Brian Freemantle: The Mary Celeste

Winchester appeared uncertain. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but I don’t understand if that’s a question.’

‘Not a question, Captain Winchester,’ said Flood. ‘More an observation from which a question can be formulated. What would induce a man of Captain Brigg’s ability and experience, accompanied by his wife and child, to abandon ship without any apparent reason?’

‘That is a question to which I have devoted a great deal of consideration — ’ began Winchester, but Flood interrupted, wanting to tilt the man’s composure slightly.

‘- then give us the benefit of that consideration, Captain Winchester.’

‘I have come to no rational, logical conclusion,’ said Winchester, unruffled by the Attorney-General.

‘Sea monsters, perhaps?’ said Flood, anticipating the outburst of laughter and the annoyance it would cause Winchester.

‘It must have been something quite frightening and quite unexpected. It’s been a stormy season and I can only assume it was some manifestation of weather that we shall never know.’

‘You’ve described Captain Briggs as a first-class captain?’

‘Yes.’

‘The sort of man to panic?’

‘Definitely not.’

Winchester was unsettled now, thought Flood. The questioning was proceeding exactly as he had intended.

‘But wouldn’t it indicate panic of the most hysterical kind to abandon with sails apparently set an obviously seaworthy, utterly sound vessel through some manifestation of the weather and commit himself, his family and his crew to a smaller, less seaworthy, less sound lifeboat?’

Winchester did not respond.

‘Wouldn’t it?’ insisted the Attorney-General.

‘That could be an interpretation,’ admitted Winchester reluctantly.

‘The only interpretation?’ pressed Flood.

‘I suppose so.’

‘Yet Captain Briggs was an experienced, first-class mariner unlikely to panic whatever the circumstances.’

‘That is my belief,’ said Winchester.

‘Then if that’s the case, your theory about the weather cannot be valid, can it?’

‘Before going ashore to run my company I spent many years at sea,’ said Winchester. ‘There can arise upon an ocean freak conditions the like of which no man who is not a sailor can ever imagine… conditions that would cause the unlikeliest reaction from the most experienced master.’

‘Are you inviting this enquiry to believe that somewhere near the Azores group of islands there was such a bizarre occurrence… so bizarre that a sane man committed his wife and baby to the perils of a lifeboat…’

‘I don’t ask this enquiry to be persuaded into any conclusion,’ said Winchester. ‘I am merely trying to assist in answering your questions to the best of my ability.’

The Attorney-General allowed the surprise to register at the defiance, the silence building up for effect. Finally he said: ‘Surely you are willing to persuade the court into one conclusion?’

‘Again I lose your drift, sir,’ protested Winchester.

‘You have not, if my recollection of your evidence-in-chief is correct, disputed the fact that the Mary Celeste was found abandoned?’

‘But how can I?’ said Winchester.

Ignoring the question, Flood continued: ‘And therefore you do not oppose the salvage claim?’

Winchester looked towards Captain Morehouse in the well of the court, then towards the judge, as if seeking guidance.

‘Can you see any reason why salvage should not be granted to those making the claim before this enquiry today?’ persisted the Attorney-General.

‘I am not conducting this enquiry,’ said Winchester adroitly. ‘That is a decision for the judge, after considering all of the evidence.’

The Attorney-General concealed completely his annoyance at the other man’s avoidance of the question. He had imagined he had sufficiently unsettled Captain Winchester to make him blurt out some unconsidered denial, from which he could have moved further to dislodge the man.

‘Were you aware that Captain Briggs sailed armed?’ he suddenly demanded.

‘Armed?’ echoed Winchester, face open with astonishment.

‘A sword was found concealed beneath the bunk of his cabin,’ said Flood. He hesitated, reaching beneath a cloth covering the exhibits and held it up. ‘This sword,’ he announced.

Winchester smiled, patronising again. ‘A souvenir from some earlier voyage, surely?’ he said, looking out into the court at the scattered sound of amusement.

‘The thought amuses you, Captain Winchester?’

‘The thought of Captain Briggs arming himself with a cutlass amuses me,’ said the owner.

‘I do not consider this a cutlass.’

‘Forgive me, sir,’ said Winchester, more openly patronising. ‘A sword of any kind.’

Flood became aware of Cochrane’s attention upon him and realised that the judge imagined he had lost control of the questioning.

‘Would your amusement remain if I told you that there was evidence of that sword being hastily wiped to do away with the traces of blood which stained the blade?’ he demanded.

The attitude of condescension fell away from the witness. Winchester became immediately serious, looking towards the lawyer representing him and then back to Flood.

‘Of course I would not be amused,’ he said. ‘I know nothing of any bloodstains.’

‘There were more upon the decking,’ continued Flood. ‘Tell me, Captain Winchester, what freak weather conditions put bloodstains upon sword blades and ships’ decking?’

Winchester shrugged, but did not reply.

‘Do you persist in your view that the weather is the root of this apparent tragedy?’ said Flood.

‘I was trying to assist the enquiry,’ repeated Winchester irritably. ‘I was not insisting that it was the weather. How can I? No one will ever know.’

‘Perhaps we might come to learn the truth,’ Flood said quickly. ‘This enquiry has hardly begun, after all.’

He went back to his papers, seeking nothing but wanting a pause for the remark to be assimilated by everyone in the room.

‘Was Captain Briggs an abstemious man?’ he asked.

‘A teetotaller,’ replied Winchester.

‘And the crew?’

‘I know the first mate, Richardson, to be a non-drinker,’ said the owner.

‘How so?’

‘He was recently married to a relation of mine, a niece.’

‘And the remainder of the crew?’

‘Predominantly German,’ said Winchester. ‘There was no indication of any drunkenness among them prior to the sailing. Captain Briggs went to particular trouble to ensure he had as good a crew as he could muster and before he sailed he expressed himself well pleased with the men he’d got.’

‘Remind the enquiry of the cargo of the Mary Celeste,’ said the Attorney-General.

‘Commercial alcohol,’ said Winchester.

‘Surprised as you were to learn there had been found a bloodstained sword aboard, how surprised would you be to be told that there is evidence of that cargo being broached?’

‘Broached?’

‘That was my word, sir,’ said Flood.

‘Which in shipping circles has a rather definite meaning,’ said Winchester, refusing to be subjugated by the confident little man before him. ‘Are you telling me that there is evidence of the cargo being tampered with… pierced, in fact, for the liquid to be drawn off?’

Winchester was proving a more difficult witness than he had imagined he would be, decided Flood. A man of surprising composure, in fact. Unless, of course, he had anticipated the awkwardness of the questioning.

‘To my certain knowledge, there are three barrels in the hold of that vessel lying out there…’ said the Attorney-General, gesturing towards the window and the bay beyond, ‘… completely empty of their contents.’