The Terror (2018) s01e03 Episode Script
The Ladder
I'll trade my salt pork tonight for another watch if we don't see it.
Henry Lloyd saw it by those hummocks at four bells.
What told him it was Lieutenant Gore's bear and not another? It wore the Lieutenant's medals.
I plan to ask Lieutenant Le Vesconte for duty in the hunting blind once it's built.
I'd like another shot at the thing.
Robert Ferrier says you didn't see it at all.
Only Mr.
Goodsir saw it.
That Mary Anne doesn't know what he saw.
We thought it was the bear in front of us.
It's the ice, Georgie.
It's only the ice.
What's it like, to shoot a man? Shooting a man's more fun when you mean to do it.
I'll tell you that.
You've a gift with that.
Me Mam was a dressmaker.
Cage crinoline and arse-torn knicker-bocker suits.
But she never taught me to tailor for no dead Eskimuck.
This all of it, then? The girl, she's shoving off.
They want her to take everything with her.
A girl on a boat here.
That's spooky.
Call him back.
There's something more in here.
Snip it out.
Check for more.
Suppose it's ivory.
There's another one here.
Man's got charms falling off him like a plum tree, Mr.
Goodsir.
Put them back inside.
How will he fit in his coffin like that? I have the um Her father's personals, sir.
She'll be happy to be on her way now.
They say she talked up a storm until her father died.
Now she's all silence.
I'm sorry, that that's all there is.
I did put some supper in there for you, though.
Condolences, Lady Silence.
Weight him and get on with it.
I don't understand this.
This is something Sir John approved? Aye, Mr.
Goodsir.
Little lad, he was.
He shouldn't plug it up.
I mean to suggest, might it be more appropriate to cut the man his own hole? A more appropriate hole? With respect to Esquimaux custom.
It's a native belief the body retains sensation even after the soul departs.
According to Dr.
MacDonald's account.
Having yourself handled his corpse, is it your opinion he retains sensation? In your prior engagements with the Esquimaux, did you find them at all unforgiving when those they loved are wronged? Vengeful, even? Having never wronged them, I couldn't testify.
Are we not at all concerned that if that girl can make it all the way back to her people on her own, she may call on them for revenge? Were we to put her down the fire hole as well? She wasn't our prisoner, Edward.
The Esquimau man's tongue was hacked off.
We don't know why.
Say it was punishment.
If that's how they punish their own, what must they do Breakfast is ready.
Jopson, my coat.
I'm leaving for Erebus.
No escort is necessary.
You have nothing to fear, Lieutenant.
The girl's people are too busy staying alive to wage a war.
What plans have you made, Sir John? All kinds of plans, of course.
In case the ships are ice-locked.
Oh, we are amply provisioned, for three years, and up to five with strict rationing.
Your rescue plan.
What is your rescue plan? Better John Ross blame an unyielding North than own up to his poor captaining.
If the Arctic bedeviled him, why should it open to you? That's his thinking.
Come over here, darling.
What is it? - Does it sing? - It chatters.
Meet Jacko.
Mm.
Oh Darling, that monkey is female.
Oh, is it? I have followed every Admiralty protocol.
There'll be nothing.
You hear? Nothing lives there.
Nothing grows.
You'll eat your shoes again.
You'll eat worse.
We've been misunderstood, darling.
John Ross isn't the only one.
Van Diemen's Land was a horrible blow.
I won't allow another man to play politics against me ever again.
I was a good Governor, Janey.
You were an excellent Governor.
It's just that history was given a different story.
Death is slow in the Great White Nothing.
And 134 starved men will turn devil against you.
Starting with the ones you hold closest.
But in two years, when you return from the Passage, no-one will misunderstand us, John.
You will have bested them all.
I'll be giving a Divine Service tomorrow.
Mandatory, for both ships.
Tell the men, will you? Oh, except for the men of the blind.
They're to keep their focus on hunting the bear.
May I come in, sir? I wouldn't presume to ask if it weren't important.
If you must.
And in Jacob's dream, he saw the invisible world, so immense it would have to Yes? cleaved from the frame that carried them, yet live.
The newest to their ranks, our bright brother Lieutenant Graham Gore.
My condolences, Sir John.
Amongst everything else, I know you mourn a friend.
Thank you.
I apologize for the timing of this request.
But its virtue's in its speed.
I'd like permission to send a sledge party out.
