Briggs determined he would give Richardson the best report possible before the man signed off in New York on their return. There had been nothing about which he had had to correct or instruct the first mate since the commencement of the voyage.
‘Goodschall was right.’
Briggs and Richardson turned away from the cover of the fo’c’sle, looking out to sea, as Gilling spoke. The squall was still high but the side waves had subsided.
‘Should get even better, when we get into the lee of the Azores,’ said Richardson.
‘Still some way away,’ warned Briggs.
‘At least the worst is behind us,’ said Gilling.
Because the wind was still high, they were too far away to hear the cry, but Sarah detected it, screaming out for her husband.
Briggs turned as the woman cried out again: ‘Sophia. Something’s happened to Sophia.’
She was hauling herself along on the safety line, slithering against the deck. Surer-footed, Briggs ran along the deck, so that he was beside his wife when they got to the companion-way. From the cabin came the sound of Sophia’s screams.
Briggs went in first, stopping just inside the door. The child’s nightdress was smeared with blood and there was more upon her cheek, pale from her constant sickness and therefore showing an almost unreal brightness.
‘Dear God,’ said Sarah, from behind.
It was only when he got nearer that Briggs saw the souvenir sword he had bought in Naples when he had commanded the schooner Forest King. The blade had been half withdrawn from the scabbard; while taking the sword out the baby had cut deeply into her thumb.
He snatched the weapon up as his wife took the child into her arms, cradling the tear-stained face into her breast.
For once Briggs’s control went.
‘Confounded thing!’ he said angrily, hurling it away from them. It struck his bunk and then fell to the deck.
Richardson had followed them to the cabin door and had seen what had happened. Within minutes he was back with a first-aid kit, cupping the child’s hand in his palm and carefully cleaning the wound with diluted spirit.
‘It’s not too bad,’he said. ‘In a child this young, it won’t even scar.’
As quickly as it had erupted, Briggs’s anger began to subside.
‘It was careless of me to leave it lying around in the cabin, where she could get to it,’ he apologised to Sarah. ‘I’m sorry.’
The woman smiled, her concern less now she could see the extent of the injury.
‘It’s nobody’s fault,’ she said.
‘Better put it somewhere where she won’t get it again,’ said Richardson.
Briggs walked across to the weapon, hefting it in his hand. Quickly he opened the cupboard beneath the bunk and tossed it inside.
‘She won’t get it from there,’ he said, testing the lock.
Thumb bound, Sophia nestled against her mother’s chest and began to sleep again.
‘Poor mite,’ said Briggs. ‘It’ll be a long time before she wants to come to sea again.’
‘See how quickly she’s settled,’ said Sarah. ‘She feels so safe.’
The custom had arisen for Martens with his flute to accompany Mrs Briggs upon the melodeon, but because the weather had lessened and the child settled comfortably to sleep after another meal of William Head’s porridge there had been no music that night in the captain’s quarters.
Instead Martens had played a while for those members of the crew not on watch, finally putting the instrument aside and settling down with his pipe.
‘I’m glad the child seems to be improving,’ said Richardson. The crew had invited him to the fo’c’sle.
The German nodded. ‘She reminds me of my own children,’ he said.
‘How long have you been away from Amrun?’ asked the first mate.
‘Maybe nine months,’ said Martens.
‘A long time.’
‘The pay is better than piloting around Hamburg,’ said Martens. ‘But I miss them. I think I’ll sign off in Gibraltar and get passage home.’
Richardson nodded. He expected that most of the Germans would do the same. It would mean selecting a new crew in the British colony and he doubted whether they would be as good as this one. He would have to discuss it with Captain Briggs. With his family aboard, it was natural he should be more than normally concerned at the quality of his crew.
‘You any children?’ asked Martens.
‘Not yet,’ said Richardson. ‘Married less than eight months.’
‘As much a strain being at sea, then,’ said the German, ‘with such a new wife.’
‘Hope to get my own vessel when we get back to America,’ said the first mate. ‘Then she’ll sail with me,’
The Lorensen brothers entered, overhearing the last part of the conversation.
‘I’ll not engage in long trips when I marry,’ said Boz Lorensen.
‘Maybe you’ll come to regard it as a welcome relief,’ joked his brother, who was four years older.
‘Not with Ingrid,’ said Boz confidently.
‘When’s the wedding?’ said Martens.
‘Three months,’ said the other German. ‘If you’re ashore, I’d like you and your wife to come.’
‘I didn’t know you all came from the same town,’ said Richardson.
‘Hardly a town,’ said Martens. ‘It’s a small village called Altersum, on the island of Föhr. I’ve moved to Amrun now, but most of my family remain.’ He turned to Boz: ‘I was just saying that I think I’ll go home after this trip. So I’d like to come; it would be a good homecoming party.’
‘I’m planning to make it so,’ said Boz. ‘By sailing deep-sea I’ve saved nearly $500.’
‘Only by ensuring that I pay all the tobacco and victualling when we’re between ships,’ said Volkert, still joking.
