A Burial at Sea

resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose Second Coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord bless and keep him. The Lord make his face to shine upon him and be gracious unto him. The Lord lift his countenance upon him, and give him peace. Amen.”

“Amen,” the ship’s company called back.

The body slid heavily from the table and for a brief moment seemed to hang in the air, then broke the water’s surface with a tremendous crash. For a moment, not longer, a white ghost lingered in the sea, but before anyone could be sure they had seen a final glimpse of the ensheeted body it was already speeding toward the depths.

The officers and the captain now went to the rail and each threw his flower onto the water. Full fathom five thy father lies, went through Lenox’s head, an old schooldays’ memorization, of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes; nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his bell: Hark, now I hear them, ding-dong bell. There was something far worse about a body going into the water than into the ground; far worse.

Now the captain stepped forward and gazed out over the men he commanded. He was such a very religious man that Lenox expected words of Christian emphasis, but apparently that role had been filled by the chaplain. For his part, Martin spoke of Halifax as a naval man.

“This is an unhappy burial, I know—but refuse to believe, for to be buried at sea is a great honor for a proper man of Her Majesty’s navy, as Thomas Halifax was, and though his virtues would have well adorned a longer life, though his service to our Queen was too brief in duration, though his death was an unfair and bitterly hard-fought one, at the hands of a peasant and coward, nevertheless he goes to the same deeps Drake did, the same deeps to which his grandfather’s body fell. And in that there must be great honor. He is numbered among us, a man of our ship the Lucy. May none of you forget that, until the last who stands among us on this deck draws his final breath. Whomever it shall be.”

The bosun stepped forward again. “Ship’s company, on hats!” he cried. The men put their blue cloth caps back on and started, with a low murmur of conversation, to go back below deck to change, and many of them soon to eat.

The officers watched them go and then Martin, his face flushed red—though it was impossible to say whether with emotion or cold, for the sun had all but gone—turned and said, “I invite you all to my dining room for supper. The midshipmen will be with us too. In honor of Halifax.”

The officers murmured their assent, and began to go below deck themselves.

This supper was a downhearted affair despite the captain’s excellent food and wine, although for Lenox the affair was somewhat enlivened because he was able to snatch a few moments of conversation with his nephew.

“How has your first day been?”

Teddy shrugged. “Well, Lieutenant Halifax…”

“Aside from that? Are you settled in?”

“Oh, yes. I know one of the chaps from the college, and they all seem decent enough. In fact they asked me to invite you for supper in the gun room.”

“I should be delighted.”

“If you might bring provisions, Uncle Charles…” Teddy’s earnest face was screwed up in concentration, trying to phrase his request with some measure of delicacy. “The lads themselves don’t have much aboard, and by the end of the last trip out they were roasting rats.”

“Say no more—it shall be a feast.”

Slowly people began to tell stories of Halifax, beginning with the captain and then to Carrow—whom Lenox thought perhaps he might manage a word with after supper—and the engineer Quirke, who spoke amusingly about his own attempts to fish off the side of the Lucy with Halifax.

As they were drinking their port, however, something arrived out of the sky—which had been clear all day— that would distract them all from their stories and, indeed, from Halifax’s murder: a storm.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was Mitchell, Lenox’s antagonist of that afternoon, who drew their attention to the situation. He had stayed on deck, being the duty officer, while the others ate, and had taken the ship back on course after it had fallen still for Halifax’s burial. Now he came into Martin’s cabin.

“With pardon, sir, there’s weather above,” he said to the captain.

Martin’s brow furrowed. “It was clear not an hour ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

Martin stood. “Only a passing squall, I imagine, but I had better go upstairs. Gentlemen, please finish your port.”

Lenox turned to Carrow after the captain had gone. “What will you do in a squall?” he asked.

“Would you care to see? It shouldn’t be too bad yet. You might come up on deck.”

“With pleasure.”

It looked ominous outside to Lenox’s eyes, but he had learned enough of his own lack of comprehension of naval matters to keep quiet. There were huge clifflike black clouds toward the east, and the air carried a peculiar salt tang.

“More than a squall,” Carrow murmured as they reached the quarterdeck.

“Do you think?”

The captain was on the main deck delivering orders. “Reef the topsails!” his voice boomed out. “Prepare for heavy wind, gentlemen!”

The crew were in action even before he had finished speaking, moving in a kind of symphony of coordination. Soon the masts looked barer than they had when Lenox and Carrow came on deck.

For his part Carrow was watching not the men but the clouds. “This is an overnighter,” he said. To Lenox’s surprise the young man, usually so stern and pinched-looking, was now beaming.

“Might we not outrun it, using coal?”

“We might,” said Carrow, not taking his eyes off of the storm clouds, “but then again we might not. And if we did not, we would have used half our coal and worn our men to the bone just before a storm, just when everyone must be at their sharpest.”

“I see.”

Now he turned to Lenox. “You needn’t worry. A storm is the best fun in the world, I promise you—once you make it out alive, at any rate.”

The other officers evidently agreed, for they were drifting onto deck now, giving orders along with the bosun—lash down this, ship that below deck—and soon the sailors came above too. Those who didn’t work chewed their tobacco and leant on the railings, looking out at the black clouds just as Carrow had.

One man was unhappy, however: the purser, Pettegree, who tailed the captain, occasionally offering a comment when his superior’s attention was less than fully occupied.

“Why does he look so anxious?” Lenox asked Carrow.

“A purser always hates a storm—and since they were never proper sailors, but always purser’s mates, they never shall grow to love them, either.”

“He rose to the position of officer?”

“Oh, yes, he would have started out in hammocks with the rest of them. Now he’s a warrant officer, but still—” Carrow made a gesture that seemed to indicate this wasn’t worth much count.

“And why does he hate a storm?”

“Water is terrible for the purser’s stores, you see. It gets the flour wet, or rolls crates around and destroys them … he’ll be asking Captain Martin for help. To give him his due, he’ll have a difficult night.”

Indeed, Martin finally gave Pettegree his full attention, and once he had heard—with no great measure of