South.
Not for leads this time.
For rescue.
Where? The Hudson Bay Company outpost on Great Slave Lake.
If the party leaves now, they'll have three full months to get there before winter comes in force.
That is 800 miles, Francis.
No I do not grant permission.
At least tell me you understand why I'm suggesting it.
You are suggesting it because you are a man who's happiest with a glass of knock-me-down in one hand and an alarm bell in the other.
I'm suggesting it because if this cold continues and we find ourselves overwintering again in this ice, help must already be on its way, come spring if we are to survive.
I'd rather send out eight men now, for a long, unnecessary walk, than risk a necessary one for all of us in a year.
I will not allow it.
What signal would that send to the men? It's not the men I'm concerned about signaling.
No-one knows where we are.
That is how you already see us? In need of saving? - I do.
- Yet your prediction last year about the terrifying winter we'd spend in the pack did not come true.
Not to the degree I feared, but that will change, should there again be no thaw.
It is a Captain's duty, after all, to mind for the worst case, not for the one he hopes for.
Oh, so, now I must hear you instruct me in a Captain's duties.
It's only eight men, Sir John.
And there is just enough time.
I have lost six men on this expedition to date.
Six! And you ask me to risk more than doubling that number trekking over distant ground where you know I have lost men in years past.
I'll hear no more of this.
I will not lose another man, Francis.
We may lose all our men.
That is what my alarm is ringing now, Sir John.
And I I am at a loss why yours is not.
You are the worst kind of second, Francis.
You abuse your freedoms.
You complain in the safety of speculation, you claim foresight in disasters that never happen, and you are weak in your vices because your rank affords you privacy and deference.
You've made yourself miserable and distant, and hard to love, and you blame the world for it.
I'm not the sailor you are, Francis, never will be.
But you will never be fit for command.
And, as your Captain, I take some responsibility for that.
For the vanity of your outlook.
I should have curbed these tendencies, rather than sympathized with them, because you seem to have confused my sympathy with tolerance, but there is a limit to how much I can tolerate, and that is where we are presently standing! There are some things we were never meant to be to one another.
I see that now.
Friends on my side.
Relations on yours.
So let us turn our energies back to being what the Admiralty, and life, have seen fit to make us.
We should give that our best.
There can be no argument between us there.
Now you must excuse me.
I have a Service to finish writing for tomorrow.
It will have to act as the only eulogy our boy Graham will be given out here and I intend it to sing.
Put together a list.
Our eight most able men.
- Sir John heard reason, then? - I'll make certain the blame falls on no-one's shoulders but my own.
Proceeding with this would be considered It would take weeks to engineer some way to change his mind.
We don't have weeks.
We may not even have days.
Lieutenant Little will never agree to it.
He won't have to.
I'll lead the party myself.
With my presence, the other members of the team can say they were coerced.
I'll tell them it's a hunting party at first.
The act won't impugn them.
And if we were to meet Esquimaux along the way, I can converse our needs and gain help in that manner.
Then send me in your place.
I can speak native as well as you.
You must stay.
To read the ice if leads open up.
And as for Dr.
MacDonald I'll not take a doctor from the men.
But you're the Captain.
There's a spare Captain on Erebus.
You'll be despised.
Sir John will have your head.
And if he doesn't call for it, the Admiralty certainly will.
They can have it.
After I build us a road out of here.
And what of the Terror? Make me that list, Thomas.
I plan to leave at start of last watch.
Write it down this time, Mr.
Diggle.
In order to heat your soup, you must first heat the stove.
Thank you for sharing the extent of your knowledge as a cook, Mr.
Wall.
But I'd never hazard the wreck of your kitchen unless pressed by dire consequence.
"Dire consequence"? But there's much here for you to marvel at.
Look how happy my men are.
Oh, I marvel.
But about something more intriguing than you.
What on earth are you up to? I'm concerned about the number of Terror's canned provisions turning up spoilt.
I'm here to inquire if Erebus is seeing the same.
I've discovered bad seals, gray meat and odors that curled my hair.
Now, in the event you've already developed a method for handling the problem, I hope you can set aside your envy and share it.
Otherwise I thought we might together invent a solution.
Mm.
Add salt.
Men approaching.
At ease.
We thought you might be in need of a short, gentlemen, to keep warm.
That's a generous, generous thought, sir.
Ha.
