A Burial at Sea

by Charles Finch

  He read through the letter twice more, and then looked out at the waning light and thought for a while.

  “McEwan, would you fetch me a cup of tea?” he called out to the hallway at last.

  “Yes, sir,” McEwan’s voice rang back.

  “And while you’re at it I’ll take some toast.”

  “And cakes, sir?”

  “And cakes, why not.”

  Lenox hid the document marked Alpha and then shredded his translation of Omega, the original, enciphered document, and his key, and again dumped the confetti out through his porthole. His tea arrived just as the last scraps of torn white paper sank beneath the water. He took a sip and contemplated what they had said, and what the next week of his life might be like.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Before supper that evening, Lenox took himself to the quarterdeck. Two men were there already, Billings and Quirke, leaned up against one rail and smoking cigars.

  “How do you do?” said Quirke, and Billings nodded affably.

  “Fairly well—unhappy still about Lieutenant Halifax, but fairly well, I thank you.”

  “We were just discussing the subject,” Billings said.

  “What did you conclude?”

  “Nothing to merit your consideration—only the anxiety we both feel that his death is somehow linked to this pathetic attempt at mutiny.”

  “I had wondered about that too,” said Lenox. “What puzzles me is that the Lucy kept so many of her men, all but two, men who could easily have left the navy forever should they have wished. Now we are to believe that one of them can have had such a change of heart in the past five days that he should murder a man and foment a mutiny? It seems impossible.”

  “I quite agree,” said the engineer, pushing his red hair out of his eyes. “Yet the facts remain.”

  The wind had picked up now, and above them from the poop deck Lieutenant Lee called out an order. “Reef the topsails, gents! Quickly now!”

  “Yes,” murmured Lenox in response to Quirke. He lit his own cigar, and tucked a hand into his waistcoat pocket. “They’re inconvenient.”

  Something had occurred to him, and for a moment it engaged his whole attention. The thought was this: the Lucy’s last two second lieutenants were dead. He recalled dimly Halifax telling him that the man who had held his job previously had been lost at sea.

  What if there had been a more subtle variety of foul play in that death, too?

  “Tell me, Mr. Billings,” he said. “I never heard the details of the death of your previous second lieutenant. Or his name, for that matter.”

  A look of pain came into the first lieutenant’s eyes. “He was a good fellow, named Bethell, born not five miles from Portsmouth Harbor and leaving it only to sail to sea. He died during a storm—was taken overboard.”

  “Was his death unusual?”

  Quirke and Billings recognized at once what the implication of the question was, and in vehement unison shook their heads. It was Billings who spoke. “No, it was the commonest thing in the world, a heavy storm. He had gone fore to instruct the men to lash down the boats, and a great wave thundered us and, as we suppose, sent him overboard.”

  “Nobody saw it happen, then?”

  “No, but several of us saw him go forward, and within not fifteen seconds felt the tremendous wave. I don’t think anybody was surprised that he was lost. Saddened, of course, but not surprised.”

  “Did the captain elevate Lieutenant Carrow to the rank of second lieutenant?”

  “Yes,” said Quirke, “but he was reckoned too young to keep it. Now he will.”

  There was motive, if you liked, and Quirke, sensing as much, hastened to add, “But Carrow would never have done it. Bethell was his closest friend aboard the Lucy.”

  Billings looked less convinced, but said nothing.

  “Do you disagree?” asked Lenox.

  “No! No, not at all. That is to say, I know Carrow and Bethell had a falling-out, at some point, but I would no more believe Carrow capable of murder than—”

  Lenox here forestalled Billings’s defense of his friend, interrupting him to say, “Yes, I see. Thank you.”

  Quirke flung his cigar end into the sea. “Anyhow it’s a filthy business, and I shall enjoy seeing the bugger who did it hang,” he said. “Until supper, gentlemen.”

  After he had gone Billings begged off too, leaving Lenox alone with his thoughts and Fizz, the dog of the wardroom, who leaped up onto his lap—being not much bigger than a rugby ball—and snoozed happily there for some while, while Lenox contemplated his duties in Port Said, and, more often, the half-empty bottle of liquor he had seen in Captain Martin’s cabin. Impulsively he decided he would go confront the captain now about it. He put an indignant Fizz on the floor and walked toward the captain’s cabin.

