Chapter Text
Caulker's Mate Cornelius Hickey was on the orlop deck, tamping a bit of oakum into the seam between two of the beams of Terror's hull when something caught his eye. He paused in his work, tilting his head to get a better look. Something that was decidedly neither pitch nor tar-soaked oakum had been jammed into the crack between the boards.
Curious, Hickey used the end of his caulking iron to gently pry the object from the wall—hull— he corrected himself, as he coaxed whatever it was out of the crevice and into his waiting palm.
It was a piece of paper, folded many times. Evidently, someone had left him a note. Hickey unfolded it.
His hands are gentle in his every task
In everything he cleans, in each repair
His presence is a warmth in which I bask
Amid this frigid landscape of despair
I long to give my heart into his care
(Could any heart have ever known such bliss?)
To pull him close, caress his raven hair
And dare the desecration of a kiss
Yet each chance that I have I seem to miss
How could he ever want a man like me?
No words to offer save set down like this.
A fool whose tongue is frozen as this sea.
And still against all sense my hopes do rise;
Could I find favour in his lovely eyes?
Hickey blinked. "Raven hair." This poem wasn't about him, then. But then why would someone have left it here for him to find? The caulker's mate frowned, carefully refolding the piece of paper and slipping it into his pocket before continuing with his task.
As Hickey worked, he considered. Clearly, it would seem, whoever it was who had written the poem was too shy to confess his feelings, and, as such, had enlisted Hickey's help in the matter of wooing his lovely-eyed, raven-haired sweetheart.
It was gratifying to know that his reputation as an expert romanceur preceded him amongst the crew, even if a certain uppity, foolish, cowardly, backstabbing subordinate officers' steward insisted on making him out to be nothing more than a devious seducer.
In any case, this man needed Hickey's help, and he was determined to succeed. He was certain that he would be able to bring the two of them together.
Although, Hickey rather wished that the author had given him a bit more to go on in terms of his sweetheart's identity; at least half the crew had hair that might conceivably be described as raven, especially under the near-perpetual dimness of their current conditions. There was also, of course, the matter of the identity of the author, who had not signed his name.
No matter! Hickey would figure it out.
***
It was five bells in the second dog watch and Hickey was seated between ship's boys Thomas Evans and Robert Golding at one of the seaman's tables that had been lowered for the evening meal. He had made short work of his salt beef and bisket, and he now retrieved the poem from his pocket and unfolded it, rereading the words carefully as if some further clue might yet reveal itself in the comparatively better lighting of the fo'c'sle.
"What have you got there, Cornelius?" asked Magnus Manson from where he was seated on the other side of the table, next to William Strong.
"It's a poem," Hickey said, with the air of a man who has just become the most interesting person in a room, and knows it.
"You've written a poem?" asked Manson, curiously. "What is it about?"
"It's a love poem," Hickey said solemnly. Beside him, Evans dropped his fork onto his plate with a small and raucous clatter. Manson's eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline.
The caulker's mate chuckled. "But I didn't write it," he confided.
Magnus blinked.
"Oh," he said, his brow furrowing. "Well, did someone write it for you, then?"
"Not exactly," said Hickey, with a smile.
"What does that mean, 'Not Exactly'?" piped up Golding, from around a mouthful of bisket.
"It means," Hickey explained, "That I am not the subject of the poem, but it was left for me to find. I found it tucked away, folded up and stuck into a crack between the boards in the hull on the orlop deck as I was caulking this afternoon."
"What makes you so sure you were the one who was meant to find it?" asked Billy Strong.
Hickey gave a little shrug.
"Who else would be likely to be poking around in the cracks between the boards on the orlop deck?" he countered.
"Mister Darlington," Magnus responded immediately. Hickey blinked.
"Possibly," Cornelius conceded. The caulker did have dark hair, and he did repair things, though having spent a great deal of time with the man his presence was not one that Hickey would particularly describe as warm. Nevertheless, he added Darlington to his mental list of possibilities.
