The Terror

by Dan Simmons

  At the sound of the first volley, Lieutenant Le Vesconte nodded and Samuel Brown, John Weekes, and James Rigden slid the planks out from under the heavy casket, which now hung suspended only by the three hawsers. At the sound of the second volley, the coffin was lowered until it touched the black water. At the sound of the final volley, the hawsers were slowly let slip until the heavy casket with its copper plaque — Lieutenant Gore’s medals and sword also now perched atop the mahogany — disappeared beneath the water’s surface.

  There was a slight roiling of icy water, the hawsers were pulled up and tossed aside, and the rectangle of black water was empty. To the south, the sun dogs and halo had disappeared and only a sullen red sun glowed under the dome of sky.

  The men dispersed silently to their ships. It was only two bells into the first dogwatch. For most of the men it was time for their evening meal and their second portion of grog.

  The next day, Saturday the fifth of June, saw both crews huddling in the lower decks of their ships as another arctic summer lightning storm exploded above them. Lookouts were called down from the topmains and those few who kept watch on deck kept away from all metal and masts as lightning crashed through fog, thunder rolled, great bolts of electricity struck and then restruck the lightning rods set on the masts and cabin roofs, and blue fingers of Saint Elmo’s fire crept along the spars and slithered through the rigging. Haggard lookouts coming below after their watch told their wide-eyed mates of spheres of ball-lightning rolling and leaping across the ice. Later in the day — with the lightning and airborne electrical displays growing even more violent — the dogwatch lookouts reported something large, much too large to be a mere white bear, prowling and pacing along the ridges in the fog, now concealed, now made visible by lightning flash for only a second or two. Sometimes, they said, the shape walked on four legs like a bear. Other times, they swore, it walked easily on two legs, like a man. The thing, they said, was circling the ship.

  Although the mercury was falling, Sunday dawned clear and thirty degrees colder — the temperature at noon was nine below zero — and Sir John sent out word that Divine Service would be compulsory that day on Erebus.

  Divine Service was compulsory each week for the men and officers of Sir John’s ship — he held it on the lower deck all during the dark winter months — but only the most devout Terrors made the ice crossing to join in the service. Since it was mandatory in the Royal Navy, by tradition as much as by regulation, Captain Crozier also held Divine Service on Sunday, but with no chaplain aboard it was an abbreviated effort — sometimes amounting to little more than reading the Ship’s Articles — and ran twenty minutes of a morning rather than Sir John’s enthusiastic ninety minutes or two hours.

  This Sunday there was no option.

  Captain Crozier led his officers, mates, and men across the ice for the second time in three days, this time with their greatcoats and mufflers over any dress uniforms, and they were surprised upon their arrival at Erebus to see that the service was to take place on deck, with Sir John preaching from the quarterdeck. Despite the pale blue sky above — no gold dome of ice crystals or symbolic sun dogs this day — the wind was very cold, and the mass of seamen huddled together for at least the illusion of warmth in the area below the quarterdeck, while the officers from both ships stood behind Sir John on the weather side of the deck like a solid mass of greatcoated acolytes. Once again, the twelve Marines were drawn up in rank, this time on the lee side of the main deck with Sergeant Bryant in front, while the petty officers massed before the mainmast.

  Sir John stood at the binnacle, which had been covered with the same Union Jack that had been draped over Gore’s casket “to answer the purpose of a pulpit,” as per regulation.

  He preached for only about an hour and no toes or fingers were lost as a result.

  Being an Old Testament man by nature and inclination, Sir John led the way through several of the prophets, focusing awhile on Isaiah’s judgement upon the earth — “Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof” — and slowly through the barrage of words, it became apparent to even the most dimwitted seaman in the mass of greatcoats, mufflers, and mittens on the main deck that their commander was really talking about their expedition to find the North-West Passage and their current condition frozen in the icy wastes at latitude 70°- 05' N., longitude 98°- 23' W.

  “The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word,” continued Sir John. “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth … And it shall come to pass that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows from on high are open, and the foundations of the earth do shake … The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. They shall reel to and fro like a drunkard …”

  As if in proof of this dire prophecy, a great groaning came up from the ice all around HMS Erebus and the deck shifted under the standing men. The ice-rimmed masts and spars above them seemed to vibrate and then make small circles against the weak blue sky. No man broke formation or made a noise.

  Sir John shifted from Isaiah to Revelation and gave them even more dire images of what awaited those who abandoned their Lord.

  “But of what of he … of we … who do not break covenant with our Lord?” asked Sir John. “I commend you to JONAH.”

  Some of the seamen sighed in relief. They were familiar with Jonah.

  “Jonah was given a commission by God to go to Nineveh and to cry against it because of its wickedness,” cried Sir John, his often weak voice now rising in volume as strongly and well as any inspired Anglican preacher’s, “but Jonah — you all know this, shipmates — Jonah fled from his commission and from the presence of the Lord, going down to Joppa there to take a berth on the first ship leaving, which happened to be destined for Tarshish — a city beyond the edge of the world then. Jonah foolishly thought that he could sail beyond the limits of the Kingdom of the Lord.

