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IT WAS STILL blowing and the streets were wet as we drove to the court the following morning. Proceedings started sharp at ten-thirty with evidence about the cargo. And then a doctor was called who showed that it was quite possible for a man who lived on nothing but liquor to die for lack of it. Through all this the courtroom was restless as though waiting for something. The public gallery was packed, the Press desk crammed. And then at last Holland called ‘Alfred Higgins’ and, as Higgins thrust his huge bulk into the witness box, there was a sudden, expectant hush, so that the sound of a clock striking eleven was quite audible through the taking of the oath.
He was forty-three years old, Higgins told the Treasury Counsel, and, when asked for his qualifications, he explained that he’d started life on his father’s barge, sailing the East Coast ports until he was fifteen; then he’d got mixed up in some smuggling racket and had stowed away on a banana boat. He’d stayed at sea after that, moving from ship to ship across the traffic lanes of the world—square-riggers, tramps and liners, tugs and coasters; he rolled the names of them out of his great barrel of a body like pages picked at random from Lloyd’s Register.
He began his story back where the Mary Deare steamed out of Yokohama. According to him, the ship was a floating death-trap of rattling rivets and clanging plates, a piece of leaking ironmongery taken off the junk-heap of the China Seas. Of the captain, he simply said, ‘The ’ole ship knew ’e was drinking ’isself ter death.’ The first mate was sickening for jaundice and the third officer, Rice, was only a kid of twenty-four on his second voyage with a watch-keeper’s certificate. The implication was that he, Higgins, was the only reliable deck officer on board, and though he looked like a bull about to charge, there was something impressive about him as he stood there and gave his evidence in a throaty rumble.
Singapore, Rangoon, Aden—and then he was covering the same ground that Patch had covered, but from a different angle. He thought the crew ‘not bad considerin’ the moth-eaten sort o’ a tub she was.’ Patch he regarded as ‘a bit pernickity-like’ and added, ‘But that’s ter be expected when a man wiv ’is record gets command again.’
And then up through the Bay of Biscay the Court got little glimpses of Patch, nervous, over-bearing, at odds with the owner, with his officers—‘All ’cept Rice. ’E was the white-headed boy, as the sayin’ is.’ And when it came to the gale itself and the ship down by the bows and the radio shack gutted by fire, Higgins didn’t give it graphically as Patch had done, but baldly, factually. He had been asleep in his bunk when the hold had started to flood. He had taken over the bridge and had remained on watch until 10.00 hours the following morning—eleven solid hours. He had then organised a more thorough search for Dellimare. No, Mr Patch hadn’t ordered him to. He’d done it on his own initiative, having been relieved. He couldn’t believe that Dellimare ‘who was Navy an’ a good bloke on a ship’ could have gone overboard. Altogether he had been forty-two hours without sleep.
‘You liked Mr Dellimare?’ Holland asked him.
‘I didn’t like or dislike ’im. I jus’ said ’e was a good bloke, an’ so ’e was.’
‘Did you advise Mr Patch at one stage to abandon ship?’
‘Well, yes, in a manner o’ speakin’. We considered it, Mr Dellimare an’ me.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cos we knew the sort o’ ship she was. We’d bin through two gales already comin’ across from Singapore. Patch ’adn’t. An’ the one in the Bay was a lot worse than wot we’d gone through before.’
‘And you thought an explosion had occurred in the for’ard hold?’
‘I didn’t think nothin’ of the kind. I knew she was rotten an’ we were takin’ a helluva pounding. We didn’t think she’d stand much more.’ And then he said, ‘If you’re suggesting we were scared, just remember what it was like out there. Ten to one the boats wouldn’t ’ve got launched in that sea, let alone stayed afloat. It took guts to even think ’o takin’ ter the boats, pertikly fer Mr Dellimare who’d had a basinful o’ that sort o’ thing during the war. Later, when we ’ove-to, things was easier an’ I thought maybe we had a chance.’
