The Broken Lands

by Robert Edric

  Stanley leaned over him, a vial of blood in his hand, which he shook and then held to the light of a lamp.

  “Not yours, James,” he said without looking down. “Another fatality during the night.”

  Fitzjames asked who, but the words came out as little more than a dry croak.

  “Not who, what.” Returning the vial to a rack on the wall, Stanley lifted the corpse of the monkey by its tail. It hung barely weighted, an outline of bone in a bag of loose skin, spinning as its limbs untangled. “A great pity. Killed by its own gluttony and yet reduced to this. Three pounds two ounces. At Greenhithe it weighed eight pounds six.” He carried the small corpse to a case beside his chair and let it drop.

  “Franklin,” Fitzjames said suddenly, the thought, realization and word arriving simultaneously, and together being strong enough finally to pierce the cloud of his leaden senses. He felt a sharp pain in his mouth and tasted fresh blood. Seeing this upon his lips, Stanley wiped them with a soft cloth.

  Using his tongue, Fitzjames felt teeth loose in their sockets. He also felt the flaps of skin which hung from his cheeks and from the roof of his mouth; his tongue too felt sore, raw, as though its sensitive surface had been peeled away at the tip. He looked down and saw the blood slowly soaking into Stanley’s cloth.

  “You yourself have also lost a great deal of weight,” Stanley said.

  “Franklin,” Fitzjames repeated, allowing himself to sink back into his pillow as Stanley drew away, and as the strain of leaning forward became too great for him.

  “Sir John died on the eleventh of June,” Stanley said with his back to him. “Captain Crozier has assumed command of the expedition. He asked me to let you know that he would call on you when you felt up to receiving him.”

  “How?” Fitzjames asked, some innermost part of his mind still not fully convinced of what he had been told once upon his return and was being told again now in his struggle to recover.

  “A sudden brain fever. Cerebral hemorrhage. He was struck down shortly after dinner on the ninth, lingered beyond his senses or rational thought for a further thirty-six hours, suffered a second, more powerful attack on the morning of the eleventh and passed away only minutes later. At first we believed it might have been Caesar’s disease, but my examination …” Here Stanley paused, turning further away from him. “His body is out upon the ice, in our mausoleum, awaiting your return so that everyone might be present at his interment. Mr. Gore and his party had returned from the south only a week earlier. We expected you back sooner.” He paused again. “When you were spotted on the slope we thought at first you were Eskimos. Mr. Gore returned marching in formation, barely half his supplies used up and every one of his party in better health than when they departed.”

  Fitzjames was sufficiently recovered by then to recognize the veiled criticism in this remark.

  Stanley went on, becoming uncharacteristically emotive as he strayed further from the immediate facts of Franklin’s death.

  “Sir John spoke of Lady Jane in his delirium. He spoke with great affection and respect. I stayed with him, as did Peddie and Macdonald, throughout his entire confinement. We hoped at first that he might retain his spirit and gradually regain his senses, but after the second, more violent seizure it became clear to all who saw him that there was nothing more to be done. Each day the men pay their respects to the body out on the ice.” He stopped speaking and regained his composure.

  They were interrupted a moment later by the appearance of Goodsir. He came into the room and stood behind Stanley. He moved awkwardly, and it was not until he leaned against the wall that Fitzjames saw he was walking with the help of crutches.

  Stanley criticized him for having left his own bed in the adjoining cabin. Unlike Fitzjames, Goodsir appeared to be suffering none of the after-effects of any medication. It was the first time Fitzjames had seen him out of his thick outdoor clothing in a month, and he was shocked to see how thin he had grown, how discolored his skin was. A large patch of hair above Goodsir’s temple had fallen out completely and there were dark circles around his eyes. The skin of his chin and cheeks was bruised, and his lips were pulled to one side, as though an invisible finger were jabbed into his jaw.

  Looking at him, Fitzjames realized that in all likelihood he too must have looked much the same.

