by Dan Simmons
Such wounds did not heal up here in the arctic, especially not after the early symptoms of scurvy had set in. Crozier had turned away from the others and vomited from the pain. The sickening burning in his ravaged fingers and left palm only grew worse through the long night of hauling, tugging, lifting, and pushing. His arm and shoulder muscles bruised and bled internally under the pressure of the harness straps.
For a while on the last barrier, around one thirty in the morning, with the stars and planets shimmering and shifting in the endless clear but murderously cold sky overhead, Crozier stupidly considered leaving all the sledges behind and making a dash for Terror Camp, still a full mile away across the frozen gravel and drifted snow. Other men could come back with them tomorrow and help fetch these impossibly heavy burdens the last mile or so.
Enough of Francis Crozier’s mind and command instincts remained for him to reject this thought at once. He could do just that, of course, abandon the sledges — the first party in weeks to do so — and ensure their survival by staggering across the ice to the safety of Terror Camp without their burdens, but he would lose all leadership forever in the eyes of his 104 surviving men and officers.
Even though the pain from his torn hands caused him to vomit frequently and silently onto the ice wall as they pulled and pushed the sledges over — a distant part of Crozier’s mind noticed that the vomitus was liquid and red in the lantern light — he continued giving orders and lending a hand as the thirty-eight men well enough to continue the struggle managed to get the sledges and themselves over the Barrier and onto the ice and runner-scraping gravel of the shoreline.
If he hadn’t been sure that the cold would rip the skin of his lips off, Crozier might have fallen to his knees in the dark and kissed the solid ground as they heard that new sound of gravel and stone protesting under the sledge runners for the final mile.
There were torches burning at Terror Camp. Crozier was in the lead harness of the lead sledge as they approached. Everyone tried to stand tall — or at least stagger in an upright position — as they pulled the dead-weight sledges and the unconscious men on them the last hundred yards into camp.
There were men fully dressed in slops and outside the tents waiting for them. At first Crozier was touched by their concern, sure that the two dozen or so men he saw in the torchlight had been on the verge of sending out a rescue party in search of their overdue captain and comrades.
As Crozier leaned into the harness, pulling the last sixty feet or so into the light from the torches, his hands and bruises aflame with pain, he prepared a little joke for their arrival — something along the lines of declaring it Christmas again and announcing that everyone would sleep the next week through — but then Captain Fitzjames and some of the other officers stepped closer to greet them.
Crozier saw their eyes then: Fitzjames’s eyes and Le Vesconte’s and Des Voeux’s and Couch’s and Hodgson’s and Goodsir’s and the others’ there. And he knew — through Memo Moira’s Second Sight or his demonstrated captain’s sense or just through the clear, unfiltered-by-thought perception of a completely exhausted man — he knew that something had happened and that nothing would now be as he had planned or hoped and might never be again.
37
IRVING
Lat. 69° 37′ 42″ N., Long. 98° 40′ 58″ W.
24 April, 1848
There were ten Esquimaux standing there: six men of indeterminate age, one very old man with no teeth, one boy, and two women. One woman was old, with a collapsed mouth and a face that was a mass of wrinkles, and one was very young. Perhaps, Irving thought, they are mother and daughter.
The men were uniformly short; the top of the tallest man’s head barely came up to the tall third lieutenant’s chin. Two had their hoods back, showing wild thatches of black hair and unlined faces, but the other men stared at him from the depths of their hoods, some with their faces shrouded and surrounded by a luxuriant white fur that Irving believed might be from the arctic fox. Other hood ruffs were darker and more bristly and Irving guessed that the fur might be from wolverines.
Every male except the boy carried a weapon, either a harpoon or short spear with a bone or stone point, but after Irving had approached and shown his empty hands, none of the spears were now raised or pointed at him. The Esquimaux men — hunters, Irving assumed — stood easily, legs apart, hands on their weapons, with their sled being held back by the oldest man, who kept the boy close. There were six dogs harnessed to the sled, a vehicle much shorter and lighter than even the smallest folding sledges on Terror. The dogs barked and snarled, showing vicious canines, until the old man beat them into silence with a carved stick he carried.
