Chapter Text
First lieutenant is not a position one makes by behaving foolishly. No, to be a first lieutenant in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy means one is disciplined and capable. A first lieutenant must rely on his training and his instincts; he must be a shining example of virtue and leadership for the men under his command. He must not falter, not when his expedition leader is killed by something beyond man’s, beyond God’s comprehension, not when he’s unexpectedly thrust into command of a ship while his captain spends endless nights sweating and screaming out decades of alcohol seeped into his veins. No, a first lieutenant does not have time for flights of fancy or hesitation. Edward is good at these things. That he made first lieutenant isn’t surprising considering how tightly wound he is. Being serious and taciturn is something that comes naturally to him; he can probably count the number of times he’s genuinely smiled since stepping aboard Terror on one hand.
When Edward sees the first sledge rounding the hill, he is none of the above. He catches sight of the team of dogs rushing towards them and something inside him snaps. His response is highly unsuitable for a man of his station, frantically waving his hands over his head and whooping and shouting like a child.
Around him, the men turn to see what has captured their leader’s attention and react similarly. Wentzall lets out a shriek of delight better suited to a boy of 10 than an able-bodied seaman. Peglar sinks to his knees out of happiness rather than exhaustion. Crispe and Berry embrace each other so tightly the air leaving their lungs is the loudest thing for miles. Bates is doing some sort of deranged victory dance which employs a lot of hopping up and down on joints that can’t afford to take that kind of pressure; Sims simply stares, open-mouthed, sobbing.
They’re saved. They’re going to live.
There are eleven sledges in all, each led by a team of fluffy, eager dogs who obey their masters but look desperately as though they wish to beg pets off the men. From the first sledge comes a white man wrapped in Netsilik furs. Under his heavy hood is a head of red-gold hair which first suggests Hickey, with a desperate jolt in his stomach, then James Ross, which seems like a logical conclusion to come to - if anyone were to launch a rescue attempt it would be Ross.
“You boys from Terror?” the stranger asks with a heavy French accent.
Edward’s voice is hoarse and cannot carry across distance the way the captains can. As he opens his mouth to answer, he feels a catch in his throat. Several years worth of unshed tears piling up all at once to choke him. “Yes. Yes, we are.”
***
It’s a toss-up between which instance is more miraculous: Fairholme and his party actually making it to Fort Resolution relatively unscathed (Fairholme himself was stuck in bed with a particularly nasty case of snow blindness, hearing so made Edward wince in empathy, remembering his bout of it much earlier) or Lady Silence giving their rescuers precise enough directions to make the rescue effective without the ability to speak.
(“Your friend, the girl-”
“Lady Silence?” Edward interrupted.
The trader smiled faintly and said “is that what you call her? She and a man found us on the way here. Told us where you set up camp. Said you abandoned your ships and were heading south.”
Edward wondered how she got such an accurate reading of their location, it seemed impossible to gauge their location in the empty sea of shale aside from knowing that they weren’t close to anything.)
A pair of goddamned miracles.
The lead trader - the one with the best English it seems - gives his name as Jean-Christophe Alain Barthélémy Palomer but tells Edward he can call him just Christophe (Not Jean, heaven forbid. Half of the men in this country are named Jean and the remaining ones are named Louis!”) before loading him up into the basket of his sledge. A crate of lemon juice wedges uncomfortably between his knees but it’s the most comfortable he’s been since he was back in England.
As they race back to where Terror Camp was set up, Christophe asks Edward for a report on the status of the remaining men. The rest of the world thought they were dead by now. That’s fair. He didn’t think they’d last much longer as it was if it hadn’t been for Lady Silence and Fairholme and Christophe’s team and their swift-footed dogs. Their casualties are not nearly as bad as they could be. They lost a good number of men while Tuunbaq was actively hunting them down, but since Lady Silence managed to bind it their numbers are stable.
There are many more things other than spirit monsters which can kill a man out here - scurvy, lead poisoning, exposure, starvation, in-fighting - each one of them as ruthless if not as violent. Many men have deteriorated significantly, but there are not as many sick as he thought there’d be. The men who are sick - which is all of them, really - but not too sick insist on pulling their weight all the same. Nobody wants to be dead weight. Deadweight is a liability, men who are incapable of helping should be left behind. That’s what he’s heard floating around Hickey’s circle, what he thought he heard Le Vesconte mumble under his breath during the Morfin incident.
While he talks, he’s aware of the wetness pooling at the corners of his eyes. If he were a vain man, he would chalk it up to the wind whipping in his face, the speed at which the dogs and the runners on the sledge glide over the shale. Edward has never been a vain man. He’s crying, plain and simple.
The tears cut paths down his dusty cheeks, where months of beard growth leave his skin scratchy but hides signs of disease. He cannot wait to shave. He cannot wait to not have to worry about which of them will not be able to call his name for the roster in the morning.
Their sledges spread out from Edward and Christophe in a V, like the migratory pattern of geese returning home after a long winter. Home. They’re going to go home.
When they get close enough that Terror Camp becomes a speck in the distance, Edward cannot contain himself and laughs high and half-delirious. The rest of the men let out similar exclamations of delight which sets the dogs off barking while their masters gaze on in fondness. He hopes that the sound carries over the tundra. He hopes that all those wretched men forsaken by nature and God himself can sense something beautiful breaking over the horizon. Edward hopes. He allows himself to hope and believe in a way he thought had to be given up on the precipice of adulthood. The world had not forgotten about them, they are going to live. Their fears of simply vanishing into the landscape will not come to fruition.
Squinting against the sun and wind he can make out a cluster of bodies at the mouth of the camp. He finds that he knows them immediately. You could put twenty men in slops in front of him with their backs turned, and Edward would know every single one of them by his heart. They need to remember each other out here. Even if they were to vanish, if the world were to consider them a statistic, remembering the expedition, the tragedy, but not the men themselves, recognition is all they have. Out here, they need to take care of each other. That includes remembering the fallen, the men who fell in the cracks of history and memory. History would have those men remain anonymous, the ones with no naval honours or experience, the ones who wouldn’t be hailed as heroes by the Admiralty for simply surviving as if that isn’t a feat in itself. They must remember each other. When they eventually return home, they will carry the weight and names of their left-behind comrades on their shoulders and their tongues.
Captain Crozier. Commander Fitzjames. Neptune laying down at their feet. Dr. MacDonald with blood up to his elbows. George and Dundy, having some sort of discussion separate from the others. But it’s Thomas who notices the sledges. It’s always Thomas.
