Brian Freemantle: The Mary Celeste

‘Weight,’ shouted Briggs, to the cook. ‘There’s too much weight. Throw the food over.’

Obediently, the man heaved the gunny sacks from the boat. They scarcely cleared the water as he put them over the side. The boat did not appear to rise at all.

Richardson and Martens managed a stud-sail of sorts, trying to get some wind, but the gusts eddied around them, with little direction. The waves were very high now, lurching towards them in great walls of water, and the boat didn’t lift, so that they were completely washed over. Boz Lorensen, emptied by his efforts to row, was the first to go, yelling as he felt himself lifted by a wave and stretching out his hand, which incredibly his brother snatched out and grabbed, preventing him from being carried completely away. He was pushed outside the boat, though, which lifted slightly. For a moment Volkert stayed inboard, pulling his brother to where he could get a grip on the gunwale, then looked towards the woman and child in the rear of the vessel. Without a word, he edged over, putting his body alongside his brother and reaching over, so that one of his arms was over the man’s shoulders, supporting him.

‘It’s going up,’ said Briggs, knowing there was excitement in his voice, but uncaring. ‘The boat is going up.’

Martens was the next over, trying a grip on the side opposite from the brothers, professionally knowing that if she continued to rise in the water they would need to balance.

He shouted to Goodschall in German and the young man hesitated, then slipped over, so that there were two men on either side of the boat. In the troughs beneath the waves, it was just possible to see the edge of the boat. Gilling, Richardson and Head were on their hands and knees, bailing with the ferocity of men who knew there was little hope left but refused to believe it. Briggs tried to trim the stud, seeking the wind.

Richardson sat back upon his heels, nearing collapse, gazing dully up at the captain and the sail he was trying to control.

Awareness suddenly came into his face and he said, ‘Northwest.’

Briggs turned to him.

‘The wind,’ said the first mate, limply trying to indicate the sail. ‘It’s north-west. To get us to Santa Maria, it would have to be south-westerly.’

The man was right, realised Briggs, feeling the hope seep from him.

Now that the wind was set into a quarter, it built up the waves even higher, so that there was no interval in the seas that engulfed them. The weakest of them all, Boz Lorensen, released his handhold first, and trying to save him a second time Volkert let go and they were carried away together, the older man still attempting to keep his brother’s head clear of the water, even though they had been separated from the only thing that could possibly save them. Briggs was tearing at the stud, to bring it down, knowing it had become a greater danger than help, straining through the rain and clouds in an effort to see Santa Maria. There was nothing, just sea and rain and blackness. With no way to keep her into the running sea, the next wave caught the boat broadside, tipping her up and tearing the gunwales from Martens and Goodschall. As quickly as she had lifted, the boat fell away again and there was the dull, slapping sound as the hull came down upon the two men beneath. The blood smeared out and Sarah screamed, an hysterical sound. Neither of the bodies surfaced.

The boat corkscrewed as it came down, throwing them all off-balance, and then in an immediate rush of water Richardson suddenly wasn’t there any more. Briggs came around at the cry for help. As he had been hurled from the boat, Richardson had grabbed out, snatching at the cook’s arm and pulling him overboard as well. Briggs saw them once, and then a wall of water engulfed them and they did not come up. Something else lifted on the waves and Briggs recognised one of the rafts.

‘Make for the raft,’ he shouted, to the men he couldn’t see. ‘There’s a raft on the port quarter.’

‘The baby!’ Sarah suddenly shouted.

She was holding Sophia out towards Briggs, imploringly. The little bundle sagged limply and Briggs realised that, as she had crouched trying to hold the baby against her, Sarah had actually held the baby’s head beneath the water.

He snatched the child, before the woman had a chance to pull at the protective covering to discover what she had done.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘She’s all right.’

It was the first lie he had ever told her.

Sarah suddenly stood up, eyes staring in her hysteria. Gilling grabbed out, to bring her down, so the inrush of water caught him first, lifting him and carrying him bodily into the woman, knocking her backwards over the stern. For a moment they surfaced, about a yard apart. Briggs fell into the stern, reaching out for her and momentarily she stretched her hand towards his, trying to grasp at his groping fingers; and then she went under and he never saw her again.

He still had the baby in his left arm, holding her roughly. He turned, feeling beneath the water for the stern-seat, and then sat with the lifeless bundle in his arms, clutched high against him, the clothes raised around her again, to keep the water off.

He never saw the wave, but was aware of its movement, lifting him from the boat like a giant hand; and then he knew he was going under water and that his heavy clothes were dragging him down. He tightened his grasp upon Sophia.

Everything else had gone. But it wouldn’t take her. He’d promised Sarah it wouldn’t take the baby.

Could this have been the fate of the Mary Celeste and the people aboard?

It was the conviction held, in varying degrees, by nearly everyone most closely involved in the mystery.

In 1886, Captain Winchester told a friend: The cause of the hurried stoppage of the vessel, of the launching of the boat and of the abandonment was, in my opinion, that the alcohol which formed her cargo being in these red-oak barrels, a wood which is extremely porous, enough of its fumes exhaled through the pores of the wood to mingle with the foul air of the hold and generate an explosive gas which blew off the fore-hatch. Believing that she was on fire below and considering the inflammable nature of her cargo and mindful of the fact that his wife and child were on board, Captain Briggs, on the spur of the moment, resolved to heave the vessel to, launch the longboat, get into it and remain at a safe distance from the brig awaiting further developments. This was probably done, but the brig’s mainsail being stowed, she had no after-sail to keep her to the wind and she got stem away and backed off until the wind filled her topsail when, like a frightened deer, away she went, leaving her crew behind.

It was a theory supported by Captain Henry Appleby, the man who in Cadiz loaned Winchester the bail-bond money to retrieve his vessel. A minor explosion actually happened aboard Captain Appleby’s Daisy Boynton, with a cargo of alcohol en route for Bilbao, in northern Spain.

And it was the conclusion reached after an exhaustive investigation by Dr Oliver Cobb, of Easthampton, Massachusetts, a cousin of both Captain Briggs and his wife, who was Sarah Elizabeth Cobb before her marriage.

Said Dr Cobb: I think that the cargo of alcohol, having been loaded in cold weather at New York, early in November and the vessel having crossed the Gulf Stream and being now in comparatively warm weather, there may have been some leakage and gas may have accumulated in the hold. The captain, having care for his wife and daughter, was probably unjustifiably alarmed and, fearing a fire or an explosion, determined to take his people in the boat away from the vessel until the immediate danger should pass… whatever happened, it is evident that the boat, with ten people in her, left the vessel and that the peak halyard was taken as a tow line and as a means of bringing the boat back to the Mary Celeste in case no explosion or fire had destroyed the vessel. Probably a fresh northerly wind sprang up, filled the square sails and the vessel gathered way quickly. The peak halyard made fast at the usual place on the gaff would be brought at an acute angle around the stanchions at the gangway. With the heavy boat standing still at the end, I do not wonder that the halyard parted. This would tally exactly with the evidence given in court — that the peak halyard was broken.