Killigrew and the North-West Passage

by Jonathan Lunn

  Naylor tugged the musket urgently from Killigrew’s shoulder. ‘Like I said: he’s the captain, and you’re only a lieutenant.’

  ‘Come along now, sir,’ Jenkins said more apologetically. ‘Orders is orders. No point making itself worse for you.’

  Killigrew thought about resisting, but what was the point? Even if he managed to escape, there was nowhere to go.

  As the lieutenant was marched from the captain’s quarters, Strachan, Latimer and Varrow crowded the wardroom door to watch in disbelief. ‘He’s quite mad, you know,’ Killigrew told them. ‘It’s all up to you now, Strachan: you’re next in command.’

  ‘Stow it!’ Naylor rammed the stock of his musket into the small of Killigrew’s back. The lieutenant stumbled and sank to his knees with a gasp. Jenkins helped him to his feet, and Killigrew was escorted to the orlop deck, where they thrust him into the lazaretto. Phillips arrived with the irons, and they fettered him to a ring-bolt in the side.

  ‘Sorry about this, sir,’ said the young marine. ‘I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Don’t waste your sympathy,’ sneered Naylor. ‘He’s the bastard that stood by and did nothing when they flogged poor Johnno Smith to death.’

  ‘He’s going to get you all killed!’ Killigrew shouted after them as they headed for the door. They closed it, plunging him into darkness. He heard a padlock click over the door, and their boots marching away down the deck.

  Presently, a single pair of boots marched back. Killigrew listened for as the padlock was removed again, not sure what to expect. The door opened, and Naylor was silhouetted there. After a pause, he entered the lazaretto and stood over the lieutenant.

  ‘All my life I’ve had to kowtow to stuck-up bastards like you, just because you were born with a silver spoon in your gob and I wasn’t. Polishing your boots, laundering your shirts, all but wiping your bloody backside for you. Now I’ve got you right where I want you.’

  He drove a boot into Killigrew’s stomach. The lieutenant doubled up in agony, retching. ‘I warned you once before, Naylor,’ he rasped. ‘Trifle with me and you’ll live to regret not being dead.’

  The corporal laughed. ‘See you at your court martial, Mr Killigrew.’ He slammed the door and left Killigrew alone in the darkness with his pain.

  * * *

  ‘Forget it.’ In the Venturer’s galley, Armitage took another tin from the crate at his feet, sliced off the top with a small axe, and tipped the contents into a large pot.

  ‘If we do this right, Tommo, they can’t touch us,’ pleaded Molineaux. The condensation billowed from his mouth as he spoke. Even in the galley – one of the warmest parts of the ship – it was so cold he could not feel his toes in his boots, and he massaged his fingers to try to keep the circulation going. ‘Bonesniffer will support us, and once we get Tom Tidley out of the lazaretto he can take responsibility. But we’ve got to be one hundred per cent behind him: all of us.’

  The deck head shuddered constantly above them as the rest of the hands exercised, barring those who had gone on to the ice to bring on board more supplies. Molineaux should have been up there with them, but it had been easy enough for him to slip down the fore hatch to the galley when no one had been looking.

  ‘What about the marines?’ asked Armitage.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Osborne: he’s with us.’

  The cook paused with his axe poised above another tin. ‘What about Naylor?’

  ‘Osborne outranks Naylor.’

  ‘Osborne’s just a specialist. Naylor takes his orders from Pettifer.’

  ‘You let me worry about Dick Naylor. We’ve got to do something. We can’t go on with Cap’n Carney getting more and more nuts as each day goes by.’

  Armitage shrugged and chopped the top off the tin. ‘Bonesniffer’s next in command. If he’s agreed to support us, why can’t he take the lead in this?’

  ‘Because he hasn’t got the sand, that’s why. Come on, Tommo. He’s a pill-roller, not an executive officer. You can’t expect him to stand up to Cap’n Carney.’

  ‘If he hasn’t got the sand to stand up to Cap’n Carney now, who’s to say he won’t crumble when he has to face him under cross-examination at a court martial? The odds’ll be stacked against us, Wes. It only takes one officer to admit there might have been two sides to the story, and our defence falls apart.’ Armitage brought the axe down on another tin. ‘Face it, Wes; Bonesniffer’s the weakest link.’

