Inukshuk (12 page)

He hit
Reply
and realized, as soon as he had, that he'd never actually texted another person in his life. He'd often enough witnessed students, palms aglow with their private feuds and correspondences, thumbs twitching over keys, eyes lowered. Called them out for it, seized phones in class and made a pile of them on his desk; delivered his little set-piece lectures on the indolence of texting culture, mocking the butchered English it engendered, worse even than emails, and the spirit of codependent instant gratification it fed. Well, the joke was on him now, wasn't it? His entire existence seemed concentrated into his thumbs, eyes straining through darkness to make out the letter combinations on the too-small phone keypad, which one to press, how many times to get the desired letter and symbol, phone slippery in his palm.
Of course! When & where? Glad boy is well. Consider amnesty?
Hit SEND and snapped shut the phone and
stood back, noting as he did that he had entirely forgotten his surroundings. Had not heard the cat crackling food at its bowl or the dishwasher cycling into wash with a gushing, vibrating hum.

ALL DAY AND NIGHT NOW, light stabbed him to the roots of the eyes, severing some essential aspect of reason and stranding him in a walking nightmare. His makeshift attempts to deadlight his cabin's skylight and block the sun—rags and scraps from sail mending tacked to the surrounding boards with finishing nails—and to blot the noise and smell rolling in from beneath the India-rubber curtain partition with more of the same, none of it worked. The light didn't stay out; the sound and smell seeped in continually. Every night, he lay exhausted and enervated, eyes torn-feeling from sleep loss, mind reeling between dreams and random details relating to the day's tasks, the service and cleanup, endless preparation and polishing, or veering suddenly to pictures of home, or of ice and sun, snow, glowing spires and clouds of Northern Lights, and the rest of the crew. Hideous-faced bearded men with frostbitten cheeks and noses, eyelids, lips drawn back from bleeding gums. Snippets of Franklin's Bible-jargon interpenetrating it all with no apparent pattern or sense.

Crozier?

His curtain partition was, in fact, open wide now and he saw that these were actual men addressing him, not phantoms: Fitzjames and the bosun's mate, Hardy. Trouble? Almost certainly, if it was these two. Lashes and half rations, whatever it was. But what had he done? Nothing he remembered. Sneaked once weeks ago with some other men into the storeroom on orlop deck for rum but . . . hadn't they paid him off already? They had, he was sure of it—more rum than all of them took together given to Fitzjames to keep him quiet.

He rolled over and felt boards pressing through his horsehair mattress to the small of his back. Sat up.

They were still there, the two of them, Fitzjames with an arm extended through the doorway now—fat, spoiled drunk . . . well, not so fat anymore—Hardy a step behind.

What's it about, then?
Hoar asked.
Something afoot?
And as the words came, he realized that all night there had been some form of commotion outside his cabin, footsteps, men speaking in low voices, mixed together with the usual din from the front end of the ship and the ceaseless howling, moaning racket of the ice pack beneath them.

Fitzjames seized him by the shoulder, pulled him through.

On the double, sailor
, he said.
There's no time.

