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In the end it was John's best impulses for occupying his mind with wholesome pursuits that led him astray. The Erebus lieutenants suggested that they stage a play, and he supported the proposal wholeheartedly as exactly the kind of diversion the men needed. Once the captain had approved, John offered his time to Mr Bridgens who took on directing the production. And then had found himself rather taken aback when he was assigned the role of the sister of the main heroine.
There was nothing unwholesome about any of it, of course. He didn't begrudge such things for the rest of the men, it was harmless lighthearted fun. But the thought of himself participating in such a thing filled him with an uneasiness he didn't want to look at too closely. No, for him such things would not do. He raised changing roles or taking another task with Mr Bridgens, who was sympathetic, but it seemed with their limited resources assigning roles was a delicate and interconnected web and with John declining the part the only man who could take it on would be Manson, who while an honest and good worker of a man they both agreed would be entirely unsuitable.
So in the spirit of collective benefit John took the role despite his personal misgivings. And there was truly nothing objectionable about the character; she was a virtuous maid who gave good Christian counsel to the heroine in the various moral dilemmas she faced through the story.
The play was a decidedly amateur affair but their audience was enthusiastic, ready with cheers and forgiving of the occasional flubbed line. Harry Peglar played the heroine, and he took to the role with an earnest sweetness that made everyone forget within minutes that he had not shaved his beard for the part. Captain Fitzjames played their scheming, matchmaking mother in broad comedic strokes, and was an audience favourite. And if John felt something warm spread through his chest when George, playing his suitor, kissed his hand as if he was someone to be treated delicately, that was only what it felt like to get lost in a role. And if at times he felt exposed under the bright lights in a dress, as if with all the men's eyes on him they could see to the very core of him and discover he wasn't sure exactly what, surely that was only the nerves of acting.
After the show the storeroom they had repurposes for costuming was full of raucous good cheer. John sat a little ways apart on a wooden box as the men changed and made jokes and washed off face paint. He felt relieved and light, like he had got away with something. He ran a hand over the voluminous skirts spread out around him. He found himself lingering, his buttons undone and dress open in the back but still fully in costume when most had gone on ahead to the post play celebrations. Once he took it off the dress would be packed away with the rest in the trunks, no reason to ever get it out again, and he found himself reluctant to do so just yet.
He was shaken out of his reverie by a resounding slap. As he looked up the tableau before him was thus: Peglar clutching his corset to his chest, sergeant Tozer with a proprietary hand resting low on his back. The sergeant said 'run along now sweetheart,' and turned to the other men crowding him for help getting out of their finery. John did not see sergeant Tozer slap Peglar on the arse, but the evidence of the act was clear. Peglar seemed in undiminished high spirits - was that a wink he gave the sergeant before he went hunting for his own clothes? - nevertheless this kind of harassment could not be tolerated.
As the sergeant was about to leave with the last of the men, John called out after him.
'Sergeant Tozer, if you would stay behind for a moment.'
The sergeant waved the others in his group on. As he turned back towards John the smile around his eyes faded, and he looked much as he did when he stood on attention, a studious blankness that John knew was a cover for insolence. It stung a little, another way John felt like not quite one of the men. He knew that he had reputation for joylessness, despite all he had done to encourage levity and recreation. Only, there were lines that needed to be maintained.
Sergeant Tozer had remained in costume, wearing a faded uniform with the same puffed up pride he wore his marine jacket. He had a small role as captain of the guard. Bridgens truly had a talent for casting, as the sergeant had performed admirably, but clearly would not have done so in a role that didn't resemble himself so much.
'Sergeant Tozer you are expected to set an example for the men,' John began. The sergeant's gaze kept wandering down, never lingering long enough to be called out, before returning to look him in the eye. The relief John felt, his reluctance to part with the costume, it all felt very distant suddenly. He was keenly aware of himself, his shoulders exposed to the cold, the bodice tight around his chest, and he wished very much that he was with anyone other than sergeant Tozer.
John was doing this for sergeant Tozer's benefit, to encourage the higher impulses he knew the man had, and yet he couldn't help feeling like he was breaking some delicate trust that had begun to build.
The sergeant had sought him out a while ago to learn about navigation, which John had encouraged wholeheartedly, teaching him about magnetism, star charts, lent the sergeant his telescope for practice. He was one of the few who actively sought to improve himself in this way, and John knew that he was loyal to a fault and took care of the men under him, even if he rankled at the authority of anyone over the marines. But he also had an earthy, easy masculinity that John found himself worrying over, the kind that could easily lead a man astray.
'The purpose of these entertainments is to raise the spirit of the men, to strengthen their collective solidarity. They are not an excuse for ribaldry.'
'I apologise wholeheartedly,' the sergeant said somewhat stiffly.
That took the wind out of John's sails. He searched the sergeant's face for hints of mockery, but he was entirely impassive.
'Good,' he said, and it came out more unsure than he intended.