  Martin was sitting in an armchair by his lovely, curved bow window, which looked out upon the ship’s wake. In one hand was a small black calfskin Bible. At Lenox’s entrance he carefully marked his page in the book and placed it upon the window ledge.

  “How are you, Mr. Lenox?” he said. His smile was dry. “I heard of your ascent to the crow’s nest.”

  “I don’t envy the fellows who are up and down the rigging all day, anyhow.”

  “I wish you hadn’t gone—it would have been terribly inconvenient for us if you had fallen and died. While you’re on board the Lucy I would appreciate it if you exercised greater caution.”

  “There was a rope around my midsection, and Andersen was with me.”

  “Both ropes and Andersen have been known to fail upon occasion.”

  “I—” Lenox was about to respond when the image of Jane, pregnant, appeared in his mind’s eye. Instead he nodded. “You’re quite right. I won’t go up again.”

  “Thank you. Now, what have you come to discuss with me?”

  “May I sit?”

  “Of course.”

  Lenox turned to take his seat, stealing a glance at the desk; he saw from the label on the bottle that it was whisky, and from the looks of it no more was gone.

  What kind of man drinks half a bottle of whisky in one night and none in the subsequent five? he thought.

  He had been planning to ask the captain about the whisky, but decided at the last moment to hold off. Instead he said, “I’ve just heard a bit about Bethell, your former lieutenant.”

  “It was a sad loss.”

  “Did you consider then that he might have been pushed overboard?”

  “Never for a second—nor do I accept it as a possibility now. The Lucy has been an exceedingly happy ship, Mr. Lenox.”

  “I’m afraid that doesn’t rule out the chance that a single man, whether out of madness or guile, might have killed Mr. Bethell.”

  Martin shook his head. “No, as I say, I cannot believe it. Deaths of that type are part of naval life, unfortunately. Contrast Bethell’s death with Halifax’s and you’ll see that they cannot be by the same hand—cannot be linked.”

  “Perhaps,” said Lenox.

  “And you, are you any closer to finding out who killed Halifax?”

  “Not far off now, I think.”

  “I hope to God not.”

  With that Lenox returned to his own cabin then, to dress for dinner. As he was fixing his tie McEwan’s voice called out to him.

  “A note for you, sir,” he said.

  “Come in.”

  McEwan entered and handed over a blank envelope, offering along with it an exaggerated wink.

  Lenox, puzzled, thanked the steward and took the envelope to open it.

  Inside was one of the drawings Evers had made in the crow’s nest, a panorama, dated that very day and signed in a surprisingly precise hand. Lenox was touched. Then he noticed that the paper, slightly translucent in the bright sunlight, had something written on its reverse, in small handwriting along the battom. He turned the sheet over.

  Butterworth knows something, was all it said.

  The instant he read these words—
and before he could begin to consider what he knew of Billings’s steward—the bell rang for supper.

  In the wardroom the men shook hands and sipped sherry, exchanged jokes and the officers’ tales of the day’s hard sailing. The mood was amiable, and the food smelled wonderful from the galley. Lenox, though distracted, began to feel his tension dissipate.

  Just as they were sitting to eat, however, a thin voice cried out from the crow’s nest, barely audible below deck: “Ship ahoy! American colors!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Fetch me my glass, Butterworth,” said Billings to the steward, who was behind his chair.

  The captain had been planning to dine alone, but came through to the wardroom now. He was smiling. “An American ship. Come along, anyone who’d like to,” he said.

  All of the men except one, Pettegree, rose and followed the captain, leaving their bowls of potato and leek soup behind to fall cold; for his part, the purser had a second bowl and then a third, delighted at his good fortune. The American ship wouldn’t be near for another quarter of an hour at least.

  On the main deck they took turns looking at the ship through Billings’s glass (the captain kept his own), while with the captain’s approval Mitchell, who was on watch, gave orders for the ship to reverse itself toward the approaching vessel.

  Soon Lenox could see her with his bare eye, a one-decked ship of middling size.

