By now it was getting hot, and Craig and I were sweating. We continued to search. An hour or so later, Craig discovered a fifty-five-gallon drum that had been buried, not too long after I discovered an old engine block that had been buried. So went the next few hours until early afternoon. We had decided to wait and eat lunch until after we picked up Dirk, since we figured they probably wouldn’t have fed him on the plane.
Leaving markers to show the area we’d covered, we grabbed our pick, shovel, and detector and walked back to the rental car. I looked at Craig. His T-shirt was wet enough to wring out, and his face was covered with dirt. He opened up the trunk of the rental car and tossed in the tools while removing two cans of warm soda. “Tom Clancy’s drinking fine champagne right now,” he said, as he handed one over.
“Thanks,” I said, as I popped the top.
Craig walked around and opened the car door — and a wave of heat erupted from inside that dried out my eyeballs. He slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the ignition. A few minutes later, we were cruising toward the airport. I looked at my watch. “We should have just enough time to park and walk inside,” I said.
Craig slid the rental car into a short-term parking spot, and we walked across the asphalt toward the terminal. Oh, was it ever hot! Then the doors to the terminal slid open, and we walked into the baggage claim area. It must have been forty degrees in there; Craig still swears he could see his breath.
And then there were the stares coming from the deplaning passengers. Craig seemed oblivious as he walked along, searching for Dirk, but the sight was comical, to say the least. His boots were coated with dirt and mud, his pants and shirt wet with sweat. That wasn’t the funny thing, however — as soon as he’d walked inside, the cold had instantly chilled him, and he was twitching like a Georgia farmer going ice-fishing for the first time. Both his shoulders were pumping up and down, and he was rubbing his hands together like a maniacal scientist intent on destruction. As he walked along, the crowd parted like a tank going through a crystal shop. Then Dirk approached from the other direction, headed for the baggage carousel.
At first glimpse, he actually stopped and broke out laughing.
“What in the hell,” he said between laughs, “happened to you two?”
“It’s those damn Twin Sisters,” I said. “We’ll tell you about it outside.”
* * *
Those damn Twin Sisters. Dirk and Craig did more work in 1997 when NUMA was in Galveston searching for the Invincble. This time, they moved outside the prime search area and scanned around some of the nearby homes. When Dirk and Craig work together, it often resembles a bad Abbott and Costello routine. The two feed off each other, passing the time doing poor comedy skits and worse impersonations. It usually starts with an innocuous comment and goes downhill from there.
And the Twin Sisters send both men into a frenzy.
* * *
“Hot enough for you?” Dirk began, as the pair unloaded the equipment from the trunk of the rental car.
“All we need is water and some good people,” said Craig.
“Of course,” replied Dirk, “that’s all that hell needs, as well.”
Craig hefted a pickax. “Volunteers,” he said. “We need volunteers.”
Dirk removed the last of the equipment and shut the trunk. “We could run an ad,” he said, as the pair began walking toward the search area.
“Looking for a few people who enjoy intense boredom interspersed with moments of extreme discomfort. Masochists welcome,” Craig said.
“Are your hobbies magnetometry, sweating, and digging holes? NUMA needs you.”
“Did you ever hide stuff from yourself just for the thrill of finding it later? You may be our type.”
“Will you work for free?” said Dirk.
Craig laughed. “Will you pay us to suffer?”
Dirk pointed to a ditch in front of an old frame house. The men began swiping the gradiometer back and forth. Craig watched the readout.
“Have you ever been so hot that your tongue was sweating?” Dirk said.
“Ever had to wash your clothes in a motel-room sink?”
“Because the Laundromat turned you away?” Dirk said.
“Stop,” said Craig. “Back about a foot.”
Dirk scanned the area.
“It’s small,” said Craig. “Continue.”
“Do you like greasy diner food?” Dirk resumed.
“Can you exist on a diet of taco chips and warm soda?”
Dirk looked over at Craig. “This area is magnetically deserted. Let’s move on.”
“As barren as a whore’s heart.”
