by Robert Edric
The others were amused and then intrigued by his enthusiastic speculations.
“Can there be a bear with the dogs setting about it?” Robert Golding asked, the first of them to speak.
“Two bears, a dozen bears,” Gore told him.
“And men with their rifles fighting them off?”
“And men with their rifles,” Gore conceded, aware that he was allowing too much, but unwilling to put a brake on the youngster’s imagination.
“And all this would be present on the day you made the pictures?” Vesconte asked skeptically.
The remark pleased Gore, allowing him to draw in the reins of their speculations. “That’s the great beauty of the camera,” he told them authoritatively. “None of it need be happening in conjunction with any other part of the design at the same time. I might expose the plates over several days, weeks even, and then piece them all together to suggest a single moment.”
Vesconte was disappointed by this. “So, in effect, you would be doing no more and no less than the painters attempt to do when they profess to be portraying these regions without ever leaving their Hampstead studios?”
“Except that the photographic record would be indisputable truth that it had been made amid everything it showed.”
Goodsir interrupted: “And might we all be present upon the ice so that anyone who looked at this panorama would recognize us and be able to point us out?”
“Naturally,” Gore said, sensing the return of their own interest in the project.
“So we might stand bravely alongside one of the bears and not have it anywhere near us in reality?” Vesconte said.
“Not right next to the creature, not so as he could reach out and swipe you with his paw?” Robert Golding said, confused and then alarmed by what he believed Gore was suggesting.
“I could place you the closest of all. This far from the monster’s claws,” Gore told him, opening his arms to suggest the distance and succeeding only in adding fear to the youngster’s alarm.
SIXTEEN
Fitzjames, Reid and Des Voeux were inspecting the recent buildup of ice around the Erebus’ stern when Des Voeux grabbed Reid’s arm, spun him around and pointed him in the direction of the higher land to the west. At first Reid saw nothing, but then, guided by Des Voeux, he made out the form of a large animal crossing the skyline.
“What is it?” Des Voeux asked, instinctively crouching, and ready to call for one of the marine marksmen at this unexpected prospect of fresh meat.
Reid pulled down his hood and called softly to Fitzjames, who had moved ahead of them and was sounding the surface ice.
“Bear,” Reid said, crouching beside Des Voeux and indicating for Fitzjames to do the same. He felt the breeze on his face. “He won’t scent us. He might not even see us against the ships.”
“What’s it doing?” Des Voeux asked nervously. Even from that distance they could see that the bear was fully grown, and seemingly unconcerned by the presence of the ships.
“Just come to look us over.” Reid rose slowly and watched as the animal patrolled along the ridge of high ice, now more clearly silhouetted against the sky beyond.
“Will it come down to us?” Des Voeux asked.
“I doubt it,” Reid told him.
Fitzjames raised his iron bar in readiness, conscious of how useless a weapon it would prove to be if the bear did decide to come down and investigate them more closely.
“He sees us and we see him,” Reid said.
“How can you be so sure it’s a male?” Des Voeux asked.
“Look at his size, at how his weight’s distributed.” He stopped and watched without speaking as the animal finally dropped below the skyline and was lost to view. “The farmer,” he said suddenly. “That’s what we used to call him. The farmer. Look at him—a well-fed squire pacing up and down his spring corn, smug and self-satisfied.”
They were joined a few minutes later by the Erebus’ two other mates, Robert Sargent and Edward Couch, and upon being told of what they had just missed, both men became excited about the prospect of a hunt. Fitzjames, too, acknowledged the appeal of this, particularly since they had been so unsuccessful against the scavenging foxes, the killing of which hardly repaid their efforts and seemed only to encourage the countless others which arrived to take the place of the dead.
It was by then the beginning of March. The sun had returned a month earlier, but it was still too late in the day for them to pursue the animal immediately. Sargent and Couch left them with the intention of getting Franklin’s permission to set out in pursuit at first light the following morning.
Conscious of their need for diversion after their months of confinement and idleness, Franklin agreed. Two parties would be dispatched, one from each ship, and a prize would be awarded to the crew who succeeded in killing the bear.
That night, in an attempt to keep the animal in the vicinity of the ships, rotten meat and other waste was left at intervals along the ridge on which it had been spotted.
The hunting party from the Terror was to be led by George Hodgson, and was to include Tozer and three of his marines. That of the Erebus chose Fitzjames as its leader, and comprised, in addition to Bryant and their own marines, Goodsir, Vesconte and Gore, the mates, their warrant officers, and two dozen other petty officers and seamen. Reid, at first reluctant to become involved, was finally persuaded by Fitzjames.
In all there would be almost sixty men out on the ice, half armed with rifles and pistols, the others with clubs and boat-hooks. These latter would serve as beaters and then drivers, ensuring that if the animal was still in the vicinity then it would be found, surrounded and driven upon the guns.
A great many preparations were made for the hunt. Weapons were cleaned and ammunition made, and stories of earlier hunts were repeated long into the night.
