Killigrew and the North-West Passage

by Jonathan Lunn

  He watched the breath billow from his mouth in the moonlight that shone through the porthole and listened to the dogs barking. They needed more exercise: since the bear had killed Ziegler, letting McLellan take them beyond the perimeter rope to stretch their legs had clearly been out of the question. Tomorrow he would take them on an expedition away from the ship, with a party of seamen and marines. Perhaps they might yet find some trace of the Franklin expedition.

  He heard something crunching through the snow outside: heavy footsteps, and a snuffling noise. Colder than ever, he sat up and rubbed at the condensation frozen on the porthole, but he could see nothing in the darkness beyond.

  He tried to go back to sleep. The dogs barked for a while longer, and then fell silent. Just when he was about to nod off a sound in the passageway outside roused him: a creaking deck board.

  Suddenly he was wide awake. The snuffling noise had returned, but now it was inside the ship, in the wardroom, right outside his cabin.

  His heart pounded as he leaned over the side of his bunk to ease open one of the drawers below. He located the mahogany case by touch, opened the clasp, and fumbled inside until he felt the familiar, reassuring grip of one of his pepperboxes.

  He eased himself out from under the bedclothes – he had gone to bed dressed in a guernsey and an old pair of trousers – and tiptoed across the deck to the door. The snuffling immediately outside the door continued until one of the deck boards groaned beneath his foot.

  The snuffling sound stopped abruptly.

  Everything was silent: the preternatural silence of drawn breath. He took another step, placed his left hand on the doorknob, and levelled the pepperbox. Then he jerked the door open.

  The polar bear was too fast for him. Rearing on its hind legs, it swiped the pepperbox aside effortlessly and slashed its claws at his face.

  Killigrew sat up sharply. He was still in his bunk, panting for breath. He examined his body for claw-marks: it took him a while to realise it had just been a nightmare.

  He looked through the porthole, but all was dark outside. Still night, he told himself. He was just about to go back to sleep again when he heard something creaking about in the passage outside.

  With a distinct feeling of déjà vu, he took one of the pepperboxes from the drawer beneath his bunk and climbed out of the bunk. There was definitely someone or something moving about out there. Trembling with cold and fright, he laid one hand on the doorknob and jerked the door open to reveal…

  … Private Jenkins standing there with a mug of coffee in one hand, the other poised to knock on the door that was already open. There was a mildly surprised look on his face when he saw Killigrew standing there in his stocking feet, hair tousled, brandishing a revolver.

  ‘Jenkins,’ said Killigrew, and straightened. ‘What the devil are you doing creeping about in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I brought you your coffee, sir. ’Tain’t the middle of the night, sir, begging your pardon, but two bells in the morning watch.’

  Killigrew put down the pepperbox and took the mug of coffee. He was still struggling to adjust to the rapidly shortening days. ‘Sorry. Thought you were a polar bear.’

  Jenkins grinned. ‘Easy mistake to make, sir.’

  The marine left him to perform his morning ablutions in private. Killigrew got dressed and joined the other officers in the wardroom for breakfast.

  It was mid-November, nearly two weeks since Killigrew had assumed command of the Venturer, and the crew’s life had returned to a semblance of normality, if life in the Arctic could be described as ‘normal’ for anyone other than an Inuk. A layer of glistening rime touched surfaces everywhere except in the warmest parts of the ship, and the men would wake up to find a patch of ice on their pillows where their breath had condensed and frozen. Killigrew had given them permission to grow beards – preferring to remain clean shaven himself – and the men had cultivated their face-fungus enthusiastically, so that many of them already looked like Bohemian writers and poets.

  They spent so much time below decks their faces were almost permanently tinged with soot from the lamps on board, even now that Kracht had converted the whale oil lamps to take burning fluid. Getting a proper wash was next to impossible, because although fresh-water ice was available in abundance, they could not afford to be profligate with the fuel needed to melt it down, and the sea water they used instead – hoisted in buckets from the fire hole – was too briny to get up a good lather.

