Moored out on the fjord, Captain Calderbank leaned on the taffrail. It was cold, far colder than even Baffin Island should be at this time of year and his beard was frozen stiff. He rubbed the tip of his hooked nose, trying to restore circulation. The shoreline had vanished beneath a tempestuous blizzard covering the shore and mountains in a maelstrom of white. Although the Margarite Ohlsen was four hundred yards offshore the snowstorm did not reach that far out. Nevertheless, the water was churned up by the storm and the barque rose and fell as the water slapped against its bulwarks.
As the storm blanketed the coast, Captain Calderbank strained his ears. He couldn't be sure but he thought, he was almost positive, that he had heard gun shots. Had a starving polar bear broken into the camp? Or perhaps an attack by hostile Inuit hunters, although that didn't seem very likely. He couldn't recall the last time, if ever, an explorer had been attacked by Canadian Inuit.
Then the storm was lit up red. Flares! Why had flares been fired? Captain Calderbank couldn't understand why the distress flares had been launched. However, he knew that something terrible must have happened ashore.
He made a decision. He turned to the man peering through binoculars next to him. "Launch a lifeboat, Cox. But take no chances, understand. If that storm's too bad then come back. I don't want anyone getting drowned."
The coxswain nodded. Davis was a tough looking ex-whaler who knew the cold polar waters as well as any man alive. "Aye, aye, sir." The Cox blew his whistle and the deckhands swung the nearest boat out on its davits and then lowered it into the choppy water. Another flare lit up the clouds, emphasising the urgency of the situation.
The Cox, Davis, and six men climbed down and a few minutes later, Captain Calderbank watched the small vessel bob its way towards the shore; the oars rising and falling as one. Davis steered it past an ice-floe towards the edge of the blizzard. One moment, the lifeboat was clearly in sight, the next it had vanished into the maelstrom of the snowstorm.
Concentrating on the storm, Captain Calderbank stared through the Cox’s binoculars. He was desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the crew, anything to reassure him that they were safe. Long minutes passed, with Captain Calderbank's heart in his mouth. He'd known Davis and some of the crew for better than twenty years and, despite their difference in station, he regarded them as friends. Men he'd laughed with – men he'd bailed out of half the jails between Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Montevideo after drunken shore leaves. But for all that, they were good men and he had put his life in their hands more than once.
Distantly Calderbank thought he heard more gunfire. Finally, the lifeboat re-emerged from the storm. Through the binoculars, Captain Calderbank saw the crew's coats were heavy with snow. They rowed back slowly, their strokes showing their weariness. Adjusting the sights, Captain Calderbank could not see any extra men in the lifeboat. He felt deflated.
Cox Davis tied the boat to the hoists and was the last to climb on deck. Davis sketched a salute. "Sorry, sir. We couldn't make it. We tried – God, how we tried. But the winds and the waves kept us off. We couldn't land. It was like there was some force holding us off." Davis shook his head at the memory. "I've never been through anything like it, sir."
"That's alright, Cox. I know you did your best," Calderbank patted the other's shoulder. "Get yourself and the men a tot of rum. You deserve it."
Captain Calderbank returned to the security of the bridge for the next hour. With a suddenness that surprised him, the storm died away to be replaced by the ever present north wind. The snow cleared and scanning the shore, Captain Calderbank saw that the base camp looked destroyed. The clear air and low Arctic sun revealed the extent of the devastation. Yet no men stood on the shore semaphoring frantically for help.
Looking at the water separating them, Captain Calderbank calculated that although choppy it should be possible to land. Ordering the lifeboat to be relaunched, this time Captain Calderbank joined the crew and sat in the stern. The small boat skimmed towards the rocky beach, the men as eager as himself to see what had happened. It must have been a bloody catastrophe, Captain Calderbank thought. Even though the boat must be clearly visible amongst the ice floes, nobody from the shore appeared.
Apart from a stiff off-shore current Coxswain Davis and the crew had little trouble running the boat ashore. As soon as it beached Davis and the others leaped out and drew the boat above the high water mark. As soon as Captain Calderbank stepped out, his boots crunching the shingle underfoot, he was struck by the silence. Apart from the flat whine of the north wind and the calls of the skuas and gulls the inlet lay under a dead silence. The men looked at each other and huddled together.
Even Captain Calderbank felt the eeriness. "C'mon," he said, taking a tight rein of his emotions. Leaving one man to guard the boat, the others made their way uphill towards the camp.