Edward cups his hands around his chapped lips and hollers as loud as he can manage. He receives a holler in return, ricocheting off the shale and the sky and every gap between his ribs. He has half a mind to demand Christophe stop the sled so he can run the last few dozens of metres. He doesn’t, but he wants to.
More men have come to see the approaching sledges, swarming around the captains to get a closer look. They are cheering and laughing and hoping; some cry but it’s from relief rather than sorrow. As he gets closer, he can see Fitzjames leaning heavily against Crozier as if his feet will go out from under him without a strong anchor. Neptune is roused by the commotion and begins to bark excitedly, tearing away from the humans to meet Christophe’s sledge at the halfway point of the rapidly shrinking distance. This brings another laugh to the men. Neptune has always been good for morale (though he fears that some of the more desperate men see him as a meal they’re not allowed to eat).
The sledge stops. Edward removes himself from the basket. His knees nearly give out when he touches the ground again, turned to jelly by excitement. “They did it!” he yells, though the captains are standing all of three feet away from him and this is decidedly not how important news ought to be delivered, “Fairholme and his team, they made it to Fort Resolution! People know we're here! We can go home!” the last part is delivered half scream half choking sob. His face is warm with tears by now, flowing freely into his whiskers.
An enormous cheer goes up from the men. If Tuunbaq wasn’t out of their hair, he would have worried that such revelry would give it an accurate reading of their position. But Tuunbaq is no longer a problem to them, they are saved. Around him, the camp descends into chaos and neither Edward nor the captains make any move to stop it.
Edward moves lightning-quick and grabs the nearest non-captain, non-George person to him. Luckily, it happens to be Thomas who was moving towards him. He crushes Thomas in his arms, not caring about the creak of both their bones and spins him around with the air. The momentum should have been enough to knock him off balance, but he holds on. He’s got a strong anchor. Thomas’s feet are still a few inches off the ground when Edward leans forward and presses their mouths together.
As far as kisses go…. it’s not great and rather damp. Edward’s been crying since they got picked up by the traders and his face is slick with tears. Their mouths meet at an awkward angle, half lip half cheek, as do their teeth and their noses. Thomas gives him a light squeeze around the back of his neck and then they’re back on the ground. There arises the bigger problem: that Edward just kissed Thomas (for the first time) in front of the captains, most of the camp, and a dozen traders he’s only just met.
At least a dozen whistles ring out, along with a handful of shouts. He thinks he hears George whisper something along the lines of “it's about time". The captains. The camp. The traders. Their arms are still loosely around each other. Edward blushes so deeply he bypasses pink, magenta, and red and goes straight to purple. He’s never going to live this down (he’s not sure he wants to live this down; if his legacy for this nightmarish expedition is going to be love then that’s one hell of a legacy).
He looks past Thomas to where the captains are standing - Fitzjames trying to contain himself from guffawing, Crozier looking at them with a sort of softness. “I, uh.” Clearly, he used up all his brainpower in the act of kissing Thomas because now he can’t bring himself to form basic sentences. He feels like a compass too close to magnetic north, unmoored and spinning around with reckless abandon. “I'm...With permission, I’d like to assemble the remaining men and tell them of our rescue, Sirs.”
There’s a twinkle in Fitzjames’s eyes that can only be described as maniacal and it’s the brightest thing Edward’s seen since he first laid eyes on the Aurora. “Are you going to greet them with the same exuberance?”
This garners an even bigger reaction than the kiss itself. Edward is sure he is now blushing a colour previously undiscovered by man. Another victory for the expedition.
Crozier says, “permission granted, lieutenant.” Then, he pinches the wrist of Fitzjames’s good arm.
“Ow!”
“You awful man.”
Edward takes one last second to look at Thomas before fully detaching himself. As he goes from the sick tents to the men coming back from hunting parties, to the ones on patrol who did not abandon their posts, he’s still dizzied from the spinning.
***
The plan is this: Christophe and his men brought fresh juice (lemon and lime) and fresh meat (seal and caribou). The sickest will get extra portions. There are eleven sledges, four of which can hold two - though they’ve grown gaunt and could probably comfortably fit two bodies in each one without it being a burden to the dogs - the 800-mile trip back to Fort Resolution would take three months on foot under optimal circumstances. They don’t have three months of travel time. What they do have is a boat moored on the shores of Roes Welcome Sound - about 300 miles southeast on the edge of Hudson Bay - a boat with medicine and provisions and most importantly, a way to send word back to England. Once all the men are accounted for, they’re to sail down the bay until they reach Québec. Any final recuperations and low-level government business will be made in Québec City. After everyone is fully recovered, they’ll sail up the St. Lawrence and will be homebound in the Atlantic before they know it.
At least that’s what the plan is. Under normal circumstances, Edward would see holes in it (the dogs getting exhausted, Christophe and his team not bringing enough food to sustain them, the weaker men in need of medical care not being able to make the rocky journey) but right now he’s happy to the point of delirium. He’s willing to believe anything at this point.
Fourteen men are to set out tomorrow. Eleven able-bodied seamen, two sick men, Dr. Goodsir, and Dundy. Those who are most damaged by scurvy are to stay at the camp where they can get citrus and fresh meat and hope they work as quickly as the surgeons say. Edward heard the men the worst afflicted scream and moan in pain as they drag the boats over the shale. He doubts that an overland sledge voyage would be much softer on their shattered glass joints. He’s lucky that he’s always been hearty. A good strong country lad, his mother would tease. He is only just beginning to feel the effects of the lead and malnutrition, aside from the dropped weight he almost looks normal.
Room is made in the tents for Christophe and his team, and the dogs of course. Neptune has never been so energetic, aside from when they first left port in Greenhithe and three men had to prevent him from pitching himself overboard. The men are smiling now, showing rotten teeth and bloody gums, but smiling nonetheless. Even the sick do not seem so ill.
The tang of the juice stings their damaged gums and the small portions of fresh, scurvy-free meat twist bellies but still, they endure. After dinner, they congregate at the centre of camp, laughing and sharing stories of their lives before, of the world that’s moved on from them. The French take up a few songs, Edward recognizes Au Clair de la Lune which makes him smile, remembering his sisters’ pianoforte lessons. He wonders if they still play, if they’ve gotten better in the years he’s been away; he wonders if they’re all married now, and his brothers too?
He wonders if they’ve mourned for him already. Maybe they still have a sliver of hope. Maybe it’s that hope that’s kept him alive all this time.
The French switch into a bawdy tavern song which relies a lot on audience participation and touching various body parts. Edward takes this as his cue to back away from the throng of people. He's doomed to be forever awkward at parties, even informal ones.