  “Hair loss,” Goodsir said, as though pronouncing a verdict on someone else entirely, his spirits apparently undiminished by his symptoms now that he was in charge of his own recovery. “To be expected. Rest assured that I am saving every single strand to send to all those heartbroken young women I scatter behind me wherever I go. Say the word and I shall bring you a small casket in which to save your own.”

  Angered by this outwardly cavalier disregard for his own health, Stanley said again that it was too soon for Goodsir to be out of his bed and warned him to stay no more than a few minutes, pointedly remarking that Fitzjames was not yet even partially recovered and that any exertion would quickly tire him. He left the two men, retrieving the corpse of the monkey as he went.

  “Bryant’s marine died in the night,” Goodsir said solemnly when they were alone, and when Stanley’s receding footsteps no longer sounded like the tapping finger of someone watching over them. “The man had been walking for a week on two feet frostbitten beyond salvation as far as the ankle. Stanley operated last night and he died a few minutes later. Joseph Healey, twenty-three.”

  Fitzjames pushed himself up into a sitting position.

  “Bryant himself lost two toes,” Goodsir went on, and before Fitzjames could respond, added, “And Fairholme is once again unconscious, but appears to have a gangrenous calf; Mr. Reid is strapped up for ice-lung, and eight more small toes, two ears, and one nose have been slight-cut. In fact I myself—” here he faltered. “I myself appear to be incomplete by half a thumb.” He held up his hand, and Fitzjames saw for the first time that it was heavily bandaged. His feet too had been reduced to balls of white padding, making them look ridiculous and pathetic in equal measure.

  Fitzjames tried to pull his arms from beneath the blankets, but was unable to until assisted by Goodsir.

  “You, too,” Goodsir said the instant Fitzjames’ own bandaged hands were revealed, and before Fitzjames could remark on them. The dressings were tight, and he could feel little beneath them.

  Goodsir reassured him that every one of his fingers and thumbs was intact, and that Stanley had only bandaged them as a precaution. He looked at his own dressing as he spoke. It was the joint of his right hand which had been removed, and a small stain showed through the bandage, looking as though it had been dabbed on the surface rather than bled through from deep within.

  After a brief silence between them, during which Goodsir inspected the contents of the room, picking up and coiling the collar and lead of the monkey, Fitzjames said that Stanley had told him about Franklin.

  “We’ll pay our respects together when you’re well enough to walk,” Goodsir said. “There’s no urgency. I believe Crozier intends to make a fitting occasion of the funeral. There are those who believe the body should be preserved and taken home with us.”

  “What about Reid?” Fitzjames managed to say.

  “He’ll recover. His chest is strapped and he has a warm mask.”

  A steward arrived with tea for the two men, and he shared their feeble laughter when both held up their bandaged hands to him. The man sat with them for several minutes, holding the cup to Fitzjames’ lips and catching in the saucer what he spilled.

  When he had finished drinking, and when the steward had wiped the fresh blood from his lips, Fitzjames felt revived and better able to speak. He asked the steward to find out how well or sick the other members of the expedition were and to report back to him.

  Waiting until they were once again alone, he asked if Goodsir believed that what they had found on their march would be of any benefit to them when the breakup came and they continued to the south or southwest.

  Goodsir became evas
ive. “I visited Reid this morning,” he said. “Blanky was with him.”

  Guessing what he was about to be told, Fitzjames said, “Are we going to be late in freeing ourselves?”

  “Blanky says he can see no sign whatsoever of the breakup, nor even of cracking or fissures.”

  Momentarily stunned by this, Fitzjames could think of nothing to say in reply.

  Goodsir went on. “Gore and Des Voeux put us only twelve to fifteen miles north of King William Land, and Crozier is convinced that if we don’t get open water by the first week in August then we ought to continue overland to Back’s River, and from there west and south in the hope of contacting an outpost of the Hudson Bay Company. By his reckoning we are less than a hundred miles from Franklin’s own Farthest East of twenty-five years ago. Imagine—the gap remaining to be bridged is suddenly that small, James, and so easily attainable.”

