Francis frowns over the fact that all his men are alive, if worse for wear. Not that he’d prefer them dead, but something about this whole thing feels deeply wrong.
Hickey has made off with Mr Goodsir and Lieutenant Hodgson and two marines and various other lower ranking men. Francis doesn’t know which left of their own free will and which were coerced, but he doesn’t care, not really. He’ll have all of them back with open arms should they return. All but Hickey himself.
They turn toward Fort Resolution, because with no rescue ship on its way they must first make it there to send word, and they walk. Days blend together in the endless shale and sunlight, and they walk. Lady Silence breaks from their group to go with the other Netsilik, and they walk. The wind brings a dry dusting of snow across the land, and they walk.
Francis keeps the same close eye on the men that he has been the whole time, and still he sees no sign of the illnesses that will rot them from inside out. Each day that passes makes him less inclined to chalk that up to luck, especially as their stores dwindle and rations are cut and still everyone is as hale as they were when they set out from the ships.
The men, he can see, are starting to notice what he already has. Lieutenant Little comes to him as they set a new camp and says, hesitantly, “We’re doing well. Better than I’d expected, really.” It’s not a question, but at the same time it is, and Francis shakes his head.
“I don’t know why any more than you do.”
Edward nods, but hesitates to go. “It’s only, I keep- waiting. For it to just be a fluke, and we all wake up tomorrow half rotted and unable to go on.”
Francis has been waiting for the same thing. “We’re halfway to rescue now,” he says, instead of that. “If we can keep up the pace we’ve been making, we’ll be there before summer ends.”
“You’re not worried about it, sir?” Edward asks, genuine curiosity almost overwriting his uncertainty.
Francis’s hands go still, holding partly secured waxcloth in place against the tent frame as he ponders how to answer. “Of course I’m worried, Edward,” he says after a long moment. “But I’ve near a hundred men who need leading, and I will lead.” Edward just looks at him. He takes a breath. “We will make it. I can’t abide anything else.”
Edward nods. He walks away, and Francis can’t tell if he’s reassured or not.
They find Hickey’s camp strewn across the rocks, right near where Mr Blanky grabs Tom Hartnell and hands him a spyglass and tells him to look out over the ice and see what he sees. There are men lying dead around and frozen blood splattered over cloth and wood and metal. Hickey lies torn in two, tongue and arm missing, and Francis thinks he knows exactly what happened here. Partway between there and their own camp, they find Lieutenant Hodgson and Mr Goodsir and Mr Diggle, looking near as battered as Hickey’s dead, and something twinges in Francis’s brain.
James comes into his tent that night, after he’s been left to manage the celebrations over the finding of the Northwest Passage all day while Francis spoke to the survivors of Hickey’s descent into madness. “The men aren’t going to remain oblivious forever, you know.” He doesn’t say to what, but he doesn’t have to. Francis sighs.
“Did someone say something?”
James sits down. “Dundy has mentioned it, a few times. But other than that, no. Not to me, at least.”
“But they’re talking,” Francis surmises. They can’t not be. Their supplies aren’t going to make it all the way to Fort Resolution, even with the men already on half rations, but not a one has begun to feel the pangs of starvation. Hunger, certainly, but not harm.
James nods. “What else are they to talk about? The two most interesting things happening out here are the bear and our own miraculous continued survival, and given the lack of recent attacks, one of those things feels a great deal more relevant than the other.”
“Talk is only talk,” Francis declares after a moment. “It can’t be helped.”
“Then let us hope,” James says, dramatic as ever, “that talk does not become action.”
Francis snorts. “What action do you think they would take to remedy this? They aren’t dying, even when by all rights they should be. The only action I foresee is quite a lot of very thankful prayer.”
It’s James’s turn to sigh. “I do hope you’re right.”
“Somethin’s not right,” Thomas says one day without preamble, as they’re packing their camp into the sledges to get moving again. Francis casts him a sidelong look as he checks the latch on a trunk.
“I know,” he says. He doesn’t elaborate.
Thomas sits down on the trunk, before Francis can lift it. Francis raises an eyebrow and leans back, arms crossed. “We should be dead and ashes, Francis. Or ice, as it were.”
“You should be glad you aren’t.”
“Oh, don’t mistake me, I am. But that doesn’t make it any less strange.” Thomas makes himself comfortable. “Tell you what I think,” he offers.
Francis waits a moment for him to speak. He doesn’t, and Francis scowls. “Shove over,” he mutters, sitting himself down on the trunk too. Thomas scoots obligingly to make room. “What do you think?”
“I think you gave the order to survive when we packed up ship, and you didn’t mean a thing by it but it’s endin’ up truer than you thought.”
Francis is quiet. Thomas, as always, takes that as invitation to continue.
“I think you don’t wanna look at it too hard, case it makes whatever’s keepin’ us alive stop.” Thomas looks at him, seeing in a way that only a good friend can. “And I think you’d like to run all the way to Fort Resolution like the Devil himself’s on our tail so the men’re safe ‘fore our luck runs out, but you can’t and it’s drivin’ you up a wall.”
Francis leans back on his hands and sighs deeply. “So what do I do, Thomas?”
“We keep moving,” Thomas says, with utmost certainty. “And maybe pray,” he adds, after a moment of thought, “to whoever’ll listen.” He bumps their shoulders together, then he gets up with a huff of effort. “We’ve lived through worse hands than this. We’ll make it.”
They make it to Fort Resolution at the tail end of August. Their stores of salt meat and biscuits are long since gone, and a trail of empty tins mark out more than 600 miles of their route from the ships, but those are weeks gone too at this point, and all his men are sick for days when they’re finally offered food again. They’re a walking miracle, and Francis knows this is one of the things that will be confined to letters between crewmen and disbelieved rumor, not memoirs.
A message is sent out at speed so that come spring a ship can take them home. Torn clothes and worn boots are replaced and the men grow more well with each day that passes in civilization. Francis is beyond grateful, to whoever or whatever is responsible for their survival. He is also utterly terrified, somewhere deep inside, that it’s only waiting to exact its price.
But winter passes milder here than they’ve experienced in years, and when spring comes they make their way to the coast, where a ship awaits to take them back to England to receive their accolades.
All the men make the journey, and they’re greeted with fervor at the docks. All the officers are welcomed with open arms to an Admiralty ball celebrating their return, and the papers are covered in their names for weeks, and the whole of England seems to know their faces.
And eventually, Francis allows himself to stop expecting something awful and merely be glad to be alive.