A body appears at his side. Rather, two bodies appear beside him; one about knee-height and one brushing his shoulder with a warm coat. Instinctively he crouches to pet Neptune under the chin in the spot he likes, thinks of all the times he found the dog on board and hugged him loosely around the neck, pressed his neck against the soft fur of his side and exhaled a day’s pressure. This time, Neptune has a rope looped loosely around his neck. Attached to the hand holding the rope is Thomas who beams at him.
“I didn’t think dog-walking was a lieutenant’s duty, they must have updated the handbook since I was promoted.”
Thomas knocks their shoulders together, “do you want to take a walk?” he offers an arm just like at Carnivale.
Edward accepts. They set off in a loose circle around the camp. Here, with the firelight and the men singing, and hope for the first time in years, they could be back home. In the corner of a pub or down a lamp-lit London street. If they ignored everything else they could simply be two gentlemen taking a stroll in Hyde Park. they could be roaming the grounds of the Little country estate, circling the pond and the stables. They could be anywhere, but Edward thinks he’d like to stay right here.
“I can’t believe they found us,” Thomas says, nearly a whisper.
“Lady Silence helped them, Christophe said she and a friend found them and told them exactly where we were,” Edward adds. The notion is still foreign and bizarre to him. Lady Silence wasn’t exactly a friend to any of them, except maybe Dr. Goodsir, and they’ve done nothing to earn her help. They shot her father (albeit by accident), they failed to save him and threw him unceremoniously down the fire hole. Like he was waste. Like he was nothing. They showed up at her home with little regard for her or her people. And she saved them. She bound Tuunbaq to herself, saving them from having to bury anymore mauled, chewed-up corpses. She managed to find the HBC traders and tell them exactly where to find them.
Maybe she just wanted them to leave as badly as they did.
“It’s a miracle,” Thomas concludes. “A goddamn miracle.”
Edward nods. A bonafide miracle. He wishes John were around for it.
“What do you think Québec’s like?” Thomas asks, his native Cockney slipping out and butchering the syllables.
“Busy. French. Big.” Edward guesses. The last one, in particular, is sticking out to him. There’s so much land here, so much sea. They could walk for hundreds of miles and never see another white face. How long did they walk from the ships? 100 miles maximum? How far would they have made it before too many men dropped like flies? How far is it to the Bay? To Québec City? Back to England? There’s so much land here. It could devour them right up and their corpses would be undisturbed and undiscovered for centuries. He has a vague memory of his mother singing How Many Miles to Babylon to him when he could not sleep. She had dark hair like his, dark eyes like his (‘sensitive eyes’ she always said, ‘like a calf’s. I could never say no to you with those eyes’), and she smelled like lavender. Funny, he can’t remember what exactly lavender smells like, but he remembers his mother keeping sachets of it around the house. There was one in his personal belongings which he kept under the pillow on his lumpy bunk. It was supposed to help him sleep. Left behind on Terror like so many other trinkets and mementos, reminders of home.
How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and your toes are light,
You may get there by candle-light.
Thomas stops walking. “You’re brooding.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s...it’s understandable.”
Having stopped for a moment, their arms unlink so they can better look at one another. In the background, the crew has taken up the mantle of folk songs. One of the men, he believes it to be Mr. Bridgens, has begun The Unquiet Grave in a low, steady voice. Fitting song choice. That’s what they are up here, dozens and dozens of unquiet graves dug too soon.
A smile pulls at the corner of Thomas’s mouth, revealing one perfect dimple. God, he’s never going to get used to this and he doesn’t think he ever wants to. “About earlier…”
Jesus Christ, he must be talking about the kiss.
Edward feels his cheeks reddening once more. Maybe if he blushes enough in a short amount of time, his skin will stay this colour. He’ll be tomato red perpetually. Thomas doesn’t look flustered or anything, he seems to be amused by the whole ordeal. That’s good, right? That it isn’t awkward? Though Edward doesn’t want it to be amusing; he meant that kiss. He meant it despite all its imperfections.
“I’m sorry about that-”
“-You apologize too much-”
“-I was crying and kind of...missed and it was in front of the captains and everyone and those traders. It was less than ideal...”
“-Does it embarrass you?”
“Pardon?” Edward stops. Snaps out the anxious haze he's found himself in.
“Are you embarrassed that everyone saw you kiss me?”
He wants to say yes. Wants to say that while he and George had a moment to spare, George leaned in and stage-whispered ‘tell me, Neddie, was that your first kiss ever?’ to which Edward, in another breathtaking display of unprofessional behaviour, yanked on the drawstrings to his slops and tightened them around his neck. It would be an admission of guilt he thinks, to say that yes, at the moment he was tremendously embarrassed. Not that he’d kissed Thomas, but that it was so public. Not the action itself but that it didn’t mean more, that it was messy and spontaneous. However, the more he thinks about it, the less embarrassing it feels.
There’s no way it was the only we’re-going-to-live kiss exchanged between the crew. He’s sure other men would have done the same if they’d been in his place. Hell, if Thomas hadn't been there, he probably would have planted one on Dr. MacDonald (though probably not Dundy, that would have made things weird with Cpt. Fitzjames). It was a relief. The men had cheered and laughed because they had reason to. They’ve been relearning love out here in the wilderness.
“No, I’m not. Though I don’t think Fitzjames will let me live it down.”
Thomas smiles and it overtakes his whole face. It splits Edward in two, weighs him and finds him wanting more desperately than he’s wanted anything or anyone in his whole life. “I would have kissed you in front of the entire admiralty. I would kiss you in front of the bloody Queen and wouldn’t care.”
“Well, why don’t you?” Edward whispers, then amends that statement, “kiss me, that is. It doesn’t have to be in front of the Queen or the admiralty, I fear that’d take too long and I don’t want to wait.”
The distance between them closes rapidly. Edward’s gloved hands graze the wool of Thomas’s coat, worn and patched up but still incredibly soft. Their noses brush.
And then, Neptune jolts forward. The action sends Thomas crashing into Edward who barely manages to keep them both upright by securing a hand around his back and another on his bicep. Before they have time to comprehend what’s gotten Neptune into a tizzy, the dog’s managed to wrap his makeshift leash around their legs. He looks quite proud of it too.
“ Et tu, Neptune?” Edward says with mock-betrayal but is overtaken by giggles. He’s still laughing when Thomas brackets his cheeks with warm hands, still laughing a little when Thomas kisses his cheeks, his nose, the curve of his jaw, his eyelids, the ridge of his brow.
“Stop laughing,” he says with mock-severity in a way that’s eerily reminiscent of Captain Crozier, sans the accent.
This makes him laugh even harder.
Thomas kisses him anyway.
