Still keeping the pepperbox in his right hand on Pettifer, Killigrew tucked the other in his belt and laid hold of the barrel of the commander’s musket. The two of them were frozen in a tableau: the muzzle of Pettifer’s musket levelled at Killigrew’s forehead, the lieutenant’s left hand on the barrel while his right hand held the pepperbox an inch from the commander’s face. In spite of the cold, a droplet of sweat trickled down the side of Killigrew’s head.
Then Pettifer loosened his grip on the musket. The lieutenant pulled it away slowly, and then threw it to Endicott, who caught it deftly. ‘Keep him covered, Endicott,’ Killigrew jerked his head at the commander.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘You’ve done it this time!’ snarled Pettifer. ‘This time you’ve gone too far! This is mutiny, damn you! You’ll swing for this!’
‘No, sir. I’m simply doing what I should have done weeks ago: my duty.’
‘Your duty? Since when did the duties of a Royal naval officer include mutiny?’
‘It is the duty of the senior executive officer to assume command when his captain is rendered incapable of command by injury or illness,’ said Killigrew. ‘Mr Strachan?’
‘It is my opinion, as medical officer for this vessel, that Commander Pettifer is suffering from acute monomania and as such is a danger to himself and his crew and is unfit for command.’
‘As the captain is not currently of sound mind, I hereby assume command of this vessel,’ said Killigrew.
‘You have no right, Mr Killigrew!’ snarled Pettifer, his lips flecked with froth. ‘You are in mutiny, d’you hear? In mutiny!’
The lieutenant ignored him. ‘Bombardier Osborne?’
The bombardier stepped forward. ‘Sir?’
‘Who is in command of this vessel?’
‘Awaiting your orders, sir.’
‘Good. Take the captain down to his cabin and secure him. Make sure there’s nothing he can use to effect his release, or to hurt himself – or anyone else, for that matter. Until such time as Mr Strachan is prepared to certify him fit for duty once more, I want him kept under twenty-four-hour guard.’
‘Very good, sir! Jenkins, Phillips: you two come with me.’
As the three marines escorted Pettifer below, Killigrew turned to the rest of the crew. ‘Unstead, Fischbein: untie Armitage and carry him down to the sick-berth. Endicott, O’Houlihan: remove what’s left of Corporal Naylor to the hold. We’ll bury him tomorrow – and I pray he’s the last.’
‘I’d better go tend to Armitage.’ Strachan hurried below after Unstead and Fischbein as they carried the cook down the fore hatch.
‘What about this one, sir?’ asked Ågård, who still held Private Walsh in a full nelson.
Killigrew crossed the deck and looked the marine in the eye from a couple of feet away. ‘Are you going to give me any trouble, Private Walsh?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. Let him go, Ågård.’ Killigrew turned to Molineaux. ‘Are you all right?’
The boatswain’s mate grinned. ‘Yes, sir. Thank you. If you hadn’t come along when you did, I hate to think what might’ve happened.’
Killigrew shook his head dismissively. ‘When I think of the number of times you’ve saved my life, Molineaux… consider that a down payment on what I owe you. Anyhow, if you’re going to thank anyone, thank Mr Yelverton. If he hadn’t stolen the keys from Latimer’s cabin and released Mr Strachan and myself…’
Yelverton shrugged. ‘I’ve done just about everything else in my life. I thought, why not try my hand at being a mutineer before I die?’
‘You’ll see us all into our graves, Giles.’
‘Provided he goes straight back to bed, where he belongs, before he freezes to death,’ chided Bähr.
‘What about the rest of the men, sir?’ asked Molineaux. ‘Shall I have them dismissed too?’
‘Yes,’ said Killigrew. ‘No! I’ll say a few words to them first.’ He took a deep breath and addressed them with his hands behind his back.
