Lament The Night Read online

  “Has anything...peculiar or out of the norm occurred around your ship, Francis?” Fitzjames asked of him, a still-full glass in the latter’s hand denoted a distant mind.

  “No. Not that I’m aware of. Nothing at all. Why do you ask?”

  Fitzjames cleared his throat as if to speak more, then hesitated with some embarrassment. Overtures had been made on the younger man’s side for a familial society feeling to be between them. Francis had rebuffed that same friendliness viewing it as a weakness for Erebus’s Commander to fraternize from the lowest to those of Captain’s rank. “Nothing.” Fitzjames looked about, glancing to his hand with the air of a man wondering when the glass had appeared.

  “Put it off to polar fatigue.” Fitzjames mumbled, leaning away to socialize with those of cheer, unwilling to say more. How could he define something for which he himself had no name for?

  ***

  Henry ‘Harry’ Goodsir did not want to do this. As an anatomist the duty fell to him, yet his calling lay with plants, the study of specimens and wonderment of the natural world. None were privy to his suspicions - God forbid, Stephen would get wind of them! Stephen Samuel Stanley was a pragmatist of the shortest order and didn’t take kindly to absurd notions in his orderly world.

  I can do this, he fortified his mind, steadying his hand, entering the forepeak of the ship. A square-headed iron nail resided in his pocket wrapped in a grimed bit of sailcloth, pressed on him by a passing seamen. The Baoban Sith detested iron and the scent of horses. There were no horses or stables on or near the desolate spit of land they were anchored in. Harry’s dark eyes flickered to the body lying in state, a pair of seamen - one, recognizable as the brother to the deceased, stood respectfully back. Stephen had rolled up his sleeves exposing strong white forearms and hands more than capable of committing excision.

  He neared the cot; it appeared to his frightened mind, a bier for the dead. The first incision fell to his hand; Stephen flanked the opposite side, his pouty mouth solemn as befitting the nature of the work. Harry cut into the cold flesh with the silver flash of a surgeon’s instrument, a peculiar buzz in his ears. The diagonal Y looked obscene in that emaciated young chest.

  Hartnell couldn’t bear it. Covering his mouth with a shaking hand, he averted his face from the mortal remains of his brother. Harry sympathized with the seaman. Stephen, in a moment of sensibility, softly ordered them out. Returning with respect to the bier, the necropsy remained the duty of Harry’s.

  Why did this young man die? Harry wondered, the cursory bits of necropsy carried out by his careful hands. Heart, lungs trachea. The list was endless. He knew each and every bone, tissue and organ by touch, his sight spared by the wavering play of light, equated the seaman’s body to that of an animal. He was not of a weak constitution yet his mind needed the distance met by flesh and blood to continue the operation.

  “The cause?” Stephen interrupted quietly.

  “Uncertain as of yet.” He replied, lifting up the heart. At first glance the irregular shaped organ appeared clean, perfect, smallish tubular vessels extended outward from where living blood once flowed to and from. Harry had not expected this particular portion of the body to yield answers, nor expect imperfections to mar the organ’s reddish-pink state. A glance in the main valve, was sufficient to confirm this.

  A tray on the side had been prepared to hold rudiments, it was as he passed the seaman’s heart to its temporary resting place that something dribbled onto his hand. Fresh blood without coagulation. Then, his mouth went dry. Stephen looked from his expression to the partially dissected body lying on the makeshift table.

  “What is the matter with you?”

  He attempted to stifle his trembling, telling himself in his mind that it could not be possible. It was of the realm of the impossible - the dead man’s heart did not beat! With jerkier, less controlled movements, Harry left his burden, glancing once more sharply into the face of John Hartnell, the seaman’s face remained composed, betraying little pain in the cast of death. Only the much-wasted body revealed signs of protracted illness.

  The necropsy continued.

  In the ventricles of the lungs, Harry found early signs of Consumption, checking the liver supported this observation. Privately, he withheld relief from his voice, delivering the results to Stephen’s anxiousness. As chief surgeon, Stephen had overseen care to the young man five and twenty years of age. The death of the seaman had been quite a blow only three days after Torrington’s passage on Terror.

