Roses and revolver on upper arm

The galley on the Marigold Star smells of burnt onion and wet coal, and I'm writing this at the scrubbed end of the table while the bread proves. Mr Teague found a revolver in the bread locker this morning, wrapped in sailcloth with a dead mouse for company. He brought it to me because I'm the only one aboard who doesn't flinch at a knife, and he wanted it gone over the side before the purser came round.

I didn't throw it. I cleaned it instead, with vinegar and the tail of my good shirt, and under the grime the grey had gone soft as pencil on the cylinder, the grip chequered like an old cake tin. Six chambers, one spent. Someone had been careful with it. Someone had also pressed a rose between the pages of the cookery book in that locker, pale pink once, gone brown at the edges, with a scrap of paper beside it that said only "for when it's over".

I asked the chief steward whose it was. He shrugged and said the last cook, a man called Abel Quill, went over the rail at Gravesend and was never seen again. I have decided not to think about that. I've put the rose in my tea tin and the gun in the flour bin where nobody will look, which is either wisdom or madness, and I can't tell which at this hour.

Tell Mum I'm eating properly. Tell her the bread rose this morning, which is more than Abel managed. I'll post this at Lisbon if the wind holds.

Yours in flour and salt, Tom