Cornelius Hickey quotes from The Terror

Cornelius Hickey

I've let the captain speak now long enough. Telling every manner of falsehood against me. Proving only every man lies. Even this man, your captain. But I must pierce this thing he calls "truth" with another of his own recent deceptions. June 11th, last year, the day Sir John was killed something else transpired. Crozier made a plan. In secret. To get himself out without you. "There are many feats that preoccupy a captain's imagination. But abandoning his ship and his men should not be among them. Yet I hereby tender my..." Oh, go on, Captain, you finish it.

Cornelius Hickey

I'll give you some advice: don't indulge your morals over your practicals. Not now. Don't you also want to live?

He's running to inform.

Cornelius Hickey

No, I don't think he will.

Cornelius, we'll be lashed.

Cornelius Hickey

If Lt. Irving goes to inform command, then he'd have to tell them what it is he saw. Which means he's gonna have to open his imagination to what he didn't. I've seen him at Sir John's Sunday service. I've watched him pray. That's a man afraid of chaos. He's not going to invite more if he can help it.

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.

Cornelius Hickey

Climbing, sir?

Your crisis is an opportunity for you to repair yourself. You are in the world's best place for it.

Cornelius Hickey

Do you think so?

God sees you, Mr. Hickey. Here more than anywhere.

I'm not a captain. I'm not made of that.

Cornelius Hickey

You can be whatever you need to be now. Survival is a nasty piece of business. But we do what we have to do. We reconfigure. We reinvent. We rearrange.

Thomas Jopson

You're lucky you weren't just shot back there, Mr. Hickey.

Cornelius Hickey

Do you have a sudden gift for aim, Jopson?

Thomas Jopson

Everything we ate growing up started with a gun. My aim's fine, Mr. Hickey. I've shot smaller hawks than you.

Henry Goodsir

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.

Cornelius Hickey

We do not know which parts -

Henry Goodsir

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.

Cornelius Hickey

Where?

It's got Crozier's group a very scant few miles ahead of it, and ours a very scant few miles behind. It'll find one of us or the other, I have no doubt about it.

Cornelius Hickey

Can we bait it? In their direction?

We should return to the ships. I've seen the charts, Cornelius. We're barely a quarter of the way. We've seen more signs of melt. Mr. Des Voeux 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.

Cornelius Hickey

Well, you finally sound frightened, Solomon.

We don't want to meet this thing again. We can't beat it!

Cornelius Hickey

There's a queer melody for a Marine.

I saw that thing murder Mr. Collins.

Cornelius Hickey

You've told me.

I didn't tell you all. I haven't told anyone all. Do you believe a man has a soul? [Hickey smiles and nods] 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.

Cornelius Hickey

This does mean a new plan. Can you signal to our friend ahead?

Yes.

Cornelius Hickey

You and I once shared a drink on a Wednesday. Do you remember that day?

Francis Crozier

I do. You had a dog turd in your hand.

Cornelius Hickey

The toast was, "Ourselves." That was fitting then. But so it is again today.

Francis Crozier

You misunderstand the toast, Mr. Hickey. It was meant as a joke. Not a very clever one.

Cornelius Hickey

You hold yourself to the standard of a man you are not, nor should ever have tried to be. You've let shame drive you on and on. It's part of why we are where we are.

Francis Crozier

Then why have me brought here at all? At great risk to your men.

Cornelius Hickey

Tuunbaq... a spirit that dresses as an animal, yet we shot it with a cannon and drew blood. How do you reconcile that?

Francis Crozier

I can't. There's much about this voyage I can't reconcile.

Cornelius Hickey

What mythology is this creature at the center of?

Francis Crozier

About the creature, I have no answers, Mr. Hickey. We were not meant to know of it.