Oranges & Lemons

The end-point of the year and the prospect of a long winter occasions a flurry of activity among the crew — whether from dread of the upcoming dark months or simple enjoyment of their new resting-places, relief from the cramped quarters of Erebus and Terror. Not that their new abode has much more in the way of easy conveniences. Beechey is barren as a stone and its comparable openness makes the winter chill harder to bear than the conditions at sea. Their encampment is not utterly austere — they have a schoolhouse set up for winter lessons as well as a hospital — but hardly luxurious, and it would be difficult to say it has afforded the men many more advantages than shipboard life except an abundance of empty leisure.

The ship’s printing-press has made the journey from Terror down to the camp at Beechey, with only a few bumps and jostles along the way. A number of the men have taken a special ownership of it, and his steward is one such man.

“Would you ever think of composing a piece for the Gazette, sir?” Jopson has taken the adjustment well enough, under the circumstances; he scuffs snow-melt from Crozier’s shoulder with his brush.

“The men are jealous of their pastimes, and I’ve never been much of a writer.”

“I’m sure you’re better than you know, sir.”

He’s too old for masquerades and false pomp now — there’s something different in the air now, a peculiar strangeness that sets this voyage apart from every other one he’s taken since he was a boy. He’s turning into his father, surveying the pastimes of his younger charges with a resentful eye.

“You’re a charitable man at heart, Jopson.” Crozier is no better as a writer than he is as a wooer — he’s never been comfortable with a pen in his hand, except to draft a report. “Wish me luck.”

*

Franklin’s quarters were the first installation to be knocked together by the ship’s carpenters — more timber than canvas, and as solid as the man himself. When more than three men are present, the space begins to feel unsustainably cramped. Six men, sitting around the narrow table to peer at maps and murmur about weather conditions, is almost stifling. Taking tea with Sir John always seems a thing to be endured — the man can hardly be faulted for his habits, but Crozier faults him anyway and wishes there was something stronger at the bottom of his cup. On the Hecla he’d known a man who drank his tea with gin, and the thought of that had always been vaguely nauseating. He’ll settle for enough lump sugar to rattle around at the bottom of his cup. Le Vesconte and Fairholme flank the one side of the table, with Little and Irving on the other, all politely attentive. Even the blessed monkey seems to find these talks of theirs fascinating.

“…as I was just saying to Lieutenant Gore, if the ice keeps up at this rate, we’ll be through by next Christmas. I have plans to purchase a number of goods upon our arrival. Interesting sorts of things. I’ve compiled a list.”

Franklin smiles on them benignly. He plans to take advantage of their arrival in closer proximity to the Orient. Russian furs and fine china for Lady Jane, painted screens, lacquered chests. Sophia would have made quietly displeased noises at the thought of all that — not quite in good taste, not in keeping with her own aesthetic principles. Principles which didn’t have sufficient latitude to admit Crozier, as if he were an offensive scent or a distasteful shade of carpet.

“I should hope so, captain,” Fairholme says.

Franklin has no real sense of the conditions under which they labor — how the current turn of the weather might twist back on them again, how they might be sheltering at Beechey another six months, a year. He sees only his goal in mind, and the open polar sea.

“But I’m repeating myself. Gentlemen, what are your plans upon our arrival in Russia?

The lieutenants are still stammering over their answers when there is an emphatic rapping on the doorframe; the whole edifice shudders. The damned fool must not know his strength, or else not know how obnoxious such officious little habits make him. In the flurry of greetings and commendations that follow, the commander manages to pierce in with microscope-like focus on the man who is least pleased to see him:

“Ah, Francis. Just the man I wanted to see. What’s another word for desolation?”

Fitzjames has a pen tucked behind his ear and if not for the lines in his face he’d look like an overgrown student.

“Ruin,” Crozier says, and clears his throat. “I’d best be going, then.”

“You’re welcome to stay, Francis. We are to discuss the prospects of a seal hunt.”

Seal meat tastes only a hair better than penguin-flesh, and none of the men can shoot worth a damn. Of course Fitzjames would spearhead the effort; of course Fitzjames has arrived to make their tedious little gathering drag out still longer.

“You’re very kind, sir, but I’m afraid I’ve already stayed too long for my duties’ sake. I ought to go see to the distribution of the spoils.” He presses his chair back from the table with a long grating rattle that makes Le Vesconte wince.

“Very well. You’re welcome to dine with us tomorrow evening, Francis; don’t forget.”

Crozier has to suppress a shudder. He’s gotten good at making excuses for himself, with such pressing issues as quarantine to be seen to, but such invitations have grown harder to dodge with each week. In three years’ time, he will be living in Sir John’s pocket on a permanent basis, along with half the wardroom.

