Seventy degrees five minutes north latitude, ninety-eight degrees twenty-three minutes west longitude October 1847 Captain Crozier boarded the deck to find ghosts from the sky attacking his ship.Dozens of faintly flashing beams of light pierced towards him above the Terror, but then retracted quickly, as if a vicious ghost was stretching out its gorgeous arms and preparing to attack, but in the end it couldn't make up its mind, and the skeleton was clearly visible. Fingers reached for the Terror, opened, ready to snap, then retracted. The temperature outside was minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit and dropping rapidly.A little earlier, when there was only an hour of faint morning light in the day, there was a heavy fog in the sky.In order to reduce the risk of people on board being hit by falling ice and the ship capsizing due to heavy ice covering, the three middle masts and the upper top mast, upper rigging, and tallest mast have all been removed and put away.Now that the fog had cleared, the masts that were much shorter looked like roughly pruned branches, leafless and snow-covered, reflecting the Northern Lights dancing from one end of the dim horizon to the other.

Crozier stared at the scene in front of him. The jagged ice sheets around the ship turned blue at first, then released bloody purple red, and finally glowed emerald green, the color very much like the hills of Northern Ireland in his childhood.About a mile from the starboard bow, the gigantic iceberg that shaded the sister ship Erebus also appeared for a moment in a phantom light, as if glowing from the icy fire within the iceberg. Pulling up his collar and raising his head, this is a habit he has developed during forty years of checking masts and rigging. Crozier noticed that the starlight above his head was cold and steady, but the starlight near the horizon was not only swaying, but also moving. Move while watching them, sometimes bouncing left and right, sometimes jerking up and down.

It's not the first time Crozier has seen this scene. He and Ross went to Antarctica last time, and he experienced it during his previous expeditions in Arctic waters.A scientist on that trip to the South Pole (who spent his first winter in the ice and snow doing only one thing: grinding and polishing his telescope lenses) once told Crozier that it might be because There is a thick but unstable layer of cold air, caused by covering the frozen sea and invisible frozen landmass.Starlight turbulence occurs when light refracts rapidly through it.The frozen land mass in his mouth refers to the new continent that humans have not seen with their own eyes.Or, Crozier thought, a new land within the Arctic Circle that no white man had ever seen.

Crozier and his friend, James Ross, then the commander-in-chief of the expedition, discovered a continent that no one knew before—Antarctica.That was only nearly five years ago.They named the seas, fjords, and lands after Ross, the mountains after their patrons and friends, and their two ships (these two ships) for two towers that can be seen from the horizon. The volcanoes he saw were named, and the two smoking mountains were called Nether and Terror.Crozier was surprised they didn't name the important terrain after the cat on the boat. Nor was it named after him.On a dark winter evening in October 1847, there wasn't a single Arctic or Antarctic landmass, island, fjord, fjord, mountain, ice shelf, volcano, or any fucking iceberg called: Francis Roden Moiro Croze.

Crozier didn't let the swear words slip out of his mouth, even though he was about to.He knew he was a little drunk.Well, he thought, trying to balance himself on this icy deck with a twelve-degree heel to starboard and an eight-degree droop, I've been getting drunk a lot these three years, haven't I?Haven't been sober since Sophie... But compared to that poor, unfortunate, useless useless sober Franklin, I'm a much better sailor and captain even when I'm drunk.Even Fitzgerald, his rosy-cheeked, slurring pet poodle, was no match for me. Crozier shook his head, and walked towards the bow of the ship on the icy deck, towards the only guard visible under the flickering aurora.

The guard was a short, mouse-like guard named Cornelius Higgy, the second caulker.Everyone who serves as a guard here looks the same in the dark because they have been issued the same type of warm clothing: a heavy, waterproof overcoat over layers of flannel and wool, with fat cuffs sticking out. Two bulbous mittens, a heavy chimney hat with earflaps, a Wells wig tightly wrapped around the head, and usually a long warm wrap around the entire head, leaving only the frozen tip of the nose exposed. Breathe outside.However, there are still some differences in how each person takes care of or puts on warm clothes: some people wear an extra warm towel brought from their hometown, some just put on an extra Welsh wig, and some let their mother, wife or lover Hand-knitted colorful gloves peeked out from under the Royal Navy's official gloves.Therefore, even though they were surrounded by darkness outside and were still some distance away from Crozier, Crozier was still able to identify the fifty-nine remaining officers and crew members on board.