‘Some of you will think that in assuming command I have acted correctly. Some of you will not. Well, I shan’t hold that against you: you may be right. But until such time as my actions are vindicated – or condemned, as the case may be – by my inevitable court martial, I require you to obey my orders as loyally and efficiently as if I’d been appointed captain of the Venturer by the Admiralty. So if any of you disapprove of my actions, you’d better say so now. You’ll spend the rest of this expedition in the lazaretto; if I’m found to be a mutineer, you’ll have nothing to worry about; if I’m vindicated, I’ll bear no grudge. But, if there’s anyone here who thinks I’ve acted improperly, and holds his peace, and later tries to make trouble for me, by God, I’ll kick his backside from here to the South Pole and back again. So if you’ve anything to say, I suggest you say it now.’
‘We’re behind you all the way, sir,’ said Gargrave, and there was a general murmur of approval.
‘I’m glad to hear it; and thank you. Now, as I’m sure you can imagine, from now on there will be a few adjustments around here. Firstly, all rations will be returned to their normal portions—’
The men cheered.
‘Pipe down!’ commanded Killigrew. ‘You think that what’s happened here today is a cause for celebration? Let me assure you that I do not. In the sixteen years I have served in Her Majesty’s navy I have seen many terrible things, but I never thought I should have to live to see such a day such as this. And for what has happened here today I must take full responsibility—’
‘Not you, sir!’ shouted someone. ‘That bloody Bedlamite Pettifer!’
‘Take that man’s name, Mr Sørensen!’ ordered Killigrew. ‘May I remind you all that this remains one of Her Majesty’s ships and I expect you all to comport yourselves like Her Majesty’s sailors! There will be no relaxing of discipline, is that understood?’
The men muttered their assent.
‘Just because this day has witnessed events which can only be described as… irregular… at best, do not think that anything has changed. I have assumed command. When we return to England – and we shall return to England – then there will be those who call us mutineers. I think I have done my duty, and I hope and pray that my opinion will be accepted by my court martial. Whatever happens, I intend to take full responsibility for what has happened here today. All I ask in return is that between now and then you give me your loyalty, and I hope that I may prove worthy of it.’ He turned to Sorensen. ‘We’ll continue with the usual shipboard routine. Have the ratings jog-trot around the upper deck until ten, then out on the ice marching around the ship. Make sure you position armed guards as usual to keep an eye out for bears.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘The rest of the officers will convene in the wardroom for a meeting,’ Killigrew added. ‘That includes you, Dr Bähr.’
Killigrew, Latimer and the doctor made their way down to the wardroom, where they found Ursula. Killigrew quickly told her what had happened. She nodded dumbly, stunned by the news of yet another death on board the Venturer.
‘Do you want me to leave you to your meeting?’ she offered. Killigrew shook his head. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d stay. You’ve a right to know what’s going on – both you and the doctor here – and the truth is that with Cavan dead, the captain confined and Mr Yelverton on the sick list, we’re going to need all the help we can get.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ offered Ursula.
‘Paperwork: mostly copying. Boring, I know, but it’s how I spend much of my time off watch, and even in winter quarters watch bills and the like need to be made out. By doing so you’ll free both myself and Mr Latimer for other duties.’
She nodded. ‘Of course. Anything I can do to help.’
Killigrew glanced around the wardroom. ‘Where’s Strachan?’
‘In the sick-berth, tending to the cook,’ Bähr reminded him.
The lieutenant nodded. He should not have forgotten that, but s
o much had changed in the last few minutes, he was having difficulty keeping track of everything. ‘All right, we’ll proceed without him; I’ll speak to him later.’ He knew that if there was one officer on board he could depend on, it was the assistant surgeon. ‘Firstly, I need to know now if anyone present thinks I acted improperly in relieving the captain of command?’
‘If you ask me, you should have acted sooner,’ said Bähr. ‘But it’s always easy to be wiser after the event. There’s no doubt in my mind: Pettifer’s as mad as a hatter, and I’ll gladly testify to that fact at your court martial.’
‘There will be a court martial?’ asked Ursula.
Killigrew nodded. ‘Undoubtedly. There’s no backing for what I’ve done in the Queen’s Regulations, so technically I’m a mutineer.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Don’t worry, it won’t be the first time I’ve been court-martialled.’
‘What was your last court martial for?’ asked Bähr.
‘Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.’
‘I can believe it! Obviously you were found innocent, though?’
