This time, the horrors were not of imagination.
Receding cloud cover flushed a beam of pure silver across the grotesquely shaped ice pillars and crevices, in that light, something moved. No - his mind attempted to liken it to the movements of a human. But, it was not so. It could not be human - that thing, that creature which extended elongated arms and legs, which crawled like some blighted spider form of decaying flesh and blackened tissue.
James Fitzjames had never quailed at cannon fire, war nor danger, yet at this thing, he understood how grown men could feel fear. “What...” he whispered, hardly aware that his lips had moved chafingly beneath the face cover. “What is that?”
Henry had never taken his eyes from the creature, “something neither you nor I have ever believed existed.”
“’Tis of the Devil.” Charles whispered fervently, fisted hands trembling. Beside him, Edward Couch had closed his eyes, the dark flutter of the younger man’s lashes shook, unable to look forward. Fitzjames felt inside his coat, finding the two-shot revolver, even as his hand closed around the metal burning to the touch, he knew it futile.
“Back to the ship.” He ordered, a tremor in his lips. His teeth clacked together like soft castanets, he wanted no more of this world. “Back,” he urged, meeting Le Vesconte’s gaze as it swiveled to him with a strength he felt none of in his limbs. Those were as weak as a newborn calf’s. Henry nodded briefly, cautiously disappearing through the maze. Charles coaxed Edward to relinquish his petrified stance, they moved backward, placing distance between them and the...thing.
Fitzjames was last, his limbs leaden, haltingly carrying him from the cold moonlit nightmare to the shadow of Erebus’s rigging and majestic form. Safety, his mind whispered fiercely. Deceptive safety. Twice, he held his breath, his chest struggling to contain the race of his heart; believing he heard the crack of a parted jaw, the deceptively soft clatter of nails against frozen ground.
Out of breath, he stumbled into the arms of his officers, a cold sweat dampening the wool against his skin, wracking his body in feverish chills. “I believe you.” He said at last when the power of speech had been restored. Henry’s defiant expression softened, “the graves-”
Fitzjames shook his head violently. “No. That wasn’t Petty officer Torrington nor Able Seaman Hartnell. I know not whom that had once been.”
***
Unbeknownst to the four officers, a door slid closed quietly by a firm hand. Harry Goodsir pondered all that he had observed, wondering too if the terrors of ice and dark were of the mind, a complication wrought by a difficult winter? His rational book-fed mind desired to believe that, without proof there was nothing. He had no proof other than what his sight saw, other than the compilations of four honest men to whom were his superiors and betters. Could he deny the veracity of their word and belief?
The answer was negative. Though, they had barely spent a Christmas in the polar lands, Harry could feel the minute fractures occurring in the expedition’s structure of a whole. Uneasy in mind, he felt nothing boded well for an extended sojourn into arctic lands. But, should he speak? Share the stories told to him during boyhood in native Scotland? Indecision weighed heavily upon his soul, choosing at last to close tired eyes against the darkness of the cubbyhole-like room.
***
Safety was an illusion. The unspeakable claimed the barren stretch of coastline and frozen sea. Fitzjames glimpsed it in his men’s eyes, terror, virulent, potent unrelentingly seizing their spirits captive. How little his knowledge and theirs combined knew of the preternatural world! Science could explain nothing but numbers and figures - it could not explain the how, or from whence the creature came.
“It has hurt no one nor come aboard.” Des Voeux reported after his middlewatch ended. “But, I came upon a cluster of Fairholme’s shift talking. Said one of them shot at the creature during nightwatch.”
Seeking out this source, he spoke to them privately in his cabin away from Sir John. When questioned they grew evasive, gazes shifting away. It could’ve been old foxy, they said and Fitzjames sent them on their way. He knew frightened men when he saw them, lying through their teeth was more like it. Rather than become angry, he was well aware of how it might appear to an outsider. Had he not seen with his own eyes - he would’ve disbelieved even the honest word of Henry Le Vesconte, Charles Des Voeux and Edward Couch, putting it as the polar lands wearing down strong constitutions. Then, how am I to reconcile my own sight? He puzzled to himself, inspecting the ship’s log that was the duty of Second Master Henry Collins.
