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Thomas catches sight of Hickey entering the captain’s quarters in the early afternoon, when most of the men are still busy with their midday slop and grog. Usually this is when Captain Crozier prefers to be alone, sharing his private preoccupations only with his whiskey. The door is shut to everyone, even Thomas. But today it swings open, letting the caulker’s mate, of all people, in.
He has no excuse to linger in the hallway, so Thomas returns to his own cabin. A quarter hour passes before the floor creaks outside his door. Supine in the narrow bed, Thomas pauses his distracted scratchings in his personal diary, holds his breath, and listens to the sound of Hickey returning to his rightful place.
*
The Terror reeks. That’s what you get when you lay seventy spitting, shitting, clawing men atop each other for a year. Burnt smells waft through the floorboards from Mr. Diggle’s kitchen. Buckets of piss steam in every corner. Lifting the lid to the privy is an assault to the senses. The dead room, cuddled as it is next to the boiler, never entirely freezes over. The smell is disturbing, but worse is the lack of it; the moment you realise you haven’t noticed it in weeks.
Rats thrive in conditions like these. Men don’t. Men shouldn’t.
Mr. Hickey is always smiling.
Thomas, whose job it is to notice men without inviting the same attention upon himself, begins to see the man everywhere. Hickey takes leisurely strolls outside the officers’ cabins, slowing his gait by every door. He changes tables in the middle of supper, speaking first to the able seamen, then the marines, as if nothing separates the men but air. A caulker’s mate should not be everywhere—like a steward, he is meant to attend to his duties, pull his own weight so expertly as to appear weightless, and stay out of the way. Thomas can go days without seeing the engineers or the carpenters. Those men stay at their tasks as Thomas stays at his. But Mr. Hickey walks the levels of the Terror as if he is not used to keeping his head down. He walks as if he belongs here, and in so doing, betrays that he does not.
*
The second time Thomas exits his quarters to find Hickey skulking around the captain’s cabin, he does not need to think. Even around the relatively spacious captain’s quarters, it is only a ship. If you see a man, he is only ever two strides away.
Hickey hears him coming and turns, already smiling.
“Can I help you find anything, Mister Hickey?” Thomas is not sure that the man knows his name. He wants to make it perfectly clear that he is aware of who Hickey is.
“Not at all,” Hickey answers easily. “Just taking a turn.”
“Don’t let me detain you. The captain is resting.” It’s not even really a lie. At this time of day Crozier usually hits a rough patch, irritable after hours of speaking with the lieutenants and, depending on the day, Commander Fitzjames, and he requires a period of relative quiet and several fingers of fortification before he is prepared to engage with the men. Thomas knows his patterns. They would be simple to maintain, really, if the captain could just speak of them frankly. It is only the socially demanded secrecy that makes his needs so difficult to manage.
“Yes,” Hickey says. “He likes his rest, doesn’t he?”
“I think most naval captains appreciate their rare moments of calm.” Thomas smiles back beatifically. “Without petty officers cavorting around their cabins.”
Hickey’s smile changes, although it is difficult, at first, to pinpoint how. His lip curls almost imperceptibly; his eyes crinkle; he tilts his chin. It is, Thomas realises, a look of mockery. “How lucky he has you.”
“And I am always grateful for my position.”
Hickey lets his eyes flick up and down the length of Thomas’s body. For a moment Thomas is startled, and then, quickly, contemptuous.
“On your way, Mister Hickey.”
Without looking away, Hickey raps his knuckles against his forehead, although Thomas is not his superior. He pushes past Thomas, shoulders brushing in the narrow hall.
*
Three days later, on an afternoon when the captain has started off across the ice to meet with the lieutenants aboard Erebus, Thomas enters the captain’s chambers to find Hickey already inside.
No one is meant to enter Captain Crozier’s chambers uninvited—no one but Thomas himself. Yet Hickey is here, crouched in a shallow squat, examining the captain’s private bookshelves—where Thomas knows he keeps a reserve of drink among his well-read volumes—as if he has not the slightest need for stealth. It is such a stark violation of the captain’s privacy, that Thomas, the safeguard of that privacy, feels the insult as well.
“Mister Hickey,” Thomas says.
Hickey turns. He does not jump, does not even seem surprised. As if it is impossible for him to be caught out or to get in any real trouble. Thomas will see that change, he’s sure—one of these days, likely soon, Hickey will get a taste of punishment aboard Her Majesty's Naval Service, and that look of simple assurance will clear off his face for good.
“Hello, Mister Jopson,” Hickey says, standing up. He’s learned his name. Thomas can almost see it. Hickey, after their last encounter, asking around about the captain’s steward, inquiring after his habits and reputation, taking note.
