Killigrew and the North-West Passage

by Jonathan Lunn

  He raised his head and glared back at the bear, his own eyes boring into the beast’s skull now. ‘You want to eat me?’ he snarled. ‘You can’t eat me while I’m hanging down here.’ He raised his right hand and waved it temptingly before the bear’s snout. ‘You’ve got to pull me up, you hear? You’ve got to take my hand and drag me out of this crevasse! Take my hand, damn you!’ Once out of the crevasse, he would be able to fight the bear with both hands; he still had Molineaux’s Bowie knife tucked in the small of his back, and he would fight the bear with his bare hands if he had to. He would gouge its eyes out with his thumbs; throttle it if all else failed. He knew that if Latimer could have seen him, the clerk would not have given much for his chances, but whatever else happened Kit Killigrew was going to die fighting.

  The bear followed the movements of his hand with its whole head. It looked sorely tempted; then it seemed to change its mind. It reared up on its hind legs, and then brought its forepaws crashing down against the edge of the crevasse, on either side of Killigrew’s fingers.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? Take my hand, damn you! You want to taste my blood, you’re going to have to take my hand!’

  Again the bear reared up and crashed its paws down again, and again. And then the chunk of ice from which Killigrew dangled broke away from the lip of the crevasse and he was falling, down, down into an oblivion far darker than any midnight in an Arctic winter.

  * * *

  ‘Cheer up, lads,’ said Riggs, joining his messmates at one of the tables in the mess deck. ‘Only three weeks to Christmas.’

  ‘I must remember to order a goose from the local butchers,’ said Ågård.

  With the marines out with Killigrew, Bähr and Ursula, Molineaux adrift, and Armitage still on the sick list, there were only eleven of them eating in the mess deck now: Ågård and Riggs, Qualtrough, Unstead, Stokers Butterwick and Gargrave, Seamen Endicott, Hughes and Smith, Ignatz Fischbein and Jakob Kracht. With so many vacant places, the mess deck was starting to look empty.

  Smith and Gargrave, mess cooks for the day, doled out the food to the respective messmates: salt pork and split peas again.

  Hughes indicated his plate with his knife. ‘What’s this?’ he asked Smith.

  ‘Mr Latimer’s cress. Same as you had for dinner today, same as you had for supper yesterday, same as you had for dinner the day before that.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Hughes. ‘I’ve had enough cress to last me a lifetime. I don’t even like normal cress, but this stuff – it’s disgusting!’

  Hughes was being a little unfair about Latimer’s cress-farming efforts. True, the cress was a pallid yellow from the lack of sunlight, and it might not have been as crisp as the stuff that grew in England, but it was palatable enough for all that.

  ‘He’d want it soon enough if only the officers ate it,’ said Endicott, and there was a general murmur of agreement all around the mess deck.

  ‘I’ll have it if you divven’t want it,’ said Butterwick. ‘I love cress, me.’

  ‘You’re welcome to it.’ Hughes held his plate across the aisle between their tables so the stoker could fork the cress onto his own plate, but Ågård took the plate from him and put it back in front of him.

  ‘Everyone eats their own portion of cress,’ said the ice quartermaster. ‘Them’s orders. Got to eat your fresh greens. You don’t want scurvy, do you?’

  ‘That’s all my eye and Betty Martin, if you ask me,’ said Hughes. ‘You can’t tell me the Esquimaux eat cress – or any other greens, for that matter. You don’t see them dying of scurvy, do you?’

  ‘That’s because they eat plenty of fresh, raw meat,’ said Qualtrough.

  ‘I can arrange for you to get your ration of meat uncooked, if you prefer,’ Ågård told Hughes. ‘No? Didn’t think so. Now eat your cress, or I’ll see to it you get no grog ration tonight.’

  ‘You know what? You can take your cress – and your bloody grog ration – and stick them up your bum.’ Hughes stood up, picked up his plate, and hurled it across the mess deck. ‘I hate cress!’

  The plate shattered against the bulkhead beside the door leading aft just as Sørensen stepped through. There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone as the brawny harpooner paused to take in the mess. ‘Is there a problem, Jake?’