‘No, as it happens I was found guilty and dismissed the service. But I was later exonerated and my commission was restored. It’s a long story.’ He turned back to Ursula. ‘You may have to testify, although given your civilian status and the fact you are a woman, you may be exempt. If the court will accept the evidence of Dr Bähr and Mr Strachan – and if Pettifer does not recover sufficiently to employ a doctor of his own to contradict their testimony – then it should be a formality.’ Killigrew was not convinced of that, but he saw no point in worrying Ursula unduly about his own problems. ‘But first we’ve got to get back to England.’
‘What happens now?’ asked Bähr.
‘We go on as normal. At least, as normally as possible. Jack Tar likes an orderly life and he needs to know where he stands. The less that changes, the better. We’ve got more than enough food to see us through the winter. We’ve just got to stick it until the spring comes, and with it, God willing, the thaw. When it comes, we’ll sail back to Beechey Island. If the rest of the squadron made it through the Middle Pack, we should find the North Star there: I’ll put myself under Commander Pullen’s orders. If we don’t meet any of the other ships of the squadron, we’ll sail back to England.’
‘As simple as that?’ Bähr asked sceptically.
‘As simple as that,’ Killigrew told him. ‘I’ll speak to each of you later to discuss how we’re going to divide up our duties, but first I’ve got to inspect the ship while the hands are all exercising on the upper deck. Latimer, would you run down to the sick-berth and ask Mr Strachan to join me as soon as he’s finished tending to Armitage?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Normally rubicund, Latimer was now as white as a sheet, evidently shaken by the morning’s turn of events. Killigrew wondered how dependable the clerk was likely to be over the next few months.
As Latimer headed forward, Killigrew took his leave of Bähr and Ursula and made his way into the captain’s quarters to make sure that Osborne, Jenkins and Phillips had secured Pettifer properly. He found Yelverton in the captain’s day-room, still wearing a greatcoat over his nightshirt as he rifled Pettifer’s bureau. The master had drawn the curtains back from the stern windows, and in the pale light that filtered through the snow-frosted glass he looked even more haggard than he had done on the upper deck earlier.
‘I thought Bähr told you to get back to bed?’
‘He also told me I needed rest, and I wasn’t going to get any of that while I was wondering about the charts and logs.’ Yelverton stood up and opened one of the drawers containing charts. The drawer was filled with flakes of paper. Amongst the thousands of flakes in the drawer, not one was more than half-an-inch across.
‘What’s that?’ asked Killigrew, although in his heart he had already guessed. He felt slightly sick.
‘The charts,’ explained Yelverton. ‘The other drawers are all the same. Must’ve taken him hours to tear them up this finely; days.’
‘Including the charts we drew up of Peel Sound?’
‘I can’t find them anywhere else.’
‘All right, so we’ll draw fresh charts on the voyage back to Beechey Island.’ Killigrew had been hoping to chart the western side of Peel Sound on the return voyage: even if they had not discovered Franklin or the North-West Passage, at least they would be able to say they had made a significant contribution to the Admiralty’s charts of the Arctic. But getting the remaining men of the crew safely back to England now seemed more important than any charting.
He stared at the shreds of paper and shook his head slowly. Pettifer must have been doing that for days on end, if not weeks, to have reduced so many charts to so much mulch. ‘He must have been more ill than we realised.’
‘It gets worse.’ Yelverton handed him the ship’s log.
Killigrew opened it. The first few dozen pages had been neatly removed, sliced out with a razor by the look of it (he made a mental note to find that razor before the captain used it to cut his bonds or slash his wrists), removing all the entries made up to Saturday 9 October, the day Pettifer had declared the chart-room out of bounds.
Nearly every other page left in the log was filled with doodles: a self-portrait of Pettifer being crucified, a woman being violated by a beast with seven heads and ten horns, naked bodies being torn to shreds by a razor-clawed polar bear before being plunged into a lake of fire. Images that would haunt Killigrew for the rest of his life.
‘Where are the rest of the pages? The pages he cut out?’
‘I was just looking for them when you came in,’ said Yelverton. ‘I can’t find them anywhere. My guess is you’ll find them mixed up with what’s left of the charts.’