- What bait are we using? - Rats, sir.
We pulled the biggest of the bunch up from the holds, gutted them and tied them up on lines.
You'll put our Fagin out of a job.
Although that layabout couldn't catch a rat if it fell asleep in its mouth.
He was meant to be a lapdog, not a cat.
Or maybe a small pillow.
Lieutenant Irving.
I was hoping we'd meet.
Mind the grease there, sir.
I wanted to thank you for your help.
For your discretion, I mean.
Call it anything but "help", Mr.
Hickey.
Please.
I exercised clemency for a man abused by a devious seducer.
That is also benefited you is a sin in itself, I'm sure.
- A "devious seducer"? - Yes, Mr.
Hickey.
Mr.
Gibson told me everything.
How you pressed him into service, threatened to expose him should he ever refuse you.
I pressed him? You laugh? Turn your wolf's ear to me now and hear or the next piece of counsel you'll be given on the subject may come from the end of a cat o' nines.
We are separated here from the temptations of the world.
At sea, a man can find spiritual benefit in the collective.
It is no accident the world was reborn clean out of an ark, Mr.
Hickey.
Man's worst urges can be satisfied through Christian pleasures and graces, singing with friends watercolors, study, - climbing exercises.
- Climbing, sir? Your crisis is an opportunity for you to repair yourself.
You are in the world's best place for it.
Do you think so? God sees you, Mr.
Hickey.
Here more than anywhere.
I understand you've cleared up our association for Lieutenant Irving.
- You spoke to him? - Mm-hm.
Directly? Christ, Cornelius.
I'd reassured him.
"Cornelius Hickey is a devious seducer.
" That was your That was your reassurance? You've got some face.
You know that? We were within an ace of getting called out in front of all the men and whipped for it, or worse.
You were right.
If he weren't such an Anchorite, we would have been.
So just keep your foot out of it now, please, and let him forget the whole thing, as he assuredly wants to.
To think you were such a good wife to me all these months.
Oh, go to hell.
We've had our beer and skittles, but your tastes are no rule for mine.
- Hm.
Oh, no? - No.
Is that why I've seen more of your postern than your face this winter, Billy? - Hm.
- Huh? Do you know what copulates on this ship? Rats.
Nesting in our rubbish, swimming in our filth.
Devouring each other just to make more rats.
Well, I am not a rat.
I'm a man.
A delightful, God-fearing man.
I had to choose.
No-one is out here for the view, Cornelius.
My standing with command is more valuable than my standing with you.
I know you, of all people, will understand that.
Now, if this is what I need to say, then I will say it.
It's not personal, but it is finished.
So don't be pettish.
I haven't done you down as you so think.
I've just made it so that we can both keep our skins.
Please.
You've sketched out the ladder, but you've got me on the wrong rung, Mr.
Gibson.
What does that mean? Captain Crozier served me a drink, just the other day.
Whiskey.
In one of his cut glasses, in fact.
He spoke to me as a friend.
A friend? Yes.
He sees something in me.
- It could lead anywhere.
- Cornelius - Anywhere.
- Cornelius, you The Captain doesn't see you at all.
You can ask Mr.
Jopson or Mr.
Genge but they will tell you, he'll offer anyone a drink if he can have one, too.
Posterity awaits, Mr.
Goodsir.
Hold still! Not a twitch.
Wonderful! In honor of our brother Lieutenant Gore, be merciless.
Educate this creature as to the dominion of the Empire, and will of the Lord behind it.
- Sir? - Yes? Why don't you sit with us? Perhaps it can be you who fires the shot that convinces it.
At least be here to see it felled.
Yes, I'll sit with you for a moment.
Thank you.
You may return to the ship, Mr.
Goodsir.
- Do you need a chaperone? - Yes.
Or you may stay with us.
Yes, sir.
Oh! Get back! They must be waltzing with that bear after all.
Fall back! Send our Marines! - Uh.
Now! - Sir.
Erebus! Erebus! Erebus! Sir John! Des Voeux, bring three men and follow me.
Yes, sir.
You.
The rest of you stay here.
Sir John? Call out! Erebus! Aargh! Sir John! Sir John? Give me a line! Sir John.
Sir John! Give me a line! Groups of six.
Carry any wounded back to the ships.
Sweep the ice.
I want every man accounted for.
Go.
No! The Passage was supposed to be his.
