The Terror

by Dan Simmons

I did so. Had this been ashore almost anywhere in the World but Here, flies would have been buzzing around the Red Meat and Muscle left behind, not to mention the strands of Entrails looking like a Gopher’s Burrowing Ridge beneath the thin Covering of last night’s Snow, but here there was only the Silence and the soft Wind from the northwest and the Groaning of the Ice.

  I called back to the Boat — the seamen were averting their Faces — and Confirmed that no identification was possible. Even the Few Remnants of Torn Clothing could give no clue. There was no Head, no Boots, no Hands, no Legs, not even a Torso other than the heavily gnawed Ribs, a Sinewed bit of Spine, and half a Pelvis.

  Stay as you are, Mr. Goodsir, called Couch. I’m sending Mark and Tadman to you with an emptied shot bag in which to put the poor bugger’s remains. Captain Crozier’ll be wanting to give them a burial.

  It was Grim work, but done quickly. In the end, I directed the two Grimacing Seamen to pack away only the Rib cage and bit of Pelvis into the shot-bag Burial Shroud. The Vertebrae had frozen into the Floe Ice, and the other remnants were too Grisly to bother about.

  We had just shoved off from the ice and were Exploring along the South rim of the Open Water when there came a shout from the North.

  Man found! some Seaman cried. And again, Man found!

  I believe that we all could feel our Hearts Pounding as Coombs, McConvey, Ferrier and Tadman, and Mark and Johns pulled hard, and Francis Pocock steered us to a cricket-pitch-sized patch of floating ice that had drifted to the center of these Several Hundred Acres of Open Water amid the Frozen Floes. We all wanted — we all needed — to find someone Alive from Lieutenant Little’s boat.

  It was not to be.

  Captain Crozier was already on the Ice and called me forward to the Body lying there. I Confess that I felt slightly Put Upon, as if even the Captain was unable to Certify Death unless I was forced to Inspect yet another Undeniably Dead Corpse. I was very Tired.

  It was Harry Peglar lying there almost naked — his few remaining Clothes mere Underthings — Curled up on the Ice, Knees Raised almost to his Chin, Legs crossed at the Ankle as if his last energy had been spent trying to keep warm by pressing his body Tighter and Tighter, his Hands tucked under his Arms while he Hugged himself in what must have been an End in Violent Shivers.

  His blue eyes were open and frozen. His flesh was also Blue and as Hard to the Touch as Carrera Marble.

  He must’ve swum to the Floe, managed to Climb up, and froze to death here, softly suggested Mr. Des Voeux. The Thing from the Ice didn’t catch or maul Harry.

  Captain Crozier only nodded. I knew that the Captain had liked and much depended upon Harry Peglar. I also liked the Foretop Captain. Most of the men did.

  Then I saw what Crozier was looking at. All around the Ice Floe in the recent snow — especially around the Corpse of Harry Peglar — were huge footprints, rather like a White Bear’s with claws visibly indicated, only easily Three or Four times Larger than any white bear’s paw prints.

  The thing had Circled Harry many times. Watching as poor Mr. Peglar lay Shivering and Dying? Enjoying itself? Had Harry Peglar’s last shivering Image on this Earth been of that White Monstrosity looming over him, its black, unblinking Eyes watching? Why had the thing not eaten our Friend?

  The Beast was on two legs the entire time it was on the floe, was all that Captain Crozier said.

  Other men from the Boats came forward with a piece of Canvas.

  There was no exit from the Lake in the Ice except for the Rapidly Closing Lead from which we had come. Two circumnavigations of the Body of Open Water — five Boats rowing clockwise, four Boats rowing antiwiggens — offered the Discovery of only inlets, Ruptures in the Ice, and two more Bloody Swaths where it looked as if one of our reconnaissance whaleboat’s crew pulled himself onto the ice and ran but was Cruelly Intercepted and pulled back. There were, thank God, shards of blue Wool but no more remains to be found.

  It was early Afternoon by then, and to a Man I am sure that we had but one Wish — to be Away from that accursed Place. But we had three bodies of our Shipmates — or Parts of Same — and we felt the Need to Dispose of them in an Honourable way. (Many of us assumed, I Believe, and rightly so as it turned out, that these would be the last Formal Burial Services the reduced Remnants of our Expedition would have the luxury to perform.)

