The Inuk shook his head. ‘No need to thank Terregannoeuck. He should thank you.’
‘Thank us? Why?’
‘For letting him accompany kabloonas. For giving him chance to put right what he once fail to do.’
‘That story you told us… about the Esquimau Hooterock—’
‘Hoeootoerock,’ the Inuk corrected him. ‘Terregannoeuck’s brother.’ Killigrew nodded. At last he understood. ‘He asked you to accompany him when he went off to face the Kokogiaq?’
‘And Terregannoeuck refuse. Say Hoeootoerock dishonour Kokogiaq, responsibility to appease Kokogiaq belong to Hoeootoerock. But Terregannoeuck have responsibility to brother, too. But Terregannoeuck afraid. When Hoeootoerock not return, other people look at Terregannoeuck, smell his fear, blame him also. Terregannoeuck leave own people, wander ice like pisugtooq, lonely hunter.’
‘And if you kill this bear? Will you be able to face your own people again?’
The Inuk shrugged. ‘Terregannoeuck not know. But it not matter. Terregannoeuck must prove courage to Terregannoeuck, let others think what they may.’ His leathery face cracked into a grin. ‘Sound crazy to you?’
Killigrew smiled, and shook his head. ‘No, I think I understand exactly what you mean—’
Terregannoeuck tensed suddenly.
‘What is it?’
Disdaining one of the muskets, the Inuk reached for his spear. ‘Nanuq is here.’
Killigrew searched the landscape beyond the crest of the ridge but saw nothing. ‘Where?’
‘Behind us.’
They both whirled and saw the bear standing on the next ridge, outlined against the moonlit landscape, about fifty yards away. Killigrew brought the stock of his musket up to his shoulder and took aim, but did not fire at once. Come on, you sonavabitch. Just a bit closer…
Then he realised that Terregannoeuck was no longer beside him, but racing down the side of the ridge with his spear poised to thrust, letting out a wild yell.
The bear responded with a terrible roar and charged down its own ridge to meet him at an appalling rate: deceptively swift, ponderous, inexorably powerful.
The Inuk was going to get himself killed. ‘No!’ yelled Killigrew, and fired.
He missed.
In the trough between the two ice ridges, only a few yards separated Terregannoeuck and the bear now. Killigrew snatched up the second musket, took aim, and pulled the trigger. At that range, in such good light, he could not miss.
The hammer came down on the percussion cap with a snap: a misfire.
The bear reared up, slashing with its paws. Terregannoeuck thrust the spear at its heart, but the bear’s left paw snapped off the whalebone tip. Then the right claw scythed across and Terregannoeuck staggered back as his blood splashed on the snow.
Killigrew slung the musket across his back and drew both the revolvers he was carrying, blazing away as he charged down the side of the ridge. ‘No!’
Terregannoeuck was on his back now. He raised his arms to protect his head, and the bear clamped its jaw over one. Killigrew heard the bone snap. The Inuk screamed.
Both of Killigrew’s guns were empty. He threw them away and unslung the empty musket. ‘Come on, you bastard! You want to fight someone, fight me!’
The bear left off tearing at Terregannoeuck’s flesh and reared up, facing Killigrew now. The lieutenant swung the musket like a club and cracked the bear across the snout with the stock. It roared in fury. He swung at its head again, but this time the bear’s jaws clamped down on the musket and snapped the stock clean off.
Killigrew stood there, disarmed, paralysed with fear, and waited for the bear to finish him.
Five shots rang out in quick succession, two dark bursts of crimson blossoming in the bear’s side. The bear yelped in wounded agony and fell back onto all fours. It ran off a short distance, limping now, blood dripping in its wake. Near the crest of the ridge it turned back to snarl furiously at Killigrew, and then it loped out of sight.
Gasping for breath, Killigrew turned to where Terregannoeuck lay on the ice, holding another revolver. Even as the lieutenant turned, the gun fell from the Inuk’s limp fingers and his arm fell back on to the ice. Killigrew ran across to him and dropped on to his knees at his side.
Terregannoeuck grinned weakly, his teeth flecked with blood. ‘A present from Mr Latimer. Kabloona magic is strong indeed.’
