I got the primus going and put the kettle on whilst he wandered over to the desk, opening and shutting drawers, stuffing papers into a yellow oilskin bag. He hesitated, looking at the photograph, and then he took that, too. The tea was made by the time he had finished and I opened a tin of bully. We breakfasted in silence, and all the time I was wondering what we were going to do, how we were going to construct a boat. ‘It’s no good waiting to be taken off,’ I said at length. ‘They’ll never find the Mary Deare here.’
He stared at me as though surprised that anybody should speak to him in the dead stillness of the ship. ‘No, it’ll be some time before they find her.’ He nodded his head slowly, still lost in his own thoughts.
‘We’ll have to build some sort of a boat.’
‘A boat?’ He seemed surprised. ‘Oh, we’ve got a boat.’
‘Where?’
‘In the next cabin. An inflatable rubber dinghy.’
‘A rubber dinghy—in Dellimare’s cabin?’
He nodded. ‘That’s right. Odd, isn’t it? He had it there—just in case.’ He was laughing quietly to himself. ‘And now we’re going to use it.’
The man was dead and I saw nothing funny about his not being here to use his dinghy. ‘You find that amusing?’ I asked angrily.
He didn’t answer, but went to the desk and got some keys, and then he went out and I heard him unlock the door of the next cabin. There was a scrape of heavy baggage being moved and I went to give him a hand. The door was opened and, inside, the cabin looked as though a madman had looted it—drawers pulled out, suitcases forced open, their hasps ripped off, their contents strewn over the floor; clothes and papers strewn everywhere. Only the bed remained aloof from the chaos, still neatly made-up, unslept-in, the pillow stained with the man’s hair oil.
He had the keys. He must have searched the cabin himself. ‘What were you looking for?’ I asked.
He stared at me for a moment without saying anything. Then he shifted the big cabin trunk out of the way, toppling it on to its side with a crash. It lay there, a slab of coloured hotel labels—Tokyo, Yokohama, Singapore, Rangoon. ‘Catch hold of this!’ He had hold of a big brown canvas bundle and we hauled it out into the corridor and through the door to the open deck. He went back then and I heard him lock the door of Dellimare’s cabin. When he returned he brought a knife with him. We cut the canvas straps, got the yellow dinghy out of its wrappings and inflated it.
The thing was about twelve feet long and five feet broad; it had paddles and a rudder and a tubular telescopic mast with nylon rigging and a small nylon sail. It even had fishing tackle. ‘Was he a nervous sort of man?’ I asked. For a shipowner to pack a collapsible dinghy on board one of his own ships seemed odd behaviour—almost as though he suffered from the premonition that the sea would get him.
But all Patch said was, ‘It’s time we got moving.’
I stared at him, startled at the thought of leaving the comparative security of the ship for the frailty of the rubber dinghy. ‘The seas will be pretty big once we get clear of the reefs. Hadn’t we better wait for the wind to drop a bit more?’
‘We need the wind.’ He sniffed it, feeling for its direction with his face. ‘It’s veered a point or two already. With luck it will go round into the north-west.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s four hours of tide with us.’
I tried to tell him it would be better to wait for the next tide and get the whole six hours of it, but he wouldn’t listen. ‘It would be almost dark then. And suppose the wind changed? You can’t beat to windward in this sort of craft. And,’ he added, ‘there may be another depression following on behind this one. You don’t want to be caught out here in another gale. I don’t know what would happen at high water. The whole bridge deck might get carried away.’
He was right, of course, and we hurriedly collected the things we needed—food, charts, a hand-bearing compass, all the clothes we could clamber into. We had sou’westers and sea boots, but no oilskins. We took the two raincoats from the cabin door.
It was nine forty-five when we launched the dinghy from the for’ard well-deck. We paddled her clear of the ship and then hoisted sail. The sun had disappeared by then and everything was grey in a mist of driving rain, the rocks appearing farther away, vague battlement shapes on the edge of visibility; many of them were already covered. We headed for Les Sauvages and in a little while the flashing buoy that marked the rocks emerged out of the murk. By then the Mary Deare was no more than a vague blur, low down in the water. We lost her completely as we passed Les Sauvages.
