Hammond Innes - The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

I could hear Sea Witch now, hear the slap of her bows as she hit a wave and the solid, surging noise of her passage through the water. There were shouts and over my shoulder I saw her coming up into the wind, very close now, her head unwilling to pay off, the bowsprit almost touching the steamer’s sides. A gust of wind buffeted me, the main boom slammed over, sails filling suddenly, and she went surging past me a good twenty yards out from where I clung, swinging sickeningly in mid-air. Hal was shouting at me. ‘The wind… strong… the ship turning round.’ That was all I caught and yet he was so close I could see the water dripping off his oilskins, could see his blue eyes wide and startled-looking under his sou’wester.

Mike eased the sheets and the boat roared off downwind. Hanging there, soaked with sea water thrown up from the wave tops breaking against the ship’s side, I felt the weight of the wind pressing me in towards the rusty hull. At each roll I had to brace myself to meet the shock of my body being flung against her. Gradually I realised what had happened. The wind was swinging the Mary Deare broadside on; and I was on the windward side, exposed to the full force of the rising gale.

Sea Witch went about again and I wanted to shout to Hal not to be a fool, that it was no good. Now that the Mary Deare had swung, it was dangerous to come alongside with the wind pressing the yacht down on to the ship. But all I did was pray that he’d make it, for I knew I couldn’t hang there much longer. The ropes were getting slippery with water and it was bitterly cold.

I don’t know how Hal managed it, but despite the lack of headsails to bring her bow round, he got her about with almost no way on her a short stone’s throw from where I was clinging. Then he let her drift downwind. It was a superb piece of seamanship. There was a moment when her stern was almost within my reach. I think I might have made it, but at that moment the roll of the Mary Deare swung me against her sides and I was held fast against the wet chill of her hull, whilst the familiar counter of my boat slid away as Hal got her moving again to prevent her from being battered to pieces against the ship. ‘No good … daren’t… too dangerous … Peter Port.’ The ragged snatches of Hal’s shouts reached me through the wind as I was freed from the ship’s side and swung out over the water, right over the spot where Sea Witch’s stern had been only a few seconds before. I wanted to shout to him to try again, just once more. But I knew it was risking the boat and their lives as well. ‘Okay,’ I yelled. ‘Make Peter Port. Good luck!’

He shouted something back, but I couldn’t hear what it was. Sea Witch was already disappearing beyond the steamer’s bows, going fast with all her sheets eased and the wind driving at the great spread of her mainsail. I glanced up quickly at the towering wall of iron above my head and then I began to climb whilst I still had some strength left.

But each time the ship rolled I was flung against the side. It gave me extra purchase, flattened hard against the rusty plates, but it battered me, knocking the wind out of me. And each time I was swung clear the loss of purchase almost flung me off, for my fingers were numbed with cold and my arms and knees trembled with the strain of clinging there too long. The waves broke, engulfing me in ice-cold spray, and sometimes green water sloshed up the side of the ship and gripped me about the waist, plucking at me as it subsided.

I made only a few feet, and then I was finally halted. I could climb no farther. Flattened against the ship’s side, I gripped the rope with my shaking legs and, letting go with one hand, hauled up the free end, pulling it up between my legs and wrapping it over my shoulder. It took the strain off my arms. But it didn’t get me back on to the ship’s deck. I began to shout then, but the sound of my voice was whipped away by the wind. I knew the man couldn’t possibly hear me, but I still went on shouting, praying that he’d come. He was my only hope. And then I stopped shouting, for I had no breath left — jarred and bruised, swung one moment out over the tumbled waters, the next slammed against the ship’s side, it came to me slowly that this was the end.

It is difficult to be scared of something that is inevitable. You accept it, and that is that. But I remember thinking how ironical it was; the sea was to me a liquid, quiet, unruffled world through which to glide down green corridors to the darker depths, down tall reef walls with the fish, all brilliant colours in the surface dazzle, down to the shadowy shapes of barnacle-crusted wrecks. Now it was a raging fury of a giant, rearing up towards me, clutching at me, foaming and angry.

And then hope came suddenly in the graze of my hand against the rusty plates. Blood oozed in droplets from my knuckles, to be washed away by a blinding sheet of spray, and I stared, fascinated, as a flake of rust was peeled off by the upward scrape of my body. I didn’t look up. I didn’t move for fear I had imagined that I was being hauled up. But when the sea no longer reached me as it burst against the ship’s side, I knew it was true. I looked up then and saw that the davits had been hauled inboard, saw the ropes move, taut, across the rail-capping.

Slowly, a foot at a time, I was hauled up, until at last my head came level with the deck and I looked into the haggard face and the wild, dark eyes of the Mary Deare’s captain. He dragged me over the side and I collapsed on to the deck. I never knew till then how comfortable iron deck plates could be. ‘Better get some dry clothes,’ he said.

He pulled me to my feet and I stood there, trying to thank him. But I was too exhausted, too numbed with cold. My teeth chattered. He got my arm round his neck and half dragged me along the deck and down to one of the officers’ cabins. ‘Help yourself to what you want,’ he said as he lowered me on to the bunk. ‘Rice was about your height.’ He stood over me for a moment, frowning at me as though I were some sort of a problem that had to be worked out. Then he left me.

I lay back, exhaustion weighting my eyelids, drowning consciousness. But my body had no warmth left in it and the cold cling of sodden clothes dragged me up off the bunk, to strip and towel myself down. I found dry clothes in a drawer and put them on; woollen underwear, a shirt, a pair of trousers and a sweater. A glow spread through me and my teeth stopped chattering. I took a cigarette from a packet on the desk and lit it, lying back again on the bunk, my eyes closed, drawing on it luxuriously. I felt better then — not worried about myself, only about Sea Witch. I hoped to God she’d get safe to Peter Port.

I was drowsy with the sudden warmth; the cabin was airless and smelt of stale sweat. The cigarette kept slipping from my fingers. And then a voice from a great distance off was saying: ‘Sit up and drink this.’ I opened my eyes and he was standing over me again with a steaming mug in his hand. It was tea laced with rum. I started to thank him, but he cut me short with a quick, angry movement of his hand. He didn’t say anything; just stood there, watching me drink it, his face in shadow. There was a strange hostility in his silence.

The ship was rolling heavily now and through the open door came the sound of the wind howling along the deck. The Mary Deare would be a difficult tow if it blew a gale. They might not even be able to get a tow-line across to us. I was remembering what Hal had said about the Channel Islands as a lee shore. The warmth of the drink was putting new life into me; enough for me to consider what faced me, now that I was marooned on board the Mary Deare.

I looked up at the man, standing over me, wondering why he had refused to leave the ship. ‘How long before you expect help to reach us?’ I asked him.