A Burial at Sea Read online

  “Why would they bother sending a message? They didn’t send one to Halifax.”

  “Not that we know of, you’re correct. But who knows what might happen in a deranged mind? At any rate it’s only a suggestion. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  Billings nodded. “I will. Thank you.”

  Mitchell’s reaction was less gracious, and his dark complexion brightened red. “Why on earth would it have been directed at me!” he half shouted.

  “I don’t say that it was, only that—”

  “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself, Mr. Lenox. Thank you.”

  He turned away, back toward a group of men awaiting orders.

  Lenox decided that he might as well speak to the purser, now that he had spoken to Quirke. Pettegree was in a very small study near the fore of the ship, hunched over a supply list. As Lenox’s first impression had suggested, the purser had a slightly embittered air, pinched, ungracious, to go along with a businesslike deportment. It might have been a life spent balancing debits and credits, or it might have been something no speculation could reveal—from childhood, say, or adolescence. Lenox noted it.

  “May I ask where you were when Halifax died?” he said after greeting Pettegree.

  “Asleep.”

  “It’s inconvenient that everyone was asleep at the time.”

  “In particular for Lieutenant Halifax, I would have thought.”

  Lenox grimaced. “Yes, of course. Now, confidentially … is there anyone in the wardroom you believe capable of violence?”

  “All of them—they’re men of the navy, after all. Each one of them, however gentle he might seem, has killed a pirate or an Indian.”

  “Nobody in particular, however.”

  Pettegree shrugged. “The code of the navy would suggest I hold my tongue, but since you ask—since there is a murderer loose aboard this ship—I would say that I have seen a great temper in two of the men.”

  “Who?”

  “Mitchell and the captain. For the rest, they are calm enough men.”

  “The captain has a temper?”

  “Oh, yes—a formidable one. But that may be in the usual course of these things, a condition of his position.”

  “Do you have a temper?”

  “No, and what’s more I didn’t kill Halifax. If I had wanted to I couldn’t have done it face-to-face. I’m not a large man.”

  Almost jokingly, Lenox said, “But the element of surprise—”

  Pettegree shook his head. “The point is academic.”

  “To be sure. And Lieutenant Carrow?”

  “He seems to be bearing up under some internal pressure, from time to time—but I have never seen an example of his violence, so I cannot add him to my list, no.”

  “Tell me, what does your instinct say? Who did it?”

  An expansive sigh. “I’ve been going it over in my mind, in fact. If I had to say I would point to the sailors. They’re a brutal species of man, I promise you. They have their own code, their own way of living. They’re no closer to civility than the orangutans of Gibraltar, I sometimes think.”

  It was the opposite of what he had wished to hear, but some truth rang in the statement nonetheless. “Yes. I see. Incidentally, nothing peculiar has happened with regard to the ship’s stores?”

  Pettegree frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Has anything gone missing? Been stolen? Might Halifax have discovered a theft?”

  “I don’t think so. The storm washed out a certain percentage of our dry goods, as storms will. Otherwise the stores are intact.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “I’m planning to check again in the morning—shall I tell you what I find?”

  “I would take it most kindly,” said Lenox.

  “Very well. If there’s nothing further, then—”

  “No. Have a good afternoon.”

  “And you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Supper that evening was again a somber affair. Only the chaplain drank more than one glass of wine, and the only toast was to the Queen. Martin dined alone.

  Lenox returned to his cabin and wrote a letter to Lady Jane, full of misgivings and self-doubt. When he was close to signing it he realized with a start that it was more journal entry than letter, and after ripping the densely scrawled pages in half shoved them through his porthole. When this was done he asked McEwan for a glass of warm brandy—it was cooler than usual, that evening—and took up The Voyage of the Beagle, where he lost himself for several hours, long enough for three glasses of the brandy Graham had packed him. He could hear as he read the sound of orders being given and executed, sails being furled and let out, watches changing. The usual business of the ship. None of it sounded like mutiny. But then, he supposed, perhaps it never did.