There was still a big sea running and, once we cleared the shelter of the Minkies, we encountered the towering swell left by the gale. It marched up behind us in wall upon wall of steep-fronted, toppling water, and in the wet, swooping chill of that grey day I lost all sense of time.
For just over four hours we were tumbled about in the aftermath of the storm, soaked to the skin, crammed into the narrow space between the fat, yellow rolls of the dinghy’s sides, with only an occasional glimpse of Cap Frehel to guide us. And then, shortly after midday, we were picked up by the cross-Channel packet coming in from Peter Port. They were on the look-out for survivors, otherwise they would never have sighted us, for they were passing a good half mile to the west of us. And then the packet suddenly altered course, coming down on us fast, the bows almost hidden by spray flung up by the waves. She hove-to a little up-wind of us, rolling heavily, and as she drifted down on to us rope ladders were thrown over the side and men came down to help us up, quiet, English voices offering words of encouragement, hands reaching down to pull us up.
People crowded us on the deck—passengers and crew, asking questions, pressing cigarettes and chocolate on us. Then, an officer took us to his quarters and the packet got into her stride again, engines throbbing gently, effortlessly. As we went below I caught a glimpse of the dinghy, a patch of yellow in the white of the ship’s wake as it rode up the steep face of a wave.
4
A HOT SHOWER, dry clothes and then we were taken into the officers’ saloon and a steward was bustling about, pouring tea, bringing us plates of bacon and eggs. The normality of it—the incredible normality of it! It was like waking from a nightmare. The Mary Deare and the gale and the tooth-edged rocks of the Minkies seemed part of another life, utterly divorced from the present. And then the captain came in. ‘So you’re the survivors from the Mary Deare.’ He stood, looking from one to the other of us. ‘Is either of you the owner of the yacht Sea Witch?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m John Sands.’
‘Good. I’m Captain Fraser. I’ll have a radio message sent to Peter Port right away. A Colonel Lowden brought her in. He was very worried about you. He and Duncan were on board yesterday, listening to the radio reports of the search. They had planes out looking for you.’ He turned to Patch. ‘I take it you’re one of the Mary Deare’s officers?’ His voice was harder, the Scots accent more pronounced.
Patch had risen. ‘Yes. I’m the master of the Mary Deare. Captain Patch.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m most grateful to you for picking us up.’
‘Better thank my first officer. It was he who spotted you.’ He was staring at Patch, small blue eyes looking out of a craggy face. ‘You say your name is Patch?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re the master of the Mary Deare?’
‘Yes.’
The iron-grey brows lifted slightly and then settled in a frown. ‘I understood that a Captain Taggart was master of the Mary Deare.’
‘Yes, he was. But he died.’
‘When was that?’ There was a sharpness in the way the question was put.
‘Just after we cleared Port Said—early this month.’
‘I see.’ Fraser stared at him stonily. And then, consciously relaxing: ‘Well, don’t let me interrupt your meal. You must be hungry. Sit down. Sit down, both of you.’ He glanced at his watch and then called to the steward to bring another cup. ‘I�
��ve just time before we go into St Malo.’ He sat down, leaning his elbows on the table, his blue eyes staring at us, full of curiosity. ‘Well now, what happened, Captain Patch? The air has been thick with messages about the Mary Deare for the last twenty-four hours.’ He hesitated, waiting. ‘You’ll be glad to know that a boatload of survivors was washed up on Ile de Brehat yesterday afternoon.’ Patch still said nothing. ‘Oh, come; you can’t expect me not to be curious.’ His tone was friendly. ‘The survivors report that there was a fire and you ordered the crew to abandon ship. That was Thursday night and yet Lowden told me—’
‘I ordered them to abandon ship?’ Patch was staring at him. ‘Is that what they say?’
‘According to a French report, yes. They abandoned ship shortly after 22.30 hours. Yet at 09.30 the following morning Lowden saw the Mary Deare . . .’ He hesitated, silenced by Patch’s hard, uncompromising stare. ‘Damn it, man!’ he said in sudden exasperation. ‘What happened? Is the Mary Deare afloat or sunk or what?’
Patch didn’t say anything for a moment. He seemed to be thinking it out. Finally he said, ‘A full statement will be made to the proper authorities. Until then—’ He was still staring at Fraser. ‘Until then you’ll excuse me if I don’t talk about it.’