How does it know to take our best men? Lieutenant Gore.
And now the Captain.
It took Bryant.
He weren't no "best" man.
He was a ranking Marine.
He was a Sergeant.
He were a red-coated conscript.
That bear don't "know" us.
It knows one thing and one thing only.
You don't think it strange it should start killing us right after we took down that Eski? He did have a a carved bear in his robe, the Esquimau.
A little token or such.
- And one of a man.
- Where are they now? We put them back.
Ain't no way we were taking them.
Go on, John.
I never wanted anything as little as I want this now.
I do have an order.
Mr.
Blanky, proceed immediately with the rescue party.
Lieutenant Fairholme can lead it.
Let him know.
Sir John forbade this plan.
Swap two Marines into the party and lighten the load what amount you feel you safely can.
They'll need every advantage.
I implore you.
Please, stop.
We have lost Sir John! We have lost Sir John.
Do you not Do you not feel what has happened? I feel it.
One day.
I am asking one day to allow our men to grieve.
And then they go.
These words are not mine.
They're Sir John's.
He wanted you to hear them.
And, lacking words of my own I give you his.
His last.
"In his flight, Jacob lighted upon a certain place and tarried there becau because the sun was set.
He thought it a terrible place.
No house, no hearth.
But that night he dreamed: A ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reaching to the heavens.
Behold, the Lord stood above it and He said, 'I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places, wherever thou goest; for I will not leave thee.
' And in Jacob's dream, he saw the invisible world, companion to the known one we perceive with its rocks and moon its ice fields and brute animals and all the people we know have ever known and will ever know.
So complete it would seem to leave no room for its invisible brother world" I'll be a minute on the seat.
".
.
Which is yet more immense" ".
.
than the one we see.
For in this world dwell the Angels who keep us, the Lord who will not leave us and the departed, who though cleaved from the frame that carried them, yet live.
Newest to their ranks, our bright Captain Sir John.
Who, in the virtue and strength of his every gesture, showed himself the elect of the Lord destined to reign with Christ forever.
The invisible world of spirits, though unseen, was present for Jacob.
Not future, not distant, but present.
And it is now, and it is here, among us, if we open our eyes and see His truth amongst us.
" Marines ready! Present! Shoulder arms!
Henry Lloyd saw it by those hummocks at four bells.
What told him it was Lieutenant Gore's bear and not another? It wore the Lieutenant's medals.
I plan to ask Lieutenant Le Vesconte for duty in the hunting blind once it's built.
I'd like another shot at the thing.
Robert Ferrier says you didn't see it at all.
Only Mr.
Goodsir saw it.
That Mary Anne doesn't know what he saw.
We thought it was the bear in front of us.
It's the ice, Georgie.
It's only the ice.
What's it like, to shoot a man? Shooting a man's more fun when you mean to do it.
I'll tell you that.
You've a gift with that.
Me Mam was a dressmaker.
Cage crinoline and arse-torn knicker-bocker suits.
But she never taught me to tailor for no dead Eskimuck.
This all of it, then? The girl, she's shoving off.
They want her to take everything with her.
A girl on a boat here.
That's spooky.
Call him back.
There's something more in here.
Snip it out.
Check for more.
Suppose it's ivory.
There's another one here.
Man's got charms falling off him like a plum tree, Mr.
Goodsir.
Put them back inside.
How will he fit in his coffin like that? I have the um Her father's personals, sir.
She'll be happy to be on her way now.
They say she talked up a storm until her father died.
Now she's all silence.
I'm sorry, that that's all there is.
I did put some supper in there for you, though.
Condolences, Lady Silence.
Weight him and get on with it.
I don't understand this.
This is something Sir John approved? Aye, Mr.
Goodsir.
Little lad, he was.
He shouldn't plug it up.
I mean to suggest, might it be more appropriate to cut the man his own hole? A more appropriate hole? With respect to Esquimaux custom.
It's a native belief the body retains sensation even after the soul departs.
According to Dr.
MacDonald's account.
Having yourself handled his corpse, is it your opinion he retains sensation? In your prior engagements with the Esquimaux, did you find them at all unforgiving when those they loved are wronged? Vengeful, even? Having never wronged them, I couldn't testify.
Are we not at all concerned that if that girl can make it all the way back to her people on her own, she may call on them for revenge? Were we to put her down the fire hole as well? She wasn't our prisoner, Edward.