  Molineaux was staring at him, open-mouthed with horror. Armitage lowered his eyes and saw a bloody stain rapidly spreading across the front of Molineaux’s box-cloth jacket. He stared as the stain grew larger and larger.

  ‘Wes? Are you all right?’

  ‘Am I all right? Tommo, you just chopped your thumb off!’

  Armitage raised his mittened hand to study the blood jetting from the stump of his thumb. ‘Will you look at that, now?’ He giggled nervously. ‘I can’t feel a thing!’

  Molineaux swore, snatched up a dishcloth, and clamped it over the wound. ‘Come on, Tommo, let’s get you to the pill-roller.’

  ‘I’m all right, I’m all right.’ Armitage was unnaturally calm as Molineaux helped him into the sick-berth, and the boatswain’s mate wondered if he was speaking for his benefit, or for his own.

  Strachan was sitting at one of the workbenches, hunched over a microscope, when they entered. ‘Mr Strachan?’ said Molineaux. ‘Bit of an emergency here, sir.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Armitage just cut his thumb off.’

  Strachan glanced up from the microscope. ‘Well, that was a fool thing to do, wasn’t it? You’d better lie on the table here. Keep his arm up as high as you can while I put a tourniquet around it. Fischbein, pass me a bottle of iodine, a gauze pad and some bandages.’ There was no panic in his voice: a medical emergency was something the assistant surgeon knew he was well equipped to cope with.

  Assisted by Molineaux and Fischbein, Strachan cleaned and dressed the wound quickly and efficiently. Finally he sent Fischbein to fetch a beaker of water, and gave Armitage a pill. ‘What is it, sir?’ asked the cook.

  ‘Codeine,’ Strachan explained as Armitage washed the pill down. ‘It’s a new drug, to take away the pain.’

  ‘I don’t feel any pain,’ protested the cook.

  Strachan clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You will.’

  A blood-curdling scream sounded somewhere outside. It cut through the thudding footsteps of the men exercising on the upper deck and sent a shiver down Molineaux’s spine.

  ‘Now what?’ he asked in exasperation.

  The upper deck had fallen silent as everyone stopped to listen. Then a hubbub of yells came from outside, and the sound of a musket shot.

  ‘I think I’d better go and see what that is,’ said Molineaux.

  Strachan nodded. ‘Stay with Armitage, Fischbein,’ he told the half-deck boy. ‘Make sure he keeps that arm up.’

  As Strachan followed Molineaux up the companion ladder to the fore hatch, they heard a ragged fusillade of musket shots. Both of them broke into a run.

  The men who had been taking their exercise on deck now crowded around the opening in the awning, trying to get out. Latimer was there, trying to fight his way through. ‘All right, stand back, stand back!’

  Strachan and Molineaux fell in behind the clerk and the men parted to let them pass. The three of them stepped out through the opening to stand at the top of the gangplank.

  Naylor, Walsh and Jenkins stood at the foot of the gangplank, frantically trying to reload their muskets. Phillips was there too, and even as Molineaux emerged the private raised his musket to his shoulder and fired.

  Molineaux peered through the thick cloud of musket smoke and tried to see what they were shooting at. There were half a dozen men running back from where the ship’s victuals were stored on the ice, and for one terrible moment Molineaux thought they were the ones the marines were shooting at. Then he saw a dark smear in the snow, and a tra
il leading from it. The trail seemed to grow longer even as he watched, and then he saw a dark shape moving over the snow. Even as he stared, he realised that the shape was the mangled corpse of a man gripped in the jaws of some great, pale beast, its white fur making it almost invisible against the snow.

  Molineaux hurried down the gangplank, Strachan slithering awkwardly down after him to join the marines just as Naylor and Walsh fired again, but the bear was too far away now. It lolloped over the uneven ice at an incredible pace in spite of the burden in its jaws. Then Jenkins and Phillips had reloaded and they too fired. By the time the smoke cleared, the bear and its grisly burden had disappeared over a pressure ridge.

  The men who had been running from the stores finally reached the foot of the gangplank. Gargrave was as white as a ghost and trembling like a sail brought too close to the wind. Molineaux grabbed him by the shoulders and stopped him. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Bear,’ sobbed Gargrave. ‘Big bear… It just snatched him… It came out of nowhere and snatched him…’

  Seeing he was unlikely to get any more sense from the shocked stoker, Molineaux let him go and turned to the others. ‘Who did it get?’

