Lament The Night

by Kassandra Alvarado

  “None such like a commoner’s, dear boy. I speak of superstition.” Sir John said amicably enough; Fitzjames felt he had best interests at heart. Blindness wasn’t an infirmity the aged polar explorer suffered from. Fitzjames drained his glass, his eyes unable to refrain from darting nervously toward the lengthening shadows. There is...

  “I don’t believe in ridiculous yarns spun by drunken men, sir.” He said more steadily than he felt, wishing he could possess the boldness of Crozier who would drink before their leader’s sight. Throwing caution to the winds, for inaction wasn’t his make, Fitzjames reached for the wine decanter, it was empty. Sir John pursed his thinning lips, the wisps of dark hair like youth were fleeing the man’s pleasant countenance. He appeared a stern father before a reprobate son.

  “Then, why do you persist in bearing that leather pouch filled with iron around your throat, James?” Sir John sighed, much aggrieved. “I could tolerate eccentricness from Francis, but from you, it is a disappointment.”

  Fitzjames’s smile stiffened on his face, “there is-”

  “-A reason,” Sir John spoke sharper, “I would hope, for you to encourage this kind of unchristian shenanigans among my crews. To lead by example, Mister Fitzjames, is the height of principal. You, sir, have become lax, careless, encouraging heathen tokens.”

  In stony silence, he felt his emotions simmer beneath the surface. Indignation, anger, the sting of disappointing someone he held in high regard. All this and more he felt yet none slipped past his facade. “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” Fitzjames began in a moment when Sir John had paused for breath, expression quite flushed with righteousness. “But, it was never my intention to go beyond your civilized mores.”

  “Quite right,” Sir John had barely touched his wine, sipping from the cold rim, seemed to calm him. “I have already taken a few measures to prevent future occurrences of that intolerable behavior.”

  “Steps?” Fitzjames echoed, recalling he had been away from the ship earlier in the afternoon. The meaning of which, he shuddered to think of. His stomach clenched, the unsettling sensation of dropping to the region of his bowels.

  “I have had every ounce of iron confiscated and locked up below, every bit deemed trivial to our proper purposes.” Sir John answered oblivious to the other’s dawning horror. “Lieutenant Le Vesconte, an acquaintance of yours, was somewhat difficult in relinquishing a personal fowling piece filled with iron shot. I suspect some collusion,” he shook his balding head. “Between the Armorer and my officers.”

  Henry... Before his swift mind could think of something-anything to say; Sir John went on with a disappointed air. “Young Mister Couch was another whom proved difficult.”

  Fitzjames’s chin jerked up with the name.

  “To prove him wrong...that there is nothing out there, I had him sent to the far side of the island to camp out, alone.”

  “What have you done?” Fitzjames breathed, rising to his full height. He was shaking, unable to quite speak for fear he would utter something completely damning. Hiding himself, hiding the reality of his birth as a bastard child he had done all his life, the same as with his true emotions.

  “It is only to strengthen his character.” Sir John looked a little surprised with the reaction given. “Sit down, James!” He snapped when the other made no move to do so.“Such as a child is locked in a dark room to overcome their fear. So Mister Couch must be shown that there is nothing in the dark.”

  The color drained from Fitzjames’s face, he passed a hand over his clammy, freshly sweating brow. “But, there is...” whispering, walking to the door. “Oh, but there is, more than you can ever fathom.” Like a man lost in nightmares, he took his leave, mustering up the bravest men from Erebus’s crew. Armed with shotguns and lanterns for an early spring storm was rising in the east, they set off across the frozen harbor for the shore of scree, ice and snow. Deep in his heart, he held little hope of what they might find or never find in the vestige of night.

  ***

  “We found him...,”

  Fitzjames followed the sailor’s gaze. The crimson splash stood out in sharp relief against the deep ravine of ice. “God have mercy.” He uttered under his breath, stretching his hand forth. The mitten clad his fingers clumsily, the lifeless chill of the dead flesh and glassy staring eyes a stark reminder of his failure. Did breath yet stir that eviscerated chest? He prayed it not be so, gently closing the young man’s eyes.

  “Prepare for immediate burial.” He ordered, retracting without another look. He had seen things that denied human comprehension of the natural world with winter’s end he had believed the nightmare past, a figment of polar imagination. Averting his eyes, Fitzjames made the labored trek back to the ships, aware it fell to him alone to tell of Couch’s fate.

  Surrounded by deep shelves of books and maps, he found his tongue faltering. Sir John and Captain Crozier were bent over some such maps, planning out possible sailing courses. Fitzjames felt the momentary sting of exclusion then smoothed his expression into bland civility. Endeavoring to hide his emotions. The loss of Couch, an amiable young man not yet within grasp of his prime had been a blow to his heart. I couldn’t protect him, nor anyone else.