If there were to be discussion with Captain Briggs about the crew, he might as well establish the intention of as many as possible, decided Richardson.
‘You’ll be signing off in Gibraltar then?’ he said, expectantly.
The brothers exchanged looks.
‘Depends how quickly a homeward cargo is found,’ said Volkert, answering for both of them. ‘If there were something immediate, there would still be time to return to New York, then cross to Europe again before Boz’s wedding.’
‘There’s cargo waiting,’ said Richardson.
‘Then we’ll probably stay,’ said the elder brother. Richardson had become aware during the voyage that Volkert made the decisions for both of them.
‘I might even be able to save $600,’ said the younger man.
Richardson smiled, recognising for the first time the man’s feeling for money. It was a welcome parsimony, he thought. It would be far easier replacing only Martens in Gibraltar. And it would mean returning to New York with an excellent crew almost intact. He continued the thought. Captain Winchester had virtually promised him his own ship upon his return. He would set out on his first command a contented man if he could have aboard two men as tried and trusted as these brothers. If money were what they sought, they might welcome a short, well-paid coastal trip before shipping back to Europe.
‘You talk as if you want to become a millionaire,’ Martens said to Boz.
‘I’m determined to be a rich man,’ said the other German. ‘I’ll not let my wife live in poverty.’
‘I wish you luck,’ said Richardson, arrested by the man’s seriousness.
‘Boz believes he can make his own luck,’ said Volkert, smiling to indicate that he didn’t have the same conviction.
The Attorney-General decided he had been wrong in his assessment of the analyst’s mistake. It had been irritating; profoundly so. But that was all. Certainly not disastrous, as he had first feared. By the ability with which he had inflicted doubt upon every testimony so far presented, he had preserved his case from any damage that might have been caused by his not being able to prove positive bloodstaining.
And he
still had his own witnesses, whose evidence supported every contention he had so far advanced.
Flood slouched back in his chair, gazing at the witness stand. With the simple seamen who were now being called to support the evidence of the officers who had preceded them, he did not imagine he would have great difficulty in maintaining the court’s suspicion.
John Wright, the second mate from the Dei Gratia, looked apprehensively across the chamber as Flood rose.
‘You boarded the Mary Celeste with Mr Deveau?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And were therefore, with Mr Deveau, the first person aboard after whatever disaster befell the vessel?’
Wright considered his reply, knowing what had happened to the others and wanting to avoid mistakes. At last, he said, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘And what do you suppose that disaster to be?’
The man’s throat moved visibly and he seemed to make several attempts to speak.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘As the rest have said … bad weather.’
‘Why as the rest have said? Weren’t you able to form your own assessment? Or are we discussing the general story that seems to have been agreed upon before this enquiry began?’
‘But it must have been something to do with the weather, mustn’t it?’
‘Must it? Would you abandon a perfectly seaworthy vessel for a lifeboat in bad weather?’
‘Of course not,’ said the man, as if his common sense were being impugned.
‘Of course not,’ said Flood. ‘So once again we have disposed of this myth that some strange manifestation of climate caused nine sensible, sober adults to take a baby and cast themselves adrift in a small boat. So I will put the question to you again. What do you suppose happened?’
‘Don’t know,’ said the man, aware that he was being manipulated, but unable to prevent it.
‘You don’t know! Are you telling this enquiry that since boarding a floating derelict in a salvage operation from which you hope to gain some substantial award, you have not put your mind to the question of what might have caused the vessel’s abandonment?’
‘Some panic,’ said Wright. ‘The things we found in the cabin meant they must have gone very quickly.’
‘We’ve already disposed, by the use of simple logic, of the theory that it could have been the weather. So what do you suppose could have caused these experienced people to panic?’
‘They were frightened.’
‘Indeed they must have been frightened, but of what, do you imagine?’
‘How can I say … there was no way of knowing …’
‘So every member of the Dei Gratia crew who has so far given evidence has been quick to assure the enquiry,’ said Flood. He held up the sword.
‘Did you see this?’
‘I was with Mr Deveau when he found it, in the captain’s cabin.’
‘Did you see the bloodstains?’
‘I saw the blade was discoloured.’
‘With bloodstains?’ persisted Hood.
‘I thought it was rust.’
‘Because Mr Deveau said so.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Could the discoloration have been blood?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Let us try to become a little more positive, Mr Wright. Could the marks upon the blade have been blood, just as easily as they could have been rust?’
‘Yes.’
Flood decided that the questioning was going far better than he had hoped; surely there could be no doubt of crime after today?
‘What about this?’ he said, taking the piece of rail from the bench. ‘Did you see this?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Any more than Mr Deveau,’ said Flood, in a sarcastic aside. He gestured to the court marshal, to carry it to the witness.
‘What is that mark upon the wood?’
‘It would seem to be some sort of cut.’
‘A deep cut?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you imagine would be necessary to cause such damage?’
‘Something heavy,’ said the man. ‘An axe, perhaps.’
‘Do sensible, experienced sailors go around slashing the rails of their vessels with an axe?’
Again the man frowned, imagining mockery.