At eleven Fitzjames left his cabin in search of Reid. It was only during dinner, as he had speculated about the following day’s sport, that he had become aware of Reid’s lack of enthusiasm for the adventure. Gore, renowned as a marksman with a pistol, had requested permission to deliver the coup de grace to the animal should it first be wounded. Goodsir was more interested in acquiring samples of its fur, and in the retrieval of its liver so that he might distil and examine its poisons. Everything about the hunt was discussed, and in this way the pleasure of it was infinitely extended, infecting even those who had chosen not to participate. So encouraging was the air of fervid expectation aboard the ships that both Franklin and Crozier acquiesced to purser Osmer’s request to open a book on the outcome of the chase.
Reid’s reluctance had also been noted by others, and this tipped the balance in favor of the Terror’s huntsmen. Thomas Blanky was optimistic about their chances in pursuit over good ice, and even the aggressive nature of Solomon Tozer counted in their favor as wagers were laid and covered.
The two parties drew up their plans for the following day and then guarded these as jealously as plans of battle.
Finding Reid in his bunk, Fitzjames asked him if he wished to be excluded from their party, quickly adding that he personally would feel much happier if he were present considering the distance to be covered and the numbers involved.
Reid acknowledged both the apology and the concern. He closed the book he had been reading and rubbed his eyes. It was late and he hadn’t slept for thirty-six hours.
“With any luck he’ll see he has no chance of escape and charge us the minute the first of us gets within his reach. As long as we don’t try and fill him full of number four shot he should fall fast enough.”
This suggestion worried Fitzjames. “Is that likely? I always imagined they would run away from any trouble rather than confront it.”
“And that’s precisely why the hunt’s going ahead. I’ll come along, if only to make sure that the creature isn’t forced into a position where he has to turn and defend himself. Prepare and organize all you like, but once you take that many men out on the ice you’ll have little
control over their comings and goings. Shout at them as much as you please, but one sight of the creature and they’ll all be after him like schoolboys after a ball. Plan for the kill, listen to Mr. Gore’s fancy words for a bullet in the head, but once they see him they’ll let loose with everything they’ve got, shooting wild as savages and as fast as they can suck and blow.”
Fitzjames guessed that he was speaking from experience, and reassured him that both he and Hodgson would exercise as much control over the hunt as possible. But he spoke with little real conviction and neither of them was convinced by what he said.
He left after only a few minutes, knowing that he had achieved nothing other than make his own uncertainties public.
The two hunting parties left the ships the following day and crossed the ice in opposite directions, intending to move in a wide pincer and drive the bear back toward where it had first been sighted.
The party from the Erebus set out at a steady pace, each man partnered with at least one other, and those with firearms divided among those armed only with clubs. Bryant and his marines made a separate party in advance of the officers, spreading in a line abreast as they left the ships behind.
In contrast to this, the party from the Terror disembarked and ran in a crowd in the same general direction. Unrestrained, several men fired their rifles into the air and those around them cheered and yelled.
“They’re more likely to shoot each other than anything else,” Goodsir remarked, as he, Fitzjames and the others climbed to the summit of a low rise and looked down on the confusion below. Reid scanned the plain ahead of them, but saw nothing.
“In which case old whitey is ours for certain.” Gore cocked the hammer of his pistol, held it rigidly at arm’s length and swung it in a wide, steady sweep.
“Perhaps if we come across the unfortunate creature asleep in its lair,” Goodsir said, winking at Fitzjames and the others, “then you could deliver your card and invite it to come out and duel with you.”
“In which case it certainly would be an unfortunate creature,” Gore said, suddenly jerking back his arm in the prescribed manner until his pistol was held vertically against his shoulder.
They all laughed at him, knowing that he had participated in no duel, and that his shooting experience was restricted to the Marl-borough and District Target Shooting Club, of which he had been voted Captain for the seventh year in succession prior to his departure, a position he would hold for the duration of his absence.
In his cabin, Gore kept a case of the medals and trophies he had won, and these, apart from the letters written to him by his wife—thirty-six in all, and which he read, as promised, one a month—were among his proudest possessions.
“Mr. Reid,” he said loudly, silencing them all. “All I require of you is that you point out to me that part of the creature where my ball might do the most good. I believe you and I understand each other perfectly in this matter. You yourself are unarmed, so might I suggest that you stay close by my side. Together we are certain to make a winning team.” He said all this with mock seriousness, as though he were reciting to a theater audience who already knew what the day held in store for them. He beckoned for Reid to join him and then led them all forward to where Bryant and his marines waited.
The ice ahead of them was tilted and mounded, and pushed up into steep ridges in places, over which they were forced to scramble on all fours. It was old ice, revealing the striations and coloring of many years’ accumulation.
Inspecting the contours as they went, it became clear to Reid that they were walking over floes that had drifted, built upon each other and been compacted for the past seventy-five years, ice which had been laying down its frozen foundations since before any of them had even been born.
“We ought to have brought the dogs,” Des Voeux said, arriving breathless alongside them with his fellow mates, both of whom carried blunderbusses.
Gore considered the inadvisability of this. “Or perhaps we could have brought the ape, and the bear could have used it as a plaything before I stepped in to do the honors.”
