Hammond Innes - The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘I don’t know,’ Hal answered. ‘It seems incredible. But all I can say is that I had a clear view of the interior of the bridge for an instant and, as far as I could see, there was nobody there.’

We didn’t say anything for a moment. I think we were all too astonished. The idea of a big ship ploughing her way through the rock-infested seas so close to the French-coast without anybody at the helm … It was absurd.

Mike’s voice, suddenly practical, broke the silence. ‘What happened to those mugs of soup?’ The beam of the Aldis lamp clicked on, revealing the mugs lying in a foot of water at the bottom of the cockpit. ‘I’d better go and make another brew.’ And then to Hal who was standing, half-dressed, his body braced against the charthouse: ‘What about you, Colonel? You’d like some soup, wouldn’t you?’

Hal nodded. ‘I never refuse an offer of soup.’ He watched Mike until he had gone below and then he turned to me. ‘I don’t mind admitting it now that we’re alone,’ he said, ‘but that was a very unpleasant moment. How did we come to be right across her bows like that?’

I explained that the ship had been downwind from us and we hadn’t heard the beat of her engines. ‘The first we saw of her was the green of her starboard navigation light coming at us out of the mist.’

‘No fog signal?’

‘We didn’t hear it, anyway.’

‘Odd!’ He stood for a moment, his long body outlined against the port light, and then he came aft and seated himself beside me on the cockpit coaming. ‘Had a look at the barometer during your watch?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I said. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘Going down.’ He had his long arms wrapped round his body, hugging his seaman’s jersey. ‘Dropped quite a bit since I went below.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘You know, this gale could come up on us pretty quickly.’ I didn’t say anything and he pulled his pipe out and began to suck on it. ‘I tell you frankly, John, I don’t like it.’ The quietness of his voice added strength to his opinion. ‘If the forecast turns out right and the wind backs northwesterly, then we’ll be on a lee shore. I don’t like gales and I don’t like lee shores, particularly when the lee shore is the Channel Islands.’

I thought he wanted me to put back to the French coast and I didn’t say anything; just sat there staring at the compass card, feeling obstinate and a little scared.

‘It’s a pity about the kicker,’ he murmured. ‘If the kicker hadn’t packed up-’

‘Why bring that up?’ It was the only thing that had gone wrong with the boat. ‘You’ve always said you despise engines.’

His blue eyes, caught in the light of the binnacle, stared at me fixedly. ‘I was only going to say,’ he put in mildly, ‘that if the kicker hadn’t packed up we’d be halfway across the Channel by now and the situation would be entirely different.’

‘Well, I’m not putting back.’

He took his pipe out of his mouth as though to say something and then put it back and sat there, staring at me with those unwinking blue eyes of his.

‘The real trouble is that you’re not used to sailing in a boat that hasn’t been kept up to ocean racing pitch.’ I hadn’t meant to say that, but I was angry and my nerves were still tense from the steamer incident.

An awkward silence fell between us. At length he stopped sucking on his pipe. ‘It’s only that I like to arrive,’ he said quietly. ‘The rigging is rusty, the ropes rotten and the sails-’

‘We went over all that in Morlaix,’ I said tersely. ‘Plenty of yachts cross the Channel in worse shape than Sea Witch.’

‘Not in March with a gale warning. And not without an engine.’ He got up and went for’ard as far as the mast, bending down and hauling at something.

There was the sound of splintering wood and then he came back and tossed a section of the bulwarks into the cockpit at my feet. ‘The bow wave did that.’ He sat down beside me again. ‘It isn’t good enough, John. The boat hasn’t been surveyed and for all you know the hull may be as rotten as the gear after lying for two years on a French mud bank.’

‘The hull’s all right,’ I told him. I was calmer now. ‘There are a couple of planks to be replaced and she needs restopping. But that’s all. I went over every inch of her with a knife before I bought her. The wood is absolutely sound.’

‘And what about the fastenings?’ His right eyebrow lifted slightly. ‘Only a surveyor could tell you whether the fastenings-’

‘I told you, I’m having her surveyed as soon as we reach Lymington.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t help us now. If this gale comes up on us suddenly … I’m a prudent mariner,’ he added. ‘I like the sea, but it’s not a creature I want to take liberties with.’

‘Well, I can’t afford to be prudent,’ I said. ‘Not right now.’

Mike and I had just formed a small salvage company and every day we delayed getting the boat to England for conversion was a day lost out of our diving season. He knew that.

‘I’m only suggesting you steer a point off your direct course,’ he said. ‘Close-hauled we can just about lay for Hanois on Guernsey Island. We’ll then II be in a position to take advantage of the wind when it backs and run for shelter to Peter Port.’

Of course… I rubbed my hand over my eyes. I should have known what he was driving at. But I was tired and the steamer incident had left me badly shaken. It was queer the way the vessel had sailed right through us like that.

‘It won’t help your salvage venture if you smash the boat up.’ Hal’s voice cut across my thoughts. He had taken my silence for refusal. ‘Apart from the gear, we’re not very strongly crewed.’

That was true enough. There were only the three of us. The fourth member of the crew, Ian Baird, had been sea-sick from the time we had left Morlaix. And she was a biggish boat for three to handle — a forty-tonner. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘We’ll head for Guernsey.’

He nodded as though he’d known it all along. ‘You’ll need to steer North 65 degrees East then.’

I turned the wheel, giving her starboard helm, and watched the compass card swing to the new course. He must have been working out the course in the charthouse just before the steamer came up on us. ‘I take it you worked out the distance, too?’

‘Fifty-four miles. And at this rate,’ he added, ‘it’ll be daylight long before we get there.’

An uneasy silence settled between us. I could hear him sucking at his empty pipe, but I kept my eyes on the compass and didn’t look at him. Damn it, I should have thought of Peter Port for myself! But there’d been so much to do at Morlaix getting the boat ready … I’d just about worked myself to a standstill before ever we put to sea.

‘That ship.’ His voice came out of the darkness at my side, a little hesitant, bridging the gap of my silence. ‘Damned queer,’ he murmured. ‘You know, if there really was nobody on board …’ He checked and then added, half-jokingly, That would have been a piece of salvage that would have set you up for life.’ I thought I sensed a serious note underlying his words, but when I glanced at him he shrugged his shoulders and laughed. ‘Well, I think I’ll turn in again now.’ He got up and his ‘good night’ floated back to me from the dark gap of the charthouse.

Shortly afterwards Mike brought me a mug of hot soup. He stayed and talked to me whilst I drank it, speculating wildly about the Mary Deare. Then he, too, turned in and the blackness of the night closed round me. Could there really have been nobody on the bridge? It was too fantastic — an empty ship driving pell mell up the Channel. And yet, cold and alone, with the pale glimmer of the sails swooping above me and the dismal dripping of mist condensed on the canvas, anything seemed possible.