"What's that?" called Davis. He ran away from the group and picked up the dried out corpse of one of the huskies. The dog's body peeled away from the frozen ground and Davis held it out. The body was stiff as a board. All the men gathered around to look.
"Mon dieu? What happened?" one of the men, a Quebecois, asked. The man crossed himself.
Captain Calderbank said nothing. The dog's body looked completely drained and mummified as if it had been exposed to the Arctic cold for years rather than one night.
"Looks like an old fur coat," one of the men joked. "Like my mama in Brooklyn wears." Nobody laughed so he fell quiet.
The party carried on uphill. The camp became closer, larger, and clearer. They found the bodies of several more huskies and each corpse made the sailors more and more uneasy. Especially as none of the scientists had yet greeted them. Captain Calderbank unholstered his Colt revolver.
The normally tough ex-whaler gasped with horror when the first human corpse came to sight. Davis knelt by the body, shrunken and dwarfed by its cold-weather clothing.
"What could have done something like this, Davis?" Captain Calderbank asked.
Davis looked away from the body. "I've no idea, Captain, no idea at all. I've never seen anything like this. Ever." The man's voice was softened by grief.
"Polar bear?" said the youngest member of the crew. This was his first voyage to the Arctic. After what he'd just seen, he was going to make sure it was his last.
"No, son, a polar bear would have torn them to pieces," Captain Calderbank told him.
"And a bear wouldn't have killed everyone, sir," Davis reminded his captain. "Even if it was in a bad mood."
"Perhaps most of the scientists are still out rock gathering or egg collecting or whatever in the middle of nowhere," Calderbank mused. Maybe the sailors would be lucky and only two or three scientists had been left behind to suffer this strange and terrible death at base camp.
Captain Calderbank was the first into the destroyed mess tent. Immediately he saw that they weren't to be lucky. Bodies were strewn in all directions. The only movement was the wind ruffling the fur on their coats.
All the dead men were as drained and hollowed as their dogs. What was left of their eyes showed a wide, staring horror as if they knew what was happening was not just their physical death but the destruction of their very souls as well. Captain Calderbank tried to put such a fanciful notion out of his mind but those hollowed out eyes haunted him.
Then came the worst of the horror of that mad day. Another humped mound that used to be a man drew his attention. Captain Calderbank hurried over to the remains of what used to be Arthur Hatley – a man he had laughed and joked with on the outward voyage. Hatley's remains had been savagely mutilated with the corpse's ribcage smashed open and the man's heart ripped out. The chest cavity was empty and the ribs stood out stark and white against the redness of the torso. Fragments of cloth lay about and the snow and grey rocks were splashed with blood.
Captain Calderbank looked away in disgust and shame. It was with difficulty that he kept from vomiting.
"Captain! Over here!" Davis called.
Picking his way through the debris, Calderbank crossed to where Davis knelt. The coxswain turned the man over.
"This one's alive, sir," Davis said. Everyone rushed to see. Out of all the death and destruction one man had survived. A young man seemingly in a deep sleep or dead faint. The sole survivor clutched a repulsive green sculpture of some kind of obese god. It didn't look like any Inuit artefact Captain Calderbank had ever seen. Gently prising open the man's fingers, Calderbank removed the statue.
"That's young Jack Tarleton," Calderbank said, searching his memory. "I wonder how come he didn't suffer the same fate as everyone else?"
Despite a thorough search of the ruins, the sailors found no other survivors. They took the still comatose Tarleton back to the Margarite Ohlsen and laid him in the sick bay. Then Captain Calderbank organised a burial party. The sailors built cairns and held a simple service over the graves.
Finally, the sailors collected any papers or specimens that could be of use to Miskatonic University including that obscene jade statue. The more superstitious thought it should be dropped into the Atlantic depths where it could never be found again. However, Captain Calderbank vetoed that idea. But he would still not have that thing in his cabin.
Using its sails to catch every gust of wind Captain Calderbank backed the Margarite Ohlsen out of the fjord and then down the coast of Baffin Island. All of them were glad when the final tip of that nightmare island disappeared below the horizon astern and the barque headed down the coast of Labrador towards the south and civilisation.
Tarleton lay in the sick bay and apart from some moans and delirious cries, he didn't recover. Captain Calderbank was glad to unload him in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as the man's presence was disturbing the crew. After that, Calderbank walked to the main post office and sent a telegram to the ship's owners requesting no more polar trips for a long while.
Somewhere tropical would be preferred.