The Wardroom

The air in the wardroom was thick with the familiar scents of naval life: beeswax polish, the faint, ever-present damp of the sea-rotted timbers, the rich aroma of Sir John’s generously poured port, and the sharp, clean scent of snow that seemed to permeate everything beyond the hull. It was a bubble of fragile civilization, a pocket of golden light and warmth against the immense, crushing white silence of the Arctic.

James Fitzjames held court, as he so often did. A tale of the Yangtze was unfurling from his lips, all practised gestures and self-deprecating charm. He was a master of this, of painting a grand, glorious picture where he was both the dashing hero and the humble servant of the Crown.

“…and the mandarin’s guards, you see, were quite put out by our insistence on sailing upriver,” he said with a languid wave of his glass, drawing a chuckle from the younger lieutenants. Sir John beamed, his face a mask of paternal approval. Across the table, Captain Crozier watched from beneath heavy brows, his expression unreadable, a dark, silent lodestone in the room’s gaiety.

The story reached its crescendo—the crack of the musket, the chaos, the daring escape. It was a good story. He had told it a hundred times.

“And that, gentlemen, is how I acquired my most singular souvenir,” Fitzjames concluded with a flourish, tapping his side. “A Chinese bullet.”

The expected laughter followed. Sir John leaned forward, his voice a warm rumble. “A dreadful business, James, dreadful! But a testament to your fortitude. To carry such a wound, a constant reminder of your service to the Queen in those exotic climes…”

Fitzjames’s smile was a perfect, polished thing. “It is but a trifle, Sir John. A twinge in the cold, nothing more.”

It was then that Crozier spoke, his voice rough from whisky and the northern air, cutting through the pleasantries like an ice blade. “A trifle, James? A bullet in the side? Where, precisely, did it lodge?”

The room stilled slightly. It was not a hostile question, but it was… surgical. Direct. It demanded specifics where bravado usually sufficed.

Fitzjames’s smile didn’t slip, but it tightened at the edges. He could feel the eyes upon him—the eager lieutenants, Sir John’s benevolent curiosity, and Crozier’s piercing, sober gaze. They were no longer just an audience for a story; they were surgeons gathered around a curiosity.

“Here,” Fitzjames said, his tone light, almost dismissive, as he gestured vaguely to the upper left quadrant of his torso, beneath the impeccable wool of his uniform coat. “Tucked between a rib, they told me. Missed everything vital. A spectacular piece of bad marksmanship, really.”

He laughed. It sounded hollow in his own ears.

Crozier merely grunted, his eyes not leaving the spot Fitzjames had indicated. “Lucky. An inch one way, it might have pierced a lung. An inch the other, your liver. A messy way to go, that.”

A cold that had nothing to do with the Arctic outside seeped into Fitzjames’s bones. In that moment, the story vanished. The glamour of the Orient, the mandarins, the gun smoke—it all dissolved, and he was left with the simple, stark reality they were all suddenly considering: a piece of lead, buried deep within him. A hidden flaw in the golden hero. A weakness, waiting for the right pressure, the right cold, to bloom.

He took a swift sip of port, the sweetness cloying on his tongue. The wardroom felt less like a refuge and more like a panopticon. He could feel the wound then, deep in him, even with the bullet removed, he still felt it.