The Wreck of the Mary Deare

by Hammond Innes

  The hell of it was, there was nothing we could do—not a single damn’ thing we could do to help ourselves.

  We struck towards dusk in a maelstrom of white water where there wasn’t a single rock showing. I don’t know whether I was asleep or merely lying there on the bunk in a sort of daze, but the shock of our hitting threw me to the floor. It came like the blow of a mailed fist, a fearful crash up for’ard and then a slow crunching as the plates gave and the rocks disembowelled her; and the thunder of the seas became suddenly louder, more overwhelming.

  I lay quite still where I had fallen, feeling the probing teeth of the rocks through my whole body, expecting every moment that the waves would engulf us as she slid under. But nothing happened, except that a thin mist of spray touched my face as it drifted over the ship and the grinding, gut-tearing sound went on so continuously that it became a part of the general uproar of the sea.

  The cabin floor was canted over and, as I got to my feet, a sudden shifting of the ship flung me through the door and I fetched up against the bulkhead with a sickening thud that wrenched at my arm and drove the breath out of my body. I saw the ship then, and the pain didn’t seem to matter any more. She was lying heeled over, all the length of her clear against a boiling background of surf. Her bridge-deck was a twisted, broken mass of wreckage, the funnel gone, the fore-mast snapped off halfway up and hanging loose in a tangle of derrick wires. And over all the for’ard half of her the seas broke and rolled and tumbled incessantly.

  Patch was lying, half-reclined against the steel plates of the deck-house entrance and I shouted to him: ‘How long . . .’ The words seemed to get caught up in my throat.

  ‘Before she goes?’

  ‘Yes. How long?’

  ‘God knows.’

  We didn’t talk after that, but stayed there, too cold and tired and fascinated to move, watching as the first jagged points of the reef showed through the foam. The weary half light faded very slowly into darkness. We heard the bows break off; a protracted agony of tortured metal, tearing and rending up there beyond the wreck of the bridge-deck. And then the remainder of the ship lifted slightly as it was freed of their weight, shifting across the saw-edged rocks with a terrible trembling and groaning. We could see the bows then, a black wedge out in the break of the waves to port, with cargo spilling out of a cavern of a hole where the plates had been torn open. Bales of cotton bobbed about in the white water and the waves played with the great square cases that were supposed to contain aero engines, smashing them to matchwood on the reef.

  Patch gripped my arm. ‘Look!’ he shouted. A case had been flung towards us and it was splitting open. The contents cascaded into the sea. God knows what it was. The light by then was very dim. But it certainly wasn’t the solid lump of an aero engine.

  ‘Did you see?’ He had hold of my arm and was pointing. And then the sudden excitement left him as the wreck on which we stood split across at the after end of the upper deck. A great crack was opening up across the whole width of the ship. It tore the port ladder leading down to the well-deck from its fastenings, twisting it slowly as though an invisible hand were squeezing it. Rivet fastenings were torn out in machine-gun bursts and steel plates were ripped like calico. The gap widened—a yard, two yards; and then it was dark and night clamped down on the Mary Deare. By then the falling tide had exposed the reef, the seas had receded and the wreck was still.

  We went back into the cabin and lay down under our sodden blankets. We didn’t talk. Maybe we slept. I don’t remember. I have no recollection of that night. It is like a blank in my mind. The sea’s incessant roar, the wind piping a weird note through twisted metal and the sporadic clanging of a loose plate—that is all my recollection. I didn’t feel any sense of fear. I don’t think I even felt cold any more. I had reached that stage of physical and mental exhaustion that is beyond feeling.

  But I remember the dawn. It filtered into the dim recesses of my mind with the sense of something strange. I was conscious of movement—a long, precipitous roll, first one way, then the other. I could hear the sea, but there was no weight in the sound. The crash and roar of mountains of water smashing down on to rocks was gone, and someone was calling me. Bright sunlight stabbed my eyeballs and a face bent over me—a face that was sweaty and flushed under the greying stubble of a beard with eyes sunk deep in hollow sockets and skin stretched taut across forehead and cheekbone. ‘We’re afloat!’ Patch said. His cracked lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. ‘Come and look.’

