Across Frozen Seas

by John Wilson

  The most mournful sound in the entire world is the flap of a heavy canvas tent in a biting Arctic wind. It is as if the devil is snapping a towel at your heels. And the devil must have played a large part in this disaster. How could so much hope turn to such tragedy? I thought my life was beginning anew when George and I escaped from Marback’s....

  Mister Fitzjames is now only occasionally conscious. I have wrapped him in as much clothing as I can find, but he is still frozen. I fear he will not live long. This storm will be our last. When it hit, our boats were exposed in shallow water. We were through Simpson Strait and near the mouth of the inlet which leads to Back’s Fish River. But we couldn’t stay together. The last I saw of Crozier’s boat it was being driven out to sea and the men in it were fighting to keep it from being swamped. We seemed to derive more shelter from a spit of land and were not in such serious difficulty. But still Mister Fitzjames was having trouble keeping us level. The waves were breaking high over the gunwales and we had to bail continuously to keep from swamping.

  “We must try for a beach to see this out,” Fitzjames could barely be heard above the wind although he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

  With all the white water around, we could see little and could only hope that the water would calm as we proceeded up the inlet. At least the wind was driving us in the direction we wanted to go. But it was driving us too fast and we did not see the reef until the jagged rocks crashed through the bow. In an instant we were all in the icy water.

  Fortunately there was a beach nearby and four of us managed to crawl up onto it. It was rocky and inhospitable, but better than the water. Equipment and pieces of boat were washed up all around us. One man was badly hurt and died before we could get a tent up. The three of us huddled here and waited for the end. The following day the other man died. He just let out a sigh in his sleep and that was it. I managed to drag him outside and now it is only Mister Fitzjames and myself sitting huddled here as the devil torments us.

  Mister Fitzjames is sometimes delirious and talks of his sister Elizabeth back in England. He clutches a journal he has kept for her these many hard years and which she will never see. At least I have no one to worry about back home. I should like to know what happened to George though. I sit and clutch the cold form of Jack Tar.

  The devil is getting braver. He is fumbling with the tent flap. It must be time for him to come in. He has it open now.

  Why does the devil have George’s face?

  This is strange. How can George be looking into my tent? I see now. It is George and the devil is behind him, pushing him hard into the small, wind-battered space. George falls across my legs. The devil pushes the flap aside and comes in. The scars on his left cheek twist his features into a horrible grin. The devil has Seeley’s face.

  “George?” My mind seems to be working very slowly. “Is that really you? You don’t look well.” George’s face is impossibly thin. His cheek bones stick out and his eyes seem sunk far back in his skull.

  “Yes, Davy,” he replies. “It is me. A sorry state we have all come to now, eh?”

  “What a touching reunion.” Seeley is sneering across at us. He looks far better fed than my friend. I shudder as I remember why that probably is. “I see you are still with your officer friend. A lot of good it will do you now.”

  “How many are you?” I ignore Seeley and direct my question at George.

  “Just us,” George looks down at the floor as he answers.

  “What happened to the rest?” I have to know.

  “They died.” George doesn’t want to explain, but Seeley has no qualms.

  “They died all right,” he says almost gleefully, “and I helped a few of ’em along with this.” He grins horribly and produces a long, evil-looking knife. “But some of the boys are still with us, ain’t that right George? Loaded on the sled outside they are.” Seeley throws back his head and lets out a hideous laugh.

  “But don’t you boys worry. You won’t feel nothing and I’ll make sure they build a nice big memorial to you all when I gets home.”

  “You’re not going to get home Seeley.” I have no fear left of this man. “None of us are. This is the end, the last camp. None of what you have done, or will do, matters any more. No one will ever know what happened to us or where or how we died. This place has swallowed us as if we never existed. Your petty insanities count for nought now.”

  Seeley seems confused by this. For a moment he sits looking at me with a puzzled frown. Then, raising the knife, he begins to crawl over the bedding towards me. I don’t have the strength to defeat him, and I don’t care. What difference does it make now how the last of us die?

