The Arctic Fury

by Greer Macallister

  There are no words for the expression that crosses Captain Malcolm’s face. Virginia worries for a moment that he might throw caution to the wind and do something outrageous—laugh out loud, leap forward to throttle the prosecutor—but he maintains complete control. He does not let himself be baited.

  The prosecutor goes on, “Oh, I apologize. I suppose I did not put that as a question. Did you, Captain Malcolm, have some way of knowing for sure you weren’t furthering the cause of white slavery? You have not shared your country of origin, but men of your…complexion have been known to involve themselves in those pursuits.”

  The captain’s voice and expression are laudably calm as he says, “Sir, if slavery is your concern, you must be aware that men of your complexion have done far more harm on that front than men of mine.”

  A shocked hush stretches out in the courtroom for one, two, three beats and continues. For this long moment, everyone else seems as still as Virginia. She finds the feeling unsettling. At the same time, she wants to stand up and cheer.

  Finally, Judge Miller clears his throat, breaking the silence. “I think we’ve spent more than enough time on this line of questioning. Counsel, select a new one, please.”

  “Of course, of course.” The prosecutor bobs his head. Then he clears his throat and addresses Captain Malcolm anew. “Were you given any information about the intent of the women’s party?”

  “I was told they were in search of two ships.”

  “And that was all?”

  A flash of humor, inappropriate but certainly understandable, puts a new sparkle in the captain’s brown eyes. “When someone says they’re looking for two ships in the Arctic, sir, everyone knows what two ships they mean.”

  “But your benefactor did not say they were looking for the Erebus and the Terror.”

  “No.”

  “And your benefactor did not speak with you directly?”

  “All work was done in writing, signed by a man named Brooks.”

  “Was Brooks his first or last name?”

  Virginia feels sorry for Captain Malcolm having to answer as he does, even though she knows exactly what he will say. “I’m afraid I can’t answer that.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. I only knew him as Brooks.”

  “You didn’t think to ask?”

  Captain Malcolm only glares silently at the prosecutor. He stares so long that the judge prompts him, “Captain, will you please answer the prosecutor’s question?” At least his voice is respectful. A request, not a command.

  “What was the question again?” Captain Malcolm asks.

  “Did you not ask this ‘Brooks’ about his name?”

  “I did not. Again, I never met him.”

  “In your correspondence, let us specify, then. What did you ask him?”

  “About the service I was contracted to provide and the recompense for providing it. Are those not important questions?”

  “Fair enough, I suppose.”

  “You’re too kind,” grumbles the captain.

  Virginia’s surprised that this of all moments is the one where he lets his composure slip, but honestly, how can she think she knows him? They knew each other for such a short time, in such a strange place. Neither of them could have foreseen this. That she’d be on trial for murder with him testifying against her. But here they are, the unforeseen now breathing its hot, wet breath into their faces like an eager wolf, hungry for blood.

  The lawyer pretends to miss the naked aggression in the captain’s voice. It’s obvious, at least to her, that he’s pretending to be unaware because it will benefit him in some way. Her stomach roils, her head aches. Even his pretended weaknesses are just roundabout ways to lead back to his case’s strengths.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, Captain Malcolm,” the prosecutor continues, “the defendant has made what sounds to our ears like an outrageous claim: that Lady Jane Franklin put her in charge of the expedition. Do you know whether there is any truth to that claim?”

  “I assumed it was true. It made sense.”

  “So Miss Reeve made that claim to you as well?”

  “She did.”

  “But you had no particular reason to believe her?”

  He says defensively, “As I said, it made sense.”

  “Yet there is no real evidence.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “So you cannot support Miss Reeve’s claim that her expedition was undertaken on behalf of Lady Jane Franklin.”

  The slowness of his response conveys his regret. “No.”

  “And what is your assessment of Miss Virginia Reeve?”

  His eyes go to her as if he can’t help it. The connection takes her by surprise. The memory. As if they were still there in his cabin, his breath warm on her ear, their bodies close. She forces her eyes away. She picks a spot on the wall behind his ear and dedicates herself to it.

  Judging by his tone, Captain Malcolm seems to regain control of himself, his voice polite and distant as he says, “Assessment? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “Was she an experienced sailor? A pleasure to have on the ship? A thing of beauty and a joy forever?”

  With each question, the captain’s brow grows stormier, and though the prosecutor seems lighthearted, Virginia knows he has built his assertions with great care. Even if the captain says nothing at all, his lack of agreement with the implied compliments here—none of which truly apply to Virginia, to be honest—will stand as a black mark against her.

  Captain Malcolm says, “I found her pleasant enough company.”

  “Company?” repeats the prosecutor, and Virginia winces at the insinuating note in his voice. The captain should have anticipated that trap, and certainly, it would have been better for them both if he had. But she feels a pang of tenderness toward him. This is not where he belongs. There’s too much at risk. What might he lose if he puts a foot wrong? Everything, she supposes. And he is not even the one on trial.

