The appointed port lookout for this watch, midshipman Tommy Evans – Crozier identifies the youngest man on board by the absurd green stocking cap, obviously made by the boy’s mother, that Evans always pulls down over his bulky Welsh wig – has moved ten paces astern to allow Third Lieutenant Irving and Silence some privacy.

This makes Captain Crozier want to kick someone – everyone – in the arse.

The Esquimaux woman looks like a short round bear in her furry parka, hood, and pants. She has her back half turned to the tall lieutenant. But Irving is crowded close to her along the rail – not quite touching, but closer than an officer and gentleman would stand to a lady at a garden party or on a pleasure yacht.

“Lieutenant Irving.” Crozier didn’t mean to put quite so much bark into the greeting, but he’s not unhappy when the young man levitates as if poked by the point of a sharp blade, almost loses his balance, grabs the iced railing with his left hand, and – as he insists on doing despite now knowing the proper protocol of a ship in the ice – salutes with his right hand.

It’s a pathetic salute, thinks Crozier, and not just because the bulky mittens, Welsh wig, and layers of cold-weather slops make young Irving look something like a saluting walrus, but also because the lad has let his comforter fall away from his clean-shaven face – perhaps to show Silence how handsome he is – and now two long icicles dangle below his nostrils, making him look even more like a walrus.

“As you were,” snaps Crozier. God-damn fool, he mentally adds.

Irving stands rigid, glances at Silence – or at least at the back of her hairy hood – and opens his mouth to speak. Evidently he can think of nothing to say. He closes his mouth. His lips are as white as his frozen skin.