I'll trade my salt pork 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, not another?
It wore the lieutenant's medals.
I'll ask Lieutenant Le Vesconte for hunting blind duty, once it's built.
I'd like another shot at it.
Robert Ferrier says you didn't see it at all. Only Mr. Goodsir saw it.
That Mary Ann 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 have a gift for that. - My mum was a dressmaker.
Cage crinoline, arse-torn knickerbocker suits.
But she never taught me to tailor for no dead Esquimuck.
This all of it, then?
The girl, she's shoving off. They want her to take everything.
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... 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 put 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 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 love are wronged?
Vengeful, even?
Having never wronged them, I couldn't testify.
Are we not 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 Esquimaux man's tongue was hacked off.
We don't know why. Punishment?
If that's how they punish one of their own, what must they...
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? - Chatters.
Meet Jacko!
Darling, that monkey is female.
Oh, is it?
I have followed every Admiralty protocol.
There will 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 in 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?
"...who 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 is in its speed.
I'd like permission to send a sledge party out.
South. Not for leads this time.
For rescue.
Where?
The Hudson's Bay Company outpost on Great Slave Lake.
If the party leaves now, they have three 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 is 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 over-wintering 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 would 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.
So now I must hear you instruct me in a captain's duties?
It is 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 will 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'm 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 -
I will never 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, not sympathized,
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.
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 of our eight most able men.
Sir John heard reason, then?
I'll make certain the blame falls only on my shoulders.
Proceeding with this would be considered...
It will 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 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 will 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.
If he doesn't call for it, the Admiralty 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.
In order to heat your soup, you must first heat your 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?
There's much here for you to marvel at.
Just 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,
and I'm here to inquire if Erebus is seeing the same.
I've discovered bad seals, grey 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.
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.
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 it 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 may come from 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.
Man's worst urges can be satisfied
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?
Directly?
Christ, Cornelius. I'd reassured him.
"Cornelius Hickey is a devious seducer."
That was your... 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.
Whipped for it, or worse.
If he weren't an anchorite we would have been.
So just keep your foot out of it now, please.
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.
- Oh, no? - No.
Is that why I've seen more of your postern than your face
this winter, Billy?
Do you know what copulates on this ship?
Rats.
Nesting in our rubbish, swimming in our filth...
devouring each other to breed.
Well, I am not a rat.
I'm a man.
A delightful, God-fearing man.
Yes, I had to choose.
No one is out here for the view, Cornelius.
My standing with command is more valuable.
I know you will understand that.
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 keep our skins.
Please.
You've sketched out the ladder,
but you 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.
That could lead anywhere.
- Cornelius. - Anywhere.
Cornelius, you...
The captain doesn't see you at all.
You can ask Mr. Jopson or Mr. Genge, if 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 the 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.
Get back.
They must be waltzing with that bear after all.
Fall back!
- Fall back! - Fall back!
- Send our Marines! - Keep your heads, men!
- Now! - Sir.
Erebus!
Erebus! Erebus!
Sir John!
- Des Voeux, bring three men. Follow. - Yes, sir.
- You. The rest of you, stay here. - Sir John!
Call out!
Erebus!
Sir John!
Sir John. Get me a line.
Sir!
Get 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 was a red-coated conscript.
That bear don't know us.
It knows one thing, and one thing only.
You don't think it's strange
it should start killing us right after we took down that Esqui?
He did have a carved bear in his robe...
the Esquimaux.
A little... token or such.
And one of a man.
- Where are they now? - We put them back.
Ain't no way were we taking them.
The silver swan
Who, living, had no note
When Death approached
Unlocked her silent throat
Leaning her breast
Against the reedy shore
Thus sang her first and last
And sang no more
Farewell, all joys
Go on, John.
Farewell, all joys
Oh, Death
Come close mine eyes
More geese than swans now live
More fools than wise
More geese than swans now live
More fools than wise
The silver swan...
I've 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 will need every advantage.
I implore you, please stop.
We have lost Sir John!
We have lost Sir John.
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 are 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 bec...
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 brotherworld...."
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.