  I staggered weakly to the entrance and looked out on a strange scene. The reefs had disappeared. The sun shone on a heaving sea, but there wasn’t a sign of a rock anywhere. And all the Mary Deare for’ard of the well-deck had gone, vanished. The well-deck was under water, but it was as Patch had said—we were afloat; just the stern section and nothing else. And the sun was shining and the gale was diminishing. I could feel Patch trembling where he stood against me. I thought it was excitement. But it wasn’t. It was fever.

  By midday he was too weak to move, his eyes staring, his face flushed with unnatural colour and the sweat pouring out of him. He had been too long in the East to stand up to nights of exposure in sodden clothing without food. Towards nightfall he became delirious. Much of his raving was unintelligible, but now and then the words came clear and I realised he was back on that voyage up through the Bay, giving orders, talking to Rice . . . disjointed scraps that were an appalling revelation of the strain to which he had been subjected.

  Towards evening a small aircraft flew over. I watched it circling low down to the north-west, its wings glinting in the setting sun. They were searching for us on the Minkies. And then night closed in and we still floated, very low in the water. There was a young moon hanging in a clear sky full of stars and the wind had gone so that the moon carved a small silver path across a placid, kindly sea that still heaved gently like a giant resting.

  That night I was almost too weak to move and Patch lay like a corpse, shivering occasionally, his face still hot and his eyes wide in the faint moon-glow. Once he started up and seized my hand, trembling all over, words tumbling from his lips, words that had no meaning. But this sudden outburst—this raving—lasted only a short while. He hadn’t the strength to keep it up and he suddenly fell back exhausted. I lay close against him all the rest of the night, but I had no warmth to give and in the morning he looked like a ghost, small under the stinking blankets.

  I saw the Minkies again just after the sun had risen. They were on the horizon, small, jagged points of black etched sharp against the western sky. And then, much later, I heard the sound of an aircraft’s engines. I had dragged Patch out on deck to get the warmth of the sun, but he was unconscious then. The aircraft went past us. I saw the shadow of it cross the water and I pulled myself up, searching the sky for it through bleared and gritty eyes. Then I saw it turning, banking out of the sun and coming back, very low over the water. I clutched the rail for support and waved a blanket at it as it zoomed over just above my head with its engines snarling. It flew off towards the Minkies and a long time afterwards, as I lay on the warmth of the deck in a semi-coma, I heard the putter of an engine and the sound of voices.

  It was the Peter Port lifeboat. They came alongside and life stirred again at the sound of friendly voices . . . strong hands helping me over the rail, a lit cigarette thrust into my mouth. They stripped us of our salt-stiff, sodden clothing, wrapped us in blankets, and then sleep came to me, the wonderful relaxed warmth of sleep. But I remember, just before I lost consciousness, a voice saying, ‘Want to take a last look at your ship?’ And a hand lifted me up. I shall always remember that last glimpse of what was left of her. She was stern-on to us, very low in the water so that the deckhouse, in which we had lived for two nights, looked like a chicken coop floating on the surface of the water. And then, in the trough of a swell, I saw the rust-streaked lettering of her stern—MARY DEARE—Southampton.

  As far as I was concerned the story of the w
reck of the Mary Deare ended there on the edge of the Minkies. But for Patch it was different. He was more directly involved and I was reminded of this as soon as I woke in the hospital at Peter Port. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had slept for more than twenty hours. I was immensely hungry, but all the nurse brought me was a small plate of steamed fish, and she told me there was somebody urgently waiting to see me. I thought perhaps it was Mike, but when the door opened it was a girl standing there.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked. The blinds were drawn and the room all darkened.

  ‘It’s Janet Taggart.’ She came to the side of my bed and I recognised her then, though she looked very tired and there were dark hollows under her eyes. ‘I had to see you—as soon as you woke.’