***
They send the first sledges out the next morning. If something goes wrong and the traders can’t find their way back to camp, at least 14 of their men will survive the expedition.14 out 129 men is a dour ratio of survivors, but it’s better than none. Edward estimates that about 70 men are remaining, more than half. If everything goes right, Christophe and his men should be back within a week to shuttle more men to the boat. If they manage to bring 14 men every time (and if Edward is doing his sums right) it should take a little over a month to evacuate the camp. Ordinarily, that would have been a death sentence. They don’t have a month to wait around to be rescued. But now they have help.
Just because there are 70 alive men now doesn’t mean that 70 men will step foot on English soil again. He expects they’ll lose at least 10 more to disease complications. But still, that’s over 50 men who will see their loved ones again.
The second course of action after the Frenchmen leave is to arrest Hickey. If Edward’s being honest, he’d rather leave him here then take him back to England. Though at least in England, he can see a fair trial for his crimes, and Crozier ordering a seaman hung on foreign soil would likely require a full court-martial and more than a little scrutiny from the admiralty. So, instead, they disarmed him and keep him in a tent guarded by Pvt. Hammond. His cronies are on the other side of the camp.
Edward eats the fresh meat and drinks the fresh juice and feels his body healing. He does not clench his jaw so often. There are still things that could go wrong but he doesn’t think they will. During supper, the men continue the tradition of eating in a circle and telling stories so they can look at each other. He doesn’t tell many stories of his own, he listens voraciously while his crewmates talk of their sweethearts, their families, the books they read and the adventures they’ve taken. They do not talk of previous naval ventures, it’s an unspoken rule. Nobody wants to jinx their new good fortune. He finds himself touching people more - clapping a fellow officer on the shoulder, helping a weakened man to his feet so he can manage a few meters more than he could before, comforting the younger crewmen overwhelmed by the prospect of rescue. One early morning, Hartnell shoots a bear. It’s only a cub, and even hearing the word ‘bear’ makes everyone’s hackles rise as they go to grab weapons and pack up the tents. Still, it’s the best meal they’ve had in a while. At night, he sleeps deeply, if only for a few hours, with Thomas’s steady breathing on the back of his neck.
***
Christophe comes back. He comes back again and again until there is only one more party of men left to transport. Edward elected to stay until the last sledge party. It’s his duty, and he’d never forgiven himself if he was saved but something happened to the remaining men. Crozier stays too, of course. That means Thomas stays as well. It feels right, in a way, that they’re among the last inhabitants of Terror Camp. Captain Fitzjames left two weeks ago, he’s doing much better than before, but Dr. McDonald would like to ensure his Chinese sniper wound can properly heal.
When he and Thomas kiss, he does not taste blood
It feels wrong, abandoning the boats they’ve been pulling for God knows how long, just as it felt wrong when they abandoned Terror for Erebus, then Erebus for the wilderness. There were so many small things the men were dragging along with them all this way which will have to remain there. Mementos of home, reminders of humanity, left to rot. Maybe the Netsilik will find them and put them to good use. Maybe they’ll burn them.
***
The ship that picks them up on the shores of the Bay is a paddlewheel steamer named the Beaver. It shouldn’t work, and the Bay should still be mostly frozen - Mr. Blanky mentions that because it has lower average salinity than the ocean, that the freezing point is much higher - but it does, against all odds. Louis, another one of the traders, mentions that the bay’s namesake, Sir Henry Hudson, went missing in 1611 while attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The Discovery - the same boat which brought John Ratcliffe to the New World and led to the founding of Jamestown in 1607, another journey best remembered for disaster; they starved at Jamestown, when they ran out of food, they ate each other - was frozen in ice and when it thawed, Hudson wanted to continue to explore. His men did not. They led a mutiny which ended with Hudson, his young son, and seven crewmen stranded in a shallop; they were never seen or heard from again.
Edward wonders how many more men are going to die, fail, or go missing in search of the Passage. Will it be worth it if they ever find the passage? Is glory a fair exchange for life? What will they be remembered as? The crew that lost Sir John on yet another failed Arctic Expedition?
History loves a martyr.
Quarters are cramped aboard Beaver, what with its actual crew and all Terror and Erebus’s orphans. Not that anyone noticed. They’ve been snuggled up in sacks since abandoning the ships, it almost feels wrong not to. How else are you supposed to know whether the man next to you is dead or alive but from the warmth of his body?
Ranks have all but dissolved. They’re still present for ceremonial purposes. The captains are still their captains and will see them home, Edward is still first lieutenant with all that entails, but they’re passengers on a ship already fully manned. A few of the healthier men who have had more time aboard try to volunteer to help with little things, shovelling coal, keeping Neptune and Jacko out of the way, carrying this and that, but they’re told that the best thing they can do to help is to get better. Edward must be told by a minimum of 10 people (the captains, Thomas, Christophe and another trader, Beaver ’s captain and assorted officers) that there isn’t anything he needs to do other than sleep before he complies.
When he does sleep, it’s the deep kind he didn’t think existed outside of a tomb. He sleeps deeply for two days before waking bleary-eyed with dried drool on his chin and the collar of his shirt. Several people were convinced he’d died until they leaned over him and heard the wheeze of his breath. Then, the fear was that he’d become comatose like the late Pvt. Heather and Davey Leys (Leys died in his sleep two weeks before rescue, Heather died in the process of being moved to Beaver. He thinks it should be a mercy, that it was so quiet neither of them knew it was happening. But something lingers at the back of his mind: what if they woke up? Maybe sometime in the future, surrounded by people who cared about them and without the memories of hunger). He falls from his bunk, right knee sharply connecting with the floor and drawing a curse hissed from between clenched teeth.
Dr. Goodsir pokes his curly head around the doorway. “Lieutenant Little, are you alright?”
“Yes, it’s just a bump.”
“Well then. You were asleep for nearly two days, I daresay it helped?”
Aside from the crick in his neck and a bit of numbness in his limbs, Edward has to agree. He doesn’t feel tired anymore, and he spent the majority - or maybe even all - of the expedition feeling tired. Not even just tired. A weariness, exhaustion down to his bones. He felt tired in his marrow.
“It helped a good deal, Doctor,” he admits with a sheepish smile.
Goodsir’s cheeks redden, just slightly. Even though he’s an anatomist and not a technical doctor, the men have no qualms about calling him one. He’s earned it. With Dr. Stanley gone, there’s nobody left to object. If he hadn’t earned the title with his skills and knowledge, his kindness cemented it. How he managed to face meagre hopes of survival with childlike wonder is beyond Edward, but his gentleness and his kindness to the dying must have helped to keep them alive.
“You woke up just in time, Sir, it’s nearly supper. I believe it’s smoked haddock and potatoes, very beige.”