  Seeley is almost over me now. The knife is raised even higher.

  “Elizabeth! Is that you? It is perilous cold, can you bring an extra blanket for my poor legs.”

  Fitzjames, in his sad delirium, has seen a figure moving. Sitting suddenly bolt upright, he grabs ineffectually at Seeley’s clothes. Startled, Seeley turns and slashes down with the knife. It sinks deep into Fitzjames’ chest. With a sigh, he falls back, half-pulling Seeley with him.

  Suddenly I want to do something. Even if no one will ever know, I must not let the last act of this tragedy be Seeley’s. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion; Seeley is struggling to regain the knife and I am fighting the heaviness of my limbs. The clothes and blankets feel like glue holding me back. Under my knees I can feel the hard, rounded shape of poor Mister Fitzjames’ telescope. I don’t know what I’ll do when I reach Seeley. Nothing much if he gets the knife free before I get there. The knife is almost free now; I will not make it in time.

  George has always been faster than me. In a sort of funny half-crawl, half-hobble, he claws his way past me and grabs hold of Seeley. The blow is weak, but it is enough to knock Seeley off balance; as he falls the knife pulls free. It is insane. We are possibly the last three people alive for hundreds of miles and we are trying to kill each other. George is trying frantically to get a grip on Seeley’s wrist. The knife slashes wildly, catching George on the side of the face and ripping the clothes at his shoulder. He falls aside. I rise to my knees and swing the heavy brass telescope as hard as I can.

  For a moment Seeley looks surprised. Then he drops the knife and puts his hand up to the spot on his forehead where a thin trickle of blood is running down from his scalp. He tries to turn and look at me, but the effort is too great and he slumps over in an untidy heap. The weight of his falling body is too great for the already strained tent and it collapses on top of us.

  Is Seeley dead? I don’t really care, all I want to do is go to sleep, but George is more alert. I feel myself being dragged from beneath the canvas into the cutting wind and snow.

  “Leave me be,” I protest into the wind, “I want to sleep.”

  “No!” the words are harsh even against the storm. “You must not. Get up, we will walk home.”

  I look up into George’s face. One side is covered in blood and the whole is gaunt and hollow, but the eyes still have that sparkle.

  “Come on Davy boy.” The voice is the cheery one I remember from Marbacks and from our readings in the cold, wet streets of London. If my friend George Chambers thinks we can walk home then we can. I will follow him anywhere. Painfully slowly, I struggle to my feet, leaning into the icy wind.

  “That’s it Davy, up you get. It’s not far now. I’m going to save your life just as you and that old telescope saved mine. I’ve been lonely for a long time—all but a century and a half. But we’re together now and this is my chance to repay you. You won’t forget me now will you? Or the others? Tell our story Davy. It’s been a long time hidden and needs told. Promise?”

  I nod slowly.

  “I knew you would. It’s a good story isn’t it? And we did have some adventures did we not? I don’t think, despite it all, I would swap it for another meal of gruel at old Marback’s.

  “Come on, it’s time to go. Take my hand.”

  George hold
s out his hand and I reach out to take it. It is cold, colder than the snow around us but I don’t care. We are together again, just George and I, teammates once more. George begins to walk through the blizzard. He walks backwards, never taking his eyes off me. I stumble along behind, holding that cold, cold hand. There is a light, behind George, getting brighter. And a doorway, leading to where? Without turning, George hammers his fist on the door. We stand together in the snow and wind, our eyes and hands locked. Then the door opens. A blinding light washes out, my legs give way and I collapse—into Jim’s warm kitchen.

  EPILOGUE

  Several hours must have passed. I wake up wrapped in blankets before a roaring fire in Jim’s livingroom. My feet and hands hurt, but at least I can feel them.

  “Good morning,” says Jim from the chair across the hearth. “I phoned your folks to tell them you were all right. They were getting pretty worried. You are one lucky kid. People have frozen to death in a blizzard, just a few feet from their back door.”