*

After the prayers and speeches were out of the way, Crozier had spent Christmas Day proper with a cup of hot wine and the old icemaster for company — not a disagreeable way to pass the time, all things considered, Blanky is a reasonable sort of fellow and as indifferent to the festive spirits of polar exploration as he himself is. It’ll be a long while before they see much of the sun, and that’s nothing to crow about — the mystique has dimmed for Crozier, and he can feel the difference in himself as keenly as a man who has fallen out of love must feel. The ice is only ice — no longer a wonderscape, but only a marble tomb. Its peace is preferable to Antarctic squalls and buffeting humiliations on shore, but it’s hardly healthsome.

Their busy encampment has gone strangely still. The men have had their new slops doled out to them and are pleased as children with their new gear; the Royal Marines have withdrawn to their own makeshift quarters, snobbish as ever. If one were to approach across the deceptively gentle slope of the hillside, the raucous sounds of men entertaining themselves might be heard more clearly, but from a distance, it all muddles together into an unearthly murmur, speech with no words.

The smoke from the makeshift forge is standing up on the horizon like a plume — piercing through the queerly still air, like one of those hateful Congreves that Commander Fitzjames rattles on about from time to time. There are great pools of light spilling out of the men’s barracks, but only a dimmer illumination issuing from the building that serves as both hospital and quarantine. The men who reside there are dying — sooner, rather than later. What sort of a person labors over a dying man’s sickbed on a holiday?

Perhaps Crozier will compose a prose history of the Bounty mutiny. Perhaps some reminiscences of Van Diemen’s Land — the most pungent recollections will never make it into Crozier’s own letters, let alone a newspaper that every cook and caulker’s mate will be reading. Memories of Sophia — Sophy, she had been called there, in the bosom of her family. One of those spheres into which Crozier himself has never fit. In domestic matters he has always been an outsider peeping in, peering through windowpanes and around doors, and the domestic affairs of the camp at Beechey are no different. The surliness that springs up in close quarters, and the practical impediments to a comfortable life, are easier for him to stomach.

What this bloody place needs, Blanky had said with an expansive gesture, is a woman’s touch. Esqui or English, it wouldn’t matter. His own hearth is kept by a rather extraordinary-sounding woman named Esther; he keeps her letters folded in a leather wallet for safekeeping.

Perhaps it is Crozier’s unique burden to feel adrift wherever he is — a burden to his own kin, with few prospects and no charms. Fitzjames may be an officious young fellow, but he’s trim and handsome and accomplished — he has all the charms of speech and manners that Crozier lacks. A man like that might be welcome anywhere, so what in hell is he doing in the Arctic, spoiling it for the rest of them?

*

The rest of the evening is passed through in toil, overseeing other men’s pleasures. Crozier has shut himself up in the long narrow cabin; the damp floorboards are dancing with the queer shadows of oil-lamps stirred by the inescapable drafts. This is a dismal season at the best of times. Somewhere the men are enjoying themselves — dancing, dicing, masquerading in their new togs — but Crozier as captain can have no part in it. They are as distant from him as Blackheath or Banbridge, or the belles of Paris.

The ship’s cat traces figure-eights between his ankles, tail darting, but for all intents and purposes, Crozier is quite alone. Let Franklin play the doting father; Crozier has had his fill of festivities, and will not. All the endless inspections and gestures and auspices and pronouncements — fatherhood is very like it, and as one child in a large family, Crozier has never envied the role much. Not that his boyhood home was an especially festive place in late December, with nearly a dozen brothers and sisters to be accounted for.

Black foreboding has settled on him like a pall. Perhaps the better part of their voyage in terms of tolerable conditions is already behind them. Perhaps these first few sick men are only the bellwether of a greater contagion. Perhaps he’ll be expected to dine with Franklin every single night, and to gaze on his pompous affable face with full and complete knowledge of the man’s true opinion of him with respect to both ancestry and character. Perhaps Crozier will die here, of one of those ugly foolish ailments that kill old men at sea, and be parted from Sophia forever. Perhaps they will all die here, every mother’s son of them, and their mortal remains will never be found. Such apprehensions hang on him here, and the scratch of his pen against paper is not enough to drown them out. Old bitterness and new mingled together.

Thrice he has tried to draft a letter here, and thrice he has stricken it all out. He cannot find the words to articulate his disappointments — not to Ross, not to Miss Cracroft, not to any living soul. This voyage has been a mistake from start to finish.

There is another rattling knock upon the door — or what passes for a knock, it might be the clatter of a boot against the doorframe. Commander Fitzjames presses past the canvas-wrapped door, smoking a snub-stemmed pipe intently. The man’s hair hangs in his eyes; he is utterly absorbed in the task. In fact, Fitzjames looks for all the world like a half-hearted impersonation of Icemaster Blanky in repose, flowing-haired and ruddy-cheeked. Evidently, he has partaken of the sort of festivities that Franklin himself can not entirely condone, judging from the slight unevenness in his step. The best case would seem to be that Fitzjames is looking for a place to quietly pass out. The worst case is that he is here looking for a quiet corner to piss in. There is a faintly troubled look on his face that could easily indicate either.

Crozier clears his throat. Fitzjames notices him at last.

“Ah, Captain Crozier. Would you care to partake?” He offers Francis his pipe, the damned imp.

