The Broken Lands by Robert Edric Page A

Little and Irving carried bundles of surveying poles, and Hodgson several coils of marked cable. Fitzjames carried the precious theodolite and its tripod, and Vesconte a sextant and the large pads upon which to interpret his calculations.
    They followed the shore to the east, walking for half an hour until it turned south, where they were quickly out of sight of the vessels.
At regular intervals, Vesconte set up his equipment and took readings, Little and Irving being dispatched to stand on either side of him and drive their poles into the stony ground.
    At the first of these halts, Fitzjames took their bearings against the sun on the eastern horizon.
    When these shoreline measurements were completed, Vesconte copied out the figures and made the first sketchy outline of the land over which they had walked.
    “Is that it, is that all?” Hodgson asked him, disappointed that so little had come of all their efforts.
    Vesconte held up and studied what he had drawn. “As to distance and exact orientation, it is perfect. As to its absolute location with regard to latitude and longitude and the minutes of both, it cannot be bettered. In fact, gentlemen, I would say that we are on our way to producing a small cartographic masterpiece, in itself a marvelous thing, I’m sure you will all agree.” He shared a smile with Fitzjames. “And one for which every frost-bitten Jack who follows in our icy footsteps will surely be eternally grateful.”
    The three lieutenants were not convinced. They looked at the land around them, at the slope and the cliff above them, then back to the few unconnected lines like a child’s scribble on the pad.
    “All you see, gentlemen, are pencil marks,” Vesconte went on. “What I see, and what Fitzjames here sees, is the ground over which we have just come. A poor return on our efforts, perhaps, but once the mark is made and connected to the dozens, perhaps hundreds, which are to follow, then no one will ever have to trace the route again. Perhaps what we are about to achieve over the next few days will remain unquestioned and unaltered—other than by the Almighty himself—for a hundred years.”
    “You should have been a politician,” Fitzjames told him, seeing how quickly the others were coming round to this encouragement of their drudgery.
    Vesconte did not answer him; instead he slapped his pad shut, rose and strode off ahead of them, calling the dog to him as he went. The others gathered up their cases, pulled free the poles and ran to keep up with him.

    They walked farther from the sheltered bay and the ships, crossing the eastern and then the southern shore of Beechey alongside the fast-flowing waters of Barrow Strait.
    They began to climb, gently at first, and then more steeply over rock-strewn land until they reached the summit of the small island and were able to look down upon it in its entirety.
    Where the terrain was more variable, and where the shoreline ceased to turn in so smooth a curve, Vesconte insisted on taking more readings, and then on checking these several times over until his figures were duplicated.
    The three lieutenants became more enthusiastic about their work, vying with each other to position their poles according to Vesconte’s directions.
    At the edge of a precipice to the south, Fitzjames took a succession of readings while both the sun and the clear horizon were visible to him. To the north of them across the narrow bay, the land stretched endlessly east and west, but to the south there was only water and a distant haze. He was joined by Vesconte, who asked him to gauge for him a line due south of where they stood. Fitzjames did this and Vesconte drew the mark on the ground with his heel.
    “North Somerset,” he said, pointing. “And beyond it, Boothia.” He spoke as though he were not entirely convinced of the existence of these places, afterward staring into the haze without speaking.
    “What are you thinking about?”
    “Are they one and the same