Sergeant Tozer nodded.
'These are good lads, you understand, but we do all get a bit rough sometimes. I am sorry that you had to hear all that though. It's not talk fit for the ears of someone of such Christian virtue.'
That was nowhere near John's point, and he was about to protest, but the sergeant barelled on.
'It is admirable, truly,' he said. 'To have such dedication to purity.' And he finally looked right at John, rather than at the empty space over his shoulder.
'To be able to give that great gift on your wedding night, to your husband.'
He said it so matter of factly, for a moment John thought he misheard.
Then he was seized by terror, deep and swift, like a visitation from an angel.
Unmoored as he was, it all came back to him slowly, the circumstances they were in, the store room, the dress, the role. The nature of the sergeant's mockery of him. It was the character he meant, it was playacting, nothing more. His heart still beat painfully in his chest.
'Sergeant,' he had to stop and try again, his throat too dry for words. He thought he could see the hint of a smirk in the corner of Tozer's lips. 'Sergeant, I will not remind you that disrespecting a superior officer is lashable offence...'
He had to pause because he couldn't get a proper breath, the corset feeling very tight around him.
'Easy now,' the sergeant said, not unkindly. He stepped close, and put a hand spread out on the front of the bodice, and under his palm John could feel how fast he was breathing. 'It's nothing to get so worked up about.'
John looked up at him helplessly.
'I better undo your laces for you,' Tozer said, looking to John for agreement. He couldn't seem to fill his lungs, so he just nodded.
Tozer didn' turn him around, just reached behind him for the laces and loosened them by feel. So close, with his arms around John, it was almost an embrace. John could feel the pressure easing as he worked, the cold air finally rushing into his lungs.
'There you are,' Tozer murmured, and didn't step back. He returned one hand to the front of the bodice, spread wide, like John was breathing into his palm. John could feel the warmth through layers of silk.
'Hate to see such a pretty lass all worked up over nothing,' Tozer said, his eyes dark.
John realised that he wandered unseen into a far greater danger. He could feel himself stirring under his skirts with shameful heat. The sergeant's hand dragged lower down the bodice, slowly, thoughtfully, until he was holding John's slightly cinched waist. He would only need to pull a little and John would be in his arms.
'Surely every lass thinks about men's eyes on her when she's out wearing such pretty things,' he said, head tilted thoughtfully to the side, and ran a finger over the ribbons and laces at the cleavage of the dress, sitting too low now that the bodice was loose.
'The way I reckon, if God made us to please him surely it cannot be a sin for a maid to appreciate that Godly work in the form of the handsome men around her.'
John ought to threaten reporting him, but the sergeant must have known that he wouldn't. How could he explain to the captain that he couldn't handle such a trivial matter on his own? It would be obvious to all why he couldn't if he tried to speak of it.
'Surely even the most virtuous girl dreams of her wedding night and aches.' The sergeant's gaze flicked back up to him. 'Don't you?'
If the sergeant pressed just a breath closer, his thighs into John's skirts, he would feel how much John ached for him.
John's mind raced. What was the sergeant's game? To ridicule him? To blackmail him?
...To press him into service?
A thrill ran through his traitorous body at the thought, his hardening cock leaking under the delicate lace.
'I bet a lass like you don't even touch yourself.'
'No,' he breathed, and it was meant to be a denial, to all of it, but Tozer grinned like he was giving in.
'Shame. I bet you look real pretty all flushed.'
The back of John's legs hit a stack of boxes, and he half stumbled half sat. He had not even realised he had been led backwards. They were hidden now, behind chests of costumes and boxes piled high. There was nowhere to back away as the sergeant stood between his legs. For a wild moment John thought the sergeant might kiss him. He wasn't sure what he would have done if he tried.
'You must be in such great need by now,' Tozer said with great seriousness.
'It's sodomy. This is... it would be sodomy,' John whispered. The word was out in the cold air between them. The one he never even thought about directly, only from the corner of his minds eye. He imagined it would have force, but it was only a flimsy thing against the heat of the sergeant sinking into him through layers of silk.
'Shh, none of that,' Tozer sushed him with a finger at his lips, and the light brush of a touch sent sparks through him. John tried to remember if anyone had ever touched him there before.
'I wouldn't dream of it,' Tozer said. 'Sullying the virtue of a girl like that. Only, I could ease this ache for you, without you doing aught. If that is a sin before God, well, that one would only be in my ledger.'
Sergeant Tozer sank to his knees as he talked, slid his hands under John's skirts. One hand encircled his bare ankle, the other travelled slowly up. At this height he was eye level with the evidence of the effect his words were having on John, visible even through layers of skirts. John twisted, caught between the sergeant's hands, the layers of dress, the heat rising within him.
'Will you let me?' Tozer asked, his meaning unmistakable as he looked at John's staff straining under silk. John squeezed his eyes shut, and God help him, he nodded.
