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They haul the sledges long into the summer evening, and yet when Francis calls a halt, James does not believe they have truly escaped the odour of charred flesh.
Every evening it takes longer to make camp, though there are now only a handful of tents. The men move slowly under the eerie shadowless overcast that has spread through the day, heads bowed as if determined not to look back to see whether there is still a smudge of smoke on the horizon.
The one remaining stove is lifted from a boat, and a few of Goldner's tins. Empty crates and planks – hoarded against the day the pyroligneous fuel runs out – become seats and tables, alongside the few assorted pieces of camp furniture left unbroken after the attack.
Every empty tin and barrel, every bucket and vessel that can be spared, the men spread on the ground surrounding the boats. There is a chance of rain tonight, and if it comes, they cannot afford to waste a drop of it.
At dinner, the men sit with their backs to the remnants of their previous camp, unconsciously forming awkward half-circles around every table. It takes mere moments to consume the rations each man is now allotted, but lingering somehow assuages hunger, helping mark the fact that they have eaten. So, James believes, runs the theory.
A gentle hand on James' shoulder is almost enough to topple him from the crate where he sits. Francis – James blinks at him through a haze of exhaustion.
"I believe our tent should be ready," Francis says, his mouth smiling but his brows lifting together in concern. For an instant they are walking back from the cairn again – that seems so long ago, it might as well have happened on the moon.
"Are you with me, James?"
"Hm? Yes. Yes." He is surprised that he can still produce coherent words after this, his first day of hauling now that they are so short-handed; best not push his luck. In his peripheral vision it suddenly registers that the other officers have already left the table. Even his mess-traps have disappeared from in front of him.
"Between the arms-tent and the infirmary this time. Though I believe we are overdue for a quiet night."
"I am inclined to agree."
"Come, then." Francis sets off at a slow pace, one that James can easily match. "It'll be close quarters for two, but we'll manage, I daresay."
James smiles, only because he knows Francis wants it of him. Every step sends sharp splinters of pain up through his legs, jarring his spine like a string of brittle beads. And yet, he hauled today. How many of the men must be in a similar condition?
He would have preferred to give the infirmary tent a wide berth. Half-shadowed in its central doorway, John Bridgens looks up from counting the surviving bottles in the medicine chest, acknowledging James with a kindly nod.
James glances away. His former steward knows him too well.
Their tent – the tent that was Francis' alone, until James' own was destroyed in the attack – stands a little further off, though still within earshot of the arms-tent in case of any disturbance. Despite the shuddering of the canvas in the incessant breeze, the darkness within makes it a haven, calling out to James.
Francis quickens his steps to reach the door first, lifting one weather-worn flap with a wry bow.
"After you."
Ducking, James is unbalanced, so that on instinct he puts out a hand for the corner of the washstand just inside. His bad hand; a tremor runs through his arm as he stumbles further in, but it hurts less than it ought. Less than his knees, or his hip, or his side, or...well. Golden sparks still crowd his vision as he staggers to the back of the tent and sinks onto the edge of the first cot.
There are two, of course, but they are laid out side by side across the back of the tent, with less than a hand's breadth between the bedrolls.
"It'll be warmer, being close like that."
"Yes, of course."
They have only shared a bed once: the night after Carnevale, aboard Erebus. James had been unable to hide the trickles of blood from his hairline; had had no choice but to admit that he was ill. But that was when he was still able to set the pain aside; when he could accept the comfort of being held, without fear of Francis' questing hands discovering the full truth – when his wounds were still holding together.
Francis will notice them, surely. Even if James manages to shield them from view – even if they sleep companionably back to back, barely touching – there must be a smell.
Francis pulls out a camp stool from beneath the desk and sits facing James, only groaning a little as he settles, resting his elbows on his knees.
"How are you faring?"
"Tired." Too bone-weary to attempt a real description; every other word that comes to mind he dismisses as hyperbolic. "No doubt I will grow accustomed to hauling, in time."