  “But the Passage—the Passage—needs to be completed by sea,” Fitzjames almost shouted, flecking his sheets with blood.

  Goodsir only shrugged. “A week ago the Terror was squeezed in a pressure ridge. Nothing too savage, but her starboard prow was crushed. If the ice around her thaws or disperses before repairs can be made then she’ll take on water faster than she can be pumped clear.”

  “Is there any sign of that?”

  Goodsir shook his head. “Blanky calculates at least fifteen feet of ice beneath her.”

  “Surely not,” Fitzjames said. “Not this late.”

  “By his estimation—and Reid agrees with him—it’s been building up beneath us all winter, freezing downward and stacking in slabs. When our release comes—if it comes—it is unlikely to be in the form of a gradual thaw and disintegration as it was at Beechey. According to Blanky, the ice in this strait has been accumulating for at least thirty years. It seems we entered it during a good year and that we were altogether too keen to haul and cut our way into a good harbor. I went on deck before coming to see you. There’s a range of peaks, some up to a hundred feet high, which wasn’t there when we departed. Solid ice, dark ice. There might very well be open leads toward the southwest, but there’s little chance that we can make our way toward them in the ships as we now stand.”

  Each piece, each aspect of this scarcely believable news dismayed Fitzjames further, and he could not accept that the outlook had become suddenly so dark after all they had achieved during the previous year.

  The two men were distracted by several gunshots fired in rapid succession.

  “Hunting?” Fitzjames said.

  “Possibly.”

  Fitzjames knew from Goodsir’s continued evasiveness that something else was being kept from him, and he demanded to be told.

  “Tozer and his marines have already abandoned their damaged quarters on the Terror and built themselves a shelter on the ice. They were asleep aboard when the ice started to squeeze. One man was nearly killed, several others injured by sprung planking. The chain store was crushed and half her cables lost.”

  “And Crozier hasn’t yet commanded them to return to the ship?”

  “I think he fears the confrontation. Their sleeping-quarters were damaged beyond repair. Where would they go?”

  “Six men?”

  “I believe a dozen others followed them. They took the two waist boats. In view of the damage to the Terror, it might—”

  “And they take their orders from whom?”

  Again Goodsir shrugged, unwilling to answer.

  “And they provision themselves from the stores already out on the ice?”

  Goodsir nodded. “A great deal more has been taken out since the Terror was damaged. All her coals are offloaded and her engine dismantled.”

  It occurred to Fitzjames that Crozier might transfer his command to the Erebus, supplanting his own, and that if the Terror was found to be damaged beyond repair then she might eventually be abandoned to the ice when the time came.

  “What others are with Tozer?” he asked.

  “Seamen, mostly. Two stokers, hold captain Goddard and foretop captain Peglar.” Having become the bearer of so much bad news, Goodsir was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

  “And Joseph Healey?” Fitzjames said absently as their conversation lulled and he felt himself suddenly weaken.

  “To be buried alongside Edward Little tomorrow or the day after.” Goodsir pushed himself upright on his crutches and then left before anything further could be asked of him.

  Stanley woke Fitzjames with the news that Crozier would shortly be paying him a visit.

  “Is he already aboard?”

  “For the past few hours.” Stanley glanced at the door as he spoke.

  “Is there something else?”

  “He’s in Sir John’s cabin, going through his papers. It is my opinion that certain proprieties ought to be observed.”

  “Respect for the dead,” Fitzjames said.

  At the sound of footsteps outside, Stanley said, “Mr. Reid shows considerable improvement, and Lieutenant Fairholme regained consciousness less than an hour ago.”

  Crozier entered as he finished speaking and stood in the doorway watching the two men.

  “I was passing on to Mr. Fitzjames the news of his party,” Stanley said.

  “Is that so?”

  Stanley rose and Crozier immediately took his seat.

  “And no doubt of my ransacking of Sir John’s cabin. Your loyalty does you credit.”

  Unwilling to tolerate this provocation, Fitzjames said, “I hear you have some damage and a small mutiny on your hands, Mr. Crozier.”