He could feel the skirts being lifted, and the sergeant's hand sliding under his knee and lifting, and then he was enveloped in wet heat. He shuddered bodily, barely holding back a yelp, and the sergeant pressed him down by his hips and took more of him in his mouth. John scrambled futilely for a hand hold behind him as the sergeant began his pace in earnest, John's hips jerking minutely forward into that heat.
It was overwhelming. All encompassing. Like being tossed in a stormy sea, his body both the ocean and the boat, rising on the waves then being pulled into the depths.
He didn't know how long it had gone on, probably only minutes, when the sergeant pulled off, and his body chased that heat involuntarily. He opened his eyes, but the sergeant was hidden under a sea of skirts. The hand under his knees lifted higher, until his knee was almost pressed into his chest. For a moment all he could feel was hot breath on skin, then there was a tongue on his hole, licking a long stripe up, then around, then oh God, inside, breaching the ring of muscle. A sound escaped him that he had never made before, before he clapped a hand over his mouth. He didn't know his body could feel like this, through acts he didn't even know existed. All he felt was a rising, a rising within him, as the sergeant's insistent tongue breached him over and over.
By the time the sergeant surfaced from under his skirts he was a creature of sensation only, lost in pleasure. He reached for Tozer unthinkingly, pulled him up and close.
'You'll have to keep more quiet than that lass,' Tozer said. John hadn't realised what breathy gasps were escaping him. Tozer reached back under his skirts and got a hand around his yard, and gave him a few easy tugs.
'That's it sweetheart,' Tozer said. 'I knew you would look real pretty like this.'
There was a hunger to the way Tozer watched him, and his face heated at being seen so undone.
Tozer's gaze dropped to John's lips, but as he leaned in instead of going for a kiss he pressed his mouth to John's neck, a hot line down his rabbiting pulse, his collarbone, into the cleavage of the dress. Down, until he found one nipple, indecently exposed, and laved his tongue over it. John gasped and his hands flew into the sergeant's hair, pulling him closer. Emboldened by the response he sucked harder, his free hand finding John's other nipple and rubbing it through the lace. John was beyond being able to care how debauched he looked, there was no space in him for anything other than sensation.
The sergeant came up to look at him, his lips kiss pink, and John ached to see it so without having had the kiss.
'I've got you sweetheart,' Tozer said, his voice rough. 'Come for me.'
John choked back a whine. He was adrift, trying to find purchase on the wall behind him and finding none.
'Here, hold onto me,' Tozer said, and he did, wrapping his arms around those broad shoulders, like a cliff amidst a stormy sea.
He could feel his crisis deep inside him, building to an inevitability, and for a long moment he was suspended before the fall.
He hooked an ankle behind Tozer to pull him closer, as if they were joined, as if the sergeant was moving within his body, and it was that thought that had him crest over the fall. A moan ripped from deep inside him, and the sergeant's mouth was on his to swallow it down. The aftershocks went on for a long time, shuddering through him one after the other.
He did not let go when he came back to himself. His arms were around the sergeant and they were breathing into each other. John leaned in, only a fraction, and kissed him. It was the bravest thing he had ever done. It was soft and tentative, then he tilted his head a little, and Tozer pulled him in closer, deepening the kiss. This man was a stranger to him, now more than ever, as unfathomable to John as the icy wasteland. Yet he did not kiss John as he would have imagined if he ever had cause to imagine such a thing. He kissed as if John was someone to be treated delicately, with care. It was not a kiss that belonged in this time and place, the reality of which was rapidly settling back into him.
Sergeant Tozer pulled away first.
'Better be getting on,' he said. 'Before someone has cause to look for me.'
He smoothed down his rumpled clothes. He was hard, John could see the outline of it through his trousers. He caused that, and the thought filled him with heat. His hands fluttered at his sides with the desire to reach out.
'But you are still...'
'Don't trouble yourself lass, I wouldn't expect a virtous girl like yourself to deal with such things.'
He said it matter of factly, without reproach or expectation. He didn't linger to see if John would contradict him.
The sergeant looked at John one last time before turning away, and he couldn't read his expression but he deeply hoped it wasn't pity.
John sat in the ruins of a dress indecently gathered up around him, in the storeroom of a ship frozen in ice thousands of miles from civilisation, and he thought about the unseen world. About eternity, the immense endless existence beyond this vale of shadows, and how there could be other things within a man that were just as vast.
How could he bear this sea of want within him, now that it had a form and a name and a face? The images came to him unbidden - putting his hands on the sergeant's skin, seeing his face twisted in pleasure that he caused. Steering him into his berth and crowding him against his bed. Following him somewhere quiet and dark while the men were merry and unobservant, to touch without seeing. To find him in the dead of the night, or alone on watch, to take him, to have him, to return this great terrible gift that the sergeant had given him. And John was afraid, so very afraid, that now this yearning was awake inside him he would never be free of it again.