A Burial at Sea

what the bowsprit was, “we fill ’em up, of course.”

“With what?”

McEwan laughed. “What’s most out there, of course.” In his amazement he evidently had forgotten all about saying “sir.” “Water.”

“Oh, seawater.”

“Yes!” McEwan, so surprised that anyone might not have known this that he had stopped scrubbing, went on to say, as if speaking to an infant, “It’s called ballast, sir.”

“I knew there was a word for it. Well, I’ve learned more today than I have in a while, at least.”

McEwan, shaking his head and muttering to himself—and somehow also chewing—returned to his task.

Over dinner Lenox had had a chance to round out his circle of acquaintance, all of the people he had met in the wardroom before without fully remembering. He had a better idea of the ship’s hierarchy now.

There was the captain, of course, who in this floating world was more akin to a king than anything. Then there were his lieutenants: Billings, who must have been about thirty and, it was obvious from the way he carried himself, longed for a command of his own, and as his second, Halifax, red-faced and gentle. There was also Carrow, the dour lad who had nevertheless taken pleasure in the “skylarking” the mainmast men had done among the sails that afternoon; he was the navigating lieutenant, who had particular skill in navigation by compass and the stars, and who knew the waters they were to sail for, from the Atlantic through the Mediterranean. Two more lieutenants—young men, just graduated from the rank of midshipman—stayed quiet, so Lenox didn’t learn their names from Halifax, who had been seated to his right.

As for the civil officers, the chaplain of the Church of England was named Rogers. Based on their two suppers together Lenox concluded without much hesitation that he was a drunkard—but then a harmless one, jolly and foul-mouthed. (“Much better than a nervous teetotaler—at sea at least,” Halifax had said of him, still somehow respectfully.) The surgeon was a silent, smallish man, quite old, named Tradescant (“not entirely a gentleman,” Halifax said without malice, “but a fine medical man”), who spoke only with the engineer, a similarly aged and quiet soul, though instead of Tradescant’s white hair he had a bright red top. His name was Quirke. Finally there was the purser. He was a pale and harried-looking man who had risen from the position of captain’s clerk to command all of the ship’s provisions. He didn’t even merit “not entirely a gentleman” as a description, for he was quite clearly of lower stock. For this reason, perhaps, he was deferential in the extreme, though Lenox sensed in him some bitterness or maybe ambition that would bridle against any admission of inferiority to his nominal superiors. He was named Pettegree.

In addition to all of these the wardroom had one other occupant, who was easily the most beloved among the men of the Lucy, however much they might favor their captain or their first lieutenant. This was a dog, named Fizz. He was small, probably not more than nine pounds, but he was, Lenox would come to learn, a noble beast. He was a black-and-tan terrier of mixed origins, with bright brown eyes, a black nose, and two sharply pointed ears. He never barked, and slept on a rug under the dining-room table; as for food he ate like a king, for every man on board had a soft spot for him. If you told him to roll over he would do it, or if you asked him to dance he would do a little pirouette. The men fought over who got to haul him up the rigging, for he loved to visit the perches along the mast.

At any rate these were the men of the wardroom: Billings, Halifax, the grim Carrow, Rogers the drinker, quiet Tradescant and Quirke, and Pettegree, plus the two other lieutenants. By the next afternoon all but one of them would be a suspect.

“Could you tell us, Mr. Lenox,” said Billings after their desserts had been cleared away, “what your purpose in visiting Egypt is?”

“With pleasure. As seafaring men you have all heard of the canal in that country, I hope, the Suez?” All of them nodded their affirmation that they had. “Then you will understand its great importance is linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, and therefore the Indian Ocean. A few hundred miles of digging have opened up tens of thousands of miles of waterways to Europe. Rather than going overland or around the southern tip of the continent, for instance, goods may come from East Africa—from Kenya, from Tanganyika, from Abyssinia, from Sudan—by water. I scarcely need to tell you how financially significant that is.”

They looked suitably awed now, and Lenox went on, “For much of its life the canal has been primarily a French concern.”

General and humorous hissing at this. “Not for long,” said Billings, which led to an inevitable toast in the Queen’s honor.

“Be that as it may,” said Lenox after he had drunk his wine along with the rest of them, “Britain is only now coming to hold a stake in the region. When they started digging fifteen years ago, only the French had the foresight to see how dramatically it would change the world’s commercial ventures.”

“I had understood that we didn’t approve the use of slave labor there,” said Halifax.

“Very true,” Lenox said. “But since it’s already been dug … at any rate, it’s crucial that we catch up with the French. I’m an emissary of the prime minister, officially, sent to affirm our rather weak alliance with Egypt. Fortunately the governor there, a chap called Ismail, is open to our use of the channel. I’ll take him presents, flatter him, attend an audience with him, impress his friends…”

“All this over a canal,” Billings said. It wasn’t a disrespectful statement, exactly, but it seemed to reflect the mood of the room.

“It could be worth ten million pounds one day, this meeting. A hundred million.”

To men who would have felt themselves quite rich on eight hundred pounds a year this number was nearly unfathomable, but it effectively undercut whatever unvoiced dissatisfaction they had collectively felt with Lenox’s mission. Worth sailing to Egypt a hundred times for that sort of meeting, they would say to each other confidentially, out of his hearing.

To his explanation there was in fact some truth. His trip to Suez would help British interests there. But of course it was secondary to his true purpose in making this voyage.

“And you? Why were you sailing for Egypt?”

“In part to take you,” said Billings. “The navy has orders to prove itself useful.”

“A friend in Parliament wouldn’t go amiss.” Halifax chuckled as he said this but Lenox felt stares of evaluation directed at him.

Billings went on. “We also like to patrol the trade waters. The prevention of piracy is still essential, though it’s not the old swashbuckling sort of the last century.”

Then Quirke spoke, the redheaded engineer. “They also like to give a ship like the Lucy a short mission after they give her a long one. Bless the Lord, for we’ve been afloat a very long time.”

“That’s sensible.”

“Mr. Lenox, by traveling with us won’t you miss your time in Parliament?” asked Carrow, the third lieutenant. “Votes—meetings—that sort of thing?”

“Yes, although we’re close to recess. I suppose this is more important.”

“Parliament,” said one of the anonymous young lieutenants with some wonderment, almost as if he were speaking a magic word. “What is it like?”

“It took some getting used to,” Lenox said. “But now I wouldn’t trade it for anything. There’s a great deal of shouting, there are many long, tedious meetings, but with that said there’s more camaraderie and excitement than I expected.”

“You know the lads—the midshipmen—are eager to ask you about murders and all that,” said Halifax, smiling. “They say you were a detective.”

“Once. A long while ago, it seems now. I don’t do anything in that direction nowadays.”

In his cabin later (after he had finished his ablutions and McEwan had finished scrubbing) he stretched out in bed feeling some queer emotion that was neither sadness nor quite melancholy. For the longest time he couldn’t think what it was, until it hit him: homesickness. It had been so many years, thirty perhaps, since he had felt it.

But almost as if by magic the diagnosis cleared the sensation itself away, and immediately after promising himself that he would write Lady Jane a long letter in the morning, he fell into a heavy and dreamless sleep.