The Wreck of the Mary Deare (10 page)

‘In just over two hours, if we'd lasted that long, the tide would have turned and driven us north across the reefs.' He slid the chart along the table towards me. ‘See for yourself,' he said. ‘The only chance was to beach her here.' And he put his pencil on the spot where the ship was lying.

It was about a mile south of the main body of the reefs in an area showing 2¼ fathoms depth at low water. ‘That rock away on the port bow is Grune à Croc,' he said. It was marked as drying 36 ft. ‘And you'll probably find Maîtresse Ile just visible away to starboard.' His pencil point rested for a moment on the high point to the east of the main reefs. ‘At low water it should be reasonably sheltered in here.' He threw the pencil down and straightened up, stretching himself and rubbing his eyes. ‘Well, that's that.' There was finality and the acceptance of disaster in the way he said it. ‘I'm going to get some sleep.' He went past me then without another word, through into the wheelhouse. I heard his feet on the companion ladder descending to the deck below. I hadn't said anything or tried to stop him. I was too tired to question him now. My head throbbed painfully and the mention of sleep had produced in me an intense desire to close my eyes and slide into oblivion.

I paused on my way through the wheelhouse and stood looking out on the grey, desolate sea-scape of rock and broken water. It was queer to stand there by the wheel with the feel of the engines under my feet, knowing all the time that we were hard aground on the worst reef in the English Channel. Everything in the wheelhouse seemed so normal. It was only when I looked out through the windows and saw the rocks emerging from the tide and the ship's bows no more than a vague outline below the creaming break of the waves that I was able to comprehend what had happened.

But for six hours or more we should be safe; until the rising tide exposed us again to the full force of the seas. I turned and made my way below, moving as though in a dream, like a sleepwalker. Everything seemed vague and a little remote and I staggered slightly, still balancing automatically to the roll of a ship which was now as steady as a rock. As I reached my cabin I felt the beat of the engines slow and stop. Either we had exhausted the steam or else he had gone below and stopped the engines himself. It didn't seem to matter either way. We shouldn't be wanting the engines again, or the pumps. Nothing seemed to matter to me then but sleep.

That sleep should have been possible in those circumstances may seem incredible, but having thought him mad and then found him, not only sane, but capable of an extraordinary feat of seamanship, I had confidence in his statement that we should be sheltered as the tide fell. In any case, there was nothing I could do; we had no boats, no hope of rescue in the midst of those reefs, and the gale was at its height.

I woke to complete darkness with water running like a dark river down the corridor outside my cabin. It came from a broken porthole in the saloon—probably from other places, too. The seas were battering against the ship's side and every now and then there was a grumbling, tearing sound as she shifted her bottom on the shingle bed. I moved up to Patch's cabin then. He was lying on his bunk, fully clothed, and even when I shone my torch on him he didn't stir, though he had been asleep for over twelve hours. I made two trips below to the galley for food and water and the primus stove, and it was on the second of these that I noticed the little white rectangle of a card pinned to the mahogany of the door just aft of the captain's cabin. It was a business card:
J. C. B. Dellimare
, and underneath—
The Dellimare Trading and Shipping Company Ltd
. The address was St Mary Axe in the City of London. I tried the door, but it was locked.

It was daylight when I woke again. The wind had died down and the seas no longer crashed against the ship's side. A gleam of watery sunlight filtered in through the salt-encrusted glass of the porthole. Patch was still asleep, but he had taken off his boots and some of his clothes and a blanket was pulled round his body. The companion ladder leading to the saloon and the deck below was a black well of still water in which things floated. Up on the bridge, the sight that met my eyes was one of utter desolation. The tide was low and the rocks stood up all round us like the stumps of rotten teeth, grey and jagged with bases blackened with weed growth. The wind was no more than Force 5 to 6 and, though I could see the seas breaking in white cascades over the farther rocks that formed my horizon, the water around was relatively quiet, the broken patches smoothed out as though exhausted by their passage across the reefs.

