Trunks were opened and mourning clothes solemnly exhumed. The crew of the brig Orion was buried. And yet the matter remained unfinished. No evidence of attack had been found. There was no sign of scurvy, no shortage of food. When the ship was boarded, the crew was discovered to be lying about the decks as if hexed, with no witness to bear the tale to the living. None, that is, except the binnacle boy. He alone remained standing, the life-size carving of a sailor boy holding the iron binnacle, the housing for the ship’s compass. Straight-backed, sober-lipped, in his jacket and cap, he stood resolutely before the helm, his lacquered eyes shining chicory blue. And after the ship’s sails had been furled and her cargo of molasses unloaded, the binnacle boy was laid in a wagon and, like the seventeen sailors before him, slowly borne up the road to the top of the cliff upon which New Bethany stood. And there, before the town hall, the pinewood statue was mounted, still bearing the ship’s compass, a memorial to the Orion’s crew.
