The Mary Celeste

by Brian Freemantle

  Respectfully in the row behind him and then assembled in order of priority were the crew of the Dei Gratia, shifting and moving in their uncertainty in such official surroundings, too ready to smile at whispered asides.

  Nearest the aisle, as his seniority befitted, was Captain David Reed Morehouse, master of the Dei Gratia. He sat stiffly in his creased unaccustomed going-ashore suit, head positioned high by the starched collar, gazing straight ahead and refusing any involvement in the hushed conversation alongside. He was a formidable, almost wild-looking man, his beard grown freely over his chest and then parted, so that two bushy tails appeared to be growing from his chin.

  Next to him sat Oliver Deveau, the first mate, who had transferred to the Mary Celeste and captained her to Gibraltar. He was a dark-haired, sallow-faced man in a thick serge suit. Like his commanding officer, he had a full, chest-length beard, but better combed than Morehouse’s. The first mate’s hair was greased tightly to his head and he kept darting looks at the captain, trying to emulate the man’s demeanour.

  Next to him was second mate John Wright and then seaman John Johnson, whom the Attorney-General knew to be the men who had crossed from the Dei Gratia in the ship’s dory and had been the first to board the abandoned vessel. Then came seamen Charles Lund and Augustus Anderson, who, with Deveau, had formed the salvage crew. They wore reefer jackets and coarse work trousers. They sat rigidly, almost to attention, nervously alert for any summons they might receive.

  The sort of people to be led into an incautious admission, decided Flood. They wouldn’t expect him to have isolated a motive for the crime, any more than those who had led them into it.

  The Attorney-General had already learned that the Mary Celeste was insured by the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company of New York for $14,000, with her cargo covered through Lloyd’s of London for £6,522. Not a fortune, Flood had to admit. But sufficient for desperate men to engage in some desperate activity. Upon established precedents, the Dei Gratia crew could anticipate an award of anything up to 40 per cent of that value if their claim were judged to be valid. For such men, it would be a lot of money.

  In an aisle seat opposite the seamen was surveyor John Austin, who had carried out a comprehensive examination of the Mary Celeste, and further to the left, in his official place, was Thomas Vecchio, marshal of the court, who had impounded the vessel upon its arrival and accompanied Flood upon several personal visits.

  To Flood’s right sat Horatio Sprague. The American Consul smiled up at Flood’s sudden attention. Sprague was a sparse, stooping man who was usually the listener in any conversation. He had a curiously attentive way of holding his head and he smiled a lot, an expression Flood frequently suspected to be one of mockery.

  ‘All set, Frederick?’

  Flood frowned at both the vernacular and the familiarity, particularly in surroundings where his title should have been most respected. Damned man had done it purposely, he thought. Flood knew the American Consul had been a personal friend of the Mary Celeste captain and had even proposed him for the masonic lodge in Gibraltar. If anyone should have been seeking the real cause of the mystery, it was Sprague. Instead of which he kept attempting to curry favour with the Americans who had come to the colony for the enquiry. He was a disgrace to the office he was supposed to be holding, judged the Attorney-General.

  ‘Of course I’m prepared,’ he said.

  ‘Gather there have been a lot of visits to the ship.’

  ‘That’s where the evidence is.’

  ‘You’ve found some, then?’

  Flood ignored the question, moving to the counsels’ table. The Attorney-General was familiar with all the lawyers. Henry Pisani was representing Captain Morehouse and the crew in their claim for salvage and George Cornwell was entering Captain Winchester’s formal claim for return of the vessel. Martin Stokes was appearing for the owners of the cargo. Flood thought them all to be dour, unimaginative men. If any inconsistency suddenly appeared in the evidence, he doubted whether any of these men would recognise it as such.

  ‘Court will rise,’ announced Baumgartner.

  Flood was first on his feet as Sir James Cochrane entered and proceeded slowly to his place upon the raised dais. He nodded to the Attorney-General, the advocates and the American Consul before seating himself, immediately opening his file and a large, hard-bound note pad.