  ‘Red won’t eat his cress, Bjørn,’ said Unstead.

  ‘So I see. Or his pork or split peas, by the look of it.’ Everyone else shrank back as Sørensen crossed to where Hughes stood up. ‘You know what’s wrong with you, Red? You don’t know what’s good for you.’

  ‘It’s not cress, Mr Sørensen, I know that much.’

  ‘If you want to go without cress, Red, it can be arranged. We’ll put you in irons in the lazaretto, and you can go without cress and everything else but bread and water for a week. How does that suit you?’

  Hughes muttered something under his breath. Sørensen hauled him out of his chair and sent him staggering across the mess deck with a well-placed boot to the backside, towards where the shattered remains of the broken plate lay at the foot of the bulkhead. ‘You want any supper tonight, Red, you can lick that mess off the deck. Otherwise you go without, hoist in? Then clean up the mess. I’ll be back at two bells to make sure you’ve done a good job; and if you haven’t, it will be the lazaretto for you whether you like it or not! And if I catch any of the rest of you slipping him food tonight when you think no one’s looking, I’ll have him on extra duties from now until Christmas!’ He stalked back the way he had come.

  ‘Capitalist lapdog!’ muttered Hughes, glaring after Sørensen.

  Ågård shook his head sadly. ‘You never bloody learn, do you?’ he told Hughes. He sighed, and glanced across to where Butterwick was stuffing the last of his salt pork and split peas into his gullet. ‘At least someone’s got a hearty appetite.’

  After supper, Ågård and Kracht made their way up on deck for guard duty. ‘Still no sign of Herr Killigrew and the others,’ remarked the blacksmith.

  ‘It’s only been five days,’ Ågård said mildly. ‘It could be another nine before they get back.’

  ‘What if they don’t come back? What if the bear gets them, or they get lost and freeze to death out there?’

  ‘They’ll be back.’

  ‘But what if they’re not? You really think that when the spring thaw comes – if it comes at all – we’ll be able to sail this ship out of here, with Herr Strachan in command? Don’t misunderstand me – he seems a fine fellow – but… a sailor?’ Kracht shook his head sadly.

  ‘That’s where you and I come in, Jakob,’ Ågård told him. ‘We’ll get them all safely home to their mamas. But never you fear: Mr Killigrew will be back with the others.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Fifteen years I’ve known him, and I can tell you this: his tendency to get himself into tight corners is matched only by his skill at getting himself out of them again. If I know Mr Killigrew, he’s probably already on his way back here even now, with a completed chart of the North-West Passage in his back pocket, Franklin and the others in tow, and Bruin’s carcass on the sledge ready to be stuffed and mounted. Wherever Mr Killigrew is right now, you can be sure he’s on top of things.’

  * * *

  Killigrew was running from the bear, but his legs felt as though they had been carved from blocks of ice and would not obey him. Realising that he could not escape, he turned just in time to see the bear pounce. Its jaws closed over his face, its teeth slicing through his skin like a thousand red-hot, razor-sharp knives. He parted his lips to cry out, and snow fell into his mouth. The bear’s teeth were melting, turning into water that dripped over his cheeks, and then some part of his nightmare-fuddled mind grasped the reality: he was unconscious, and dreaming.

  The realisation shattered the dream like a rock hurled through the film of ice on a freshly frozen pond. But the wet, burning sensation on his cheeks did not go away. Someone was rubbing snow in his face. He spat it out of his mouth and jerk
ed his head back with a gasp, shuffling away from his assailant. Except that when he tried to put his left hand down behind him it met nothing but cold air. He sprawled on his back in the snow, with nothing beneath his head and shoulders.

  ‘Don’t move!’

  Groping beneath him with his left hand and finding nothing but the edge of an icy ledge that he hung over, he decided it would be a good idea to obey the voice. ‘Ursula? I thought you were dead!’

  ‘I was beginning to think the same about you. Be careful – there’s a drop to the right – your left, I mean.’