  Harry waited until his superior had left to give news on the findings. Unable to keep the tremor from his long, slender fingers, he pinched the nail by the bit of cloth, stabbing the heart twice through the valves. The tissue yielded, unmarred by the cold, blood drained from it, pooling against the shallow lip of the tray. Fighting waves of nausea, Harry quickly carried it to the table, tipping the contents carelessly into Hartnell’s chest cavity. Before Stephen’s steps had even crossed the outer deck, he had hurriedly sutured the original Y incision, barely noticing he had placed the ribs upside down. He prayed no one would question his haste.

  ***

  The viewing took place the following afternoon. Allowed, once the surgical instruments had been cleaned and repacked in leather cases, the younger Hartnell was assisted by a fellow seaman in dressing his brother. Great care was taken to hide the incisions on his chest, a white undershirt layered over by a wool under and a blue and white striped shirt over the other two, donated by Thomas Hartnell. Nothing beneath the waist was spared for the deceased’s entry into the afterlife, though a pale shroud was placed over after the arms had been tied by light brown wool. The final touch was a toque hat atop neatly trimmed dark hair.

  As the Erebus complement of seamen passed by the jury-rigged bier balancing the coffin upright, Commander James Fitzjames stood by to the side, solemn as befitting the occasion yet his mind was elsewhere. Evinced by the lack of attention he bestowed upon Harry Goodsir.

  “Can it not wait?” He quietly asked, dressed in respect to the dead. The surgeon stepped back, appearing put-off, yet said no more. For the second time in three days, a solemn procession was to leave the ships, making the crossing over ice to the hard-packed earth of Beechey Island. During the necropsy, a crew of four strong men had been sent out to excavate the frozen ground in time for burial. Exhausted, wearied, bearing alarming facial patches of frozen flesh, they had staggered onboard from the cloying ice and darkness.

  Withdrawing from his extroverted mien, Fitzjames began to wonder if this was all some dream he would awaken from to find everything familiar, not of the unknown. What precisely of the unknown factored in? The cause of death was familiar to the ear, the signs were there, yet why did something deep down continuously speak of something inherently wrong in the ship, beyond the four walls of oak, lingering in the icy wastes?

  Something in the young surgeon’s expression spoke of the same malignant, lingering fear. Fitzjames wouldn’t heed it, refused to give audience to the quiet whispers in his heart. Walking dismissively away, he went to attend to other matters, feeling the instinctive need to be in constant motion to keep at bay those other disquieting thoughts.

  At six bells during the forenoon watch, the funeral procession began. The same honor accorded Torrington was afforded to Able Seaman Hartnell; Captain Sir John Franklin officiated.

  Beside the first grave marker plain though but for the name and dates of the buried, it bore no other scripture by Captain Crozier’s request. “This saith the Lord of Hosts, consider your ways.” Hartnell’s was painted on the nearly identical headboard. Fitzjames thought it a peculiar sentence to the memory of the seaman, whom no one had ever said a cross word about and had been a genial young man before brief illness took him to the Lord’s bosom.

  Lingering, he was aware again of Harry Goodsir’s approach. Even swathed in bulky winter clothing, Goodsir’s slender form was evident. “Remember,” the surgeon evoked in quiet sepulchral tones. “They must be invi
ted, never summon one for else God help us-!”

  Before Fitzjames could recover from this profoundly strange utterance, the surgeon had turned on heel, huddling shoulders closer as if to ward off a blow, disappearing with the solemn train of lanterns wending their way back to the ships. A low wind flickered the feeble light, above the whistling and grating groan of the ice in the bay, he discerned another sound. Swinging the lantern higher, he glanced around seeing nothing but the two graves and his own shadow cast beside them. Peering closer at the first, Fitzjames’s attention was drawn to the disturbance of the ground before Torrington’s resting place.

  Surely I’m imagining things, he thought to himself, wondering if the gravediggers had done the breaking of the ice scrim or perhaps an animal had been drawn to the solitary knoll? They had seen little byway of animals once winter had set in, so that didn’t seem likely. Then, what? Ever analytical, James’s mind couldn’t make sense of it.