  I asked her how she had got here and she said, ‘It was in the papers. I came at once.’ And then she leaned down over me. ‘Listen, Mr Sands. Please listen to me. I’m only allowed to stay a moment.’ Her voice trembled with urgency. ‘I had to see you before you talked to anybody.’

  She hesitated then, and I said, ‘Well, what is it?’ I found it difficult to concentrate. There were so many things I wanted to know and my mind was still blurred.

  ‘The police will be coming to take a statement from you soon.’ She paused again. She seemed to have difficulty in putting whatever it was she wanted to say into words. ‘Didn’t Gideon once save your life?’

  ‘Gideon?’ She meant Patch, of course. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I suppose he did.’ And then I asked her how he was. ‘Didn’t somebody tell me he had pneumonia?’ I had a vague memory of the doctor telling me that when he was examining my shoulder.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s very ill. But he passed the crisis last night. He’ll be all right now, I hope.’

  ‘Have you been with him all the time?’

  ‘Yes, I insisted. I had to—in case he talked.’ And then she went on quickly: ‘Mr Sands—that man Dellimare . . . You know what happened, don’t you?’

  I nodded. So he’d told her that, too. ‘Nobody need ever know now,’ I murmured. I felt tired and very weak. ‘All the for’ard part of the ship broke up on that reef.’

  ‘Yes, I know. That’s why I had to see you before you made any statement. Don’t tell anybody about it, will you. Please. He’s suffered enough.’

  I nodded. ‘No. I won’t tell anybody,’ I said. And then I added, ‘But there’s Mike. He knows.’

  ‘Mike Duncan? I’ve seen him. He hasn’t said anything yet—either to the Press or to the police. He said he’d do nothing about it until he’d seen you. He’ll do whatever you do.’

  ‘You’ve seen Mike?’ I pulled myself up in the bed. ‘How is he? Is he all right?’

  ‘Yes, he’s here in Peter Port.’ She was leaning down over me again. ‘Can I tell him you’re going to forget what Gideon told you? Can I tell him you want him to keep quiet about it, too?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, of course—there’s no point in saying anything about it now. It’s over—finished.’ And then I asked her how Mike had been picked up.

  ‘It was a fisherman from St Helier. He found the motor boat just before the storm broke. There was a man called Burrows on board, too. He was badly injured, but he made a statement to the police—about Higgins.’ And then she said, ‘I must leave you now. I want to see Mr Duncan and then I must be with Gideon when he wakes—to see that he doesn’t talk. It’s the sort of silly thing he might do.’ She smiled wanly. ‘I’m so grateful to you.’

  ‘Tell Mike to come and see me,’ I said. And as she reached the door, I added, ‘And tell—Gideon—when he wakes that he’s nothing to worry about any more . . . nothing at all.’

  She smiled then—a sudden warmth that lit her whole face up; for an instant she was the girl in the photograph again. And then the door closed and I lay back and went to sleep. When I woke again it was morning and the curtains were drawn back so that the sun streamed in. The police were there and I made a statement. One of them was a plain-clothes man from Southampton, but he was uncommunicative. All he would say about Patch was that he’d no instructions at the moment to make any arrest. After that there were reporters, and then Mike arrived. The police had refused to let him see me until I had made my statement.

  He was full of news. The stern section of the Mary Deare had gone ashore on Chausey Island. He showed me a newspaper picture of it lying on its side in a litter of rocks at low water. And yesterday Snetterton had been through Peter Port. He’d had a salvage team with him and they had left for Chausey Island in a local fishing boat. ‘And I’ve been on to our insurance people,’ he said. ‘They’re meeting our claim in full. We’ll have enough to build to our own design, if we want to.’

  ‘That means losing a whole season,’ I said.

  He nodded, grinning. ‘As it happens there’s a boat for sale right here in Peter Port would suit us nicely. I had a look at her last night. Not as pretty as Sea Witch, of course . . .’ He was full of plans—one of those irrepressible people who bounce back up as soon as they’re knocked down. He was as good a tonic as I could have wished and, though he still had a piece of adhesive tape stuck across the side of his jaw where the skin was split, he seemed none the worse for his thirty hours on the water-logged wreck of that motor boat.