"I don't think it was meant for him, though," Hickey continued. "Here's my Theory: the man who wrote this poem, while clearly brilliant, must be dreadfully shy, and although he is a poet, he is inexperienced in matters of the heart. Thus he has sought out the assistance of someone with more experience in order to help him woo his sweetheart. Now, while Mister Darlington does have some experience with romance—did you know he has a wife?—he is hardly what one might call a Romantic, and besides, he hasn't my appreciation for poetry."
"I didn't know you had any particular appreciation for poetry, Mister Hickey," came the voice of Henry Peglar from behind him.
Hickey turned around, swiveling his torso to look over his right shoulder. It seemed that Thomas dropping his fork had attracted more attention than either of them had realized, and that several of their mess mates at surrounding tables were now listening in on the conversation.
"Of course I've an appreciation for poetry," Hickey said with a sniff, adjusting his volume slightly in accordance with the size of his audience. "I'm a Limerick man, after all."
In response to this statement, Harry Peglar opened his mouth, promptly shut it again, and gave the caulker's mate a single, pensive nod.
"Well, go on," said William Strong, thus rotating Hickey's attention almost exactly 180º, "What does it say, then?"
Delighted with this opportunity to command the attention of the entire fo'c'sle, and determined to do his absolute best on behalf of the fellow who had entrusted him with such an important task, in case the intended sweetheart himself should in fact be in attendance, Cornelius Hickey got to his feet atop the sea chest on which he had previously been sitting, and began to read the entire poem out loud.
It was at this exact moment that Third Lieutenant John Irving emerged from the companionway, carrying the evening's watch bill, and proceeded to watch in open mouthed astonishment as the caulker's mate stood on a sea chest, declaiming in iambic pentameter. When he had finished his dramatic reading of the poem, Hickey took a bow, which was met with scattered applause of varying levels of enthusiasm and befuddlement.
"Mister Hickey!" Lieutenant Irving exclaimed, his voice coming out just a bit too loudly in his enthusiasm for having finally managed to find it, "Please get down from there at once!"
Hickey looked over at Irving and blinked, seeming only just now to have noticed his presence in the mess. The brief look of surprise quickly vanished, replaced by one of those unsettling, insubordinate smiles that began at his mouth before slowly spreading across his entire face and settling oddly in his eyes.
"Well, Lieutenant," Hickey said, fixing him with that glinting grin, "I suppose since you asked so nicely."
Irving folded both his lips into his mouth, bit down on them, and seethed.
Hickey got down from his makeshift stage, taking his time about it, but it would seem that even once he had resumed his seat the caulker's mate was reluctant to relinquish his audience.
"So you see, gentlemen," he said, as though he were a professor in a public lecture hall, "Our Poet is in love, but too shy to outright tell the fellow that he loves him, so he's written him this poem—"
"That will be quite enough, Mister Hickey," Irving interjected, taking a few steps towards him. "If there is a demand amongst the men for lectures on poetry appreciation and interpretation such a demand will be met by someone who is more qualified to speak on the subject."
"I am qualified," Hickey insisted. "I have a great appreciation for poetry. As I said, I'm a Limerick man—"
"Do you even know what kind of a poem that is, Mister Hickey?" Irving interrupted, cutting him off again.
"Of course I do," said Hickey, looking imperiously affronted. "Clearly, It's a love poem. But then, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Lieutenant?"
"It's a sonnet," Irving snapped.
Hickey blinked, then had the audacity to smile at him again.
"Well of course it's a sonnet," Hickey said, as though he were the very patient tutor of a particularly slow child, "It's a love sonnet, written from one man to another."
"I will not have you misconstruing such vulgar nonsense!" Irving exclaimed, taking another step towards Hickey and raising his voice once more.
Hickey's eyebrows ascended.