  Again, that sound. Howling. Old Nep raising spirits was the only obvious answer. Brushing aside momentary apprehension, he began the long walk in the broken footsteps of the ship’s company.

  ***

  Less than a fortnight had commenced since the procession on the ice, when an on-duty sentry had hurried down the hatchway, through the narrow companionway to rap urgently on his door. “There’s something hereabouts, sir.” Answered the nervous, sallow-skinned man to query. Skin the color of sour milk to his mind, James felt the man had a terrible fright recently.

  “Explain yourself.”

  “Something moving, creeping like a man, sir.”

  “An animal. You must’ve been mistaken.”

  “I knows what I saw, sir. I seen it with my own two eyes.”

  James knew very well tales such as this could get blown out of proportion due to a sailor’s love of yarns. Swiftly donning the warmest outer clothing he had available with Steward Hoar’s assistance, he motioned impatiently toward the door.

  “Lead on.” Arousing as little attention as possible, save for the guttering of a distant lamp as the hatchway was opened once more, the seamen were snug in their hammocks strewn from the beam ends. Outside, the canvas roof stretched over from the bow to the stern, beneath they were shielded from the wind blowing off the ice. Fitzjames disregarded the brittle snap of the fabric rippling above. “Well?” He tried to keep the impatience from his voice, on this night he had little inclination to be disturbed by the superstitions of seamen.

  “Pay no heed to ‘im, Captain.” A rough male voice interjected, starboard watch came forward. Fitzjames glanced at the man, putting a face to the voice. William Orren, one of the elder seamen. “He’s mad.” Orren spat.

  “That is up to me to condemn.” He quietly corrected, steel in his tone. The effect was immediate. Both fell silent, heading off conflict. To the northern side facing the island, they went. Looking out over the frozen sea, the waning light of a cloudy moon did little to dispel the land of shadows cloaking the landscape.

  Barely anything was visible to the eye. “Nothing is there.” He stated calmly, as one would speak to a child. “Wait a moment, sir.” Affirmed larboard watch. Deciding to humor the man, Fitzjames shifted his weight, the cold sinking through the leather of his boots into the soles of his feet, burning. Casting his eye about the shoreline, he searched for the cause of the seaman’s anxiety, a few moments passed and he was near to conceding an overactive imagination on a lonely night was the cause, when he did see something move. At first, his eye struggled to define it. An animal with a coat of white slinking on all fours down throughout the ice ridges, stealing softly without audible sound. Larger than a wolf, scarcely the length of a bear, it crept about, sometimes disappearing from view then reappearing in an entirely different place.

  “Sir!” The seaman fretted.

  “I see it.” He said softly, though knowing from their distance, it wasn’t possible to be heard. “Simply an animal.” He dismissed, failing to inject amusement in his tone. Whatever it was, was still down there. Still moving with stealth of purpose. His mind rejected the notion that it could be anything above that of a creature of the arctic, that there was something horridly familiar in the suggestion of longish limbs and elongated torso remained a thorn in the craw of his rational thought process.

  He couldn’t look away, his eye was drawn to the horrid, miserable thing though contempt was farthest from his mind, a subtle malaise stole the saliva from his mouth, he felt sweaty, chilled beneath the fur coat and canvas outer suit protecting his naval uniform. The thing crawled away along the stretch of coast, leaving the sights of the ships at anchorage.

  “Give me your lantern.” Fitzjames ordered; wordlessly, the seaman did as asked. The smoldering yellow flame seemed a beacon of shelter against the darkness.

  ‘Thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night...’ he repeated in his mind, turning the words over and over, gleaning little comfort from faith. Alone, he took the first steps down the ladder to the frosted lip of the gangway slanted down to the interlocked floes. The lantern swung with each motion, illuminating glistening patches of diamond-patterned crystals crunching into fine dust beneath his boots. Fitzjames’s lungs burned with exertion though he could hardly be walking faster than a casual stride. Aware he was, deeply of being watched by the two sentries, knowing very well how it would appear to have lost a handle on things. He had not! He was merely taking a look to confirm his suspicions of animal tracks. No more...