  No useful Detritus was found floating in the ice lake save for an Expanse of Soaked Canvas from one of the Holland Tents that had been aboard Lieutenant Little’s doomed whaleboat. This was used to Inter the body of our friend Harry Peglar. The partial Skeletal remains I had investigated near the Lead opening were left in the canvas Shot Bag. Mr. Reid’s torso was sewn into an extra blanket sleeping bag.

  It is Custom at Burial at Sea for one or more pieces of Round Shot to be placed at the Foot of the man being Committed to the Deep, ensuring that the body will sink with Dignity rather than float Embarrassingly, but of course we had no Round Shot this day. The seamen scrounged a Grapple from the floating Bow of The Lady J. Franklin and some metal from the last of the empty Goldner food tins to Weigh Down the various shrouds.

  It took some time to pull the Nine Remaining Boats from the black water and reset the cutters and pinnaces onto Sledges. The Assembly of these Sledges and the lifting of the Boats onto them, with its concomitant Packing and Unpacking of stores, drained the skeletal crewmen of the last of their energy. Then the Seamen gathered near the edge of the Ice, standing in a broad Crescent so as not to put too much Weight on any one part of the Ice Shelf.

  No one was in the mood for a Long Service and certainly not for the Previously Appreciated Irony of Captain Crozier’s fabled Book of Leviathan, so it was with some Surprise and not a small bit of Emotion that we listened to the Captain recite from Memory Psalm 90:

  LORD, thou hast been our refuge: from one generation to another.

  Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: thou art God from everlasting, and world without end.

  Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.

  For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday: seeing that is past as a watch in the night.

  As soon as thou scatterest them, they are even as a sleep: and fade away suddenly like the grass.

  In the morning it is green, and groweth up: but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withered.

  For we consume away in thy displeasure: and are afraid at thy wrathful indignation.

  Thou has set our misdeeds before thee: and our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

  For when thou art angry all our days are gone: we bring our years to an end, as it were a tale that is told.

  The days of our age are three-score years and ten; and though men be strong that they come to fourscore years: yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone.

  But who regardeth the power of thy wrath: for even thereafter as a man feareth, so is thy displeasure.

  So teach us to number our days: that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

  Turn thee again, O Lord, at the last: 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 life.

  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.

  And all of us shivering survivors spake, Amen.

  There was a Silence then. The snow blew softly against Us. The black water lapped with a Hungry Sound. The ice Groaned and Shifted slightly beneath our fee
t.

  All of us, I believe, were Thinking that these words were a Eulogy and Farewell for each one of us. Up until this Day and the loss of Lieutenant Little’s boat with all his men — including the irreplaceable Mr. Reid and the universally liked Mr. Peglar — I suspect that many of us still thought that we might Live. Now we knew that the odds of that had all but Disappeared.

  The long awaited and Universally Cheered Open Water was a vicious Trap.

  The Ice will not give us up.

  And the creature from the ice will not allow us to leave.

  Bosun Johnson called, Ship’s Company — OFF hats! We tugged off our motley and filthy head coverings.

  Know that our Redeemer liveth, said Captain Crozier in that Husky Rasp that now passed for his voice. And that he shalt stand at the Latter Day upon the Earth. And though after our sin Worms destroy our bodies, yet in our flesh shall we see God: whom we shall see for ourselves, and our eyes shall behold, and not another.

  O Lord, accept your Humble Servants here Ice Master James Reid, Captain of the Foretop Harry Peglar, and their Unknown Crewmate into your Kingdom, and with the two we can Name, please accept the Souls of Lieutenant Edward Little, Seaman Alexander Berry, Seaman Henry Sait, Seaman William Wentzall, Seaman Samuel Crispe, Seaman John Bates, and Seaman David Sims.

  When our day comes to join Them, Lord, please allow us to join them in Thy Kingdom.

  Hear our prayer, O Lord, for our Shipmates and Our Selves and for all Our Souls. And with thine ears consider our calling: hold not thy peace at our tears. Spare us a little, that we may recover our strength; before we also go hence and be no more.