Fraser hesitated, unwilling to let it go at that. Then he glanced at his watch again, drank up his tea and rose to his feet. ‘Very proper of you, Captain,’ he said, his voice formal, a little huffed. ‘Now I must go. We’re just coming into St Malo. Meantime, please accept the hospitality of my ship. Anything you want, ask the steward.’ As he went out, he paused in the doorway. ‘I think I should tell you, Captain, that we have a young lady on board—a Miss Taggart. She’s Captain Taggart’s daughter. She flew out to Peter Port yesterday, and when she heard survivors had come ashore on the coast of France, she came on with us.’ He paused, and then came back a few steps into the saloon. ‘She doesn’t know her father is dead. She’s hoping he’s amongst the survivors.’ Again a slight hesitation. ‘I presume you notified the owners?’
‘Of course.’
‘I see. Well, it’s a pity they didn’t see fit to inform his next-of-kin.’ He said it angrily. ‘I’ll have my steward bring her to you.’ And then in a softer tone: ‘Break it to her gently, man. She’s a nice wee thing and she obviously adored her father.’ He left then and a silence descended on the room. Patch was eating with the concentration of a man shovelling energy back into his body. There was nothing relaxed about him.
‘Well, what did he die of?’ I asked him.
‘Who?’ He looked at me with a quick frown.
‘Taggart.’
‘Oh, Taggart. He died of drink.’ He resumed his eating, as though dismissing the matter from his mind.
‘Good God!’ I said. ‘You can’t tell her that.’
‘No, of course not,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’ll just tell her he died of heart failure. That was probably the medical cause anyway.’
‘She’ll want to know details.’
‘Well, she can’t have them.’ I thought he was being callous and got up and went over to the porthole. The engines had been slowed. We were coming into the Rade and I could see the tourist hotels of Dinard climbing the hill from the quay, deserted and forlorn in the rain. ‘He was running around the ship, screaming like a soul in torment.’ He pushed his plate away from him. ‘I had to lock him in his cabin, and in the morning he was dead.’ He pulled out the packet of cigarettes he had been given and opened it with trembling fingers, tearing at it viciously. His face was deathly pale in the flare of the match.
‘D.T.s?’ I said.
‘No, not D.T.s. I only discovered afterwards . . .’ He dragged on his cigarette, pushing his hand up through his hair. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now.’ He pulled himself to his feet. ‘We’re nearly in, aren’t we?’
The ship was moving very slowly now. Lock gates glided past. Boots rang on the deck overhead and there was the clatter of a donkey engine. ‘I think we’re going into the basin now,’ told him.
‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘You’re through with the Mary Deare now.’ He had started pacing restlessly up and down. ‘God! I almost wish I’d gone down with the ship.’
I stared at him. ‘It’s true then . . . You did order the crew to take to the boats. That story about your being knocked out—’
He turned on me, his face livid. ‘Of course, I didn’t order them to take to the boats. But if they stick to that story . . .’ He flung away towards the other porthole, staring out at the grey daylight.
‘But why should they?’ I demanded. ‘If it isn’t true—’
‘What’s truth got to do with it?’ He stared at me angrily. ‘The bastards panicked and now they’re saying I ordered them to abandon ship because they’ve got to cover themselves somehow. A bunch of damned cowards—they’ll cling together. You’ll see. When it comes to the Formal Enquiry . . .’ He gave a little shrug of his shoulders. ‘I’ve been through all this before.’ He said it slowly, half to himself, his head turned away, staring out through the porthole again at the waste ground with the rusty railway wagons. He muttered something about it being a strange co-incidence, and then a door slammed and there was the sound of voices, a medley of French and English. He swung round, staring at the door and said, ‘You will, of course, confine yourself to a statement of the reasons for your presence on board the Mary Deare.’ He spoke quickly, nervously. ‘You are in the position of a passenger and any comments—’ ‘The door opened and he half turned, facing it.
It was Captain Fraser, and with him were two French officials. Smiles, bows, a torrent of French, and then the shorter of the two said in English: ‘I regret, Monsieur le Capitaine, I have bad news for you. Since half an hour I have heard on the radio that some bodies have been washed ashore on Les Heaux. Also some wreckage.’