"It's not vulgar nonsense, and I'm not misconstruing anything, Lieutenant," he said, holding up the piece of paper with the poem written on it, "Look, it says right here in the text—"
"It is not only vulgar nonsense, it is against the Ship's Articles," Irving practically hissed, looming over the seated caulker's mate like an impending tidal wave of fury.
"The articles prohibit buggery, Lieutenant, not poetry," Hickey replied.
For a brief, tense moment, it appeared that Third Lieutenant John Irving might actually be about to explode. His face went red and he spluttered like an overboiling teakettle, then he snatched the piece of paper directly out of Hickey's hand.
"I'm confiscating this because it isn't yours," Irving stated, with surprising clarity and firmness given that that last several sounds to come out of his mouth had barely resembled words.
"It was given to me—" Hickey began to protest.
"Cease ARGUING with me, Mister Hickey," Irving very nearly shouted.
"Aye, sir, ceasing to argue at once, sir," Hickey said.
Lieutenant Irving glared at him for another moment before shoving the now slightly wrinkled, nearly forgotten watch bill into the hands of a speechless Mister Hornby and storming back down the companionway whence he had emerged.
***
First Lieutenant Edward Little was seated at the table in the great cabin, half studying a map, half listening politely as Second Lieutenant Hodgson recounted to him, in great detail, the plot of some swashbuckling French newspaper serial that he had apparently been keeping up with up until they had set sail, that somehow both was and definitely was not a sequel to the other newspaper serial that George was so fond of, and endeavoring internally to calculate the optimal rate at which he ought to be drinking his tea, when Lieutenant Irving, returning from delivering the evening's watch bill, stormed into the room in a manner that was so reminiscent of their Captain that Edward automatically rose to his feet.
"Oh, welcome back!" said Hodgson, blithely following suit and rising to his feet as well, still holding his cup of tea. "I say, John, is everything alright? For a moment we could hear you all the way down the hall."
"Yes, what was that about?" Edward chimed in, equal parts genuinely curious and eager for any topic of conversation that might divert attention from the fact that he had just stood up seemingly in deference to a third lieutenant.
John let out an exasperated huff, reclaiming his own half-finished cup of tea from earlier and downing it very nearly in one go before he was capable of answering the question. Perplexed but privately delighted by this development—John finishing his cup of tea so quickly meant it would perhaps not appear altogether too peculiar if Edward did the same—the first lieutenant increased his rate of intake.
"It would seem that the caulker's mate has chanced upon a poem," said Irving, collecting himself as Mister Jopson refilled his cup of tea.
"A poem?" Little heard himself say. His insides suddenly felt rather cold. Perhaps more tea would help. He took another large swallow, draining his teacup before replacing it, along with its saucer, back on the table. He found his gaze wandering back to the map as Mister Jopson finished tending to Irving's teacup before moving soundlessly around to Little's side of the table to see to his.
"Yes, I have it here" said John, unfolding the by now somewhat rumpled sheet of paper. "I had thought it was a sonnet at first," Irving said, "But it isn't a proper sonnet at all. The rhyming is all wrong."
"Let me see," said Hodgson, moving closer to Irving in order to peer at the piece of paper still clutched in the third lieutenant's hand.
Edward's gaze remained fixed upon the map, but out of the corner of his eye he watched Jopson's hands carefully refill his teacup, noiselessly adding and stirring in two cubes of sugar before replacing the spoon on the saucer and disappearing as the steward moved away again, with all the fleeting splendour of a comet.
"It is a sonnet," Hodgson proclaimed, snapping Edward back to reality and inadvertently reminding him that he had probably ought to breathe. He reached for his teacup, careful not to rattle the china, before turning his body away slightly, wishing to enjoy the oddly intimate, warming pleasure of the first sip of this fresh cup of tea in as much privacy as might be afforded in a room with three other people.
"It doesn't have the proper rhyme scheme," Irving protested.