Des Voeux felt uncomfortable at the rebuff, and shouldering their arms the three mates left to join the main party.
Many, disappointed that there had so far been no sign of the bear, wandered over the ice singly and in pairs, their course now determined by whatever caught their attention.
Philip Reddington suggested that they might already have passed the animal and that it might now be lying up behind them. Those who agreed with him turned to look in the direction they had come, but there was nothing to see, not even the distant ships, hidden behind the ridges they had climbed.
It was after they had eaten and as they prepared to resume the hunt that one of the marines called down to them from the low peak upon which he and the others had been resting. The bear had been sighted to the north, he shouted, but instead of moving away from them it was now crossing their path directly ahead of them.
Running round a large ridge of jagged ice, they finally saw the animal. It too was running, at some speed, but not away from them; instead it appeared to be making for an area of broken ground away to their left in which to seek refuge.
At the first sight of the bear, the staggered line of them broke up and everyone raced toward it in a noisy group.
As they ran, Reid grabbed Fitzjames’ arm and shouted, “It’s not the same animal.”
“Does it matter?” Fitzjames said, catching his breath.
“This one’s a female. She’s carrying some winter fat, but she’s still much smaller.”
Fitzjames resumed running, and Reid joined him.
Ahead of them, the first shots were fired. The leaders of the group were now less than a hundred yards from the bear. Others were running along the same path as the creature. Further shots were fired and several of the chasing men stopped to reload. A louder explosion indicated that one of the blunderbusses had been fired.
Pausing again to see if any of these shots had had any effect on the bear, Fitzjames watched as the animal continued running ahead of them, apparently unhurt.
A further volley rang out, this time from the marines, who had formed themselves into a firing box. The bear responded by pulling sharply to the left, stumbling for several paces, and then running on at the same rapid pace as before.
By now the men running along parallel courses to the animal had climbed among the first ridges of the crumpled ice, and as it approached them they fired down on it from above.
The bear stumbled again, but again it didn’t fall. Instead it turned and ran for a short distance in another direction, then turned again and ran directly toward the main body of men now closing on it.
Still at a distance from all this, Fitzjames called for them to clear away from its path, but was uncertain if he could be heard amid the confusion. He stopped beside a slab of upright ice, upon which Goodsir had positioned himself. Gore knelt beside him, his pistol held at arm’s length. A dozen others gathered around them, concerned by this turn of events and by their sudden proximity to the bear.
The wounded animal continued toward them. The men it passed gathered behind and came after it. The air was filled with the smell of gunsmoke and with the cries and cheers of the men close enough to see that the hunt was about to draw to a successful conclusion. Some paused to look down at the splashes of blood on the ice.
A second blunderbuss was fired, and those still gathered beside the slab of ice saw Robert Sargent raise his weapon in the air and wave with his free arm. Twenty feet ahead of him the bear had finally fallen, its front legs buckling beneath it as it tried to continue running, its hind legs kicking uselessly behind it. Men gathered around it and discharged their weapons into its white flanks. The air above the body grew dense with smoke.
Graham Gore shouldered his pistol and then returned it to the holster strapped across his chest.
Fitzjames ran forward and called for the hunters to stop firing. Men were already dancing around the corpse, and at
his arrival they cleared a path for him and each man made claims for his own part in the killing.
The bear was dead, and despite the number of wounds it had received, there was surprisingly little blood on its coat, only a long dark smear on the ice where it had finally gone down.
He was joined by Reid, Goodsir and Gore.
Gore took out his pistol, held it to the dead creature’s skull and fired into it. He did this dispassionately, making the act appear almost a gesture of apology. At the recoil of the shot he stepped back, a look of surprise on his face, as though he were shocked by what he had done.
Around him the hunters fell silent. There was no wind and the gunsmoke hung in a pall above them.
They were all distracted from the corpse a moment later by the appearance of the party from the Terror, the leaders of which ran out from behind the mounded ice in which the bear had sought shelter. They ran to where the men from the Erebus were gathered. Two of them pulled something on ropes, which Fitzjames at first assumed to be the body of a seal they had shot. When the men came closer, however, he saw that what they were dragging was the small and bloody corpse of a cub, their ropes fastened to its hind paws.
“That’s where she was headed,” Reid said to him.
Solomon Tozer pushed through the men around the body of the larger bear, and without warning, he too discharged his rifle into it, followed by the marines who accompanied him. Satisfied, they stepped back from the corpse and began to argue with the marines from the Erebus about which party had been the first to kill their own bear.
Reid went alone to inspect the body of the cub, and saw that it had been shot just as many times as its mother. He untied the ropes from its paws, and picking it up he carried it to the adult bear and threw it down beside her.
Philip Reddington approached Fitzjames and asked for permission to take one of the larger bear’s paws as a trophy. A few minutes later both it and the cub had been virtually dismembered in the quest for souvenirs. One man took the eyes and others the tongues. Yet another smashed loose several teeth and immediately offered them for sale as mementoes of the hunt.