  ‘It was the bosun,’ said Endicott. Even he looked shaken. ‘Mr Thwaites. It just grabbed him by the leg and ran off with him. And there wasn’t a bloody thing we could do about it!’ he added bitterly.

  ‘All right,’ Strachan told them. ‘Corporal Naylor, have your men fall in.’ He glanced about and saw Terregannoeuck descend the gangplank with some of the ratings. ‘Get the dogs hitched to the sledge, Mr Terregannoeuck. We’re going after him.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Naylor said bitterly. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘You can’t be certain of that…’

  ‘I can. The bear just smashed his skull like you or I would crush an eggshell in the palm of our hands.’

  ‘It was huge, sir,’ said O’Houlihan. ‘And I mean huge. Twelve foot long if it was an inch. Must’ve weighed nigh on a ton.’

  ‘If it was so damned big, how the hell did it get so close without anyone seeing it?’ demanded Strachan, and rounded on the marines. ‘Who was on guard?’

  ‘We were, sir,’ said Walsh. He looked almost as shaken as Gargrave. ‘The corporal and me. I swear to God, we were watching the whole time and the first we saw of it was when it ran out from behind the crates, dragging the bosun behind it.’

  ‘Obviously you weren’t watching closely enough,’ said Strachan. ‘Jings! How in the world could this have happened?’ He searched their faces as if he expected them to come up with an answer, but his eyes met only blank stares.

  Bähr emerged from the ship and Strachan told him what had happened. ‘You’re quite certain Thwaites is dead?’ asked the doctor.

  Endicott nodded. ‘Corporal Naylor’s right, sir. There’s no way on earth the bosun could’ve survived the swipe the bear gave him. At least it must’ve been quick.’

  ‘How could this happen?’ sobbed Latimer. ‘With so many people standing around, how come no one saw it until it was too late?’

  ‘Nanuq stalk his prey, creep up on him,’ said Terregannoeuck. ‘He hide in dead ground and his fur match white of snow. If nanuq not want to be seen, you not see him.’

  ‘All right, everyone back on board,’ said Strachan. Molineaux was surprised to see the young Scotsman barking out orders so confidently. Although he could be brisk and decisive in the sick-berth, as he had so recently demonstrated, at all other times he was keenly aware of his lesser status as a civilian officer, and more than happy to let others have the responsibility of giving orders. But with no other officer present apart from Latimer – who clearly was not going to take charge of anything – Strachan just picked up the ball and ran with it. ‘There’s nothing more to be done here.’

  ‘We ought to see if we can find what’s left of the bosun,’ said Bähr. ‘With any luck we might catch the bear and kill it.’

  ‘We ought to get the captain’s permission,’ Latimer said dubiously.

  ‘Then go and get it!’ suggested Strachan.

  But the clerk dithered, even more terrified of Pettifer than he was of any polar bear.

  Bähr sighed. ‘I’ll speak to him,’ he said, and ascended the gangplank.

  As the seamen followed Bähr back on board, Terregannoeuck found the tracks the bear had left in the snow and studied them. ‘What do you see, Terry?’ Molineaux asked him.

  The Inuk stood up. ‘Same bear.’

  ‘The same bear!’ exclaimed Strachan. ‘Are you trying to tell me that Thwaites was killed by the same bear that killed Cavan and Ziegler?’

  Terregannoeuck nodded. ‘Kokogiaq.’

  Strachan turned to the marines. ‘Do you think you wounded it?’

  They shook their heads. ‘No, sir,’ said Naylor.

  ‘Damn it, how could you miss?’ yelled Latimer. ‘You’re supposed to be marksmen, aren’t you? I know the light was poor, but the range was less than a hundred yards!’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Phillips. ‘It’s like our bullets went straight through it…’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, man,’ barked Strachan. ‘Either you hit it, or you didn’t.’

  ‘Anyhow, by then it didn’t make much difference, did it, sir?’ said Jenkins.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Well, sir, you heard what Endicott said, did you not? Mr Thwaites was dead before he knew it. So it wouldn’t have made much difference whether we hit it or not.’

  Strachan made a visible effort to control his temper. ‘No difference?’

  ‘Well… no, sir. Not that I can see.’