  Everyone except Baumgartner resumed their seats. Taking up the official document lying ready before him, Baumgartner announced:

  ‘This court, under the jurisdiction of Her Highness, Queen Victoria, is assembled to consider the demand for salvage entered by the master and crew of the British brigantine Dei Gratia against the owners and insurers of the Mary Celeste, the said vessel claimed to have been discovered derelict and abandoned on December 5,1872, at latitude 38.20 N. by longitude 17.15 W., from which it was brought to this port.’

  He sat down, half turning to the judge. Sir James cleared his throat, staring down into the well of the court.

  ‘There has arisen over this matter much speculation and conjecture,’ he said, choosing the advocates’ bench as the object for his attention. ‘It is therefore my intention to allow this enquiry to range as widely as I consider necessary to enable that speculation and conjecture to be resolved …’

  He paused at the obvious indication from the lawyer Cornwell that the man wished to speak.

  ‘You have an observation?’

  Cornwell rose, smiling gratefully:

  ‘It is, of course, vital that everything considered necessary by this court is done to bring this investigation to a satisfactory conclusion. But I would respectfully remind the court that lying in the holds of the Mary Celeste is an extremely valuable cargo which the owners are still under contract to deliver to Genoa …’

  ‘What is your point, Mr Cornwell?’

  ‘That the vessel should be released from Admiralty seizure and restored to Captain Winchester as soon as possible to enable that contract to be fulfilled,’ said Cornwell.

  Cochrane lowered his head over his papers and Flood recognised the indication of annoyance. It was several moments before Cochrane looked up.

  ‘I am aware of the contractual obligations binding Captain Winchester and his associates,’ he said evenly. ‘I am even more aware of the obligations under which this court has been brought into session and which I, as a judge appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, am required to fulfil. This enquiry will continue as long as I deem it necessary. And the vessel in question will remain under Admiralty bond until I decide it shall be released.’

  Cornwell hesitated for a moment, then slowly sat down. His ‘Of course, sir,’ was barely audible.

  As Cornwell sat, Cochrane looked over to the Attorney-General. There was no expression on the judge’s face, but Flood knew the reason for the look. He was as intrigued as Sir James at the request for speed before an enquiry had even commenced. Since the arrival of the Mary Celeste on December 12, barely a day had passed when something had not arisen to provide fresh grounds for suspicion. He glanced sideways at the American Consul.

  It was remarkable that he appeared to be the only one who recognised it, thought Flood. But now the enquiry was about to begin.

  It would not take long for them to realise how obtuse they had all been.

  Benjamin Briggs had been schooled to conceal pride; certainly in any material achievement or possession.

  ‘Thy money perish with thee,’ he murmured, remembering. An Act of the Apostles. One of his father’s favourites. His father-in-law’s, too, by strange coincidence. From his wife’s father, it was understandable. Expected, even. The man was a clergyman, after all.

  His own father’s devoutness to the Scriptures had surprised Benjamin in his early youth, before he had sailed under the man’s rigid captaincy and come to realise how easy it was to feel the power of God at sea.

  His father had been a good teacher, of Scriptures as well as seamanship. A strict man; spartan, by some assessme
nts. But always fair, as Benjamin knew he himself was fair to his men, not by conscious, thinking effort, as if attempting to emulate his father, but naturally because he was imbued with the quality so that he knew no other way to behave.

  That was why he felt embarrassment at the realisation of his pride, because he knew his father would have criticised it. He trailed his hand along the top-gallant rail, savouring the texture of the fresh varnish and the new woodwork beneath. Perhaps, on this occasion, the man would have understood. Maybe felt the sensation himself; he had sufficient cause to be proud, after all. Four sons, each a ship’s captain, carrying on the family tradition. And his only daughter married to one.

  Now, reflected Briggs, he was even more than a captain. At thirty-seven years of age, part-owner, too. Admittedly only a third share, but enough. Particularly in a newly rebuilt vessel like the Mary Celeste, trim and clean from stem to stern.