Seconds later, they were in Franklin's quarters: iced floorboards, frosted windows half obscuring the endless, heatless sun beyond. Only that afternoon, he'd stood in this very spot with the luncheon tea service, cold early-June sun streaming thinly under a low layer of advancing snow clouds, and carried on a halfhearted, mostly one-sided conversation with Franklin about easier days ahead.
Seal and whale abound in these waters, I'm told
, Franklin had said. His breathing wasn't right, or the timing between his words. Almost like he couldn't focus or ever get quite enough air in his lungs.
And if one of our hunters is an especially good shot, a little south of here, bears big enough to feed the entire crew for a fortnight. Can you imagine? The Eskimo hunter, when he's killed a bear . . . will drink his blood and eat his still-beating heart. Considered a sign of honor and respect. . . . Our men are as good a shot as any, but I do expect we can refrain from these more barbaric aboriginal demonstrations . . . of ultimate
respect
, would you not agree? Plenty of game, though, once we're sailing. Never abandon ship, I say. Never. There will be plenty for all. This channel in particular, I expect . . . rife with opportunity for better marksmen, perhaps even a . . . pelican or two. Some beaver and quail, dovekies . . . a musk ox
. So persuasive were his descriptions (though Hoar knew that in most respects they were pure poetry: There would be no beaver, quail, pelican, musk ox, probably no whales, and few bears or seals), he almost felt the ship tilt and roll under his feet, drawn on
the current southward—any day now, they'd been hearing; any day, temperatures should rise, ice break up—half-expected the horizon outside Franklin's windows to swing and veer around suddenly; clang of the bell on deck and men calling to one another from above and below. But no. Of course not. They were solidly frozen in. Coldest June on record, so far as they knew. Cold without a break, continuous snow and blinding white sun all day and night. The mercury in the thermometer approaching freezing but never going much above, never the first glint of real meltwater.

In his seat by the coal grate, legs outstretched, quilt on his lap and another around his shoulders, Franklin had continued a half-intelligible line of inquiry:
Any regrets, lad?

That's a blessing, then. My one real regret, and my other real regret . . . both females, one alive, the other dead . . . one I'll see again ere long, I fear, the other . . . perhaps never, or not for a long while to come
. And then, pointing at the tea service, grimacing:
Take it. I've no appetite, and you look hungry enough for twelve men
.

Now, well past midnight, same room, same commander, same endless light, but nothing else the same. Crozier, Fitzjames, the surgeon, Lieutenant Gore, all men he'd served day after day going on two years now, others from
Terror
he'd never served, all of them standing idle but attentive, waiting, speaking in low voices. On his side, on the floor where he'd apparently fallen, lay Franklin, covered in blankets, bits of foam flecking the corners of his mouth and chin, breathing shallowly, with convulsive effort.

Crozier faced him.
Well, you're just a little late, then. Apologies. Can't say nothing anymore, our fearless leader, but he was asking for you.

But what . . .
Hoar began.
Why . . .

One was Franklin's Bible—familiar worn green calfskin cover with gold embossing and felted overleaf. The other a shallow reflective surface of silver, octagonally shaped: a serving plate engraved with the Franklin crest. He'd used ones like it dozens of times serving Franklin. Same weight and heft, same fluted edges, cold beveled undersurface against his palms and fingertips, all of it the same as ever. Breakfasts, lunches, teas—all those mornings and afternoons serving the commander, bringing his hot water and towels, fresh linens, barely believing his own good fortune to have been so well positioned and on such a great ship, first in service to the commander, the greatest Arctic explorer of all time! He'd been so sure of it, sailing out of London and later departing Discko Bay—everything, every aspect of this trip to be savored and memorized for future retelling:
Voyage of a lifetime,
he'd told himself.
And a career-builder, too!
He'd even, in some perverse way, been anxious then for his first winter of endless night and cold, coal stink, bad food, bound up eternally in darkness belowdecks. Anxious for hardships of every kind to test himself and know his limits, what he might endure.
Our nation's heroes
, Franklin had called them once, Hoar, and all the crew.
There will be poetry for us, and ballads. Statues, I expect. And, of course, my book . . .

May I?
he asked, and before permission was granted, he knelt by Franklin. From his pocket he drew the handkerchief he used to conceal bread and hoarded bits of fat or meat. Shook it clean and pressed an edge to Franklin's mouth. The lips twitched apart—thin, sad, always downward-turning, serious, even when he was at his most jovial—and the eyelids moved, eyes seemingly fixed on some remote middle distance beyond Hoar, maybe inclusive of him, maybe not.
Hard to tell. He wiped the cheeks and mouth and smoothed a hand along the slope of Franklin's cool forehead. Tried to ease shut the eyes.
There,
he said.
Give us a hand, then. Let's get him in his bed at least
. But no one came to his aid. And then suddenly, it seemed Franklin was seeing him—really looking straight at him, those deep-set gray-blue eyes—as if some awful thing were bearing down on them, his face going redder by the second.
What, sir?
Hoar asked.
What is it?