“As deserted as a Vanilla Ice concert,” said Dirk.
This gives you a pretty good idea of what the first thirty minutes of the search went like. You can expand it for eight hours or so to understand the verbal barrage I’m faced with. When possible, I send the two off alone. If not, Ralph and I banish them to the rear deck of the search boat.
* * *
Later that day, Dirk received a good reading inside a horse corral. Craig, and the gift of a case of cold Miller Lite, convinced the owner to let them dig. After digging through the packed soil for most of one hot afternoon, the pair located an old anvil buried six feet deep. So they moved on to the next target. Such is the nature of what we do.
* * *
In early 2001, Craig flew to Phoenix so we could go over progress on this book. We spent a couple hours going over the Twin Sisters file and have come up with yet another hypothesis. Time will tell on this.
Both Dirk and Craig did make one request, however: When NUMA returns, they want to schedule it for some month besides August. Wimps.
PART SEVEN
Mary Celeste
I
Mystery Ship 1872
When Mary Celeste edged away from pier 50 in the East River, there was no reason to think this voyage would be any different from others she had made. Tuesday, the fifth day of November 1872, was cold and gray, but not insufferably so. Just an early-winter New York day like hundreds before and hundreds since. Coats were worn, to be sure, but it was not so cold that a person would turn away from the wind. It was a normal day, with winter fast approaching.
Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs tugged at his thick goatee, then adjusted the wheel slightly. The current in the East River was running strong and trying to push him back against the dock. He shouted to Albert Richardson of Stockton Springs, Maine, the first mate.
“Furl the main staysail,” Briggs shouted.
The wind caught in the fabric and pulled the ship farther into the river.
Briggs nodded slightly, as if he approved of Mary Celeste’s motion. Briggs was the son of a sea captain from Wareham, Massachusetts. Benjamin was the second of five sons, and all but one of his brothers would make their careers on the sea. His was a childhood of sea tales and letters from faraway ports. In Sippican Village, where the Briggs clan eventually settled, it is said that if you cut a Briggs boy, salt water would flow from the veins. Captain Briggs was as at home on the sea as he was sitting in front of a fireplace in a fine mansion. As part owner of the Mary Celeste, he was anxious to start the voyage.
He sniffed the air and twisted the wheel slightly.
Belowdecks in the captain’s quarters, Sarah Elizabeth Briggs, Benjamin’s wife, was tending to their two-year-old daughter, Sophia Matilda. After feeding her and placing her in a small wood-framed playpen in the room, Sarah played a quiet tune on her melodeon until the child fell asleep.
This was not Mrs. Briggs’s first trip with her husband — but it would be her last.
The winds were not favorable.
Mary Celeste was a mile off Staten Island when Briggs gave the order.
“Heave to,” he shouted to the sailors. “We’ll anchor and await a change in winds.”
Once his ship was stationary, Briggs went belowdecks to check his cargo. Other than a few crates full of personal items going to a New York art student studying in I
taly, his hold was filled with a single cargo: barrels of alcohol bound for Genoa, 1,700 in total, being shipped by Meisser, Ackerman & Company, of 48 Beaver Street, New York City.
Befitting his Yankee upbringing, Briggs was a cautious man. And although the barrels were tightly plugged and appeared intact, he worried about the possibility of fumes. More than one ship had exploded and burned when carrying such dangerous goods. With both his wife and baby daughter aboard, he wanted to be sure he averted an accident before it happened.
Satisfied that the cargo was safe, he climbed from the hold and made his way to his cabin. Sarah sat in front of her foot-operated sewing machine, hemming a baby dress. To one side, in a folding playpen made of lathe-turned walnut, Sophia was standing quietly. When Briggs entered, she cocked her head and stared quizzically.
“Da,” she squealed.
Captain Briggs made his way over to the playpen and rubbed his daughter’s hair. Then he turned to Sarah and smiled.
“The winds are against us,” he said. “We’ll wait here until they turn.”
“Any idea how long?” Sarah asked easily.
