Patch came slowly back from the street door. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Higgins?’ he demanded. His voice was quiet, but it trembled slightly and his hands were clenched.
‘Wot a man’s done once, he’ll do again,’ Higgins said, and there was a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
I thought Patch was going to hit him. So did Higgins, for he stepped back, measuring the distance between them. But Patch didn’t hit him. Instead, he said, ‘You deserve to be strung up for murder. You killed Rice and those others as surely as if you’d taken a gun to them and shot them down in cold blood.’ He said it through clenched teeth and then turned abruptly to walk out.
And Higgins, stung, shouted hoarsely after him: ‘You won’t get away with it at the Enquiry—not with your record.’
Patch swung round, his face white, and he was trembling as he looked at the pitiful little gathering, his eyes passing from face to face. ‘Mr Burrows.’ He had picked on a tall, thin man with a sour, dissipated face. ‘You know damn’ well I never gave any orders to abandon ship.’
The man shifted his feet nervously, not looking at Patch. ‘I only know what was passed down to me on the blower,’ he muttered. They were all nervous, doubtful, their eyes on the floor.
‘Yules.’ Patch’s gaze had switched to an under-sized little runt of a man with a peaked, sweaty face and shifty eyes. ‘You were at the wheel. You heard what orders I gave up there on the bridge. What were they?’
The man hesitated, glancing at Higgins. ‘You ordered the boats swung out and the men to stand by to abandon ship,’ he whispered.
‘You damned little liar!’ Patch started to move towards him, but Higgins stepped forward. And Yules said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ His voice was high-pitched on a note of sudden spite.
Patch stared at him a moment, breathing heavily. And then he turned and went out quickly. I followed him and found him waiting for me on the pavement outside. His whole body was shaking and he looked utterly drained. ‘You need some sleep,’ I said.
‘I need a drink.’
We walked in silence up to the square and sat at a little bistro that advertised crêpes as a speciality. ‘Have you any money?’ he asked. And when I told him Fraser had lent me some, he nodded and said, ‘I’m a distressed seaman and a charge on the Consul. It doesn’t run to drinks.’ There was a note of bitterness in his voice. And then, when we had ordered cognac, he suddenly said, ‘The last body wasn’t brought in until two o’clock this morning.’ His face looked haggard as it had done on the Mary Deare, the bruise along his jaw even more livid against the clean-shaven pallor of his face.
I gave him a cigarette and he lit it with trembling hands. ‘They got caught in the tide-rip off the entrance to Lezard-rieux.’ The drinks came and he knocked his back and ordered two more. ‘Why the hell did it have to be Rice’s boat?’ The palm of his hand slapped viciously against the table. ‘If it had been Higgins . . .’ He sighed and relapsed into silence.
I didn’t break it. I felt he needed that silence. He lingered over his second drink and every now and then he looked at me as though trying to make up his mind about something. The little square bustled with life, full of the noise of cars hooting and the quick, excited chatter of French people as they hurried along the pavement outside. It was wonderful just to sit there and drink cognac and know that I was alive. But my mind couldn’t shake itself free of the Mary Deare, and watching Patch as he sat, staring down at his drink, I wondered what had really happened on that ship before I boarded her. And that little huddle of survivors in the office overlooking the bassin . . . ‘What did Higgins mean—about your record?’ I asked. ‘Was he referring to the Belle Isle?’
He nodded, not looking up.
‘What happened to her?’
‘Oh, she ran aground and broke her back . . . and people talked. That’s all. There was a lot of money involved. It’s not important.’
But I knew it was. He’d kept on talking about it, saying you wouldn’t think it could happen to the same man twice. ‘What’s the connection between the Belle Isle and the Mary Deare?’ I asked.
He looked up at me quickly. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well . . .’ It wasn’t easy to put it into words with him staring at me like that. ‘It’s a pretty strange story, you know—the crew saying you ordered them to abandon ship and you saying you didn’t. And there’s Taggart’s death,’ I added. ‘Dellimare, too.’
