The Terror (2018) s01e09 Episode Script

I do this for a good friend, and I hope you will agree that there is no more holy thing in this world than a friend in need.
In my case, it is the estimable Lady Jane Franklin who wishes to address you under rather urgent circumstances.
Thank you, Mr.
Dickens.
Many of you will have become aware, no doubt, of the mystery beginning to surround my husband's expedition to the Arctic.
The Admiralty are doing what they can, but the urgency to find my husband and his men, and the enormity of that icy province in which they are lost leads me here, to you.
Now, I know that many of you are very generous patrons of charities and of the arts.
I wonder if you might be induced to subscribe next not to another cultural society but to a smart little ship.
A ketch, outfitted to venture to that very same land into which my husband and more than a hundred other good men have bravely sailed and vanished.
I feel it is certain that Sir John and his lost heroes will be found, and soon, by our intrepid rescue mission.
Now which of you good people would like to see your name published among its patrons? I was going to start pulling by his feet.
Why don't I give you a hand? I was trying to recognize if I knew him.
Is this Is this a friend, or? Hey.
That won't change what we do for him.
It's Mr.
Honey, the carpenter.
I recognize his neckerchief.
You all right, lad? Yes, sir.
Francis, we can't possibly bury them all.
We have 32 dead, as well as 23 unaccounted for, Lieutenant Hodgson included.
We're glassing every horizon.
It may be that one or two who ran out into the fog will still find their way back to us like your ship's boy did.
We've no sign of Dr.
Goodsir? He'd never go off with those men of his own volition.
We imagine that this man may return to us, Mr.
Bridgens? If Private Heather remained a mystery to the doctors, I've no hope of solving this.
What explains this this similar state when their injuries could not be more different? All I can bring to mind is the example of a diary with all the entries removed.
It's still a book, yes.
But blank pages now.
We set sail from Greenhithe three years ago with 133 men aboard.
Who could have imagined such grief would come to us? We've no choice now but to carry it with us as we go.
To bring home the names of our dead so that their loved ones can find solace knowing that friendship and courage were with them until the very end.
So take up the word with me, men.
South! South! We march south.
Prepare for departure, men.
Burn our dead, Thomas.
Let them be warm as they go.
And the supplies we cannot carry? If Hickey's band are waiting us out to loot the camp Some of the men with him made their choice out of fear.
I'll not take away any chance they have to survive.
We may meet them yet again.
And if we do, I want them to make a different choice.
Leave our supplies in a tidy pile as an offering.
I want the men with Hickey to know that's how we meant it.
More than God loves them.
And pull! Men! Men! Men, here! Lieutenant! What a miracle! Drink.
Drink up.
The others? What's become of them? They've moved on.
Have you hunted anything? There's no game here.
But we have food.
You have things in hand, then? There's still a place for you here.
If you want it.
One, two, three, heave! One, two, three, heave! Keep going! Man down! It's the heat that I can't I can't stand it.
Are you comfortable, James? I'm sorry.
What in heaven for? How on earth you were walking at all will puzzle me the rest of my days.
You've got holes in you, James.
That shot was fired six years ago.
It's going to murder me yet.
If it doesn't, it's going to make that Chinese sniper story you're so fond of recounting a half hour longer to tell.
Mr.
Bridgens has dressed your wounds.
He thinks he can make up a plaster tonight that will keep them shut until we can get them healing again.
- There's time.
- No.
There's time.
I know your thoughts, Lieutenant.
I was thinking about a wedding I attended at which they served an American ham, from Virginia.
I've never tasted better.
Then I was half right.
What did you imagine me thinking? We've eaten from these tins of mystery for years now, haven't we? Without ever knowing what was in them.
"Veal Cutlet Tomata"? What could that be, really? Pieces of horse? A street dog? Does it matter now? No.
All that matters is we were willing to eat it and it served our needs.
Is that about right? But our needs have changed, Lieutenant.
We need to ask ourselves what are we willing to eat next? I only hauled part of the day, but my knees feel like they've got glass in them.
It will get worse, this.
How? What for should I prepare? To die, Mr.
Gibson.
As all your joints will soon feel as if they are full of glass.
Elbows, neck.
Your knuckles.
The little joints in your toes.
Oh, and your hips.
I expect that will stop you from sleeping from the moment it begins.
Are you not well, Billy? I think my knee's a bit Can he still haul tomorrow? I would be very surprised.
I can.
- I can.
- Hey.
- I can.
- Be calm, Billy.
Be calm.
We'll make the best of a bad situation.
Like we always have.
I wouldn't either, Doctor.
What's that, Mr.
Gibson? Comfort us.
Any of us.
We're Sir! The sweep party's come in with a sighting.
If Hickey's group split, they will try to flank us.
No, sir.
It's the creature.
They said they saw it lurching around off to the west, down along the wrack.
It came in and then headed back to the ice and disappeared.
It didn't seem to detect us.
"Lurching," you say? Wounded, perhaps.
It's been injured twice now.