The bear’s claws had slashed through his jacket, through the shirt and flesh beneath, exposing his ribs that gleamed with slick blood. His arm was barely recognisable as such, a mangled mess. ‘Is it dead?’
‘Dead or dying,’ said Killigrew. ‘You killed it, Terregannoeuck. You killed the polar bear.’
‘Good. I go on a long journey now, to meet Nuliayuq. You go rejoin your friends now, kabloona. Your heart is strong, you will lead them to safety.’ With his left arm, he gripped Killigrew’s jacket tightly as a spasm seized his body and he retched, coughing up blood, and then lay still.
Feeling sick, Killigrew drew down the man’s eyelids. He pushed himself wearily to his feet, crossed back to where he had left the other musket, and reloaded it. Perhaps the bear was dying, but he wanted to be sure. Gripping the musket, he ran up the ridge in the bear’s tracks and in the trough behind he saw…
Nothing.
He looked around wildly. Even the trail of blood seemed to have petered out.
Sick fear gripped him. It could not have disappeared: it was wounded, bleeding. But there was the evidence of his own eyes: it had vanished, as if by magic.
And it was still out there.
He walked back to where they had left their skis, slung the musket over his back, bound the skis to his feet, and got the hell out of there.
A few miles further on he caught up with the others.
‘Did you get it?’ asked Yelverton.
‘No.’
‘Terregannoeuck?’
Killigrew shook his head wearily.
* * *
The next day they left the sea ice behind and climbed through a band of low, peculiar-looking hills, like volcanic plugs. Even though they were still in uncharted territory, Killigrew was confident that at their current latitude this, at last, must be the North American mainland. On their current heading – south-west, towards Fort Hope – Yelverton calculated that they would cross the Arctic Circle within two weeks. Now they had completed the first sixty miles of their long trek to safety. All they had to do was keep on walking.
For another 740 miles.
They trudged slowly across the Canadian tundra, a harsh, rocky, iron-hard landscape. If anything the weather seemed to get colder and colder. Each exhaled cloud of condensating breath turned at once into tiny ice crystals in the air before their faces, falling to the snow at their feet. Their beards became rimed with frost. They moved like old men, bent against the weight of the harnesses with which they hauled the sledges, exhausted, hungry and weak. Their one consolation – and it was cold comfort indeed – was that the load they hauled grew progressively lighter each day. They were running low on food, and lower on fuel for the portable stoves.
Within five days Yelverton was able to place them on the map torn out of a book in place of a proper chart: back on terra cognita, on the east side of Chantry Inlet. Nine days later they reached the mouth of the Great Fish River. A little over 630 miles still to go.
Then, when it seemed things could not get any worse, the blizzard descended on them.
They pushed on as hard as they could, the storm whipping the thick snow against their backs until their clothes were weighed down with a thick coat of ice. Feet in flapping boots trudged through thick drifts, ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep. Armitage, stumping along on his wooden leg, was the first to collapse.
‘It’s no good!’ Strachan had to yell to make himself heard against the howling wind that screamed across the tundra. ‘We can’t go on!’
Killigrew knew they had to go on. They had to make it south, to where the wildlife was more ab
undant, where at least stunted trees would help them replenish their dwindling supplies of fuel for cooking. Every day they lingered would bring them closer to death. But Strachan was right. They had to rest.
They erected the two remaining tents and crawled under them to wait for the blizzard to pass. Strachan was in the other tent, but he crawled in Killigrew’s to check the rest of the men for signs of frostbite or other physical infirmities.
‘There’s not a man-jack amongst us who isn’t showing some signs of scurvy, frostbite and starvation,’ he told Killigrew in a low voice. ‘And there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. It’s Armitage that worries me most of all. The damn’ fool should have said something.’
‘About what?’
‘His wooden leg. It’s been chafing against his stump, a sore’s developed and now he’s got gangrene. What am I supposed to do, amputate the rest of his leg?’ They had been talking in whispers, and now Strachan lowered his voice even further so that Yelverton, at the far end of the tent, could not hear him. ‘And Yelverton’s suffering. He’d never admit it, but I can see it in his eyes.’
‘All right,’ said Killigrew. ‘When the blizzard clears we’ll take all the victuals and equipment off the dog sledge and distribute them between Faith and Hope. Then at least Armitage can ride on the dog sledge.’