  “ ‘But the LORD sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.’ And you know the rest … you know how the sailors cried out asking why this evil had fallen upon them, and they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah. ‘And they said unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? And he said unto them, Take me up and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.’

  “But at first the sailors did not cast Jonah overboard, did they, shipmates? No — they were brave men and good sailors and professionals and rowed hard to bring their foundering ship to land. But finally they weakened, cried unto the Lord, and then did make a sacrifice of Jonah, casting him overboard.

  “And the Bible says — ‘Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.’

  “Notice, shipmates, that the Bible does not say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. No! This was no beluga nor right nor baleen nor sperm nor killer nor fin such as we would see in these high waters or in Baffin Bay on a normal arctic summer. No, Jonah was swallowed up by a ‘great fish’ which the Lord had prepared for him — which means a monster of the deep that Lord God Jehovah had made at the Creation for just this purpose, to swallow Jonah someday, and in the Bible this monster of a great fish is sometimes called Leviathan.

  “And just so have we been sent on our mission beyond the farthest known edge of the world, shipmates, farther than the Tarshish — which was only in Spain, after all — we have been sent out to where the elements themselves seem to rebel, where lightning crashes from frozen skies, where the cold never relents, where white beasts walk the frozen surface of the sea, and where no man, civilized or otherwise, could ever call suc
h a place home.

  “But we are not beyond the Kingdom of God, shipmates! As Jonah did not protest his fate nor curse his punishment but rather prayed unto the Lord out of the fish’s belly for three days and three nights, so we must not protest, but accept God’s will of this exile of three long nights of winter in the belly of this ice, and like Jonah we must pray unto the Lord, saying, ‘I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains: the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God.’

  “ ‘When my soul fainted within me I remembered the LORD: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple. They that observe lying vanities foresake their own mercy. But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

  “ ‘And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.’

  “And, beloved shipmates, know in your hearts that we have given and must continue giving sacrifice unto the Lord with the voice of thanksgiving. We must pay that that we have vowed to pay. Our friend and brother in Christ, Lieutenant Graham Gore, may he sleep in the bosom of the Lord, saw that there would be no release from this belly of the Leviathan winter this summer. No escape from the cold belly of this ice this year. And this is the message he would have brought back had he survived.

  “But we have our ships intact, shipmates. We have food for this winter and longer if need be … much longer. We have coal to burn for warmth and the deeper warmth of our companionship and the deepest warmth of knowing that our Lord has not abandoned us.

  “One more summer and then winter here in the belly of this Leviathan, shipmates, and I swear to you that God’s divine mercy shall see us out of this terrible place. The North-West Passage is real; it is only miles over that horizon to the southwest — Lieutenant Gore could almost see it with his own eyes a mere week ago — and we shall sail out to it and through it and out of it and away from it in a very few months, when this uncommon extended winter ends, for we shall cry by reason of our affliction unto the Lord, and he shall hear us out of the belly of Hell itself, for he has heardest my voice and yours.

  “In the meantime, shipmates, we are afflicted by the dark spirit of that Leviathan in the form of some malevolent white bear — but only a bear, only a dumb beast, however the thing seeks to serve the Enemy, but like Jonah we shall pray unto the Lord that this terror too shall pass from us. And in the certainty that the Lord shall hear our voices.

  “Kill this mere animal, shipmates, and on the day we do, by the hand of whichever man among us, I vow to pay each and every one of you ten gold sovereigns out of my own purse.”

  There came a murmuring among the men crowded into the waist of the ship.

  “Ten gold sovereigns a man,” repeated Sir John. “Not merely a bounty to the man who slays this beast the way David slew Goliath, but a bonus for everyone — share and share alike. And on top of that, you will continue to receive your Discovery Service pay and the equal of your advance pay in bonuses I promise this day — in exchange only for another winter spent eating good food, staying warm, and waiting for the thaw!”

  If laughter had been thinkable during Divine Service, there would have been laughter then. Instead, the men stared at one another with pale, near-frostbitten faces. Ten gold sovereigns a man. And Sir John had promised a bonus equal to the advance pay that had persuaded so many of these seamen to enlist in the first place — twenty-three pounds for most of them! At a time when a man could purchase lodgings for sixty pence a week … twelve pounds for a whole year. And this on top of the common seaman’s Discovery Service pay of sixty pounds per year — more than three times what any labourer ashore could earn! Seventy-five pounds for the carpenters, seventy for the boatswains, a full eighty-four pounds for the engineers.

  The men were smiling even as they surreptitiously stamped their boots on the deck to keep from losing toes.

  “I have ordered Mr. Diggle on Terror and Mr. Wall here on Erebus to make us a holiday dinner today in anticipation of our triumph over this temporary adversity and the sure certainty of the success of our mission of exploration,” called down Sir John from his place at the flag-bedecked binnacle. “On both ships, I have allowed extra rations of rum for this day.”