  ‘So I see.’ Not that Killigrew could see anything: after the dazzling wash of light in his nightmare, this new hell seemed pitch-black at first. He eased himself to his right, and after moving only a couple of inches in that direction met a wall of ice, smooth and sheer. ‘Clearly this isn’t heaven, and it’s too cold for hell.’

  He took off his gauntlets, tucking them in the front of his coat so he would not lose them, and fumbled for his box of matches with numb fingers. He massaged them and tried to get the blood flowing. When the sensation started to return he fumbled for his matches again. He struck one with trembling fingers and then blinked as its searing light blinded him. The flame settled down and he blinked away the tears. The yellow flame reflected only cold, glittering blueness. They were in a crevasse, with sheer walls of ice rising on either side of them. The ledge they sat on was littered with objects from the haversack that Killigrew had inadvertently emptied while clinging to the lip of the crevasse above.

  He glanced up. The single flame did not provide enough light to illuminate the walls of the crevasse all the way to the top, but Killigrew doubted it could be more than twenty feet; even with the snow banked on the ledge to break his fall, a further plunge would surely have broken his neck. As it was, as far as he could tell he had sustained no injuries worse than a throbbing shoulder and a large bump rising on the back of his aching head.

  The match burned down to his fingers, but they were so frozen it was some seconds before he realised it and dropped it with a gasp. The flame sailed down into the darkness below, until the angle of the crevasse hid it from sight altogether. Its light was reflected from the icy walls for a few seconds more, slowly fading until there was nothing but blackness left.

  Moving carefully, he stood up on the ledge and explored the side of the crevasse with his fingers. It was not quite vertical, but so smooth and devoid of hand-and foot-holds it might as well have been.

  Ursula must have heard him moving around. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to find a way up.’

  ‘There isn’t one.’ Her voice was bleak, dispassionate, as if she had already abandoned all hope of escaping. ‘I tried calling for Phillips, but he didn’t come.’

  ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

  Ursula was silent for a while as the implication of Killigrew’s words sank in.

  ‘How long was I unconscious for?’

  ‘No more than a minute or two, I think.’

  ‘So the chances are that Bruin’s still sniffing around up there, waiting for us.’ And gorging himself on the bodies of the others while he waits.

  ‘Our situation would not appear to be enviable.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.’ Killigrew tried to inject a breezy note into his voice. ‘At least we’re out of the wind.’

  ‘Do you always look for the bright side in a hopeless situation?’

  ‘Always. I find it helps immensely. Nil desperandum: the fact that this isn’t the first time I’ve been in a hopeless situation should tell you that things are never quite as hopeless as they seem.’

  ‘You have a plan for getting us out of here?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ He struck another match and used it to collect all the bits and pieces that had fallen out of the haversack: a box of shells for the shotgun, two signal rockets, a bottle of spirits of wine. Not much help there.

  The match burned down. He took out a notebook, tore out a page, twisted it tightly and set it in the snow before lighting it with another match. By the flickering light he emptied his pockets and added the contents to the meagre pile of objects: Molineaux’s Bowie knife; his hip flask and cheroot case; his fob watch; pencil stub; miniature pocket telescope; his clasp knife; and the five-inch length of fuse he had had left over when they had blown a dock in the ice in the Middle Pack, what seemed like a lifetime ago. He really had to clean his pockets out more often. Apart from some lint, that was all. None of it much help at all in their present situation.

  He took a swig from the hip flask. The Irish whiskey burned a fiery trail down his throat, warming him from inside. He proffered the flask to Ursula. ‘Take a swig of this. It’ll help warm you up.’

  ‘Dr Bähr says that the warmth is just an illusion.’

  ‘At this moment in time we need all the illusions we can get.’

  She took a swig and handed the flask back to Killigrew. ‘Could we send up a signal rocket?’

  ‘Easily. But we’re more than thirty miles from the Venturer. Even if anyone did happen to be looking in the right direction, I doubt they’d notice it.’ He glanced at her face in the light of the makeshift candle. Perhaps it was just the eerie, flickering illumination, but she looked even paler than usual. ‘Massage your face,’ he told her. ‘Got to keep frostbite at bay.’ He moved closer to her and put an arm gently around her shoulders, drawing her against him. ‘Pardon the familiarity, ma’am, but we’ll stand a better chance of survival if we share our body heat.’

