Brian Freemantle - The Mary Celeste

He stood at the rail of the Mary Celeste, staring back at the vague skyline of New York from which they had so recently departed. There were many captains who would have indulged in some after-deck ranting at being beaten back by a head wind within an hour of leaving Pier 50 the previous day and being forced to anchor off Staten Island.

But it would have achieved nothing, except perhaps polite smiles from the crew. He had experienced a moment of passing irritation and then he had dismissed it, just as he had dismissed the initial, fleeting thought of not turning back, but sailing on against the weather. Having Sarah and the baby aboard had not influenced his decision to heave to. It would have been bad seamanship to have gone out into the dirty weather obviously confronting him when there was protective anchorage so close to hand. And Briggs was not a poor seaman.

He was aware that the crew whom he still had to come to know would recognise it as the decision of good captaincy. Briggs was no more interested in impressing them than he was in earning their sycophantic smiles, but he had never forgotten a long-ago lesson from his father on the importance of a captain’s achieving the confidence of his men. A confident crew was a good crew. Even more important, an obedient one.

Briggs did not regard it, therefore, as a completely pointless delay, but as time put to some purpose, psychological rather than practical though it might be.

He heard movement behind him and turned as Richardson emerged from the main hatch, followed by the German brothers Volkert and Boz Lorensen.

‘Wherever we thought it necessary, we’ve double-lashed the barrels against movement,’ said the first mate.

Briggs gazed beyond the man, out to sea. Although little after midday, the weather was so black that it was impossible to detect the horizon.

‘It’ll doubtless be a precaution we’ll need,’ agreed Briggs. The man’s initiative pleased him; his order had merely been to check the cargo.

‘If it remains like this,’ said the first mate, looking in the same direction as the captain, ‘there’ll be few days when we’re not awash.’

‘Best double batten the hatches,’ said the captain.

‘There’s already a smell down there,’ said Richardson, nodding towards the still-open hold.

‘There’ll be opportunity to ventilate,’ said Briggs confidently.

‘I checked the pumps this morning and they’re as sound as anyone could want, so I don’t anticipate problems no matter how much sea we ship.’

‘And according to the log of Captain Spates, there’s very little leakage.’

Wind suddenly gusted over the deck and Briggs shivered in the winter cold.

‘Let’s move to my cabin,’ he said.

Before following the captain towards the accommodation door, Richardson told Boz Lorensen to batten the hatchway through which they had just emerged and replace the boat upon its fenders.

Briggs was already at his desk when Richardson entered. The man made no move to sit until invited to do so by the other man.

‘Any annoyance about drink?’ Briggs asked, as soon as the man was seated. The day before they had left the pier, Briggs had mustered the crew and told them he would not allow alcohol during the voyage.

‘No disgruntlement at all,’ said Richardson immediately. ‘I was a little surprised.’

‘So am I,’ admitted the captain.

‘It’s too early to say, of course, but I don’t think we’re going to get any trouble with them. They all seem good seamen.’

‘Let’s hope you’re not proved wrong.’

‘Aye.’

‘Frorn our other voyages together, Mr Richardson, you’ll know I’m a man who likes a ship tidy run.’

‘I know.’

‘I accept it’ll sometimes be unavoidable, but I want no cursing, certainly not in the presence of Mrs Briggs.’

‘I’ve already made that clear.’

‘And I want it impressed upon them that I meant what I said during muster — I’ll not allow gambling. On a vessel this size, it can only lead to dispute.’

‘The men understand your order,’ Richardson assured Briggs.

‘There’ll be prayers on Sundays, to which all will be welcome in my day cabin.’

‘I’ll let it be known,’ said Richardson. ‘The Germans are Catholic, but they may care to attend.’

‘It’ll be more to worship God than denominational.’

Richardson nodded. He sat respectfully with his cap upon his knee.

‘I’ll make Sundays the day for crew quarter inspection, too,’ decided Briggs. ‘I know it’ll be difficult, particularly if the weather stays dirty, but I shall expect the men to take sea showers, of course.’

‘They give the appearance of cleanliness.’

‘First impressions can sometimes be misleading.’

‘True enough,’ accepted Richardson.

Briggs sat wondering if the first mate regarded as unduly restrictive the regulations he had imposed for the voyage. He hoped not. In his father, Briggs recognised, he had had a diligent tutor. Not that he had followed the old man’s disciplinarianism to the degree that he had practised. Briggs had never heard his father give an order directly to a member of the crew, but always through the mates. And that had applied to any of his sons, when they had sailed under him. Afloat, his family might have been strangers to him.

At sea, no sailor had ever thought of passing him on the weather side when he had been walking the quarter-deck. Going to or from the wheel they always had to go on the lee side and, if there were work to be done on the weather side, no sailor had ever passed the man without touching his cap and always to leeward, never intruding themselves between the old man and the sea.

‘The proper etiquette of the sea,’ the man had called it. While Briggs felt it important to run an orderly ship, he considered it impractical to be quite so autocratic upon a vessel such as the Mary Celeste.

He rose, going to a small chart table beneath the cabin window.

‘I’m making a southerly course for Gibraltar,’ he said. ‘We might find better weather there.’

Realising the invitation, Richardson rose, following him to look down on the charts, upon which Briggs had already pencilled a route.

‘What if the weather improves?’

‘I might change northerly, but I’ll let it set first. I’m not going to alter course at every change of wind.’

‘What about a return cargo?’ asked Richardson, as they went back to their seats.

‘Fruit in Messina,’ said Briggs. ‘We’ll sail as soon as we discharge at Genoa.’

Briggs recalled Richardson’s recent marriage to the niece of Captain Winchester and recognised a point to the question.

‘When have you set your mind for returning?’ he said.

‘February or thereabouts,’ said the first mate.

‘Could even be before, if things run smoothly. Hoping for your own command?’

Richardson nodded. ‘Something small, to begin with,’ he said. ‘Ply around the coast here, perhaps.’

‘Wife intend sailing with you?’

‘As much as possible.’

‘Wise decision,’ said Briggs. ‘It’s a lonely life for a woman, being a sailor’s wife. Mrs Briggs has sailed with me often.’

‘Not easy with children, though.’

‘True enough,’ accepted Briggs. ‘It’ll be more difficult when Sophia starts her schooling.’

As if reminded, Richardson looked towards the cabin door.

‘Line should be up by now,’ he said.

Briggs rose, leading the way from the cabin. As they emerged on deck, Briggs saw Arien Martens, the German whom he knew to hold a mate’s certificate, helping the baby into a halter. As he got closer, he saw it had been carefully made from thin rope plaited and then fashioned into a tiny bodice that fitted over Sophia’s shoulders, looped criss-cross over her back and then connected with a tiny belt. From the belt another plaited line had been spliced around a metal ring, the other end connected to another metal ring that could run freely along a length of rope that had been strung between the two masts.