And then he was dealing with the night the fire had broken out in the after hold and they had abandoned ship. Yes, it had been about 21.20 hours. It was a stoker who had discovered it, a man called West. He’d come out of the after deckhouse and had seen smoke coming from the hatch of Number Three hold. He’d reported at once to the bridge by phone. Rice had been there at the time and Higgins had sent him to check the report and notify Mr Patch. Not once in his evidence did he refer to Patch as the captain.
‘And what happened then?’ Holland asked him.
‘I didn’t hear nothin’ further for about quarter of an hour. But I knew it was fire orl right ’cos the after derrick lights was switched on an’ there was a lot of activity with men running about the deck. Then Mr Patch comes up to the bridge lookin’ very wild and all covered in smoke grime an’ says he’s ordered the boats swung out just in case. I asked him whether he’d like me ter take charge of the fire-fighting party and he said No, Mr Rice was in charge. He stood aba’t fer a bit after that as though he couldn’t make up his mind aba’t somethin’. An’ after a bit Rice comes runnin’ up to the bridge in a bit of a panic an’ says the fire’s getting worse. And at that Patch orders him to pass the word to stand by to abandon ship. “You notify the engine-room, Mr Higgins,” he says. “Then take charge of the fire-fighting party. Mr Rice, you’ll have charge of the upper deck. See there’s no panic when I give the word.” An’ that’s the last I saw of him,’ Higgins added.
The rest was a pattern of disaster that comes from absence of command. Higgins and his men had fought the fire for a further fifteen minutes or so, and all the time it seemed to be gaining on them. The men were scared. They believed the ship was jinxed, that the cargo was explosives. Higgins sent Rice to tell Patch he couldn’t hold the men much longer and Rice came back to say he couldn’t find Patch anywhere. ‘By then the men were near ter panic. Some were already on the upper deck piling into Number Three boat. There weren’t nothing I could do ’cept give the order to abandon ship.’
The order had resulted in a stampede for the boats. When he reached the upper deck, Higgins saw Number Three boat hanging by its bow falls with one man clinging to it. Number One boat had also been cleared. She was empty and being battered to pieces against the ship’s side. By using his fists he’d got some sort of order out of the chaos on deck and he and the officers had organised the men into the two remaining boats. He had put Rice in charge of Number Four boat and had waited to see him safely clear. He had then lowered and released his own boat. Owing to the speed at which the ship was travelling he had lost contact with Rice by the time his boat hit the water and he never regained it.
‘Do you mean to say,’ Holland asked, ‘that you took to the boats with the ship still steaming?’
‘Yes. Acting on Mr Patch’s instructions I had ordered the engine-room staff to stand by to take to the boats. When I gave the order to abandon, they didn’t ’ave no instructions about stopping the engines an’ afterwards none o’ ’em would go below to do it.’
‘But surely if you gave the order—’
‘What the hell use were orders?’ Higgins growled. ‘Patch’d gone—vanished. One boat was already hanging in her davits, the men in her all tipped into the sea; another was bein’ smashed up alongside. The men were panicking. Anybody who went below stood a good chance of coming up and finding the last two boats gone. It was as much as Rice an’ I could do ter get those boats away orderly-like.’
‘But good heavens!’ Holland exclaimed. ‘Surely, as an experienced officer, you had some control over your—’
But Higgins interrupted him again. ‘Ain’t you got no imagination?’ he burst out. ‘Can’t you see what it was like—Patch gone and the crew in a panic and a fire raging on top of a cargo of explosives.’
‘But it wasn’t explosives.’
&
nbsp; ‘’Ow were we ter know?’
‘You’ve heard the evidence proving that the cases loaded at Yokohama contained aero engines. There was no justification for believing—’
‘We know now they was full of aero engines,’ Higgins said quickly. ‘But I’m telling you wot we thought at the time. We thought they was full of explosives.’
‘But you’d seen the manifest,’ Holland reminded him. ‘Mr Patch even posted a copy of it on the crew’s notice board.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Higgins demanded angrily. ‘A crew don’t ’ave ter believe everything that’s posted on their notice board. An’ let me tell you, mister, men that sail in ships like the Mary Deare don’t go much by the manifest, pertickly in the China Seas. We may be uneddicated, but we ain’t stupid. A manifest is just a piece of paper somebody’s written what he wants believed on. Least, that’s the way I look at it—an’ I’ve me reasons for doin’ so.’