They walk to supper together. There’s no wardroom anymore, no need for hierarchy. It’s all arbitrary - another bit of vanity they renounced when they abandoned ship. Englishmen mingle with French despite centuries of war and rivalry to dictate otherwise.
The moment he steps foot on the deck, he hears a great roar. Before he knows it, a tall figure dashes over to him - Fairholme alive and healthy, no sign of his snow blindness - strong arms engulf his midsection, lifting him right off the ground just as he did with Thomas all those weeks before.
“James-” he chokes out (quite literally, he’s being hugged with a tenacity that strains his airways), and feels tears welling up once more. What else can he say - I didn’t think you’d make it to Fort Resolution, you’re the reason we’re still alive - other than thank you.
He accepts a plate of haddock, potatoes, and a thick slab of bread; very beige indeed apart from a small portion of carrots. None of which is courtesy of the Goldner company, and there are no reports of putrid tins or bits of metal being picked from between teeth. Thomas scoots over on the bench to make room for him, their thighs flush against each other.
“He greeted almost everyone like that, Fairholme I mean. Even the captain.”
Edward nearly chokes on a potato. He is desperately trying not to laugh at the mental image. “Which one?”
“Both.”
This time he does laugh. The food is rich, much more variety than he was used to even with Christophe’s provisions. Plus, he’s gone two days without eating. He slices everything into tiny pieces before eating slowly, bit by bit.
***
A week and a half into their slow journey across the bay, Thomas approaches him with a pair of scissors and asks for his help. He’s clean-shaven with a new jumper on, deep forest green with thumb holes. They’ve all gotten some new clothes; their old ones were riddled with holes and fleas and the ever-present smell of death. Thank God their rescuers are merchants.
“Would you help me? I don’t want to try getting the back of my head.”
Edward agrees though he has no idea how to cut his hair, let alone someone else’s (when he was very young, his brother Jaime cut his hair while he was sleeping. Edward retaliated the same way. Their mother was displeased, to say the least.). This is something he’ll need to be walked through.
Thomas is seated on a chair with a towel tucked into his collar, Edward standing between his knees with a dull pair of scissors and grim determination. He starts with the long piece of fringe on the right side of his face, the one he’s always pushing off his forehead. The hair falls easily. Beaver gently sways the way all ships sway, Edward does not have to worry about slipping mid-snip. He closes the scissors again, remembers Thomas pristine-looking at one another from across the wardroom during dinner, tearing the captains apart during their fight, crowded around Mr. Blanky while Dr. McDonald readied his saw - not a stray cuff, button, or thread out of place, all bright eyes and night-dark hair. Edward fell in love with that precision, the competence with which he holds himself.
Is it….is this love? Is this how it feels?
Thomas could probably cut his hair in the dark, with a dull knife and his eyes closed and still have it looked perfect - even the back. But he asked Edward to do it for him. He thinks of the way his father would always have his mother do up his cuffs even though he could do it himself. Maybe that’s what love is, asking for help.
He trails a hand through the longer strands above his ear. There’s no more blood dotting his scalp. Ears are tricky, he’s worried he’s going to clip the skin there though the scissors would doubtless do little harm. Thomas wraps a steady hand around his wrist. More hair falls. The look on his face is one of rebirth, a return to normalcy.
The result isn’t bad. Edward isn’t going to open up a barbershop when they got home, but it’s serviceable.
“Would you do mine?”
“Of course.”
They switch places.
“I like your hair when it’s longer,” Thomas says as he combs through the tangles. “It makes you look softer. The way it looked right before Carnivale - with the ends flipping up - I thought you’d never looked more handsome.”
The haircut is immensely soothing. Thomas has never been anything but steady.
“Do you wish to keep the beard? I could shave it for you, as I did for the Captain.”
“What do you think of it?”
The scissors stop at the nape of his neck. Thomas circles back around to crouch in front of him so they’re face-to-face. Edward fights the urge to squirm under the severity of his gaze. “I quite like it actually, makes you look distinguished.”
“Better than the mutton chops?”
Thomas grins. “Much better than the mutton chops. Between them and those huge dark eyes of yours, you looked very much like a sheep.”
“Hey!” Edward swats at him before he’s out of the way, back behind him with the scissors.
“Lt. Lambchop reporting for duty, sir,” he snickers.
(The beard stays, in the end. It’s trimmed and tamed. Edward thinks that everyone who said temptation is easy to resist never had Thomas Jopson tipping two fingers under his chin to get closer to his neck. Edward looks to the boards of the ceiling and in the right light he can almost picture a future from this tableau.)
***
They all hear it, the bellows and whispers of the ship. Most of the ice is melted seeing as it’s summer, but there’s the occasional scrape that sends a pang of fear deep into their bellies. One night they hit choppy water and Beaver lurches across the waves, sending more than one man tumbling out of his hammock to the ground below. They wake with fear in their eyes, reaching for weapons they do not have and clutch each other until the water settles.
There are other noises too - ones that don’t belong on a ship. Muffled whimpers and yells that make them from their slumber. One night he hears desperate gulping sobs from down the hall he instantly knows belong to Collins. He’s never been good with comfort, especially to men who used to be his subordinates. Collins is tucked away in a corner, crying into Neptune’s heavy fur. Edward makes sure he’s visible as he approaches; in the dark, even a smile can be mistaken for a snarl. He eases his arm around Collins’s broad shoulders and drags a thumb over the thick wool of his jumper - saffron yellow, a colour the admiralty wouldn’t be caught dead clothing a second master in - while he sobs.
(“It was my fault. I gave Billy instructions to climb the mast before he fell. I’m the reason he went overboard. And I couldn’t save him, I should have at least tried. His corpse was still there when I was clearing ice from the propeller. Floating. It was so dark down there. I see him all the time, whenever I sleep, even when I blink, he’s there. We should have at least been able to bury him. Maybe he’d still be alive if…. if…”)
And that’s their tragedy, isn’t it? That great lingering ‘if’.
Edward has nightmares too. He does not remember the names of every man they lost the way Crozier does, the way he sits and writes letters day in and day out to their families, he remembers where each one of them came from and where many will not ever return. He does not know their names, but he remembers their bodies. He remembers guts and shattered skulls, walking skeletons dragging themselves over the shale rather than acknowledging their sickness, a gash here, a patch of missing skin here. The ship’s engine creaks and moans and all he can hear is Tuunbaq. One night, he’s awoken by a low whining in Thomas’s throat, a thrashing beside him. When he finally coaxes Thomas out of the nightmare, his eyes are glassy and unfocused, though there’s a little bit of flint behind them.
“I dreamt that you left me.”
