“It’s time for Ferrier and Pilkington to take the watch anyway,” said Lieutenant Gore. “Bobby, fetch the musket from my tent.”

“I’m better with shotgun, sir,” said Ferrier.

“I’m comfortable with the musket, Lieutenant,” said the big Marine.

“Get the musket then, Pilkington. Peppering those things with shotgun pellets is just going to get them angry.”

“Aye, sir.”

Best and Morfin, obviously shaking from their cold two hours on watch rather than from any tension, sleepily pulled off their boots and crawled into their waiting bags. Private Pilkington and Bobby Ferrier forced their swollen feet into boots retrieved from their bags and slouched off to the nearby ice ridges to keep watch.

Shaking worse than ever, his nose and cheeks now joining his fingers and toes in feeling numb, Goodsir curled up deep in his bag and prayed for sleep.

It did not come. A little more than two hours later, Second Mate Des Voeux began ordering everyone up and out of their bags.

“We have a long day ahead of us, boys,” cried the mate in jovial tones.

They were still more than twenty-two miles from the shore of King William Land.

You’re frozen through, Francis,” says Commander Fitzjames. “Come aft to the Common Room for brandy.”

Crozier would prefer whiskey, but brandy will have to serve. He precedes Erebus’s captain down the long, narrow companionway toward what had been Captain Sir John Franklin’s personal cabin and which is now the equivalent of Terror’s Great Room – a library and off-duty gathering place for officers and a meeting room when necessary. Crozier thinks that it says good things about Fitzjames that the commander kept his own tiny cubicle after Sir John’s death, refitting the spacious aft chamber into a common area and sometimes sick bay for surgery.

The companionway is totally dark except for the glow from the Common Room and the deck is canted more steeply in the opposite direction from Terror, listing to port rather than starboard, down by the stern rather than bow. And although the ships are almost identical in design, Crozier always notices other differences as well. HMS Erebus smells different somehow – beyond the identical stench of lamp oil, dirty men, filthy clothes, months of cooking, coal dust, pails of urine, and the men’s breath hanging in the cold, dank air, there is something else. For some reason, Erebus stinks more of fear and hopelessness.

There are two officers smoking their pipes in the Common Room, Lieutenant Le Vesconte and Lieutenant Fairholme, but both stand, nod toward the two captains, and withdraw, pulling the sliding door shut behind them.

Fitzjames unlocks a heavy cabinet and pulls out a bottle of brandy, pouring a large measure into one of Sir John’s crystal water glasses for Crozier, a smaller amount for himself. For all of the fine china and crystal their late expedition leader loaded aboard for his and his officers’ own use, there are no brandy snifters. Franklin was a devout teetotaler.

Crozier does no snifting. He drinks the brandy down in three gulps and allows Fitzjames to replenish it.

“Thank you for responding so quickly,” says Fitzjames. “I expected a message in response, not for you to come in person.”

Crozier frowns. “Message? I haven’t received a message from you in over a week, James.”

Fitzjames stares a moment. “You didn’t receive a message this evening? I sent Private Reed to your ship with one about five hours ago. I presumed he was spending the night there.”

Crozier shakes his head slowly.

“Oh… damn,” says Fitzjames.

Crozier pulls the woolen stocking from his pocket and sets it on the table. In the brighter light from the bulkhead lamp here there are still no signs of violence. “I found it during my walk over. Closer to your ship than mine.”

Fitzjames takes the stocking and studies it sadly. “I’ll ask the men if they recognize it,” he says.

“It could belong to one of mine,” Crozier says softly. He succinctly tells Fitzjames about the attack, the mortal wounding of Private Heather, and the disappearance of William Strong and young Tom Evans.

“Four in one day,” says Fitzjames. He pours more brandy for both of them.

“Yes. What is it you were sending me a message about?”

Fitzjames explains there had been sightings of something large moving through the ice jumbles, just beyond the lanterns’ glow, all that day. The men had fired repeatedly but parties going onto the ice had found no blood nor other sign. “So I apologize, Francis, for that idiot Bobby Johns firing at you a few minutes ago. The men’s nerves are stretched very tightly.”

“Not so tightly that they think that thing on the ice has learned how to shout at them in English, I hope,” Crozier says sardonically. He takes another sip of the brandy.

“No, no. Of course not. It was pure idiocy. Johns will be off his rum ration for two weeks. I apologize again.”

Crozier sighs. “Don’t do that. Rip him a new arsehole if you like, but don’t take his rum away. This ship feels surly enough already. Lady Silence was with me and wearing her God-damned hairy parka. Johns may have got a glimpse of that. It would have served me right if he’d blown my head off.”

“Silence was with you?” Fitzjames allowed his eyebrows to ask the questions.

“I don’t know what in hell she was doing out on the ice,” rasps Crozier. His throat is very sore from the day’s cold and his shouting. “I almost shot her myself a quarter mile from your ship when she crept up on me. Young Irving is probably turning Terror upside down as we speak. I made a huge mistake when I put that boy in charge of looking out for that Esquimaux bitch.”

“The men think she is a Jonah.” Fitzjames’s voice is very, very soft. Sounds travel easily through the partitions in such a crowded lower deck.

“Well why the hell shouldn’t they?” Crozier feels the alcohol now. He hasn’t had a drink since last night. It feels good in his belly and tired brain. “The woman shows up on the day this horror begins with that witch doctor father or husband of hers. Something has chewed her tongue out at the roots. Why the hell shouldn’t the men think she’s the cause of all this trouble?”

“But you’ve kept her aboard Terror for more than five months,” says Fitzjames. There is no reproach in the younger captain’s voice, only curiosity.

Crozier shrugs. “I don’t believe in witches, James. Nor Jonahs much, for that matter. But I do believe that if we put her out on the ice, the thing will be eating her guts the way it’s devouring Evans’s and Strong’s right now. And maybe your Private Reed’s as well. Wasn’t that Billy Reed, the redheaded Marine who always wanted to talk about that writer – Dickens?”

“William Reed, yes,” says Fitzjames. “He was very fast when the men did footraces back on Disko Island two years ago. I thought that perhaps one man, with speed…” He stops and chews his lip. “I should have waited for morning.”

“Why?” says Crozier. “It’s no lighter then. Or not much lighter at noon, for that matter. Day or night doesn’t mean anything anymore, and it won’t for another four months. And it’s not as if that damned thing out there only hunts at night… or even just in the dark, as far as that goes. Maybe your Reed will show up. Our messengers have gotten lost before out there in the ice and come in after five or six hours, shaking and cursing.”

“Perhaps.” Fitzjames’s tone echoes his doubt. “I’ll send out search parties in the morning.”

“That’s just what that thing wants us to do.” Crozier’s voice is very weary.