Fitzjames’s eye passed over the plain rows of dates and single sentences, snared unexpectedly by a date from a week before. The lines were at the very bottom of the second page, slapdash, the writer had been in a frenzy, crossing and underlining words. “Deny Entry.” He made out with difficulty, the strong penstrokes caused the two words to leap off the page.
Summoning Collins, he was aware of the man’s decreasing pallor and trembling lower lip as the curly-haired officer entered his quarters. Once strong of gaze with a moderate decisive air captured by the pose in their daguerreotype portraits taken before they sailed, Henry Collins resembled that no more. The young man appeared a nervous wreck.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“I have a question about an entry in the ship’s log. The duty was solely yours and you have kept it admirably well for the last few months.” Fitzjames leaned against the edge of his bunk, the logbook dangling from his fingertips. Collins swallowed thickly, nodding, “aye, sir. It is no trouble at all.”
“But, there appears to be a minor flaw on the seventh of January.” Fitzjames observed him narrowly. Had Collins flinched with the recitation of the date? “You have written ‘Clear night, something seen on the ice.’ Then, you go on to write a few more lines, abruptly stop and cross out your remarks. Why did you do so?”
Collins’s watery eyes darted up briefly to meet his firmer gaze, then away, nervously. “Well, sir, I...uh...made a mistake, you see. So, I tried to correct it.”
The reason was plausible enough, though Fitzjames’s gut warned him something was off. “Deny Entry was underlined, to whom did you deny entry to, Mister Collins?”
“Sir, I-”
“Answer the question.”
Collins shrank against the wall as if struck. “They cannot walk where they haven’t been allowed passage.” He mumbled, balling his fists at his sides.
“What...did you say?”
“Something...I do not know...something they have to follow, like a rule. John Hartnell-”
“What about him?” Fitzjames asked sharply.
“He...” Collins looked miserable. “He invited it and...when he...” his voice shrank to a hoarse whisper, afraid of sightless creatures. “Died...it could no longer walk among us.”
Fitzjames remembered the sounds that had plagued the ship before Able Seaman Hartnell’s death, the footsteps, the scratching - everything and yet it explained nothing. “God on high, what is this thing that plagues us? Tell me, Henry! Do you know the name of this creature?” He strode forward, grasping the younger man by the shoulders, shaking Collins until he broke down weeping.
“I do not know, sir! I seen it...I seen it that night...sir, it had the reddest eyes and the most terrible of forms! It walked up the gangplank and stood just a hairsbreadth from me. It wanted me to let it onboard, sir, and I couldn’t! I couldn’t do it so I told it to go away!”
Fitzjames felt his blood run cold, attempting to mask his own growing fear, he patted the younger man’s shoulder, soothingly. “You did right, Henry.”
As swiftly as they had begun, Collins’ tears ceased, he hiccoughed softly. “It told me things, sir.” His dark brown eyes were glazed, looking deep into memory. “Horrible things about the...,” then he could go on no longer. Fitzjames withheld curiosity, quietly dismissing Collins to an early bed. He had learned something this night and knew none it boded well. Questions plagued his mind through
a halfhearted game of Chess with Purser Charles Osmer.
Instead of the pen, ink and paper he usually took up before bedtime to scribe a letter to his brother’s wife, he placed a book of devotionals beneath his pillow, feeling the need for something of substance instead of visions of personal glory to see him to rest.
Before he had quite dropped off, there came a soft rap upon the door. Fitzjames awakened immediately, about to say ‘come in.’ He cursed his clumsiness and sat up hastily in the darkness, through the thin panel he could see the flicker of light, possibly a candle.
“Well, who in the blazes is it?” He called irritably.
“I, Harry Goodsir.” Declared the flitter of shadow.
He sighed, running his hand over his bleary, unshaven face. “Come in then and mind you state your business quickly.”