Anything he could say feels utterly obvious—that Hickey is not allowed to be in here, that trespassing on the captain’s privacy could be punished, that Thomas will tell. I will tell, he imagines saying, and hates the prim, offended sound of it. He’s not Lieutenant Irving or Hodgson or any of the other men who might be aghast at a low-ranking officer’s squirrelling audacity. Propriety alone should have kept Hickey out of the room, but Thomas is not so naive as to expect it. “This is a good opportunity for you to leave,” he says.
Hickey cocks his head to the side. “Don’t get all excited. I wasn’t doing anything improper.” The word curls in Hickey’s mouth, masked in irony.
“That’s a word with a wide definition.”
Hickey catches his tone and smiles. “I won’t take offence at that. What good is a guard dog if it doesn’t yap from time to time?” He looks at Thomas carefully. “That is what you are, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have thought so to look at you. Many congratulations on defying expectations.”
“I’m a member of Her Majesty's Royal Navy,” Thomas says. “I am under service to the captain. I’m not sure what you are, but I at least know who I am and why I am here.”
“It does feel very upright in here. Don’t let my presence spoil that for you.”
Whatever Hickey has heard or presumed, he believes he knows something. Thomas is not so free of secrets to rest easy with that notion. “Don’t worry, Mister Hickey. You are certainly not capable of leaving such a lasting influence on the captain’s quarters.”
Hickey gives him another one of those wry smiles. “He’s quite the man, the captain. Isn’t he? Quite the man.”
“He would be gratified to know that he’s made such an impression across all the ship’s ranks.” Thomas doesn’t try to smile. He is done performing for this man. “From the most consequential to the very least.”
“He does have an unnaturally devoted steward, after all.”
Thomas doesn’t let his face change. It is too clear that’s what Hickey is aiming for. “And you do not merit his attention.”
“You’re wrong there,” Hickey murmurs. “But I guess you would figure it that way. If he was to really pay attention to anyone, I suppose you would expect it to be you.”
His words, heavy with implication, are utterly transparent and ought to be easily dismissed. All the same, Thomas doesn’t like them. The man thinks he is threatening, and the belief alone can cause problems, even if built upon a fragmented foundation.
Hickey leans back against the captain’s desk, one hand going behind him to caress the rosewood. His hand lands on a brass magnifier left carelessly on the desk, one of the few effects Crozier allows himself. Thomas knows, from countless days of tidying, that there is an inscription along the handle, wishing good luck, and engraved with what are surely beloved initials. Hickey raises the thing to his eyes and inspects it. “I suppose he has discerning tastes,” he says. “The captain.”
Thomas is across the room. He has Hickey’s wrist clasped firmly in his hand. Hickey is a slight man—Thomas’s fingers, squeezed tight, overlap at his jumping pulse. “You do not want to play this game with me, Mister Hickey. It won’t be as fun as you imagine.”
Hickey drops his chin. “You really think he might look at you, don’t you?” His eyes gleam. “Is that how you imagine yourself, some lovely fairy here to save the captain from his solitary existence? Well, I’m sorry to tell you you’re not the prettiest thing in spitting distance. There are plenty of lovestruck fools on this ship already without you joining up.”
Childish. Almost laughable. Thomas squeezes, whitening Hickey’s skin and forcing his wrist to bend.
He knows who he is. Like hundreds of others, he has had his wayward moments, in the molly houses or the privacy of a trusted companion’s home. Perhaps, in another life, it would be possible to embark on precisely the sort of twilight career Hickey’s tone implies. But the suggestion is lunacy, just as felonious here as anywhere, regardless of how isolation and salt air might batter the boundaries of men’s usual proclivities. And the ease of Hickey’s suggestion is an altogether different form of transgression. Hickey is dangerous, and not because he is clever at finding and wielding power. He is dangerous because he has somehow gotten onto a navy ship with no apparent respect for the consequences he could at any moment invite.
“Do you miss your workhouse, Mister Hickey?” With his spare left hand, Thomas pries the brass magnifier from Hickey’s grip. He places it on the desk. With one hand on Hickey’s wrist and the other on the desk, he has the man boxed in. “If you hoped stepping aboard this ship would bring you back to the days of igniting street dogs and frigging your sisters, you’ll be disappointed.”
Hickey narrows his eyes. Incongruously, he leans in, head jutting forward. Close enough that the tip of his pointed nose brushes Thomas’s collar. “Speaking from experience?” His voice is low. “You’ve got a whiff of the guttersnipe about you as well.”
