The Wreck of the Mary Deare (17 page)

The
Mary Deare
had been purchased by the Dellimare Trading and Shipping Company in June of the previous year. She had belonged to a Burmese company and for two years had been laid-up in a creek near Yokohama. On completion of the purchase she had been towed into Yokohama for a complete overhaul. On November 18 she had been granted a seaworthy certificate to cover a single voyage to Antwerp and thence to England where she was to be broken up. On December 2 she completed coaling. On December 4 she began loading her cargo. This consisted of 148 war surplus aircraft engines of American manufacture, including 56 jet engines for a particular fighter in use with N.A.T.O. forces. In addition to this cargo, which was destined for Antwerp and was distributed fairly equally over the four holds, a large quantity of Japanese cotton and rayon goods were loaded. This part of the cargo was destined for Rangoon and was, therefore, loaded on top of the aircraft engines. The whole of the cargo, including the engines was the property of the Hsu Trading Corporation, a very large and influential Chinese merchanting organisation in Singapore.

The
Mary Deare
sailed from Yokohama on December 8. On January 6 she reached Rangoon and off-loaded her cargo of Japanese goods. A cargo of raw cotton for England, also the property of the Hsu Corporation, was not ready at the docks for loading. The ship, therefore, proceeded to bunker and then moved out into the river, where she moored to a buoy already occupied by the
Torre Annunziata
, another of the Dellimare Company ships. Four days later she moved into the docks again and loaded her cargo of cotton, the bulk of it in Numbers Two and Three holds.

She sailed from Rangoon on January 15, reaching Aden on February 4. There she landed Mr Adams, the first officer, who was sick. Mr Patch was accepted to fill this vacancy. The ship sailed on February 6. On March 2, the Master, Captain James Taggart, died, and Mr Patch assumed command of the ship. The
Mary Deare
was then in the Mediterranean, four days out from Port Said. On March 9 she passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, out into the Atlantic. Almost immediately she ran into heavy weather. She was making a certain amount of water and the pumps were kept going intermittently. On March 16 conditions worsened and it blew full gale.

‘And now,' Holland said, his voice lifting slightly from the smooth monotone in which he had been addressing the Court—‘Now we come to the series of incidents—mysteries you might almost call them—that are the subject of this Investigation.'

Briefly he enumerated them: the damage sustained by the ship in the for'ard holds, the water making headway against the pumps, the shoring of the stoke-hold bulkhead, the fire in the radio shack, the disappearance of Dellimare; and then, after rounding Ushant, the fire in Number Three hold, the abandonment of the ship by all except the captain, the discovery of the ship still afloat the following morning, her final abandonment. He punched these events home to the packed courtroom one after another in terse, hard sentences, so that the effect of them was cumulative.

‘Twelve men went to their death, gentlemen,' he added, after a pause, his voice now very quiet. ‘Went to their death in a mad scramble to get away from a ship that, in point of fact, was in no immediate danger of sinking. That in itself is significant.' He had turned and was facing the Chairman of the Court. ‘It is not for me to attempt to influence the Court in any way, merely to present the facts. But I am entitled to draw your attention to certain points, and the points, Mr Learned Chairman, to which I wish to draw the attention of the Court are—firstly, the succession of incidents affecting the safety and sea-keeping ability of the ship, and secondly, the abandonment of a ship that was to stay afloat in gale conditions for more than 48 hours. I submit that this is one of the most extraordinary cases to come before a Formal Enquiry and one that may, as a result of your decision, have far-reaching consequences for one or more of the people here in this courtroom today.'

In making that pronouncement his eyes had roved the room—to the lawyers representing the various interested parties across the floor of the court, to the public gallery, and, finally, he had turned his body round and had stared at the witnesses. His gaze was cold and hard and accusing.

Still facing the witnesses, he went on: ‘I have referred to a lack of consistency in the evidence given on oath in depositions made by the various witnesses. Those same witnesses, and some others, will be giving evidence on oath before this Court. But here there is a difference; you can be cross-examined on your evidence in the witness box by myself or by any or all of the representatives of the interested parties.' He paused and then added, ‘I would remind you that perjury is a serious offence.'