Even while trying to think of a way to communicate with these strange people, Irving continued to marvel at their dress. The men’s parkas were shorter and darker than Lady Silence’s or her deceased male companion’s, but just as furry. Irving thought that the dark hair or fur might be from caribou or foxes, but the knee-length white trousers were definitely from the white bears. Some of the long, hairy boots seemed to be from caribou skins, but others were more supple and pliable. Sealskin? Or some sort of caribou hide turned inside out?
The mittens were visibly sealskin and looked both warmer and more supple than Irving’s own.
The lieutenant had looked to the six younger men to see who was the leader, but it wasn’t clear. Other than the old man and the boy, only one of the males stood out, and that was one of the older bareheaded men who wore a complicated white caribou fur headband, a thin belt from which many odd things dangled, and some sort of pouch around his neck. It was not, however, a simple talisman such as Lady Silence’s white stone bear amulet.
Silence, how I wish you were here, thought John Irving.
“Greetings,” he said. He touched his chest with his mittened thumb. “Third Lieutenant John Irving of Her Majesty’s Ship Terror.”
The men mumbled among themselves. He heard words that sounded like kabloona and qavac and miagortok, but had no clue whatsoever as to what they might mean.
The older bareheaded man with the pouch and belt pointed at Irving and said, “Piifixaaq! ”
Some of the younger men shook their head at this. If it was a pejorative term, Irving hoped that the others were rejecting it.
“John Irving,” he said, touching his chest again.
“Sixam ieua? ” said the man opposite him. “Suingne! ”
Irving could only nod at this. He touched his chest again. “Irving.” He pointed toward the other man’s chest in a questioning manner.
The man stared at Irving from between the fringes of his hood.
In desperation, the lieutenant pointed to the lead dog that was still barking and growling while being held back and beaten wildly by the old man next to the sled.
“Dog,” said Irving. “Dog.”
The Esquimaux man closest to Irving laughed. “Qimmiq,” he said clearly, also pointing to the dog. “Tunok.” The man shook his head and chuckled.
Although he was freezing, Irving felt a warm glow. He’d gotten somewhere. The Esquimaux word for the hairy dog they used was either qimmiq or tunok, or both. He pointed at their sled.
“Sled,” he stated firmly.
The ten Esquimaux stared at him. The young woman was holding her mittens in front of her face. The old woman’s jaw hung down and Irving could see that she had precisely one tooth in her mouth.
“Sled,” he said again.
The six men in front looked at one another. Finally, Irving’s interlouctor to this point said, “Kamatik? ”
Irving nodded happily even though he had no idea if they had really begun communicating. For all he knew, the man had just asked him if he wanted to be harpooned. Nonetheless, the junior lieutenant could not stop grinning. Most of the Esquimaux men — with the exception of the boy, the old man who was still beating the dog, and the bareheaded older man with the pouch and belt — were grinning back.
“Do you speak English by any chance?�
�� asked Irving, realizing that he was a bit tardy with the question.
The Esquimaux men stared and grinned and scowled and remained silent.
Irving repeated the query in his schoolboy French and atrocious German.
The Esquimaux continued to smile and scowl and stare.
Irving crouched and squatted and the six men closest to him squatted. They did not sit on the freezing gravel, even if a larger rock or boulder was near. After so many months up here in the cold, Irving understood. He still wanted to know someone’s name.
“Irving,” he said, touching his chest again. He pointed at the closest man.
“Inuk,” said the man, touching his chest. He tugged off his mitten with a flash of white teeth and held up his right hand. It was missing the two smaller fingers. “Tikerqat.” He grinned again.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Inuk,” said Irving. “Or Mr. Tikerqat. Very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
He decided that any real communication would have to be through sign language and pointed back the way he had come, toward the northwest. “I have many friends,” he said confidently, as if saying this would make him safer with these savage people. “Two large ships. Two … ships.”
