A Burial at Sea

by Charles Finch

  “The captain’s? I’m afraid I must say no, still.”

  “I find it most peculiar, though you and Carrow be in concert on the subject. What must come first, the dignity of this room or the safety of your men?”

  “I shall look after the safety of my men, thank you.”

  “I fear it won’t be as easy as that.”

  “What would you hope to find in the cabin?”

  “Anything. A note, a weapon. A clue.”

  Billings leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I suppose it would be all right, then,” he said. “If you consent to let Slaton do the job with you, that he might preserve Captain Martin’s things as they have been, for Mrs. Martin.”

  “Thank you,” said Lenox. “It’s the wisest course.”

  “Here, take my note to Slaton.” Billings scrawled something on a piece of paper, tore it away, and handed it to Lenox. “And please, keep me apprised of your discovery just as you did Mr. Martin.”

  “I will, thank you.”

  “We’ll get you to Egypt after all, I hope, Mr. Lenox. It won’t be more than another few days.”

  “I look forward to setting foot on land again. I have grown accustomed to the Lucy, but these murders would make the most wonderful ship in the world feel confined.”

  “Imagine my position: I have attained the object of my life’s ambition, my own ship, and these are the circumstances. Still, we must do the work that God puts before us, Mr. Lenox.”

  “I’ll let you know what I find in the cabin.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  One of the most remarkable things Lenox had discovered about life at sea was the near total credulity of the lower deck. On his way to the surgery several days before Lenox had passed by one of the messes, where a short, fattish fellow was barbering his fellow sailors, and telling them with utter certainty that a mermaid had stowed away on board. All of the other men nodded solemnly and said they had heard of similar things on other ships. During the game of Follow the Leader one man had averred with complete confidence in Lenox’s hearing that McEwan had royal blood, to which they attributed his unusual grace.

  He sought out Evers now in order to discover what tale the man believed of Butterworth, and how he had heard it. Lenox found the man in his mess, face still stern but attitude slightly gentler than it had been before their rendezvous in the crow’s nest.

  “Mr. Lenox,” he said. “Haven’t seen you aloft, sir.”

  “The once was enough.”

  “The more you go up the less you can do without it, sir.”

  “Would that I were an albatross, as you think, that I might fly up there without the assistance of ropes or rigging.”

  Evers roared with laughter. “No, no,” he said. “You’re no albatross.”

  “I came to thank you for the drawing you sent me. And the note on the back.”

  “For the drawing you’re very welcome—but what note can you mean?”

  “The one you wrote on the back. About Butterworth.”

  “I didn’t write any such thing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If I weren’t, sir, I could confirm it to myself by telling you that I can’t read nor write. Very few of us can, Mr. Lenox.”

  “I see. Thank you, then, for the drawing alone. You sent that to my cabin?”

  “Along with McEwan, yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Somebody must have nipped into his cabin, then, and written on the back. More sneaking around the wardroom.

  Then there was the widespread illiteracy of the sailors, which was news to Lenox. “The Lu is ares. Beware.” What were the chances a small group of sailors had a man among them to write? Perhaps that was why unwritten forms of mutiny—rolling shot—were more popular.

  It was all quite strange.

  He made his way now to the captain’s cabin. The door to it was open, and within Slaton was scrubbing at the royal blue carpet, attempting to remove the red stain from it. He looked a frail figure, and Lenox knelt down to assist him.

  “No, no, I can do it!” cried Slaton, breathless.

  “Please, take a moment of rest, then. Would you like a cup of tea? Or there’s whisky on the desk.”

  “The whisky is Captain Martin’s.”

  “I feel sure he would want you to have a glass—here, I shall pour it.”

  “Well then, I thank you,” and Slaton, exhaustion etched on his features, sat down heavily in an armchair near the cabin’s broad bow window.

  Lenox poured the glass and brought it to the steward. “I have a note here, from Lieutenant Billings—or Captain Billings, I should say. He has granted me permission to look through the cabin.”

