Chapter Text
“Oh, go smoke a pipe, Thomas! Or better yet, go stare at the ice…! I want a full report in an hour - that's an order…!”
Thomas Blanky is rarely speechless, but this final affront is enough to render him so. He finds himself struck dumb by sheer disgust and disappointment in the man he has, until this moment, called a friend.
In the slurring garbled nature of Francis’ speech and the base cruelty behind his words.
In the fact that he cares so little for anything now beyond the bottle that he is prepared to send yet another man out to suffer in the merciless squall, just as he sent poor, beleaguered Ned Little out not an hour before.
In the fact that, despite his callousness and his failings and his pig-fucking-ignorance, Francis is still the Captain, still the expedition commander, and Blanky is powerless to truly oppose a direct order from him.
“Yes, sir…” He replies at last, that disgust and disappointment palpable in his voice as he turns to leave.
He takes his sweet time climbing into his slops, pulling on his gloves, securing his wig and his muffler – a quiet moment of rebellion. But soon enough he can delay no longer and makes reluctantly for the upper deck.
The storm is the worst they’ve seen thus far this winter. Before he’s even halfway up the ladderway Blanky can feel the temperature drop and settle itself deep down in his bones, the wind forcing its way through even the barest crack in the main hatch and tearing at his face. Once through the hatch, he cannot say what surprises him more – just how numb and horny his feet become from the very moment they hit the icy deck, or that the cutting Arctic wind has not shorn the beard from his damned face on contact, much though he may feel it has.
Still, ever the optimist, Blanky is thankful that the worst of the blizzard has at least died down for the moment, enough for him to make out the misery on Tom Hartnell’s face is as he approaches the starboard railing to commiserate with the lad.
“Alright, son?” He hollers companionably over the wind.
"Oh, Mr Blanky!" Hartnell replies, clearly doing his level best to sound cheerier than he feels as he turns to face Blanky, bundled up like a particularly rotund penguin in his slops, teeth chattering bitterly. “I’ll be better once I’m below again, sir, I don’t mind telling you! By the time Lieutenant Little and the rest return, it should be end of watch for me.”
“Have you seen sign of them then?”
“Not as yet, sir, but I expect we’ll spot them by those hummocks any minute now…”
Hartnell gestures vaguely out across the icy wasteland, made all the colder and more unforgiving by the pale light of the moon in the endless Arctic night. To be out in the elements for a scant few minutes is torture enough, Blanky thinks, let alone to be forced to traverse that frozen hellscape four times in one morning on the whim of an unrepentant drunken madman.
None of them are the men they were at the beginning, Blanky knows this, but the change in Little has been perhaps the most heart-breaking to see. He’s a pale and bedraggled shade of the steady, level-headed, capable man he once was. Even in this place, on top of the world, poor Little has taken to stooping, exhausted, as though he were beneath it instead, carrying the globe of the earth itself on his back, and it’s all Francis’ fault. In his madness, he’s placed more stress, more burden, on that lad’s shoulders than any one man should ever have to bear, Blanky thinks to himself as he spies the tell-tale reflection of a glowing lantern out among the seracs.
And the worst of it is that Blanky knows Francis well enough to know that such ill-treatment comes, perversely, from a place of love.
When he’s in his right mind, Francis likes Little and trusts him implicitly. Lord knows he’s spoken of such things to Blanky often enough – weighing up each officer’s strengths, weaknesses, and amusing little quirks alike. The trouble is that he's forgotten entirely how to show it.
To Francis, shirking his Captainly duties and piling them up higher and higher on his First Lieutenant’s shoulders is a queer sign of the esteem in which he holds the man. To Little, it is only a sudden and crushing burden, one he never once agreed to bear and yet has no choice but to.
Blanky spots the Lieutenant immediately as his small party comes into view. They all shuffle exhausted through the snow drifts and jagged seracs, but Little’s silhouette is easily identifiable by the fact that he looks, quite simply, dead on his feet as he stumbles doggedly forward in lead position. Sergeant Tozer is behind him, another unidentifiable lobsterback bringing up the rear and between them the boy Golding and a pair of strapping AB’s carrying a wooden trunk. Is that Kinnaird? Blanky thinks. Maybe Sinclair? Hard to tell when they’re all bundled up just alike, even in the bright moonlight.
Blanky waves his arms enthusiastically in the air as the group approaches, even if it is in part to prevent his hands from going completely numb, and he’s pleased to see Little raise his own wearily to return the greeting as he leads the men on their snaking path through the snow-capped hummocks.
But then, with no warning, one of those hummocks begins to move...
Oh good Christ… Thinks Blanky, his stomach dropping to his damned kneecaps. This is what happens, Francis, this is what you get...
In the blink of an eye, the vague snowy shape resolves itself into that of the Creature and in another blink still, the beast rears up onto its hindlegs with a gut-wrenching roar.
For all his exhaustion, Little is quick to react. They are close enough to the ship now that Blanky can see clearly in the moonlight the Lieutenant drop his lantern with a clatter and swing the shotgun from his back in one swift and surprisingly graceful motion.
“RUN, LADS!” He bellows. “BACK TO THE SHIP!”
Little is closest to the Creature, and he stands his ground, raising the gun to his shoulder and firing, straight and true, without hesitation. As the Marines make to rally at his side, Golding and the AB’s make good on his order, discarding the trunk in the snow and taking off towards the ship at a sprint.
