The Wreck of the Mary Deare (15 page)

And then early next morning Patch came on the phone from London. No, they hadn't given him any message from me. I thought then that he was ringing me about the package I had brought over for him and which I realised was still on board, locked away in my brief-case. But it wasn't that. It was about Gundersen. Had Gundersen been to see me? And when I told him that I was expecting him at eleven o'clock, he said, ‘Thank God! I tried to get you last night—to warn you.' And then he added, ‘You haven't told anybody where the
Mary Deare
is lying, have you?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Not yet.' I hadn't told anybody, not even Mike.

‘Has a man called Snetterton been to see you—a marine insurance agent?'

‘Yes.'

‘You didn't tell him?'

‘No,' I said. ‘He didn't ask me. He presumed the ship was sunk.' And then I said, ‘Haven't you notified the authorities yet? If you haven't, I think it's time—'

‘Listen,' he said. ‘I can't come down now. I've got to see somebody. And on Monday I've got to go to the Ministry of Transport. But I'll be able to come down and see you on Tuesday. Will you promise to say nothing until then?'

‘But why?' I said. ‘What's the point in concealing her position?'

‘I'll explain when I see you.'

‘And what about Gundersen? What am I to say to him?'

‘Say anything you like. But for God's sake don't tell him where she is. Don't tell anybody. I ask you as a favour, Sands.'

‘All right,' I said doubtfully.

He thanked me then and rang off.

An hour later Gundersen arrived. The boy came down to say that he was waiting for me in the yard manager's office. A big chauffeur-driven limousine stood outside and I went in to find Gundersen seated on the edge of the desk smoking a cigarette and the manager standing in front of him in uneasy silence. ‘You're Mr Sands, are you?' Gundersen asked. He didn't offer me his hand or get up or make any move. The manager gave us the use of his office and slipped out. As soon as the door was shut Gundersen said, ‘You know why I'm here, I imagine?' He waited until I had nodded and then said, ‘I saw Mr Patch yesterday. I understand you were with him during the last forty-eight hours on the
Mary Deare
. Naturally I wanted to hear your version of what happened on our ship.' He asked me then to go through the whole sequence of events. ‘I want every detail, please, Mr Sands.'

I went through the whole story for him, leaving out only the details about Patch's behaviour and what had happened at the end. He listened in complete silence, not interrupting once. His long, immobile face, tanned by the sun, showed no flicker of expression, and his eyes, behind their horn-rimmed glasses, watched me all the time I was talking.

Afterwards he asked me a series of questions—straightforward, practical questions concerning course and wind strength and the length of time we had run the engines. The ordeal we had gone through seemed to mean nothing to him and I got the impression of a cold personality.

Finally, he said, ‘I don't think you have yet understood, Mr Sands, what it is I wish to know.' His slight accent was more noticeable now. ‘I want to discover the exact position in which the ship went down.'

‘You don't seem to realise the conditions prevailing at the time,' I said. ‘All I can tell you is that she was close to the Roches Douvres at the time I boarded her.'

He got up then. He was very tall and he wore a light-coloured suit of smooth material draped in the American fashion. ‘You are not being very helpful, Mr Sands.' A signet ring on his finger flashed in the pale April sunlight. ‘It seems odd that neither you nor Patch can say where the ship was at the time you abandoned her.' He waited, and then he said, ‘I have also talked to Higgins. He may not have a Master's Certificate, but he's an experienced seaman. You may be interested to know that his calculations, based on wind strength, probable drift and tide, put the
Mary Deare
's final position a good deal to the east of where you and Patch seem to think you were. Have you any comment to make?' He stood facing me, his back to the window.

‘None,' I said, nettled and a little angry at his manner. And then, because he was still staring at me, waiting, I said, ‘I'd remind you, Mr Gundersen, that I am not concerned in this. I was on board your ship by accident.'

He didn't answer for a moment. Finally he said, ‘That remains, perhaps, to be seen.' And he added, ‘Well, at least I have got something out of you. Now that we have some idea of the length of time the engines were running and the course steered whilst they were in use, it should be possible to arrive at an approximation of the position.' He paused again. ‘Is there anything further you would care to add to what you have already told me, Mr Sands?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Nothing.'

