“He was sleeping in the tween decks,” someone says. “That’s what we all believed.”
“Someone here knows what happened to him,” Brownlee says. “The ship is not so large that a boy can be killed without making some noise or leaving some trace.”
No one answers. Brownlee shakes his head.
“I will find the man who did this and see the bastard hanged,” he says. “That is a certainty. That is something you may all rely on.”
He turns to the surgeon.
“I would speak to you in my cabin now, Sumner.”
Once inside the cabin, the captain seats himself, removes his hat, and commences rubbing his face with the heels of his hands. When he is finished rubbing, his face is bright red and both his eyes are bloodshot and watery.
“Whether he acted out of pure evil or from a fear of being exposed for his perversions, I don’t know,” Brownlee says. “But whosoever sodomized the boy killed him also. That is plain enough.”
“I agree.”
“And do you suspect Cavendish still?”
Sumner hesitates, then shakes his head. He knows the first mate is an oaf, but he is less sure that he could be a murderer.
“It might be anyone,” he admits. “If Hannah was sleeping in the tween decks the night before last, then almost any man on the ship could have gone in there, strangled him, and lowered the body down into the hold without too much risk of being noticed.”
Brownlee scowls.
“I moved him from the forecastle to keep him away from difficulty, but I succeeded in abetting his murder.”
“He was a wretched and ill-starred child, all in all,” Sumner says.
“Fuck yes.”
Brownlee nods and pours them both a glass of brandy. Sumner feels humiliated, weakened, by this new outrage, as if the boy’s cruel death is a part of his own profound and lengthier diminishment. His right hand shakes as he drinks the brandy. Outside the room, the sailmaker whistles “The Bonnie Boat” as he sews the dead boy into his canvas coffin.
“There are thirty-eight men and boys left aboard this ship,” Brownlee says. “If we take away the two of us and the two remaining cabin boys, that leaves thirty-four. After the making off is finished, I will speak to all of them singly if necessary. I will find out what they know, what they have seen and heard, and what they suspect. A man does not develop such foul proclivities overnight. There will have been signs and rumors, and the forecastle is a hive of gossip.”
“The man, whoever he is, is likely insane,” Sumner says. “There’s no other explanation. He must be afflicted with some disease or corruption of the brain.”
Brownlee grinds his jaw one way, then the other, and pours himself another brandy before replying. When he speaks, his voice is low and taut.
“What kind of a crew has that Jew bastard Baxter afflicted me with?” he says. “Incompetents and savages. The filth and shite of the dockyards. I am a whaling man, but this is not whaling, Mr. Sumner. This is not whaling, I can assure you of that.”
* * *
The making off continues for the rest of the day. When it is done and the blubber casks are safely stowed away, they bury Joseph Hannah at sea. Brownlee grumbles some suitable verses from the Bible over the body, Black leads the men in a rough-hewn hymn, and the canvas shroud, weighted with shot, is tossed over the stern and swallowed by the flintish swell.
Sumner has no appetite for dinner. Instead of eating with the others, he goes up to walk on the deck, smoke a pipe, and take some air. The bear cub is growling and whimpering in its wooden cage, chewing on its paw and scratching itself constantly. Its coat is dull and matted now; it smells of excrement and fish oil and looks as lank and scrawny as a greyhound. Sumner gets a handful of ship’s biscuit from the galley, balances the pieces on the blade of a flensing knife, and tips them through the metal grate. They are gobbled up instantly. The bear cub growls, licks its muzzle, and glares back at him. Sumner puts a cup of water down on the deck a foot or so in front of the cask and then prods it forwards with the toe of his boot until it is close enough for the bear cub’s long pink tongue to reach. He stands awhile and watches it drink. Otto, who is commander of the watch, walks over and joins him.
“Why go to the trouble of catching and caging a bear if you plan only to let it starve?” Sumner asks him.
“If the bear’s sold, all the money goes to the dead man’s widow,” Otto says, “but the dead man’s widow isn’t here to feed him, and Drax and Cavendish feel under no obligation. We could set him free, of course, but the mother’s dead and he’s too young to survive on his own.”
Sumner nods, picks up the empty water cup, refills it, puts it back down, and prods it forwards with his toe. The bear drinks for a while longer, then stops drinking and retreats into the rear of the cask.
“What’s your opinion of the recent events?” Sumner asks. “What would your Master Swedenborg say of this atrocity?”
Otto looks solemn for a moment. He strokes his broad black beard and nods several times before answering.
“He would tell us that great evil is the absence of good, and that sin is a kind of forgetfulness. We drift away from the Lord because the Lord allows us to do so. That is our freedom but also our punishment.”
“And do you believe him?”
“What else should I believe?”
Sumner shrugs.
“That sin is remembering,” he offers. “That good is the absence of evil.”
“Some men believe that, of course, but if it were true, then the world would be chaos, and the world is not chaos. Look around, Sumner. The confusion and stupidity are ours. We misunderstand ourselves; we are very vain and very stupid. We build a great bonfire to warm ourselves and then complain that the flames are too hot and fierce, that we are blinded by the smoke.”
“Why kill a child though?” Sumner asks. “What sense can be made of that?”
“The most important questions are the ones we can’t hope to answer with words. Words are like toys: they amuse and educate us for a time, but when we come to manhood we should give them up.”
Sumner shakes his head.
“The words are all we have,” he says. “If we give them up, we are no better than the beasts.”
Otto smiles at Sumner’s wrongheadedness.
“Then you must find out the explanations on your own,” he says, “if that’s what you truly think.”
Sumner bends down and looks at the orphaned bear. He is crouched at the back of the cask panting and licking at a puddle of his own urine.
“I would rather not think,” he says. “It would be pleasanter and easier, I’m sure. But it seems I cannot help myself.”
* * *
Shortly after the burial, Cavendish requests to speak to Brownlee in his cabin.
“I’ve been asking questions,” he says. “I’ve been squeezing and grinding the bastards, and they’ve given up a name.”
“What name?”
“McKendrick.”
“Samuel McKendrick, the carpenter?”
“The same. They say he has been seen ashore in public houses canoodling with the Molly men. And this last whaling season when he shipped aboard the John o’ Gaunt, it is well known he was sharing his berth with a boat steerer, man name of Nesbet.”
“And this was in plain sight?”
“It’s dark in the forecastle, as you know, Mr. Brownlee, but let’s say noises were heard at night. Noises of a certain unmistakable kind, I mean.”
“Bring Samuel McKendrick to me,” Brownlee says. “And find Sumner also. I want the surgeon to hear whatever it is he has to say.”
McKendrick is a slight fellow, pale of skin and unrobust. His beard is wispy and yellowish; he has a slender nose, a narrow almost lipless mouth, and large ears tinged red by the cold.