Hammond Innes - The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

At three Hal relieved me and for two hours I slept, dreaming of blunt, rusted bows hanging over us, toppling slowly, everlastingly. I woke in a panic, cold with sweat, and lay for a moment thinking about what Hal had said. It would be queer if we salvaged a ship, just like that, before we’d even … But I was asleep again before the idea had more than flickered through my mind. And in an instant I was being shaken and was stumbling out to the helm in the brain-numbing hour before the dawn, all recollection of the Mary Deare blurred and hazed by the bitter cold.

Daylight came slowly, a reluctant dawn that showed a drab, sullen sea heaving gently, the steepness flattened out of the swell. The wind was northerly now, but still light; and some time during the night we had gone over on to the other tack.

At ten to seven Hal and I were in the charthouse for the weather report. It started with gale warnings for the western approaches of the Channel; the forecast for our own area of Portland was: Wind light, northerly at first, backing northwesterly later and increasing strong to gale. Hal glanced at me, but said nothing. There was no need. I checked our position and then gave Mike the course to steer for Peter Port.

It was a queer morning. There was a lot of scud about and by the time we had finished breakfast it was moving across the sky quite fast. Yet at sea level there was scarcely any wind so that, with full main and mizzen set and the big yankee jib, we were creeping through the water at a bare three knots, rolling sluggishly. There was still a mist of sorts and visibility wasn’t much more than two miles.

We didn’t talk much. I think we were all three of us too conscious of the sea’s menace. Peter Port was still thirty miles away. The silence and the lack of wind was oppressive. ‘I’ll go and check our position again,’ I said. Hal nodded as though the thought had been in his mind, too.

But poring over the chart didn’t help. As far as I could tell we were six miles north-north-west of the Roches Douvres, that huddle of rocks and submerged reefs that is the western outpost of the Channel Islands. But I couldn’t be certain; my dead reckoning depended too much on tide and leeway.

And then Mike knocked the bottom out of my calculations. ‘There’s a rock about two points on the starboard bow,’ he called to me. ‘A big one sticking up out of the water.’

I grabbed the glasses and flung out of the charthouse. ‘Where?’ My mouth was suddenly harsh and dry. If it were the Roches Douvres, then we must have been set down a good deal farther than I thought. And it couldn’t be anything else; it was all open sea between Roches Douvres and Guernsey. ‘Where?’ I repeated.

‘Over there!’ Mike was pointing.

I screwed up my eyes. But I couldn’t see anything. The clouds had thinned momentarily and a queer sun-glow was reflected on the oily surface of the sea, merging it with the moisture-laden atmosphere. There was no horizon; at the edge of visibility sea and air became one. I searched through the glasses. ‘I can’t see it,’ I said. ‘How far away?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve lost it now. But it wasn’t more than a mile.’

‘You’re sure it was a rock?’

‘Yes, I think so. What else could it be?’ He was staring into the distance, his eyes narrowed against the luminous glare of the haze. ‘It was a big rock with some sort of tower or pinnacle in the middle of it.’

The Roches Douvres light! I glanced at Hal seated behind the wheel. ‘We’d better alter course,’ I said. The tide is setting us down at about two knots.’ My voice sounded tense. If it was the Roches Douvres and the wind fell any lighter, we could be swept right down on to the reef.

He nodded and swung the wheel. ‘That would put you out by five miles in your dead reckoning.’

‘Yes.’

He frowned. He had taken his sou’wester off and his grey hair, standing on end, gave his face a surprised, puckish look. ‘I think you’re under-rating yourself as a navigator, but you’re the boss. How much do you want me to bear up?’

‘Two points at least.’

‘There’s an old saying,’ he murmured: ‘The prudent mariner, when in doubt, should assume his dead reckoning to be correct.’ He looked at me with a quizzical lift to his bushy eyebrows. ‘We don’t want to miss Guernsey, you know.’

A mood of indecision took hold of me. Maybe it was just the strain of the long night, but I wasn’t sure what to do for the best. ‘Did you see it?’ I asked him.

‘No.’

I turned to Mike and asked him again whether he was sure it was rock he’d seen.

‘You can’t be sure of anything in this light.’

‘But you definitely saw something?’

‘Yes. I’m certain of that. And I think it had some sort of a tower on it.’

A gleam of watery sunlight filtered through the damp atmosphere, giving a furtive brightness to the cockpit. ‘Then it must be the Roches Douvres,’ I murmured.

‘Look!’ Mike cried. ‘There it is — over there.’

I followed the line of his outstretched arm. On the edge of visibility, lit by the sun’s pale gleam, was the outline of a flatfish rock with a light tower in the middle. I had the glasses on it immediately, but it was no more than a vague, misty shape — a reddish tint glimmering through the golden haze. I dived into the charthouse and snatched up the chart, staring at the shape of the Roches Douvres reef. It marked drying rock outcrops for a full mile northwest of the 92ft light tower. We must be right on the fringe of those outcrops. ‘Steer north,’ I shouted to Hal, ‘and sail her clear just as fast as you can.’

‘Aye, aye, skipper.’ He swung the wheel, calling to Mike to trim the sheets. He was looking over his shoulder at the Roches Douvres light as I came out of the charthouse. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘there’s something odd here. I’ve never actually seen the Roches Douvres, but I know the Channel Islands pretty well and I’ve never seen any rock that showed up red like that.’

I steadied myself against the charthouse and focused the glasses on it again. The gleam of sunlight had become more positive. Visibility was improving all the time. I saw it clearly then and I was almost laughing with relief. ‘It’s not a rock,’ I said. ‘It’s a ship.’ There was no doubt about it now. The rusty hull was no longer blurred, but stood out clear and sharp, and what I had taken to be a light tower was its single funnel.

We were all of us laughing with the sense of relief as we turned back on to the course. ‘Hove-to by the look of it,’ Mike said as he stopped hauling in on the main-sheet and began to coil it down.

It certainly looked like it, for now that we were back on course her position didn’t seem to have altered at all. She was lying broadside on to us as though held there by the wind and, as we closed with her and her outline became clearer, I could see that she was stationary, wallowing in the swell. Our course would leave her about half a mile to starboard. I reached for the glasses. There was something about the ship … something about her shape and her rusty hull and the way she seemed a little down at the bows.

‘Probably pumping out her bilges,’ Hal said, his voice hesitant as though he, too, were puzzled.

I focused the glasses and the outline of the vessel leaped towards me. She was an old boat with straight bows and a clean sweep to her sheer. She had an old-fashioned counter stern, an untidy clutter of derricks round her masts, and too much superstructure. Her single smoke stack, like her masts, was almost vertical. At one time she had been painted black, but now she had a rusty, uncared-for look. There was a sort of lifelessness about her that held me with the glasses to my eyes. And then I saw the lifeboat. ‘Steer straight for her, will you, Hal,’ I said.