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It was pure misery.
The ice, the ridges, the land in the distance, the sea below them—absolute misery. The men of the sledge crew, trusting in the clear Arctic twilight, chose to sleep outside with nothing but their wolfskins and tarps while Lieutenant Gore slept alone in the tent. Harry had very clearly been given the option to join him, in that walled-off reprieve, to which he had refused—
But Harry had still been warm with his sweat and exertion, the blood rushing through his veins to move the limbs that carried him forward, over every ridge and across every treacherous climb.
As they settled into their wolfskins for rest, the cold sank its teeth into him entirely. Harry shivered violently in the half-dark, tense and desperate with it, willing the warmth from his core to spread through his limbs to no avail, to no reprieve. His fingers burned. His stomach churned and twisted, his mind aching with the sheer cold and the sheer terror it was doing to his body.
The lieutenant’s tent was just a few paces away from him—so near and yet so far with that terrible arctic air between them—by God, it was freezing. At noon, Lieutenant Gore measured the temperature. Two degrees below zero. That had been at lunchtime, and the daytime was far away from them now. Not that the night brought any kind of declaration with it; for the next few weeks, the sun would linger far too close to their horizon, casting them in a half-dark twilight but never pure night, never the soulful reprieve of absolute night. That deep darkness was only a specter that hung over them, an apparition faded half into existence, half out.
It was flaying the edges of his psyche. And in that deep, deep cold, seized by the fear that his body would never warm, half-mad with desperation, Goodsir finally struggled his boots back on and stood, gathering his furs messily in his arms, to step towards the lieutenant’s tent.
“Lieutenant Gore, sir?” He called softly, through chattering teeth.
“Mr. Goodsir–” The man stirred and sat upright in an instant, “Is there trouble?”
“No, no, I only hoped I might share the tent with you, sir.” The doctor’s conduct was poor and un-navylike but he was permitted these things as a civilian; he was granted that much.
Blinking once, the lieutenant nodded his head. “Hurry in then, doctor.”
And Harry hurried. With great mortification he realized he was stepping on the man’s legs, puffing and chattering and apologizing as he crouched into the tent to close the flap tight behind him. God above, he was a miserable anatomist, a poor sailor, and a worse sledge-hauler at that.
“Lieutenant,” Harry began, “I am so, truly sorry—”
The lieutenant had already settled into his bedroll again. “Lay your furs down and come here.”
But Harry could hardly see in that new dark—he stumbled over the gravel as he laid those large furs down in the spot a body did not already lay, shuffling some before crawling into his wolfskins again.
The air was warmer in the tent, especially with two bodies inside, but Harry was so frozen to the bone that as soon as he stopped moving, the violent shivers began again, despite how Harry willed his body to stop.
Graham reached for him in the dark, venting hot—hot!—air from his wolfskins, and pressed a bare hand to Harry’s exposed face, “Christ, you’re freezing.” He shuffled some on the gravel, shifting about in his furs, “Here, doctor, you’re going to catch your death.”
When Harry realized what he was offering, he shook his head, as if either of them could see such a gesture. “I couldn’t, sir–”
“Hurry now, Mr. Goodsir.”
Biting the inside of his cheek, Harry peeled back his own furs and crawled into that space the lieutenant made for him, pulling the edge of his own wolfskins over them. Something like shame or humiliation prickled his cheeks, but then that heat hit him, radiating off of the lieutenant’s chest and hands, warding off that horrible cold, and God, it felt like the sunlight again.
“Can you kick off your trousers?” Asked if it was an innocent question. Quiet, without decorum.
“Lieutenant?” If Graham’s voice was small, Harry’s was noticeably smaller in that tent shared between them.
“Your trousers and woolies, doctor, they’ll freeze you to the bone.” Graham’s whisper was soft, but firm, “We don’t need you losing a finger or toe or any other bit.”
In the tight space of their furs it was a terrible waltz—Harry’s elbow dug into Graham’s chest, then his feet kicked about Graham’s ankles and shins as he twisted and pulled at his own garments. Then Graham took matters into his own deft hands, and Harry was stripped half-nude in the pitch dark with a sailor’s dexterity.
Once Harry settled, he could feel that Graham himself was stripped down to only a layer against the cold; the rest of his gear insulated his furs, packing that loose space not even he could fill with his imposing frame. And Harry could feel the difference between them now, better than he ever had—Graham’s long legs pressed behind his own, and Harry’s feet molded over his, his numb toes tingling and burning with pins and needles as sensation flooded back into them. The lieutenant’s full chest pressed against his back as well, and the warmth filled Harry with such ease and comfort he wanted to cry at the holy sensation. It was immense. It was divine.
The doctor’s eyes grew heavy as his body slowly relaxed into that beautiful heat, and his racing heart slowed with every passing moment, matching more so the strong, slow thump of Graham’s, though his was still stronger than Harry’s ever would be, trained by a life of strength and labor. The man sweated and strained in the most exquisite ways. But Harry’s mind didn’t linger on that, nor the firmness of the muscle pressed against his back, separated only by those thin wool layers Graham still wore—Harry had already slipped into that great drowsy peace, the sensation of springtime and great glowing youth, where the afternoons lasted as long as their heavy eyes required, and summers lasted forever. Half-awake in the pitch black, Harry found he was already dreaming, dreaming as sweetly as if the land of terrible snow and cold had fallen away from him, and his heavenly body was nowhere near the arctic circle.
Graham’s arms wrapped around Harry’s core and he, for the first time in months, in years, slept deeply until the sailors woke them in the morning.