no schism in the body

“I know you and Billy were mates,” Tozer says; his throat is tight, and his hands chafe together convulsively. He’s seen them together, he’s seen Mr. Hickey take the steward by the elbow and lean intently into his face and he has seen Mr. Gibson shyly fit an arm around his small companion to shield him from the wind. All his motions were stiff and pained toward the end, stiff and pained as a man near death; the gesture could not be anything but deliberate. 

Hickey is gazing into the distance, with those queer eyes of his. His posture is wakeful and guarded, one arm tossed about his knees; his deep-cuffed trousers are freshly brushed. Has Mr. Gibson left him his brushes, his shears, his last packet of needles? 

“What’s that, Sergeant Tozer?”

Solomon continues lamely. “I only wanted to say, I’m sorry for it. Could have been any one of us."

“Could have been.”

Mr. Hickey is evading his gaze now. Fate has thrown them together here, tossed them in a sack like unwanted kittens, and yet Hickey cannot look him in the face. He fingers apart his bundle of pipe tobacco and draws forth a pinch of it. No favoritism here, the gesture says, but there is more in the bundle

Tozer swallows in a dry throat. “You loved him like a brother, now he’s gone. Gone to God knows where."

Not even God knows where. Into the bellies of a pack of hungry men, bone and marrow, blood and brain. What becomes of a man when his flesh is eaten up? What part of him will rise again on the Day of Judgment, and shamble to the throne of Christ to receive his portion? The soul, then, but what becomes of a man’s soul when it is swallowed down—

How many friends has Tozer lost? How many men could he not save — burned up to a crisp, with the hot fat running and only the bones intact? He could not carry Heather, he could not carry his own friend to safety after lugging him out of his sickbed like a great heavy doll. Sol has killed Heather as surely as if he’d put the barrel of a gun to his heart and fired. A bullet would have been kinder.

But Heather had been a Royal Marine and a brother, a comrade and a friend. There is no man alive in this cold place who does not know what Mr. Hickey is. Gibson the steward can only be the same, ghost-haunted and commanding. Did they bugger each other? Did Billy Gibson cover him with his body, tumbling him like a girl, or did they frig one another down below in the hold, did they kiss one another with whiskered lips? Tozer is an ordinary man, he loves women and if he has suffered another man to suck his prick it has always been for love of money only, not the joy of the deed. But Mr. Hickey is not a common margery; he is not a common man at all. 

“You can stuff your pity up your arse, sergeant. What’s passed has passed.” Hickey’s tone is light, jostlingly playful, but his face does not bear it out. He is looking at Tozer now, but it is as if he looks through him, past him to the canvas wall behind.

Sol pulls back a little, hugging himself, disgruntled. Hickey goes about packing his pipe.

“Don’t be daft,” Sol says, “I only meant you liked the fellow. I know you did your best to look after Gibson at the end. I meant no offense by it.”

He meant no pity. I know you did your best— Why does he say these things? Because he wishes they were true of himself. Because he wishes he had done more than watch, watch as men’s souls were torn from their bodies like a glove from a hand, like a spool of guts from a wound. There are worse things now than being dead, and now Solomon knows: stout-hearted Bill Heather was gone beyond all reach long before his body burned.

Hickey unfolds himself lazily, pressing a small gloved hand to the hinge of Sol’s knee.

“We both know that’s not true, Solomon. I chivved him, and I’ll do you next if you press me.”

Hickey wears Gibson’s comforter now, around his own throat; it might be a practical consideration, if he did not have a troubling habit of stripping down to his drawers in the summer sun. Tozer sees these signs on his body and they bear testimony to what manner of man Hickey is, and how he intends to lead. They must all serve as members of one body if they are to survive this fearful place, the hand and the heel and the belly and the eye.

Sol is hugging himself now with his face in his hands, tucked up like a child afraid of the dark — Tozer sucks a shuddering breath, tasting metal. The heat of his own breath no longer warms him, but only chaps his lips and cheeks like a prolonged and bitter wind. Smooth-faced, Mr. Hickey smokes his pipe.