‘Very well.' He picked up his hat. And then he paused. ‘The manager here tells me that you're interested in salvage. You've formed a company—Sands, Duncan & Company, Ltd.' He stared at me. ‘I think I should warn you that this man Patch has a bad record. Unfortunately our Mr Dellimare was inexperienced in matters connected with shipping. He employed this man when nobody else would, and the result has proved disastrous.'

‘He did his best to save the ship,' I said angrily.

For the first time his face moved. An eyebrow lifted. ‘After he had caused the crew to panic and take to the boats. I have yet to discover his precise motives, but if you're mixed up in this, Mr Sands . . .' He put his hat on. ‘You can contact me at the Savoy Hotel if you should find you have some further information to give me.' He went out of the office then and I watched him drive away with an uneasy feeling that I was getting myself dangerously involved.

This feeling persisted, and it came between me and my work so that I was not in a particularly sympathetic mood when Patch finally arrived. We were living on board
Sea Witch
by then, which was fortunate because he didn't arrive until the evening. I had expected him to look rested, the lines in his face smoothed out. It came as a shock to me to find him looking just as haggard. We had only one light on board, an inspection lamp clamped to a half-erected bulkhead, and in its harsh glare he looked ghastly, his face quite white and a nervous tick at the corner of his mouth.

We cleared the saloon table of tools and wood-shavings, and I sat him down and gave him a drink and a cigarette and introduced him to Mike. It was neat rum I gave him and he knocked it straight back, and he drew on his cigarette as though it were the first he'd had in days. His suit was old and frayed and I remember wondering whether the Dellimare Company had payed him. Oddly enough, he accepted Mike at once and, without attempting to get me alone, asked straight out what Gundersen had wanted, what he had said.

I told him, and when I had finished, I said, ‘Gundersen suspects something. He hinted as much.' I paused, waiting for the explanation he had promised me. But all he said was, ‘I'd forgotten that Higgins might work it out.' He was speaking to himself.

‘What about that explanation?' I asked him.

‘Explanation?' He stared at me blankly.

‘You surely don't imagine,' I said, ‘that I can be a party to a piece of deception that involves the owners, the insurance people, everybody with a financial interest in the ship, unless I know that there is some good reason?' I told him I considered that my duty was clear. ‘Either you explain why you've withheld this vital information or I go to the authorities.' An obstinate, shut look had come over his face. ‘Why pretend the ship went down, when at any moment she may be sighted lying there in the middle of the Minkies?'

‘She could have been carried there by the tides,' he murmured.

‘She could have been, but she wasn't.' I lit a cigarette and sat down opposite him. He looked so desperately tired of it all. ‘Listen,' I said more gently. ‘I've been trained in marine insurance. I know the procedure after the loss of a ship. Any moment now the Receiver of Wreck will start taking depositions under oath from everybody connected with the loss. And under oath I've no alternative but to give the full—'

‘You won't be called on to make a deposition,' he said quickly. ‘You weren't connected with the ship.'

‘No, but I was on board.'

‘By accident.' He pushed his hand up through his hair in a gesture that brought it all back to me. ‘It's not for you to make any comment.'

‘No, but if I have to make a statement under oath . . .' I leaned across the table towards him. ‘Try and see it from my point of view,' I said. ‘You made me a certain proposition that day in Paimpol. A proposition which, in the light of your failure to notify the owners of the present whereabouts of the ship, was entirely crooked. And Gundersen is beginning to think—'

‘Crooked?' He began laughing and there was a note of hysteria in his voice. ‘Do you know what cargo the
Mary Deare
carried?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Aero engines. Snetterton told me.'

‘And did he tell you that the other Dellimare ship was moored next to the
Mary Deare
for four days in the Rangoon River? Those aero engines are in China now—sold to the Chinks for a mint of money.'

The positiveness of his accusation took me by surprise. ‘How can you be certain?' I asked him.

