A Burial at Sea

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!”