Blanky cannot tear himself away from the sight, but he knows he must, knows he must do his duty and marshal some kind of reinforcement. Before he can turn to do so, he finds that young Hartnell has beaten him to it.
“THE CANNON! WE NEED THE CANNON!” The lad hollers over the howling wind.
His rallying cry brings the rest of the watch running – Peglar from the portside and Wentzell from the stern.
“IT’S THE CREATURE!” Cries Hartnell desperately.
“WILL! GET BELOW, LAD – ALERT COMMAND!” Blanky roars. Wentzell skids almost comically on the ice of the deck as he turns tail back the way he’s come and makes to hurl himself down the nearest hatch.
Blanky draws his gaze back to the scene on the ice. Little and the Marines are still alive, still somehow holding their own, and on the move now, careening pell-mell through the seracs with the Creature close behind. Blanky fancies that it does not seem overly intent on catching them, at least not yet. He fancies that the Thing is enjoying perversely the thrill of the chase. They fire upon it in a relay, each man pausing and turning back a split-second to loose his shot – for all the good it does to stop the beast – while his comrades continue to leg it and reload on the fly.
It takes Blanky a moment to realise that their path across the ice is not random. They’ve led the creature away from the ship and back the way they came to give the rest of the men the best chance possible to escape but they’re circling back now, back to the site of their initial ambush. Back within earshot at last.
“THE TRUNK!” He hears Little scream in the darkness, hoarse, ragged, and breathless. “AIM FOR THE TRUNK! BLOW IT SKY HIGH!”
Of course! Blank thinks. If the poor buggers hold their nerve long enough and we hold ours, there’s enough booze in that box to conflagrate the bastard nicely if they lure it close enough!
“YOU HEARD THE MAN, LADS! AIM FOR THE TRUNK!” Blanky hollers to Hartnell and Peglar beside him hurriedly manhandling the cannon up onto the starboard railing. From the corner of his eye, he spies Wentzell returning with Fitzjames in tow, Hodgson and Irving not far behind them.
Oh, thank Christ… Daft little blowhard’s a crack shot with artillery!
His heart soars for the very briefest moment only to come crashing back down again as he turns his gaze once more to the ice and sees things deteriorating with astonishing rapidity.
Tozer takes his turn to fire upon the Creature a scant few yards behind him. Even if it is not slowed one jot, it still screeches in bewildered pain as his shot finds its target. As he turns to continue his desperate flight though, Tozer catches his boot on an icy outcrop and falls hard. He lands in a flurry of snow and with a yowl of agony.
And still the Creature continues to gain ground on him.
He tries desperately to scramble to his feet, but his arms don’t seem quite able to hold him up.
And still the Creature comes.
It is nearly atop him.
It raises its great terrible paw with a thunderous roar, ready to strike.
But suddenly, all there is to swat at is the chill night air.
Roaring himself with the sheer Herculean effort of it all, Little grabs Tozer by his criss-crossed belts, drags him bodily out of harm’s way and swiftly to his feet with just one hand while with the other he drives the Creature back with yet another booming gunshot.
He thrusts Tozer protectively behind himself without hesitation, urges him forward. The split-second motion is all the Marine needs to come again to his senses and they take off at a sprint once more, closing in now on the explosive cache of booze still lying discarded in the snow.
The Creature continues to gain ground on them, more enraged than ever to have been denied its chance at a kill.
It swipes again wildly and this time, with all the power and speed of a damned freight train, its jagged sabre-like claws connect with Little’s leg.
The force of the blow knocks him forward, unceremoniously, into snow already splattered crimson with his blood but even as his warbling wail of anguish rends the air, Ned refuses to surrender. Blanky sees him twist round, sees the glint of a bullet, and then it is the Creature’s turn to yowl as it’s misshapen ear is blasted clean off at the root.
It’s their last chance and they take it with gusto, the Marines rushing to heave Little up and drag him away across the ice, a river of shockingly scarlet blood gleaming in the moonlight and marking their path.
A few seconds pass before the Creature regains the composure to follow, though it appears almost unsteady on its feet as it does so. Slowly it closes in, each ice-crunching step echoing through the seracs. It pauses a moment, as if to give the three men before it one last awful chance to realise their grim fate. It appears so focused on its queer dramatics, however, that it pays no heed to the wooden trunk discarded in the snow at its feet…
“FIRE!” Blanky roars over the screaming wind, seizing the last desperate chance, and the men do not hesitate. With one almighty boom and in the blink of an eye, the Creature disappears entirely, just like that, within a great jet of flame.
It is not killed. Blanky rather suspects something of that magnitude could never be despatched by conventional means. But in all the confusion and celebration and choking black smoke it disappears, beating a hasty and visibly charcoal-smeared retreat back out into the labyrinth of ice.
As the smoke clears and the rest of the men make their way hurriedly down onto the pack, the next thing Blanky sees is Little.
He’s standing – somehow he’s still standing – stock-still in a rapidly-expanding pool of his own blood and staring in shock at the scorched spot where moments before stood Death Incarnate.
Then he’s falling – oh fuck, he’s falling – face first with a resounding thump and a flurry of snow before anyone can catch him.