  Lenox held out the note. He had expected a fight, but Slaton merely glanced at it and nodded. “Very well.”

  “You have read it?”

  “I cannot read, sir, but I can see Mr. Billings’s mark.”

  There was a moment of silence as Slaton sipped at the whisky. “May I ask,” said Lenox at length, “did Captain Martin regularly drink whisky?”

  “Not above once or twice a year.”

  “Do you know why he had it out now?”

  “No.”

  “Can you think of a reason why he might have?”

  Slaton looked up at the ceiling, brow furrowed. “He sometimes asked for it, to celebrate, like, a victory in battle or a promotion. Or when one of Her Majesty’s ships was lost, he would take it out for a drink.”

  “How often?”

  “Once every year, or two years, perhaps, sir,” said Slaton. “I can’t think why he had it now.”

  “Was anyone promoted recently?”

  “Mr. Carrow, I suppose, after Mr. Halifax died.”

  “Hardly a cause for celebration.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you know how long it has been on Captain Martin’s desk?”

  “Now that you mention it, I recall seeing it, full up like, on the first day of the voyage, sitting there.”

  “I see.” What to make of any of that? It didn’t click any idea into place; merely another fact to add to the tally. “If you don’t mind, then, I will look through this cabin, Mr. Slaton. Perhaps you might rest.”

  Again Lenox had expected a fight, but Slaton simply nodded, drank off the last of the whisky, and stumbled away, looking for all the world a defeated man.

  The cabin smelled strongly of soap, and the scrubbing brush was still sitting on the floor in a small mountain range of studs. Otherwise, however, it looked much as if Captain Martin might step in from the noon sighting at any moment. There was a bookcase, full of battered leather volumes—looking closer Lenox saw that they mostly had naval titles—a desk, which was relatively uncluttered, and that was dominated by the great leather captain’s log, a washstand, and a bed, narrow and freshly made. Other than these standard items the cabin had a wide bow window that followed the curve of the ship, with a ledge that would have been at about shoulder height if one sat in one of the armchairs by it. On this ledge was an empty teacup, a silver spoon cradled under it on the saucer, and a book opened facedown, to save the reader’s place. A sad final reminder of the interruption of Martin’s life.

  Lenox started here. He examined the teacup and smelled it for anything strange, without result, and then looked at the book. Perhaps unsurprisingly it was the Book of Common Prayer, bound in red and inscribed on the flyleaf by Martin’s wife, Emily, “for comfort at sea.” Lenox felt a pang when he read this. Two deaths. The second he might have prevented, and thereby given the world forty further years of service from a good man.

  After replacing the book and teacup in their previous positions, he began his customary scan of the room. He started in the back right corner and surveyed it in five-foot-wide segments from floor to ceiling, looking for anything strange. When he reached the bookcase he stooped down and looked beneath, but found only a fallen bit of India rubber.

  The contents of the bookcase itself were interesting, but ultimately no
t helpful. There were a great many books from India, apparently given Martin on his recent voyage to that nation. There were also books of knots, of seamanship, of celestial navigation, all the manuals of which one would expect a captain to be in possession. He turned the books upside down and shook, but none offered any loose paper, and when he glanced through their pages they were all unblemished by handwriting.

  He shook the bedclothes loose, but found nothing within them, nor under the thin, heavy mattress Martin had slept on. The desk and bookcase alike held a series of small items he glanced at in turn: a pewter bowl full of seaglass, a fat Bible no longer or wider than Lenox’s index finger, with Martin’s name on the inside flap, dated ten years before, a marble inkstand and pen, the bottle of whisky, an etching of a pretty, lively looking young woman, perhaps Martin’s wife or sister. None of it, save the whisky, indicative.

  In all the search took not more than twenty minutes. He looked above the door and beneath the bed, and through the dreary items of Martin’s washstand, his soap, his razor. Lenox reminded himself to examine Martin’s private dining room and the small galley beside it, as well as the wardrobe outside the door.