  Martin spoke. “A sloop of war, clearly.”

  Lee, when he took the glass, answered the captain almost immediately, “Yes, she’s the USS Constellation, I’d bet any sum. We met her once near the African coast, when I was aboard the Challenger. She captured a fat little bark with seven-hundred-odd slaves in her, set the slaves free, and imprisoned the slave traders. I would recognize her anywhere.”

  “A good sailor?” Martin asked.

  “Not fast. The Lucy could outrun her under jibs and staysails. But she’s steady, sir, and because the Americans make their ships of live oak she’s tolerably strong. It would be a mighty storm that broke her beams.”

  There was a tangible buzz of excitement as the Constellation drew closer, among the officers and the men alike.

  “Prepare the Bumblebee,” said Martin when they were less than a mile apart. “Cresswell and Lenox, you shall pilot her over there if they invite us on board. Mitchell, you shall stay on watch.”

  Only now did Lenox see that his nephew was among those lined along the rail, looking out.

  At last the American ship was close enough that Martin could cry out “Good evening!” and hear in faint reply from the captain of the Constellation, “You’re very welcome on board our ship, sir! You’re in time for supper!”

  It was easy to claim that the French and the British navies were superior to any other in the world. Some fifty years before, however, during the War of 1812, Britain had been shocked at the strength of the American fleet, and now, with that country’s civil war receding into the past, the United States Navy was again a formidable force. Fortunately the States and Britain were on excellent terms. In fact their navies had worked jointly to lay the cable for the first Atlantic telegraph, the USS Niagara and HMS Agamemnon the two vessels chiefly responsible for that achievement, and the comity between the two navies was written on the face of every man on board the Lucy: they liked each other.

  “Billings, Carrow, and Lee, change into uniform as quickly as possible. Bosun, bring along several men to row us—yes, they may stay on the Constellation while we eat, of course”—at this there was a tremendous clamor of men begging for the job. “Mr. Lenox, you may use your own discretion, but you are most welcome to join us.”

  “Thank you, I shall.”

  Soon they were across in the Bumblebee, Teddy Lenox and Alastair Cresswell rather puffed up with their responsibility and commanding the jolly boat it as if they were carrying Lord Nelson to battle.

  As they slipped over the gunwales of the American ship, Lenox saw a half-circle of officers in their best uniform. At their center was an imperious-looking, remarkably thin gentleman, almost Roman in his ascetic good looks, skin tanned and hardened by the sun, with snow-white hair. He looked to be about fifty years of age.

  “I am Captain John Collier, of Cohasset, Massachusetts,” he said, “and you are exceedingly welcome on board the USS Constellation—most heartily welcome.”

  “I thank you,” said Martin, whose demeanor was grave but whose eyes sparkled with happiness.

  “Have you dined?”

  “No; at least, we began, but didn’t finish.”

  There were introductions all around, now, Martin giving special favor to Lenox, and Captain Collier claiming himself honored to meet a member of Parliament. Lee remembered himself to several of the junior officers. Soon they all went down the hatchway and into the captain’s dining room; as he ducked below deck Lenox noticed a furious din of chatter, trade, and tale-telling erupt among the six men who had been permitted to row them over, while Cresswell and Teddy were making themselves at home with the chewing tobacco of the Constellation’s midshipmen.

  The captain’s dining quarters were extremely homey, with candlelight bouncing off of the honey-colored wooden walls and chairs of a deep plush blue color ringed around an oval table. On one wall, over the door, was a large blue and white banner that said “For God, for country, and for Yale,” and opposite that was a needlepoint of a large, well-proportioned farmhouse, which Lenox presumed must belong to Collier when he was on land, and which read, “Cohasset Folly,” beneath the image. It was a cabin that made the Lucy’s own quarters feel frankly starched, unfriendly, by comparison.

  As for the officers, they were all exceedingly gracious and excellent listeners—not how one thought of Americans, quite, and yet they wore their good manners naturally. Lenox found himself speaking with the ship’s chaplain, who could not have been a figure of greater contrast to the Lucy’s: a kindly faced, bespectacled, quiet gentleman, he had been at Yale with Captain Collier, and since then had published several books, apparently of the transcendentalist ethos. He promised to give Lenox a copy of his most recent before the ships parted.