Most of the Esquimaux looked the way Irving pointed. Mr. Inuk was frowning slightly. “Nanuq,” the man said softly, and then seemed to correct himself with a shake of his head. “Tôrnârssuk.” The others looked away or lowered their heads at this last word, almost, it seemed, as if in reverence or fear. But the lieutenant was sure that it was not at the thought of two ships or a group of white men.
Irving licked his bleeding lips. Better to begin trading with these people than to engage in a long conversation. Moving slowly, so as not to startle any of them, he reached into his leather shoulder valise to see if there was any food or bauble he could give them as a gift.
Nothing. He had eaten the only salted pork and old biscuit he’d brought for his day’s rations. Something shiny and interesting then …
There were only his ragged sweaters, two stinking extra socks, and a disposable rag he had brought along for his alfresco privy purposes. At that moment Irving bitterly regretted giving his prized Oriental silk handkerchief to Lady Silence — wherever the wench was. She had slipped away from Terror Camp their second day there and not been seen again since. He knew that these natives would have loved the red-and-green silk handkerchief.
Then his cold fingers touched the curved brass of his telescope.
Irving’s heart leapt and then wrenched itself with pain. The telescope was perhaps his most prized possession, the last thing his uncle had given him before that good man had died suddenly of heart trouble.
Smiling wanly at the waiting Esquimaux, he slowly pulled the instrument from his bag. He could see the brown-faced men tightening their grips on their spears and harpoons.
Ten minutes later Irving had the entire family or clan or tribe of Esquimaux close around him like schoolchildren grouped around an especially beloved teacher. Everyone, even the suspicious, squinty-eyed older man with the headband, pouch, and belt, had taken a turn looking through the glass. Even the two females had their turn — Irving allowed Mr. Inuk Tikerqat, his new fellow ambassador, to hand the brass instrument to the giggling young woman and the old woman. The ancient man who had been holding down the sled came over for a look and a shouted exclamation with the women chanting along:
ai yei yai ya na
ye he ye ye yi yan e ya qana
ai ye yi yat yana
The group enjoyed looking at one another through the glass, staggering back in shock and laughter when huge faces loomed. Then the men, quickly learning how to focus the glass, zoomed in on distant rocks, clouds, and ridgelines. When Irving showed them that they could reverse the glass and make things and each other tiny, the men’s laughs and exclamations echoed in the small valley.
He used his hands and body language — finally refusing to take the telescope back and pressing it into Mr. Inuk Tikerqat’s hands — to let them know that it was a present.
The laughter stopped and they stared at him with serious faces. For a minute Irving wondered if he had violated some taboo, offended them somehow, but then he had a strong hunch that he had presented them with a problem in protocol; he had given them a wonderful gift and they’d brought nothing in return.
Inuk Tikerqat conferred with the other hunters and then turned to Irving and began making unmistakable pantomimes, lifting his hand to his mouth, then rubbing his belly.
For a terrible second Irving thought his interlocutor was asking for food — of which Irving had none — but when he tried to convey this fact, the Esquimaux shook his head and repeated the gestures. Irving suddenly realized that they were asking him if he was hungry.
Eyes filling with tears from a gust of wind or sheer relief, Irving repeated the gestures and nodded enthusiastically. Inuk Tikerqat grabbed him by his slop’s frozen shoulder and led him back to the sled. What had been their word for this? thought Irving. “Kamatik?” he said aloud, remembering it at last.
“Ee! ” cried Mr. Tikerqat approvingly. Kicking the growling dogs aside, he swept back a thick fur atop the sled. Stack upon stack of frozen and fresh meat and fish were piled atop the kamatik.
His host was pointing toward different delicacies. Pointing at the fish, Inuk Tikerqat said, “Eqaluk,” in the slow, patient tones an adult uses with a child. Toward slabs of seal meat and blubber, “Nat-suk.” Toward larger and more solidly frozen slabs of a darker meat, “Oo ming-mite.”
