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i. lethe
Des Voeux looks exactly as James remembers him — that is, as the young lad he’d met on the Cornwallis and not the man he’d last seen running away from him in a haze of fog and screams, whose sun-exposed corpse he’d only seen long after it was too late to see him.
The land here is rough, rocky, up and around boulders of varying sizes to traverse through and only inky black darkness before them. Des Voeux makes sure to stay within arm’s reach as James struggles behind him.
“It gets easier, up ahead,” Des Voeux assures him. “Just keep your footing steady, yeah? Don’t want to slip and fall. Cold in there.” He inclines his head to the river.
“Is it?” James asks. It doesn’t look cold, but warm, almost pleasant. Inviting, even, like a drink of water down a parched throat. He wasn’t thirsty before.
“Oh yes, sir,” Des Voeux says. “I remember that much.”
His youth, his demeanor, the way he looks at James with a peculiar tilt to his head. Information organizes itself in James’s head. “You went in.”
“Fell,” Des Voeux corrects. “That’s what Hodgson says. You remember George Hodgson? He’s here too, somewhere. He—” he looks away from James, somewhere past him, into the darkness, “he pulled me out. Said he didn’t want me to forget. I didn’t forget him, though. I didn’t forget you either, sir. But I don’t remember how I got here. Hodgson says we were in the Arctic?”
James’s mouth is thick, dry, filled with lead. “Yes,” he finally manages to croak. “We were. You were my first mate.”
There’s a self-satisfied smile on Des Voeux’s lips and for a moment, everything feels a little brighter in this dark, decrepit place. James shares with him what he can remember from early on in the voyage, it’s far easier to linger in happier memories when the person you’re relaying these events to is an eager listener, his earnestness bringing such life to his face that one would find it difficult to believe such an animated young man is dead.
But then they arrive at the fork in the road, the splitting of the river, and Des Voeux goes from smug to wistful.
“I suppose, sir,” he says, “that it would be too much for me to ask you how I died.”
James swallows, opens his mouth, but Des Voeux continues. “I asked Hodson, he says he doesn’t know, he died before I did. Everyone else died before I did, it sounds like. I asked Hodgson how I fell in, and he says he doesn’t know that either, that he just heard me splashing about and ran over to pull me out. I have this feeling, a strange, awful feeling, that perhaps I didn’t fall in. That my death was such a lonely and tragic experience I would choose to forget my entire life so I could forget how it all ended.”
Beside them, the river runs.
“But you didn’t forget your entire life,” James says, finally. “Hodgson saved you.”
“Yes,” Des Voeux says, the ghost of a smile on the ghost of his form and he seems so much more alive than the last time James saw him.
“Yes,” he says again. “Hodgson saved me.”
ii. cocytus
It hurts to see him. James could rationalize that Des Voeux acted of his own free will when he chose to side with the mutineers, but for Gore, his only crime was to be where Fitzjames asked him to be, to become the first lieutenant on Erebus and be part of this doomed expedition.
“I thought you’d be coming from the Acheron,” Gore says pleasantly, smiling even, when James reaches him and he feels his face flush, not with exertion but something far worse — shame.
The waters here seem cooler, less inviting, and Gore feels so warm, animated.
“It wasn’t all that bad,” he tells him. “Truthfully, I barely remember the whole ordeal, it was all over with quickly enough. The same can be said for most of the men who were killed by the beast. The real tragedy lies with the men who died in the—”
He stops and clears his throat. “It was heartening to know Goodsir has survived. That is, until I heard what it took for him to survive. What it took for all of you to survive.” His smile is tinged with melancholy and James feels guilt blossom in his chest and expand into his lungs, desperately trying to escape through his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he manages to say. “For — everything. To all of you.”
“It’s not your fault, sir.”
“I was in charge of the rosters, for both ships, I am the one who appointed every officer and hired every man, none of you deserved what happened to you—”
“Sir.” Gore stops in front of him and again, James is struck by how corporeal he seems, as though if James touched him, his hand would meet flesh and blood and not thin, cold air.