Hickey was now looking out over the ice-clad bowsprit.Pushed by the ice, HMS Terror was now stern up and bow down, with the top ten feet of the bowsprit buried in the sea, forming a ridge of ice.The mate caulker was so lost in his own thoughts or the cold that he didn't notice the captain walking towards him.Crozier stopped near the railing beside Hickey.The guardrail is like an altar made of ice and snow, and the guard's shotgun is leaning against the altar.In the freezing cold outside, no one wants to touch metal objects, even with mittens on. As Crozier leaned closer to Hedge, who was near the fence, Hedge moved.The captain of the Terror could not see the face of the twenty-six-year-old boy, but saw that his exhaled breath immediately turned into a cloud of ice crystals that could reflect the northern lights. Floating out of the head.

In the icy and snowy winter, soldiers do not need to salute, and even the finger touching forehead salute commonly used in navigation can be omitted.But Higgy, who was wrapped in heavy clothes, did the weird little shuffling-shrug-nodding that the deck crew did in gratitude for the captain's visit. Because the weather is so cold, the guard duty has been reduced from four hours to two hours. ), and it can be seen from Hickey's slow motion that he is almost frozen.Although Crozier told them many times that they need to move their muscles and bones on the deck from time to time, walk around or run in place, and jump up and down if necessary, as long as they pay attention to the situation on the ice at all times, they would rather not move like a mountain. As if wearing an undershirt on the surface of the South China Sea, concentrating on observing when the mermaid will appear.

"captain." "Hickey. What's the matter?" "It's all right, after they fired... just that shot... almost two hours ago, sir. Just now I heard, I should have heard... maybe a scream, something, Captain... from there Behind the iceberg. I reported it to Lieutenant Irwin, but he said it was probably just the ice." Crozier was informed of the gunshots coming from the direction of Nether.He was on deck quickly, but there was no further shot, and he did not send anyone to the other ship to report or to investigate on the ice.Going into the frozen sea in the dark is dangerous in itself, not to mention that in a wild ice field full of steep ice ridges and tall and fickle snow ridges, and there is that... thing... waiting, sending people out is tantamount to asking them to go out. to die.Now the only time the two ships can communicate with each other is the twilight time that is getting shorter every day near noon.In a few days' time there would be no more true daylight, only eternal night at the North Pole.Twenty-four hours of night.One hundred days and nights.

"Maybe it's ice," Crozier said, wondering why Irwin hadn't reported the suspected scream to him. "There is also a gunshot, that is also caused by ice." "Yes, Captain. It's ice, sir." Neither of them believed it.The sound of a musket or shotgun is so distinctive that it is unmistakable even from a mile away, and so close to the North Pole it is remarkably distant and clear.Still, the pack ice did press the Terror more tightly than before, and was now and then rumbling, groaning, cracking, snapping, roaring, or screaming. It was the screaming that bothered Crozier the most, and his sleep, which only lasted about an hour a night, was often interrupted.The sound was very similar to his mother's howls in the last few days... and also like the wailing of the witches in the stories told by his old aunt when they predicted the approaching death of their family members at night.Both sounds made him toss and turn when he was young.