‘Dellimare?’ The sudden violence of his voice shook me. ‘What’s Dellimare got to do with it?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But . . .’
‘Well, go on. What else are you thinking?’
It was a question that had been in my mind for a long time ‘That fire . . .’ I said.
‘Are you suggesting I started it?’
The question took me by surprise. ‘Good God, no.’
‘What are you suggesting then?’ His eyes were angry and suspicious.
I hesitated, wondering whether he wasn’t too exhausted to answer rationally. ‘It’s just that I can’t understand why you put the fire out and yet didn’t bother to get the pumps going. I thought you’d been stoking that boiler. But it hadn’t been touched.’ I paused there, a little uncertain because of the strange look on his face. ‘What had you been doing?’
‘God damn you!’ His eyes suddenly blazed. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Only . . .’
‘Only what? What are you getting at?’
‘It was just the coal dust. You were covered with it and I wondered . . .’ I saw his hand clench and I added quickly, ‘You can’t expect me not to be curious.’
His body relaxed slowly. ‘No. No, I suppose not.’ He stared down at his empty glass. ‘I’m sorry. I’m a little tired, that’s all.’
‘Would you like another drink?’
He nodded, sunk in silence again.
He didn’t speak until the drinks came, and then he said, ‘I’m going to be quite honest with you, Sands. I’m in a hell of a spot.’ He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking down at his glass, watching the liquor cling to the sides of it as he swirled it gently round and round.
‘Because of Higgins?’
He nodded. ‘Partly. Higgins is a liar and a blackguard. But I can’t prove it. He was in this thing right from the start, but I can’t prove that either.’ He looked at me suddenly. ‘I’ve got to get out to her again.’
‘To the Mary Deare?’ It seemed odd that he should think that it was his responsibility. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Surely the owners will arrange—’
‘The owners!’ He gave a contemptuous little laugh. ‘If the owners knew she was on the Minkies . . .’ And then abruptly he changed the subject and began questioning me about my own plans. ‘You said something about being interested in salvage and converting that yacht of yours into a diving tender.’ That had been up in his cabin when he’d been half-doped with liquor and exhaustion. I was surprised he remembered it. ‘You’ve got all the equipment, have you—air pumps and diving suits?’
‘We’re aqualung divers,’ I said. His sudden interest had switched my mind to the problems that lay ahead—the conversion, the fitting out, all the business of starting on our first professional salvage operation.
‘I’ve been thinking . . .’ He was drumming nervously on the marble-topped table. ‘That boat of yours—how long will it take to convert her?’
‘Oh, about a month,’ I said. And then it dawned on me. ‘You aren’t suggesting that we take you out to the Mary Deare, are you?’
He turned to me then. ‘I’ve got to get back to her,’ he said.
‘But, good God—why?’ I asked. ‘The owners will arrange for the salvage—’
‘Damn the owners!’ he snarled. ‘They don’t know she’s there yet.’ He leaned urgently towards me. ‘I tell you, I’ve got to get out to her.’
‘But why?’
His eyes gradually dropped from my face. ‘I can’t tell you that,�
�� he muttered. And then he said, ‘Listen, Sands. I’m not a salvage man. But I’m a seaman, and I know that ship can be refloated.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘Another gale and she’ll be flooded—she’ll probably break up.’
‘I don’t think so. She’ll have water in her, but she won’t be flooded. It isn’t as though she’s sunk,’ he added. ‘At low water you could get pumps operating from her deck and, with all the apertures sealed up . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I’m trying to put it to you as a business proposition. That ship is lying out there and you and I are the only people who know she’s there.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I said. The effrontery of the proposition staggered me. He didn’t seem to understand that there were laws of salvage, that even if it were possible to refloat the Mary Deare, it involved agreement between the owners, the insurance people, the shippers—everybody.
‘Think it over,’ he said urgently. ‘It may be weeks before some fisherman finds her there.’ He gripped hold of my arm. ‘I need your help, Sands. I’ve got to get into that for’ard hold. I’ve got to see for myself.’
‘See what?’