“The barometer shows changes,” Briggs admitted, “but there is really no way to know for sure.”
Early on the morning of Thursday, November 7, the winds began to cooperate.
A pilot guided Mary Celeste from her anchorage into deeper water. Once clear of the shallows and in the Atlantic Ocean, a pilot boat came alongside to retrieve the pilot and take him back to New York City. As was the custom, when the pilot boarded his boat to shore, he carried letters from the ship to post.
The last communications from the captain and crew of Mary Celeste.
Benjamin Briggs stood behind the wheel and steered his ship east. There was an inky blackness to the sea that day, combined with an unyielding roughness. It was as if the water consisted of shards of black marble like that used to build a mausoleum. Mary Celeste was on a roller-coaster ride. In front of the bow, the waves rose in a building flood of righteous indignation; then, as the bow broke over the top, the ship headed down with such force that the captain could feel his stomach rising in protest. It was as if they were on a rocking chair that was hitting the wall.
Two thousand feet down was the bottom. Two thousand miles ahead were the Azores.
Briggs had faced harsh seas before and was not concerned. His ship was stout and strong, his crew handpicked and checked. There was First Mate Albert Richardson, twenty-eight years old, with a light complexion and brown hair. Richardson had served in the Maine Volunteers during the Civil War, so Briggs knew he was used to hardship. His pay was $50 a month. Second Mate Andrew Gilling, a twenty-five-year-old from New York City, was fair of skin and hair, a seasoned sailor from Denmark. His wages were $35 a month. The cook and steward, Edward William Head, was twenty-three and newly married. His pay was $40 a month.
And the deckhands and ordinary sailors received $30 monthly.
Brothers Boz and Volkert Lorenzen, ages twenty-five and twenty-nine, respectively. Thirty-five-year-old Arian Martens. Gottlieb Goodschaad, the youngest at twenty-three. All were from Germany — all were experienced. All of these men, along with Gilling, listed their address as 19 Thames Street, New York. The Seaman’s Hall.
Edward Head carefully made his way across the deck to Captain Briggs.
“Captain,” he shouted over the wind, “can I get you anything?”
“I’ll eat when the watch changes,” Briggs said, “in an hour and a half.”
“Coffee?” Head asked as he turned to leave.
“Hot tea with molasses,” Briggs said, “to settle my stomach.”
“I’ll bring it out shortly,” Head agreed.
At that instant, at the docks in New York City, another ship was being loaded.
* * *
Dei Gratia was a British brigantine of 295 tons that hailed from Nova Scotia. Her captain, David Reed Moorhouse, was supervising the loading of oil from the fields of Pennsylvania. His first mate, Oliver Deveau, stood alongside as the casks were lowered by ropes into the hold.
“We are scheduled to leave on the fifteenth,” Moorhouse said. “Do you have any recommendations for the rest of the crew?”
“I talked to Augustus Anderson and John Johnson about coming aboard as ordinary seamen. I’ve worked with them before.”
“What do you think about John Wright as the second mate?”
“He’s a good hand,” Deveau agreed.
“I’ll make him an offer, then,” Moorhouse said.
“The wind is turning,” Deveau noted.
“Then we should leave on time,” Moorhouse said easily.
* * *
Most great civilizations have one thing in common: seapower. The Vikings, the Spanish, the British — all could trace their power and prestige to the fact that they ruled the oceans. And in the days before corporations, a captain of a ship at sea was a powerful man. Along with being the representative of the ship owners and his country of flag, he was tasked with a fiduciary duty to the owners of the cargo that his ship carried. But his duties were insured.
The hull of Mary Celeste was insured by four companies: Maine Lloyds, in the amount of $6,000; Orient Mutual Company, for $4,000; Mercantile Mutual Company, $2,500; and New England Mutual Insurance Company, with the smallest coverage at $1,500. The total coverage was $14,000, not an insignificant sum in 1872. The cargo was insured separately through Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company for $3,400. The companies were careful about the ships they insured — they insisted that they were fit to sail and properly crewed. Mary Celeste fit all the criteria.