  Amen.

  Amen, we all whispered.

  The bosuns lifted the canvas Burial Shrouds and dropped them into the black water, where they Sank within Seconds. White bubbles rose like Final Efforts to Speak from our departed Shipmates, then the surface of the lake grew Black and Still again.

  Sergeant Tozer and two Marines fired a single volley from their muskets.

  I saw Captain Crozier stare at the black lake with an expression rich with suppressed Emotions. We will go now, he said Firmly to us, to all of us, to this slumped and sad and Mentally Defeated party. We can haul those sledges and boats a Mile before it is time to sleep. We will head Southeast toward the mouth of Back’s River. The going will be Easier out here on the ice.

  As it turned out, the going was much Harder on the ice. In the End, it was Impossible, not because of the usual Pressure Ridges and anticipated Difficulty transporting the boats, although that was Increasingly Problematic because of our Hunger, Illness, and Weakness, but because of the Breaking Ice and the Thing in the Water.

  Moving in Relays as Usual but with Nine Fewer Men on our Expedition Muster that Long Arctic Evening of 10 July, we Progressed much less than a Mile before stopping to pitch tents on the Ice and to Sleep at last.

  That sleep was Interrupted less than Two Hours later when the Ice suddenly began to crack and shift. The entire mass bobbed up and down. It was a most Disquieting Experience and we all scrambled to the exits of our Respective Tents and milled in some Confusion. Seamen began to strike the tents and make ready to pack the Boats until Captain Crozier, Mr. Couch, and First Mate Des Voeux shouted them into stillness. The officers pointed out that there were no signs of cracks in the ice near us, only this Movement.

  After fifteen minutes or so of this, the ice Quieted until the Surface of the Frozen Sea under us once again felt as firm as Stone. We crawled back into our tents.

  An hour later, the Bobbing and Cracking began again. Many of us repeated our earlier rush out into the Blowing Wind and dark, but the Braver Seamen stayed in their sleeping bags. Those of us who had Taken Fright crawled back into the Ill-Smelling and Crowded little tents — filled as they were with Snores, Sleeping Exhalations, Overlapping Bodies in Wet Bags, and the Ripeness of men who had not changed their Clothes in several months — with abashed countenances. Fortunately, it was too Dark for anyone to notice.

  All that next day we struggled to haul the Boats forward to the Southeast across a Surface no more solid than a tightly drawn skin of India Rubber. Cracks were appearing — some showing six feet thickness of ice and more between the Surface and the Sea — but our sense of crossing a Plain of Ice had disappeared, replaced with the Reality of moving from Floe to Floe on an Undulating ocean of white.

  I should Record here that on that Second Evening after we left the Enclosed Ice Lake, I was catching up with my Duty of going through the Dead Men’s personal belongings, most of which had been Left Behind in our General Stores when Lieutenant Little’s reconnaissance group left in their whaleboat, and had come to Captain of the Foretop Peglar’s small pack containing a few scraps of Clothes, some Letters, a few personal items such as a Horn Comb, and several Books, when my Assistant, John Bridgens, said, Might I have a few of those things, Dr. Goodsir?

  I was surprised. Bridgens was indicating the Comb and a thick Leather Notebook.

  I had looked into the Notebook already. Peglar had written in a crude sort of Code — spelling words in Reverse, Capitalizing the last letter of the last word in each Sentence as if it were the first — but while the Summary of the last Year of our Expedition might have held some Interest for a Relative, Both the foretop captain’s handwriting and sentence Structure, not to mention his spelling, had grown more Laboured and Crude in the Months immediately before and after our Abandoning of the Ships until it had all but disintegrated. One entry read, O Death whare is thy sting, the grave at Comfort Cove for who has any doubt how … [an illegible line here where the book had been Damaged by water] … the dyer sad. …

  On the back side of that sheet, I had noticed where Peglar had drawn a shaky circle and in that circle had written, the terror camp clear. The date had been illegible, but it must have been around 25 April. Another page nearby included such fragments as Has we have got some very hard ground to heave … we shall want some grog to wet houer … issel … all my art Tom for I do think … time … I cloze should lay and … the 21st night a gread.