The panel slid open with a rasp and the surgeon’s tall, thin form entered, pulling it shut. Goodsir hadn’t changed from day attire to night and the outer wool sweater he wore bore holes in the elbows. “Thank you for seeing me, sir. I am aware you think my studies of the natural world trivial and am painfully aware of the fact that my presence insofar is supernumerary to Mister Stanley’s.”
“That cannot be all you have wished to say.” Fitzjames remarked, squinting against the candle light.
Goodsir’s expression turned contemplative, “no, it isn’t. You are a man of rationality and order yet you cannot deny the existence of that being out there.”
A ripple of unease passed through Fitzjames. “Being, you say? Not monster or devil here to torment us?”
“There are stories in my native land of the...Baoban Sith. Insidious creatures take the form of those dearest to you and deceive you into the darkness. They are like parasites, consuming the life force of the victim until the victim wastes away and dies. Crosses, guns, Holy water, these are all inconsequential things to the Baoban Sith. Only iron is their bane, that and denial of entry.” Goodsir finished a little breathlessly. Fitzjames recalled Collins’s fright and felt the officer had good reason to fear.
“Say I believe you, what else is there that can be done?”
“Iron is its primary weakness. At the moment, the creature is weak now without a host to feed off of.” Goodsir’s expression darkened, “however, that can all change in an instant. The ships companies must be warned!”
“How can you suggest such a thing? I am aware of the very real danger posed by...” Fitzjames couldn’t utter its name, his stomach clenched, sickened. “It, but think of how we will be perceived! Believing in myth and legend....like children afraid to go to sleep at night.” Sir John, he thought of, whose religious mind wouldn’t accept a creature of the night waiting a stone’s throw from their ships. Crozier’s doubt came to mind as well. He was aware all too much of the captain’s antipathy simmering beneath a bland surface.
“You would forsake your men to stay unarmed against-”
“No.” He shook his head slightly, dry-mouthed, pain slowly building behind his eyes. “As a Royal Naval officer - no, a ship’s commander, I cannot in good faith let this situation stand.” But, how to go about it? From one day to the next, he couldn’t accept the existence of something beyond mortal ken. Phrased in the surgeon’s direct terminology, he could liken it to an animal, a beast - yes, that’s it! A beast the same as a polar bear, but infinitely more terrible.
“Iron, you say?” He attempted to pull his thoughts in order. Dimly, he remembered the iron nails and fillings disappearing from the smithy built by sister ship Terror on the island. Perhaps, his men weren’t as unwarned as he’d thought. If so, his task of warding off possible calamity fell easier than had their minds been against the preternatural.
“Yes, but human speech is our most powerful weapon.” Goodsir insisted, a light burning in the depths of his brown eyes. “Remember, Commander Fitzjames, it will test you in ways you cannot even fathom.”
He could think of nothing more to assuage the surgeon’s concern. His own words felt useless, meaningless things in a land where they could bring no more comfort than a light in a dark place. “I will.” The surgeon took his leave with a curt nod. The feeble trail of candlelight left the darkness deeper, oppressive.
***
He drank heavier the next few nights, excusing himself from common play and talk. Surgeon Stanley offered an examination, but he refused just the same. How well he knew his ills couldn’t be healed by potion or a healer’s skill. The darkness was inside of him, fouling the air he breathed, the sounds he heard. Sleep was the only respite allowed his tension-filled body. He saw more than once Le Vesconte and Des Voeux exchange looks.
They too were a part of it. But, in the same breath he could almost envy their freedom. They weren’t leaders of men, they had little responsibility as to duty and order. They carried out their orders, they walked in the twilight of winter, forced to turn a blind eye to the unexplainable as he...could not.
Away from the voices of his officers, the scrape of marble on a painted chessboard, the smells of pipe smoke and sweetness of liquor, he sat in the near darkness of his tiny cabin, drowsing the sleep of a light drunkard. In that state, half awake, half in slumber, the sounds of life steadily died as the hour drew on. Evening passed into true night unmarked save for the change of guard. It was during this period of dreamless oblivion that sound penetrated his befogged mind.