  Crozier looked at him hard and considered his reply before he spoke. “Tozer and his band?” he said with disdain. “I keep a close enough watch on them. Everything they do has my sanction and they are no drain on our stores other than those to which they are entitled. Please, don’t concern yourself. It is a problem easily enough solved should the need arise. From what I hear, you put your own sergeant through some pretty severe paces. A man can ill afford to lose two toes.”

  For the first time Fitzjames felt the absence of Franklin’s mediating presence.

  Dismissing Stanley, Crozier took a sheaf of papers from the satchel he held. Fitzjames recognized them immediately by their ribbons. “I want to talk to you about my own proposals for the expedition’s advancement in the event of the ice not releasing us this season.”

  As he spoke Fitzjames guessed that the damage to the Terror was greater than Goodsir had suspected, and became aware too that Tozer and the men on the ice posed a far greater threat to Crozier’s authority than he was prepared to admit.

  “Your own loyalty, of course, is not in doubt. But Sir John is dead.”

  “And dead men’s wishes spear no fishes,” Fitzjames said, remembering the whalers’ rhyme.

  Crozier hesitated, uncertain if the remark was intended to mock him. He would make no allowance for Fitzjames’ weakened condition, and the tone of his voice as he went on indicated that he would tolerate neither challenge nor interruption.

  “If the ice shows no sign of freeing us, then overland is our only way.”

  “Over thawing ice and into uncharted terrain?”

  “If necessary, yes. This may be your first experience of any such adventure, but I personally am no stranger to uncrossed boundaries.”

  Disregarding this, Fitzjames said, “And if the ice does free us?”

  “Then a crew will remain aboard one of the ships to take advantage of the opportunities offered.”

  “You intend dividing us?”

  “I intend obeying the dictates of the ice and the season. Any man who cannot see the importance of communicating our position to someone on the mainland who might in turn get word to the Admiralty, is a fool.”

  The ease and speed with which Crozier clearly believed this might now be accomplished put Fitzjames on his guard, and despite his own misgivings he was careful not to contradict him.

  “I am as saddened as any of us by Sir John’s death,” Crozier said, recovering hi
s papers before Fitzjames asked to see them. “He and I were old comrades. What I do now, I do for him. As far as I am concerned, it is still his expedition.”

  “And one you consider close to success,” Fitzjames said.

  Crozier rose and walked to the door. “Recover, rest, wait until you are stronger, and we’ll talk again.”

  He left before Fitzjames could ask him if there would be any point, slamming the door to emphasize the anger he felt at not receiving the full support of his second in command.

  Fitzjames next went back out on the ice ten days later. He was accompanied by Graham Gore and Henry Vesconte, these two walking on either side of him ready to help him if he stumbled or fell, and both watchful for the first sign that he was over-exerting himself. He went out against the advice of Stanley and Goodsir, the former absolving himself of all responsibility for his recovery, and then afterward ensuring that his two companions would remain close to him, ready to help him back to the Erebus if the need arose. Goodsir, on the other hand, wished him luck, Fitzjames having confided in him his intention of visiting Tozer and the others in their separate encampment. Neither man considered there to be any real danger in the confrontation.

  Since the operation on his thumb, Goodsir had continued to run a high temperature, and for the past two nights had been feverish, calling out in his sleep about the movement of the ice beneath him, as though he were still camped out on the frozen sea, and then shouting to warn of an attack by some as yet unidentified foe. Fitzjames had heard this in the adjoining room, and was careful not to remark on it during their time together.

  “I’ve vowed to make myself ambidextrous,” Goodsir had said the previous evening, raising his bandaged hand.

  Fitzjames could not avoid the forced nonchalance in his friend’s voice.

  “How long will it take—a week, two?”

  Anything other than this shared deception would have been unthinkable.

  “Perhaps even a month,” Goodsir said. He paused before going on. “In fact it’s been in my mind to ask Stanley to remove the remaining joint to be certain of containing the infection. One bone or three, it will make little difference.”