Crozier turned slowly.His eyelashes had become ice-framed, and his breath and snot had crusted over his upper lip.Men on board have learned to tuck their beards as deep as possible into warm towels and sweaters, and even then they are often forced to cut off the hair that freezes with their clothing.Like most officers, Crozier shaves every day. In order to save fuel, the "hot water" sent by the attendants is usually just barely melted ice, which makes shaving a chore. "Is Lady Silence still on deck?" Crozier asked. "Oh yes, Captain, she's been there almost all the time." Hickey's voice was much softer, as if worried about being too loud.Even if "Silent" heard their conversation, it was impossible to understand their language.But the men on board believed--and they became more convinced as the days passed that the thing in the ice field lurked near them--that this young Eskimo woman was a witch with mystical powers. "She's at the port post with Lieutenant Irwin," Hickey added. "Lieutenant Irwin? Didn't he leave his post an hour ago?" "Yes, sir. But wherever the Silent Lady is these days, the Lieutenant is here, sir, and I hope you won't blame me for saying it. She doesn't go down to the cabin, and he doesn't go down unless he has to, I mean. ...None of us can stay outside for as long as that witch... woman." "Keep your eyes on the ice and focus on your work, Higgy." Crozier's hoarse voice made the caulker move again, but this time the shrug was more perfunctory.Then he turned his head away, his white nose again facing the darkness beyond the bow. Crozier strode towards the watch post on the port side.For three weeks in August they were excited about their chance of escape.But last month he asked everyone to prepare for the ship to spend the winter here.Crozier ordered the lower masts to be turned again so that they formed a main beam along the axis of the ship, and then they set up pyramid-shaped tents, covered most of the main deck, and re-dismantled it in the air in August. And put away the wooden rafters and put them back.Even if everyone spent hours every day shoveling a few channels about a foot thick in the snow left on the deck as a cold layer, deicing with picks, ice picks, etc. Snow foam in the tent, and finally put in strips of sand to increase the friction of the walkway, and a large piece of ice still formed on the surface of the deck.On the sloping decks, front to back, side to side, Crozier moves more like a graceful skate than a stride. The guard on the port side during this period is trainee Tommy Evans (Note: The English name THOMAS has two abbreviations, TOMMY and TOM, Thomas Evans, Tommy Evans and Tom Evans both refer to the same person).He was the youngest on board, and Crozier would always recognize him with a grotesque green knit cap his mother had woven so tight that it draped over his bulky Welsh wig.He left the post and moved about ten steps towards the stern, wanting to give Third Lieutenant Irwin and Ms. Silence a little privacy. Crozier wants to kick people, everybody's ass. The Eskimo woman looks like a short, round bear in a fluffy fur coat, hoodie, and trousers.Her half turned her back to the tall lieutenant, and Irwin clung to her along the railing without touching her, but compared to the distance that officers and gentlemen keep from ladies at open-air parties or on yachts, the two of them The distance is much closer. "Lieutenant Irwin." Crozier didn't intend to add a strong rebuke to the greeting, but the young man's intuitive reaction still made Crozier a little proud.Irwin was so frightened that he was stabbed by a sharp knife and almost lost his balance.He grabbed the frozen parapet with his left hand, and—though he insisted on raising his right hand, knowing the protocol for saluting when the ship was stuck in ice—he gave the official military salute. This salute is ridiculous, Crozier thought.In his fat mittens, Welsh wig and layers of warm clothing, young Irving looked like a saluting walrus, plus the kid didn't cover his clean-shaven face with a warm towel - perhaps to show Lady Silence how handsome he was - so two long rappels dangled from his nostrils to make him look more like a walrus. "Don't be too polite," Crozier said half reprimanded.You idiot, he added in his mind. Irwin stood stiffly, watching Silence, or at least the back of her furry hoodie, and opened his mouth to speak.However, he obviously didn't know what to say, so he shut up again.His tongue was as pale as his frozen skin. "This is not your turn, Lieutenant," Crozier said.Again he heard his own authority in his voice. "Yes, yes, sir. I mean: No, sir. I mean: You're right, Captain, sir. I mean..." Irwin closed his mouth again, but the teeth were still there Constantly fighting.In this freezing weather, the tooth can chip away after two or three hours, literally bursting open, scattering bone and enamel fragments into the cavities created by the jaws' tight fit.In Crozier's experience, you can sometimes hear the cracking of the enamel before the tooth cracks. "Why are you still here, John?" Irving tried to blink, but his eyelids were frozen open. "You ordered me to keep watch over our guests...to watch out...to attend to silence, Captain." Crozier's sigh turned into ice crystals, stayed in the air for a second, and then fell to the deck, like many small diamonds falling on the ground. "I don't mean every minute, Lieutenant. I want you to keep an eye on her, report to me what she's done, keep her safe from misfortune and harm on board, and let no one on board