  The Erebuses could only stare slack-jawed at one another. Sir John Franklin allowing grog to be served on Sunday — and extra rations of it at that?

  “Join me in this prayer, shipmates,” said Sir John. “Dear God, turn thy face in our direction again, O Lord, and be gracious unto thy servants. O satisfy us with thy mercy, and that soon: so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our lives.

  “Comfort us again now after the time that thou has plagued us: and for the years wherein we have suffered adversity.

  “Shew thy servants thy work: and their children thy glory.

  “And the glorious Majesty of the Lord our God be upon us: prosper thou the work of our hands upon us, O prosper thou our handy-work.

  “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

  “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.”

  “Amen,” came back a hundred and fifteen voices.

  For four days and nights after Sir John’s sermon, despite a June snowstorm that blew in from the northwest and made visibility poor and life miserable, the frozen sea echoed day and night to the blast of shotguns and the rattle of musketry. Every man who could find any reason to be out on the ice — a hunting party, the fire-hole party, messengers passing between the ships, carpenters testing their new sledges, seamen given permission to walk Neptune the dog — brought a weapon and fired at anything that moved or gave the impression through blowing snow or fog that it might be capable of movement. No men were killed, but three had to report to Dr. McDonald or Dr. Goodsir to have shotgun pellets removed from their thighs, calves, and buttocks.

  On Wednesday a hunting party who had failed to find seals did bring in — strapped across two connected sledges — the carcass of a white bear and a living white bear cub about the size of a small calf.

  There was some hue and cry for the ten gold sovereigns to be paid to each man, but even the men who had killed the beast a mile north of the ship — it had taken more than twelve shots from two muskets and three shotguns to bring the bear down — had to admit that it was too small, less than eight feet long when stretched out on the bloody ice, and too thin and female. They had killed the bear sow but left the mewling cub alive and dragged it back behind the sledge with them.

  Sir John came down to inspect the dead animal, praised the men for finding meat — although everyone hated boiled bear meat and this thin animal looked more stringy and tough than most — but pointed out that it was not the monster of the Leviathan that had killed Lieutenant Gore. All the witnesses to the lieutenant’s death were sure, Sir John explained, that even as he died, the brave officer had fired his pistol into the breast of the true beast. This bear sow had been riddled with shot, but there was no old pistol wound in her breast, nor pistol ball to be found. Thus, said Sir John, would the real white bear monster be identified.

  Some of the men wanted to make a pet of the cub since the thing had been weaned and would eat thawed beef, while others wanted to butcher it then and there on the ice. On the advice of Marine Sergeant Bryant, Sir John ordered that the animal be kept alive, attached by collar and chain to a stake in the ice. It was that Wednesday evening, the ninth of June, that Sergeants Bryant and Tozer, along with the mate Edward Couch and old John Murray, the only sailmaker left on the voyage, asked to speak to Sir John in his cabin.

  “We are going at this the wrong way, Sir John,” said Sergeant Bryant, spokesman for the little group. “The hunting of the beast, I mean.”

  “How so?”
asked Sir John.

  Bryant gestured as if referring to the dead bear sow now being butchered out on the bloody ice. “Our men aren’t hunters, Sir John. There’s not a serious hunter aboard either ship. Those of us who do hunt shoot birds in our life ashore, not large game. Oh, a deer we could bring down, or an arctic caribou should we ever see one again, but this white bear is a formidable foe, Sir John. Those we’ve killed in the past we’ve killed more by luck than by skill. Its skull is thick enough to stop a musket ball. Its body has so much fat and muscle ringed about it that it might as well be armoured like some ancient knight. It’s such a powerful animal, even the smaller bears — well, you have seen them, Sir John — even a shotgun blast to the belly or a rifle shot to the lungs does not bring them down. Their hearts seem hard to find. This scrawny female required a dozen shots by both shotgun and musket, all at short range, and even then she would have escaped had she not stayed behind to protect her cub.”

  “What are you suggesting, Sergeant?”

  “A blind, Sir John.”

  “A blind?”

  “As if we were hunting ducks, Sir John,” said Sergeant Tozer, a Marine with a purple birthmark across his pale face. “Mr. Murray has an idea how to make it.”

  Sir John turned toward Erebus’s old sailmaker.

  “We use extra iron rods meant for shaft replacements, Sir John, and bend them into the support shapes we want,” said Murray. “That gives us a light frame for the blind, which’ll be like a tent, you see.

  “Only not a pyramid like our tents,” continued John Murray, “but long and low with an overhanging awning, almost like a canvas booth at a country fair, m’lord.”

  Sir John smiled. “Wouldn’t our bear notice a country fair canvas booth out there on the ice, gentlemen?”

  “Nay, sir,” said the sailmaker. “I’ll have the canvas cut and sewn and painted snow white before nightfall — or this gloom we call night up here. We’ll set the blind against a low pressure ridge where it will blend in. Only the slightest long firing slit will be visible. Mr. Weekes will use the wood from the burial service scaffolding to set benches inside so the shooters will be warm and snug up off the ice.”