  The closer he approached land, his heart raced faster, a childish part of him quailed at shadows, imagining horrors of a forgotten epoch lingering behind a hummock, stretching forth claw-tipped paws - forcibly he silenced his thinking, chiding himself all manner of names for a grown man’s fear. Sufficiently rational again, he searched the desolate outcropping of land, for as brief a time as possible before returning to speak of the animal tracks he had found.

  Doubts assuaged, the men enjoyed light banter over nonsensical fears that should not exist in their age of reason and scientific advancement. Grey-faced, Fitzjames excused himself to the comforts of his room where, after refusing to answer the curious steward’s questions, wished a brighter light to flood the small compartment of the cabin, though there were none that could dispel his soul brimming with horror at what his eyes beheld. No animal had made those tracks, for they could not rise from four to two legs as a human walked.

  ***

  The subsequent afternoon founded a change in observatory work. The Erebus mates returned to the ship in quieter spirits than when they had left. Fitzjames put it down to fatigue and polar cold wearing down a young man’s exuberance. Less surprised was he, when his friend from the Clio days, Henry Le Vesconte asked permission to address a matter of grave importance with him. Fitzjames readily gave acquiescence, choosing to accommodate the Second Lieutenant and the two mates in the long wardroom of the senior officers.

  Le Vesconte, a man of tall stature and coarse features waylaying a genial mien, began in grave tones. “Sir, there are vampires afoot!”

  Des Voeux and Couch, who stood behind, solemnly nodded. Fitzjames was slightly nonplussed, of all the... “come again?” He simply replied, uncertain as to the meaning of the word Henry had spoken.

  “We seen ‘em.”

  “No mistake.”

  “Sir, these books,” Le Vesconte had three volumes worth of pamphlet-type paperbacks in his arms, “are the Holy Grail of vampiric lore.”

  “That is a chapbook, Henry.” Fitzjames said, raising his brow at the title offered for his perusal. “Varney The Vampire? I expected you to have finer tastes in literature than penny rubbish.”

  Des Voeux’s lower lip thrust out in a pout, clearly sharing his superior’s fondness for cheap press. Le Vesconte was more coaxing however, “just take a look. For our friendship.” That struck a low blow, showing an undermining in confidence if he refused. Wishing Le Vesconte hadn’t chosen that route, Fitzjames flipped through the dog-eared pages of the vampire tale, when he
reached the last page within a moment, he was quite sure he had never seen anything worst writ.

  Dismissively, he said to their anxious looks, “lay off the Port, boys, and get a good night’s rest.” For good measure, he added, “that’s an order.”

  ***

  If he had any suspicions his sensible advice wouldn’t be taken, they were well-founded. Two nights later, he came upon the trio about to embark on some nefarious undertaking with shovels, a bottle of frozen water with a cross in the center and pocketfuls of iron nails, past midnight. Third Mate Edward Couch kept watch, hurrying like a naughty schoolboy to Des Voeux and Le Vesconte’s side.

  “We’ve been found out.” He exclaimed, distressed.

  “Quite right you have.” Fitzjames said sternly, the bite of the cold was more pronounced from the elements, below decks, the chill was cut by the sturdiness of Erebus’s wooden body. The woolen cap pulled low over the upper half of his face, did little to shield his skin from the sharp caress of ice crystals. His breath instantly crystallized in exhalation, turning to soft mist before his face. Fitzjames thought it a terrible night to be out, in particular be bothered with the shenanigans of men who should simply know better.

  “Exhumation of honored dead - no, brother seamen, is a crime punishable in our land and a grievous smear upon the deceased. Shame on yourselves.”

  Charles clutched the spade between mitts, looking fit to protest. Le Vesconte was calmer, neither responding nor denying. Couch’s sensitive soul on the other hand, winced, “now, look here, sir, we three have not broken any laws. We only aim to protect-”

  The sound came so swiftly he believed he’d imagined it at first.

  “Shush!” Le Vesconte ordered, motioning they should keep out of sight. Fitzjames felt as though another possessed control over his body. Retreating backward, hummocks of ice taller and wider than he shielded their forms, patchy moonlight shadowed the valley, following the lip curve of Beechey Island. He wondered what they waited for with abated breath, beneath his breast bone, his heart beat strong and swift.