  The prosecutor asks a few more questions, and the captain answers each reluctantly, with no great panache. He struggles forward, clearly out of his element. It’s a shame, because the lawyer is so obviously deep in his.

  At least, after a particularly clumsy exchange on the topic of where and when exactly the women disembarked from the Doris, the prosecutor says with great satisfaction, “Thank you, Captain. That will be all.”

  She is not sure whether Captain Malcolm tries to catch her eye as he rises to leave the courtroom. She has torn her gaze from the spot on the wall and allowed herself to look at the five survivors again, her human rosary beads, checking one and the next and the next. Doro, Althea, and so on. Looking over their sleek hair and their neat gowns. Each wears a dress that is delicate and modest, but to Virginia, what they wear looks like armor. They knew they would hear things here that would make them want to melt, cry, shrink away. Yet they’re facing up to what happened. She must force herself to face up too.

  When she turns her head to look, Captain Malcolm has already left the courtroom. She has missed her chance. Not that it matters, she tells herself. Not that there ever was a chance to miss.

  Has he done her any great harm, the captain? Not here. He is a man of honor. He could not have dodged questions put to him in a court of law. He said what he needed to say, no more.

  A swirling mix of emotions swamps Virginia as they walk her back to her cell. Anger and fear, yes, those have been her constant companions throughout the trial, but other feelings swim and surface alongside. Relief. Surprise. Even gratitude.

  If Captain Malcolm truly wished her ill, she thinks, there were so many things he could have told them.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Virginia

  Aboard the Doris

  July 1853

  Both mittened hands on the starboard railin
g, Virginia breathed deep. Three weeks into the voyage north aboard the Doris, more than a thousand miles north of Boston, the night air tasted of frost and tin. The calendar might say summer and the clock might say night, but weak daylight still swept the deck long after they were too tired to stand, and it felt to Virginia like they’d sailed into their own past, back into the heart of winter. Breathing out was a relief. If all went well, they were halfway to Repulse Bay, but what were the chances things would go well? She needed to be prepared one way or the other.

  The frenzy of suspicion that Keane and his allies had whipped up around the missing objects had abated, but Virginia still felt the undercurrent. Virginia reported that no thieved goods had been found on any of the women, which was true. Captain Malcolm, his face chagrined but his words clipped, informed her that one of the missing silver forks had turned up in the pocket of a green hand named Haskell, and he’d been punished as appropriate. Virginia did not ask what the appropriate punishment was, but she assumed it involved lashes, and she was happy not to have witnessed it firsthand.

  Unfortunately, she now had a bigger issue to consider.

  There was a phenomenon on the trail where people faced with too many decisions simply lay down and died. Ames had told her so. He’d claimed he’d seen it more than once—in the long stretch after Fort Bridger, just past the high pass near Cochuga, and three times in the summer droughts all too common west of Bonneville—and he was scrupulously honest about such things. He never told tall tales or gave untrustworthy guidance in the mountain lands. He knew such a thing would break her heart.

  These people died right at the crossroads, Ames had told her, dead center. Not because they ran out of food and water, though that lack was a factor. And not because of weather rushing them into a decision that they were afraid to regret. No, this phenomenon was about the impossibility of the choice itself. Right or left? North or south? Press on or double back toward home? And in these cases, with infinite time to decide but too much riding on choosing right from two unknown options, that was when people simply collapsed under the decision’s weight. Bodies stayed behind as souls wafted upward. They died rather than make a choice.

  That was why, when Ames sought her out and offered her a new life as a guide, Virginia had shed her past to say yes. She wanted to spare travelers those choices. Her first journey to California had been unusually hard, yes, but the greater part of it had been typical. Her party had been made up of desperate, inexperienced people, in well over their heads. Everything else, including the Very Bad Thing, was part of the story but not the whole.

  Now that she knew Stella was with child, Virginia was at her own crossroads. In some ways, of course, there was nothing she could do. The fact could be shared or withheld, but it could not be changed. She’d sworn Dove and Siobhan to secrecy, and though she trusted Siobhan to keep silent, she wasn’t at all sure about Dove. If the news spread through the group of women, it was only a matter of time until it spread further. That was where the danger lay. Every day, like clockwork, she resolved to tell the captain. Every day, like clockwork, she failed. She simply could not form the words.

  She had given others bad news countless times, of course. On the trail, she’d broken news of deaths—your husband isn’t coming back from the hunt, your child didn’t survive the snakebite—and held strangers while they sobbed their grief out in her arms. She’d ordered people to leave behind their most precious possessions. One memorable winter, when there was no way to move forward through a pass, she had turned three dozen people around and taken them all the way back to Fort Bridger. But this, this was different. A baby, for the love of heaven. To bring a small, helpless human into these frozen wilds. No good could come of it.

  She could not take a pregnant Stella with her onto the ice; she could not leave a pregnant Stella on the ship alone.

  She should tell the captain. It wasn’t that she never had the opportunity. They spoke several times a day at least, and his manner toward her verged on friendly. Every time they spoke, she could feel the secret under her skin, knowing he’d want to know everything that went on under his command, the same way she did.