He looked at me, hesitating for a moment. ‘All right. I'll tell you. Because Dellimare offered me five thousand quid to wreck the
Mary Deare
. Cash—in fivers.'

In the sudden silence I could hear the lapping of the water at the bottom of the slip. ‘Dellimare? Are you serious?' I asked.

‘Yes, Dellimare.' His voice was angry and bitter. ‘It was after old Taggart died. Dellimare was desperate then. He had to improvise. And, by the luck of the devil, I was on board. He knew my record. He thought he could buy me.' He leaned back and lit another cigarette, his hands shaking. ‘Sometimes I wish to God I'd accepted his offer.'

I poured him another drink. And then I said, ‘But I still don't understand why you should conceal the
Mary Deare
's position. Why haven't you told all this to the authorities?'

He turned and looked at me. ‘Because if Gundersen knows where she is, he'll go out there and destroy her.'

That was nonsense, of course. You can't destroy a 6,000 ton ship just like that. I told him so. He'd only got to go to the authorities, demand an examination of the vessel and the whole thing would be decided. But he shook his head. ‘I have to go back myself—with somebody like you that I can trust.'

‘You mean you're not sure about what you just told me—about the cargo?'

He didn't say anything for a moment, but just sat there, hunched over his drink, smoking. You could feel his nerves in the stillness of the cabin. ‘I want you to take me out there,' he said finally. ‘You and Duncan.' He turned, leaning towards us. ‘You've been in marine insurance, haven't you, Sands? You know how to fix up a salvage contract. Now listen. When will your boat be ready?'

‘Not till the end of the month,' Mike said, and the way he said it was a warning to me that he didn't want to have anything to do with it.

‘All right. The end of the month. I'll come back then. Have you got an underwater camera?' And when I nodded he leaned forward earnestly. ‘You could take a picture then of the damage to the for'ard holds. The insurance people would give you a lot of money for that—and for pictures of the cargo.' And then he added, ‘And if I'm wrong, then there's quarter of a million pounds worth of aero engines—enough salvage to set you up in a big way. Well?' His eyes moved quickly, nervously, from one to the other of us.

‘You know very well I can't agree to a proposition like that,' I said. And Mike added, ‘I think you should put the whole matter in the hands of the authorities.'

‘No. No, I can't do that.'

‘Why not?' I asked.

‘Because I can't.' The tension was building up in him again. ‘Because I'm up against a company. I've a record behind me and they'll twist things . . . I've been through all this before.' Sweat was shining in beads on his forehead. ‘And there's Higgins and the crew. Everything is against me.'

‘But if the Receiver of Wreck made an examination—'

‘I tell you, No. I'm not having the Receiver of Wreck out there—or anybody.' He was staring at me wildly. ‘Can't you understand—I've got to go back there myself.'

‘No, I can't,' I said. ‘If you refused Dellimare's offer, you've nothing to worry about. Why conceal the fact that you beached her on the Minkies?' And when he didn't answer, I said, ‘Why do you have to go back? What the devil is there on that ship that you've got to go back for?'

‘Nothing. Nothing.' His voice quivered in tune with his nerves.

‘Yes there is,' I said. ‘There's something drawing you back to her as though—'

‘There's nothing,' he shouted at me.

‘Then why not tell the authorities where she is? What is it you're afraid of?'

His fist crashed down on the table top. ‘Stop it! Questions . . . questions . . . nothing but questions. I've had enough of it, do you hear?' He got abruptly to his feet and stood, staring down at us. He was trembling all over.

I think he was on the verge of telling us something. I think he wanted to tell us. But instead he seemed to get a grip of himself. ‘Then you won't take me out there?' There was a note of resignation in his voice.

‘No,' I said.

He seemed to accept that and he stood there, his body slack, staring down at the table. I got him to sit down again and gave him another drink. He stayed on to supper. He was very quiet and he didn't talk much. I didn't get anything more out of him. He seemed shut away inside himself. When he left he gave me his address. He was in lodgings in London. He said he'd come down at the end of the month and see if we'd changed our minds. I saw him out across the darkened yard and then walked slowly back through the dark shapes of the slipped boats.