Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Crozier

Seventy degrees five minutes north latitude, ninety-eight degrees twenty-three minutes west longitude November 9, 1847 Crozier dreamed of a picnic by the platypus pool, with Sophie stroking his body in the water, and then he heard a gunshot and woke up. He sat up on the sleeper, not knowing what time it was, nor whether it was day or night, although there was no difference between day and night, because the sun began to disappear from today, and it would not appear again until February.However, before he lit the small lantern in the cabin to look at his watch, he knew it was late.The ship was strangely quiet; very quiet save for the creaking of crushed wood and metal frozen in ice; very quiet except for the snores, farts, grunts of the sleeping crew, and the cursing of Mr. Digger, the cook. It was very quiet except for the almost continuous groaning, crashing, breaking, and churning of the ice sheet outside the ship; in addition to the few sounds that violated the silence tonight, there was also the banshee-like scream from the strong wind.

It wasn't ice or wind that woke Crozier.It was gunshots, shotguns.The sound was muffled through layers of oak planks and covered in ice and snow, but it was 100 percent shotgun. Crozier slept with most of his clothes on, and now he has all the other layers on, save for his winter coat.The squire, Thomas Joppason, was knocking at the door with his characteristic soft triplet.The captain opened the door. "There's something on deck, sir." Crozier nodded. "Who's on guard tonight, Thomas?" His pocket watch told him it was almost three o'clock in the morning civilian time.The monthly and daily rosters he had in mind reminded him of names the moment Joe Parsons said them aloud.

"Billy Strong and Private Heller, sir." Crozier nodded again.He took the pistol from the closet, checked the powder, tucked it in his belt, and then, pushing past the valet, emerged from the captain's cabin on the starboard side, passed through the adjoining wardroom, and passed quickly through the Go through another door and go forward to the main stairway.At this hour of the morning the main cabin was mostly in darkness, except for Mr. Digger's stove.But when Crozier paused at the bottom of the main stairway, unhooked his heavy winter coat and was struggling to put it on, the lights in several of the officers', adjutants' and staff cabins also began to come on.

Some doors were opened.Mate Hornby stepped back to the ladder and stood beside Crozier.First Lieutenant Liddell hurried forward from the hatch, carrying three muskets and a saber.Following him were Lieutenants Hudgson and Irving, also armed. Ahead of the ladder, the sailors were still whining in their hammocks, but a second officer had already shooed some out - rolled the sleepers out of the hammocks, and pushed them back to get their winter coats and weapons . "Anyone out on deck to see what that gunshot was about?" Crozier asked his mate. "Mr. Mel is in charge, sir," Hornby said. "After he sent your squire to look for you, he went on deck."

Reuben Meyer was the forecastle squad leader, a steady man.As for the sailor Billy Strong who served as the guard on the port side, Crozier knew that he had sailed with the Royal Navy's Brad, and he would not shoot at the ghost shadow.The other guard on duty, William Heller, was the oldest of the current Marines and, by Crozier's reckoning, the dumbest.He is thirty-five years old, but he is still a private soldier, often sick, often drunk, and often looks useless.He had almost met the same fate when his best friend Billy Aitken had been fired from Disko Island and flown home on the HMS Tragger two years earlier.

Crozier stuffed the pistol into the large pocket of his heavy fur coat, took a lantern from Joe Parsons, wrapped a thermal towel around his face, and led the way up the sloping ladder. Outside the boat was as dark as the inside of an eel, with no starlight, no northern lights, no moonlight, and it was cold.When Lieutenant Irving had been sent up six hours earlier to take the temperature, the deck had been minus sixty-three degrees, and now the wind howled over the stumped mast and swept across the icy sloping deck, bringing a mass of Snow.Crozier stepped out of the frozen canvas tent that covered the main stairway hatch, covering his face with his mittened hands to protect his eyes.He saw the glimmer of a lantern on the starboard side.

Reuben Meyer was kneeling on one foot, taking care of Second Soldier Heller lying on his back.Both Heller's hat and Wells' wig fell off.Crozier also saw that half of his head was missing.There didn't appear to be any blood on his head, but Crozier could see the marine's brain gleaming in the lantern light, and the pulpy gray thing had been covered with a lustrous layer of ice crystals. "He's alive, captain," said the foreman. "Fucking Jesus Christ," said someone from the crew huddled behind Crozier. "Come on!" cried the first mate. "Don't be so goddamn blasphemous. Nobody's asking you, so don't you fucking talk, Quesby." Hornby's voice was somewhere between a mastiff's growl and a bull's-eye. between breaths.