There was no answer to that. The outburst called for a rebuke from the Chairman, but it was given mildly. Higgins was accepted for what he was, a piece of human flotsam speaking with the voice of experience. In a sense he was magnificent. He dominated that drab court. But not by the power of his personality, which was crude. He dominated it because he was different, because he was the obverse of the coin of human nature, a colourful, lawless buccaneer who didn’t give a damn for authority.
‘In other words,’ Holland said, ‘you’ve known a lot of strange things happen aboard ships around the world. Now, have you ever known a stranger set of circumstances than those that happened aboard the Mary Deare?’
Higgins pursed his lips, then shook his head. ‘No, I can’t say I ’ave.’
‘Take the flooding of the for’ard holds. You say you didn’t think it was an explosion of some sort.’
‘I didn’t say nuthing of the kind. I said I didn’t think about it, not at the time. There was a lot of other things ter think aba’t. Anyway, I wasn’t on the bridge.’
‘And what’s your opinion now?’
Higgins shook his head. ‘I don’t know wot ter think.’
‘And what about the fires? Were they natural outbreaks?’
‘Ah, the fires—that’s different.’ His cunning little eyes darted a glance to where Patch sat, watching him with a tense face.
‘You think they were started deliberately?’
‘Yes, I reckon so.’
‘You suspect somebody then?’
‘I don’t know about that. But,’ he added, ‘I knew we was in fer trouble as soon as ’e come aboard.’ And he nodded his hard bollard of head towards Patch. ‘Stands ter reason, a man wiv ’is record don’t get the job fer nuthing—and then the skipper dying so convenient-like.’
‘Are you blaming somebody for Captain Taggart’s death?’ There was a note of censure in Holland’s voice.
‘I ain’t blamin’ anyone. But somebody swiped the poor devil’s liquor and all I say is it only did one man any good.’
An excited buzz ran round the court as Holland sat down. Fenton was immediately on his feet. It was a disgraceful allegation, made without a shred of evidence to support it. And the Chairman agreed, leaning forward and asking Higgins whether it wasn’t true that Taggart had accused several of the officers. And when Higgins admitted that it was, he said, ‘Yourself as well?’
‘The poor devil was ravin’,’ Higgins declared angrily.
‘So he’s raving when he accuses you, but not when he accuses Mr Patch, is that it?’ Bowen-Lodge’s voice was icy.
‘Well, it didn’t do me no good, him dying,’ Higgins muttered.
‘I put it to you that Captain Taggart just ran out of liquor.’
But Higgins shook his head. ‘There was a lot of stuff brought off to ’im by a ship’s chandler in Aden. ’E couldn’t ’ve drunk it all in the time. It weren’t ’umingly possible.’
‘What did you think about it at the time? Did you take his accusations seriously?’
‘No, why should I? When a man’s ravin’ the way he was, you don’t know wot ter believe.’ Higgins had a baffled look as though he wasn’t sure where the questions were leading. ‘Mebbe ’e ’ad liquor, an’ mebbe ’e didn’t,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Mebbe somebody pinched it—I dunno. All I know is, we searched the ’ole bloomin’ ship fer ’im, jus’ ter make ’im ’appy, ’an we didn’t find a single bottle wot belonged to ’im. ’Course,’ he added, ‘if we’d known as ’ow ’e was goin’ ter die fer lack of the stuff, there’s some of us, as was plannin’ ter smuggle the odd bottle through the Customs, who’d ’ve chipped in ter ’elp ’im, as the sayin’ is.’
Bowen-Lodge nodded and Fenton started to question Higgins, trying to get him to admit that Patch had never given the order to stand-by to abandon ship, trying to confuse him and break him down over little details. But Higgins was a dangerous witness to cross-examine. He made it clear with every answer that he didn’t trust Patch, and he didn’t budge an inch from his original testimony.
But with Sir Lionel it was different. His interest was the cargo. What had led the witness to believe that the cases loaded at Yokohama contained explosives? Had he discovered something whilst he was loading the cases? But when the Chairman put the question, Higgins said he hadn’t been a member of the ship’s company at the time the cases were loaded.