  ‘She’s a beautiful ship, Benjamin.’

  Briggs hurriedly pulled his hand away at the sound of his wife’s voice, as if he had been discovered doing something wrong, and turned, smiling, to her.

  ‘I was just thinking so myself.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Is it obvious?’ he asked.

  She smiled at the concern in his voice. ‘Why ever shouldn’t it be?’ she said.

  ‘Hardly seemly.’

  ‘What’s unseemly about appreciating one’s achievements?’

  ‘False pride,’ he suggested.

  ‘Where’s the falsity?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve every reason for pride. There’s a difference between that and conceit, surely?’

  ‘You think it was the right decision, then?’

  She shook her head, the irritation taking the smile from her face even though she knew the reason for his doubt. Until Benjamin’s decision to buy a share in the Mary Celeste, she had not fully realised how deeply he had been affected by his father’s near-bankruptcy after the business venture in Wareham, Massachusetts, had failed.

  ‘You know how I feel about it,’ she said. ‘It was a wise and sensible thing to do. We decided that.’

  ‘Even though it’s taken so much of our money that we have to think before taking private horse carriages to visit friends here in New York?’

  She sighed. Because of the horse disease, the horse-cars were not running on the east side of the city and they had been able to make only one excursion into Central Park with Sophia, when Sarah’s clergyman brother William had paid the $10 for the vehicle to come to collect them.

  ‘Stop remembering your father’s failure,’ she said. ‘He put his money into a shore venture. You’re putting yours into what you know best, the sea.’

  She tiptoed, to raise her face to his, kissing him lightly. ‘And if it hadn’t happened, we probably wouldn’t have married.’

  It was a long-established family joke that they had been childhood sweethearts and certainly for as long as she could remember Benjamin had been part of her life. She could still recall his arrival at the age of five, with his near-penniless mother, to live with her pastor father at the manse at Marion. It had been four years before his father had recovered sufficient money to buy a cottage of their own. And then Sippican had been only a mile from Marion, so they continued to see each other every day. All that time, she thought fondly. And never once a moment of boredom or un-happiness with the man. She considered herself a fortunate woman.

  He kissed her back.

  ‘And that would have been the tragedy of my life,’ he said seriously.

  ‘So let’s count our blessings, not doubt them.’

  ‘That’s what I was doing,’ said Briggs.

  ‘After this voyage,’ she said, business-like, nodding towards the quayside from which the cargo was being swung into the holds, ‘we will have gone a long way towards recovering our investment and repaying our loans. We know there’s a return cargo in Messina. Within the year, we could be showing a profit. Don’t fret so.’

  Briggs smiled at her encouragement. Sometimes, in his prayers, he thanked God for guiding him to a woman like Sarah. Slight, even giving the misleading impression of being frail, the skin of her face glowing as it always did after her morning toilet and the regulation one hundred splashes of ice-cold water against her cheeks, shown now to its best and healthy advantage by the severe way she had of dressing her hair, parted in the middle and combed straight back from her forehead and gathered into a tight knot beneath the bonnet. A beautiful woman, he decided. And more. No man could have sought a better mother for Arthur or Sophia. Nor a wiser housekeeper for their affairs. When the opportunity had arisen to buy a third share in the Mary Celeste it had been Sarah who itemised immediately the state of their finances, made the calculations about the loan they would have to raise and then presented him with an account record so that he could assess whether they could afford it.

  Briggs realised that she was as much a companion as a wife, a special friend to whom he could always turn and from whom he would always receive the correct advice.

  He recognised suddenly the reason for the completeness of the pride he had experienced earlier at the top-gallant rail. Perhaps the sensation had not even been pride. Rather, it had been the satisfaction of knowing that the purchase of the vessel had filled the one vacuum in an otherwise perfect life. He had a perfect wife and a perfect family and a perfect career and now he was a man of substance, an owner-captain. Part-owner, he thought again. But hardly a qualification. Definitely not one that Captain Winchester, the principal shareholder, was invoking.