“There is no morality in death, sir,” Gore continues, soft and gentle. “You may say none of us deserved to die, but it happened nonetheless. As for fault, there’s plenty of blame to throw around — Bryant, for killing the Netsilik man, Sir John for his stubbornness, the Admiralty for conducting this expedition, all of us for being born at the wrong place and wrong time. In the end, what does it matter as to how we came to be here, when sooner or later, we would invariably arrive here anyway?”
James meets his gaze with all the courage he can muster. “Death has been kind to you, Graham, and I am glad for it.”
“I must confess,” Gore says, later, when they’ve resumed their trek, “I do wish we had more time.”
“I would take every single one of you out of here with me,” James replies. “A veritable Pied Piper, I would be,” he’s brave enough to tack on as a small joke, a lighthearted gesture.
It’s nice to hear Gore laugh, however brief it is before it trails off into a sigh. “Oh, but I am well aware of how this story goes, sir. You can only walk away with the one you love.”
For a moment, James stops in his tracks. Then he remembers how to walk again.
iii. phlegethon
In much the same way that Dante’s Inferno is a comedy, it’s funny how Stanley is the one to greet him on the banks of the Phlegethon.
“Sir,” Stanley says with a curt and courteous nod before turning on his heel and walking on, not checking to see if James is following.
But of course James is following.
This walk feels much faster than the previous two, despite the stifling heat and lack of conversation and persistent omen of his and his traveling partner’s gravest mistakes.
It’s only when they reach the end of their path, when James walks up beside Stanley and before he can walk past him, that he speaks.
“Sir,” he says again, with such a softness that James is suddenly transported back to the decks of the Cornwallis , before everything had gone wrong. “You should know…” He trails off without finishing, but he doesn’t have to.
“I know,” James says.
Stanley nods again. James watches him leave the way they came, waits until he’s but a speck in the distance before he moves on.
iv. acheron
“James,” Sir John smiles when he sees him, and while James had considered this reunion a possibility, it hadn’t occurred to him just how much it would affect him until he realizes there’s tears on his cheeks.
He immediately starts wiping the off on the palms of his hands. “Sorry,” he stammers, “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“It’s quite all right,” Sir John says pleasantly. “The atmosphere here lends itself far too easily to melancholy. Come now,” he gestures him along, “you’ve still a long way to go.”
James does his best to avoid looking anywhere near the river as they walk, instead focusing on the present company and trying not to consider the circumstances that have led them both here.
Understandably, Sir John asks first after his wife. “How is Janey?”
“Well,” James says, pauses, trying to find the right words. “It was through her and Sir. James’s efforts that we were able to be rescued. She was…” He clears his throat. “She did — does mourn you, sir.”
Sir John nods. “Strange, how circumstances change us,” he says. “While we were in that wretched place I prayed every day to see my dearest wife once more and now that I am here, I pray I don’t see her for many years to come.”
Standing next to Sir John like this, James can try to pretend he feels younger, that he’s back in a happier time before everything fell apart, but it’s difficult with the rush of water from the whispery smokey river on one side and the fact that Sir John looks decades younger on the other.
“It was a mistake for you to come here,” Sir John says, suddenly, and James imagines the sharp cold knife of those words to be not dissimilar to how it must feel to fall into the Acheron.
“I know you must think me a hypocrite for saying so,” he continues, “and I must admit, you are right. Only in death can I see myself clearly and it was truly foolish of me to allow my insecurities to govern my hand. I blinded myself to the obvious because I firmly believed I could overcome all obstacles through sheer force of will. I was the man who ate his shoes. I thought I could handle anything.”
Just when James thinks he has an idea of how to respond, Sir John turns to him and adds, “Our fatal flaws are not too dissimilar.”
James blinks. “Sir?”
Sir John tilts his head. “James, you’re using as a roadmap a myth whose fame lies primarily in its unfavorable outcome. Is that not the very definition of hubris?”