The Esquimau man's tongue was hacked off.
We don't know why.
Say it was punishment.
If that's how they punish their own, what must they do Breakfast is ready.
Jopson, my coat.
I'm leaving for Erebus.
No escort is necessary.
You have nothing to fear, Lieutenant.
The girl's people are too busy staying alive to wage a war.
What plans have you made, Sir John? All kinds of plans, of course.
In case the ships are ice-locked.
Oh, we are amply provisioned, for three years, and up to five with strict rationing.
Your rescue plan.
What is your rescue plan? Better John Ross blame an unyielding North than own up to his poor captaining.
If the Arctic bedeviled him, why should it open to you? That's his thinking.
Come over here, darling.
What is it? - Does it sing? - It chatters.
Meet Jacko.
Mm.
Oh Darling, that monkey is female.
Oh, is it? I have followed every Admiralty protocol.
There'll be nothing.
You hear? Nothing lives there.
Nothing grows.
You'll eat your shoes again.
You'll eat worse.
We've been misunderstood, darling.
John Ross isn't the only one.
Van Diemen's Land was a horrible blow.
I won't allow another man to play politics against me ever again.
I was a good Governor, Janey.
You were an excellent Governor.
It's just that history was given a different story.
Death is slow in the Great White Nothing.
And 134 starved men will turn devil against you.
Starting with the ones you hold closest.
But in two years, when you return from the Passage, no-one will misunderstand us, John.
You will have bested them all.
I'll be giving a Divine Service tomorrow.
Mandatory, for both ships.
Tell the men, will you? Oh, except for the men of the blind.
They're to keep their focus on hunting the bear.
May I come in, sir? I wouldn't presume to ask if it weren't important.
If you must.
And in Jacob's dream, he saw the invisible world, so immense it would have to Yes? cleaved from the frame that carried them, yet live.
The newest to their ranks, our bright brother Lieutenant Graham Gore.
My condolences, Sir John.
Amongst everything else, I know you mourn a friend.
Thank you.
I apologize for the timing of this request.
But its virtue's in its speed.
I'd like permission to send a sledge party out.
South.
Not for leads this time.
For rescue.
Where? The Hudson Bay Company outpost on Great Slave Lake.
If the party leaves now, they'll have three full months to get there before winter comes in force.
That is 800 miles, Francis.
No I do not grant permission.
At least tell me you understand why I'm suggesting it.
You are suggesting it because you are a man who's happiest with a glass of knock-me-down in one hand and an alarm bell in the other.
I'm suggesting it because if this cold continues and we find ourselves overwintering again in this ice, help must already be on its way, come spring if we are to survive.
I'd rather send out eight men now, for a long, unnecessary walk, than risk a necessary one for all of us in a year.
I will not allow it.
What signal would that send to the men? It's not the men I'm concerned about signaling.
No-one knows where we are.
That is how you already see us? In need of saving? - I do.
- Yet your prediction last year about the terrifying winter we'd spend in the pack did not come true.
Not to the degree I feared, but that will change, should there again be no thaw.
It is a Captain's duty, after all, to mind for the worst case, not for the one he hopes for.
Oh, so, now I must hear you instruct me in a Captain's duties.
It's only eight men, Sir John.
And there is just enough time.
I have lost six men on this expedition to date.
Six! And you ask me to risk more than doubling that number trekking over distant ground where you know I have lost men in years past.
I'll hear no more of this.
I will not lose another man, Francis.
We may lose all our men.
That is what my alarm is ringing now, Sir John.
And I I am at a loss why yours is not.
You are the worst kind of second, Francis.
You abuse your freedoms.
You complain in the safety of speculation, you claim foresight in disasters that never happen, and you are weak in your vices because your rank affords you privacy and deference.
You've made yourself miserable and distant, and hard to love, and you blame the world for it.
I'm not the sailor you are, Francis, never will be.
But you will never be fit for command.
And, as your Captain, I take some responsibility for that.
For the vanity of your outlook.
I should have curbed these tendencies, rather than sympathized with them, because you seem to have confused my sympathy with tolerance, but there is a limit to how much I can tolerate, and that is where we are presently standing! There are some things we were never meant to be to one another.
I see that now.
Friends on my side.
Relations on yours.
So let us turn our energies back to being what the Admiralty, and life, have seen fit to make us.
We should give that our best.