Halfway to the Azores, Captain Briggs was guiding Mary Celeste over the Rehoboth Seamount, an underwater plateau along the sixty-degree-longitude line. Turning the helm over to Richardson, he opened a polished cherrywood box, then carefully removed a sextant from a soft deerskin bag. Shooting a fix of the horizon, he determined their location.
Mary Celeste was on the proper course.
“Same heading,” he said to Richardson. “I’ll be below if you need me.”
“Very good, sir,” Richardson said.
The hatch leading below was halfway open, folded back on itself, and the ladder leading down was firmly secured to the bulkhead. Briggs had learned through experience to check such things, as early in his career he had descended a loose ladder and tumbled into the hold, badly wrenching his ankle. Nowadays he left nothing to chance.
Briggs was happy with his crew so far. The Lorenzen brothers spoke halting English with a thick German accent, but they seemed to understand his directions and complied quickly. Not only that, the brothers were hard workers. Every time Briggs looked around, they were tending to sails, swabbing the deck, or finding some other task to occupy their time. Good sailors.
Martens and Goodschaad seemed quiet and studious compared to the Lorenzens, but they worked hard and followed directions. Richardson was skilled enough to captain his own ship, and Gilling would be there soon. Only Edward Head worried Briggs. While he performed his duties with skill, he seemed sad.
Reaching the lower deck, Briggs headed down a companionway to the galley.
“Captain,” Head said, looking up from peeling potatoes.
“How are things, Edward?” Briggs asked.
“Salt beef, potatoes, and beets for dinner.”
“I’d say that sounds good,” Briggs said, smiling, “but I would be lying.”
“I have a barrel of dried apples,” Head offered, “and shall try to bake a pie.”
“Are you missing your wife?” Briggs asked.
“Very much so, sir,” Head offered. “After this trip, I may stay on shore.”
“The return has already been arranged,” Briggs said easily. “A load of fruit, so we should have only a short layover for loading. A month or so, and you will be back home and can decide.”
“I’m glad, sir,” Head said easily.
But in less than a month, Mary Celeste would be in Gibraltar, and the people now aboard woul
d be gone.
* * *
Captain Moorhouse stood on the upper deck of Dei Gratia. His cargo was secured, and the last of the supplies were being loaded.
“Once the stores are secured, give the men a ration of rum,” Moorhouse said to Deveau.
“Yes, sir,” Deveau said.
The date was November 14, 1872. Dei Gratia would leave New York the following morning. Moorhouse headed below to check his charts — a large expanse of ocean lay ahead, and he needed to be prepared for anything.
Far to the north, near the Arctic Circle, a storm was building. As the sky faded to black, the wind grew in intensity. Dry snow began forming, and it grew until it was a blinding blanket. A herd of musk ox knew the signs and formed into a protective circle, their faces to the outside and the young and sick on the interior. Huddled together to conserve heat, they began to wait out the storm.
No REST FOR the weary. Mary Celeste was facing rougher seas. Briggs knew that November was always fickle, but this trip was proving to be the exception, not the rule. He had thought that once they crossed the sixty-degree mark, the seas would be calm, but in fact they were building. The temperature had risen, so cold was no longer a problem, but the increasing battering to the hull worried Briggs. One of the barrels of alcohol had already split, spilling its contents into the bilge — a few more and Briggs would have a problem “How’s the baby?” Briggs asked, entering the captain’s cabin.
“She’s fine if she’s in the crib,” Sarah answered. “It rocks with the ship and comforts her. If she’s in the playpen, she’s tossed around.”
Briggs looked at his wife. Her skin had a grayish-green tinge.
“And you?”
“I’ve been sick,” Sarah admitted.
“I’ll get a few crackers from the cook,” Briggs said. “They usually comfort the stomach.”
“Thank you, dear.”
“We’re making good time,” Briggs said. “If this continues, we will pass into the Mediterranean within the week. It’s usually calmer there.”
The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks Page 19