"Aye, I feel that." The slightest twitch at the corner of Francis' mouth. "But you did well. Well. Only – you've been limping all day."
"Is there anyone who is not?"
"No, but – favouring one side over the other. And you cannot even blame your sea-boots."
"I suppose not." To buy himself time, James raises his right foot and turns it to and fro, as if admiring the now battered boots that had cost him a small fortune. His leg trembles with the effort – the leather has held up better than he has.
Of course, he cannot see the soles from here. Probably for the best.
"If it's not your feet, what's troubling you? Shall I fetch Mr. Bridgens?"
"No! No, no need." He quickly runs through his mental list of ills, for anything one-sided other than the wounds. "I think, when we fought off the creature, I must have bruised myself. Just getting the Congreves out of the chest. There were other crates and sacks on top of it, in the stores-tent, and the quickest thing was just to shove them aside, and I sort of fell onto it and went –"
James half-raises his arms and bows forward to mime clearing the other supplies off the lid of the chest. It had been with his right arm that he had swept the clutter aside, but the wounds in his left arm and side pulse dully in protest. He cuts off the motion with a wince.
"Of all the ways I've injured myself, it is far from the most glorious," he finishes lamely, aware that he has gone on for too long – almost as if he is trying to conceal something.
"And yet we all owe you a great deal," Francis says solemnly. "If you won't have Mr. Bridgens, will you let me take a look?"
"I should not have burdened you with it."
"If you're hurt, I need to know." Francis raises an eyebrow, and James is doomed. Still, he thanks an indifferent heaven that as far as it had gone, what he had said was true.
"Very well."
He makes to rise from the cot, reaching for the corner of the desk to haul himself upright. His hair brushes the trembling canvas above and he bows his head while he unbelts his slop coat and unbuttons the front tabs one by one, certain he can feel the breeze on his cheek through the worn tent. He considers keeping the coat on, opening it only as far as is needed to get at the front of his other layers, but dreads having it look as though he is hiding something if Francis is watching.
Is Francis watching?
Slipping his good arm out of its sleeve first, James glances over and is almost frozen by the pale-blue gaze meeting his. Francis looks away with a slight cough and shifts round on the camp stool until his back is half-turned. It isn't as if James has never undressed in front of him, but it is a relief not to be watched as he gingerly works his wounded arm free, taking twice as long before he lets his coat fall to the cot behind him.
Slipping his braces off his shoulders is quick enough, but his fingers are stiff on the buttons of his fly, although as loose as his trousers are now, it is easy enough to unfasten them (the top button hangs by a thread; he might yet need Bridgens). Finally he pushes his trousers, woollens, and pitifully threadbare inner drawers down to his knees, and has to gasp as he carefully lifts one side of his frayed shirttail to keep some semblance of modesty while revealing the extent of the injury.
"Look here," he says, his voice suddenly hoarse.
Francis turns to face him and struggles to quickly turn a look of surprise into one of kind concern. James sees both, and is not sure which is worse.
During the attack, with his gunnery training driving all else from his mind, he had scarcely noticed the collision between his leg and the edge of the chest. Last night, after stumbling back to his half-ruined tent, he had dropped onto his cot and into slumber without undressing. So he has barely had a glimpse of the bruise, and has conceived of it in his mind's eye as a fist-sized mark on his thigh, perhaps a brown thumbprint bruise on the point of his hipbone.
From the top of his knee to above the furrow of his groin, the skin is mottled a deep purple and red, the dark patch fading to the colour of claret at the edges.
"Aye, I'd be limping, too," Francis breathes.
"It's not as painful as it looks."
Francis huffs a laugh, but compared with James' other ills, it is true. In the same way his rotten wounds burn low, quietly biding their time like banked coals, the spreading contusion is only tender and achy on the surface, with a sort of pulled-muscle feeling beneath. For all it had been a trifling blow, in his present condition, it should hurt far more than it does.