‘At least we won’t have to worry about Bruin any more.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Polar bears never stray far from the sea. I think we’ve put enough miles between us and the coast to make sure he doesn’t try to follow us any further.’
For three days they huddled in their tents, using the last of their stocks of spirit oil to heat their portable stoves to make cocoa, chewing on pemmican frozen rock-solid. One night, as Killigrew lay listening to the wind howling across the landscape outside, he thought he heard the polar bear snuffling around outside. He knew he should go out to check on the men in the other tent, but what could he do? He told himself it was only his imagination. After all, it had been five weeks since the bear’s last attack; surely they had given it the slip by now?
He heard a voice singing softly in the darkness:
‘She’d an ankle like an antelope and a step like a deer,
A voice like a blackbird, so mellow and clear,
Her hair hung in ringlets so beautiful and long,
I thought that she loved me but found I was wrong.
‘She was as beautiful as a butterfly
And as proud as a queen
Was pretty little Polly Perkins
Of Paddington Green.’
Killigrew was surprised to recognise the voice as Pettifer’s. For such a big man, his singing voice could be surprisingly melodious.
Latimer was less charitable. ‘Stop it! Make him stop it!’ he screeched. ‘Shut up, damn you, shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ Before anyone realised what was happening, the clerk had launched himself at Pettifer and tried to throttle him, the captain prevented from defending himself with his hands tied together.
It took both Killigrew and Strachan to pull Latimer off Pettifer. Struggling between them, the clerk screamed and sobbed until Strachan slapped him.
‘Sorry, Latimer, but it’s for your own good.’
The clerk stopped screaming and crawled off into a corner to weep quietly to himself.
‘You’re all going to die,’ said Pettifer. He sounded saner than he had done in a long while, and he was making sense for a change. ‘You realise that, don’t you?’
‘If we die, you die with us,’ Killigrew said softly.
Pettifer grinned. ‘Not I. My father will protect me.’
‘Your father?’
‘Why, God, of course.’
‘The Good Lord is father to all of us,’ said Yelverton.
Pettifer shook his head. ‘Not that one,’ he said, nodding at Killigrew. ‘Don’t you see? He’s the Anti-Christ. He will lead you all to perdition. Turn back! Turn back to the path of righteousness, before it is too late!’
‘Oh, stow your damned gaff, for heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Yelverton. ‘What with Mr Latimer blubbering on one side of me and you ranting and raving on the other, I don’t know which way to turn! We may end up having to eat the dogs, but if it were up to me we’d eat you first, you loony! ’
‘No one’s going to have to eat anyone,’ Killigrew said firmly. ‘We’ve made good progress so far; all we have to do is keep it up for another two months, and we’ll be toasting ourselves in front of a warm fire at Fort Hope. Now everyone pipe down and get some sleep. We’ll need it for the rest of our journey when this blizzard clears.’
The rest of their journey. Even the nightmare of the Venturer, trapped in the ice, seemed little more than a blissful, half-forgotten dream. And they were not yet even a third of the way to Fort Hope.
In the darkness, Pettifer went on singing softly to himself:
‘When I’d rattle in a morning and cry, “Milk below ”,
At the sound of my milk cans her face she would show
With a smile upon her countenance and a laugh in her eye,
If I’d thought she’d’ve loved me, I’d’ve laid down to die…
‘She was as beautiful as a butterfly
And as proud as a queen
Was pretty little Polly Perkins
Of Paddington Green.’
Chapter 23
The River
They were down to their last match by the end of the week. It rattled pathetically in its box until Molineaux pulled off a mitten to pick it out with numb, frozen fingers.
‘Careful, now,’ said Riggs, as they huddled around the unlit campfire. ‘Don’t waste it.’
Molineaux glared at him. ‘You think so? I was thinking of just throwing it away without lighting it, you great noddy!’ Scowling, he struck the match. It flared into life, and a moment later a gust of wind blew it out again.
Everyone groaned. ‘What did I tell you?’ demanded Riggs.
‘What, you think I did that on purpose?’ Molineaux retorted angrily.