There can be no argument between us there.
Now you must excuse me.
I have a Service to finish writing for tomorrow.
It will have to act as the only eulogy our boy Graham will be given out here and I intend it to sing.
Put together a list.
Our eight most able men.
- Sir John heard reason, then? - I'll make certain the blame falls on no-one's shoulders but my own.
Proceeding with this would be considered It would take weeks to engineer some way to change his mind.
We don't have weeks.
We may not even have days.
Lieutenant Little will never agree to it.
He won't have to.
I'll lead the party myself.
With my presence, the other members of the team can say they were coerced.
I'll tell them it's a hunting party at first.
The act won't impugn them.
And if we were to meet Esquimaux along the way, I can converse our needs and gain help in that manner.
Then send me in your place.
I can speak native as well as you.
You must stay.
To read the ice if leads open up.
And as for Dr.
MacDonald I'll not take a doctor from the men.
But you're the Captain.
There's a spare Captain on Erebus.
You'll be despised.
Sir John will have your head.
And if he doesn't call for it, the Admiralty certainly will.
They can have it.
After I build us a road out of here.
And what of the Terror? Make me that list, Thomas.
I plan to leave at start of last watch.
Write it down this time, Mr.
Diggle.
In order to heat your soup, you must first heat the stove.
Thank you for sharing the extent of your knowledge as a cook, Mr.
Wall.
But I'd never hazard the wreck of your kitchen unless pressed by dire consequence.
"Dire consequence"? But there's much here for you to marvel at.
Look how happy my men are.
Oh, I marvel.
But about something more intriguing than you.
What on earth are you up to? I'm concerned about the number of Terror's canned provisions turning up spoilt.
I'm here to inquire if Erebus is seeing the same.
I've discovered bad seals, gray meat and odors that curled my hair.
Now, in the event you've already developed a method for handling the problem, I hope you can set aside your envy and share it.
Otherwise I thought we might together invent a solution.
Mm.
Add salt.
Men approaching.
At ease.
We thought you might be in need of a short, gentlemen, to keep warm.
That's a generous, generous thought, sir.
Ha.
- What bait are we using? - Rats, sir.
We pulled the biggest of the bunch up from the holds, gutted them and tied them up on lines.
You'll put our Fagin out of a job.
Although that layabout couldn't catch a rat if it fell asleep in its mouth.
He was meant to be a lapdog, not a cat.
Or maybe a small pillow.
Lieutenant Irving.
I was hoping we'd meet.
Mind the grease there, sir.
I wanted to thank you for your help.
For your discretion, I mean.
Call it anything but "help", Mr.
Hickey.
Please.
I exercised clemency for a man abused by a devious seducer.
That is also benefited you is a sin in itself, I'm sure.
- A "devious seducer"? - Yes, Mr.
Hickey.
Mr.
Gibson told me everything.
How you pressed him into service, threatened to expose him should he ever refuse you.
I pressed him? You laugh? Turn your wolf's ear to me now and hear or the next piece of counsel you'll be given on the subject may come from the end of a cat o' nines.
We are separated here from the temptations of the world.
At sea, a man can find spiritual benefit in the collective.
It is no accident the world was reborn clean out of an ark, Mr.
Hickey.
Man's worst urges can be satisfied through Christian pleasures and graces, singing with friends watercolors, study, - climbing exercises.
- Climbing, sir? Your crisis is an opportunity for you to repair yourself.
You are in the world's best place for it.
Do you think so? God sees you, Mr.
Hickey.
Here more than anywhere.
I understand you've cleared up our association for Lieutenant Irving.
- You spoke to him? - Mm-hm.
Directly? Christ, Cornelius.
I'd reassured him.
"Cornelius Hickey is a devious seducer.
" That was your That was your reassurance? You've got some face.
You know that? We were within an ace of getting called out in front of all the men and whipped for it, or worse.
You were right.
If he weren't such an Anchorite, we would have been.
So just keep your foot out of it now, please, and let him forget the whole thing, as he assuredly wants to.
To think you were such a good wife to me all these months.
Oh, go to hell.
We've had our beer and skittles, but your tastes are no rule for mine.
- Hm.
Oh, no? - No.
Is that why I've seen more of your postern than your face this winter, Billy? - Hm.
- Huh? Do you know what copulates on this ship? Rats.
Nesting in our rubbish, swimming in our filth.