It hits Edward like a bullet to the spine.
“I was so sick, and everyone left me behind. Even the Captain. Even you. You...you wanted to leave the sick and come back for us. You said it would help keep the pace up. And then you never came back, and I died alone.” His hands are knotted tightly in the front of his nightshirt, right over his heart. His skin is stretched tightly over his fingers. There’s fear etched on the canvas of his face but hurt too.
Gently as he can, Edward removes his hands and holds them in his own. “I will leave you only when you ask it of me,” he raises their clasped hands to his mouth, kisses Thomas’s palms, his knuckles, the bones of his wrist, the blue of his veins, “and if that’s never, so be it.”
***
Crozier asked him once, at the height of his drinking, “how fares the Raft of the Medusa?” He hasn’t stopped thinking about that question.
The Méduse was a French frigate that left Rochefort for Senegal in 1816 under a captain who had not sailed in twenty years. She was fast, yes, but badly navigated and ran ashore on the West African coast. 400 people were on board, well over the capacity for the lifeboats.
So, they built a raft to be tugged behind the lifeboats. It was unstable, with very few provisions and no way to navigate. In a panic, the people on the lifeboats cut the rope to the raft, leaving them adrift in the ocean. They survived for eight days before being rescued, by accident. In those eight days, many were swept overboard, were killed by those stronger than them, killed themselves, or were eaten. Of the 146 people aboard the raft, 15 were saved, though not all of them made it back to France. A ship was sent to rescue the gold that lay in the Méduse ’s wreck; it found 3 of the 17 people who stayed behind still alive.
There’s a painting of the event. Edward’s sister Maggie and her husband saw it in the Louvre; ‘wretched’ they called it. A pile of corpses should never be considered art. It’s a big painting, life-size, Maggie said. Like you’re standing on the shore watching the raft, but unable to help anyone on it.
How close were they to suffering a similar fate? And, if they did, would someone make a similar painting of their fate? A pair of ice-locked ships with trails of blood along the snow and bits of bones sticking out would make a striking image. It’d certainly be an eye-catching way to make a name for a promising young artist. Get famous off the backs of tragedy.
Crozier is not the sort of man to choose his words by accident. He must have wondered if they too would turn to cannibalism and infighting if they were left long enough. He probably still wonders.
Edward flushes the images of a raft filled with corpses from his mind. That could have been them, but it wasn’t. They were rescued. They’ll survive to tell their own stories rather than have one painted for them.
***
James Clark Ross knows they’re alive. The second Fairholme and his party showed up at Fort Resolution, the news was sent to England of their situation. Before Christophe and his party left they sent word to Ross directly, apparently the admiralty didn’t think their situation was that serious and that they didn’t need a rescue. This is why Ross and the HMS Enterprise will be personally meeting them in Québec City to see them home safely. Thank goodness for small mercies.
They’re getting close to land now. If Edward holds a telescope to his eye and squints on a clear day, he can make out a lumbering blurry shape in the distance. It’s warm on the deck now, they can stand out in their shirtsleeves and not shiver, a brush against metal doesn’t result in the loss of skin. Edward spends hours on the upper deck with his forearms against the railing, watching. Every day the blur of land gets bigger.
***
About 60 miles off the coast of Eastmain, a Cree community in northern Québec, they get caught in a storm. The water isn’t particularly harsh, but there’s lightning bright enough to wake you up and thunder loud enough to keep you up. Everyone tries not to notice it as best they can. The men in the rigging are sent down to avoid getting struck before the captain elects to slow the ship for tonight until it’s safe.
After a particularly long thunderclap that makes Edward’s teeth rattle, there’s the sound of panicked scuffling down the hall, then the whoosh of the curtain to their berth being pushed aside, then heavy dog panting. Neptune jumps onto the bunk and lands halfway onto Edward’s chest. The air leaves him in one big wheeze and the commotion (and the weight of a 150-pound dog) wakes Thomas.
Neptune whimpers. There’s another crash of thunder, not as long but it sounds like an explosion, and he howls, pawing at the blankets. Edward knows how to soothe a spooked horse, but he was never the one in charge of dogs. Besides, his dogs were all bred for hunting or herding, none of them were working dogs with a sense of feelings and mischief. He cups the dog’s face and whispers to him that the thunder can’t hurt him, the same way he’d do to his siblings when they were children. Thomas wedges himself out of the tight bunk. In the darkness, he fumbles around for the spare blanket they put away believing it to be no longer necessary with the warmer weather. Neptune’s breath is hot and a little bit rank - is there a way to brush a dog’s teeth? Do they need their teeth brushed? - as is his coat, though that’s a problem for another day.
The thunder quells a little bit and Neptune wiggles off Edward and onto the empty spot next to him. Edward has no choice but to pick up Neptune and hold him as Thomas crawls back into bed with the spare blanket. These bunks were made for one man, not two, and definitely not two and a very large dog. Together they maneuver Neptune to the end of the bed and tuck him securely under the blanket.
It takes the better half of an hour, he reckons, but the storm settles. Neptune’s breathing grows content as he wheezes his way back to sleep. Careful not to disturb him, Thomas snuggles up against Edward’s back and hooks his chin over his shoulder. He’s still a little bit awake when the storm stops, and he hears the ship picking up speed again.
***
The nicknames start on Beaver and continue indefinitely.
"What did your mom call you when you were a boy?" Thomas asks one day after dinner. The library on Beaver isn't as well-stocked as he was used to with Terror, but it suffices. He's got Frankenstein in one hand and is petting Thomas's hair with the other. They're alternating reading chapters aloud, Edward's stopped right before the Creature gets to tell his own story.
"Ned or Neddie. She only ever called me Edward when she was cross."
"Mine was the opposite, I was only Tommy when she was buttering me up for something."
Edward slips a scrap of paper between the pages and puts the book aside. "Tommy," he whispers, with as much reverence as Sir John used to talk about God, tracing a finger over the seam of his mouth.
"Neddie." Thomas breathes as a thumb jumps over his pulse. "My Neddie".
Frankenstein falls to the floor. Neither of them pays it more attention.
-
"Dear heart," whispered against the hollow of his neck in a dark corner of the orlop between meals.
-
“I’ve got you, old boy, you’re alright,” when he awakes from a nightmare thinking his chest is going to collapse. Strong hands holding him tight until the shaking subsides. You are here, not on the ice, not marching to your death. You are here and safe and going home.
-
“Hey there, sailor,” when Edward comes back to their berth drenched to the skin after chasing Jacko halfway across the main deck in the rain (she seems to miss John too, the other lieutenants are poor substitutes. Monkeys are intelligent animals, she knows that her friend is gone, but seemingly has hope he'll return). "We'd better get you warmed up."