“I don’t know,” James says, after a moment, “I hear the Admiralty are planning another expedition to find the passage.” He smiles when he sees Sir John do the same.
At the boundary, where the river splits, its unearthly cacophony louder here than it was before, James strains to hear Sir John’s parting words, “I will pray for your success, James, but regardless of what may happen, I hope we do not meet again for quite some time. Deo volente.”
“Of course,” James shouts in response.
“And, when you see him, if you could tell –” But here, the river grows louder and before James can ask him to repeat himself, Sir John has already given him a perfunctory wave and turned to leave.
v. styx
James hears them before he sees them, first as echoes, then mumbled conversation in a voice he soon recognizes as belonging to Thomas Blanky, but it is only when he hears a certain wonderful, beautiful laughter that his feet pick up and he finds himself running over rocky terrain turned sandy shoals until he finds him.
He sees him sitting on a boulder, dressed in the slops James had last seen him in before his kidnapping, when he came by his tent to tell him they’ve perhaps had a breakthrough and they’d be making it out sooner than they’d thought. He’d never seen his body. He hadn’t the courage.
“Francis,” James calls out.
Francis turns.
And suddenly Blanky is standing before him, obscuring his view with a friendly smile and saddened eyes. “Sorry,” he says, “but that’s not the way this goes.”
“Pardon?” James says, for lack of anything else to say.
Blanky laughs. “I thought you knew this one, that’s why you were here.”
“Yes, but…” but he thought he would have a moment longer with him. He straightens himself out. He will simply have to wait until they’re on the surface, together, to see him again. “No matter. Tell me what I have to do.”
Blanky moves and right where Francis was sitting is now a whaleboat, much like the one James had tugged and then had to be tugged on. It may even be the very same one. “You’ll get on that, face forward, and row.”
“And Francis?”
“He’ll sit behind you.”
“How will I know he’s behind me?”
“You don’t believe me?” Blanky raises a brow with a quizzical smirk.
James resists the urge to huff, but a small one escapes him nonetheless. “Traditionally, one should never take for granted anything that happens in this place.”
Blanky steps in front of him, then steps back, and Francis is now sitting at the back of the boat. He just about catches his eye this time when Blanky once again covers him up. It’s a silly magic trick but it takes James’s breath away all the same.
At his expression, Blanky barks a laugh. “That sufficient enough for you, then?”
“I just row?” James asks. “Straight forward? Where am I going? How long will it take to get there?”
Blanky shrugs. “It’ll take as long as it takes. As for where, I’ve no idea. Francis mentioned a couple of places, but don’t bother asking him. He won’t be able to talk to you until you’ve gotten out and by then, you should already know where you are.”
James nods. “Right. Is there anything else I need to know?”
Blanky gestures for him to lean in close, waits for James to comply, then says in a perfectly normal tone of voice, “Don’t turn around.”
vi. ???
James waits until there’s what he assumes to be a good amount of distance between them and where they’ve left Blanky before he clears his throat.
“We were rescued three days after– after.” He laughs mirthlessly. He’s ferrying Francis from the realm of the dead and he still can’t quite get the words out. He clears his throat again. “ Eighteen men, not including myself. Nineteen, when the Lady Silence returned Goodsir to us. Your body–” The word splits, his throat chokes around the rest of the sentence, so instead he skips ahead.
“On the ship,” he continues, in between rowing, “the Endurance , Sir James’s new ship, now that Erebus is lost — although you've said time and again that you know exactly where we left it. But, well. Um.” He’s run out of throat to clear, frustration is hitting its boiling point, he could try capsizing and freeing them both of this awkward misery but instead he lets out a meek cough that resolves into an awkward hiccup.
“Sorry,” he says, finally. “Somewhere in King William Land, I seem to have left behind my infamous storytelling prowess. I know how much you loathed my stories, and I know, if you could tell me, you would say you don’t hate my stories anymore, that after its absence you longed to hear my voice once more. And perhaps hearing me say all this, you’re now thinking, well, James, you may have lost your storytelling ability but you’ve certainly regained your vanity.”
