It had only been a few more moments before the doctor and captain came in, being met by the bloodied corpse. Both of them were too late to see anything but the blood drying.

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed as he looked upon it, “What happened here Mr Goodman? And why wasn’t I called?” He asked, his words slowly dipping out as he spoke.

“I-I’m sorry doctor Stanway, I had to operate on him immediately due to his blood loss. I-“

The captain held a hand up, his own eyes studying the room, “I accept that surgeon. Now, what happened, I could hear this from halfway across the ship. So, I don’t believe that this was just any old emergency.”

Goodman nodded, recounting the macabre events of the last couple of minutes, from the time that Mr Smith barged in, to Leroy’s death. The careful surgeon not missing a single detail. Including each one of the man’s outbursts and exactly what he had said in each of them.

Both the doctor and the captain were surprisingly calm during all of it, but the doctor did not seem to be accepting everything.

“And the cold by itself cannot make men go mad. So how do you explain, Mr Goodman, how this has all occurred?” The doctor asked.

“Dr Stanway, Mr Goodman, I want you to prepare an autopsy of this man.” Captain Janson said simply, “Though it we’ll find the answers that are needed. I have my own suspicions, but they are not to do with Goodman’s report, if everyone else here can corroborate it?”

“S-sir!? Can’t he have a proper burial!? Why do you need to cut him up!?” One of the dead man’s friends yelled, stepping far closer to the captain than most would consider polite.

“We need to know what killed him and if it’s one of the things I think it could be it will affect us all. So, I’d suggest you get out of here, so you don’t have to watch it. Lieutenant, if you could answer my previous question.”

Mathew swallowed, nodding, “It’s all true sir. And- And I think I will stay.”

“Surgeon, doctor, when you are ready.”

The two of them nodded in return, trays, scalpels and other equipment all being arrayed around the bed. Everything is needed for the extraction and examination of organs.

“Dr Stanway, permission to start with the man’s liver and intestinal tract?”

Dr Stanway’s eyebrows raised, “Any reason why with that surgeon?”

“Dr, let him do that.” The captain interjected, “Goodman, I presume you’ve read Dr Hawthorn’s treatises?”

“Yes, I have sir. I believe that we’re thinking along the same lines here for what may have caused this man’s fall and madness?”

He nodded, “Indeed, now, proceed.”

It would be a lie to say Mathew was not made nauseous by the slicing into the man’s gut. Despite all of his experience, especially in the last few days, there was nothing that could make him fully accustomed to the blood, smell and sight of butchered flesh. The precise incisions into the taught skin of the man’s stomach split it apart.

Saws and more cutting instruments were introduced by Goodman to rip the man open further. Exposing his mess of internal organs to the four men in the room. All of them seemed to be as sickly as his pale skin.

“Kidneys are in poor health, possible constipation in the gut, blue line across the gums…” Goodman murmured as he extracted the organs, while also checking various parts of the body, noting each discrepancy out loud. All while Stanway’s brow furrowed.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of poisoning before… This is certainly not in line with scurvy…” He muttered.

“Captain, doctor, I believe this may be lead poisoning, as according to Dr Hawthorn’s symptoms.”

“Lead poisoning!?” Stanway scoffed, “Surgeon, you are making afflictions-“

“The surgeon is correct, Dr Hawthorn, according to his writings, has come to the conclusion that lead can poison people.”

“And what sort of notion is that!? A man falling off a rope after consuming lead!? And how would have this man ingested lead anyway!?”

The captain simply ignored the doctor, looking straight at Mathew, “Lieutenant, I want you to find Mr Smith and the mess officer, go down to the storeroom, and check all of the cans in there. All of them and pay attention to what they are made of and the seals. Now.”

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“Mathew, why is the captain suddenly all concerned about these cans? We’ve been eating from them all this voyage, what’s wrong with them?”

“Lead.” He replied, not turning around to Smith and instead continuing to shift through the cans in his box.

“Lead? What's so dangerous about that?”

“Poisoning.”

“H-“

“I don’t bloody know! All I know is that everything we have been eating could be making us all go mad!” Mathew yelled, standing up and whipping around to face Mr Smith.

“I- I didn’t know that…” Smith mumbled, his eyes dropping down, “I… I could go mad like him..? I… I want to be able to go home…”

He took in a deep breath, the anger ebbing from his system as he looked at Smith. “I.. I’m sorry. I want to as well, just… We need to find out if it's just all of these things, or if it's only a few. At least if it’s only a few-“

“We might still be safe.”

He nodded, sitting back down by the crate and picking another can up. Mutton liver pâté inscribed on it simple and worn label.

It was a little hard to see in the dingy room they were sitting in the underbelly of the ship. But he could still make out the dull grey solder around the rim of it as he ran his thumb along it absentmindedly. Thoughts about what might happen if the surgeon and the captain were right as he felt the solder seal. It felt different to the metal around it. It had a bubbly texture with it growing a little soft as he rubbed his thumb on it…

He gently lowered the can.

“Smith…”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve found one of those cans… Feel and look at all the solder around them, some of the are made of lead and they don’t seem all that good…”

----------------------------------------

Arrayed in front of the captain and Mathew was multiple crates filled with cans with faulty lead solder seals. Every single one from those cans was donated by the admiral from the navy’s reserve stock.

“I suppose we know why they stopped using that contractor then… I’m impressed by your speed Mathew. You should be able to get to bed before midnight.” Captain Janson said, taking a chair in front of the conference table, all of the crates scattered across it.

“Sir?”

“What is it?”

“Do you think we can make it through with all of the good cans?”

He paused as his eyes drifted into the distance, “I don’t know… I haven’t gotten the report from the quartermaster…”

“And if we can’t make the voyage?”

Janson’s eyes looked up, locking with Mathew’s, “We will have to make it work." The man sighed, his voice faltering a little as his eyes flicked away, "Or The Defender save us, we will have to resort to eating the dead...”

His gut clenched, his throat seizing as he imagined a steak on his plate, cut from one of his team after they had collapsed from exhaustion in the cold wasteland of the ice fields. It was a mental image that threatened to make Mathew gag.

“So go rest and leave those thoughts here. We will reconvene at dawn.”

Mathew nodded, taking his leave quickly, rushing out onto deck and into the fridged air. The cold entering into his body in an instant. The shock cleared his mind and replaced his thoughts with that of primal urges to huddle up and get warm.

It was a technique he had learned on his first Arctic voyage and the first time he had seen a man die. It was a sight that had informed all of his other decisions about how he ran his team to this day. The accident still proving poignant even after eight years. Still, he could see the man’s life being sapped from his body as he drowned in the icy depths. The cold of that water killed him far before water entered his lungs as he fell into the depths. It seemed all so like a dream…

He was sure of it. This was going to be his last voyage. Damn all of this! All of the fucking constant danger and isolation was taking a toll on him and there was no way the money from the company was going to be an excuse anymore to not just move on. No more abandoning his love in port to go up to this wasteland…

He steadied himself, bracing himself against the railing as he pulled his pipe out along with a small wad of tobacco. A lit match soon followed.

And the sound of gunfire and screaming aboard the Black Diadem not long after…