Neil Hanson - The Custom of the Sea

Tom turned to the others. For five months they had been confined together — on a ship, a dinghy and in a gaol. Even if only temporarily, they were now at last free to go their separate ways. Once more he struggled to contain his tears. He had cried more times since his rescue than in his whole life beforehand, often for the most trivial of reasons. He could find no apposite words to say to them and after muttering, ‘Until next Thursday, then,’ he climbed into the cab and was driven away.

Cheesman was waiting at the station to see him off. He shook Tom’s hand and expressed the hope that his temporary release would soon be made permanent. He had also brought two valuable items with him, Tom’s sextant and chronometer, which were not required as evidence and had been released by the police.

Tom arrived at Paddington by the mail train at four the next morning. He shuffled along the platform, wearing slippers because his legs were still so swollen that he was unable to bear the pressure of shoes. Although she had been ill all week, Philippa was there to meet him, accompanied by two friends. They crossed London by hansom cab and caught the five-fifty train from Victoria to Sutton.

A few people were waiting at Sutton station to welcome him home and show their support for him. He shook each hand that was offered to him and managed a few words of thanks, but his thoughts were focused only on reaching his house and seeing his children.

At the sound of the gate-latch, the two elder children, Philippa and Winifred, came running from the house. Julian tottered after them; he had taken his first steps while Tom was at sea. As he hugged them to him, Tom cried as if his heart would break.

Philippa’s first action was to pack him off to bed and send for their doctor to examine him and dress his wounds. While they waited for the doctor, Tom gave her the letter he had written to her in the dinghy.

She read and reread it, then laid the letter down. Their tears mingled as they wept on each other’s shoulders, while the children clustered around them, crying too, without knowing why.

Later, while Philippa plied him with food and drink, Tom told her the story of the sinking and the ordeal in the dinghy. By the time the doctor arrived, a group of reporters was waiting outside the house. Despite his weariness, Tom spoke to them at length, repeating his account of the voyage and the death of Richard Parker.

Philippa added her own trenchant defence of her husband, pointing out his role in saving Richard’s life when he was drowning, and in keeping the crew alive by risking his own life to search for provisions before abandoning the Mignonette . He had plugged the hole in the side of the dinghy, made the sea-anchor that stopped it from foundering, had insisted on raising a sail against the objections of the others, and time and again had ‘stopped them from committing suicide’ by drinking sea-water.

When the reporters had at last departed, Philippa led Tom inside and closed and barred the door. As he settled into his wing-chair with the children playing on the rug at his feet, Tom felt at peace for the first time in all the months since the Mignonette had sailed.

Stephens and Brooks had taken longer to reach home. After Tom had left them, Brooks insisted on heading for a tavern to celebrate their release. Although Stephens was desperate to see his family, the thought of travelling alone filled him with an illogical but undeniable fear, and he clung to his shipmate’s side.

In his wasted condition, two mugs of ale were enough to make Brooks drunk, and by the time they staggered down to the station, they had missed the through mail train to Southampton. They did not arrive there until Friday lunchtime.

A number of reporters were among the crowd of family, friends and curious onlookers waiting for them at the station. Those who knew them were shocked at their haggard appearance. As the local paper reported, ‘Both men bore on their features the impress of privation.’

Stephens appeared daunted by the crowd. His eyes darted from side to side seeking his wife, and he seemed unable to understand the questions shouted at them by reporters and bystanders. Ann stepped out of the crowd, embraced him, and led him away.

Brooks proved more willing to speak. ‘We had not the least idea that we should be apprehended in Falmouth,’ he said. ‘If people would only imagine for a moment what our sufferings were in the boat, such charges made against us would be about the last thing that would be thought of.’

There were some shouts of support, but also a number of boos and hostile questions. Just as in Falmouth, most of them centred on the men’s failure to draw lots before killing Richard Parker. Brooks looked around, very aware that he was merely a lodger in the dead boys home area.

‘I am very, very sorry that our poor little friend Parker did not come back with us,’ he said, ‘but we should none of us have returned if we had not done what we did. As to offending myself, if there is a trial I have got no money. Everything I had was lost in the Mignonette and our wages were stopped from the moment she went down.’

Among the onlookers as Brooks was speaking was a woman holding a ragged bundle of possessions. Two children clung to her skirts. When the reporters and the crowd had heard enough from him, Brooks took her to one side, exchanged increasingly heated words with her then handed her a handful of coins. When his friends hailed a hansom cab to take them to the County Tavern at Northam, she and her children were left standing alone at the side of the road. They cut a forlorn picture as they turned and plodded away.

The following day Daniel Parker also arrived back in Southampton. He had returned to Torquay to rejoin his yacht, only to find that the Marguerite had already left for the Channel Islands. That evening a reporter from the Southampton Times tracked him down at his home in Itchen Ferry. Daniel’s comments to him reflected the ambivalence of the local people. They had known and liked Richard, but as a seafaring community, they also understood the custom of the sea.

‘As regards the feeling among the fishermen here,’ Daniel said, ‘I may say that, of course, we don’t know who is best and who is worst but all I have spoken to seem to think that the Captain ought “to get into it” but they say that Brooks and Stephens refused to draw lots.

‘I know it may be argued that three lives are better than one, but the lad was an orphan and we seemed to think that advantage was taken of him. As to whether any punishment should be awarded, we say there should be a little in case others might go to sea, get into trouble and be killed because people might say nothing was done in this case.’

The same reporter also won the confidence of Richard’s adoptive mother, Mrs Matthews. ‘Dick was a fine young fellow for his age; he would have been eighteen next February. I had charge of him over three years and always found him a very good lad. He was always a rough and ready boy and was not afraid to go to sea, although he had never been right away from home before.

‘On the nineteenth of May, the day they left England, he got up very early and was downstairs by five o’clock in the morning. I and my husband came down to see he was all right and as he said goodbye he kissed us both and hung upon both our necks for several minutes. He seemed then sorry that he was going to leave us and this was the first time that he had shown any sort of regret for the resolve that he had taken. That was the last I saw of him as I did not see the Mignonette leave the river though she was towed down the Itchen the same afternoon.

‘I had one letter from Dick from Madeira. It was written by himself. I heard nothing more about him until Sunday morning last when I was told the ship was lost. When I heard of his dreadful death I could not believe it; it was a hard death indeed for him to die. It has almost broken my heart because he was as dear to me and to my husband as if he were our own son.