The Mary Celeste

by Brian Freemantle

  Winchester considered the question. There was a broker whom he had known in Cadiz. But the man had died the previous year.

  ‘Not that I can …’ he began, then stopped. The day he had left New York for Gibraltar, the Daisy Boynton had lifted anchor with a cargo also for Cadiz. Captain Henry Appleby had been a schoolfriend of his daughter; they had even discussed a possible social meeting during their chance encounter at the shipping commission office.

  ‘Maybe,’ he corrected.

  ‘I think you should consider arranging it,’ said Cornwell. ‘I think we should take every care to avoid antagonising the court further.’

  ‘The judge is not convinced that sending Deveau to Genoa was a genuine misunderstanding,’ warned the American Consul. He had not anticipated that the affair would become as difficult as it had. Or as protracted. Washington’s interest surprised him.

  ‘The damned man is convinced of only one thing, like the Attorney-General,’ said Winchester. ‘I tell you, Mr Sprague, I’m worried. Very worried indeed.’

  As always in their after-court discussions, the New York shipowner roamed the room, too indignant to sit.

  ‘Did you know that Flood and Cochrane have nightly conferences, after the hearing!’ said Cornwell.

  ‘At which the discussions are a good deal less innocent than the conversations we have here, I’ll be bound,’ said Morehouse.

  Winchester stopped parading, looking intently at Sprague.

  ‘Why don’t you complain officially through Washington that American citizens are being harassed here?’ he suggested. ‘Get them to take it up with London.’

  ‘Captain Winchester,’ said Pisani warningly, ‘can you imagine how that would appear, while a court was still in session considering a claim for salvage? There’s enough suspicion being cast about as it is, without our contributing to it by raising with your government something that could be construed as our having something to hide.’

  ‘I’m damned if I’ll sit here and do nothing,’ said Winchester. ‘This is more like an inquisition of the Middle Ages.’

  Pisani appeared embarrassed, looking up at the bespectacled ship-owner:

  ‘As I left the court tonight the Attorney-General’s clerk advised me that, in Deveau’s absence, Flood intended to recall you tomorrow morning.’

  ‘They’re out to get me, any way they can,’ accepted Winchester softly.

  The importance of recognising crew behaviour had been one of the earliest lessons he had received from his father and Briggs accepted realistically that with any other crew, upon a voyage such as they had endured since leaving New York, trouble would have erupted far sooner. And probably far more violently. But when it came, it still surprised him and initially his annoyance was not so much by what Boz Lorensen and Gottlieb Goodschall had done but at his unpreparedness for it. No matter how good a crew they had proved to be, he should still have been aware of the constant strain imposed by the squalls and gales, which meant that they had only been able to rest for the minimum of time and then perhaps had not slept away the fatigue from the unremitting work throughout their periods of watch. And now the gales were lessening, albeit very slightly, the weather had become thundery, covering everything with a sultry, oppressive heat. He should have been aware of the explosive potential, just as he should have known that the incident of the sinking ship, reminding them all how vulnerable they were even in a vessel as sound as the Mary Celeste, would provide the fuse.

  He had been taking his last turn on deck, standing very near Volkert Lorensen at the conn, when the argument had broken out in the fo’c’sle, so he had been able to hear it. The first mate had heard it, too, even though his quarters were farther away, and Richardson reached the dispute first.

  By the time Briggs had entered the crews’ quarters, the younger Lorensen and Goodschall had been pulled apart and Richardson had positioned himself between them. The two seamen stood panting, glowering at each other. A bruise was already forming beneath Goodschall’s right eye but apart from that there appeared to be no injury to either man. In the scuffle, some of the playing cards that Briggs had banned before the voyage commenced had spilled over on to the floor.

  As soon as he saw the captain enter, Boz Lorensen thrust his hand towards the other German and said, ‘My money. He stole some of my money.’

  ‘I did not,’ said Goodschall, denying the accusation immediately.

  ‘My cabin,’ Briggs stopped them, refusing an impromptu hearing. ‘Nine tomorrow.’