I stood there for a long time watching the aftermath of the storm whirl ragged wisps of thin grey cloud across the sun, staring at the chaos of rocks that surrounded us, at the seas breaking in the distance. I felt a deep, satisfying joy at the mere fact that I was still alive, still able to look at sunlight glittering on water, see the sky and feel the wind on my face. But the davits were empty arms of iron uplifted over the ship's side and the boat that had been hanging by one of its falls was a broken piece of splintered wood trailing in the sea at the end of a frayed rope.

Patch came up and joined me. He didn't look at the sea or the sky or the surrounding rocks. He stood for a moment gazing down at the bows which now stood clear of the sea, the gaping hole of the hatch black and full of water. And then he went out to the battered port wing and stood looking back along the length of the ship. He had washed his face and it was white and drawn in the brittle sunlight, the line of his jaw hard where the muscles had tightened, and his hands were clenched on the mahogany rail capping.

I felt I ought to say something—tell him it was bad luck, that at least he could be proud of an incredible piece of seamanship in beaching her here. But the starkness of his features checked me. And in the end I went below, leaving him alone on the bridge.

He was there for a long time and when he did come down he only said, ‘Better get some food inside you. We'll be able to leave in an hour or two.' I didn't ask him how he expected to leave with all the boats smashed. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk. He went and sat on his bunk, his shoulders hunched, going through his personal belongings in a sort of daze, his mind lost in its own thoughts.

I got the primus going and put the kettle on whilst he wandered over to the desk, opening and shutting drawers, stuffing papers into a yellow oilskin bag. He hesitated, looking at the photograph, and then he took that, too. The tea was made by the time he had finished and I opened a tin of bully. We breakfasted in silence, and all the time I was wondering what we were going to do, how we were going to construct a boat. ‘It's no good waiting to be taken off,' I said at length. ‘They'll never find the
Mary Deare
here.'

He stared at me as though surprised that anybody should speak to him in the dead stillness of the ship. ‘No, it'll be some time before they find her.' He nodded his head slowly, still lost in his own thoughts.

‘We'll have to build some sort of a boat.'

‘A boat?' He seemed surprised. ‘Oh, we've got a boat.'

‘Where?'

‘In the next cabin. An inflatable rubber dinghy.'

‘A rubber dinghy—in Dellimare's cabin?'

He nodded. ‘That's right. Odd, isn't it? He had it there—just in case.' He was laughing quietly to himself. ‘And now we're going to use it.'

The man was dead and I saw nothing funny about his not being here to use his dinghy. ‘You find that amusing?' I asked angrily.

He didn't answer, but went to the desk and got some keys, and then he went out and I heard him unlock the door of the next cabin. There was a scrape of heavy baggage being moved and I went to give him a hand. The door was opened and, inside, the cabin looked as though a madman had looted it—drawers pulled out, suitcases forced open, their hasps ripped off, their contents strewn over the floor; clothes and papers strewn everywhere. Only the bed remained aloof from the chaos, still neatly made-up, unslept-in, the pillow stained with the man's hair oil.

He had the keys. He must have searched the cabin himself. ‘What were you looking for?' I asked.

He stared at me for a moment without saying anything. Then he shifted the big cabin trunk out of the way, toppling it on to its side with a crash. It lay there, a slab of coloured hotel labels—Tokyo, Yokohama, Singapore, Rangoon. ‘Catch hold of this!' He had hold of a big brown canvas bundle and we hauled it out into the corridor and through the door to the open deck. He went back then and I heard him lock the door of Dellimare's cabin. When he returned he brought a knife with him. We cut the canvas straps, got the yellow dinghy out of its wrappings and inflated it.

The thing was about twelve feet long and five feet broad; it had paddles and a rudder and a tubular telescopic mast with nylon rigging and a small nylon sail. It even had fishing tackle. ‘Was he a nervous sort of man?' I asked. For a shipowner to pack a collapsible dinghy on board one of his own ships seemed odd behaviour—almost as though he suffered from the premonition that the sea would get him.

But all Patch said was, ‘It's time we got moving.'