Irving nodded. He was embarrassed that his mouth had suddenly filled with saliva. Not sure if he was just supposed to admire the cache of food or choose from it, he pointed diffidently at the seal meat.
“Ee! ” Mr. Tikerqat said again. He lifted a strip of soft meat and blubber, reached under his short parka, pulled a very sharp bone knife from his waistband, and cut a strip for Irving and another for himself. He handed the lieutenant his piece before cutting into his own.
The old woman standing nearby made a sort of wailing sound. “Kaaktunga! ” she cried. And when none of the men paid any attention to her, she shouted again, “Kaaktunga! ”
He made a face toward Irving, the kind one man makes to another when a woman demands something in their presence, and said, “Orssunguvoq! ” But he cut the old woman a strip of seal blubber and tossed it to her as one would to a dog.
The toothless old crone laughed and began gumming the blubber.
Immediately the group gathered around the sled, men with their knives out, and everyone began cutting and eating.
“Aipalingiagpoq,” said Mr. Tikerqat, pointing to the old woman and laughing. The other hunters, old man, and boy — everyone except the older man with the headband and pouch — joined in the laughter.
Irving smiled broadly, although he had no idea what the joke was.
The older man in the headband pointed to Irving and said, “Qavac … suingne! Kangunartuliorpoq! ”
The lieutenant did not need a translator to know that whatever the man had said, it had not been laudatory or kind. Mr. Tikerqat and several of the other hunters just shook their heads while eating.
Everyone, even the young woman, was using his or her knife the way Lady Silence had in her snow-house more than two months earlier — cutting the skin, meat, and blubber toward their mouths so the sharp blades came within a hairsbreadth of their greasy lips and tongues.
Irving cut his the same way — as best he could — but his knife was duller and he made a clumsy mess of it. But he did not cut his nose as he had the first time with Silence. The group ate in a companionable silence interrupted only by polite belches and the occasional fart. The men occasionally drank from some sort of pouch or skin, but Irving had already taken out the bottle he kept close to his body so the water would not freeze.
“Kee-nah-oo-veet? ” Inuk Tikerqat said suddenly. He pounded his chest. “Tikerqat.” Again the young man removed his mitten and showed his two remaining fing
ers.
“Irving,” said the lieutenant, again tapping his own chest.
“Eh-vunq,” repeated the Esquimaux.
Irving smiled over the blubber. He pointed at his new friend. “Inuk Tikerqat, ee? ”
The Esquimaux shook his head. “Ah-ka.” The man made a wide sweep with his arms and hands, encompassing all the other Esquimaux as well as himself. “Inuk,” he said firmly. Holding up his mutilated hand and waggling his two remaining fingers while hiding his thumb, he said again, “Tikerqat.”
Irving interpreted all this to mean that “Inuk” was not the man’s name but a description of all ten Esquimaux there — perhaps their tribal name or racial name or clan name. He guessed “Tikerqat” to be not a last name now but the entirety of his interlocutor’s name, and probably one meaning “Two Fingers.”
“Tikerqat,” said Irving, trying to pronounce it properly while still cutting and chewing blubber for himself. The fact that the meat and greasy fat were old, smelly, and raw meant almost nothing. It was as if his body craved this fat above all other things. “Tikerqat,” he said again.
There followed, in the midst of the squatting, cutting, and chewing, a general introduction. Tikerqat began both the introductions and the explanations by acting things out to explain the meaning of the name — if the names had a meaning — but then the other men picked up on it and acted out their own names. The moment had the feeling of a joyous child’s game.
“Taliriktug,” said Tikerqat slowly, pushing forward the barrel-chested young man next to him. Two Fingers grabbed his companion’s upper arm and squeezed it, making ah-yeh-I noises, then flexing his own muscle and comparing it to the other man’s thicker biceps.
“Taliriktug,” repeated Irving, wondering if it meant “Big Muscle” or “Strong Arm” or something similar.