The sound of the hatchway opening and closing, the gush of arctic wind gusting through the sealed deck. Then, the soft pitter of footsteps walking past his outer door. He awoke with all the bleariness of deep sleep, lying still for a moment, wondering why he had been roused. The rattle of a door frame came from further down the corridor. He narrowly ceased breath, cocking his ear toward the closed portal lying feet away.
There it came again. A different door. The same response. Had it tried the rest lining the companionway? He waited with mounting trepidation as Henry’s door held fast. “Who’s there?” Fitzjames called before he could think better of it. The sound upon the panel ceased. The silence was a trick. Rising, he was conscious of every little noise he made, crossing the short distance, a pouch of iron fillings clutched in his palm
Laying his hand upon the flimsy sliding panel, something growled on the opposite side. Startled, he drew back, “Nep? Neptune?” As he spoke, an opposing whine issued forth from a longer distance. A surge of pity fluttered in Fitzjames’s breast for the poor, dumb brute. “Be gone you,” he ordered in a sour whisper, “leave us in peace!”
For moments nothing occurred. The hasp of ice at the hulls, a dim irritation hardly penetrated his concentration. Shuffling. It was withdrawing. His courage waxed, false courage born from a bottle. Fitzjames laced frozen boots with clumsy fingers. Pulling his overcoat closed over his nightshirt and trousers, he stepped out into the darkness of the corridor as the hatchway opened a sliver. Neptune trotted from the fo’c’sle. “Stay, boy.” Fitzjames shooed with his hand before clambering up. The dog sat on its haunches, regarding him with solemn eyes.
He gave little cause to those on nightwatch, aware of their looks. Borrowing a lantern, he refused accompaniment, striding down into the darkness of the valley. Sharp flakes of whirling snow obscured his sight, hardly he was aware of the cold, the liquor burning steadily through his blood as he walked on.
The many times he lost sight of the creature were beyond count. Still a feverish intensity forced him to continue. Was it folly? Perhaps, the thought sobered him from the madness of winter’s throes. Beneath his feet, jagged ice became rough slate and deep snows. Out of breath, he mounted the crest of land stretching to the curve of shore, his vision at once consumed by a glimpse of the tombstones battered in the polar gale.
There, the unearthly creature had fled.
There, it sought shelter.
At long last, he glimpsed its face and shrank from the sight.
***
He ordered slabs of limestone placed over the tomb. “Animals.” He answered to the inevitable qu
estions. Only one had risen. He knew that now, armed with knowledge he felt the terrors of ice and darkness at bay. Their newspaper was a medium in which he could forewarn, using his influence he tasked the men never to be alone, never to listen to the familiar call of a voice calling across the wasteland.
Of these things, for certain he glimpsed the recognition in their alike eyes.
They had heard the same as he had. The deceptively soft voice of a friend, a lover...Elizabeth. Goodsir had warned him of the insidious creature’s wiles. It will test you, the surgeon had warned. And by God it had.
Winter’s hold had begun to loosen, purple lights tainted the twilight and the first spackled hints of sunlight illuminated the fringes of the wide open sky. Fitzjames marveled at the ethereal beauty possessed by the polar plains, his nightmares fading to distant dreams of glory. Once more with alacrity, he took up writing long journalistic letters to his sister, chess matches with Osmer and vague literary discussions with Crozier, whose acquaintance improved over time.
With the coming of Spring, he began to organize sledge parties to traverse the coastlines of neighboring island North Devon and the frozen waterway of Cape Riley. Often together, he and Sir John discussed plans, alternated sledge team dynamics. Though there were none of the beasts to be had, he mused sometimes on the Esquimaux savages method of travel utilizing dog sled teams. A subject in which he and Sir John disagreed on, but not to any carry-overs of emotion.
Then, one particularly fine evening after dining together with Franklin in his spacious cabin; he was asked, “to what do you fear, James?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.” Fitzjames hesitated, the china plates had been cleared by the attentive steward, the smoky lamps flickered in the corners. He swallowed hastily of the burgundy liquid remaining in his crystal goblet, his throat suddenly and peculiarly dry. “I share no fears like that of common man.” Nor fear of homelessness, indigence, loss of familial love. His smile felt forced.