  With less than eight weeks until Christmas, Latimer had begun to audition the crew for their Christmas Eve concert party. With only thirty men and one woman left on board the Venturer, there would probably be more people taking part in the play than there were in the audience, but rehearsals, costume-making and scenery building and painting would give the men something to keep them occupied during the long weeks ahead.

  After breakfast, Killigrew made his way up on deck, bundled in his warm clothes, and slipped out from under the awning, making his way down the slippery gangplank with care. It was still dark out, although the first traces of dawn silhouetted the pressure ridge to the north-east; the sun would not rise until after half-past nine. The men patrolling the perimeter rope now had a husky each on the end of a makeshift leash. Terregannoeuck had told them that huskies and polar bears were natural enemies: even if the sentries did not see the white bear against the snow, there was a good chance that the dogs would scent it and bark a warning. But the huskies did not make ideal watchdogs. Bred for sledge-pulling rather than guard duties, they accompanied the sentries reluctantly, nipping at their heels and raising false alarms by barking at anything that moved. A couple of days earlier Hughes had been dragged thirty feet across the ice, gamely refusing to relinquish his grip on his dog’s leash, when the animal had spied an Arctic hare.

  In the observatory, Killigrew found Strachan taking some readings from one of his magnetometers. A kettle was boiling on the stove. ‘Cup of tea?’ offered the assistant surgeon.

  Unwinding his comforter, Killigrew shook his head.

  Strachan shrugged, and poured some water into his teapot. ‘How is everything?’

  Killigrew removed his sealskin cap to run his fingers through his thick, black hair. Strachan was the one person on board he felt he could unburden his soul to after weeks of putting on a brave face for the rest of the crew. ‘Two months ago the only thing I was worried about was whether or not anyone on the Erebus and Terror would still be alive by the time we found them.’ He sighed. ‘Now I’m starting to wonder how many of us will still be alive when – if the Venturer ever makes it back to England. Just between you and me, I never worried about having to spend even one winter in the ice, I was so convinced we could find the Franklin expedition and sail on through the North-West Passage to the Pacific Ocean in one season.’

  ‘You’ve always got to push yourself, haven’t you? Everything in life has got to be a challenge, otherwise you’re not interested. And for each challenge you meet successfully, you’ve got to follow it up with something even more dangerous or gruelling. Why do you find it so difficult to follow the line of least resistance?’

  ‘The thing about the line of least resistance is that it always leads downhill.’ Killigrew sighed. ‘When I volunteered for the Franklin Expedition, it was because I didn’t know any better. I was twenty years old, I’d just been promoted to mate after Chinkiang-fu. I thought I could conquer the world.’

  ‘And how old are you now?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’ He shrugged. ‘Ever since it became apparent the Franklin Expedition wasn’t coming back, I’ve had this doubt gnawing at my soul: what would have happened to me if I’d been on that expedition? Could I have survived?’

  ‘No, you’d have died, just as the rest of them almost certainly have. Or do you suppose that your presence on that expedition would have made all the difference, that you could have led them all back to civilisation and safety where Franklin, Crozier and Fitzjames all failed?’

 
‘No, of course not. But I needed to know.’

  ‘So you volunteered for this expedition to prove to yourself you would have died with Franklin and his men if you’d gone with them?’

  ‘In a way, I suppose.’

  ‘No wonder you were reluctant to do anything about Pettifer. You must wonder if you’re as insane as he is.’

  ‘Do you think I’m insane?’

  ‘I volunteered for this expedition too, remember. I prefer to think of us as “charmingly eccentric”.’

  Killigrew managed a chuckle. ‘You realise you’re spending far too much time in here, don’t you?’

  ‘What makes you say that? I’ve got everything I need in here.’

  ‘You’ll end up like Pettifer if you’re not careful.’

  ‘God forbid.’

  ‘A curious sentiment, for an atheist.’

  ‘Figure of speech. Can I help it if I was brought up in a religious household?’

  ‘If you’re going to spend much time out here on your own, I’d feel a lot happier if you had a firearm with you.’

  ‘Thank you, but you know me. Can’t abide guns.’

  ‘My dear Strachan, I absolutely insist. I’ll have you issued with a shotgun from the spirit room. Just be sure you only point it at polar bears.’

