The fishing weir doesn't sound too strange, or really even strange at all; it makes sense that Francis might've wanted to do something useful, something to focus his attention on and improve the situation for everyone all at once. That's entirely understandable.
But the choice of a party like this, even--or perhaps especially--for the reason Raju suggests, still strikes James as very odd considering what happened last time. Perhaps, though, if Francis had indeed begun planning this during a time when his memory was altered, that could possibly be an explanation.
And on the subject of explanations, he's not sure how much of one to give. He looks away from Raju studying him to stare at the fire instead, tapping his fingers against the cup. "Partially, yes. But more so because we--or, more accurately, I alone--held a similar event during the Expedition, and it ended in..." Tragedy. A horrific, purposefully set fire that he still doesn't understand the reason for, and can't reconcile with what he knows--knew--of the person who set it.
"It ended in an incident. Several men were killed, and the rest of us barely avoided the same fate." And so he's surprised that this event, which surely everyone from the Expedition thinks of to at least some extent when the idea of any sort of party is brought up, was not enough to stop Francis from planning one. Perhaps that's a good thing, and perhaps since it's been much longer for Francis than it has been for James, it's also a natural thing; a way of moving past a traumatic experience and creating new memories. But James isn't there yet, and it simply makes him incredibly unsettled, which isn't helped by the possibility that he's actually the only one still bothered by this.
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But the choice of a party like this, even--or perhaps especially--for the reason Raju suggests, still strikes James as very odd considering what happened last time. Perhaps, though, if Francis had indeed begun planning this during a time when his memory was altered, that could possibly be an explanation.
And on the subject of explanations, he's not sure how much of one to give. He looks away from Raju studying him to stare at the fire instead, tapping his fingers against the cup. "Partially, yes. But more so because we--or, more accurately, I alone--held a similar event during the Expedition, and it ended in..." Tragedy. A horrific, purposefully set fire that he still doesn't understand the reason for, and can't reconcile with what he knows--knew--of the person who set it.
"It ended in an incident. Several men were killed, and the rest of us barely avoided the same fate." And so he's surprised that this event, which surely everyone from the Expedition thinks of to at least some extent when the idea of any sort of party is brought up, was not enough to stop Francis from planning one. Perhaps that's a good thing, and perhaps since it's been much longer for Francis than it has been for James, it's also a natural thing; a way of moving past a traumatic experience and creating new memories. But James isn't there yet, and it simply makes him incredibly unsettled, which isn't helped by the possibility that he's actually the only one still bothered by this.