do... to take advantage of her. Do you think she's in danger of being taken advantage of out on deck, Lieutenant?" "No, Captain." Irwin's words didn't sound like an answer, but a question. "Do you know how long it takes for a piece of meat to freeze if it's just left out, Lieutenant?" "Don't know, sir. I mean, know, sir. Very soon, sir, I think." "Then you should know, Lieutenant Irving, that you've been frostbitten six times, and it's not really winter yet." Lieutenant Irving nodded sadly. "In less than a minute, an unprotected finger or thumb or any part of the torso is frozen into a popsicle," Crozier continued, knowing he was lying.It would take longer for the meat to freeze at minus fifty degrees, but he hoped Irwin didn't know. "After that, the exposed parts of the ice break off like glaciers and fall off," Crozier added. "Yes, Captain." "Then you really think it's possible that our guest could...be taken advantage of...on deck, Irving?" Irving seemed to be thinking before answering.Crozier understood that the third lieutenant spent a lot of time thinking about its possibilities. "Go down there, John," said Crozier. "Please Dr. MacDonald look at your face and fingers. I swear to God, if you suffer from severe frostbite again, I will deduct a month's salary from the Royal Expedition and write to your mother." "Yes, Captain. Thank you, sir." Irwin saluted again, knowing that he was wise.He ducked into the tent and walked toward the main stairway, one hand still half-raised in the air.He didn't look back for silence. Crozier sighed again.He likes John Irving.The boy volunteered for the expedition, and with him were two other companions from HMS Merit, 2nd Lieutenant Hudgson and Chief Mate Hornby.But the Excellence was a lousy three-decked ship, an old one before Noah got busy building his ark.That ship is now without any masts and is permanently moored at Portsmouth as a training ship for the Royal Navy to train rookie gunners.Crozier knew it had been sitting there for over fifteen years. Unfortunately, gentlemen, on their first day aboard, Crozier (who was more drunk than usual that day) told the boys: Look around and you'll notice that although both the Terror and the Erebus are Designed as a gunboat, gentlemen, but the two ships together don't have a single gun.Young volunteers from the Good, we're as unarmed as newborn babies, unless you count the shotguns in the food bank and the Marine Corps muskets as artillery!Just like that bitch Adam was born naked, unarmed!In other words, gentlemen, you gunners are as useless to this expedition as teats are to boars, at all. Crozier's sarcasm that day did not dampen the enthusiasm of these young artillery officers, and Irwin and his two companions were even more eager to think of freezing in the snow and ice for a few winters.It was, of course, a warm May day in England in 1845. "Now this poor kid fell in love with the Eskimo Witch." Crozier muttered. Silent turned towards him slowly, as if he understood. Usually her face was either hidden in the deep groove of the hoodie, or covered by the wide wolf fur trim of the hoodie, but tonight, Crozier saw her small nose, big eyes, and her entire mouth. .The pulsation of the Northern Lights flickered in her dark eyes. To Captain Crozier, she was not charming.She had too many savage features to be considered fully human, let alone her body would have any fatal appeal - even if he was a Presbyterian Irishman.Besides, his heart and his lower body still had vivid memories of Sophie Creek.But Crozier can see why Irving, far away from home, family, and his sweetheart, fell in love with this uncivilized woman: her own strangeness alone, perhaps coupled with the desolation of her appearance and the tragic death of her male companion The sight, mingled eerily with the monster's first attack in the darkness outside, was already like a flame beckoning hopeless young romantics—Third Lieutenant John Irving was like a Moths with fluttering wings rushed forward. Also, as early as 1840, during his expedition on the Van Diemen Landmass, Crozier realized—and confirmed it for the last time in England, a few months before sailing—that he was too old to talk about In love!And he was too Irish, too ordinary. Now he just hoped that the young woman would go out into the ice field and never come back. Crozier remembered the afternoon four months ago when the Eskimo man she was with choked to death on his own blood.After Dr. McDonald examined her, he reported to Franklin and him.McDonald said that according to his medical judgment, the Eskimo girl was about 15 to 20 years old. It is really difficult to judge the age of the aborigines. Menarche has already come, but judging from various signs, she is still virgin.Dr. Macdonald also said the girl never spoke or made a sound, even as she lay dying after witnessing her father or husband being shot, because she had no tongue at all.According to Dr. Macdonald, her tongue was not cut out, but was bitten off from the base of the tongue, either by herself or by someone or something. Crozier was quite surprised.Not primarily because of learning that she had no tongue, but because of hearing that the Eskimo girl was a virgin.He'd been around the Arctic Circle long enough, especially on the Perry Islands expedition, where they had wintered near an Eskimo village.He was well aware that the Aboriginal people here took sex very lightly, and that men would often trade their wives or daughters for trifles with whalers or explorers of the Royal Expedition.Crozier