Work Text:
Despite the tenderness of his head, and the taste of tin in his mouth warning of worse to come, Edward idled away several minutes before visiting the sickbay. Childish of him though it might have been, he had no desire to drop in while Mr. Hornby’s body was there, but Hodgson had overseen its prompt removal to the dead room once it had been prepared and bundled. Although Mr. Goodsir was among their number now, no autopsy had been requested or performed; it was, Edward thought, an increasingly rare display of foresight from the captain. Fear of curses and black magic had clearly taken root among the ranks on Erebus; sailors were superstitious men. The cutting open of one of their own on Terror would go over poorly.
Edward himself was not above such tendencies, irrational as they were; not with his nerves as frayed as they had become. He knew himself well enough to know the corners to which his mind was liable to turn. If he dwelled upon it at any length he would lose sleep to the thought of Mr. Hornby, amiable though he had been in life, wandering the decks with his viscera stuffed back inside him and his flesh sewn shut like a burlap sack.
It was with this thought that he turned the corner into the infirmary, and when his gaze landed on slick red flesh he almost didn’t react; it was, for an instant, as if his thoughts had been made manifest. Except that it was only Private Heather’s brains, which—normally hidden behind a cloth curtain—lay shiny and exposed as Sergeant Tozer stood over the man, peering down at his face.
Edward caught himself with a hand on the doorframe, but it felt as if he kept moving in a terrible lurch; it felt for a moment as though Terror were at high seas, the likes of which she would never traverse again. The floor even creaked under his feet.
“Sir.” Sergeant Tozer said, turning his head to look at Edward. “Sir?”
“I’m sorry,” Edward said, meaning to convey, I may faint; please don’t think less of me.
Tozer crossed the room in three long strides; it wasn’t a large room, but it seemed that way for a moment, that the sergeant was traveling a long way to get to him. Then he was there, taking a firm hold of Edward’s elbows and bustling him further into the room on a gust of air that smelled of sailor’s scent, old pipe smoke and never-quite-dry wool. Edward instinctively remained stiff and unpliable—all knees and elbows as he ever was—but Tozer ignored this and bullied him into a nearby chair, but kindly, as one might manhandle someone who didn’t understand the need for it. He went so far as to bend at the waist, half-ushering, half-lifting Edward onto the chair.
“There, Lieutenant,” Tozer said, letting go of Edward’s upper arms. “There you are.”
Edward nodded jerkily. Sergeant Tozer loomed over him, blocking both the haloing light from the oil lamps and the view of Private Heather.
“Dr. McDonald only just stepped out,” he said. “Shall I fetch him?”
“No,” Edward said, “no need. I’ll just—for a moment.”
Sergeant Tozer looked at him for a few seconds, perhaps attempting to parse this. His lips were thinned, pale with pressure, his brow furrowed. Edward could make no further sense of his expression; he gave in and closed his eyes. The floorboards creaked again as Sergeant Tozer moved away, then again, after a moment’s quiet rustlings at the basin, as he returned.
“Here, sir,” Sergeant Tozer said. “Cup of water for you.”
Edward opened his eyes and accepted the cup. The gray fog at the edges of his vision was already receding, but he dared make no other move. He was too warm under his layers, sweaty at the hairline and under the arms in the way only a swoon could bring about. He thought unwillingly of Mr. Hornby and wondered if his last moments had been preceded by such symptoms or if he had been as surprised as the rest of them when he keeled over dead.
When Edward remembered himself, he murmured, “Thank you, Sergeant.”
Tozer nodded, watching until Edward took an obliging sip of water. “Are you sure you don’t want me to fetch a doctor, Lieutenant?” he said. “You are peaky.”
“No, thank you,” Edward said. “No need to cause any fuss, please. I’m alright.”
Tozer nodded, then went to the chair next to Heather’s hammock. To Edward’s immense surprise, Tozer took hold of the chair with one hand, slung it gently around, and deposited it a few feet from where Edward sat. “Mind if I have a seat, sir?” Tozer asked. “Only you look like you might pitch over if I let you.”
Tozer’s concern seemed to have ebbed, at least enough to allow him to be jovial; he raised his eyebrows at Edward in expectation of an answer. Edward thought of Tozer leaping from the chair to catch him should he fall to the floor and felt an acute flush and said, “Alright, thank you.”
Tozer sat; he was stationed perhaps halfway between Edward and Private Heather. Edward took another sip of water for something to do. It was cold and tasted about as metallic as his own mouth did. He would wait here at least a few minutes, he decided, at least until he had gotten his bearings and could go and find a doctor himself. A seltzer would do. The captain would want to interrogate the girl now that she was aboard; Edward, if not in full working order, must at least remain serviceable.
“Don’t mind Bill, sir,” Tozer said after a moment of quiet. “He never could help his ugly mug.”
Private Heather, of course, had not stirred once during their conversation. He lay silent and still as a corpse; though Edward had been told he still drew breath, it was so slow as to be imperceptible from this vantage. Edward couldn’t see his brains from where he sat by the door, only the prominent edge of the crack in his skull. It would be a bit less eerie, Edward thought, if not for the wax on his eyelids.
Tozer didn’t turn to look at Heather. His jaw was set; he seemed to be waiting for Edward to react in some way, perhaps to comment on Heather’s condition. Edward sensed this would be ill-mannered at best.
