A Burial at Sea

copper.

While he had been on deck Lenox’s steward had unpacked for him, and he arrived to find his drawers full of clothes, his bookcases quarter-filled with the twelve or so volumes he had brought, a leather satchel full of papers on the desk, a cup of pens with an inkstand by it, and, best of all, beside the windows, the framed pen drawing of Jane he had brought. It had been done by Edmund’s wife, who was an accomplished sketcher, and given to Lenox the previous Christmas. It captured beautifully the prettiness of Jane’s eyes and nose and also, more difficult, her innate mildness, her gentleness.

This steward (who would bring Lenox his meals, stand behind his chair in the wardroom, fetch him water, clean his clothes, and perform a hundred other minor offices) was a Scot called McEwan. He slept in the tiny hallway between Lenox’s door and the wardroom, where apparently he strung up his hammock. It must have been a strong hammock, too, for he was perfectly enormous.

Better still he had the astonishing ability, it seemed to Lenox, never not to be eating. During their initial encounter McEwan had been holding a cold chicken wing that he glanced at longingly from time to time while Lenox tried to make conversation, and since then McEwan had consumed, at various moments, a piece of salt beef, some buttered brown toast, a large slab of cake, and a wing from the same unfortunate bird. Halifax had mentioned, confidingly, that McEwan was one of the few men on board who didn’t drink or carouse on land, saving his pay packets instead for the various delicacies he stowed in secrecy about his living quarters. Little wonder that he weighed twenty stone.

As Lenox walked through the wardroom he heard a voice, and stopped just shy of the corridor that would have led him to his cabin.

“These political gennlemen,” the voice said with deep disdain, “don’t know their arses from their foreheads —”

“Elbows,” McEwan interjected.

“Or elbows,” said the voice triumphantly, “and what’s worse I bet you six to one he’s a bad luck and’ll get us sunk from some ship hearing we have treasures and the like, or worse yet papers. They all want papers, don’t they.”

“He has some, too,” McEwan whispered.

A dissatisfied grunt. “Wish he weren’t aboard, the bugger, and I don’t care who knows it. Joe Meddoes reckons he’s an albatross, like.”

“He brought a fair bulk of food, though, I will say as much as that for him.”

Lenox swung the door open. Both men looked at him in surprise, and then each took their cap off. The one he didn’t know, who was a very large, strong-looking fellow with black hair and a dark complexion, spat his tobacco into the cap. This was custom when speaking to an officer, Lenox had seen that afternoon. Otherwise he would have been disgusted.

“Hello, McEwan,” he said. “Who is this?”

“Only Evers, sir,” said McEwan. In his cap was not a plug of tobacco but a single hard-boiled egg. “Which he got turned the wrong way and lost, like.”

“By the wardroom.”

“Oh—yes,” said McEwan.

Lenox tried to look severe. “Since he has seen it once he shan’t get lost here again. Good day, Mr. Evers.”

“Sir.”

Evers stalked out past him, his face black, and Lenox, doing his best not to seem perturbed, asked McEwan to lay out his evening wear.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The meal they had that night passed in a haze of goodwill and excitement over the new voyage, with many toasts being proposed to the continued health and florescence of the Queen and various other gentlewomen.

Lenox still hadn’t seen Teddy since they came over the gunwales together, but during supper Billings, the first lieutenant, assured him that his nephew was doing well. This Billings was a willowy, straw-haired chap with a great deal of native intelligence in his face, in contrast to the kinder mien of Halifax, his immediate subordinate and close friend.

Billings told Lenox, “He’ll take the middle watch, being a youngster and the new boy. The oldsters—that is to say, the sixteen- and seventeen- and eighteen-year-old boys—are the day men.”

“Forgive my ignorance, Lieutenant, but when is the middle watch?”

“From midnight to four, Mr. Lenox. It’s fearfully unpopular, of course. Primarily because the midshipmen take their lessons in math and navigation in the forenoon.”

“What will he do during his watch?”

“Practically speaking, nothing. As he gets to know the ship better he will spend his watch time keeping men in line, giving orders, and performing whichever tasks the officer of the watch might want him to.”

“How many men are on deck at night, if I might ask?”

“Not many—one officer, one midshipman, and a few dozen seamen, who will be relatively inactive bar some change in the wind or the sighting of an enemy or land. Of course the helmsman will be steering the ship and watching the course.”

“It sounds rather desolate.”

“On the contrary, I find it peaceful. If I could only have a glass of my favorite whisky and a stout cigar during the watch it would be my favorite time of the day.”

“Not too frightening, then?”

“Oh, not at all,” said Billings, and smiled kindly.

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

He hoped Teddy would no longer be afraid; if he were, a watch in the dark, with the ship pitching and rolling in the wind, with men awaiting orders from his inexperienced lips, might be a dread thing to him. Even as this thought occurred to Lenox, however, he realized that it was a mistake to assume that he knew what would be good for Teddy and what would not. If nothing else that day had proved to him his own ignorance. He perceived that it would be dangerous to offer his nephew any sort of aid or comfort that might interfere with his progress on the ship, however kindly intended it might be.

McEwan stood behind Lenox’s chair at dinner, refilling his wineglass, running to the galley to clear dishes and silverware, alert if Lenox needed a snuffbox or cigar or glass of port after supper. All the officers had their servants behind them, too, though McEwan was notable for being swathed in an enormous, perfectly shipshape uniform with its brass buttons nearly popping off because the cloth of his shirt was so taut over his stomach.

After supper he fetched warm water for Lenox to shave and wash in, and then a glass of water to drink.

Shaving, Lenox asked McEwan, “Out of curiosity, where do you get the water? Fresh water? From barrels, I know, but…”

The assistant was scrubbing the floor in Lenox’s tiny hallway with a stiff bristle brush, in a place where he had evidently spilled a small bit of his own food. From his girth Lenox would have guessed McEwan to be lazy, but nothing could have been farther from the truth; like all the men on the Lucy he seemed to spend an almost preposterous amount of time cleaning things that were already clean. Lenox’s shirt from dinner had gone straight into a basin of warm water and his cabin had been swept twice in the five hours since they had left harbor.

“It’s in the hold, Mr. Lenox.”

“That’s farthest down.”

“Yes, sir, below the waterline.”

Lenox pondered this. “For fear of sounding stupid—”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“Doesn’t it change the weight of the ship? Emptying out the barrels of water? I mean to say, if we leave Plymouth with a hundred tons of water and return with none, won’t she sail differently?”

“Why,” said McEwan with some of the same astonishment Halifax had betrayed when Lenox hadn’t known