  I was discharged from hospital next day and when Mike came up to collect me, he brought a whole pile of London papers with him. ‘Altogether you’ve had a pretty good Press,’ he said, dumping them on my bed. ‘And there’s a newspaper fellow flew in this morning offering you a tidy little sum for a first-hand account of what happened. He’s down at the hotel now.’

  Later we went and looked at the boat Mike had discovered. She was cheap and sound and we bought her on the spot. And that night Snetterton turned up at our hotel, still neat, still dapper in his pin-stripe suit, though he’d spent two days on Chausey Island. They had cut into Number Four hold at low water and opened up three of the aero engine cases. The contents consisted of concrete blocks. ‘A satisfactory result, Mr Sands. Most satisfactory. I have sent a full report to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘But your San Francisco people will still have to pay the insurance, won’t they?’ I asked him.

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course. But we shall recover it from the Dellimare Company. Very fortunately they have a big sum standing to their credit in a Singapore bank—the proceeds of the sale of the Torre Annunziata and her cargo. We were able to get it frozen pending investigation. I think,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘that Mr Gundersen would have been better advised to have organised the re-sale of the aero engines through another company: But there—the best laid schemes . . .’ He smiled as he sipped his sherry. ‘It was a clever idea, though. Very clever indeed. That it failed is due entirely to Mr Patch—and to you, sir,’ he added, looking at me over his glass. ‘I have requested the H. B. & K. M. . . . well, we shall see.’

  I wasn’t able to see Patch before I left Peter Port. But I saw him three weeks later when we gave evidence before the resumed Court of Enquiry. He was still very weak. The charges against him had already been dropped; Gundersen had slipped out of the country and Burrows and other members of the crew were only too willing to tell the truth now, pleading that they had supported Higgins’s story because they were frightened of him. The Court found the loss of the Mary Deare was due to conspiracy to defraud on the part of the owners, Patch was absolved from all blame and the whole matter was referred to the police for action.

  A good deal of publicity was given to the affair at the time and, as a result of it, Patch was given command of the Wacomo, a 10,000-ton freighter. He and Janet were married by then, but our diving programme had prevented us from attending the wedding and I didn’t see him again until September of the following year. Mike and I were in Avonmouth then, getting ready to dive for a wreck in the Bristol Channel, and the Wacomo came in from Singapore and moored across the dock from us. That night we dined on board with Patch.

  I barely recognised him. The lines were gone from his face and,
though the stoop was still there and his hair was greying at the temples, he looked young and full of confidence in his uniform with the gold stripes. On his desk stood the same photograph in its silver frame, but across the bottom Janet had written: For my husband now—bons voyages. And framed on the wall was a letter from the H. B. & K. M. Corporation of San Francisco.

  That letter had been handed to Janet by Snetterton at their wedding reception, and with it a cheque for £5,000 for her husband’s part in exposing the fraud—a strangely apt figure! At the time Mike and I had been working on a wreck off the Hook of Holland and when we got back I found a similar letter waiting for me, together with a cheque for £2,500—as some compensation for the loss of your vessel.

  The body of Alfred Higgins was never recovered, but in August of that year a metal dinghy, with patches of blue paint still adhering to it, was found wedged in a crevice of the rocks on the south side of Alderney. It had been battered almost flat by the seas.

  One final thing—an entry in the log of Sea Witch II made on September 8, just after we had located and buoyed the wreck in the Bristol Channel. It reads: 11.48—Freighter WACOMO passed us outward-bound for Singapore and Hong Kong. Signalled us: ‘Captain Patch’s compliments and he is not, repeat not, trying to run you down this time! Good wrecking!’ She then gave us three blasts on her siren, to which we responded on the fog-horn. A month later, with Sea Witch II laid up for the winter, I began this account of the loss of the Mary Deare.

  THE HISTORY OF VINTAGE

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