He does indeed begin to lead the way, carefully navigating with a hand against the wall; the light is still low enough to make it difficult to see, especially with his vision still not back to normal quite yet, but his balance and coordination have improved enough that he feels relatively confident in his footing.

"Yes, I'm aware that you are the only person capable of understanding the reality of our situation." Sarcasm may or may not be useless, but he's not about to give up on it just yet, especially not when Hickey specifically made mention of it. "And that I should have made time to visit and speak with you, specifically, on Terror, as the opinions of a murderer with no naval experience would have doubtlessly provided invaluable insight."

He might've felt defensive about the accusation were they not ones he's quite confident about; for all his faults, listening to his subordinates--officers or otherwise--has never been a problem for him, and he feels entirely justified in having little time for Terror's crew when he had an entire ship to command with the help of only one lieutenant. And that was before most of Terror's crew had then transferred to Erebus, exasperating the problem, and Hickey being one of the few not amongst them had meant any opportunity to cross paths was almost nonexistent.