"That's because it's a Spenserian sonnet. Look here," said Hodgson, pointing to the paper, "A Shakespearean sonnet would have the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. In Spenserian sonnets, the rhyme scheme is interlaced, as it is here: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE."
Edward raised the cup of tea very nearly to his mouth and inhaled, relishing the familiar scent of it, the warm caress of the steam upon his lips. He allowed his eyes to slip closed as he finally took his first sip, holding the liquid in his mouth as one did with smoke from a pipe, savouring the heat, the flavour, the perfectly dispersed sweetness of the sugar expertly stirred in by Mister Jopson. He marvelled at the capacity of the beverage to warm him through so thoroughly, sending steamlike tendrils of heat from where it rested in his mouth all the way down to his toes and dissipating the strange chill that had settled in his insides before he had even properly swallowed.
"I don't understand," Irving was saying, a world away, at the other end of the table. "What do you mean by ABAB? These lines end in K and R."
"Oh!" said Hodgson, "Well, the ABAB has nothing to do really with what letters the lines actually end in. Or rather, it does, but only abstractly. It's a manner of classification of sorts."
"Please talk sense, George."
"Well," George said again, putting an arm around the third lieutenant in order to get a closer look at the paper still, as though they were schoolboys, huddled at some desk over a shared lesson book. He pointed at the paper. "This first line here, 'His hands are gentle in his every task' that's your A line."
Edward's eyes snapped open, his body attempting simultaneously to swallow his mouthful of tea and suck in a breath of air through his nose. This did not go well.
"HRK!" he said, mortifyingly audibly, just barely managing to keep his tea inside of his mouth and swallow it down with a force that was almost painful before bursting into a rather undignified fit of coughing.
"Is there something the matter with your tea, Edward?" Hodgson asked, as the desperate first lieutenant set his cup and saucer down on the table with a slight but abrupt clatter, fumbling for his handkerchief. He shook his head vigorously.
"No," Edward managed valiantly to croak in between two bouts of coughing. He would be damned if he allowed Mister Jopson to believe for even an instant that Edward had somehow found fault in his work.
Lieutenant Little held the piece of fabric to his mouth until he had managed to regain a modicum of composure, clutching at the embroidered cloth as tightly as he might were it, in fact, the very last shred of his dignity.
"Nothing wrong with the tea," Little reiterated, keeping his eyes cast down on the task of refolding and tucking away his handkerchief as he turned back to face his companions. "A very ill timed cough, that's all. My apologies, gentlemen. Please carry on." He risked a glance to gauge the other two lieutenants' expressions as they resumed their lesson, and was suddenly very glad he had not yet dared to take another sip of tea as the disaster would have surely been repeated at once.
Mister Jopson was looking at him. Not through him, not next to him, but directly at him. The steward's mask of service had slipped, and he seemed to be regarding the lieutenant with concern. Edward wished that Mister Jopson would look at him forever. He wished that he could sink into the floor.
He sank back into his chair, instead. Edward once more reclaimed his cup and took another, much smaller, much more cautious sip of tea, the warmth of which nonetheless was enough to embolden him to raise his eyes to meet Mister Jopson's gaze and offer him a small, timid smile. To Edward's utter shock, Jopson returned it; smiling broadly, almost fondly at him, before his eyes widened and he seemed to recover himself, head facing forward, eyes dead ahead, face schooled into a perfectly neutral expression.
Before Edward Little could even begin to think what to make of this, his attention was once more drawn, in moderate horror, to the other two officers, as second lieutenant Hodgson continued to read the poem out loud.
"'I long to give my heart into his care' there, you see, we have another B line, serving to interlace the two stanzas, before moving on to our first C line, '(Can any heart have ever known such bliss?)'. The same thing happens at the shift to the next stanza, when we get another C line. Do you follow?"
"Yes," said John. "Yes, I believe I'm with you now. You really are quite good at this, George."
"Why, thank you, John!" There was a pause.