“You and Private Heather were good friends, yes?” Edward said. He took yet another sip of water, although its temperature hurt his teeth. The winter cold made everything hurt, really, his back and his joints and his teeth worst of all. It was a special agony to inhale through one’s mouth above deck these days.
“Aye,” Tozer said. “The best of them.”
“Right,” Edward said. “And do you visit him often?”
“When there’s naught else to do,” Tozer said. He waved vaguely, perhaps to say, it’s all there is to do. He wore his gloves; Edward could hardly recall who was due on watch but, with so few left on Terror, it might as well be Tozer as anyone else. “The doctors appreciate it. I keep him tidy. Trim his whiskers, that sort of thing. I think he’d rather a mate did it.”
Edward nodded. “It’s a kind thing of you to do.”
Tozer gestured again, a little half-shrug that suggested lack of concern, perhaps even dismissiveness. Yet Edward suspected the matter was very important to him indeed. As he entered the sickroom he had seen, however briefly, Tozer’s face in profile. Edward knew the look of a man performing a duty, an obligation either social or moral or professional. One saw the remove evident in the eyes of superior officers, doctors, even teachers and governesses and housemaids who nurtured children while always thinking of their own, someplace else. There was a difference in the way a man treated a friend, a person he loved.
“I am sorry,” Edward said before he could think better of it. “For how I entered. I was—my mind was elsewhere.”
Tozer raised his eyebrows. Edward might have, too, had he been in Tozer’s shoes, being apologized to by an officer. “Naught to worry, Lieutenant,” he said. “Plenty of men needing to avail themselves of the sickbay of late.”
“Yes,” Edward said. “Indeed.”
Scurvy was a word seldom-spoken outside of this room, Edward imagined. At least among the officers, most everyone was disinclined to mention it. Arctic veterans, experienced men like the captain and Mr. Blanky and Dr. McDonald, were the only ones who seemed willing to name it, and even then only in wardroom talk, away from the men. Everyone else—Edward among them—only winced and entertained their own worries, private calculations of impossible odds.
But there were other ailments, of course—frostbite and exposure chief among them. Morale was terribly but unsurprisingly low; it always dipped in the winter months but this was worse, far worse than last year. The only fortune was that the men’s access to drink was rationed. Otherwise they would all of them likely be suffering the captain’s particular ailment.
“All things considered,” Tozer said idly, “I suppose a man’s lucky if the worst he’s lost up here is a finger or two.”
“Yes,” Edward said, who considered himself fortunate indeed that he hadn't yet lost that much.
“P’rhaps a toe,” Tozer mused. “What’s a man need ten of them for, anyway?”
Edward smiled. It was macabre humor, to be true, but at least it was humor. There was precious little of that to go around. Tozer gave a grin, thin and sly, the exact sort of smile Edward would have expected from a man like him, handsome but coarsely-hewn.
“Worst of all to lose one’s mind,” Edward said, flushed with camaraderie. “Or perhaps it might be a blessing.”
In the low light Tozer’s eyes were dark, of indeterminate color. Edward met them and found he was still smiling. Startled at himself, he just as quickly looked away.
Footsteps creaked by in the hall. Edward glanced over his shoulder, but whomever it was had already passed. When he looked up Tozer’s grin had ebbed.
A beat passed. “Your color’s improved, sir,” Tozer said.
“Oh,” Edward said. “Yes. I’m feeling much better.”
By his own metric, this was true; he didn’t feel well, but he at least didn’t feel that he might faint. This, at least, was a situation he was accustomed to: hoping that he would not embarrass himself any further.
“I’d like to speak freely, sir,” Tozer said. “If I may.”
Startled, Edward said, “Very well.”
“You’ve a lot on your shoulders, sir, I don’t doubt it,” Tozer said. “Take care of yourself. For the men. There may come a time when they need your strength yet more than they do now.”
Pray God it doesn’t come to that, he couldn’t say. There were few thoughts more terrifying than that of himself being commander of the expedition. Even with the captain in his current state—even with Commander Fitzjames half a mile across the ice—he could think of little worse.
In the end Edward gave a thin smile. “I’m quite well, Sergeant. But you are right—it’s for their men that leaders must be strong.”
“Aye,” Tozer said. He must know that as well as Edward did; he was the commanding Marine on this expedition. Not the most respectful of leadership, certainly, but he gave the impression of neither foolishness nor cowardice. His level gaze seemed to say, directly and without insolence: I see the cracks in the moulding; I see what you’re doing to fix them and I know it won’t be enough.
“Right,” Edward said decisively. He set the cup of water on a table at his elbow and rose, wiping still-clammy hands over the front of his coat to smooth the fabric as he did so. “Dr. McDonald must be occupied elsewhere.”
“Must be,” Tozer agreed. His expression remained unreadable, but not unkind. He remained in his seat, which, Edward realized, was rather closer to Heather’s hammock than he had thought. Nevertheless Edward was faintly grateful to him; he had made a show, at least, of concern. That was more than any of his fellows had done these last few weeks. It was more than Edward himself might have done.
Look sharp, Edward thought to say, thinking of the next watch. But Tozer hadn’t been late to watch yet, to Edward’s knowledge. He was, at least in that way, a model Marine; a leader.
“Enjoy your visit,” he said, nodding towards Private Heather as he shifted into the doorway.
“Thank you, sir.”
Thank you, Edward thought to say in return, but it wouldn’t befit an officer, so he said nothing.