"Mr. Hornby," said Crozier, "send Sailor Quisby down as fast as he can, and get Secondary Heller down in his own hammock." "Yes, sir." Hornby and the sailor answered simultaneously.The thumping of running boots on the deck was soon drowned out by the screaming wind. Crozier stood, dangling the lantern in a circle. The second soldier, Heller, stood guard under the frozen Tisso, and the thick guardrail beside it had been smashed.Beyond the gap, Crozier knew, snow and ice piled up like a sled's slide, descending thirty feet or more.It's just that most of the slopes can't be seen in the black lacquer of snow.There were no discernible footprints in the little circle of snow that Crozier had illuminated with his lantern.

Reuben Meyer raises Heller's musket. "Shot fired, Captain." "The wind and snow are so heavy, Second Soldier Heller may have only seen that thing when it launched an attack." Lieutenant Liduo said. "Where's Strong?" Crozier asked. Mel pointed to the other side of the boat. "It's gone, Captain." Crozier said to Hornby, "Get someone to stay and watch Private Heller, and when Quisby comes in with his hammock, get him off." Two ship doctors—Petty and his assistant McDonald suddenly appeared in the circle of lights. McDonald was only wearing a few thin clothes.

"For God's sake," said the chief ship's doctor, kneeling beside the marine, "he's still breathing." "Take care of him as best you can, John," Crozier said, pointing at Mel and the sailors huddled beside him. "Come with me, the rest of you. Get your weapons ready to fire, even if you have to take off your mittens. Wilson, get both lanterns. Lieutenant Liddell, please." Go down below and pick twenty more men, put them in full winter clothing, and give them muskets. Not shotguns, but muskets." "Yes, sir." Liddell answered loudly in the wind, but Crozier had already led the group forward, around the snow and tents, and up the sloping deck toward the port post.