  “George showed me the door,” I reply tiredly. Then I look round. “Where is he?”

  “George?” Jim looks puzzled. “Who’s George?”

  “George Chambers,” I say. Then it all comes back: the tent, the knife, the telescope, Seeley. George is just a dream. I blurt out the story of the tent and the pigsty. Jim sits silent and unblinking, picking up every word. When I am finished, he sits for a moment. Then he turns and calls down the hall, “Jurgen, come here please.”

  Hesitantly, a figure appears from the shadows into the firelight and I gasp in recognition. It is a boy about my age. He was slightly taller than I with a thin face and deep-set brown eyes peering out from under an unruly mop of sandy-coloured hair. A large bandage covers his cheek and part of his forehead. He is dressed in dark, loose-fitting, hand-woven clothes, patched in several places. Shyly, he looks down at the floor.

  “This is Jurgen,” Jim is saying. “He is from the Hutterite colony down the road. It was he who found you in the sty and brought you in. He has been helping me around the farm and got trapped here by the blizzard. He was down at the barn checking on old Victoria. She gets upset and lonely in bad weather, so I rigged a rope line from the back door to her stall so I could check her even in a storm. Jurgen kindly offered to check on her this evening. He was following the rope back when he fell over you by the old pigsty. Gave himself a nasty gash on an old nail too. You were almost asleep and he had the devil’s own job getting you to wake up and follow him to the house. I think you owe him your life.”

  Through all this I don’t take my eyes off the boy and he doesn’t move.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you very much.”

  Jurgen lifts his head and looks at me for a brief moment. He says nothing, but the sparkle in those eyes is one I know very well.

  “He doesn’t speak much English,” Jim interrupts our communion, “but with the little bad German I know, we get by. Danke Jurgen, you should get some rest now, schlaff.”

  Nodding silently, the boy turns and disappears down the corridor. I look after him for a moment then turn to Jim.

  “That was who rescued me all right. But he is also George from my dream. How can that be? How can I dream about a person for weeks before I meet him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jim replies thoughtfully. “The mind is a complex and poorly understood thing. Perhaps your experience in the blizzard imprinted Jurgens image onto the dream image of George or perhaps it is just a coincidence that they look alike.”

  “Or perhaps,” I interrupt, “he really is George and there is some supernatural link between the historical George of my dreams and Jurgen, who saved my life.”

  This time I am not going to let Jim pass my dreams off as wild imaginings. He sits for a long moment staring at me in the firelight.

  “Perhaps you should tell me the whole story?” he asks eventually.

  So I do. From the very beginning, I tell Jim everything. It is like a release. I feel like the ancient mariner in the poem, only able to rest after I tell my tale to someone. The whole story comes without any effort, and Jim listens to every word. By the time I have finished the fire is burning low. For the longest time Jim says nothing.

  “You have an extraordinary tale to tell,” he says eventually, looking at me thoughtfully. Then he asks, “But who is the dream George?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply honestly.

  “I think I do,” says Jim.

  I stare at him for a moment before he continues.

  “When I came back from visiting you, I did some digging. I figured that if Franklin and Fitzjames were real enough perhaps George Chambers was too.”

  Jim leans over and picks up the book we had examined on my last visit. Flipping quickly to the back, he holds it open to me. The page is headed; Appendix 1: Crew List The Franklin Expedition. There follows a long list of names. My eye hesitates on the ones I recognize from my readings and dreams. Most are at the top of the list, officer’s names.

  Sir John Franklin—Commander Expedition

  Commander James Fitzjames—Captain H.M.S. Erebus

  Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier—Captain H.M.S. Terror

  Graham Gore—Lieutenant H.M.S. Erebus

  Charles Frederick Des Voeux—Mate H.M.S. Erebus

  Edward Little—Lieutenant H.M.S. Terror

  Robert Thomas—Mate H.M.S. Terror

  Stephen Samuel Stanley—Surgeon H.M.S. Erebus

  Harry Goodsir—Assistant Surgeon H.M.S. Erebus

  There is also John Torrington—Leading Stoker H.M.S. Erebus and John Hartnell—Able Seamen H.M.S. Erebus, both dead of consumption and buried on Beechey Island beside my friend William Braine—Private, Royal Marines H.M.S. Erebus.