  The next morning he woke with a foggy head. It was his fifth day aboard the Lucy now, and he felt helpless. His tin cup of coffee went cold in his hand as he surveyed the rolling ocean from the quarterdeck. At ten or so there was a quick, thin rain, which he waited through before going back down below deck.

  He decided to seek out his nephew.

  Teddy was still resting in his hammock, strung up outside the gun room, but not quite asleep.

  “Oh, hello, Uncle Charles,” he said.

  “The middle watch?”

  “Yes, and it was jolly well cold.”

  “Why don’t you come along to my cabin and have some breakfast? Jane packed a bit of cold bacon for me, and McEwan would be happy to do you some toast.”

  “Oh, rather!” he said, and nearly upset his hammock for rising out of it so quickly.

  They sat in Lenox’s cabin, he in his chair, Teddy on a stool dragged in from the galley, the latter munching happily away, pausing only for occasional sips of hot tea.

  “Thank you again for inviting me to the gun room. I enjoyed it immensely.”

  Teddy merely grunted, his mouth rather fuller than would be deemed acceptable in the best society, but his nod was enthusiastic. When he finally swallowed he said, rather hoarsely, “Oh, the other fellows liked you very much.”

  “You seem to be happy there.”

  “Yes.”

  Though Teddy didn’t say it Lenox could see that the boy had been worried, and that his worries were now appeased by their days at sea. He fit in well. It was worth writing Edmund with that news alone.

  “When your father and I were boys, we once had to go to a great hunt on our own. Just the two of us. I suppose we must have been, oh, twelve and ten, thereabouts. Not much younger than you—or rather, I was quite a bit younger than you are now, but your father was nearly your present age.”

  “Why did you have to go alone?”

  “Our father was in London, an emergency session of Parliament, and our mother was taken poorly.”

  “Just like my father.”

  “Yes—just like Edmund, shuttling between the house and the House, if you catch my meaning. At any rate, the hunt was hosted by an older gentleman named Rupert Greville, a minor squire nearby us in Sussex. Very much a roast beef and red face Englishman of the old sort.”

  “Thomas Greville lives near us. He’s my age.”

  “There you are! Rupert will have been his grandfather, I suppose. I so often forget that you’re repeating my childhood in a way, or were till now. Well, but in those days it was rather uncommon for two little boys to show up at a hunt alone, with only their horses and a rather drunk old groomsman. So old Rupert Greville put us in the charge of his sons. Three big, brutish fellows, two of whom were twins, fourteen, and their older brother who was fifteen. Left us all alone to hunt, the five of us.”

  Teddy had stopped eating and his mouth hung open a little, his attention won. “What happened?”

  “They seemed to take it as a personal affront that we had come to bother them during their hunt, and spat a few words at us. We talked back at them, and that was the end of it. Or so we thought.”

  “What happened?”

&nb
sp; “We had to cross a creek to keep on the scent. They convinced us it was too deep to cross on horseback, and so we got off our horses. The second both of our feet were on the ground one of the twins had them by the bridles and they were galloping away. We had a nine-mile walk home.”

  Teddy’s eyes were wide. “Really?”

  “Yes. In the end we found them, and fought them. One of the twins bloodied my nose, and your father stepped in and hit him. Then your father had his nose bloodied.”

  “My father?”

  “Ask Edmund about it. He’ll laugh. And he’ll tell you that one of the twins—who could tell which—won’t remember that day so fondly. Which is true. Perhaps it was Thomas Greville’s father!”

  “Lor.”

  “I suppose I thought of the story because it’s very common, when you find yourself in a group of boys, to discover that they’re rotters. You’ve been lucky. As far as I could gather the Lucy’s midshipmen are fine lads.”

  “They’re the best midshipmen in the navy.”