  ‘Is that what you’re worried about? This observatory is inside the perimeter: if that polar bear does come back, it’s got to get past the patrols. And if it’s as big as O’Houlihan claims it is… which I very much doubt—’

  ‘O’Houlihan’s not prone to exaggeration.’

  ‘– then it couldn’t fit through that doorway anyhow. I think I’m safe enough in here.’

  ‘You saw how much damage was done on the Jan Snekker by scavenging bears. If this one is as big as O’Houlihan says, I don’t think it would need to fit through the door: it could just tear down this whole shed around your ears.’

  Strachan grimaced. ‘That’s a comforting thought.’

  They heard the ship’s bell clang once on the Venturer. ‘Let’s go back on board, shall we?’ suggested Killigrew. ‘I’ve got work to do; and you’ve got sick parade.’

  They left the observatory. A light snow was falling, a few flat flakes floating down from the sky. Some of the men patrolling the perimeter rope had lit their bull’s-eyes and were playing the beams across the ice-scape beyond, keeping a sharp lookout for polar bears. Both Ziegler and Thwaites had been killed in broad daylight, but the men had not forgotten that the first attack had taken place at night: the bear could return at any hour.

  ‘Using so many bull’s-eyes must be eating into our supply of candles,’ Killigrew said dubiously.

  ‘Yes, we had quite a debate about that while you were a prisoner in the lazaretto,’ admitted Strachan. ‘Latimer said we hadn’t allowed for so many candles to be used and we’re in danger of running out before the spring. And Bähr says that polar bears are incorrigibly curious and might actually be drawn by the lights. Then Osborne pointed out that our chances of persuading any of the men to stand guard without some kind of illumination – when there’s a polar bear with a taste for human flesh on the prowl – are non-existent.’

  ‘Let’s just hope that Bruin shows up quickly and we get him, while there are still some candles left.’

  As they approached the gangplank, two figures emerged from under the awning and descended the gangplank, one of them carrying an ice-axe. The four of them met at the bottom of the gangplank, where Killigrew recognised the two newcomers as Molineaux and O’Houlihan. ‘What are you two up to?’ Killigrew asked them as they saluted.

  ‘You ordered me to keep the fire hole open, sir,’ O’Houlihan reminded him, gesturing with the ice-axe.

  ‘So I did. Carry on, O’Houlihan. What about you, Molineaux? Does it take two of you to do it?’

  ‘I’m here to drag him out if he falls in, sir.’

  ‘The ice is getting thicker, sir,’ explained O’Houlihan. ‘I’m having to lean further down into the hole to break it up. If I slip and fall in, well… maybe I could pull myself out. But if I got cramp…’

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ Strachan told them both. ‘You’d freeze to death in minutes in that water.’

  Molineaux glanced at the snowflakes settling on his coat. ‘It’s starting to snow,’ he remarked. ‘Rum, ain’t it, sir? I thought it’d snow more than it has done, here in the Arctic. Or are the blizzards still to come?’

  ‘We might get a few blizzards come winter,’ said Strachan. ‘But it doesn’t snow much in the Arctic as a rule. It’s too cold for precipitation.’

  ‘Precipi-what-tion?’ asked O’Houlihan.

  ‘Precipitation,’ said Molineaux, adding: ‘he means wet stuff falling out of the sky: rain, snow, hail.’

  ‘Ah. Rum stuff, snow, so it is. I never understood it. I mean, when water gets cold, it freezes and turns to ice. That much I can understand. Hail I have no difficulty with. But snow? Now what the divil is all that about?’

  ‘It has to do with the crystalline structure of the ice,’ explained Strachan. ‘You know they say that no two snowflakes are ever the same?’

  ‘Is that right, sir?’ asked O’Houlihan, kneeling at the edge of the fire hole to smash the skin of ice that had formed with the axe. ‘How do they know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How do they know no two snowflakes are the same? All snowflakes have six points. How many different snowflake shapes can there be?’

  Strachan smiled. ‘I think you’d be surprised.’

  ‘I think I would, sir! I mean, they couldn’t check them all, could they? How do they know there’s not a snowflake here in the Arctic which isn’t the spitting image of one that settled in the Alps a hundred years ago?’