Abruptly, he jerks his wrist downward, out of Thomas’s grasp. The motion sends Thomas forward. He catches himself with a palm on each side of Hickey, braced against the captain’s desk.
Thomas has lavished endless attention upon this desk. He has tidied the captain’s papers, polished the surface until it gleams, and then, alone in his cabin in the darkness of the polar night, taken himself in hand thinking of all the ways one could debauch or be debauched upon such a solid surface.
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you,” Hickey says. “So what if he looks elsewhere? You’re still his favourite little lap dog.”
“There are worse things to be.” They have held this position for too long. All of Thomas’s energy is going into keeping his muscles tight and controlled, not lunging forward to throttle. “I could be a rat.”
Hickey’s face harshens. “You’ll never get it from the captain. But don’t grieve. Would you like to hear how it felt when he put his fat drunken cock inside me?”
No such thing happened. Thomas knows Captain Crozier, and if there’s one thing for certain, it’s that he is not the type to bend caulkers’ mates over his desk. Ridiculous, idiotic. Devised only to inflame. There are many things others in his position might consider, but that Captain Crozier would never do. It is what Thomas adores about him and it is why so many feverish dreams are safe to linger on; never, for even a moment, the threat of possibility. Thomas is aware of his own breath coming short and uneven, making his throat feel raw.
“My hopes weren’t high,” Hickey goes on. “You know how most men like him are useless that way. Can’t take the brick out of their hat long enough to make good. But the captain surprised me. The drink hasn’t taken all the livelihood out of him, has it? He was on me like butter on bread.” He smiles. “As we have agreed: quite the man.”
“Men like him.” Thomas does not mean to say it, but the words twist out of him, curling his lip into a snarl. There are no such men.
“It was over this very desk. I would have had him either way, but he is the captain. He asks, we bend—sorry, I should not say we. But you must imagine how warming it was to feel the pulse of his seed.”
Thomas aches. The playacting is cruel. It is also the closest the desire has ever come to the surface.
“You wish, don’t you,” Hickey whispers. “You really do wish.”
Thomas shocks back. Hickey’s hand, lost to his attention, presses against his groin, the heavy swell of his cockstand.
“I leaked for hours,” Hickey says. “I wouldn't be surprised if there was a bit of him still in me. It might not be too late for you to have your taste.”
This is the end of it. Thomas breathes harshly, mind alight with rage and want. He grasps Hickey at the hip and jerks roughly, spinning him to land heavily with elbows on the desk.
“Shut your mouth,” Thomas snarls. Captain Crozier will be nearing Erebus by now. In these conditions, crossing the distance between the ships can take over an hour. Still, any of the other men could overhear. Thomas fumbles with the clasps of Hickey’s trousers and shoves the waistband down around his small arse. He grasps Hickey’s arm and pins it to his lower back, feeling a sick twist of satisfaction when Hickey hisses and topples forward, his cheek landing hard against the captain’s desk. “If you don’t want the whole ship to know you for what you are.”
Hickey huffs against the wooden surface, turning to show half a smirk. “And what is it that I am?”
“A draggletailed smear of nothing.” He spits blindly. It lands on the paltry flesh of Hickey’s arse. He releases Hickey’s wrist—it goes up, straight away, curled into a fist beside Hickey’s ear. With his thumb, Thomas smears the spit down the cleft of Hickey’s arse. That shock of heat—even in the captain’s quarters it’s always freezing, cold air wafting in from the seat of ease, and Thomas thinks again, men are not supposed to live like this. Hickey’s moral failure writ all across the healthy flush of his skin.
“Is this what you’re after?” He thumbs over Hickey’s hole. “Are you this desperate?”
Infuriatingly, Hickey laughs. “I get my fill.”
Thomas unclasps his own trousers. Takes his cock out. Already it is leaking fluid. He is heavy, painful with the pulse of blood. He spits again. “Beg out, if you’re going to.”
For once, Hickey doesn’t respond. He just looks back at Thomas, his cheek squashed against the desk, breathing rapidly. And suddenly Thomas truly realises—this is about to happen. He is going to have the caulker’s mate over the captain’s desk. It will be done and then it can never be undone. He will hold this perverse memory forever.
He swears and rubs his cockhead against Hickey’s hot opening. And then, slowly, slick enough for now but aware that the fluid they’ve worked up will not last, he pushes forward, presses in.
Hickey’s body swallows him easily. He is in practice, Thomas thinks, with a jolt of something—anger, grief. It means nothing. There are a thousand possible reasons why.