Devouring each other just to make more rats.
Well, I am not a rat.
I'm a man.
A delightful, God-fearing man.
I had to choose.
No-one is out here for the view, Cornelius.
My standing with command is more valuable than my standing with you.
I know you, of all people, will understand that.
Now, if this is what I need to say, then I will say it.
It's not personal, but it is finished.
So don't be pettish.
I haven't done you down as you so think.
I've just made it so that we can both keep our skins.
Please.
You've sketched out the ladder, but you've got me on the wrong rung, Mr.
Gibson.
What does that mean? Captain Crozier served me a drink, just the other day.
Whiskey.
In one of his cut glasses, in fact.
He spoke to me as a friend.
A friend? Yes.
He sees something in me.
- It could lead anywhere.
- Cornelius - Anywhere.
- Cornelius, you The Captain doesn't see you at all.
You can ask Mr.
Jopson or Mr.
Genge but they will tell you, he'll offer anyone a drink if he can have one, too.
Posterity awaits, Mr.
Goodsir.
Hold still! Not a twitch.
Wonderful! In honor of our brother Lieutenant Gore, be merciless.
Educate this creature as to the dominion of the Empire, and will of the Lord behind it.
- Sir? - Yes? Why don't you sit with us? Perhaps it can be you who fires the shot that convinces it.
At least be here to see it felled.
Yes, I'll sit with you for a moment.
Thank you.
You may return to the ship, Mr.
Goodsir.
- Do you need a chaperone? - Yes.
Or you may stay with us.
Yes, sir.
Oh! Get back! They must be waltzing with that bear after all.
Fall back! Send our Marines! - Uh.
Now! - Sir.
Erebus! Erebus! Erebus! Sir John! Des Voeux, bring three men and follow me.
Yes, sir.
You.
The rest of you stay here.
Sir John? Call out! Erebus! Aargh! Sir John! Sir John? Give me a line! Sir John.
Sir John! Give me a line! Groups of six.
Carry any wounded back to the ships.
Sweep the ice.
I want every man accounted for.
Go.
No! The Passage was supposed to be his.
How does it know to take our best men? Lieutenant Gore.
And now the Captain.
It took Bryant.
He weren't no "best" man.
He was a ranking Marine.
He was a Sergeant.
He were a red-coated conscript.
That bear don't "know" us.
It knows one thing and one thing only.
You don't think it strange it should start killing us right after we took down that Eski? He did have a a carved bear in his robe, the Esquimau.
A little token or such.
- And one of a man.
- Where are they now? We put them back.
Ain't no way we were taking them.
Go on, John.
I never wanted anything as little as I want this now.
I do have an order.
Mr.
Blanky, proceed immediately with the rescue party.
Lieutenant Fairholme can lead it.
Let him know.
Sir John forbade this plan.
Swap two Marines into the party and lighten the load what amount you feel you safely can.
They'll need every advantage.
I implore you.
Please, stop.
We have lost Sir John! We have lost Sir John.
Do you not Do you not feel what has happened? I feel it.
One day.
I am asking one day to allow our men to grieve.
And then they go.
These words are not mine.
They're Sir John's.
He wanted you to hear them.
And, lacking words of my own I give you his.
His last.
"In his flight, Jacob lighted upon a certain place and tarried there becau because the sun was set.
He thought it a terrible place.
No house, no hearth.
But that night he dreamed: A ladder set upon the earth and the top of it reaching to the heavens.
Behold, the Lord stood above it and He said, 'I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places, wherever thou goest; for I will not leave thee.
' And in Jacob's dream, he saw the invisible world, companion to the known one we perceive with its rocks and moon its ice fields and brute animals and all the people we know have ever known and will ever know.
So complete it would seem to leave no room for its invisible brother world" I'll be a minute on the seat.
".
.
Which is yet more immense" ".
.
than the one we see.
For in this world dwell the Angels who keep us, the Lord who will not leave us and the departed, who though cleaved from the frame that carried them, yet live.
Newest to their ranks, our bright Captain Sir John.
Who, in the virtue and strength of his every gesture, showed himself the elect of the Lord destined to reign with Christ forever.
The invisible world of spirits, though unseen, was present for Jacob.
Not future, not distant, but present.
And it is now, and it is here, among us, if we open our eyes and see His truth amongst us.
" Marines ready! Present! Shoulder arms!