  Sarah was already preparing to retire, her long hair streamed over her shoulder as she brushed it, when he returned to the cabin. She listened without interruption as he told her of the fight, hair brush cupped in her lap.

  ‘Appears a small thing,’ she said, when he had finished.

  ‘Not if there’s been cheating or theft,’ contradicted Briggs. ‘I should have anticipated the possibility of trouble.’

  ‘The weather has affected us all,’ said the woman. ‘First the gales, now this heat. It’s dulling us.’

  ‘A captain can’t afford to be dulled,’ he said. He hesitated, then decided against telling her that no doubt carelessness had caused the tragedy upon which they had come the previous day.

  ‘To magnify it too much would be as great an error, don’t you think?’ she asked sensibly.

  ‘You’re right,’ he agreed. He wouldn’t be caught unawares again, he determined.

  The contrition of both men was obvious immediately they entered his cabin the following morning. The bruise had worsened on Goodschall’s face, blackening his cheek and half-closing his eye. Both stood with caps held before them, staring down.

  The circumstances of the dispute, outlined by the first mate, were as simple as the argument itself. The playing cards had been brought aboard by Lorensen, who insisted that he had had no intention of disobeying the captain’s orders against engaging in games of chance. Goodschall admitted complaining of boredom after such an arduous crossing, and at first they had only engaged in tricks, starting a game only when the amusement had begun to wane.

  Goodschall had been the loser and when Lorensen had returned from a visit to the heads he had discovered some money missing.

  ‘Did you take it, to make up for what you had lost?’ demanded Briggs. On a ship as small as his, with the men having to occupy confined quarters, stealing was a serious crime.

  Before Goodschall could reply, Lorensen blurted out, ‘I found it.’

  ‘Found it?’ said Briggs.

  ‘I’d put some in my pocket. I forgot about it.’

  Briggs sighed. Now that there was no question of dishonesty, the matter assumed far less importance. But there was still the disobedience of a captain’s order to be considered.

  ‘I expressly forbade wagering for precisely the reason that you two are standing before me now,’ he said. ‘The ship is too small and, as it’s transpired, the voyage too difficult for bad feeling to be allowed over a gambling dispute. Wasn’t that made clear enough?’

  ‘We didn’t set out to play,’ repeated Lorensen. ‘It just … sort of developed.’

  This man was guiltier than Goodschall, decided Briggs. He remembered Richardson’s remark about Lorensen’s keenness to acquire money. He would resent paying the fine that Briggs intended to levy. He wondered if the resentment would linger in the fo’c’sle. The Lorensen brothers and Arien Martens all came from the same small island, he remembered. It was easy to imagine the ostracism that could arise in the crews’ quarters.

  ‘It won’t occur again,’ promised Goodschall.

  ‘Of that I’ll make quite sure,’ said Briggs. ‘I’m confiscating the cards.’

  Such action might be regarded as petty, he knew. But Briggs decided it would be better for any bad feelings to be transferred to him than confined to the crew area.

  He looked at the younger Lorensen. ‘I consider you more culpable,’ he said, ‘because you knowingly ignored an order and brought the cards on board. I’ll therefore fine y
ou five dollars.’

  He turned to Goodschall:

  ‘And you knowingly entered into the game, well aware it was forbidden. Your penalty will be three dollars.’

  For men earning thirty dollars a month, it was severe enough for them to appreciate that he regarded what they had done as serious but not excessive enough to be considered unjust. He would log it, he decided, but not list it in their seamen’s books or in any report at the end of the voyage.

  Richardson remained after the two men had been dismissed.

  ‘Weather is improving again,’ he said. He made a movement to clear his sweat-wet shirt from his back. ‘Good rainstorm might flatten the sea even more. And get rid of this confounded heat.’

  ‘I’d like to be able to ventilate today,’ said Briggs.

  ‘So would I,’ said Richardson. ‘The smell has become so bad that the men are complaining in the fo’c’sle. The cook says it’s even giving his food a taint.’

