The Terror

by Dan Simmons

Edmund Hoar is an early but Typical example of the progression of this disease. The Captain’s Steward is a Young Man—he will turn 27 in a little more than two weeks, on May 9. If he survives that long. For a Steward, Hoar is a large man—six feet tall—and to all appearances to Chief Surgeon Stanley and myself, he was in fine health when the Expedition sailed. He was quick, smart, alert, energetic in his Duties, and unusually athletic for a steward. During the running and man-hauling Games held so frequently on the ice at Beechey Island in the winter of 1845–46, Hoar was frequently a winner and leader of his various teams. He has had slight symptoms of the Scurvy since last autumn—the weariness, lassitude, increasingly frequent Confusion—but the disease became most Pronounced after the Debacle of the Venetian Carnivale. He continued serving Captain Fitzjames sixteen hours a day and more into February, but finally his health broke down. The first Symptom to make itself known with Mr. Hoar is what the men in the fo’c’sle are calling the Crown of Thorns. Blood began weeping from Edmund Hoar’s hair. And not just from the hair on his head. First his Caps and then his Undershirts and then his Underthings became stained with Blood each day. I have observed this carefully, and the blood on the Scalp does come from the follicles themselves. Some of the Seamen attempted to avoid this Early Symptom by shaving their heads, but of course that does no good. With Welsh wigs, caps, scarves,...

Brutal.