‘When did your employment as second officer commence then?’ Bowen-Lodge asked.
‘The day before the ship sailed,’ Higgins answered. ‘By then she was all loaded up, hatches battened down an’ lying out in the fairway.’
‘You were shown the manifest?’
‘No. I never saw the manifest, not till later.’
‘Then what gave you the idea that the cargo contained explosives?’
‘There was rumours around the docks.’
‘And amongst the crew?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever known explosives packed in cases clearly marked as aero engines?’
‘Not exactly. But I’ve heard of explosives bein’ packed and marked as other things, to avoid the regulations as you might say.’
‘But you had no definite indication that the cases might contain other than what was stated on the manifest?’
‘No.’
‘And you did your utmost to scotch this rumour?’
For the first time Higgins showed uncertainty. ‘Well no, to be honest I can’t say I did.’
‘Why not?’
The muscles along Higgins’s neck thickened. ‘Well, if it comes ter that, why should I? Wasn’t none of my business.’
Bowen-Lodge glanced across at Sir Lionel with one eyebrow raised. The next question concerned the four days the ship was moored in the Rangoon River. Yes, Higgins admitted, he had gone ashore with the rest. Well, why not? It wasn’t every day the owners gave a ship’s company forty-eight hours ashore, expenses paid. The reason? Mr Dellimare was a good bloke, that’s why—knew how to treat a crew, believed in a happy ship.
‘When you got back to the ship—’ Sir Lionel was now putting his questions direct to the witness again—‘did you talk to any of the officers or men of the Torre Annunziata?’
‘Yes. The first officer, a bloke called Slade, came aboard for a drink wiv me and the Chief.’
‘Did you ask them why they had been shifting cargo around?’
‘No. But Slade tol’ me they’d ’ad ter do it because of some clerical mess-up over the destination of the steel tubes they were due to load.’
‘Did you talk to Adams about it?’
‘No.’
‘But you saw him when you got back on board?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he suggest that the crew of the Torre Annunziata had been tampering with the Mary Deare’s cargo?’
‘No.’ And then he added quickly, ‘An’ if they ’ad, ’e’d ’ve known about it ’cos when I saw ’im, ’e was up an’ about an’ feelin’ better fer ’is two days in bed.’
‘Adams being sick, I take it you wer
e in charge of the loading of the cotton cargo?’ Higgins nodded and Sir Lionel then asked him, ‘Did you notice any change in the disposition of the cargo?’
‘No, can’t say I did.’
‘You’re quite certain?’
‘’Course I’m certain.’
Sir Lionel’s small head shot forward and his voice was suddenly crisp and hard as he said, ‘How could you be? You said you joined the ship after she was loaded?’
But Higgins wasn’t easily put out. His tongue passed over the dry line of his lips. But that was the only sign of uneasiness he gave. ‘I may not’ve bin there when she was loaded. But I was when we discharged our top cargo of Japanese cotton an’ rayon goods. I took special note of ’ow the cases was stowed ’cos I guessed I’d ’ave to load the bales of raw cotton when they was ready.’
Sir Lionel nodded. ‘Just one more question. You say you didn’t go aboard the Mary Deare until the day before she sailed. How was that?’
‘Well, I wasn’t took on till then.’
‘Who engaged you—Captain Taggart?’
‘No, Mr Dellimare. Oh, Captain Taggart signed the papers. But it was Dellimare wot engaged me.’
‘Why?’
Higgins frowned. ‘’Ow d’you mean?’
‘I asked you why he engaged you. Were you the only man who applied for the vacancy?’
‘Well, not exactly. I mean . . .’ Higgins glanced round the court and again his tongue passed along his lips. ‘It didn’t ’appen like that.’
‘You mean the job wasn’t offered in the usual way? You were engaged by Mr Dellimare privately?’
‘I suppose so.’ Higgins sounded reluctant.
‘Perhaps you would be good enough to explain to the Court how it happened.’
The Wreck of the Mary Deare Page 17