  ‘Seepage must be quite heavy.’

  ‘And this heat will make things worse.’

  ‘Perhaps we should risk shipping some water down there anyway. The pumps are more than adequate.’

  Richardson moved his head doubtfully.

  ‘I wonder if that ship we came upon yesterday had any hatches off,’ he said. ‘Must have been something very odd to take her down as quickly as that.’

  It would be a long time before any of them forgot that tragedy, Briggs knew.

  ‘It’s a question of balancing the risk,’ said Briggs. ‘We’ve sailed too long battened down.’

  ‘There’s still a high sea running. We’re shipping water almost all the time.’

  ‘I think it might be dangerous to wait longer,’ said Briggs.

  When he emerged on deck, Briggs saw that Sarah considered the child sufficiently recovered to be allowed the run of her safety line. His wife had attached her own line immediately after Sophia’s and was guiding the child along the tilted deck with an arm around her shoulders. Sophia was laughing aloud, amused at a new game. Even the occasional spray did not seem to distress her.

  Martens was at the helm, smiling that at last mother and daughter were getting some use from the harnesses he had made.

  ‘Is that line strong enough to support them both?’ asked Briggs. The ropes looked very thin, he thought.

  ‘More than sufficient,’ the German assured him. ‘I had someone spell me at the wheel when they came out and attached them myself.’

  Farther along the deck, Briggs saw that Boz Lorensen and Goodschall had been assigned to work together. It showed foresight on Richardson’s part; it was difficult for shipmates to nurture grievances if they shipped side by side. The men were coiling the peak halyard and as he watched Goodschall said something to the other German and Lorensen grinned as he made his reply.

  Briggs turned out to port. Somewhere hidden behind those lowering, thunderous clouds was the Azores archipelago. Even if they maintained the two to three knots they were running now, it would take until the next day before they were near enough to take a sighting from the most easterly island. He hoped it would not be too early in the morning; Sophia would be excited at her first landfall after almost three weeks.

  Richardson emerged from the deckhouse and Briggs beckoned him, nodding towards the two Germans whom he had so recently censured.

  ‘That was a wise course, Mr Richardson.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the mate.

  ‘Looks black,’ said Briggs, indicating the direction of the unseen islands.

  ‘Just checked the barometer,’ said Richardson.

  ‘What’s the reading?’

  Before the man could reply, a wave larger than the others that morning slid encroachingly over the deck, sweeping the baby’s feet from beneath her. She would have fallen had not Sarah been immediately behind to scoop her up. Goodschall moved immediately from the halyard coiling, supporting mother and baby back along the line to where they were nearest to the deck-house and then walking with them to the companion-way. The child was crying, holding her legs bunched beneath her chin to avoid being soaked again.

  ‘It’s dropping,’ said Richardson miserably.

  ‘So we’re in for more storms?’

  ‘Within an hour or so,’ said the first mate. ‘Isn’t there ever going to be a respite?’

  Briggs did not reply immediately. He had already been caught unawares with the crew and it had irritated him, even though the incident was a trivial one. And not twenty-four hours earlier had seen the far from trivial effect of a captain exercising insufficient care.

  At the last reading, he was at latitude 36.56 N. by longitude 27.20 W., which put almost all the Azores group astern. San Miguel was about 100 miles away, Santa Maria a little farther.

  ‘There’ll be protection in the lee of the islands,’ he said, turning to include the helmsman in the remark. Briggs paused, making the decision. Then he said, ‘We’ll set course for Santa Maria. I want calm within the next twenty-four hours, so that we can ventilate.’

  ‘Aye,’ accepted Richardson, walking with Briggs towards the cabin where the captain would chart the course alteration.

  It was a decision of sensible seamanship, thought Briggs, as he hunched over the mid-Atlantic charts. Just as taking the protection of Staten Island, at the very commencement of the voyage, had been good seamanship. It was a simple plot, taking only minutes to complete. There would be an added advantage, he decided, as Richardson went back to the conn. Now they would be close enough to the island for Sophia to get a clear view.

