The Wreck of the Mary Deare (4 page)

If they had abandoned ship in the gale of March 16 it would have been understandable. But the log showed that they had rounded Ushant on the morning of March 18 in clear weather with seas moderate and the wind Force 3. There was even a note—
Pumps making good headway. Clearing wreckage and repairing Number One hatch cover
.

It didn't make sense.

A companion-way led to the upper or boat-deck level. The door to the captain's cabin was open. The room was neat and tidy, everything in its place; no sign of hurried departure. From the desk a girl's face in a big silver frame smiled at me, her fair hair catching the light, and across the bottom of the picture she had scrawled:
For Daddy—Bons voyages, and come back soon. Love—Janet
. There was coal dust on the frame and more of it on the desk and smudged over a file of papers that proved to be the cargo manifest, showing that the
Mary Deare
had loaded cotton at Rangoon on January 13 and was bound for Antwerp. On top of a filing tray filled with papers were several air mail letter-cards slit open with a knife. They were English letter-cards post-marked London and they were addressed to Captain James Taggart,
s.s. Mary Deare
at Aden, addressed in the same uneven, rather rounded hand that had scrawled across the bottom of the photograph. And below the letters, amongst the mass of papers, I found report sheets written in a small, neat hand and signed James Taggart. But they only covered the voyage from Rangoon to Aden. On the desk beside the tray was a sealed letter addressed to Miss Janet Taggart, University College, Gower Street, London, W.C. 1. It was in a different hand and the envelope was unstamped.

All those little things, those little homely details . . . I don't know how to express it—they added up to something, something I didn't like. There was that cabin, so quiet, with all the decisions that had driven the ship throughout her life still there in the atmosphere of it—and the ship herself silent as the grave. And then I saw the raincoats hanging on the door, two blue Merchant Navy officers' raincoats hanging side by side, the one much bigger than the other.

I went out and slammed the door behind me, as though by closing it I could shut away my sudden, unreasoned fear. ‘Ahoy! Is there anyone on board?' My voice, high and hoarse, echoed through the vaults of the ship. The wind moaned at me from the deck. Hurry! I must hurry. All I had to do was check the engines now, decide whether we could get her under way.

I stumbled down the dark well of a companion-way, following the beam of my torch, flashing it through the open doorway of the saloon where I had a glimpse of places still laid and chairs pushed hastily back. A faint smell of burning lingered on the musty air. But it didn't come from the pantry—the fire was out, the stove cold. My torch focused on a half-empty tin of bully lying on the table. There was butter, cheese, a loaf of bread with the crust all covered in coal dust; coal dust on the handle of the knife that had been used to cut it, coal dust on the floor.

‘Is there anybody about?' I yelled. ‘Ahoy! Anyone there?' No answer. I went back to the 'tween-decks alley-way that ran the length of the port-hand midships section. It was as silent and as black as the adit of a mine. I stared down it, and then I stopped. There it was again—a sound I had been conscious of, but had not thought about; a sound like the shifting of gravel. It echoed within the ship's hull as though somewhere the steel plates were shifting on the bottom of the sea. It was a strange, uncanny sound, and it stopped abruptly as I walked on down the alley-way so that, in the vacuum of abrupt silence, I heard the wind's howl again.

The door at the end of the alley-way swung open to the roll of the ship, letting in a glimmer of daylight. I started towards it, conscious that the acrid smell of burning had increased until it quite overlaid the fusty mixture of hot oil, stale cooking and sea water dampness that permeates the 'tween-decks of all cargo ships. A fire-hose, fixed to a hydrant near the engine-room door, snaked aft through pools of water and disappeared through the open door, out on to the well-deck beyond. I followed it. Out in the daylight I saw that Number Three hatch was burned and blackened, eaten half away by fire, and Number Four had been partly opened up. Fire hoses curled round the deck, disappearing into the open inspection hatch of Number Three hold. I went a few rungs down the vertical ladder, flashing my torch. But there was no smoke, no lurid glow, and the acrid fumes of fire had a stale, washed-out smell, mixed with the pungent odour of chemicals. An empty foam extinguisher toppled on its side, clattering against the steel of the bulkhead plating. My torch showed the black pit of the hold piled high with charred and sodden bales of cotton and there was the sound of water slopping about.