“I haven’t smoked a pipe since I was a pup,” Crozier says. “The habit did little to improve me.”

“You were a young gentleman at sea, were you not? I must have come after your time. In my day they didn’t let midshipmen so much as glance at a cask of rum. We had to come up with our own vices.”

Fitzjames pauses as if waiting to see how this mild witticism is received. It was shockingly easy to picture Commander Fitzjames as a youth at sea — assuming he had gone to sea for much of his youth at all and that he hadn’t been a late addition to the Royal Navy, tugged along on that trajectory by a well-connected father or a doting uncle. Imagine Fitzjames as a midshipman, tall and lean, wax-faced and sneering with curling papers in his hair and a rotten lisp — a dandy to his messmates and a terror to seamen far older and more knowledgeable than himself. Insufferable, and smoking a pipe.

“I suppose you must have.”

Fitzjames appears to be doing some reckoning of his own, with furrowed brow. “You would have been scarce twenty years old when Napoleon surrendered, I suppose.”

“Nineteen, with front teeth as yellow as an old Bible.”

Fitzjames smiles at him now, indulgently; the expression does his lean features no favors. “You were a boy among men. You had to take up some habit to show your mettle.”

“And so I did. Haven’t you someplace to be tonight? Celebrating?”

“Nowhere in particular, I’m sorry to say. I hope I haven’t disturbed you. You’re not in here doing paperwork, are you? At this hour?”

Crozier turns his cup of punch in his hand and watches the flurry of grated nutmegs settle down at the bottom in a residue. Brandy and lemon juice, with a generous portion of sugar to make the latter taste less faintly medicinal — the copper-lined casks have lent the stuff an odd flavor. There is a long hooked dart of Seville orange peel in his glass, too bothersome to drink around yet scarcely worth his while to remove; he has half a mind to flick it at Fitzjames where he sits. In the summer past, before they’d even set sail, Fitzjames had been only too happy to receive a shipment of tea and sugar intended for Crozier’s own stores — and Crozier had been fool enough to sign off on the bill before discovering the misdirection. Crozier has guarded his personal stores jealously since then.

“I’m to write something for the ships’ newspaper. As a gesture of goodwill.” Crozier straightens his papers and tries to hint with his tone of voice that the ultimate gesture of goodwill might be to be left alone. He had, in fact, begun a number of lines. That much is less humiliating than the truth of a half-dozen false starts.

Fitzjames glances over with interest. “Ah, very good. I wrote a few verses, you know, in my time. I’m writing one as we speak — not as we speak, as such, but I am writing one. That is why I asked—”

His train of thought peters off into vague gesturing.

“Love lyrics, I expect. Ditties.” It is difficult not to needle him in such a state, if only a little.

“I don’t know if I’d call them ditties, though my friends might. To tell the purest truth, I was rather given to narrative poetry.”

Friends in high places, no doubt. There’s something a little undignified-seeming about writing poetry for a purpose, whether to memorialize or seduce — Crozier’s earliest letters to Sophia had something of a utilitarian quality, not out of misguided style but out of embarrassment at the thought of an effusive display of affection. Now they are so restrained as to be nonexistent.

“Ah, yes. Great naval battles, the death of Nelson, that sort of thing.”

“One of my pieces appeared in a periodical—”

“You know, commander, I believe Sir John was asking after you.” This isn’t a lie, strictly speaking, but the passing look of pain that lights on Fitzjames’ face is enough to chafe him.

“Sir John is fast asleep in his berth, and I spoke with him at supper. I suppose you mean tomorrow morning.”

“Perhaps the two of you should share a dinner to yourselves, to commemorate the new year.”

“Oh, yes. I understand you perfectly. I’ll tell Sir John you’re feeling poorly. A touch of sore throat,” Fitzjames adds rapidly, “nothing more foreboding than that.”

Not a royal hangover, or a case of galloping consumption. Crozier is mildly humbled by the gesture — of course, there are no small odds that Fitzjames would care to see less of him almost as dearly as Crozier wishes to see less of Franklin. The man is affable as ever, but he has no idea how to keep a camp in order, and since they’ve settled here on Beechey there are fewer excuses than ever to dodge interminable suppers.

“That’s very kind,” Crozier mutters.

“Sir John’s hospitality can become rather wearing. I weary of it sometimes myself.”

“Indeed it can.” Crozier clears his throat.

Fitzjames toasts him with his tobacco pipe, brushing the hair back from his face. “Here’s to another year, Francis.”

“To the new year, Commander.”

*

He won’t sleep well tonight, that’s for certain. But there must be better things to do with one’s empty hours than stewing in loneliness and making ill-advised friendly overtures. Crozier has hammered out an ode to magnetism — its central theme the magnetic observatory at Hobart. At least it will be good for something, and Sir John may be tickled. Three dozen limping lines and no errant traces of dialect anywhere; his schoolmasters would be proud. He’ll surrender the piece to the custody of Jopson and the men of the newspaper for their first edition of the new year, and retire to bed.