‘That hold didn’t flood because the ship was unseaworthy. At least,’ he added, ‘that’s what I believe. But I’ve got to have proof.’
I didn’t say anything, and he leaned towards me across the table, his eyes on mine, hard and urgent. ‘If you won’t do it . . .’ His voice was hoarse. ‘I’ve nobody else who’ll help me. Damn it, man! I saved your life. You were dangling at the end of that rope. Remember? I helped you then. Now I’m asking you to help me.’
I looked away towards the square, feeling a little embarrassed, not understanding what it was that he was so worried about. And then the police car that had brought me to Paimpol drew up at the curb and I watched with relief as the gendarme got out and came into the bistro.
‘Monsieur—if you wish to catch your aeroplane . . .’ He nodded towards the car.
‘Yes, of course.’ I got to my feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to go now.’
Patch was staring up at me. ‘What’s your address in England?’ he asked.
I gave him the name of the boatyard at Lymington. He nodded, frowning, and looked down at his empty glass. I wished him luck then and turned to go.
‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a bank, I suppose?’ And when I nodded, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a package and tossed it on to the table. ‘Would you have them lock that up for me?’
‘What is it?’ I asked as I picked it up.
He moved his hand in a vague, impatient gesture. ‘Just some personal papers. Afraid they may get lost.’ And then, without looking up at me, he added, ‘I’ll collect them when I see you.’
I hesitated, wanting to tell him it was no good his coming to see me. But he was sitting there, slumped in his chair, lost apparently in his own thoughts. He looked drawn and haggard and ghastly tired. ‘You better get some sleep,’ I said, and my words took me back again to the Mary Deare. He didn’t answer, didn’t look up. I slipped the package into my pocket and went out to the car. He was still sitting there slumped over the table as I was driven away.
Two hours later I was in the air, high up over the sea. It was like a corrugated sheet of lead and out beyond the starboard wingtip was an area all flecked with white.
The Frenchman in the next seat leaned across me to peer out. ‘Regardez, regardez, monsieur,’ he whispered eagerly. ‘C’est le Plateau des Minquiers.’ And then, realising I was English, he smiled apologetically and said, ‘You will not understand, of course. But there are rocks down there—many, many rocks. Trés formidable! I think it better we travel by air. Look, monsieur!’ He produced a French paper. ‘You ’ave not seen, no?’ He thrust it into my hands. ‘It is terrible! Terrible!’
It was opened at a page of pictures—pictures of Patch, of Higgins and the rest of the survivors, of a dead body lying in the sea, and of officials searching a pile of wreckage washed up on some rocks. Bold black type across the top announced: MYSTERE DE VAISSEAU BRITANNIQUE ABANDONNE.
‘Interesting, is it not, monsieur? I think it is also a very strange story. And all those men . . .’ He clicked his tongue sympathetically. ‘You do not understand how terrible is this region of the sea. Terrible, monsieur!’
I smiled, overwhelmed by a desire to laugh—to tell him what it had been like down there in the Minkies. But by now I was reading the statement made to the authorities by le Capitaine Gideon Patch, and suddenly it was borne in on me that he had not stated the Mary Deare’s position. He hadn’t even mentioned that the ship was stranded and not sunk. ‘. . . and you and I are the only people who know she’s there.’ His words came back to me and I sat staring down at the paper, knowing suddenly that this wasn’t going to be the end of the Mary Deare.
‘A strange affair, is it not, monsieur?’
I nodded, not smiling now. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very strange.’
Part Two
The Enquiry
1
THE FORMAL ENQUIRY into the loss of the Mary Deare was finally fixed for Monday, May 3rd, at Southampton. For a Ministry of Transport Enquiry, this must be considered unusually expeditious, but I learned later that the date had been brought forward at the urgent request of the insurance companies. The sum involved was a very large one and right from the start it was the question of insurance that was the vital factor.