  “Sir,” he prompted in a lapse of conversation. “There is a matter requiring your understanding of-” and before he could finish his hasty statement, before he could formulate the words he needed to speak, for them to understand- someone rapped sharply on the door. The panel slid back a moment later.

  “Apologies,” Robert Sinclair said before anyone could move. “Commander,” the captain of the Foretop looked to him; the man seemed a trifle hesitant, fleeting anxiety passed like a veil. “S-Sailing preparations...”

  Fitzjames snapped out his brief lethargy. Something was wrong, he could feel it. “We’ll talk later in private.” He dashed off a vague, reassuring smile, pointed in its sharpness to Francis Crozier.

  “Of course.” Sir John said, frowning. “Is it-”

  “-of no importance.” Fitzjames replied, heading for the door. Sinclair stood out several steps into the companionway. Closing the door on the semblance of normalcy he had known, he climbed up the ladder through the hatch, Sinclair lost a shade of collectiveness, speaking in hurried whispers once out in the open chill air of April. Past the ships in sight, through the soft, rotting ice glistening into melt water pools. The cold wetness sank through his hard leather boots.

  “A grave hole is no more needed, sir.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  The body, sir...he simply vanished.”

  “Where? How?” He saw the emptied sled with the frozen blanket flattened, encrusted with reddened hoarfrost. “Could Mister Couch have still been alive?”

  “My men were gone but a moment.” Sinclair said contritely, “we took our eyes from him no longer than that. With every respect accorded you, sir, there is no possible way Mister Couch could walk among the living.”

  Fitzjames cast his eye past the abandoned sledge, away from the circle of trampled snow and crushed crystals glittering madly like diamonds. “I think...” he glimpsed the odd spackle of color disturbing the monotony to the absent gaze. Recognizing it for what it was, he felt hopelessness well inside his forthright breast.

  He went a few steps to the north, discerning the path disappearing into the ice and snow. “I may never awaken.” He whispered to himself, the smothering feelings of failure subsumed by a keener sense of horror. Footprints of red snow trailed off in the distance...

  Epilogue

  Commander James Fitzjames stood on the small rise overlooking the tiny cemetery. No greenery would ever weather the memorial boards but ice and the harsh elements of the polar lands would no doubt one day render the names to forgetfulness. Three stood side by side facing Cape Riley, a fourth lay shallow, a dummy grave that remained devoid of the occupant. Two of the dead lay covered by limestone slabs.

  The dead could not rise, he mused to himself.

  They co
uld not speak, nor walk among the living. The dead shall remain buried until God’s day of judgment. Rumors, were rumors. Sir John had been unable to shake their faith in a trinket of iron, a cross of square-cut nails. Sir John didn’t believe.

  Shaking his head slightly, he reached up to lightly touch his cap to the lone graves. Striding across the barren shoreline of Beechey Island, Fitzjames’s eye was caught by a pair of cotton work gloves laid out on a nearby rock in the sun. Frowning inwardly at little cause for wastefulness, he changed direction, walking toward the boulder, his shadow casting long over the pebbled beach. Then, without reason, he stopped.

  His eye saw nothing to give cause, nor warning for hesitation. Indeed to the outward observer he would seem paralyzed, motionless for a reason other than thought. Just a few steps more, he thought curiously. Why can’t I take them? His lingering gaze discerned motion where there ought not to be none, a flicker of shadow, darkness a blot in a sliver of ravine and the milky white face mocked in death he knew so well. Fitzjames closed his eyes tightly, in anger at himself and his own impotence.

  “Captain?” The man’s tentative voice cut through his wash of self-pity. The men had taken to calling him ‘captain’ during the long winter. Fitzjames knew the title his by right but glimpsed the flickers of jealousy in Crozier’s face. “Yes?” He forced his tone to remain steady.

  “We’re ready to cast off now.”

  “Yes.” He murmured; the ships awaited in the distance, cut from their winter harbor, Erebus and Terror were beautiful upon the glossy dark surface of water, bergy bits a sea of white beside their majestic hulls. Fitzjames turned away from the island, the canister tucked safely under his arm.

  “Sir,” said the sailor. “Shall we place the cairn here?”

  “No, that won’t be necessary.” He well knew the importance of caching messages, having passed one such cairn made of tin cans complete save for the last thing which reposed with him. “This will be the year in which we forge history.” He answered, looking toward the bright glint of sun splashing across the ice, blinding rainbows danced upon the pristine surfaces.

  Fitzjames thought of the long sea route ahead, of the mist-lying islands and deceptive floes. He thought of shadows and winter and the night which lay thickening upon his soul.

  “We will not stop as planned.” Fitzjames decided, facing the island as the men cast off. The boat drew a shuddering start, scraping across shallows and rocks. A passing violet cloud seemed to obscure the sun for the shadows lengthened as monstrous beings across the barren island and a figure became one with the darkness.

  We won’t tarry none, for surely he will follow.

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