This jostling's beginning to hurt him, sir.
Camp here! We're fully through with the salt meats now.
What we have left beyond the tins amounts mostly to biscuits, tea, chocolates.
Sir.
Our pace has slowed hauling some of the ill in boats.
But if we can extend this temporary camp for for more than a few days, then we can allow the ill to rest here while the bulk of us proceed south.
We can hopefully find game and trek back for the others once we have something more to offer them.
We send out hunting parties every day.
What you're suggesting would be a death sentence for those men.
Some, surely.
But not for all of us.
As you said yourself, Captain our journey is still a long one.
The men know how tired they are.
And they know why.
It's a reasonable logic.
And I don't fault anyone for following it.
But I want to make myself perfectly clear.
That is not our way.
If we are to deposit anything with a view to return at some later date it will be things, not men.
I'd rather we leave our tents behind and sleep two to a sack like the orphans we are than leave one man alone with last burdens.
And I speak not only of James.
I'll not leave any one of you alone, either.
There are too many of them.
Just as there were too many caribou the year of the Falling Stars.
Too many bear the year before.
And it's because of these men the island has nothing for us.
Everything on legs has fled.
We are starving now, but for what the sea gives us.
The island gives us only wind now.
We will call for another Shaman.
He'll find the Tuunbaq and try to heal what is wrong.
Balance things again.
And you will help him.
Tuunbaq is still yours.
It is your life now.
Yours.
You cannot walk away.
The hartshorn and camphor is having very little effect, sir.
I'm not Christ.
My My body.
Use it.
Feed the men.
Francis.
God wants you to live.
He wants you to live.
Muscles are in spasm, sir.
They've gone rigid.
Francis, help me.
Help me.
Help me out of it.
Are you certain, James? Are you certain? Leave us, Mr.
Bridgens.
Sir.
If I may.
Use this.
His reflexes will try to spit it out.
You'll have to help it down.
Like this.
It was an honor serving you, sir.
You're a good man.
There will be poems.
Do you wish to speak, sir? I said a service with him last night, just the two of us.
Let the others pray over him if they like.
And then hide him in the landscape, Edward.
Make him invisible.
I don't want him found and pawed.
Yes, sir.
If we'd had our wits about us, Chambers and I would have taken a shot.
How far out from camp was this? Not more than a mile now, sir.
West of us again.
We were downwind.
It's tracking us, or trying to.
Lieutenant, gather the men.
We will discuss a strategy.
Sir.
We'll need higher ground.
Put all the sick in the middle and face it down with all the ammo we've got.
I've got a strategy, Francis.
You cut inland a bit and I drive it back out onto the ice.
- Not possible.
- Yeah, it is.
I smell like a thousand-year-old armpit.
I mean permission not granted.
I'm not saying goodbye to two friends in one day.
Between me and you, Francis, I'm done for.
If you need to ride in a damn boat, I'll put you there myself! Mr.
Weekes can make another one.
They're going to have to cut it a lot higher this time, and that's only for the time being.
Best not make me or Mr.
Bridgens go through that, shall we? Bleeding hell, Thomas! Why didn't you speak up? I kept it tidy.
No one could have done a better job.
Jesus Christ! God.
Francis, we both know what's coming for me now.
At least love me enough to admit it.
What do you need? I've got half a pouch for my last smoke.
That will do for me.
But I'll take some forks off you and the men.
You know, forty or fifty.
Forks? Aye, and a piece of rope.
Enough to go around me a few times.
Fifteen feet should do it.
Are you mad? Push, men! Push, men! Go on, then, push it! Man down! Henry.
Henry.
John.
Can we sleep? Yes.
Yes.
Help me get him up.
Hold on, Henry.
Hey.
No.
No.
No, no.
Can someone tell me, please if they also see that bird? They've made camp again, about six miles away.
A friendly face is among them.
They're pitching all their tents now.
They must plan to be there a while.
Make our camp here, then.
In the bosom of this hill.
Stay here, Sergeant.
Mr.
Goodsir.
I'll not do this.
It's why you were brought.
You're an anatomist.
You've cut up more bodies than you can probably now remember.
Twenty.
I have performed on 20.
Why? And don't say, "For my education.
" You did so for the greater benefit of others.
For the sick.
For the dying.
In hopes of helping them.
That is exactly where we are now.
You've murdered this man whom you now wish to eat, and you're unwilling to butcher his flesh yourself? But you will have to.
We do not know which parts Yes, you do.
Of course you do.
If I'm reading right your accent, Mr.
Hickey you grew up in a home where you would have to use every part of any meat or fowl your mam could procure.
So if you want to eat your friend you're going to have to cut into him yourself.
Do not ask me again.
I am now deciding which parts of Lieutenant Hodgson I will cut into first for every hour you refuse to apply yourself to this.
You will stand apart no longer.
I'll give you some advice.
Don't indulge your morals over your practicals.
Not now.
Don't you also want to live? Sit with it an hour and then we'll consider your choice made.
I'm not troubling any of you.