‘Of course not.’
‘So how do you think it got there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I said I don’t.’
‘Couldn’t that damage have been caused during that moment of terror which caused the crew to abandon ship?’
‘Perhaps … I don’t know.’
‘What sort of panic and terror wields an axe?’
‘I don’t understand, sir,’ protested the seaman.
‘Has it ever occurred to you, since you came upon this allegedly abandoned vessel, that the Mary Celeste could have been taken over by a hostile crew?’
‘Hostile? You mean pirates?’
‘Just hostile. The Barbary Coast has been cleared of brigands these last fifty years.’
‘But who …’ stumbled the man, and the Attorney-General took advantage of his incoherence:
‘Who indeed! Can you help this enquiry with an answer to that question?’
‘Me, sir!’ said the witness, in surprise.
‘You, sir,’ said Flood.
The man gripped the edge of the stand, his shoulders humped in helplessness.
‘But how?’
‘You were the first over the rail, were you not? A rail upon which you failed to see an axe mark which we have agreed could have come about during a moment of terror.’
‘The ship was deserted when we boarded,’ said the seaman. ‘There was nothing to tell us what had happened. Nothing at all –’
‘So this enquiry has heard before,’ sighed the Attorney-General. ‘With an almost word-perfect repetition. How long deserted?’
‘Many days, it must have been. When Mr Deveau tested the pumps, there was a lot of water. The cabins and galley were awash.’
‘What about boats?’
‘The davits at the stern were empty. I could not tell whether a boat had been launched from them or not. There was no indication, as far as I could see, whether there was accommodation for another boat on deck. I certainly saw no block and tackle to indicate that one had been launched from the deck.’
The Attorney-General began to prepare his final question, then paused, looking to the lawyers’ benches. They had been strangely quiet today; perhaps confronted by the blatant inconsistencies in their clients’ evidence they had at last accepted the futility of objections. He decided to rephrase the point he was about to make to the witness, anxious not to blur what he regarded as an excellent cross-examination by any belated, irritating interruption.
‘You sailed from New York in the Dei Gratia on November 15?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And encountered the Mary Celeste on December 5?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And arrived here in Gibraltar on December 12?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me, during those twenty-seven days did you at any time witness, or were you at any time involved in, any violent activity?’
Pisani at last stirred, about to rise, but before he could do so the seaman’s anger broke.
‘No!’ he shouted across the enquiry chamber. ‘I did nothing to harm anyone aboard the Mary Celeste.’
‘You weren’t asked if you had,’ said Flood contentedly. ‘But thank you for so openly expressing a thought which I am sure has occurred to many during the evidence we have heard so far.’
He sat quickly, still in advance of Pisani’s intervention, leaving the crew’s lawyer half out of his chair. Sir James Cochrane looked curiously towards him, but Pisani shook his head, lowering himself into his seat again.
Flood leaned forward over his bench, apparently concentrating upon his note-taking, as Charles Lund, a seaman who had been one of Deveau’
s salvage crew from the Azores to Gibraltar, was sworn in and began responding to Pisani’s questions during his evidence-in-chief.
As a trained, practising lawyer, the Attorney-General had to recognise the evidence as circumstantial. But circumstantial or not, it was overwhelmingly that of crime. Either of mutiny and murder, with the connivance of the Dei Gratia crew with whom a high seas rendezvous had been arranged before the New York sailing, for the culprits to be aided by a safe landing somewhere along the coast of Spain. Or straight piracy by Captain Morehouse and his men.
There was something further he had to recognise. As well as being Attorney-General of the colony, he was also Admiralty Proctor, with responsibility to the Board of Trade in London.
And he would be grossly failing in that responsibility if, even in advance of any finding that Cochrane might return, he did not officially communicate his beliefs to London, for the authorities there to take whatever action they considered necessary. Mediterranean embassies and consulates in the area should be alerted for any sighting of the Mary Celeste crew, for instance. And Washington informed of the official view of affairs with far more force than he suspected Consul Sprague was attempting. With his constant pandering to the ship-owner and the Dei Gratia captain, Sprague showed himself too frightened of an adverse report about his personal conduct properly to carry out his duties.
It had been an onerous task, for which he had decided to give the man a bonus, but Flood had insisted upon his clerk’s taking a verbatim transcript of the evidence. He decided that he would enclose copies of that transcript with his account to London, to enable the Board of Trade lawyers to consider the facts as fully as he had and arrive at their own verdict. The advantage of such a procedure would be to obtain the agreement of other legally trained minds.
The Attorney-General suddenly became aware that the court had turned to him and realised that he was being offered the chance to question Lund. Aware that he had not been concentrating upon the man’s evidence, Flood’s clerk pushed across a sheet of hastily written but nevertheless readable notes. For the first time, Flood saw, the crew lawyer had phrased his questions in anticipation of attack, trying to minimise any damaging cross-examination by obtaining denials of accusations before any had been made. The Attorney-General smiled, looking directly at Pisani. So they were becoming worried. And quite rightly so.
The Mary Celeste Page 11