Hammond Innes - The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘That means losing a whole season,’ I said.

He nodded, grinning. ‘As it happens there’s a boat for sale right here in Peter Port would suit us nicely. • I had a look at her last night. Not as pretty as Sea Witch, of course …’ He was full of plans — one of those irrepressible people who bounce back up as soon as they’re knocked down. He was as good a tonic as I could have wished for, and, though he still had a piece of adhesive tape stuck across the side of his jaw where the skin was split, he seemed none the worse for his thirty hours on the waterlogged wreck of that motor boat.

I was discharged from hospital next day and when Mike came up to collect me, he brought a whole pile of London papers with him, ‘Altogether you’ve had a pretty good Press,’ he said, dumping them on my bed. ‘And there’s a newspaper fellow flew in this morning offering you a tidy little sum for a first-hand account of what happened. He’s down at the hotel now.’

Later we went and looked at the boat Mike had discovered. She was cheap and sound and we bought her on the spot. And that night Snetterton turned up at our hotel, still neat, still dapper in his pin-stripe suit, though he’d spent two days on Chausey Island. They had cut into Number Four hold at low water and opened up three of the aero engine cases. The contents consisted of concrete blocks. ‘A satisfactory result, Mr Sands. Most satisfactory. I have sent a full report to Scotland Yard.’

‘But your San Francisco people will still have to pay the insurance, won’t they?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course. But we shall recover it from the Dellimare Company. Very fortunately they have a big sum standing to their credit in a Singapore bank — the proceeds of the sale of the Torre Annunziata and her cargo. We were able to get it frozen pending investigation. I think,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘that Mr Gundersen would have been better advised to have organised the re-sale of the aero engines through another company. But there — the best laid schemes…’ He smiled as he sipped his sherry. ‘It was a clever idea, though. Very clever indeed. That it failed is due entirely to Mr Patch — and to you, sir,’

he added, looking at me over his glass. ‘I have requested the H.B. amp; K.M. … well, we shall see.’

I wasn’t able to see Patch before I left Peter Port. But I saw him three weeks later when we gave evidence before the resumed Court of Enquiry. He was still very weak. The charges against him had already been dropped; Gundersen had slipped out of the country and Burrows and other members of the crew were only too willing to tell the truth now, pleading that they had supported Higgins’s story because they were frightened of him. The Court found the loss of the Mary Deare was due to conspiracy to defraud on the part of the owners, Patch was absolved from all blame and the whole matter was referred to the police for action.

A good deal of publicity was given to the affair at the time and, as a result of it, Patch was given command of the Wacomo, a 10,000-ton freighter. He and Janet were married by then, but our diving programme had prevented us from attending the wedding and I didn’t see him again until September of the following year. Mike and I were in Avonmouth then, getting ready to dive for a wreck in the Bristol Channel, and the Wacomo came in from Singapore and moored across the dock from us. That night we dined on board with Patch.

I barely recognised him. The lines were gone from his face and, though the stoop was still there and his hair was greying at the temples, he looked young and full of confidence in his uniform with the gold stripes. On his desk stood the same photograph in its silver frame, but across the bottom Janet had written: For my husband now — bans voyages. And framed on the wall was a letter from the H.B. amp; K.M. Corporation of San Francisco.

That letter had been handed to Janet by Snetterton at their wedding reception, and with it a cheque for Ł5,000 for her husband’s part in exposing the fraud — a strangely apt figure! At the time Mike and I had been working on a wreck off the Hook of Holland and when we got back I found a similar letter waiting for me, together with a cheque for Ł2,500 — as some compensation for the loss of your vessel.

The body of Alfred Higgins was never recovered, but in August of that year a metal dinghy, with patches of blue paint still adhering to it, was found wedged in a crevice of the rocks on the south side of Alderney. It had been battered almost flat by the seas. One final thing — an entry in the log of Sea Witch II made on September 8, just after we had located and buoyed the wreck in the Bristol Channel. It reads: 11.48 — Freighter WACOMO passed us outward-bound for Singapore and Hong Kong. Signalled us: ‘Captain Patch’s compliments and he is not, repeat not, trying to run you down this time! Good wrecking!’ She then gave us three blasts on her siren, to which we responded on the foghorn. A month later, with Sea Witch II laid up for the winter, I began this account of the loss of the Mary Deare.