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His eye for nature is a gift from God, an ability to commit to memory what he sees, and transfer it to the page.
Would that he had less of a memory now.
John’s hand is shaking as he dips his brush into the water, and then brings it to his box of watercolours, hovers there for a moment trying to choose—
(start with the jacket, start with the crimson of his jacket)
—between the Payne’s grey and the Vandyke brown. The excess water on the tip of his brush drips, splashes into the brown, sending some of it into the quarter-cake of ultramarine, and John very nearly sobs, lowers his brush to the ivory pencil-rest and puts his head in his hands, presses his palms into his eyes as though by doing so, he can erase the things he’s seen, as though there is some way that he can just—begin the day over again, and just do—something else. Stay on the ship, engage George in a conversation about music, distract Edward from his unhealthy lingering on the Captain’s steward, which is the first step to Sin, but still entirely preventable if Edward would just take some time to sit with John and study the Bible—that should have been his focus, saving Edward’s soul.
Dear Lord, John thinks. I see now the Error of my Ways, and I am Ready to Make Amends…
He prays this way for some time. At the end of his prayer, he exhales, visualizes his sins and temptations leaving his body and being carried up to the Lord, where they will be disposed of properly, so that he will not be troubled by them any longer.
Then he opens his eyes, and they fall on the paper in front of him.
There is hardly any detail, but there needn’t be, not when he remembers it all. On the right, the vast expanse of ice that holds them hostage. On the left, HMS Terror, tilted at an angle, and in her stern, two figures. The taller figure’s head is tipped down, and his jacket will be a brilliant red when the painting is finished. The shorter figure, the caulker’s mate, is surely up on his toes, because it’s the only way he could have closed the height difference between them, it’s the only way he—
John’s body makes a sound without his consent, and he shoves his fist against his mouth, bites down.
It doesn’t matter that the watercolour isn’t complete, it doesn’t matter that the details aren’t there, the entire thing is in his head.
He was out on the ice. There was no reason for him to be there, but the Great Cabin was too hot, and he’d been shirking his duties on Edward’s salvation, and thus he is punished, thus he has sinned, thus he has been thrice-damned with this vision, thus he has—
There is a sharp rap on the door, and John startles to attention, puts his hand over the paper. “Yes?” His voice is wavering, high-pitched, and he hates it, he hates it.
The door slides open, and there he is, the red of his jacket the brightest thing John has seen since—since earlier in the day—and—and—
“Brought this back for you,” he rumbles, and he holds out John’s spyglass.
John blinks at him.
Sergeant Tozer raises his eyebrows. “’less you don’t want it back?”
“Leave it on the desk,” John says in a rush. “Sergeant,” he adds afterwards, as though that will make a difference, as though hiding behind rank will help him forget what he’s seen, as though—
“There you are, Lieutenant,” Tozer says, setting the spyglass down like it’s a fragile thing, just as carefully as he’d held the caulker’s mate’s face between his hands earlier that afternoon when he’d bent down, pressed their lips together in—in a kiss, and he’d—
John doesn’t exhale until the door slides shut again, carefully takes his sweaty palm from the paper that he’d been covering, the watercolour of—of Tozer kissing the caulker’s mate on Terror’s deck. He carefully folds the paper in half so that he cannot see the image, tears the page again and again and again, all the while staring at his recently returned spyglass. He wonders whether touching it would allow him to feel the warmth of the sergeant’s fingers.
Wonders if touching it would let him feel what the caulker’s mate felt.