He laughs to himself and in his mind’s eye, he can imagine the smile on Francis’s face, the slight wrinkle in his eyes, the gap between his teeth visible in the slight part of his lips.
“It was a long trip home,” James says. “Not temporally, but in all other senses. Goodsir took personal care of me, for which I am grateful, but it was a painful recovery even with access to proper medication. On some days, when it gets too bright out, I’m supposed to cover my eye with an eyepatch, if you can believe it. My nephew, he calls me a pirate captain now, and my brother William teases me relentlessly about it, I suppose as a distraction but I appreciate it nonetheless. The days when things are truly difficult are when the weather gets cold and even I can barely get out of bed for all the aching in my wounds, let alone Thomas — right, yes, I haven’t yet mentioned. Again, forgive me, my mind, my mouth, they are thousands of miles apart.
“Thomas — Jopson — was in a terrible state for most of the return journey, he asked me not to give you the full story as to not concern you and so I won’t. The long and the short of it is, after the hearing, I hired him as my valet. I figured, well, since you’d specifically chosen to hire him then—”
There’s the sound of a faint splash somewhere behind him and James already has his head halfway turned, Francis’s name on his lips, when he remembers and turns back.
Fog has started to roll in, obscuring the landscape around them until it’s little but varying shades of white and grey, when James regains his voice.
“I met your sisters,” he says. “Miss Magee and Miss Crozier. I had this notion of offering my condolences, but… Your sister, Miss Charlotte, she looks an awful lot like you, doesn’t she? She asked me about you. Our time on the ships, how you fared, how you —” His throat closes again and this time, he laughs around it.
“Christ,” he sighs, “well, there’s the punchline if you hadn’t been able to guess it. I wasn’t able to speak. Have you read any Austen— no, of course you haven’t. Never mind. In any case, it was a miracle Jopson had been there too, and he weaved a wonderful web of our journey together. He can be quite the orator, when he chooses to be. He would tell me about you.”
The fog grows thicker, steadily, but James pays it no mind. There’s only the sound of the oars creaking and the gentle splash of their movement in and out of the water. He can only hear it when he’s not speaking, when his heart isn’t thundering in his chest.
“Maybe you have read Austen,” he says. “I wouldn’t know. It’s not something that came up in our conversations together. We had so little time. It took nearly the end of winter for us to finally see each other as equals, and so soon after that did everything start to go wrong. But I suppose that is the nature of things. I myself felt as though I were running out of time by the time I finally made Captain, and only Sir James has been appointed at an age younger than mine.
“I wish we had more time,” James says. The fog is closing in now, he can scarcely see his own hands, the rest of the boat. “But even with our limited time, I feel I had come to know you. You knew me, right from the start, and I thought I knew you in return, but that was only smokescreen. My own preconceptions reflected back to me. And, well, a fair bit of the drink, if we’re being honest here. But I know you better now. You don’t see yourself as a particularly good man, but you make the effort to try. And I can wax poetic on your virtues for however much time we have left on this journey, but the crux of the matter is, Francis, that I have no idea if you’re sitting behind me.”
He pauses, as if waiting for a response.
“Have you read the Metamorphoses? At the very least, here, you must’ve heard someone speak of Orpheus and Eurydice. The man who walked down into the underworld to take his wife out with the lone stipulation that he not turn around to see her, only to fail at the last minute because he feared she was no longer behind him. Like any other man, I thought myself wiser than Orpheus, that I was secure enough in knowing I loved and was loved in return not to make the same mistake.
“But it’s not that, is it? Not for us. It’s not about whether you love me enough to follow me out. It’s whether you think you deserve to be let out. Whether you deserve to come home.”
James stops rowing. The boat drifts forward, along to their unknown destination, if there is a destination at all, but that doesn’t concern him at the moment. He waits.
Perhaps it’s a figment of his imagination, perhaps it’s a trick or an illusion, perhaps he just wished to hear it so badly that he heard it in silence.
Or perhaps he does hear, in that voice he swears never to forget, “James.”
James turns.