  I had Assumed upon Seeing this that Peglar had recorded that Entry on the Evening of 21 April when Captain Crozier had told the Assembled Crews of Terror and Erebus that the last of them would be Abandoning Ship the next morning.

  These were, in other Words, the scribblings of a semiliterate Man and no Proud Reflection on the learning or Skill of Harry Peglar.

  Why do you want these? I asked Bridgens. Was Peglar a friend of yours?

  Aye, Doctor.

  You require a Comb? The old Steward was almost bald.

  No, Doctor, just a Remembrance of the man. That and his Journal will serve.

  Very strange, I thought, since everyone was lightening their Loads at this point, not adding Heavy Books to what they had to Haul.

  But I gave Bridgens the Comb and Journal. No one needed Peglar’s remaining Shirt or Socks or Extra Wool Trousers or Bible, so I left them on the Pile of discarded items the next morning. All in all, the Abandoned Final Possessions of Peglar, Little, Reid, Berry, Crispe, Bates, Sims, Wentzall, and Sait made for a sad little Cairn of Mortality.

  That next morning, 12 July, we started coming Across more Bloody Patches in the Ice. At first the Men were Terrified that these were More signs of our Mates, but Captain Crozier led us to the Great Stained Areas and showed us that in the Centre of the Great Starbust of Crimson was the Carcass of a White Bear. They were all Murdered Polar White Bears, these Bloodstained areas, often with little More than a shattered Head, Great Bloodied White Pelt, Cracked Bones, and Paws left behind.

  At first the men were Reassured. Then, of course, the Obvious Question set in — what was killing these Huge Predators just Hours before our Arrival?

  The answer was Obvious.

  But why was it slaughtering the White Bears? That answer was also Obvious: to deprive us of any possible Food Source.

  By 16 July, the men seemed Incapable of going farther. In an 18-hour Day of Incessant Pulling, we woul
d cover less than a Mile across the Ice. Often we could see the previous night’s Pile of Discarded Clothing and Gear when we camped the Next Evening. We had found more Slaughtered White Bears. Morale was so low that if we had taken a Vote that Week, the Majority might have voted to Give Up, Lie Down, and Die.

  That night of 16 July, as Others Slept and only One Man stood Watch, Captain Crozier asked me to come to his Tent. He now slept in the same Tent with Charles Des Voeux; his purser, Charles Hamilton Osmer (who was showing signs of pneumonia); William Bell (Erebus’s quartermaster); and Phillip Reddington, Sir John’s and Captain Fitzjames’s former captain of the fo’c’sle.

  The captain nodded and everyone except First Mate Des Voeux and Mr. Osmer left the tent to give us Privacy.

  Dr. Goodsir, began the Captain, I need your advice.

  I Nodded and Listened.

  We have adequate Clothing and Shelter, said Captain Crozier. The extra boots I Had the Men Haul along in the Supply Pinnaces have saved Many Feet from Amputation.

  I agree, Sir, I said, although I knew this was not the Item upon which he was asking for Advice.

  Tomorrow morning I am going to tell the Men that we shall be Leaving One of the Whaleboats and two Cutters and one Pinnace behind and will be Continuing on only with the Five Remaining Boats, said Captain Crozier. Those two whaleboats, two cutters, and final pinnace are in the Best Condition and should suffice for Open Water, should we Encounter Any before the Mouth of Back’s River, since our Stores are so Reduced.

  The Men will be Heartily Glad to hear this, Captain, I said. I certainly was. Since I now helped Man-haul the boats, the Knowledge that the days of Accursed Relaying were over quite Literally took some of the Ache from my shoulders and back.

  What I need to Know, Dr. Goodsir, continued the Captain, his voice an Exhausted Rasp, his face Solemn, is whether I can cut back on the Men’s Rations. Or rather, when we Do cut back, will the Men still be Capable of hauling the Sledges? I need your Professional Opinion, Doctor.

  I looked at the floor of the Tent. One of Mr. Diggle’s Hoosh Pans — or perhaps Mr. Wall’s Portable Contraption for Heating Tea back when we had bottles of Ether left for the Spirit Stoves — had burned a Round Hole there.