Crozier drank some more whiskey.

It had been April of 1843 – early autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, although the days were still long and warm – when Erebus and Terror returned to Van Diemen’s Land.

Ross and Crozier were once again guests at the governor’s house – officially called Government House by the old-time inhabitants of Hobart Town – but this time it was obvious that a shadow lay over both Franklins. Crozier was willing to be oblivious to this, his joy at being near Sophia Cracroft was so great, but even the irrepressible Sophia had been subdued by the mood, events, conspiracies, betrayals, revelations, and crises that had been brooding in Hobart during the two years Erebus and Terror had been in the southern ice, so in the course of his first two days in Government House, he’d heard enough to piece together the reasons for the Franklins’ depression.

It seemed that local and venial landed interests, personified in one undercutting, backstabbing Judas of a colonial secretary named Captain John Montagu, had decided early on in Sir John’s six years as governor that he simply would not do, nor would his wife, the outspoken and unorthodox Lady Jane. All Crozier heard from Sir John himself – overheard, actually, as the despondent Sir John spoke to Captain Ross while the three men took brandy and cigars in the booklined study in the mansion – was that the locals had “a certain lack of neighbourly feelings and a deplorable deficiency in public spirit.”

From Sophia, Crozier learned that Sir John had gone, in the public eye at least, from being “the man who ate his shoes” to his self-styled description of “a man who wouldn’t hurt a fly” then quickly to a description widespread on the Tasmanian Peninsula of “a man in petticoats.” This last calumny, Sophia assured him, came from the colony’s dislike of Lady Jane as much as it had from Sir John’s and his wife’s attempts to improve things for the natives and prisoners who laboured there in inhuman conditions.

“You understand that the previous governors simply loaned out prisoners for the local plantation owners’ and city business tycoons’ insane projects, took their cut of the profits, and kept their mouths shut,” explained Sophia Cracroft as they walked in the shadows of the Government House gardens. “Uncle John has not played that game.”

“Insane projects?” said Crozier. He was very aware of Sophia’s hand on his arm as they walked and spoke in hushed whispers, alone, in the warm near-dark.

“If a plantation manager wants a new road on his land,” said Sophia, “the governor is expected to loan him six hundred starving prisoners – or a thousand – who work from dawn until after dark, chains on their legs and manacles on their wrists, through this tropical heat, without water or food, being flogged if they fall or falter.”

“Good Lord,” said Crozier.

Sophia nodded. Her eyes remained fixed on the white stones of the garden path. “The colonial secretary, Montagu, decided that the prisoners should excavate a pit mine – although no gold has been found on the island – and the prisoners were set to digging it. It was more than four hundred feet deep before the project was abandoned – it flooded constantly, the water table here is very shallow, of course – and it was said that two to three prisoners died for every foot excavated of that abhorred mine.”

Crozier restrained himself before he could say Good Lord again, but in truth that was all that came to his mind.

“A year after you left,” continued Sophia, “Montagu – that weasel, that viper – persuaded Uncle John to dismiss a local surgeon, a man very popular with the decent people here, on trumped-up charges of dereliction of duty. It divided the colony. Uncle John and Aunt Jane became the lightning rod for all criticism, even though Aunt Jane had disapproved of the surgeon’s dismissal. Uncle John – you know, Francis, how very much he hates controversy, much less to administer pain of any sort, why he’s often said he would not hurt a fly…”

“Yes,” said Crozier, “I have seen him carefully remove a fly from a dining room and release it.”

“Uncle John, listening to Aunt Jane, eventually reinstated the surgeon, but that made a lifelong enemy out of this Montagu. The private bickerings and accusations became public, and Montagu – in essence – called Uncle John a liar and a weakling.”

“Good Lord,” said Crozier. What he was thinking was, If I had been in John Franklin’s place, I would have called this Montagu fucker out to the field of honor and there put a bullet in each of his testicles before I placed a final one in his brain. “I hope that Sir John sacked the man.”

“Oh, he did,” said Sophia with a sad little laugh, “but that only made things worse. Montagu returned to England last year on the same ship carrying Uncle John’s letter announcing his dismissal, and it turns out, sadly, that Captain Montagu is a close friend of Lord Stanley, secretary of state for the Colonies.”

Well, the Governor is well and truly buggered, Crozier thought as they reached the stone bench at the far end of the garden. He said, “How unfortunate.”

“More than Uncle John or Aunt Jane could have imagined,” said Sophia. “The Cornwall Chronicle ran a long article entitled ‘The Imbecile Reign of the Polar Hero.’ The Colonial Times blames Aunt Jane.”

“Why attack Lady Jane?”

Sophia smiled without humour. “Aunt Jane is, rather like myself… unorthodox. You have seen her room here at Government House, I believe? When Uncle John gave you and Captain Ross a tour of the estate the last time you were here?”

“Oh, yes,” said Crozier. “Her collection was wonderful.” Lady Jane’s boudoir, the parts they were allowed to see, had been crammed carpet to ceiling with animal skeletons, meteorites, stone fossils, Aborigine war clubs, native drums, carved wooden war masks, ten-foot paddles that looked capable of propelling HMS Terror along at fifteen knots, a plethora of stuffed birds, and at least one expertly taxidermied monkey. Crozier had never seen anything like it in a musuem or zoo, much less in a lady’s bedroom. Of course, Francis Crozier had seen very few ladies’ bedrooms.

“One visitor wrote to a Hobart newspaper that, and I quote verbatim, Francis, ‘our governor’s wife’s private rooms at Government House look more like a museum or a menagerie than the boudoir of a lady.’”

Crozier made a clucking noise and felt guilty about his similar thoughts. He said, “So is this Montagu still making trouble?”

“More than ever. Lord Stanley – that viper’s viper – backed Montagu, reinstated that worm in a position similar to the one Uncle John dismissed him from, and sent Uncle John a reprimand so terrible that Aunt Jane told me in private that it was the equivalent of a horsewhipping.”

I’d shoot that bugger Montagu in the balls and then cut Lord Stanley’s off and serve them to him only slightly warmed, thought Crozier. “That is terrible,” he said.

“There is worse,” said Sophia.

Crozier looked for tears in the dim light but saw none. Sophia was not a woman given to weeping.

“ Stanley made public the rebuke?” guessed Crozier.

“The… bastard… gave a copy of the official rebuke to Montagu, before he sent it to Uncle John, and that weasel’s weasel rushed it here by the fastest post ship. Copies were made and passed around here in Hobart Town to all of Uncle John’s enemies months before Uncle John received the letter through official channels. The entire colony was sniggering every time Uncle John or Aunt Jane attended a concert or performed the governor’s role in some official function. I apologize for my unlady-like language, Francis.”

I’d feed Lord Stanley his balls cold in a fried dough of his own shit, thought Crozier. He said nothing but nodded that he forgave Sophia her choice of language.