William Strong was gone.His long woolen warm towel was torn, and the pieces hung from the cable and fluttered violently.The guards here often like to huddle on the leeward side of the port toilet to avoid the strong wind, and Strong's overcoat, Welles wig, shotgun, and a glove are dropped near the railing behind the toilet.But there was no sign of William Strong here.There are some red stains on the ice of the guardrail, he must be standing here, and then suddenly saw a huge figure emerging from the howling snow and attacking. Crozier didn't say a word, and asked two sailors with weapons to continue to walk to the rear of the ship with lanterns. Three went to the bow, and the other took a lantern to look under the tent in the middle of the ship. "Bring the ladder here, Bob," he said to the second mate.On the second officer's shoulders was a ball of fresh (that is, not frozen) rope that he had just brought up from below.The rope ladder was soon hung over the side of the boat. Crozier led the way down the rope ladder. The hull on the port side was out of the ice, and there was more blood on the ice and snow that had accumulated along the hull.A line of bloodstains that looked black under the light of the lantern extended outward from the position of the gun muzzle and entered the labyrinth of the ice field, which was composed of ice ridges and ice towers, and the formation was changing at any time.In the dark, all this can only be "feeling" rather than "seeing". "It wants us to follow outside, sir," said Second Lieutenant Hudgison, leaning over Crozier so his voice could be heard over the howling wind. "Of course, that's what it thinks. But we still have to follow. Strong may still be alive. That thing did the same thing." Crozier looked behind him.Apart from Hudgson, only three men followed him down the rope ladder.The others were either searching on the deck, or were busy carrying the Second Private Heller below the deck.Apart from the captain, there was only one other man with a lantern. "Amity," Crozier said to the ammunition man whose white beard was stuffed with snow, "give your lantern to Lieutenant Hudgison and follow him. Gibson, you stay here until Lieutenant Liddell When you come down with the main search party, tell him where we're going. Tell him not to let his men shoot unless they're sure it's not aimed at us." "Yes, sir." Crozier said to Hudgison, "George, you and Amity will go about twenty yards toward the bow, then keep parallel with us and search south together. Let us see your lantern as often as possible." "Yes, yes, sir." "Tom," said Crozier to the last remaining young man, Evans, "you follow me. Get your Baker's rifle ready, but the hammer is half-cocked first." "Yes, sir." The boy's teeth chattered. Crozier waited until Hudgson was twenty yards to their right—the light from his lantern looked very faint in the snowstorm—before he led Evans into the corridors of ice crests, seracs, and ice ridges. In the maze formed, track the intermittent bloodstains on the ice.He knew that a few minutes later, the bloodstains might be covered by snow.The captain did not even bother to take the pistol out of his great coat pocket. Nearly a hundred yards or so from the ship, the lights of the lanterns on the deck of the HMS Terror were no longer visible.Crozier saw an ice ridge—a long strip of ice that had been pushed out of the surface as the slabs rolled and rolled over each other below sea level.By now, Crozier and everyone on the late Sir John Franklin's expedition had spent two winters in the ice, and they'd all seen ridges magically move toward Rising up, and then stretching across the frozen sea, sometimes too fast for people to catch up. This ice ridge is at least thirty feet high, and the vertical pile of boulders is made up of many large ice rocks, each ice rock has at least a hansom double carriage (Note: hansom cab, a kind of driving behind a car) as big as a two-wheeled pony cart). Crozier walked along the ridge, holding the lantern as high as possible.Hudgson's lantern to the west is no longer visible, and the vicinity of the Terror can't be seen clearly either.There are snow peaks, drift ice, ice ridges and seracs blocking the view everywhere.There was a great iceberg within a mile of the Terror and the Erebus, and half a dozen others could be seen on moonlit nights. But tonight I couldn't see the iceberg, only this three-story ice ridge. "There!" Crozier yelled into the wind.Evans leaned in, raising his Baker rifle. There was a black bloodstain on the white ice wall.The thing had taken William Strong up the boulder hill, and had chosen a nearly vertical path upward. Crozier began to climb, lantern in his right hand, groping with his free hand in the mitten, trying to find cracks and openings where he could put his frozen fingers and frozen boots.Joe Parsons had put spikes in the soles of one of his boots for extra grip on ice, but he hadn't taken the time to put them on just now.The ordinary sailor boots he now wears are prone to slipping on the ice, or scraping directly across the ice.But he found more frozen blood twenty-five feet above, just below the turbulent ice at the top of the ridge, so Crozier held the lantern steady with his right hand as he stomped repeatedly with his left foot on a sloping ice slab.This way he climbed over the ridge, although the wool of his great coat kept filing against his back.The captain lost feeling in his nose and his fingers were numb. "Captain," Evans asked from the darkness below, "do you want me to go up too?" Crozier was panting so badly that he couldn't speak for a while.When his breathing was a little easier, he said to the following: "No...you wait below." He now saw Hudgison's lantern appearing in the northwest, more than thirty yards from the ice ridge. He swung his arms to keep his balance in the wind, and leaned his whole body to the right, because the strong wind current straightened his warm towel to the left, almost pushing him straight down at any time.Crozier stretched out his lantern to illuminate the south side of the ice ridge. This side is an almost vertical drop of thirty-five feet.There was no sign of William Strong, no black bloodstains on the ice, no sign of anything living or dead at all.Crozier couldn't imagine anything going down such a steep face of ice. He shook his head and found that the eyelashes were almost frozen on his cheeks. Crozier started to climb down the way he came up, and twice almost fell on the protruding ice spikes.In the end, he slipped and fell directly to the surface of the ice sheet where Evans was located from a height of nearly eight feet. But Evans was gone. The Baker's rifle lay on the snow, the hammer still half-cocked.There were no tracks in the swirling snow, no tracks of people or anything. "Evans!" Captain Crozier's voice had been calling the shots for more than thirty-five years.He could roar in the south-west wind, or be heard by the soldiers as the ship blew white foam through the Strait of Magellan in an ice storm.Now he puts in all the volume he can muster: "Evans!" There was no echo but the howling of the wind. Crozier raised his Baker rifle, checked the charge, and fired a shot into the air.The crackle did not sound very loud even to himself, but he saw Hudgson's lantern turned suddenly toward him, and the three other lanterns from the direction of the Terror became faintly visible. Something roared within twenty feet of him.Of course it could just be the wind finding a new channel through or around the ice crest or serac, but Crozier knew that wasn't the case. He put down the lantern, fumbled in his pocket for the pistol, bit off the mitten with his teeth, leaving only a thin layer of wool between the flesh and the iron trigger, and raised the useless weapon. on the chest. "Come out, you cheap eyes!" Crozier yelled, "Come out, come to me if you can, not a little boy, you son of a fucking syphilitic Highgate whore, only Little fluffy fish eggs that lick people's asses, drink people's piss, and rape rats!" There was no echo but the howling of the wind.