  But first he turned, rather despairingly, to the captain’s log.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  It dated back two years, with a red silk marker between the pages that recorded the two distinct voyages the Lucy had taken in that time, first to India, now to Egypt. He decided to read entries about the newer journey first, the entries of the last fortnight.

  First, however, he flipped through all the pages of the book, to get a sense of its manner. Captain Martin’s style, if it ought even to be permitted such a name, was laconic in the extreme. Entry after entry after entry reported simply the date, the latitude, longitude, barometer reading, and so forth, and perhaps two or three words on the conditions, “Squally,” for example, or “All clear,” or “Exceptionally stiff wind.”

  Every seven to ten days Martin might write a slightly longer entry. These could be on nearly any subject, though most often they concerned discipline and sightings of other ships. For instance:

  Able Seaman Danvers given six strokes for theft and six strokes for insubordination. Weather clear.

  Or there was an entry that was typical of many others, which read:

  Blackwall Frigate Northfleet sighted, flagged, and met. Exchange of news with Captain Knowles of that ship, bound for Portsmouth with a cargo of silk. Lunch aboard the Lucy for the officers of both ships.

  This one caught Lenox’s notice because of the frigate in question. At the time of Martin’s mention it had been another anonymous trade ship going between India, China, and England—the Blackwall Frigate being a class of ship that had replaced the more cumbersome Indiaman that had dominated the seas earlier in the century—but which was now famous throughout the British Isles. That winter, not many months before, the Northfleet had been in the English Channel when she was forced to drop anchor in bad weather. Almost immediately a Spanish steamer had run her down, quite by accident, with the loss to the Northfleet of three hundred and twenty men, women, and children. This Captain Knowles, whom Martin had met in happier times, had gone down with his ship.

  Still Lenox only skimmed these entries, turning before too long to the pages concerning the ship’s present voyage.

  Unsurprisingly, perhaps, these were more elaborate. On the second day, for instance, Martin had recorded the ship’s position and condition and then written at length about Halifax’s murder. The last line of the entry was:

  Have asked the Honourable Mr. Charles Lenox, formerly a private detective, to investigate the murder. Hopeful of bringing this matter to a swift and decisive conclusion.

  Subsequently Martin had recorded with dogged precision the hints of a mutiny through which the Lucy had suffered, as well as the reports Lenox and Tradescant had given him.

  For all this thoroughness, no detail leapt out from the page and grabbed Lenox’s attention. He read all of the entries twice, and then, with a great sigh, went back to the front of the book to begin reading about the ship’s previous history.

  He could pass by whole pages at a glance, because they offered nothing except the noon readings Martin and his first lieutenant, along with the midshipmen, had taken each day. Gradually, however, an accumulation of small details began to present a more complete picture. Both Billings and Lee were repeatedly chastised for mistakes of seamanship or discipline with the men, while, to Lenox’s surprise, Mitchell’s name almost never appeared. Halifax, it was obvious, had too gentle a hand with the men. Then there were entries that piqued his interest, like this:

  Much dismay and disagreement in the wardroom over a game of whist whose stakes and winners have gotten badly confused, such that no man of four can agree with any other about the sums owed to each, etc. Have had a firm word with Billings and Carrow about gambling.

  Or there was this one:

  Carrow far too violent in his discipline of Forecastleman Bacon.

  And then this, several days later:

  Forecastleman Bacon given six lashes for insubordination.

  Every week church was rigged, storms were survived, men were disciplined, grog and salt beef were disbursed, other ships were met along the water and left behind; there was an almost gentle rhythm to it on the page.