Hickey is silent as Thomas enters him, but for his laboured breathing. Finally, he cranes his neck and looks back, his hands in fists, shoulder blades pinching together. “The captain is larger.”
The moment’s satisfaction shatters. Thomas thrusts in more insistently. “What does it take to shut you up?”
“Force.” Hickey is breathing through his mouth, belying the insult. “More force than you can give.”
Thomas can give him force. He slides his hand around the front of Hickey’s throat and grasps him there. He can feel Hickey breathing, his throat working to swallow.
“How’s that?” he hisses. The crush of his fingers around Hickey’s throat, the crush of Hickey around his prick. Closeness and heat, stolen in this cold, remote place. “Memories coming back to you, Hickey?”
“He squeezed harder,” Hickey chokes.
Thomas does too.
Hickey twitches, pressing back against him, his sliver of visible face blotched with red. Thomas cannot remember his blood ever running higher. The tension in his hand, echoed by the tension in Hickey’s body, brings him too quickly to the precipice.
Hickey’s eyes flutter. And in an instant, Thomas is afraid—afraid that he could squeeze tighter and like it. That he could cause real hurt, not for play, and get hooked on the taste.
He releases Hickey’s throat.
Hickey coughs violently, throwing a string of spittle onto the desk. Later, Thomas will clean it up or rub it in. His own claim on the captain, proof at least: he was here too. The cabin will stink. The captain will know. He could not possibly. But he will.
He slows his thrusts, taking the chance to land spit again where they are joined, easing the growing friction.
Hickey wheezes and snorts. He stands himself up on his elbows, his head hanging between his shoulder blades, and presses back onto Thomas’s prick, harder and faster than Thomas had been moving himself.
“Fuck,” Thomas swears. They keep it up like this and he will spend too quickly, and Hickey will have injuries he cannot take to Dr. Peddie. He brings an arm around Hickey’s front, pressing their bodies together, aiming to impede Hickey’s movements. “Stop moving.”
Hickey laughs, his voice hoarse from the throttling. He takes Thomas’s hand from his chest and the fingers into his mouth. Sucks the flesh, grunting on each thrust. Thomas groans. Hickey bites down, hard.
He wants this to feel like punishment. Repent, he thinks. He drives into Hickey. Repent, repent. Not for God or for the navy. For the ship itself; the captain that commands her, the men trying to live inside her belly.
Instead, the wet slapping sound of Hickey fucking his own fist. Hickey’s saliva expelled onto Thomas’s hand in harsh exhalations, the white hot pain of his rodent teeth sinking deeper in. And Hickey’s final guttural sound and the unmistakable vice of his body as he reaches his crisis.
Christ on high. Angered all over again, Thomas puts his hand at the center of Hickey’s back, and lays him down, and, relinquishing all fear, fucks into him until he is at the very edge of his strength.
One last time, Thomas allows himself the fantasy: that the captain really did exorcise himself inside this body; that now, their essences will commingle. The thought brings him all the closer, gasping against the back of Hickey’s neck. Even this will not satiate him. He knows it already. One more way of getting close to the heart of the thing without touching its core, like scratching all around an insect’s bite to falsify satisfaction without aggravating its reddened, infectious head. Thomas tenses, trembles, and spills. Too quickly, his softening prick slips out into the cabin’s cold air.
Hickey straightens up. His own breath has calmed. He pulls up his trousers and turns. “Well.”
Instinctively, Thomas steps back, tucking himself gingerly away.
“It is a shame.” Hickey yanks at his crotch, arranging himself. He’ll need to find somewhere and some way to get cleaned up before the bell rings for suppertime. “He doesn’t know what a good dog he’s got.”
Thomas’s whole body shudders. He tenses his hand involuntarily, remembering the shape of Hickey’s throat. “I’d be careful, Mister Hickey.”
“Oh, I am.” One more winning grin. “You aren’t difficult, Jopson. I’d say you’re quite easy.” He smacks Thomas affably on the shoulder. “Keep those soft spots better hidden, my advice.”
Thomas roils with disgust. Whether or not Hickey planned any of this, it is something that Thomas slid into easily, immediately, with barely a moment’s consideration. That’s even worse than falling prey to a plot—a bigger insult from Hickey and more damning of Thomas, if the impulse arose from nowhere and he failed even the first trial of temptation.
“And yours,” he returns. “I know where they are now.” He puts out a hand and presses, once, against the lean meat of Hickey’s stomach.
Hickey draws back, his expression souring. “A fucking shame.” And with that, Christ be thanked and at long last, he leaves.
Thomas breathes slowly, feeling a curious quivering about his lungs. He sits back against the desk, and waits for his blood to cool, and thinks.