  Lenox smiled. “I don’t doubt it. Look there, have another piece of toast. I don’t want any. And some more tea, if it comes to it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have to be in lessons soon?”

  “Not for fifteen minutes.”

  There was a pause.

  “We know the midshipmen, then—what of the officers?”

  “Who?”

  “Any of them? Are they strict? Loose? From good backgrounds, or bad? Who’s popular?”

  It wasn’t an innocent question. He had wanted to check in on his nephew, very naturally, but Lenox also wanted to learn what he might of the officers, from a new ear on the ship other than his own. He felt rather ashamed to be leading Teddy into talking tattle, but weighed against that was the duty he felt to Halifax. It wasn’t too great an imposition on the boy, he thought. A normal conversation to be having.

  “Everyone loved Lieutenant Halifax, Cresswell said.”

  “And the others?”

  Lenox watched as the midshipman and the nephew wrestled within Teddy, before the nephew won out. He was eager to talk about his new life, it was easy to tell. “Mitchell is a hothead—always yelling—not well liked. Cresswell says he’ll never make captain.”

  “What about Lee?”

  “I only know that he has great interest at the admiralty.” Teddy took another piece from the steaming stack of toast McEwan had given them. “Pimples likes him. Nobody likes Billings or Carrow.”

  “How is that?”

  “Billings is a lowborn sort, and Carrow awfully strict.”

  “Are they good officers?”

  “Carrow is—you do your work sharply for him, but he’s fair. Billings I haven’t been on watch with. Cresswell says that Billings belongs in between guns.”

  With the common sailors. “Is his birth that low?”

  “Cresswell thinks him common anyhow. His father was in trade.”

  “One of the great glories of our navy is that you needn’t be born a lord to become a captain.”

  Teddy nodded without entirely absorbing the point. “And then, they say Billings is peculiar.”

  “How so?”

  “Talks to himself.”

  “During watch?”

  “Yes. Halifax did it too, but nobody seemed to mind that. Pimples does an impression of Billings—well, I shouldn’t say.”

  It still seemed possible to Lenox that the rolled shot had been intended for Billings, then—or, equally plausibly, Mitchell. He was no closer. “You must respect these men, nonetheless,” said Lenox.

  “Oh, yes,” said Teddy, more dutifully than earnestly. “I say, before I go could I have one more cup of tea? We don’t get nearly such nice milk, and as for white sugar, I haven’t seen a teaspoonful since I went into the gun room.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  At noon, just before the men received their rations, Martin delivered a short speech to the entire Lucy.

  “I have sailed with some of you for ten years,” he said. “Others of you for six or eight. Nearly all of you were in the Indies with me. I take it as a great compliment that you have all chosen to sail with me again on this voyage.

  “Nevertheless, it would appear that one of your number, I doubt more than one, is unhappy. This person is a cancer within us, which I plan to excise as surely as Mr. Tradescant would excise a tumor from any of you. Whatever corrupted soul killed Mr. Halifax, whoever rolled shot down the deck of the Lucy—the Lucy, gentlemen, our ship!—when we find him he shall be hanged, and that right quick.

  “For the rest of you, I won’t insult you by believing for a moment that you would ever dream of revolting against me. I know that you know it would be akin to slapping our Queen in the face, may God bless her. And the man who wants to do that doesn’t belong on a ship we’ve worked hard to make the finest in Her Majesty’s navy!”

  There was a fat moment of silence, and then a slow ripple of applause that with great deliberation mounted and mounted into a full roar of spontaneous approval at the captain’s words. Soon the men were whistling and crying out “Three cheers for the Lucy!”

  Then Martin did something ingenious. “There, quiet, thank you,” he said. “I’m glad to see you agree. Now, Mr. Pettegree—please issue a double ration of grog to each man here.”

  If appealing to their patriotism or their sense of duty had won them over, this announcement made the sailors almost delirious with happiness, and the applause commenced again, sprinkled with ecstatic shouts and yells.