The fire was out—dead—not even a wisp of smoke. And yet the ship had been abandoned. It didn't make sense. I was thinking of last night, how the smell of burning had lingered in the mist after the ship had gone past us. And there was the coal dust on the captain's desk and in the galley. Somebody must have put that fire out. I ran back to the engine-room door, remembering the grating sound of gravel shifting. Could it have been coal? Was there somebody down in the stoke-hold? Somewhere in the ship a hatch slammed, or maybe it was a door. I went in, on to the catwalk that hung over the black abyss of the engine-room, criss-crossed with the steel of gratings and vertical ladders. ‘Ahoy!' I yelled. ‘Ahoy there!'

No answer. My torch showed a glint of polished brass and the duller gleam of burnished steel amidst the shadowy shapes of the engines. No movement either . . . only the sound of water that made little rushing noises as it slopped about to the roll of the ship.

I hesitated, wondering whether to go down to the stoke-hold, held there by a sort of fear. And it was then that I heard the footsteps.

They went slowly along the starboard alley-way—boots clanging hollow against the steel flooring; a heavy, dragging tread that passed the engine-room door, going for'ard towards the bridge. The sound of the footsteps gradually faded away and was lost in the slapping of the water in the bilges far below me.

It couldn't have been more than twenty seconds that I remained there, paralysed, and then I had flung myself at the door, dragged it open and dived out into the alley-way, tripping over the step in my haste, dropping my torch and fetching up against the farther wall with a force that almost stunned me. The torch had fallen into a pool of rusty water and lay there, shining like a glow-worm in the darkness. I stooped and picked it up and shone it down the passage.

There was nobody there. The beam reached the whole shadowy length as far as the ladder to the deck, and the corridor was empty. I shouted, but nobody answered. The ship rolled with a creak of wood and the slosh of water, and above me, muffled, I heard the rhythmic slamming of the door to the after deckhouse. And then a faint, far-distant sound reached me, a sound that had a note of urgency in it. It was
Sea Witch
's fog-horn signalling me to return.

I stumbled for'ard and as I neared the ladder to the deck, the fog-horn's moan was mingled with the noise of the wind soughing through the superstructure. Hurry! Hurry! There was a greater urgency in it now; urgency in the noise of the wind, in the fog-horn's blare.

I reached the ladder, was starting up—when I saw him. He was outlined for an instant in the swinging beam of my torch, a shadowy figure standing motionless in the recess of a doorway, black with a gleam of white to his eyes.

I checked, shocked into immobility—all the silence, all the ghostly silence of that dead ship clutching at my throat. And then I turned the beam of the torch full on him. He was a big man, dressed in reefer and sea boots, and black with coal dust. Sweat had seamed his face, making grime-streaked runnels as though he had wept big tears and the bone of his forehead glistened. All the right side of his jaw was bruised and clotted with blood.

He moved suddenly with great rapidity, came down on me with a rush. The torch was knocked from my hand and I smelt the stale smell of sweat and coal dust as his powerful fingers gripped my shoulders, turning me like a child, twisting my head to the cold daylight that came down the ladder. ‘What do you want?' he demanded in a harsh, rasping voice. ‘What are you doing here? Who are you?' He shook me violently as though by shaking me he'd get at the truth.

‘I'm Sands,' I gasped out. ‘John Sands. I came to see—'

‘How did you get on board?' There was a note of authority, as well as violence, in the rasp of his voice.

‘By the falls,' I said. ‘We sighted the
Mary Deare
drifting and when we saw the lifeboats gone, we came alongside to investigate.'

‘Investigate!' He glared at me. ‘There's nothing to investigate.' And then quickly, still gripping hold of me: ‘Is Higgins with you? Did you pick him up? Is that why you're here?'

‘Higgins?' I stared at him.

‘Yes, Higgins.' There was a sort of desperate violence in the way he said the man's name. ‘But for him I'd have got her safe to Southampton by now. If you've got Higgins with you . . .' He stopped suddenly, his head on one side, listening. The sound of the fog-horn was nearer now and Mike's voice was hailing me. ‘They're calling you.' His grip tightened convulsively on my shoulders. ‘What's your boat?' he demanded. ‘What sort of boat is it?'

‘A yacht.' And I added inconsequentially: ‘You nearly ran us down last night.'