There was complete silence as he stared at us, and some of the
Mary Deare
's crew shifted uneasily in their seats. Abruptly, he sat down. For perhaps thirty seconds he let the silence his speech had produced hang over the court, and then he got slowly to his feet again and called ‘Gideon Patch.'

Patch was sitting quite still, his eyes fixed across the court—fixed on nothing—and he didn't move. I thought for a moment that he hadn't heard his name called. But then he turned his head and looked at Holland, and quietly, like a man who cannot believe that the moment has finally come, he got to his feet. He seemed to brace himself to meet the situation and, with a firm, decisive tread, he crossed the floor of the court and took his stand in the witness box.

The movement released the tension in the court so that there was a sudden murmur of voices and shifting of feet that continued whilst the oath was being administered and then gradually died away as Holland began his questions, Patch answering them in a voice that was barely audible.

His name was Gideon Stephen Patch. He had been educated at Pangbourne, joined the Merchant Service as a cadet in 1935, Mate's Certificate 1941, Master's Certificate 1944, first command 1945, the
Belle Isle
incident, the years on the beach; the wasted, frustrated years—Holland took him through it all, fact after fact in that same bored voice as though he were tracing the history of a parcel sent through the post. And then the technical details: Did he consider the
Mary Deare
seaworthy? Had he examined the fire-fighting equipment? Had he inspected the boats himself? Did he regard the crew as efficient? Were the officers, in his opinion, competent?

And Patch, once over the hurdle of the
Belle Isle
sinking and the suspension of his Master's Certificate, began noticeably to relax and to gain confidence. It was all so impersonal. Yes, the boats were all right, he had inspected them personally. The crew were average—he had sailed with worse. The officers? He would rather not comment. Some were good, some were not.

‘And the captain?' The question was put in the same flat, bored voice.

Patch hesitated, and then said, ‘I imagine he was a good seaman.'

‘You imagine?' Holland's dark brows lifted slightly.

‘Captain Taggart was a sick man, sir.'

‘Then why was he not put ashore?'

‘I don't know.'

‘The first officer, Adams, was put ashore because he was sick. Why wasn't Captain Taggart put ashore, if he was also sick?'

‘I imagine the owners thought him fit enough to complete the voyage.'

‘By the owners you mean Mr Dellimare?'

‘Yes.'

‘Tell me, what was the nature of Captain Taggart's illness?'

Patch had clearly been expecting that question, and, now it had come, he looked unhappy about it and for a moment his eyes glanced towards the waiting witnesses. He was looking towards Janet Taggart. And then he was facing Holland again. ‘I'm sorry, sir, but I do not think I can answer that.'

Holland made a little impatient gesture. It was obvious that he intended to press the point, but the Chairman intervened. ‘Mr Holland.' He was leaning forward. ‘It seems hardly necessary for us to pursue this matter. I do not feel that the nature of Captain Taggart's illness can have any bearing on the subject of this Investigation.'

Holland had turned and was facing the judge's chair, his hands gripping the lapels of his jacket as though he were, in fact, wearing a gown. ‘I submit, Mr Learned Chairman, that everything connected with the
Mary Deare
is relevant to your Investigation. I am endeavouring to present a complete picture. To do so I must give you the facts—all the facts.'

‘Quite so, Mr Holland.' Bowen-Lodge's mouth was a trap-shut line. ‘But I see here'—and he glanced at his papers—‘that Miss Taggart is amongst the witnesses in this court. I would ask you to bear that in mind, Mr Holland, and, in your references to her father, to avoid as far as possible giving her any further cause for pain.'

‘Unfortunately . . .' But Holland checked himself before Bowen-Lodge's cold, official stare, and then turned to face Patch. ‘I will content myself at the moment with asking you whether, in fact, you knew what was wrong with Captain Taggart?'

‘Yes, I knew,' Patch answered. And then added quickly, ‘But I had no idea that it would prove fatal.'

‘Quite so.' Holland turned to the cargo then. ‘As first officer you would assume responsibility for the state of loading of the holds. Did you examine the holds yourself?'

‘I satisfied myself they were properly loaded.'