  Martin smiled to himself. “And finally,” he said, “it’s not been a week, but I suppose we should have a game tonight.”

  The crowd hushed.

  “Seven this evening. Each mess to nominate one chap. Follow the Leader,” he said.

  This roar was the most deafening of all. Lenox looked over to Teddy inquisitively but saw that the boy didn’t know what “Follow the Leader” might be either. They would have to wait and see.

  Martin, the man of the hour, shook hands with his officers, accepted the measurements they gave him for his log, and went below deck, while all around the main deck long lines formed for rations, the sailors talking excitedly amongst themselves. Pettegree looked red with exertion. The officers themselves seemed happy too, even Mitchell grinning. The ship belonged to them again, it would seem.

  He noticed that only Carrow still looked unhappy, unmoved, after witnessing the effect the captain’s speech had had on the sailors. It was a small thing, but Lenox filed it in his mind to ponder later.

  Now he sought out Pettegree, who was overseeing the boisterous reception of double grog by each bluejacket. A small cupful of his soul seemed to pour out with each extra ration that was disbursed, and his agonized chatter—“Not so much, that’s easily double, don’t give them triple, man!”—made clear the cause of his turmoil.

  Though Lenox had been planning to ask the purser about his inventory of the stores, and whether anything had been missing, he decided to wait. Instead he went below deck and knocked on the captain’s door.

  Martin was writing in his log again, and once he had offered Lenox a drink ordered his steward out to begin making him something to eat.

  “Is this about the case?”

  “It is, but I can’t say that I have anything concrete to tell you.”

  Martin threw down his pen. “I don’t know why I asked for food—I’ve no desire to eat.” He sighed. “Well, tell me of your progress.”

  Lenox described his various conversations, told the captain of the medallion and the penknife, and began to wonder aloud about the plausibility of each officer as the suspect.

  Martin cut him off. “You believe an officer did it, then?”

  “I think it most likely.”

  “Hellfire.”

  “Who would you have suspected among them?’

  “That’s not a game I like.”

  Lenox waited, silent.

  “I suppose I know Lee the least of them all. Mi
tchell has the hottest temper. But honestly I cannot believe it was either of them. Lee’s record in the navy is unimpeachable, and Mitchell has been a fine lieutenant.”

  “If it were a sailor—while the men were asleep in their messes, how easily might one of them have slipped away from his hammock without drawing attention to himself, do you think?”

  “I would call it next to impossible.”

  “We should speak to the mess captains then, to see if any of their messmates absented themselves for a while without explanation on that first night of the voyage.”

  “It’s a good idea—I should have thought of it myself. The difficulty is that men regularly leave their hammocks to attend to their—well, their various bodily functions, or even just for air. It gets very close, stifling at times, where they sleep.”

  “You’ll speak to the mess captains? For obvious reasons I would prefer that the officers themselves not do it.”

  Reluctantly, Martin nodded. “Very well. Mind you, a sailor hates nothing more than tattling.”

  “That might be less of a problem if one of their number doesn’t quite fit in—someone perhaps who is even a suspect. They all liked Halifax, I’ve been told.”

  “Yes, true.”

  The steward returned with a plate full of sandwiches. At the captain’s prompting Lenox took one. Martin himself took one up and then, having nearly taken a bite, tossed it through an open porthole.

  “I keep thinking of that service, for Halifax. He was a fine chap. Would have made a fine captain, if he had a strict first lieutenant to keep the men in line.”

  “Have you written to his parents?”

  “I’ve tried.” He gestured his helplessness. “Difficult to know what to say until you’ve done your job.”

  “My job,” Lenox said.

  “Yes.”

  He considered this reproach for a moment in silence, then said, “Hopefully it won’t be long, anyhow. Some sort of idea is forming in my mind. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  “Be as quick as you can.”

  “Nothing you say can hasten me, Captain. I did like Halifax—you’ll recall, perhaps, that I met him twice.”

  “I had forgotten.”