‘All right, everyone, simmer down,’ ordered Killigrew. ‘We’ve just got to think around the problem, that’s all. Man made fire long before the invention of matches. I don’t see why we can’t do the same.’
‘We could try rubbing sticks together!’ said Latimer.
‘No trees,’ said Yelverton.
Killigrew picked up a fistful of snow and scrunched it together in his hands, squeezing and moulding it. ‘A little application of science is all it takes,’ he explained. ‘Have none of you ever used a magnifying glass to start a fire with?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a magnifying glass on you, have you, sir?’ asked Molineaux.
‘No. But we can make a lens.’
‘What with?’
‘Snow.’ Killigrew went on squeezing and moulding the ice between his palms. ‘All we need to do is compact it into ice, then fashion it into a convex lens to concentrate the sun’s rays—’
‘Killigrew?’
‘Not now, Strachan, I’m busy. Where was I?’
‘You were fashioning a lump of snow into a convex lens to concentrate the sun’s rays,’ said Molineaux.
‘Will that work?’ Qualtrough sounded dubious.
‘In theory.’
‘Killigrew!’ The assistant surgeon’s voice was more insistent this time,
‘Please, Strachan! Can’t you see I have my hands full?’ Killigrew looked at the lump of ice he had made. It was about the right shape, but far too opaque to be of any use. He went on squeezing it and moulding it.
‘I really think you ought to see what the pill-roller’s got for you, sir,’ said Molineaux.
The lieutenant glanced up at him, and then turned to where Strachan was holding out his spectacles with an apologetic expression on his face.
‘You might find it easier with these.’
* * *
Onwards they trudged, dragging Faith and Hope behind them, Armitage ridin
g on the dog sledge driven by Ursula. But the cook’s gangrene was spreading. When he became feverish Strachan realised he could not wait any longer before amputating. There was no chloroform to use as an anaesthetic, not enough alcohol to do it the old-fashioned way. While Molineaux stood by with an iron heated up into a laughable approximation of red-hot, ready to cauterise the stump, Strachan tied a tourniquet tightly about midway up the thigh. In the absence of a scalpel, he cut away flaps of Armitage’s skin from the thigh, exposing the muscle and bone below, while Qualtrough and Kracht held the cook down. Ursula could not bring herself to watch.
The closest thing Strachan could find to a surgical saw was an axe. He tried to heft the tool in his hand and a look of despair crossed his face.
‘I can’t do it,’ he whimpered to Killigrew.
‘Come on, man. I’ve seen you perform amputations before now.’
Strachan shook his head. ‘It’s not that. I mean, I haven’t got the strength to do it. Not in one blow.’
‘Just get on with it, for Christ’s sake!’ groaned Armitage.
‘Let me do it, sir,’ offered Molineaux, swapping the iron for the axe.
‘Sure you can do it?’ asked Strachan.
‘Only one way to find out.’ Molineaux took a deep breath. ‘You ready for this, Tommo?’
‘Just do it!’
‘Hey, Tommo, you remember when we stopped at that hot-pie shop in Greenwich and you—’ Molineaux broke off in mid-sentence and smashed the axe down, sheering through flesh, sinew and bone with one powerful blow. Armitage gave a hoarse gasp and blood gouted on to the snow.
Strachan sewed the flaps of skin over the stump. There were no bandages, so they had to wrap it up with rags that quickly soaked through with blood.
Armitage died the following night, from shock, loss of blood, whatever. Everyone was too exhausted to care any more. The next morning they put Yelverton on the dog sledge, while the remaining sixteen of them hauled their dwindling stock of tinned food and pemmican on the two sledges.
Onwards and onwards, week after week, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute, each second a lifetime of weary pain and suffering. By 2 February they had used up enough of their victuals to abandon Faith and cram everything that was left on Hope. Killigrew regretted the choice of names now, because he knew that eventually they would have to abandon the other sledge, too, and the seamen would see it as a bad omen when they abandoned Hope. He cut their daily rations from six-upon-four to six-upon-three in the hope of spinning them out a few more days, knowing it was hopeless. 580 miles to go, and barely enough food for another three weeks. They were covering about eight miles a day. The mathematics of their situation was inescapable.
Killigrew and the North-West Passage Page 47