TV show quotes
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.
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'll give you some advice: don't indulge your morals over your practicals. Not now. Don't you also want to live?
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.
[In the mutineers' camp, Hickey lights a cigarette as Tozer reports a Tuunbaq sighting]
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.
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.
Well, you finally sound frightened, Solomon.
We don't want to meet this thing again. We can't beat it!
There's a queer melody for a Marine.
I saw that thing murder Mr. Collins.
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.
This does mean a new plan. Can you signal to our friend ahead?
Yes.
[After Fitzjames' death and burial, Crozier and Blanky discuss strategy to fight the Tuunbaq]
We need high ground. Put all the sick in the middle, then face it down with all the ammo we've got.
[nodding] I've got a strategy, Francis. You cut inland a bit, and I drive it back out onto the ice.
Not possible.
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! [Blanky pulls up his pant-leg, showing his peg leg is cracked] Mr. Weeks can make another one.
They're gonna have to cut it a lot higher this time. And that's only for the time being. [pulls his pant-leg up further to show his stump has gone gangrenous] Let's not make me or Mr. Bridgens go through that, shall we?
[voice breaking] Bleedin' hell, Thomas, why didn't you speak up?!
I kept it tidy. No one could've done a better job.
[anguished sigh] Jesus Christ!
Francis, we both know what's comin' for me now! At least love me enough to admit it! [limps over to Crozier and puts an arm around his shoulders]
[quietly] What do you need?
I've got half a pouch for me last smoke. That'll do for me. Oh, I'll take some forks off you and the men. Forty or fifty.
[incredulous] Forks?
Aye, and a piece of rope. Enough to go around me a few times. [Crozier suddenly realizes what he's asking] Fifteen feet should do it. [starts laughing as Crozier shoves him off]
You're mad! [Blanky nods as he laughs uproariously; after a moment, Crozier joins him, and the two men embrace for the last time]
[John Bridgens reads Henry Peglar's journal (the "Peglar Papers"), while Peglar lies dead next to him]
[voiceover] The C, the C, the open C. It grows 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 C. I love the C.
[Alone on a ridge overlooking the Northwest Passage, Blanky - forks tied around his body, boat knife in his hand - sits waiting for the Tuunbaq, as he hears growling coming from behind him...]
What in the name of God took you so fuckin' long? [laughs]
You and I once shared a drink on a Wednesday. Do you remember that day?
I do. You had a dog turd in your hand.
The toast was, "Ourselves." That was fitting then. But so it is again today.
You misunderstand the toast, Mr. Hickey. It was meant as a joke. Not a very clever one.
Even if God is seeing every last thing we do here, you have nothing to fear. Not you. You're clean, Goodsir. Clean. Even as your hand is forced by swine.
Is God here, Captain? Any God? It doesn't matter. This place is beautiful to me, even now. To see it, with eyes as a child's. There is wonder here, Captain.
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.
Then why have me brought here at all? At great risk to your men.
Tuunbaq... a spirit that dresses as an animal, yet we shot it with a cannon and drew blood. How do you reconcile that?
I can't. There's much about this voyage I can't reconcile.
What mythology is this creature at the center of?
About the creature, I have no answers, Mr. Hickey. We were not meant to know of it.
[September 1850: Crozier, the last survivor of the expedition, now lives with the Netsilik, when a man comes running with news...]
[Inuktitut] Two men are coming, pulling a sled. White men.
[Inuktitut] What do you want to do? [Crozier pulls up his hood]
[Inuktitut] This is what you tell them...
[Inside the hunter's tent, while Crozier listens outside, the hunter speaks with Sir James Clark Ross and his translator]
"We saw a captain there, the one called Aglooka."
[pulls out photographs of Fitzjames, Franklin, and Crozier] Ask him if one of these men is the one he's calling Aglooka. [the hunter points to the picture of Crozier]
"He spoke in our tongue. He was dying."
What did Francis say? Aglooka?
"Your friend took my hands. He said, 'Tell those who come after us not to stay. The ships are gone. There is no way through, no passage. Tell them we are gone. Dead and gone.'"
[As the translator speaks, Crozier heads out with a sledge party, and sits down to hunt for seal as the camera pans out across the ice...]
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The Terror pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