"Do you have any others?"
"I don't think so."
"Good. That's when they become a worry – when they're everywhere." Francis straightens with a pained smile. "Caught early enough, this is soon cleared up, with fresh food – which we'll soon have, once the hunting parties find game. If our Mr. Goodsir were here, I'm sure he'd tell you as much."
"I wouldn't trouble him with this." James bends to pull his trousers and linens back up, but Francis puts out a hand to stop him.
"Sit down, James."
James blinks in surprise, tugging down his shirt-tail, grateful nothing is stirring beneath it.
Francis gets up and digs into his own coat's collar, slowly extricating the worn green cowl from around his neck. "Sit."
James can only sink onto the cot again, bemused. The canvas of the tent ripples and snaps – if the wind keeps up like this all night, it will be like sleeping in the belly of a beast. The exposed skin of his thighs prickles; he wraps his arms around his middle. His poor old gansey is unravelling at the hem.
Francis turns to the washstand and picks up his battered canteen. Fumbling out the stopper, he continues with sudden, tinny cheer. "As long as we've no fresh caribou – yet – the best thing for a bruise is a cold compress."
He pours out water into the willow-patterned washbasin – wantonly, extravagantly, loudly. At last he sets the canteen down with a hollow slosh, and plunges in the wadded-up cowl.
"What will you drink tomorrow?" James asks.
"It'll rain tonight. Fill all those casks outside."
"Might even get to have a wash."
"God, yes." Francis' mouth tilts into a thin smile as he wrings out the cowl.
Somehow James feels himself smiling too, and then considers that in order to wash properly, he would have to take off his shirt. And unwind the bandages – it would take enough time that even if he had the tent to himself, surely Francis would notice and be concerned.
And now Francis is standing before him, bending with a deep sigh, slowly lowering himself to kneel at James' feet. It is not the first time, though it has been a long time. If someone were to open the tent and discover them like this...
...They would see Francis as a supplicant, offering up immeasurable riches.
"Here, now." Francis looks up and waits for James to nod, before folding the cowl over itself and spreading it over the darkest part of the bruise.
Though the day has been mild, the shock of cold sends shivers out to the farthest reaches of James' body. He braces himself, leaning back onto his hands on the cot, and watches Francis' hands smoothing the rough knit over his pain-softened flesh.
"How's that?"
"It's – good." He watches a droplet of water trail a crooked, itching line amongst the corkscrew hairs of his leg.
It is at least a distraction from the dull pain, in exchange for making him cold. They are all counting the cost of every attempt to meet their needs, now; their dry biscuits make a man thirsty, when water is in short supply; lying down to rest means expending energy to get up later. So to sacrifice a scrap of warmth, and what might have been half a day's worth of water, only to give James a measure of short-lived comfort...
Francis suspects something. He must.
He will learn the truth of it soon enough. Better to confess than to collapse without explanation. "Francis..."
His voice dies in his throat when Francis looks up. The lines etched into his face have multiplied in mere days, and yet the blue of his eyes is undimmed, unbearable. James finds no scrutiny there, only longing.
Then, like a man receiving a sacrament, he bows his head and presses a kiss to the inside of James' thigh. The lingering warmth of his lips awakens another wave of shivers.
James blinks down at him, dry eyes burning as if mustering tears from dust. Memories of the few moments they have stolen together send regret and fondness and desire swirling through his belly, but his prick remains unmoved.
"Thank you," James says at last, trying to put his heart into it - to sound as if it was all he had meant to say. "I wish I had something to offer you. Tonight," he adds, gesturing vaguely toward the folds of his shirt-tail.
"You'll keep me warm, hm?" Francis says. "And rest, so that you'll heal up."
He strokes the top of James' bare knee. "As for the rest of it...there'll be time enough for that later."
"I..."
"There'll be time."