  ‘Under the circumstances, I think you may call me Ursula. Or Urse – that’s what my sisters called me. Is this something they teach you in naval officer school?’

  He chuckled. ‘Something Strachan mentioned in one of his lectures – “Arctic Survival”, I think it was. I’m just glad it’s you with me right now, and not one of the others.’

  She smiled wanly. ‘I wish I could say the same. Not that I find you repellent!’ she added hurriedly.

  ‘You’re too kind!’

  ‘I mean, I would rather it was someone else trapped down here in my place. But if I must be here, I’d rather it was with you than anyone else.’

  The torn page flickered and went out, leaving them in darkness. She clung to him even more tightly, and they bumped noses.

  ‘Entschuldigung!’

  ‘That’s the way the Esquimaux kiss,’ said Killigrew. ‘Rubbing noses.’

  ‘I prefer the European way.’

  ‘Me too.’

  He kissed her: tentatively at first, not sure if she would push him away and slap him. But her mouth opened into his at once and their tongues met, searching less for mutual lust as for the warmth of human contact: a reminder that for now, at least, they were both still able to enjoy mortal pleasures.

  He pushed her away with reluctance. ‘First things first. Let’s see if we can get out of this chasm.’ He fumbled for the ice chisel. ‘Stand with your back to the ice. ‘I’m going to have to stand on your shoulders, I hope you don’t mind…?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Cut hand-holds in the ice.’

  ‘But that will take for ever!’

  ‘Time would seem to be the one commodity we have in abundance.’

  Chapter 19

  Stage Fright

  Molineaux sat on the sledge, following the tracks made by Killigrew and the others nearly a week ago with the beam of a bull’s-eye, while Terregannoeuck stood on the back and drove the dogs. The snowfall grew thicker and thicker until the lantern could no longer pick out the tracks through the swirling flurries.

  ‘It’s no good!’ Molineaux yelled over his shoulder. ‘I’ll have to go ahead of the sledge on foot!’

  Terregannoeuck nodded and reined in the huskies. Molineaux climbed off and walked past the dogs. The tracks were still discernible, but the heavy snow was quickly covering them. If they did not find Killigrew and the others soon, they never would.

  Molineaux trudged t
hrough the snow while Terregannoeuck followed him, leading the huskies by the muzzle of the lead dog, so that they would not overtake Molineaux in their enthusiasm while they dragged the sledge.

  Even in his Arctic clothing, Molineaux felt frozen. He had to remind himself that while he had only been out here for three days; Killigrew and the others had been gone for twice as long. How cold must he be? Molineaux had to go on, because he knew that the lieutenant would have done the same for him.

  The tracks they were following grew fainter and fainter, until Molineaux was not sure if he was following genuine traces or just seeing what he wanted to see. Eventually the blanket of snow became so thick he could not even kid himself there was anything to follow.

  The snow swirled thickly around them. ‘We never find them this way!’ said Terregannoeuck.

  Molineaux looked around in desperation. ‘Sir?’ he yelled, cupping mittened hands around his mouth. ‘Mr Killigrew, sir! Are you out there? Where are you?’

  Nothing. Just snow, ice, the howling of the wind and the panting of the dogs.

  Molineaux reached under his jacket, took out his boatswain’s call and blew ‘All hands to quarters’. Then he listened again, trying to penetrate the snowstorm with his ears, straining for any sound that might have been a man calling for help. But there was nothing.

  ‘We make camp,’ Terregannoeuck decided, and led the dogs and the sledge into the lee of a twenty-foot high pressure ridge. Molineaux looked around in agitation. It was not in his nature to give up, but he could not see what else he could do.

  Terregannoeuck sat down in the snow and took a swig from the gourd he wore on a thong around his neck. ‘What’s in there?’ asked Molineaux. ‘Rum?’

  The Inuk ignored him and closed his eyes.

  ‘Fine. You hog it to yourself. I’ll make some scran, shall I?’ Molineaux took the portable stove from the sledge and managed to get it going. ‘Tomato soup do you?’