‘All four holds?'

‘Yes.'

‘You actually went into each of the holds yourself?'

‘Numbers One and Four holds, yes. The other two were full of cargo, but I was able to get some idea of the stowage by looking in through the inspection hatches.'

‘Before or after sailing from Aden?'

‘Before.'

‘Would you tell the Court exactly how these holds were loaded?'

Patch started with Number One hold and worked aft. He gave the dimensions of each—they ran the full width of the ship throughout their depth. The floor of each hold was covered by cases. He gave the approximate dimensions of the cases and the U.S.A.A.F. code numbering painted on them.

‘You knew that those cases contained aero engines?' Mr Holland asked.

‘Yes, I did.'

‘From personal observation? By that I mean, did you at any time examine the contents of one of those cases yourself?'

‘No. I had no occasion to. In any case, it would have been very difficult to get one opened—they were tightly packed and, except in Numbers One and Four holds, the cotton cargo completely covered them.'

‘I see. So that when you say you knew the cases contained aero engines, you are really saying that that was how the contents were described on the manifest?' Patch nodded. ‘Did Captain Taggart show you the manifest before you made your inspection of the holds?'

‘I had a look at the manifest before I made my inspection.'

Holland stared at him. ‘That wasn't what I asked you. Did Captain Taggart show you the manifest before you made your inspection?'

Patch hesitated and then said, ‘No.'

‘Had you seen Captain Taggart at that time?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did you ask him for the manifest?'

‘No.'

‘Why not? Surely if you were going to inspect the holds—'

‘Captain Taggart wasn't well, sir.'

Holland hesitated. Then he half-shrugged his shoulders and turned to the ship herself. There followed nearly half an hour of technical details—her dimensions, construction, date of building, repairs, alterations, characteristics and behaviour, and her history.

She had been built on the Clyde in 1910 for the Atlantic trade. Patch had got her history from some old notebook he had found on board. He had even discovered the origin of her name; the result of some long-dead chairman's dry sense of humour, his wife being called Mary and his own second name being Deare. The ship had been torpedoed twice in the First World War, patched up and kept at sea in convoy after convoy, and then in 1922 she had hit a growler off the Gulf of St Lawrence and after that she'd been sold and for ten years had tramped the seas. The depression caught her in a Far Eastern port where she lay rotting until the shadow of another war raised shipping freights and she changed hands again and was put to work in the Indian Ocean and the China Seas. She was torpedoed again in 1941, just outside Singapore, packed with troops. She limped into Rangoon, was patched up and sailed to San Francisco. There she had the only decent overhaul in twenty years and went back to work again in the Far Eastern theatre. And then in the last days of the Japanese war, she was stranded on a coral reef under shell-fire. Half her bottom was torn out, her keel permanently kinked, part of her superstructure shot away.

‘Any modern ship would have broken her back,' Patch said, and there was a sort of pride in the way he said it.

He went on to tell how she had changed hands again in 1947—a Burmese owner this time; how she had gone on struggling from port to port throughout the Far East with a twisted back and botched-up repairs until she had been discarded in Yokohama, four years later, and left there to rot until the Dellimare Company purchased her.

In telling her story, he somehow invested the
Mary Deare
with personality. If he had laid stress on the fact that she was to broken-down old hulk on her way to the scrap-heap he could have demonstrated his ability as a seaman and as a Master in bringing her up through the Bay in one of the worst storms of the year. Instead, he told the Court that she was a fine ship easy to handle, and explained that it was only the repairs carried out in poorly-equipped Far Eastern ports, that caused her to leak. His loyalty to the ship was impressive, but it lost him the sympathy he might so easily have had.

After that Holland was taking him over the details of the voyage—up through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean; and all the time he questioned him about the crew, the officers, the relations between Dellimare and Taggart; and the picture that emerged was not a pleasant one—the crew ill-disciplined, the chief engineer incompetent, a poker addict, gambling indiscriminately with crew and officers, the captain keeping to his cabin, never on the bridge, and Dellimare roaming restlessly round the ship, feeding alone in his cabin, occasionally with Higgins, and sometimes shut up with the captain for hours on end.