A Burial at Sea

“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?”

“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.