I stared at him, startled at the thought of leaving the comparative security of the ship for the frailty of the rubber dinghy. ‘The seas will be pretty big once we get clear of the reefs. Hadn't we better wait for the wind to drop a bit more?'

‘We need the wind.' He sniffed it, feeling for its direction with his face. ‘It's veered a point or two already. With luck it will go round into the north-west.' He glanced at his watch. ‘Come on,' he said. ‘There's four hours of tide with us.'

I tried to tell him it would be better to wait for the next tide and get the whole six hours of it, but he wouldn't listen. ‘It would be almost dark then. And suppose the wind changed? You can't beat to windward in this sort of craft. And,' he added, ‘there may be another depression following on behind this one. You don't want to be caught out here in another gale. I don't know what would happen at high water. The whole bridge deck might get carried away.'

He was right, of course, and we hurriedly collected the things we needed—food, charts, a hand-bearing compass, all the clothes we could clamber into. We had sou'westers and sea boots, but no oilskins. We took the two raincoats from the cabin door.

It was nine forty-five when we launched the dinghy from the for'ard well-deck. We paddled her clear of the ship and then hoisted sail. The sun had disappeared by then and everything was grey in a mist of driving rain, the rocks appearing farther away, vague battlement shapes on the edge of visibility; many of them were already covered. We headed for Les Sauvages and in a little while the flashing buoy that marked the rocks emerged out of the murk. By then the
Mary Deare
was no more than a vague blur, low down in the water. We lost her completely as we passed Les Sauvages.

There was still a big sea running and, once we cleared the shelter of the Minkies, we encountered the towering swell left by the gale. It marched up behind us in wall upon wall of steep-fronted, toppling water, and in the wet, swooping chill of that grey day I lost all sense of time.

For just over four hours we were tumbled about in the aftermath of the storm, soaked to the skin, crammed into the narrow space between the fat, yellow rolls of the dinghy's sides, with only an occasional glimpse of Cap Frehel to guide us. And then, shortly after midday, we were picked up by the cross-Channel packet coming in from Peter Port. They were on the look-out for survivors, otherwise they would never have sighted us, for they were passing a good half mile to the west of us. And then the packet suddenly altered course, coming down on us fast, the bows almost hidden by spray flung up by the waves. She hove-to a little up-wind of us, rolling heavily, and as she drifted down on to us rope ladders were thrown over the side and men came down to help us up, quiet, English voices offering words of encouragement, hands reaching down to pull us up.

People crowded us on the deck—passengers and crew, asking questions, pressing cigarettes and chocolate on us. Then, an officer took us to his quarters and the packet got into her stride again, engines throbbing gently, effortlessly. As we went below I caught a glimpse of the dinghy, a patch of yellow in the white of the ship's wake as it rode up the steep face of a wave.

A HOT SHOWER,
dry clothes and then we were taken into the officers' saloon and a steward was bustling about, pouring tea, bringing us plates of bacon and eggs. The normality of it—the incredible normality of it! It was like waking from a nightmare. The
Mary Deare
and the gale and the tooth-edged rocks of the Minkies seemed part of another life, utterly divorced from the present. And then the captain came in. ‘So you're the survivors from the
Mary Deare
.' He stood, looking from one to the other of us. ‘Is either of you the owner of the yacht
Sea Witch
?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I'm John Sands.'

‘Good. I'm Captain Fraser. I'll have a radio message sent to Peter Port right away. A Colonel Lowden brought her in. He was very worried about you. He and Duncan were on board yesterday, listening to the radio reports of the search. They had planes out looking for you.' He turned to Patch. ‘I take it you're one of the
Mary Deare
's officers?' His voice was harder, the Scots accent more pronounced.

Patch had risen. ‘Yes. I'm the master of the
Mary Deare
. Captain Patch.' He held out his hand. ‘I'm most grateful to you for picking us up.'

‘Better thank my first officer. It was he who spotted you.' He was staring at Patch, small blue eyes looking out of a craggy face. ‘You say your name is Patch?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you're the master of the
Mary Deare
?'