Crozier turns the lantern back to the hull, walks up the slight incline caused by the ship’s cant to port and begins pacing along the curved, tilted wall.
There.
He holds the lantern closer.
“Well, I’ll be God-damned to hell and hanged for a heathen,” says Honey. “Pardon me, Captain, but I didn’t think the ice would do this so soon.”
Crozier doesn’t answer. He crouches to investigate the bent and extended wood of the hull more closely.
Hull planks have been bent inward here, bulging almost a foot from the graceful curve elsewhere along the hull’s side. The innermost layers of wood have splintered and at least two planks are hanging free.
“Jesus God Christ Almighty,” says the carpenter, who has crouched next to the captain. “That ice is a fucking monster, begging the Captain’s pardon, sir.”
“Mr. Honey,” says Crozier, his breath adding crystals to the ice already on the planks and reflecting the lantern light, “could anything but the ice have done this damage?”
The carpenter barks a laugh but stops abruptly as he realizes his captain is not making a joke. Honey’s eyes widen, then squint. “Begging your pardon again, Captain, but if you mean… that’s impossible.”
Crozier says nothing.
“I mean, Captain, this hull was three inches of the finest English oak as it was, sir. And for this trip — for the ice, I mean, sir — it was doubled with two layers of African oak, Captain, each one and a half inches thick. And them African oak panels was wrought on the diagonal, sir, givin’ it even more strength than if it were just doubled straight-like.”
Crozier is inspecting the loose planks, trying to ignore the river of rats behind them and around them as well as the chewing sounds from the direction of the aft bulkhead.
“And, sir,” continues Honey, his voice hoarse in the cold, his rumtainted breath freezing in the air, “on top of the three inches of English oak and the three inches of diagonal-laid African oak, they laid on two layers of Canadian elm, sir, each two inches thick. That’s four more inches of hull, Captain, and that wrought diagonal against the African oak. That’s five belts of serious timber, sir… ten inches of the strongest wood on earth between us and the sea.”
The carpenter shuts up, realizing that he’s lecturing his captain on details of the shipyard’s work that Crozier had personally overseen in the months before departure.
The captain stands and sets his mittened hand against the innermost planks where they have come free. There’s more than an inch of open space there. “Set your lantern down, Mr. Honey. Use your pry bar to lever this loose. I want to see what the ice has done to the outer layer of hull oak.”
The carpenter complies. For several minutes the sound of the iron bar prying at iron-cold wood and the carpenter’s grunts almost drown out the frenzied gnawing of the rats behind them. The bent Canadian elm tears back and falls away. The shattered African oak is leveraged out. Only the inward-bent original oak of the hull remains now as Crozier steps closer, holding his lantern so that both men can see.
Shards and spears of ice reflect the lantern light through the footlong holes in the hull, but in the centre is something much more disturbing — blackness. Nothing. A hole in the ice. A tunnel.
Honey bends a piece of the splintered oak farther in so Crozier can shine his lantern on it.
“Holy fucking Jesus Christ fucking shit almighty,” gasps the carpenter. This time he does not ask his captain’s pardon.
Crozier has the temptation to lick his dry lips but knows how painful that will be here where it’s 50 below in the dark. But his heart is pounding so wildly that he’s also tempted to steady himself with one mitten against the hull the way the carpenter has just done.
The freezing air from outside rushes in so quickly that it almost extinguishes the lantern. Crozier has to shield it with his free hand to keep it flickering, sending the men’s shadows dancing across decks, beams, and bulkheads.
The two long boards from the outer hull have been smashed and bent inward by some inconceivable, irresistible force. Clearly visible in the light from the slightly shaking lantern are huge claw marks in the splintered oak — claw marks streaked with frozen smears of impossibly bright blood.
4
GOODSIR
From the private diary of Dr. Harry D. S. Goodsir:
In a letter to my brother today, I wrote — “All the Officers are in great hopes of making the passage and hope to be in the Pacific end of next summer.”
I confess that, however Selfish it is, my own hope for the Expedition is that it may take us a bit longer to reach Alaska, Russia, China, and the warm waters of the Pacific. Although trained as an anatomist and signed on by Captain Sir John Franklin as a mere assistant surgeon, I am, in Truth, no mere surgeon but a Doctor, and I confess further that as amateurish as my attempts may be, I hope to become something of a Naturalist on this voyage. While having no personal Experience with arctic flora and fauna, I plan to become personally acquainted with the lifeforms in the Icy Realms to which we set sail only a month from now. I am especially interested in the white bear, although most accounts of it one hears from whalers and old Arctic Hands tend to be too fabulous to credit.
I recognize that this personal Diary is most out of the ordinary — the Official Log that I shall begin when we depart next month will record all of the pertinent professional events and observations of my time aboard HMS Erebus in my capacity as Assistant Surgeon and as a member of Captain Sir John Franklin’s expedition to force the North-West Passage — but I feel that something More is due, some other record, some more personal account, and even if I should never let another soul read this after my Return, it is my Duty — to myself if no other — to keep these notes.
All I know at this point is that my Expedition with Captain Sir John Franklin already promises to be the Experience of a Lifetime.
All the men are aboard, and although last-minute Preparation is still going on around the clock for tomorrow’s Departure — especially with the stowing of what Captain Fitzjames informs me is more than eight thousand cans of tinned food which have arrived only in the nick of time — Sir John conducted Divine Service today for us aboard Erebus and for as many of Terror’s crew who wished to join us. I noted that Terror’s captain, an Irishman named Crozier, was not in attendance.
No one could have attended the lengthy service and heard the very lengthy sermon by Sir John today without being deeply moved. I wonder if any Ship from any nation’s Navy has ever been captained by such a Religious Man. There is no doubt that we are truly and safely and irrevocably in God’s Hands on the voyage to come.
What a Departure!
Having never gone to sea before, much less as a member of such a Heralded Expedition, I had no Idea of what to Expect, but Nothing could have prepared me for the glory of this Day.