There was a knock at the door. ‘Come in,’ Killigrew called absently, turning another page in the log to survey the doodles on the next page with horror.
Strachan entered. ‘You sent for me?’
Killigrew glanced up at him, and handed him the log. ‘What do you make of this?’
The assistant surgeon leafed through the pages in silence, his lips pursed thoughtfully. ‘Rather derivative of the work of William Blake,’ he concluded. ‘But the influence of Hieronymus Bosch is definitely at work here. Impressive shading, though: the way he uses hatching to give an impression of depth and perspective—’
‘Never mind the artistic appraisal,’ scowled Yelverton. ‘What does it tell us about Pettifer’s state of mind?’
‘Nothing we didn’t already know: he’s a certifiable lunatic.’ Strachan handed the log back to Killigrew. ‘I suggest you take care of this, sir. This is all the evidence you’ll ever need of Pettifer’s insanity when it comes to that court martial. But then, I’ve always had my doubts about Blake and Bosch.’
‘They say there’s a fine line between genius and insanity,’ mused Killigrew.
‘It’s not a fine line. It’s an overlap.’ Strachan noticed the shredded paper in the open drawer. ‘What’s that?’
‘Our charts,’ Yelverton said heavily.
‘All of them?’
The master opened two more drawers, revealing more of the same. ‘All of them.’
‘We… we can find our way back, can’t we?’
‘Shouldn’t be too difficult,’ said Killigrew. ‘North, straight back up Peel Sound to Barrow Strait; north-east by east to Beechey Island, then east down Lancaster Sound to Baffin Bay and the Middle Pack. We can borrow charts at Lievely, copy them if we have to.’
‘From Peel Sound to Disko Island from memory,’ sighed Yelverton. ‘He makes it sound so easy.’
‘We’ll manage,’ Killigrew said with more conviction than he felt. ‘Besides, I’ll lay odds the North Star is waiting for us at Beechey Island. We found our way here; we can find our way back.’
The door from Pettifer’s cabin opened and Osborne, Jenkins and Phillips emerged. ‘We’ve secured the captain, sir,’ reported the bombardier.
Thank you, Osborne,’ said Killigrew.
‘How is he?’
‘He struggled at first, but he quietened down when he saw there was no point in fighting against the three of us. He’s a lot calmer now, sir.’
‘Good. You may go, Bombardier. You too, Phillips: we’ll need you on guard when the men go on to the ice for their exercise at ten. Not you, Jenkins: you can have first watch over the captain.’
‘Very good, sir.’
As Osborne and Phillips left the captain’s quarters, Killigrew and Strachan looked into the cabin to check on Pettifer, trussed like a turkey to the bunk. He stared up at them with contempt.
‘I’m truly sorry about this, sir,’ said Killigrew. ‘But it’s for your own good.’
‘I know who you are, Lieutenant.’
‘Of course you do, sir.’
‘Mutineers!’ spat the captain.
‘That will be for a court martial to decide when we get back to England, sir,’ said Strachan.
Pettifer shook his head. ‘Court martial? You blind fool! There isn’t going to be any court martial! You know he’s going to get you all killed, don’t you? I see it now: the scales have fallen from mine eyes. He’s in league with the beast.’
‘The polar bear, sir?’
‘It’s no ordinary beast, Mr Strachan. Don’t you see? It is the beast: and Mr Killigrew here is its hellish spawn. He’s the Anti-Christ! “And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”’
Strachan touched Killigrew on the sleeve. ‘We’d better leave him. I don’t think we’re going to get any sense out of him.’
The lieutenant nodded and closed the cabin door behind them. Pettifer screamed after them: ‘You’re all going to die!’ Killigrew could not help thinking it was the most sensible thing Pettifer had said all month.
Chapter 16
Ambush
Killigrew lay in his bunk and listened to the wind howling outside. Like all the outlying parts of the ship, his cabin was freezing in spite of the hot-water pipe running through it. For once the hands were better off than the officers: the mess deck, which adjoined the galley, was one of the warmest parts of the ship.
Killigrew and the North-West Passage Page 32