  ‘Let’s recap, shall we?’ Strachan said heavily. ‘A little less than a month ago, this bear attacked and killed Mr Cavan. Thirteen days ago, it attacked and killed Herr Ziegler. Now it’s just killed the bosun and dragged the poor devil’s corpse away so it can feast at its leisure. From which we can deduce two things: first, that this bear, having tried the taste of human flesh, has decided it is rather partial to it; and second that it knows where it can find an abundant supply and help itself whenever it feels like it with no difficulty whatsoever. Would you like to make a hypothesis based on these deductions?’

  The marine looked puzzled. ‘Sir?’

  ‘The bear’s coming back, Jenkins.’ Strachan turned abruptly on his heel and ascended the gangplank.

  Molineaux followed him inside. Beneath the awning, the upper deck was deserted but for the two of them. Strachan stood there and took off his cap to run his fingers through his hair in agitation.

  ‘Maybe they did hit the bear, and didn’t realise it,’ Molineaux told the assistant surgeon. ‘Maybe some of that blood was the bear’s.’ But even he did not really believe it.

  ‘I wish we could be sure of that,’ said Strachan. ‘But you saw how fast it ran; and weighed down by Thwaites’ body, too. That wasn’t a wounded bear we saw leaving just now.’

  Hughes and Kracht stepped under the awning. The Welshman was ashen-faced and trembling. ‘You want to know what I think, sir?’ he asked Strachan.

  ‘Not particularly, Hughes.’

  ‘Maybe Terregannoeuck was right, sir. Maybe that bear wants revenge for the murder of its mate and the two cubs that Dr Bähr killed.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Hughes! It’s just a bear. A dumb animal. Bears don’t mate for life, and they certainly don’t understand concepts like revenge.’

  ‘If I might say something, mein Herr?’ said Kracht. ‘Whether or not the bear that attacked Herr Thwaites was the father of the cubs Dr Bähr shot is irrelevant. The fact we cannot escape is that there is a bear out there, and now it has a taste for human blood.’

  ‘Plummy,’ sighed Molineaux. ‘As if we didn’t have enough to contend with, some polar bear’s decided that the Venturer is his private larder.’

  Chapter 15

  Mutiny

  They found what was left of the boatswain about two miles from the Venturer.

  The bloodstained snow wa
s trampled all around, and all that was left of the seaman were a few gnawed bones with some gobbets of flesh adhering to them. As the eight men approached, dragging a sledge behind them, an Arctic fox that had been gorging itself on the scraps of the bear’s banquet reluctantly ran away, but only a short distance. It stopped and turned when it was only a hundred yards away, watching, waiting for the men to pass on so it could resume its feast. Bähr levelled his hunting rifle and killed the fox outright with a single shot.

  ‘Got the little bugger!’ he declared triumphantly.

  ‘It’s not going to look very impressive amongst all the lions, tigers and rhinos on the walls of your library, is it?’ Strachan said sourly.

  ‘Don’t you get saucy with me, young man,’ said Bähr. ‘Anyhow, it will make a nice companion piece for the bear, when I shoot it.’

  ‘If you shoot it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll get it, Mr Strachan,’ asserted the doctor. ‘I’ve faced beasts more daunting than a polar bear before now. This bear’s chosen the wrong ship to pick a fight with. I’ve been on the lookout for an Ursus maritimus to add to my collection, and this one’s just volunteered for the honour.’

  Strachan grunted non-committally. ‘Molineaux! Endicott! Gather up the remains.’

  ‘Keep a sharp lookout for that bear,’ Molineaux told Jenkins and Phillips, as he took a shovel and a sack from the sledge. He tossed the sack to Endicott. ‘You hold it open while I shovel what’s left of the bosun inside.’

  ‘There’s a lot of tracks here,’ observed Endicott, gazing about the snow around them. Apart from the tracks leading to and from the Venturer, there were at least six more sets of tracks leading to where they stood, and another six leading away. ‘Looks like Rotten Row for polar bears!’

  ‘Reckon the bastard must’ve had some friends round for dinner,’ grunted Molineaux, trying not to gag as he shovelled up the scraps of bone and gristle.

  Terregannoeuck crouched to examine the tracks.

  ‘The question is, which tracks belong to the bear that killed Cavan, Ziegler and Thwaites?’ asked Bähr.