knew that these women would also come to their door for fun.They could giggle or chat with other women or children while the crew members were tense, panting, and whimpering between women's legs.No different from animals.In the eyes of Francis Crozier, the fur or furry fur clothing they wore could be regarded as their own bestial skin. The captain raised his gloved hand to the brim of his hat.His hat was wrapped tightly by two thick warm towels, which made it impossible for him to take it off or lift it slightly at this time. "Greetings, ma'am, and I advise you to get back to your cabin as soon as possible. It's getting chilly outside." Silence stared at him without blinking, and for some reason, her long eyelashes were completely free of ice.Of course, she didn't speak, just looked at him. Crozier raised his hat symbolically, and continued to cruise the deck.He climbed up to the ice-raised stern and made his way down the starboard side, pausing to talk to the other two on duty.This gave Irwin enough time to go down to the cabin and take off his winter coat without it giving the impression that the captain liked to stick close behind his lieutenant. When he was about to end his conversation with the last guard who was shivering with cold, First Class Sailor Shanks, Private Weggis, the youngest marine soldier on board, rushed out of the tent.Weggis had only two loose garments on over his uniform, and his teeth were already chattering before he could say his message. "Mr. Thompson pays his respects to the captain, sir, and the engineer said the captain should go down to the hold, the sooner the better." "Why?" If the boiler finally fails, Crozier knew, they're all screwed. "Captain, I'm sorry, sir. But Mr. Thompson says the captain must go down because Sailor Monson is nearly in disobedience, sir." Crozier stood up straight. "Disobedience?" "Mr. Thompson meant 'near disobedience,' sir." "Speak clearly, Private Weggis." "Munson won't carry another bale of coal past the dead man's house, sir. He won't go down the hold either. He says he's graciously refusing, sir. Instead, he sits on the bottom of the main stairway, I don’t want to carry coal back to the boiler room.” "What nonsense are you talking about?" Crozier felt a familiar dark Irish temper ready to explode. "The ghosts are at work, Captain," Private Weggis said through chattering teeth. "We can hear them when we're moving coal or getting things from the further storage rooms. So no one wants to go down below the hold now, unless ordered by the officer, sir. There's something in the hold, hiding in the dark ...inside the boat, there's something that's been scratching and banging, sir. It's not ice. Mensen's pretty sure it's his old buddy Walker, he...it...and the rest of the dead in the dead man's chamber , scratching here and there with your fingers trying to get out." Crozier resisted the urge to appease the private Marine with some facts.Young Weggis was not necessarily relieved by his words. The first simple fact is that the scratching and rummaging in the dead man's room is almost certainly the result of hundreds of large black rats gnawing on the frozen corpses of Weggis's companions.Crozier knew better than the young sailor that Norwegian rats were nocturnal, active from day to night during the long arctic winter, and their teeth were always growing.This means that these accursed vermin or vermin have been chewing things.He'd seen them bite through Royal Navy oak barrels, inch-thick tin sheets, and even lead-plated boards.Rats down there dealt with the frozen corpses of Sailor Walker and his five poor tablemates (including Crozier's three fine officers) more easily than the average person could munch on a slice of salt-cured beef on ice. In fact, Crozier didn't think what Mensen and the others heard was just rats. According to Crozier's tragic experience of thirteen winters in the snow, rats can usually eat your friends quietly and efficiently, only when the bloodthirsty, voracious beasts turn to kill each other , will occasionally scream. It was something else that made the sound of scratching and bumping monsters in the bilge. Crozier decided not to remind Private Wiggis of the second simple fact: that while the lowest cabin temperature is usually cold, it is safer because it is below the water line, or the line where the sea freezes in winter.Due to the pressure of the ice, however, the Terror's stern was now pushed a dozen feet higher than normal.Although this part of the ship's hull was still sealed in ice, what sealed it was nothing more than hundreds of tons of sea ice piles piled up unevenly, as well as a few tons of snow piled in by the crew to increase the cold insulation effect of the ship's hull.The snow was piled up just a few feet from the boat rail. Crozier suspected that something had dug down through tons of snow and tunneled through the iron-hard ice to the outside of the ship, somehow sensing where the inside of the ship was. Attach iron plates (such as water storage tanks), and then choose one of the hollow outer storage rooms - the dead man's room - to directly enter the ship, and it is currently beating and scratching, trying to enter the ship Come. Crozier knew that there was only one thing in the world with such great strength, such tenacious persistence, and such evil intelligence-the monster on the ice field, which was trying to attack them from below the ship. Captain Crozier didn't say anything more to Marine Corps Private Weggis, and went down to the cabin to solve the problem.