Stand up, Lieutenant.
- You'll break my hand that way! - Let him be! Let him be! Give me 40 minutes.
Mr.
Goodsir.
Come out.
Dr.
Goodsir.
Dr.
Goodsir.
One summer when I was seven my parents sent me to live with two aunts in Oxfordshire.
I did not want to go.
The elderly have that effect on children.
But they loved me.
And I grew to love them.
They were papists I came to find.
Devout.
Each Sunday they would leave me with a housemaid while they attended a Catholic Mass.
I was frightened for them.
I had been told they were doing some great, unforgivable thing.
Then one morning, they took me with them.
I was shaking.
The service was not the howling spectacle of sin I had imagined, but was beautiful.
The singing sounded delivered by angels themselves.
When it came time for the Eucharist, I found myself moved to step forward.
My aunts were surprised, but pleased, I could see.
I took the wafer on my tongue.
Drank from the chalice.
I felt clean.
With the body and blood of Christ within me I felt forgiven of every poor weak or selfish thing within my soul.
It was a perfect moment in a whole imperfect life.
The next week when it came time to dress, I I pretended to be ill.
They knew I was pretending.
To this day, I don't know why I did it.
They never asked me to join them again.
We never spoke of it.
It was the last and only time I stepped into a papist church.
But tonight when I close my eyes I'm there.
If I were a braver man I would kill Mr.
Hickey.
Though it would mean my death, too.
But I am hungry.
I am hungry and I want to live.
Where? It's got Crozier's group a very scant few miles ahead of it and ours a very few miles behind.
It will find one of us or the other, I have no doubt about it.
Could we bait it in their direction? We should return to the ships.
I've seen the charts.
We're barely a quarter of the way.
We've seen more signs of melt, Mr.
Des Voeux has sighted birds.
If we head back immediately, we can be assured of getting back to Terror and Erebus before they have enough open water to leave.
We can keep a loyal crew.
We can head away from this place, away from this devil.
Well, you finally sound frightened, Solomon.
We don't want to meet it again.
We can't beat it.
That is a queer melody for a Marine.
I saw that thing murder Mr.
Collins.
You've told me.
Didn't tell you all.
I haven't told anyone all.
Do you believe a man has a soul? How have you come to that belief? Have you seen one? I have.
I saw Mr.
Collins's soul.
I know that's what it was, and I watched that creature ingest it.
Feed on it.
Watched it happen from a few yards away.
I'm not mistaken.
It breathed that man's soul in.
If it's following the captain's group now, let's take that opportunity and get as many miles between us as we can.
Get back to the ships and be there when the leads open.
Not here.
Not here.
This does mean a new plan.
Can you signal to our friend ahead? Yes.
"The C, the C, the open C.
It grew so fresh, the ever free.
The ever free.
The ever free.
Without it Without it, guard it or run to the earth above the regions round.
I love the sea.
I love the sea.
" Mr.
Bridgens.
He's been up there since morning.
What's he doing? Listening to his thoughts.
Does he know yet we got his message through? Not been down.
And I dare not go up.
Are we waiting for his permission? No.
But we need the boat.
And so we need enough men with us to haul it.
This needn't be a second mutiny.
He'll see reason.
I'd rather take our chances without the boat and get there much faster.
We can beat the thaw and get across the ice, back to the ship.
We'll do what we have to do, Tommy, but we'll do it tomorrow.
At ease, Jopson.
At ease.
Is there something I can do for you, sir? Yes.
You can lie there, not feeling well while I try and cheer you up by telling you the story of the time anyone ever let me ride a cow.
I know that story ends with you head first in a compost heap.
Well, would you like to hear it or not? Yeah.
The cow in question, it belonged to a neighbor.
Foley.
Yes, Coilin Foley.
He used to kick that cow when he wanted it to move.
And it never wanted to move.
She just stood in the grass meadow all day long, which is why us children thought she'd be a safe one to climb up.
So the first trick was getting on top of the thing You're certain of this? I saw it, sir.
Through the glass.
It's there.
How wide would you guess it to be? Wide enough for our boats.
Yes, sir.
Weeks.
This could save us weeks of travel.
If the ice opens up, we row across the strait and into the river.
- Shall we scout it properly? - Without delay.
He's arrived.
Sir.
Bobby! There's no need for any violence.
It's you we were sent for, Captain.
Only you.
Then drop your arms.
We'll not fire on you and you'll not fire on us.
Magnus.
Hold your fire, damn you! You did well.
You did so well, son.
Go on.
Go be with your brother now.
Stand up, please.
I'll come with you.
Sir.
And you'll let the rest of these men go.
You have our word.
We will, however, take your arms.
Gun down, Edward.
Come back for Hartnell's body.
Bury him.
Then keep moving south, as planned.
Don't wait for me.
If I can, I'll catch up.
Sir.
You are to lead the men forward, Edward.
You and the others will live.
I understand the order, sir.
Let me hear it.
We will live.
What in the name of God took you so fucking long?