  But my eye lingers longest on one name I have come to dread and fear over the last few weeks. The name of a man my dream-self has perhaps killed, Abraham Seeley—Able Seamen H.M.S. Erebus.

  It looks harmless enough as a dry fact sitting amongst so very many other sad names, but it will always bring horror to me whenever I see it.

  I am gazing at Seeley’s name when Jim leans over and gently turns the page. The list continues, and most of the names mean nothing to me, but one does. Right at the bottom is a name I had half expected to see, but cannot really believe is there.

  George Chambers—Cabin Boy H.M.S. Erebus.

  It is a shock, but what really sends the shivers down my spine is the fact that the Erebus had two cabin boys. The second one is David Young.

  It makes sense; after all, I am a character in my dreams, but I never expected to see it here in black-and-white.

  “It’s me!” the exclamation escapes almost unbidden. Jim nods slowly.

  “That proves my dreams are true!”

  “Perhaps.” Jim is speaking quietly. “There is certainly something strange going on here. You have dreamt of things you couldn’t possibly know from reading. Whether they are true or imaginings, I don’t know.”

  “They’re true,” I almost shout. Jim raises a hand.

  “I believe perhaps they may be,” he continues. “But what is true for you may not be true for everyone. Without a doubt you have experienced something remarkable, and if you believe it, surely that is all that really matters.”

  “Do you believe me?” It is important to me that Jim understands what has happened.

  “Oh, I believe what you say. The problem is what it means.” Jim pauses and looks at me thoughtfully. “There is one more thing I can perhaps add to your story. Do you remember the Navy button I gave you?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But it proves nothing.”

  “True,” continues Jim, “But it was not the only thing I inherited.” Slowly Jim rises and fetches a small box from the mantle. As he does so, he continues speaking. “I always assumed that this had nothing to do with my ancestor’s trip up north. I thought it was merely a personal momento which had survived the ravages of time. Now I am not so sure. Take a look.”

  Jim hands me the box. My fingers are sha
king as I open it. Inside the box, nestled on a bed of shredded paper lies a faded, worn lead figure. It is a toy sailor. There are only patches of white and blue paint left, but his hand is still held firmly over his eyes as he looks at some wondrous, exotic landscape.

  “Jack Tar.” I breathe the words almost silently.

  “It would seem so,” says Jim. “I have never shown this to you or to anyone else. I never thought it of any importance. I guess I was wrong. In any case, I think he belongs to you now.”

  The ancient figure fits comfortably into the palm of my hand. I close my fingers around him protectively.

  “Thank you,” I say. Neither of us need to say more. The story is told and George can rest now. But I cannot.

  “My parents,” I ask. “Were they mad at me?”

  Jim looks at me hard. “No,” he says, “not mad, but they were pretty worried with this blizzard coming on. Maybe you should give them a call.”

  Jim gets up and moves the phone to the table beside me. It seems to ring forever. Then I hear my Mom’s voice. “Hello?”

  “Hi Mom, it’s Dave.”

  “Dave.” She sounds tired. “Are you all right? Jim called to say you were out there. How did you get there in the blizzard? We were so worried.”

  “Its okay Mom. I hitched out. I just got a little turned around in the yard. But I’m fine now. I’ll stay here tonight and come home in the morning. I’ve got some stories to tell you.”

  “Yes.” She sounds a little hesitant. “Your Dad and I have been talking, and we think we should all get together and discuss things. Anyway, there’s lots of time for that. Your Dad wants to have a word. You get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll see you in the morning. I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  There’s a moment’s silence while Mom passes the phone over. I’m so ashamed of what I said earlier that I almost put the receiver down, but then Dad’s there.