"I may have mentioned to Mister Hickey that if there were a demand for lectures on poetry appreciation amongst the men, that we would find a more suitable lector," John said. "Would you perhaps be willing, George?"
"Me? Oh, goodness, perhaps, though who we had really ought to ask is Mister Bridgens over on Erebus. That man's mind is a library, and the men adore him." Irving nodded thoughtfully, and Hodgson turned his attention back to the poem.
"It is most curious," the second lieutenant remarked. "The handwriting is so oddly familiar; I feel as though I had ought to know it at once and yet I do not. It is very neatly done. I wonder who wrote it?"
"Goodness knows," said Irving. "In any case, Mister Hickey's assessment was wrong. This poem isn't anything vulgar at all. He was trying to twist it into something else, but clearly this is an expression of deep and abiding friendship."
At this George raised his eyebrows and vocalized a small and pensive hum. Edward took another sip of his tea.
"What about the line about kissing?" Hodgson asked. Irving shook his head, dismissively.
"That's normal," said the third lieutenant. "It's normal to want to kiss your friends. An ancient and chaste expression of affection, of brotherhood." Hodgson gave him a queer look.
"Oh?" replied Hodgson, "That is good to hear, John. But why then do you think the poet would describe such a kiss as a 'desecration'?" Again John shook his head, pensively this time.
"It appears that the author does not esteem himself to be worthy of reciprocation of the feelings of friendship and affection of the man of whom he is so fond," Irving said. "Perhaps the man outranks him, or has spent more years at sea. Perhaps he is above our poet in social status. It can be intimidating to desire the friendship of one's betters, though we are all brothers in Christ, and shipmates besides."
Hodgson hummed thoughtfully again.
"You know, this could well be written about you, John," the second lieutenant said.
"About me?" Lieutenant Irving exclaimed, pulling back slightly from where he and Hodgson had been huddling over the piece of paper.
George let his arm, which had still been encircling Irving, slide naturally away as the third lieutenant took a step back to regard him fully. Hands no longer occupied, George brought them together and awkwardly fiddled with them for a moment, before picking up his own saucer and teacup and idly beginning to re-stir his already perfectly stirred tea. He finished, replacing the spoon on the saucer, and took a dainty sip.
"It could be," the second lieutenant repeated. "Raven hair, lovely eyes. The description is vague, but it matches. Although, didn't the first stanza say something about repairing things? Perhaps it is about one of the carpenters. Might I see the poem again, please?"
Irving nodded, wordlessly handing Hodgson the sheet of paper. The third lieutenant's cheeks had suddenly gone rather pink.
George set both his teacup and the poem on the table in front of him. He studied the words on the paper intently, then shook his head.
"Truly, the handwriting is so familiar," George said again. Then, suddenly, "Edward!" he exclaimed, picking up the paper and coming around to where the first lieutenant sat, frozen, staring at him, his insides filled with a sort of plumbeous dread.
"Edward, have a look at this, will you?" Hodgson asked, eagerly, setting the piece of paper down before him on the table, rather as though it were a dinner plate.
The first lieutenant of H.M.S. Terror, who rather thought that he had experienced very nearly the entire range of human emotion in the course of the dog watch thus far, stared at the poem that Hodgson had placed on the table in mute, baffled paralysis.
"Well?" Hodgson prompted hopefully, when several more moments had elapsed than the second lieutenant had thought would be necessary for Edward to read the poem, even if he were reading it very slowly. Edward raised his eyes slowly from the paper to meet George's own. He still did not say anything.
"Do you recognize the handwriting?" George gently prompted further. At this Edward seemed to return to his senses. He blinked, took a breath, then a sip of tea, before proceeding to turn his attention once more to the piece of paper, drawing it ever so slightly towards himself and regarding it studiously.
"I cannot say it is familiar to me," Lieutenant Little said at last, sliding the poem back across the surface of the table towards George, who seemed to deflate slightly before retrieving the paper and slowly making his way back towards his own place at the table.