  He returned to the charts, making another calculation. The impending weather would keep them back to seven or eight knots. It would still be some time before they made landfall.

  He looked in the direction of the adjoining cabin, from which emerged the sounds of Sarah quietening the distressed child.

  If they made Santa Maria’s protection by breakfast, they could be ventilated by noon. He pulled from his pocket the silver watch with which Sophia was so fond of playing.

  Less than twenty-four hours before the guarantee of absolute safety. He frowned at the thought, finding it theatrical. There had not been the slightest indication that the cargo was entering a dangerous state. Just as it was sensible not to become careless or complacent, so it was important not to imagine problems before they arose. Hadn’t he told Sarah that morning that he couldn’t allow his judgment to become affected by external influences?

  Sarah and Sophia entered from the next cabin, the baby quite recovered.

  Briggs picked her up, holding her at arm’s-length as he normally did.

  ‘A surprise for you,’ he declared, to the child.

  ‘What?’ asked Sarah, over the baby’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ve changed course, to get some protection from the islands. She’ll be able to see land some time tomorrow.’

  ‘Is it necessary?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Yes,’ said Briggs. ‘Very necessary.’

  Looking at Captain Winchester as he rose to begin his re-examination, the Attorney-General was again reminded of his bullfighting analogy. Just as he had earlier felt the euphoria of knowing he was sure to win, so there was about the New York owner that ambience of defeat that rises from the bull as the matador positions himself for the kill, an attitude of defiance that fails to conceal the beast’s awareness that it is confronting a superior opponent.

  Flood decided the changed circumstances demanded a different approach from that upon which he had originally determined for this third session.

  ‘Your advice was sought before Oliver Deveau was despatched to Genoa, while Captain Morehouse remained here?’ he said.

  ‘It is the custom at sea for the superior officer to be held responsible for any action or statement of those whom he commands,’ said Winchester. He had removed his pince-nez and stood leaning slightly forward in the witness box, as if he had difficulty in focusing upon his interrogator.

  Very much like the corrida, thought Flood.
Bulls were shortsighted.

  ‘Just as it is the custom in a court of law for those responsible for malfeasance to be held guilty of their actions,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘But I’m sure the court is grateful for your definition.’

  ‘I was unaware,’ fought back Winchester, ‘that this was a court considering a crime. I believed it to be civil proceedings, adjudging a civil claim.’

  Often, at the very point of death, the bull put up the most spirited defence, reflected Flood.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ he agreed. ‘But a legally constituted tribunal would be failing in its function if it failed to respond to the evidence before it.’

  ‘Just as this hearing would be failing in its function if it failed to respond to the evidence before it,’ concurred Winchester. ‘Having sat in this room for so many days, I still wonder what evidence has been established.’

  ‘A responsibility of decision resting upon neither of us,’ said Flood. ‘But on Mr Justice Cochrane.’ And that of the Gibraltar constabulary, he thought. It would be interesting to know what an unbiased observer such as the chief of police would conclude from the statements, affidavits and evidence now before him. Flood had no doubt of the decision.

  ‘Let us move on from the polemics of the judiciary and concentrate upon the statements made since you first stood where you stand today,’ he continued. ‘If my notation is correct, you asserted during your initial evidence that some manifestation of the weather caused the abandonment of the Mary Celeste by Captain Briggs and his crew.’

  ‘Captain Briggs bore a high character, that of a courageous officer and good seaman who would not, I think, desert his ship except to save his life,’ said Winchester. ‘I also knew the mate, Richardson. I had done so for two years. He was an experienced and courageous officer in whom I had great confidence. I believe he had presence of mind. His three previous captains spoke of him as fit to command any ship and I believe he would not leave his ship except for a matter of life or death. From what I have seen of the state and conditions of the vessel, I cannot believe that she was abandoned by her master, officers and crew by stress of weather only. I had plenty of time to examine her thoroughly and feel very certain that she was not abandoned through perils of the sea.’