-
“My north star, my guiding light,” when he thinks Edward is asleep on his chest.
-
The cobbled streets of Old Québec are the oldest in the city and they pass over them as if they’re any old rocks. Edward spies a couple of silver-haired ladies nestled together on a park bench and feels a wicked sense of humour come over him. “You know, French people call each other ‘cabbage’ as a term of endearment.”
Thomas looks at him, skeptical. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Mon petit chou,” he draws out those vowels for all they’re worth in an ambitious attempt at Christophe’s accent.
“That’s awful! There are so many better vegetables to use for pet names!”
He doesn’t believe this for a second and raises an eyebrow, teasing, confrontational. “Name one.”
“Turnip,” Thomas says primly without an ounce of irony.
He lets loose an ugly horse-like snort and loops an arm around Thomas’s waist. “Come on, Tommy, we’re going to be late getting to Enterprise .”
-
“Do you plan to keep me after we dock, lover mine?” They both know how this story normally ends: a man falls in love at sea but the connection fizzles apart on dry land. That the fate of a sailor is to never be still, he cannot live tied to one place alone. His ship is his friend, his mother, and his lover (Crozier adds confessor to this list), what else could he possibly need?
But maybe Edward wants to be tied down. Maybe wants a home that isn't constantly changing. Maybe he wants someone to come back to as more than a distant hope. "Keep you? like some sort of caged thing? No. But I will love you for as long as you let me."
-
"Darling boy," it's accompanied by a kiss behind his ear, a spot Thomas knows he's ticklish, a hand creeping under the linen of his nightshirt.
They’re late for breakfast.
***
They lose Hickey in Québec. He and three of his cronies (Tozer, Gibson, Manson) disappear from a train car halfway from Montréal. Nobody quite understands how it happened. There isn't any sort of spectacle, no big commotion to cover up a daring escape. The four men are simply there one minute and gone the next. By the time anyone realizes what happened, they’ve doubtless made enough headway to make stopping the train to apprehend them worthless.
For what it’s worth, Fitzjames is sure to tell the police of Hickey’s description and various crimes (they haven’t formally charged him with John’s murder, but there’s more than enough proof for it based on Dr. Goodsir’s autopsy) the next time they stop. He’s probably too far gone to make it useful, but it helps. Of course, it means that there’s a probable murderer and general vagrant loose in the province, but they don’t have to worry about Hickey and friends stirring up trouble for everyone else and potentially compromising their trip home. At least there’s less stress for everyone involved. This isn’t good thinking for a lieutenant, but Edward’s so far removed from his former duties that he doesn’t even feel guilty. It means no court-martial at least. It means that any charges they were going to level against him have no weight since the man in question vanished into thin air. It’s a unanimous decision to report that all three are dead. If they pop up elsewhere in the Royal Navy, they should be smart enough to use different names.
It’ll be easier to keep the story straight this way. No Tuunbaq, no murders, just a great deal of bad luck. A national tragedy the populace can really sink their teeth into.
A handful of other men elect not to return to England - they have no loved ones to speak of, or they decide to make a new life in Canada. Rebirth after baptism by ice. This brings their numbers down to 60. 60 men returning of 129, slightly less than half.
***
“What do you miss most about England?” Thomas asks on the main deck of the HMS Enterprise as they watch Canada shrink into the distance.
Edward considers the question. He thinks of how he would have answered it had the expedition not gone belly up - his family, his rooms, the pond by his family’s country house, the opera, all the culture he’s missed while he’s been away. As he thinks, and he’s aware that he’s overthinking such a simple question, it shifts in his head from ‘what do you miss?’ to ‘what do you want?’
What do you want, Edward Little, more than anything in the world?
Fresh food. New clothing. A very long, very hot bath. Some goddamn peace and quiet. To not have to worry. To never be cold again. To stay holed up somewhere in the country with Thomas without reporters breaking down their door to get a quote about the Doomed Franklin Expedition.
To never be on a boat again.
“I miss the green,” he says finally. “All the fields and the hills. I think I took green for granted before going to a place where nothing ever grows.”
“There’s not a whole lot of that in London.”
“I’ll show you. I’ll show you where I grew up.”
“I suppose I can show you Marylebone in that case.”
“You can meet my family if that’s what you want. They’d love you. Everyone always does.”
“And will they have embarrassing stories of Baby Neddie’s childhood exploits?”
“You won’t even have to ask. My sisters will tell you unprompted the second they meet you.”
“Excellent.”
“We can go to the Royal Opera House.”
“Will you forgive me if I get confused? I’ve never been to the opera before.”
“I’ll whisper the plot points in your ear.”
“How romantic. What if I accidentally doze off?”
Edward turns to look him dead in the eye and says with as much seriousness as he can muster (it isn’t very much, the corners of his mouth feel permanently turned up) “Thomas Jopson, I have every intention of loving you until we’re old and grey and even after that, but if I take you to the opera and you fall asleep I will never forgive you.”
***
In April of 1849, after much fanfare and countless invitations to parties he’s turned down - he’s changed a lot since 1845, but not enough that he’d willingly go to a party, especially the sort where people fawn over his bravery and coo about how awful it must have been to be trapped - Edward stands in front of the Board of Admiralty and announces his intention to retire.
Many hours have been spent weighing the merits of formally retiring. He knows he never wants to be at sea again, but that is a big thing to announce. He was fine with simply turning down any commissions that came his way— he’s commander now, and an Arctic veteran which will surely make him a contender for whichever expedition the Admiralty wishes to launch next, he’s young which means he’s still got plenty of time for a shining naval career, another stunning example of British fortitude— but Thomas pointed out that doing so would be cowardly. He was right, of course, damn him.
There was always the reason Ross used to take a step back: being married and wanting to settle down. Edward is thoroughly settled down in their little house in Brockenhurst (they compromised on this, far enough out that they avoid the city bustle but close enough to London that the commute isn’t an inconvenience) with Thomas and Neptune (Captain Crozier – no, they are no longer on a ship and the man himself insisted they could dispense with formalities, no, Francis – insisted they keep him based on how much he adores Thomas, though that’s not a difficult accomplishment. Anybody or anything with a working heart and brain adores Thomas, Neptune, being a smart dog and an excellent foot warmer, excels in this field). The problem is that he isn’t yet married. It’s one of the topics they’ve been talking around rather than discussing, but Edward knows they’ll broach it one day, the same way Thomas only began talking about his mother in earnest after they were firmly back on English soil.
Even then, Ross was married with a family and he still got back on a ship to rescue them. Maybe that’s an outstanding circumstance, but Edward could be called upon one day to do the same thing—and, depending on whom, he’s almost certain he would try.