  But after a week, she’d let her silence harden. If she told someone—it had become an if—she would wait until they were closer to disembarking at Repulse Bay. Since there was nothing they could do anyway, she told herself, until then.

  A woman drew near to her, and though a scarf was drawn around this woman’s face, Virginia recognized Doro instantly. Others might venture out on the deck, even at night, but who would willingly seek Virginia in the coldest, most barren place on the ship? Only Doro.

  Both of them looked out toward the North at the enormous boulders of ice rising from the harbor, bobbing and veering dangerously, pushing them toward shore. They had entered the exact situation Doro had warned Virginia about all the way back in Boston: if they continued to hug the shoreline, they’d be in constant danger of scraping the hull on the bay’s bottom. They could not afford to run aground.

  “This ice…” said Doro, and when she trailed off, Virginia felt it in the pit of her stomach immediately. Doro wasn’t one to mince words. That she felt the need to do so now was a very, very bad sign.

  Virginia rose. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  But Virginia did not bother answering. Doro was smart. She’d figure it out on the way.

  And indeed she did, once they’d turned down the corridor and approached the closed door of the captain’s cabin. Doro straightened her cap over her hair as Virginia raised her knuckles, rapped once, then again, and waited.

  “Who’s there?” shouted a voice, drowsy, annoyed.

  “I apologize, Captain, but we must speak with you.”

  “Miss Reeve?” The voice was definitely thick with sleep, but it didn’t take long for the sound of footsteps to ring out.

  The door opened just enough for the captain’s face but not his body to appear. “Yes?”

  “We need to talk to you. About the ice.”

  His eyes went back and forth between her face and Doro’s, and whatever grim set he saw there convinced him.

  “Can we come in?” asked Virginia.

  “No. I’ll come out.”

  “It’s no time to stand on ceremony.”

  “Isn’t ceremony,” came his muffled voice through the door. “Common sense.”

  She realized they’d likely come upon him in partial dress. Even in the cold, one must change into new clothes from time to time. Virginia found herself wondering whether the captain stripped all the way down before putting new clothing on and assumed he probably didn’t; she and the other women tended to slip their bodies out of one dress into another as quickly as possible, leaving only a bare minimum of skin exposed for the shortest possible amount of time. Then she realized how much thought she was giving to a man’s bare skin, and she felt a hot blush creeping up into her cheeks, flaming against the cool air.

  Then he stepped into the hallway, fully clothed, and said with a level tone, “How can I be of assistance?”

  “The ice,” Doro blurted.

  “Yes, I’ve noticed it,” he said dryly.

  “I’ve read the maps over and over. As you know. All’s been well till now. But we’re coming up on a particularly shallow ridge,” Doro said, her voice growing softer, less confident, even as she stated facts. “It’ll rise up. If we stay this close to shore, we’ll beach, and no mistake.”

  He gave Doro a long look, a challenging one. “I know the southwest section of the bay thaws last. But didn’t you yourself tell me that by this time of year, it would likely be fine?”

  Doro shrank from him a little, not used to confrontation. Virginia had a momentary pang of regret. She’d brought this woman out of her native element, into the true wilderness, because of her knowledge. But a woman was not just what she knew. Perhaps Virginia should have thought of that befo
re inviting her along.

  But goodness, it was far too late for that, wasn’t it?

  Virginia stepped in. “A man like you, a seafarer, knows there’s infinity in that word likely.”

  He rubbed his forehead with his hand, the palm paler than the skin it touched, his expression impossible to read.

  Finding her voice, Doro said, “It should have been safe. The spring’s been warmer farther south. But the current gyre brings ice from the north, and the winds play their part… We can’t control the ice, only react to it.”

  “I’m afraid it might be too late even to do that,” he answered, leaning back against the wooden boards of the hallway.

  “Sail away from shore,” said Virginia.

  “Do you understand the risk? At a minimum, we’ll need to halve our speed so that we’re nudging the ice out of the way instead of crashing into it. Do you know what that does to the journey?” he asked her. “How much time it can add?”

  “Doro does, I expect.”

  Doro swallowed, then said, “It depends. A few days, at least. Could be a week or longer—much longer—depending on how far out we go and how the ice behaves once we’re there.”

  “You are far from our only cargo,” the captain told them, straightening up. “We have other goods to deliver. And pick up. And deliver elsewhere. Repulse Bay is only the beginning. The season is too short for detours.”

  “But the risk—” said Virginia.

  He held up a hand, his palm toward her. She thought for a moment he was deliberately showing her a signal until she remembered he had no knowledge of their signals at all. Which was the point, she reminded herself. He added, in case his gesture wasn’t clear, “I will think on it.”

  “What’s to think on?” blurted Doro. “You want the Doris to run aground? No? Then you have no choice.”

  An icy shiver ran up Virginia’s spine. She could picture it all too clearly. Ice against wood against stone. A rip in the hull as it beached in the shallows, then stuck. Immovable. How long would they last then? With no way to sail home, nothing but icy water on three sides, land with no civilization for miles on the other?