They were pulling him upright and back.

Won't be long now
.

It's an unusual form of consumption or tuberculosis, to be sure. Exceedingly fast,
observed Goodsir
. May be related to the prolonged cold. We've not seen it before and can't say for sure the cause, though once it sets in, it does seem there's little to be done, save morphine to ease his passage....

Back into the freezing light and down the ghost walkway Hoar went, past the empty officers' cabins, all with curtain partitions gaping open, all officers in with Franklin now, waiting for the end. How had he missed this? How had he been the last notified? He couldn't bear the thought of confining himself back to his quarters for another few hours of tortured sleeplessness before reveille.

Through the thickening darkness to middeck, where the smell was worst—human, fungal, rotten. A rank cheese of shit, coal fire, sweat, rotten and burned food. Beyond cook's stove, the humped shadowy mass of men strung up in hammocks shoulder-to-shoulder, groaning, snoring, one swinging upright now to shout and wave at phantoms, all of them too cold, too hungry, too often rat-bitten to ever fully sleep—a constant, senseless shifting like the pack ice alive beneath them and slowly devouring the ship. Dark. At least they had the darkness here.
Here come I with a sharp blade and a clean conscience!
Oh, that would get them all up in a hurry. But this was no night for pranks.

He had to get out, even if it killed him. Even if it meant wandering
around pointlessly on the ice until reveille, walking the trail back and forth, back and forth between
Erebus
and
Terror,
or Fitzjames's “exercise” loop, and being more than half-asleep on his feet the following day. Didn't matter.

The Bible and plate. He'd forgotten both in Franklin's cabin.

No they weren't his yet.
Navy protocol. Honorable muster-out.
Probably never would be. Up the ladder he went; pushed open the door and out.

Burn of colder air, ice mist and bright ice-rimed riggings. Stinging first intake of breath. Twenty-four degrees, he guessed. Maybe colder; not much. Warmer than it had been for months, but not warm enough. Anywhere men had walked on deck, the silver slickened outline of boots in compressed ice dust and melted and refrozen snow. Outgrowths of ice on all railings. Dead, everything dead and still. If they abandoned ship, how long would it stand alone, looking exactly like this, icebound, no men aboard, light creeping end to end all summer above decks and then the winter-long dark? Years maybe . . . or months, before the ice claimed it. Over the side he went, and down—into the eastern zigzag gulley of footprints through old ice toward
Terror,
crunch of ice underfoot, and then he was scrambling up, up the embankment and out to pure open space. Pure open ice. Horizonless. Sun glaring inches above the eastern rim of the world, white, steadily upward-bound; one or two in the morning, he guessed. Out of habit, though it was no longer cold enough for it, he held his eyes open as long as he could between breaths to prevent their freezing shut, narrowed against the snow glare, but open; felt tears burning along his cheeks and neck. Blew out straight to keep the breath from icing his beard. Dressed as he was—sleeping clothes and jacket, scarves, mittens—he could survive hours, days even, if he were careful and kept moving. Or he could die. Walk into a white-out, fall through a crevasse, or just stumble along, ice-blinded, disoriented, and compass-less, until he fell down in a last peaceful ice coma. Never have to face what was coming: the burial of Franklin and the ensuing despondency and fear; Royal Navy protocol and formality overcovering it all, and the growing certainty among all
men that they were on the verge of a most colossal failure and collapse, and closer than ever to the end: sail now or, if the ice didn't break up, open a lead, abandon ship. Begin the march out. Never have to ask,
And what next for me? What service for captain's steward on
Erebus
or off it, now the commander is gone?