  “Now tell me,” said Martin, when the table had quieted. “What brings you into these waters?”

  “We carried famine relief to Ireland,” said Captain Collier.

  “God bless you,” said Lenox, with more fervor than he had intended; he felt his own country’s inaction during Ireland’s struggle a point of shame, brought into sharp relief by the Americans’ generosity.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Was your passage eventful?”

  “Not in the least, thank goodness. I feared spring storms, but they never materialized. Now we make our way to the African coast, where we will break up the slave traders for a month or so, and then fill our empty holds with goods for our shores. A routine peacetime voyage, all in all. I suspect we’re rather like you; trying to make ourselves useful.”

  “That is our situation indeed,” said Martin. Here he began his familiar disquisition on the lethargy of the British navy, the strange uses to which it was being put. He concluded by saying, almost apologetically, “We understand Mr. Lenox’s mission to be of singular importance, but there are ships afloat that are doing—well, what you might call busywork, even.”

  “What we need, in my opinion,” Collier said, “is a return to the age of Banks.”

  There was an immediate hum of gratified agreement. “Yes, absolutely,” said Martin. “Scientific discovery has always been the second-greatest adornment of our navy.”

  “I know of Banks, of course—a famous figure—but must admit my ignorance of his achievements,” Lenox interjected, a statement met with incredulity all around. “I fear it may be a similar black spot for many landsmen. Pray tell me, for what is he most widely known?”

  “His voyage with Cook’s Endeavor, first to Brazil, then to Botany Bay,” said Collier. “But, Captain Martin, you are his fellow Englishman; please tell us.”

  Martin, wit
h great seriousness, said, “He is the greatest figure in our navy’s history, barring Drake and Nelson, in my opinion—that is a bold statement but one I stand by, though Banks was never a great seaman himself. There is a whole genus of Australian flowers named after him, nearly two hundred plants in all, Banksia, and he was the first to bring the eucalyptus tree, the acacia, the mimosa, back to the Western world.”

  “The bougainvillea,” murmured Carrow. He was smiling, Lenox observed. “Named it after his friend, a Frenchman—and this in the 1780s, when there was a good deal of nerve between the nations.”

  “Just so, because science exalts our natures,” said Collier, “above even national pride, at times. That’s why I wish our navies would undertake more voyages of the kind Captain Cook led.”

  “I’m reading the Voyage of the Beagle at the moment,” said Lenox, “and—”

  “A truly great book,” one of the American officers chimed in.

  “Unfortunate that Darwin lost his mind subsequently,” said Martin. “Apes, indeed.”

  “We’ve had that discussion too often in our own wardroom for it to be fruitful any longer,” said Collier, smiling. “Mr. Lenox, what were you saying?”

  “Only that perhaps science is still alive in the navy. Mr. Darwin is.”

  “The Beagle sailed forty years ago, I’m sorry to say,” Martin put in. “There’s nothing like it afloat now. More’s the pity.”

  As the discussion wended onward, they ate a wonderful meal, no doubt the best of the Constellation’s diminished stores, a tender leg of lamb, creamy mashed potatoes, a dessert of black sugar cake. There was, too, a great deal of excellent wine. Having been at seas slightly longer than the Lucys, the men of the Constellation eagerly heard the most recent news, and they were into their cigars and port by the time the noise subsided in the faintest degree.

  When it did, Collier stood. “Gentlemen,” he said, “raise your glasses, please, along with me. I am very happy to welcome you on board, Captain Martin, Mr. Billings, Mr. Carrow, Mr. Lee, the Honorable Mr. Lenox. My family came from England to Massachusetts in the 1630s, and though we have fought against you twice, first in our revolution, then in the war at the start of this century, we have never forgotten that our roots were planted first in English soil. We honor the old country. And it gives me pleasure that our nations have finally understood this special connection, and that we may eat a meal such as this one in the spirit of pure friendship. Your health, gentlemen—oh, and as is your custom, I believe, to the Queen.”