In fact, we had only been in Lymington a few days when I had a visit from a Mr F. T. Snetterton representing the H. B. & K. M. Insurance Corporation of San Francisco. It was that section of the cargo consigned by the Hsu Trading Corporation of Singapore that interested him. Could I testify as to the nature of it? Had I been down into any of the holds? Had Patch talked to me about it?
There was a devil of a racket going on. Sea Witch had just been slipped and the yard men were drawing keel bolts for inspection and Mike and I were stripping the old engine out of her. I took him down to the waterfront, where we could talk in peace.
‘You understand, Mr Sands,’ he explained earnestly, ‘I have to be sure that the cargo was exactly what the Hsu Trading Corporation claim. I have to establish the manifest, as it were. Now surely you must have seen something that would enable you to give an opinion as to the nature of the cargo? Think, sir. Think.’ He was leaning forward, blinking in the bright sunshine, quite over-wrought by the urgency of his problem.
I told him I had been down the inspection hatch of Number Three hold. I described the charred bales to him. ‘Please, Mr Sands.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘It’s the aero engines I am interested in. Only the aero engines.’
That was the first time anyone had mentioned aero engines to me. ‘I heard she had a cargo of explosives.’
‘No, no—aero engines.’ He sat down on the railing of one of the pontoons where the boats were laid up, a neat, dapper man dressed in black with a brief-case. He looked entirely out of place. ‘The ship herself,’ he said in his precise way, ‘is not important—twice the break-up value, that’s all. And the cotton was insured by a Calcutta firm. No, it’s the aero engines we’re worried about. There were a hundred and forty-eight of them—surplus American stores from the Korean war—and they were insured for £296,000. I must be certain that they were on board at the time the ship went down.’
‘What makes you think they weren’t?’ I asked him.
He looked at me quickly, hesitating and fidgeting with his brief-case. ‘It’s a little difficult,’ he murmured. ‘But perhaps—since you’re not an interested party . . . perhaps if I explain, it may help you to remember something—some little thing . . . an unguarded word, perhaps.’ He looked at me again, and then said, ‘Shortly after the claim was filed, we heard from our agent in Aden that a man named Adams had been talking about the Mary Deare and her cargo in a Steamer Point bar. He was reported to have given it as his opinion that she contained nothing but bales of cotton at the time she went down.’ And he added hastily, ‘You understand, sir, this
is in the strictest confidence.’ And then he asked me again whether I couldn’t remember some little detail that would help him. ‘Surely if you were on that ship for forty-eight hours you must have learned something about the cargo?’
‘There was a gale blowing,’ I said. ‘The ship was sinking.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. But you must have talked with Mr Patch. You were with him through a critical period. A man will often say things in those circumstances that he would be reluctant . . .’ He let the sentence go, staring at me all the time through his glasses. ‘You’re sure he said nothing about the cargo?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘A pity!’ he murmured. ‘I had thought . . .’ He shrugged his shoulders and stood up. I asked him then how he thought it was possible for a cargo consigned to a ship not to be on board her at a later date? He looked at me. ‘All things are possible, Mr Sands, where a great deal of money is involved.’ I remembered Patch saying the same thing about the loss of the Belle Isle. And then he suddenly asked me whether Patch had mentioned the name of another boat whilst we were together on the Mary Deare?
‘I don’t think so,’ I said quickly. If Snetterton wanted to find out about the Belle Isle, he could find it out from somebody else.
But he wasn’t to be put off so easily. ‘You don’t think so?’ He was peering at me. ‘I want you to be quite certain about this, Mr Sands. It may be vitally important.’
‘I am quite certain,’ I said irritably.
‘Mr Patch never mentioned the name of another ship to you?’
Damn it, the man had no right to come here questioning me about what Patch had said. No, I told him. And I added that if he wanted to find out what ships Patch had been connected with why the devil didn’t he go and ask him.
He stared at me. ‘This isn’t a ship that Mr Patch ever sailed in.’
‘Well, what ship is it then?’
‘The Torre Annunziata. Now please think back very carefully. Did Mr Patch ever mention the name Torre Annunziata to you?’
The Wreck of the Mary Deare Page 10