‘A yacht!' He let go of me then with a little gasp like a sigh of relief. ‘Well, you'd better get back to it. Wind's getting up.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘We'll have to hurry—both of us.'

‘Both of us?' He frowned.

‘Of course,' I said. ‘We'll take you off and when we reach Peter Port . . .'

‘No!' The word exploded from his lips. ‘No. I'm staying with my ship.'

‘You're the captain, are you?'

‘Yes.' He stooped and picked up my torch and handed it to me. Mike's voice came to us faintly, a strangely disembodied shout from the outside world. The wind was a low-pitched, whining note. ‘Better hurry,' he said.

‘Come on then,' I said. I couldn't believe he'd be fool enough to stay. There was nothing he could do.

‘No. I'm not leaving.' And then a little wildly, as though I were a foreigner who had to be shouted at: ‘I'm not leaving, I tell you.'

‘Don't be a fool,' I said. ‘You can't do any good here—not alone. We're bound for Peter Port. We can get you there in a few hours and then you'll be able to—'

He shook his head, like an animal at bay, and then waved an arm at me as though signalling me to go.

‘There's a gale coming up.'

‘I know that,' he said.

‘Then for God's sake, man . . . it's your one chance to get clear.' And because he was the captain and obviously thinking about his ship, I added, ‘It's the one hope for the ship, too. If you don't get a tug out to her soon she'll be blown right on to the Channel Islands. You can do far more good—'

‘Get off my ship!' He was suddenly trembling. ‘Get off her, do you hear? I know what I have to do.'

His voice was wild, his manner suddenly menacing. I stood my ground for a moment longer. ‘You've got help coming then?' I asked. And when he didn't seem to understand, I said, ‘You've radioed for help?'

There was a moment's hesitation and then he said, ‘Yes, yes, I've radioed for help. Now go.'

I hesitated. But there was nothing else I could say, and if he wouldn't come . . . I paused halfway up the ladder. ‘Surely to God you'll change your mind?' I said. His face showed in the darkness below me—a strong, hard face, still young but with deep-bitten lines in it, made deeper by exhaustion. He looked desperate, and at the same time oddly pathetic. ‘Come on, man—whilst you've got the chance.'

But he didn't answer; just turned away and left me there. And I went on up the ladder to meet the weight of the wind howling along the deck and find the sea a mass of whitecaps with
Sea Witch
pitching violently two cables off.

I HAD STAYED
too long. I knew as soon as
Sea Witch
turned to pick me up. She came roaring down-wind, the big yankee jib burying her bows deep into the wind-whipped waters, her long bowsprit thrusting into the backs of the waves, spearing them and coming out in a welter of spray. Hal had been right. I should never have boarded the ship. I ran to the falls, damning the crazy madman who'd refused to be taken off. If he had come with me, there would have been some point.

Sea Witch
heeled over in a gust as Hal fought the wheel, bringing her round through the wind, all her sails flogging madly. The big yankee filled with a crack like a pistol shot, heeling the boat over till all the weed-grown boot-topping showed in the trough of a wave; and then the big sail split across and in an instant was blown to tatters. The wind was strong to gale in the gusts and she should have been reefed by now, but they hadn't a hope of reefing, just the three of them. It was madness for them to attempt to come alongside. I had never seen a sea whipped up so quickly. But Mike was waving to me, signalling downwards with his hand, and Hal was braced at the wheel, edging her up towards the ship's side, mainsail shivering, barely filled, the remnants of the yankee fluttering in streamers from the forestay. I caught hold of one of the falls then and swung myself out over the side, slithering down hand over hand until the surge of a wave soaked me to the waist and I looked up and saw that the rusty plates stood above me, high as a cliff.

I could hear
Sea Witch
now, hear the slap of her bows as she hit a wave and the solid, surging noise of her passage through the water. There were shouts and over my shoulder I saw her coming up into the wind, very close now, her head unwilling to pay off, the bowsprit almost touching the steamer's sides. A gust of wind buffeted me, the main boom slammed over, sails filling suddenly, and she went surging past me a good twenty yards out from where I clung, swinging sickeningly in mid-air. Hal was shouting at me. ‘The wind . . . strong . . . the ship turning round.' That was all I caught and yet he was so close I could see the water dripping off his oilskins, could see his blue eyes wide and startled-looking under his sou'wester.