Swamped

Your best idea is to keep the conversation moving. If you keep talking, you might catch something.

"Fair enough, I won't pry," you say. "Got me wondering about plenty of other things already. Like, I wonder why the captain got into sailing. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I even know what this ship did on its last voyage."

"The captain must have done something pretty impressive," Graham muses. "After all, they specifically picked him to manage a journey to another continent. You don't put just any captain on that kind of job."

"Well, whatever it is, I ain't seen it," Becky says. "Seems like any other boss to me. Just tells you what to do and gets mad if you don't, or if you're too slow, or if he's just having a bad day and decides to take it out on you."

"You know, now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever seen the captain give an order himself,"  you say, thinking. "Other than to the officers, I mean. He's not a friendly man, don't get me wrong, but it's mainly the officers who deal with that."

"Oh, he's been pretty quiet on this trip, sure, but..." Becky starts saying something, then suddenly stops. "Eh, never mind. Shouldn't run my mouth off about things I don't know."

Well, you're not going to leave it at that.

"Hang on. What were you going to say?"

"My sister was in the old crew. When she got back she complained about him day in and day out. But I wasn't there, so I ain't gonna talk about it."

Interesting.

"Did your sister happen to mention what the last voyage was about?" you ask.

"If she did, I didn't pick it out from all her whinin'."

"But you signed up for this long voyage?" you ask.

"Didn't know it was the same guy until it was too late to back out."

Hmm. You get the distinct feeling she knows more than she's letting on. Maybe she was in the old crew herself? Or maybe there's another angle to this story.

Either way, you feel like you're getting close to something big. How should you try to fish it out?