  ‘Watch yourself, O’Houlihan,’ warned Killigrew.

  The seaman was leaning out over the fire hole to pick out the larger shards of the ice he smashed. ‘It’s all right, sir. I know what I’m after. If you think about all the snowflakes that fall in the polar regions, and on the mountains of the world, and in winter, year after year… there must be tens of thousand of snowflakes, right? Thousands of thousands of thousands of them. Are you going to tell me someone’s been around all the snowy parts of the world and studied every single snowflake under a microscope?’

  ‘There’s a very scientific explanation for the phenomenon,’ Strachan said loftily. ‘I wouldn’t want to confuse you with technical terms.’

  ‘He doesn’t know,’ O’Houlihan said scathingly.

  Molineaux nodded in agreement. ‘If you ask me—’

  The rest of the sentence was drowned out by a burst of spray from the fire hole. Killigrew caught a glimpse of something white and wedge-shaped emerging from the hole, but by the time he turned to look at it all he could see was O’Houlihan’s feet disappearing into the water.

  He blinked, not sure what he had seen, unable to believe it. One moment O’Houlihan had been kneeling by the side of the hole, the next he was gone, leaving no trace of his presence but the foamy black water sloshing about in the deep square cut in the ice.

  ‘Faiks!’ exclaimed Strachan, wide-eyed. ‘Did you see that…?’

  Molineaux swore and ran towards the hole, tearing off his mittens, unwinding his muffler and fumbling with the buttons of his coat. ‘Mick!’

  Still dazed by O’Houlihan’s abrupt disappearance, it took Killigrew a moment to realise what the petty officer intended.

  ‘No!’

  Molineaux dived head-first into the fire hole, cleaving the water like a knife and disappearing after O’Houlihan.

  Killigrew ran to the lip of the hole and started to tear at his own thick clothes, until Strachan grabbed him. ‘Forget it, Killigrew! They’re both dead.’

  The lieutenant shook his head, unwilling to believe it. He had sailed with Molineaux and O’Houlihan on his last voyage, and had lost count of the number of time the black seaman had saved his life. Molineaux was so dependable – whenever things became crazy, you could
always rely on him to be the voice of reason – it was impossible to believe that both he and O’Houlihan were gone together, just like that.

  ‘There’s nothing you can do,’ Strachan told him.

  ‘The devil there isn’t!’ Killigrew turned to the men patrolling the perimeter rope. ‘You men!’ he shouted. ‘Bring those lights! Come on, chop chop, look lively there!’

  The four nearest men ran across with their bull’s-eyes bobbing. ‘Which way does the wind lie?’ asked one, so heavily muffled he was only recognisable as McLellan by his Orcadian accent.

  ‘O’Houlihan…’ said Strachan. ‘He was there one minute, the next… the bear just came up out of the water, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him under.’ It sounded as though the assistant surgeon did not believe it himself. ‘Molineaux jumped in after him.’

  ‘Jesus!’ said one of the other men.

  ‘Don’t just stand there blethering!’ said Killigrew. ‘Point the beams into the water!’

  The beams of the bull’s-eyes focused on the black-looking water, which by now had ceased to ripple, but the lights did not penetrate deep.

  ‘Can’t see a thing,’ grumbled Private Walsh.

  ‘How long could a cove stay alive down there, sir?’ asked Phillips.

  Strachan merely shrugged, although he was probably thinking the same thing as Killigrew: one, maybe two minutes at the most, if he could hold his breath that long, and if the shock of the freezing water did not paralyse his limbs with cramp.

  ‘They’ve had it,’ said Hughes.

  No one seemed inclined to agree or disagree. The six of them remained motionless, staring down into that black hole. Apart from Hughes, none of them wanted to be the first to suggest they were wasting their time.

  A shape burst up out of the water without warning, and all six of them took a step back in alarm, fearing it might be the bear returning. But it was only Molineaux, clawing feebly at the ice at the edge of the hole, too busy gasping air into his lungs to ask for help. Killigrew grabbed one of his arms. ‘Help me pull him up, Walsh!’