  ‘Your ship’, the man had said during their dinner the previous night. And meant it, Briggs knew. He decided he liked Captain Winchester. A blunt speaker, almost to the point of curtness. But a no-nonsense man, the sort of person with whom Briggs preferred to deal. He had left every encounter with Winchester knowing exactly where he stood, without any half-doubts about anything the man might have intended but held back from conveying in case there were need to alter his opinion at some later stage. And about that he was lucky, he knew, thinking back to involvements with other shipping men.

  A man who noticed details, Briggs attached importance to Winchester’s action when the man had learned that he intended taking Sarah and Sophia on the voyage to Genoa. By noon the following day, a second boat had arrived to supplement the longboat already aboard.

  ‘Hardly necessary on a ship as sound as this,’ Winchester had said. ‘Just regarded it as a sensible precaution.’

  It had shown a consideration far beyond that which Briggs would have expected most owners to show, even though the man must have known from the care he was taking with the selection of the crew that Briggs was fully aware of the added responsibility of being accompanied by all but one of his family.

  As if in reminder, Sophia’s close-curled golden head jerked over the lip of the companion-way she was noisily insisting upon clambering up herself, without the assistance of the cook-steward who followed.

  Sarah went immediately to the child, looking beyond her into the galley area.

  ‘Sorry you were bothered, Mr Head,’ she apologised.

  ‘No bother, ma’am,’ said the man.

  Sarah returned, the baby cupped in the crook of her arm. The child leaned away from its mother, reaching for the rail from which she could watch the activity on the quayside below.

  ‘Before this voyage is over, there’s a risk of her becoming spoiled by the crew,’ said Sarah. ‘They all seem to love her.’

  ‘Pity Arthur can’t come as well,’ said Briggs.

  ‘At seven, his need is for schooling,’ replied Sarah immediately.

  ‘I’ll still miss him.’

  ‘No more than I. But were you allowed to sacrifice lessons to sail with your father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then neither will Arthur be permitted.’

  ‘He’ll not be permitted much,’ predicted Briggs. During the voyage, their son was to live with his grandmother; Briggs knew the boy would receive the same str
ict discipline he and his brothers had been given.

  To ease the child’s weight, Sarah lifted Sophia up on to the top of the rail, standing with her arms protectively around her.

  Briggs patted a supporting stanchion reflectively.

  ‘Pity there aren’t bulwarks,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Proper bulwarks,’ repeated Briggs. ‘If a sea runs, these open rails can be dangerous for an experienced seaman, let alone a woman and a two-year-old child.’

  ‘If it’s too bad, we can stay in the cabin, as I have before,’ said Sarah. ‘And when we’re at sea, we’ll have Sophia on a safety line whenever she’s on deck.’

  Briggs nodded at the recollection of his wife’s previous trips with him. Ten years before they had spent their honeymoon on a Mediterranean voyage, when he had commanded the schooner Forest King. She had enjoyed it so much that there had been other voyages during his captaincy of the Arthur and the Sea Foam. There was no danger in having a woman like Sarah aboard ship; rather, it was almost like having an extra crew member.

  ‘I must work,’ he said, excusing himself and moving forward to where the chief mate was supervising the loading.

  Briggs felt the greatest satisfaction at the crew he had assembled, at signing Albert Richardson as first mate. They had sailed together before and Richardson was as complete a seaman as any Briggs had ever encountered: indeed, he had been surprised that Richardson had taken the voyage, qualified as he now was to be master of his own vessel. Briggs regarded it as a compliment, aware without conceit that Richardson thought of him as a good master and seaman and saw the trip as a qualification voyage, the last he would undergo before applying for his own command. And that was in little doubt, newly married as he was to Captain Winchester’s niece, Frances Spates.

  Nearer the cargo, Briggs could detect the odour of the commercial alcohol and brought his hand to his face in an instinctive gesture of revulsion.