So, here he is. Newly-minted commander, not yet 40, not yet married, the survivor of what could have been the biggest embarrassment of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy but is instead a national tragedy and admitting that he never wants to get on a boat again in his life.
It’s stuffy in the Admiralty. The collar of his dress uniform is too tight around his neck. For the first time since they got picked up by Beaver, he feels faint with worry. For the first time since he asked Thomas to dance, he worries he is in danger of throwing up on the shoes of a senior officer.
His intention is greeted with laughter at first. Surely, he cannot be serious about such a rash decision. Surely, one bad expedition cannot turn a man away from the sea forever. Besides, getting trapped in the ice was an expected part of Arctic expeditions, he should have known that when he signed up for the Discovery Service. Scurvy is easily preventable, what happened with the tins was an accident, a bad deal cut by a greedy man. The Admiralty will not have the same mistake twice.
“We weren’t going to send you back to the Arctic so soon, Commander,” the First Lord of the Admiralty, a man named Baron Northbrook says as though this is all an elaborate jest. “The West Indies maybe, or Tasmania. We’ve decided to take a break from the poles.”
Edward stands firm in his position.
The Baron raises an eyebrow, says “there are still pirates who need to be hunted down, slavers too in the East. Isn’t it every boy’s dream to hunt down pirates?”
He hates this. Trying to convince him to stay by addressing him like a child in short pants. Some of the other assembled men chuckle softly, the kinder ones at least pretend to muffle it. He’s tired of being hand-held and patronized. If he were a braver or perhaps more reckless man he’d point out that in his experience more boys dream of being pirates rather than hunting them down. Several of his brothers did, if he wasn’t feeling up to it, they’d bind his hands behind his back and make him play a prisoner on the verge of walking the plank. Sometimes there was a daring last-minute rescue, sometimes there wasn’t. Janet loved dressing up in their father’s old shirts over her pinafores and demanding they call her Anne Bonny. She especially loved telling them that they wouldn’t have hanged like dogs if they had fought like men. Sometimes they’d even wrangle the groom, or one of the maids into their flights of fancy, usually as rival pirates who they’d have to defeat in combat.
And yet, he was the only one who went to sea.
Sometimes he wishes he could just tell someone what happened. There’s so much still inside of him that on bad days he feels as though he’s going to stumble under the weight of it, or that it’s going to choke him from the inside out. Thomas is always willing to listen, of course; he always knows what to do when Edward wakes in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, scrambling around in the bed to make sure he isn’t alone, and he knows what to do when Edward’s head is filled with fog and he goes through the motions of living like it’s an elaborate performance. It helps to know that this was real, that 60 other men lived it too and that he isn’t going mad. He’s got friends all over the country he can pay a call to and talk about what happened, remind each other that they aren’t going through this alone.
If he could speak the words, here’s what he would say. He’d look Baron Northbrook in the eye and tell him this:
We were hunted by an ancient Inuit spirit that looked like a bear but not. It ripped off Sir John’s leg before throwing him down a hole, all we had to bury of him was that leg. Sir John forbade turning back to save our skins, he forbade James’s party heading to Fort Resolution. If he hadn’t been killed when he was, I doubt I would be standing here in front of you. Mr. Blanky lost a leg too, we only barely managed to save him. We were saved by a Netsilik girl who cut off her tongue to bind the creature to herself. A madman slaughtered one of my friends, scalped him then murdered an Inuit family and blamed it on them. Called it justice. We lost him in Canada, by the way. When I remember John, the first thing I think of is his exposed brain, then his face. It’s cold there, colder than I reckon several of you gentleman can imagine let alone have experienced.
I saw body parts turn black from frostbite and heard of exploding teeth. I was snow blind for a week, and do you know how scared I was that I would never be able to see again? Do you know that nothing grows in the Arctic circle? When our scalps started bleeding from scurvy, we made sure we weren’t seen without our Welsh wigs lest someone see signs of weakness. Do you know what lead poisoning feels like? Like your joints are filled with glass. We had to pick lead out of our meals, bits and pieces that could get caught in a molar. And that went on for years. My body remembers the feeling, just as it remembers hunger. I’m still trying to reach the weight I was before I left. It was awful, the way bones would protrude from skin like they were trying to escape, how we had to work up to eating proper meals again because our stomach would reject anything with proper nutrients. We hauled our sick in boats for a hundred miles in a death march and you could hear them screaming in pain. One of the men begged us to kill him rather than force him to continue to suffer. Can you imagine how desperate we were by the time we got saved? How hard do you have to think to imagine what we would have turned to next?
Most of all he wants to look every single one of those men with medals across their breast in the eyes and demand to know if it was worth it. Less than half their crew came back, and they didn’t find the Passage to boot. Were their promotions worth it? The pay? Was it worth it to the admiralty that they came back at all? What good is the story of an adventure if it isn’t one you want to remember.
Edward recalls the way Francis gave orders after Sir John died, after he sobered up, the best kind of captain a man could hope for, thinks of Mr. Blanky after Tuunbaq severed his leg, not an ounce of fear to be found. He steels himself and says as even as the frantic thrum of his heart will allow, “with all due respect, gentlemen. I will do any job you ask of me, I will attend every admiralty function I'm invited to, but I will not set foot on another ship.”
A cool silence descends over the room. Edward feels like he ought to turn on his heel and leave without another word, that’d cement it as final. Despite everything, he’s still polite to a fault. Instead, he stands at ease with his hands clasped behind his back and waits for a verdict.
About a dozen separate glances are exchanged between the array of men in front of him, whole conversations in eye contact he is not privy to. He can hear the watch in his waistcoat tick-tick-tick each second an agony, an eternity.
Northbrook stands slowly, extends a hand to him more out of reluctance than respect. “Very well then, Commander Little. If that’s your choice, then so be it.”
They let him leave.
They let him continue to live on solid ground.
On his train back to Brockenhurst, Edward takes an old copy of The Odyssey from the inside of his coat and flips to chapter 11, when Odysseus visits the underworld. He is instructed by the blind prophet Tiresias to carry an oar on his back until he gets far enough inland that men have no knowledge of the sea and mistake the oar for a winnowing fan. Only after that (and after completing the appropriate sacrifices) will he be allowed to return home in peace and die a gentle death far from the sea.
He thinks of Thomas waiting for him at home. Their warm bed and squeaky window hinges. Food they do not have to ration and is always hot. Neptune running through the house and out the door, down the drive. The rare moments of sunshine they find themselves basking in. Green as far as he can see.
Odysseus picks up an oar and carries it inland…