  Several men died. There was Topman Starbuck, for example, killed after falling from the foremast, whose death Lenox contemplated with a grimace. During a storm one seaman named Sugar had taken a heavy splinter, longer than nine inches, in his thigh. Tradescant having been taken ill, Mr. Billings inspected the wound and recommended amputation. It hadn’t been necessary, however; by the next morning Sugar was gone. Then there was the rope maker, shoemaker, tinsmith, caulker, painter, and trimmer, Elias, drowned in the bilge, signs of a struggle; Mr. Billings, Mr. Carrow, and Mr. Halifax investigating. There was no further mention of Elias, however. Whatever man had held him down in the water was likely still aboard the ship.

  Might any of these cryptic mortalities have anything to do with the fresher deaths the Lucy had suffered? It was impossible to say.

  Men survived, too, however. A month later, Martin wrote:

  Seaman Wiltshire fell overboard, and, unable to swim, called for help. Sank several times in succession, before at the last possible moment being gaffed through his frock. Upon his recovery on deck, Seaman Wiltshire evinced not the smallest degree of perplexity at the prospect of death, nor any particular exhilaration at his survival. He returned to his place on the spar without any display, in even the slightest degree, of gratitude toward his saviors.

  That one made Lenox laugh.

  The longest entry in the book recounted a meeting the ship had with pirates, in which she lost four men but won a valuable prize-ship and a great deal of stolen cargo. Of particular valor were Lieutenants Billings, Carrow, and Mitchell, the log recorded, as well as Midshipman Cresswell. Lenox smiled to himself. Evidently Halifax was more of a fisherman than a soldier.

  In India they took on a young midshipman, Mercer, and his saga absorbed Lenox greatly:

  Mr. Midshipman Mercer fell ill during watch, and was permitted to go below deck. This morning Mr. Tradescant ruled out seasickness as a potential cause of the illness, but expressed no great anxiety over the boy.

  Then, the next day:

  Mr. Midshipman Mercer significantly worse, diarrheal and emetic.

  Then:

  Mr. Midshipman Mercer very close to death, according to Mr. Tradescant. Only human comfort as possible treatment.

  Finally, two days later, Lenox read with great joy:

  Mr. Midshipman Mercer all but recovered, and, though pale, has taken the air of the quarterdeck. Mr. Tradescant at a loss to explain the recovery.

  There was good news! Only after living and dying with the lad in the pages, however, did the truth click into place, and Lenox remembered, slapping his knee at his own stupidity, that Mercer was the proper name of the lad Teddy had introduced him to
as Pimples. The poor chap, to have been through that!

  Lenox read over all of this carefully, pausing and reading twice wherever he found an entry that he thought might merit attention. When at last he stood up and closed the book the sun was turning orange, occasionally throwing a brilliant flood of light through the bow windows and across Martin’s cabin, so that Lenox had to squint. Had he learned anything? Perhaps he had, and perhaps not. The answer must be close, he felt, with a trace of desperation.

  Or were his skills rusted and beyond repair, like the Northfleet all these months after she had fallen at the bottom of the English Channel? Would more and more people die, because he wasn’t sharp enough to see who was killing them? As he had been reading he had grown to like Martin’s style; a human hand had written those words, one which would write no more.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  He went on deck for a breath of fresh air now, his mind still worrying the same few details. When he reached the quarterdeck he was pleased to see that above, on the poop deck, Lieutenant Lee was pointing toward the sails and talking animatedly with Teddy Lenox. The boy was looking grave and nodding. It was what he needed, thought Lenox, to learn his craft, to take his mind away from Martin and Halifax.

  Then he ventured slightly closer, preparing to join the conversation. But as his foot was on the first step the wind died, and he heard Lee’s drawl very clearly. The lieutenant said, “I swear her legs must have been taller than you, too, the vixenish little morsel.”

  “Goodness,” said Teddy, his voice rich with trust and interest.

  Hastily Lenox stepped back toward the railing. Well, there were all sorts of education, he supposed. Better to leave Teddy alone. If the gun room didn’t corrupt the lad, surely Lee wouldn’t. And then, they had talked of women, of maids and ladies, when he was a boy at school.