The statement was not untrue; although he had written it, it was certainly not Edward's usual handwriting. The harried scrawl of his written reports was legible, and it conveyed the information that it needed to convey, but the letters had a tendency to bunch together, and often he found, midway through expressing an idea, that the block of text he was writing had grown rather large and that he had perhaps ought to have begun a new paragraph several lines back, but that if he were to begin one now, merely for the sake of legibility, it would make things even more confusing, and crossing out and rewriting what ought to have been a new paragraph as a new paragraph was a waste of time and ink, and starting over altogether was out of the question, and thus he would simply press on.
The poem had been different. There had been no urgency to it; Edward had taken his time. There was no hurry in penning a poem that would never be read by the man to whom it was written. Even so, Edward had thought, he could still make it look neat, make it something Mister Jopson might approve of, at least in terms of penmanship.
He could take care not to bunch the words together, allowing them to spread out, their meaning laid bare upon the page, before folding them up as tightly as he could and shoving them out of sight where they would soon be covered over with pine tar and pitch and no one would ever know they had existed: merely another secret between Terror and one of the members of her crew.
"Mister Jopson," Hodgson said rather suddenly, that same note of eagerness once more present in his voice. Edward felt his soul leave his body.
"Sir?" Jopson replied, polite and attentive, as Hodgson stepped over to him, holding out the piece of paper.
"Would you be so good as to have a look at this, and tell me if you recognize the handwriting?"
Jopson took the paper carefully—so carefully—into his gloved hands, and studied the words upon the page. As the steward read, that same, soft smile from earlier, though much subdued, seemed to return; it was only for an instant, a sort of flicker at the corners of his lips, but it was there.
"I believe I may be able to place it, sir," Jopson said "although I would need to ponder on it for a time. Might I hang on to the poem, sir? It would be a great help to be able to look at it."
"I don't see why not," said Hodgson, "Although I believe Lieutenant Irving is the one who was holding it in custody." He looked expectantly to John, who gave a small shrug.
"I have no objections," said the third lieutenant, then, evidently uncomfortable in having the last word in such a decision and seeking the approval of his superior officer, looked over at Edward. "Lieutenant Little?"
Edward took in a breath, remembering, at last, the fact that he had lungs. He took another fortifying sip of tea before he spoke.
"I can think of no better man to look after such a thing," Little said, hoping as he said it that it sounded like a sane and normal thing to say, if, perhaps, a bit whimsical, similar to the way that Lieutenant Hodgeson often was. He looked over at Jopson, who bowed his head politely at the compliment.
"Thank you, Sirs," the steward said quietly, before carefully refolding the paper along the lines of each original crease before slipping it—oh, it was nearly too much for Edward to bear—into his breast pocket, right over his own beating heart.
Above them, on deck, the bell was struck seven times. Edward finished the last few sips of his tea before carefully placing the spoon across the cup and rising to his feet.
"Well, gentlemen, next bell's my watch, and I had best get ready" said Lieutenant Little. "I shall see you all at the command meeting at five, if not before." There was a round of "Good Evening"s, and the first lieutenant took his leave.
George Hodgson sighed, sinking down into his chair once more and taking a sip of his tea.
"Well this has been rather an eventful evening," George remarked. Lieutenant Irving nodded, then shook his head.
"Do you know what that horrible little man said to me when I told him that what he was suggesting went against the ship's articles?" Irving asked.
"What did he say, John?" asked Hodgson.
"He said 'The articles prohibit buggery, Lieutenant, not poetry,'" John quoted. Hodgson paused, considering this for a moment.
"I mean, he's not wrong," George said at last. Irving gaped at him with a look of indescribable betrayal.
"George!"
"Well, it's true! There is, technically speaking, nothing whatsoever in the Articles of War that pertains to poetry."
"You are impossible," said Lieutenant Irving, before finishing and setting aside his own cup of tea. "In any case, I'm glad it's over. Or, at the very least, that the matter is contained."