‘From the Mary Deare?’ Patch asked.
‘Mais oui.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘The lighthouse men on Les Heaux have not identified them, but there is no other ship in distress.’
‘Les Heaux is an island just north of the Ile de Brehat—about forty miles west of here,’ Fraser said.
‘I know that.’ Patch moved a step towards the official. ‘The survivors,’ he said. ‘Was there a man called Higgins amongst them?’
The officer shrugged. ‘I do not know. No official list of survivors is yet completed.’ He hesitated. ‘Monsieur le Capitaine, if you will come to the Bureau with me it will assist me greatly. Also it will be more simple. The formalities, you understand . . .’ He said it apologetically, but it was clear he had made up his mind.
‘Of course,’ Patch said, but I could see he didn’t like it. His eyes glanced quickly from one to the other of them, and then he went across the room and passed through the lane they opened out for him to the door.
The official turned to follow him, but then stopped and looked back at me. ‘Monsieur Sands?’ he enquired.
I nodded.
‘I understand your boat is waiting for you in Saint Peter Port. If you will give my friend here the necessary particulars and your address in England, I do not think we need detain you at all.’ He gave me a quick, friendly smile. ‘Bon voyage, mon ami.’
‘Au revoir, monsieur,’ I said. ‘Et merci, mille fois.’
His assistant took the particulars, asked a few questions and then he, too, departed. I was alone, and I sat there in a sort of coma, conscious of the bustle and hubbub of passengers descending to the quay, yet not sure that it was real. I must have dozed off for the next thing I knew the steward was shaking me. ‘Sorry to wake you, sir, but I’ve brought Miss Taggart. Captain’s orders, sir.’
She was standing just inside the door; a small, neat girl, her hair catching the light from the porthole just the way it had done in that photograph. ‘You’re Mr Sands, aren’t you?’
I nodded and got to my feet. ‘You want Captain Patch.’ I started to explain that he had gone ashore, but she interrupted. ‘What happened to my father, please?
’
I didn’t know what to say. She should have been asking Patch, not me. ‘Captain Patch will be back soon,’ I said.
‘Was my father on the Mary Deare when you boarded her?’ She stood there, very straight and boyish, and quite determined.
‘No,’ I said.
She took that in slowly, her eyes fixed steadfastly on mine. They were grey eyes, flecked with green; wide and startled-looking. ‘And this Captain Patch was in command?’ I nodded. She stared at me for a long time, her lip trembling slightly. ‘My father would never have abandoned his ship.’ She said it softly and I knew she had guessed the truth, was bracing herself for it. And then: ‘He’s dead—is that it?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
She took it, dry-eyed, standing there, stiff and small in front of me. ‘And the cause of death?’ She tried to keep it formal, impersonal, but as I hesitated, she made a sudden, small feminine movement, coming towards me: ‘Please, I must know what happened. How did he die? Was he ill?’
‘I think it was a heart attack,’ I said. And then I added, ‘You must understand, Miss Taggart, I wasn’t there. I am only passing on what Captain Patch told me.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Early this month.’
‘And this Captain Patch?’
‘He was the first mate.’
She frowned. ‘My father didn’t mention him. He wrote me from Singapore and Rangoon and the only officers he mentioned were Rice and Adams and a man named Higgins.’
‘Patch joined at Aden.’
‘Aden?’ She shook her head, huddling her coat close to her as though she were cold. ‘My father always wrote me from every port he stopped at—every port in the world.’ And then she added, ‘But I got no letter from Aden.’ Tears started to her eyes and she turned away, fumbling for a chair. I didn’t move and after a moment she said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s just the shock.’ She looked up at me, not bothering to wipe away the tears. ‘Daddy was away so much. It shouldn’t hurt like this. I haven’t seen him for five years.’ And then in a rush: ‘But he was such a wonderful person. I know that now. You see, my mother died . . .’ She hesitated and then said, ‘He was always coming back to England to see me. But he never did. And this time he’d promised. That’s what makes it so hard. He was coming back. And now—’ She caught her breath and I saw her bite her lip to stop it trembling.
The Wreck of the Mary Deare Page 8