The Wreck of the Mary Deare (30 page)

And then the moment when we had any choice of action was past.
Griselda
, clear of Les Hanois rocks, was altering course to get between us and Peter Port. Patch had seen it and he said, ‘You've no choice now.' He hadn't relaxed his grip of the wheel, but the tension was out of his voice. Mike stopped cursing at him. He seemed to understand, for he turned his head and stared at the motor boat. Then he let go of the wheel and stood up. ‘Since you appear to be skippering this boat, you'd better bloody well steer her. But by Christ!' he added, ‘if anything happens to her . . .' He stared coldly at me, still trembling with anger, and went below.

‘I'm sorry,' Patch said. He had seated himself at the wheel and his voice was weary.

‘This isn't your boat,' I reminded him.

He shrugged his shoulders, looking round at
Griselda
. ‘What else did you expect me to do?'

There was no point in discussing it. We were committed now to go on until we reached the
Mary Deare
. But if the wind dropped . . . ‘Suppose Higgins catches up with us?' I said.

He looked at me quickly. ‘He mustn't.' And then he added, ‘We've got to get there first.'

‘Yes, but suppose he does?' I was thinking that after all Higgins had got to keep within the law. ‘He can't do very much.'

‘No?' He laughed a little wildly. ‘How do you know what Higgins can do? He's frightened.' He looked at me, sideways out of the corners of his eyes. ‘Wouldn't you be frightened if you were Higgins?' And then he glanced up at the sails and his voice was quiet and practical again as he asked me to ease the sheets and he altered course for the north-west Minkies buoy.

After that we didn't talk any more and gradually I became conscious of the sound of the motor boat's engine. It was very faint at first, a gentle undertone to the swish of the sea going past, but it warned me that the wind was easing. The overcast had thinned and a humid glare hung over the water so that the outline of Jersey Island away to port was barely visible. I started the engine and from that moment I knew
Griselda
would overtake us.

The forecast announced that the depression over the Atlantic was deepening, moving eastwards faster. But it wouldn't help us. All the time the wind was dropping now and
Griselda
was coming up abeam of us, keeping between us and Jersey Island. The glare faded, leaving sea and sky a chill, luminous grey. There was no horizon any more. Patch went below to get some more clothes. It had suddenly become much colder and the wind was fluky, blowing in sudden puffs.

I sat at the wheel and watched
Griselda
draw steadily ahead of the beam, wallowing in the swell. I wondered what Higgins would do, what I would do in his place. I tried to think it out rationally. But it's difficult to think rationally when you're cold and tired and sitting alone, almost at water level, isolated in an opaque void. That sense of isolation! I had felt it at sea before, but never so strongly. And now it chilled me with a feeling of foreboding. The sea had an oily look as the big swells lumbered up from the west and rolled beneath us.

I didn't notice the fog at first. I was thinking of Higgins—and then suddenly a grey-white plasma was creeping towards us across the sea, shrouding and enveloping the water in its folds. Mike came up from below and I gave him the wheel, shouting for Patch to come on deck.
Griselda
had seen the fog, too, and she had turned in towards us. I watched her coming, waiting for the fog to close round us and hide us from her. ‘We'll go about as soon as we lose sight of her,' I said as Patch came up through the hatch.

She wasn't more than two cables away when her outline blurred and then she vanished, swallowed abruptly. ‘Lee-ho!' Mike called and spun the wheel.
Sea Witch
turned into the wind and through it, the big yankee flapping as I let go the jib sheet. And then the main boom was across and Patch and I were winching in the starboard jib sheet as we gathered way on the port tack.

We were doubling back on our tracks through a cold, dead, clammy world and I straightened up, listening to the beat of the motor boat's engines, trying to estimate her position, wondering whether the fog was thick enough for us to lose her.

But Higgins must have guessed what we'd do, or else we had lost too much time in going about, for the sound of
Griselda
's engines was abeam of us and, just as I realised this, the shape of her reappeared. Her bows seemed to rip the curtain of fog apart and suddenly the whole of her was visible, coming straight for us.

She was coming in at right-angles, her engines running flat out and her sharp bows cutting into the swell, spray flying up past her wheelhouse. I shouted to Mike to go about again. We were heeled over, going fast and I knew that if both boats held their course we must hit. And when he didn't do anything, my throat was suddenly dry. ‘Put her about!' I yelled at him. And at the same moment Patch shouted, ‘Turn man! For God's sake turn!'

But Mike stood there, his body braced against the wheel, staring at the on-coming boat with a set expression on his face. ‘Let him turn,' he said through his clenched teeth. ‘I'm holding on.'

Patch jumped down into the cockpit. ‘He's going to ram you.'

‘He wouldn't dare.' And Mike held obstinately to his course, watching
Griselda
through narrowed eyes, his face suddenly white. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Higgins lean out of his wheelhouse. He was shouting and his powerful voice reached across to us through the roar of engines—‘Stand by! I'm coming alongside.' And then
Griselda
was turning, swinging to come in on our bows and crowd us up into the wind.

Everything happened very fast then. Mike shouted at us to ease the sheets. ‘I'm going to cut under her stern.' He turned the wheel and
Sea Witch
began to swing her bows in towards the motor boat.
Griselda
was halfway through her turn. There was just room for us to pass astern of her if we turned quickly.

But things went wrong. I eased out on the jib sheet, but Patch, unaccustomed to sail, failed to ease out on the main. And at the same moment we heeled to a puff of wind. It was that unlucky puff of wind that did it. With the full weight of it on the mainsail,
Sea Witch
failed to come round fast enough. And Higgins had throttled down to bring his boat alongside us. We drove straight into
Griselda
's counter, drove straight into it with all the force of our powerful engine and tons of wind-driven canvas. We caught her on the port side just a few feet from her stern as it was swinging in towards us on the turn. There was a rending, splintering crash; our bows reared up as though to climb over her and then we stopped with a horrible, jarring shudder. I caught a glimpse of Yules, staring open-mouthed, and then I was flung forward against the charthouse. The boom jerked free of the mast and swung in towards me. I threw up my arm and it caught my shoulder a shattering blow, wrenching it from its socket and flinging me against the guardrails.

I remember clutching at the guardrails, blinded with pain, and then I was lying on the deck, my face pressed close against a metal jib sheet lead and the noise of rending wood was still there and somebody was screaming. I shifted myself and pain stabbed through me. I was looking down into the water and a man's body drifted past. It was Yules and he was thrashing wildly at the water, his face white and scared with a lock of hair washed over his eyes.

The deck vibrated under me. It was as though compressed-air drills had been put to work on the hull. I could feel the juddering all through my body. ‘You all right?' Mike reached a hand down and dragged me to my feet. My teeth clenched on my lip.

‘The bastard!' He was staring for'ard, his face paper-white, all the freckles showing a dull orange against his pasty skin, and his hair flaming red. ‘I'll kill him.' He was shaking with anger.

I turned to see Higgins erupt from
Griselda
's wheelhouse. He was shouting something, his great bellowing voice audible above the noise of the engines and the continuing, rending sound of wood. The two boats were locked together and he caught hold of our bowsprit, his teeth bared like an animal, his head sunk into his bull neck and his shoulder muscles bunched as he tried to tear the boats apart with his bare hands.

Mike moved then. He had the grim, avenging look of a man who has seen something he loves and has worked for wantonly smashed-up. I called to him, for the fool was running for'ard up the sloped deck, yelling at Higgins, cursing him; and he flung himself from the bowsprit, straight at the man, hitting out at him in a blind fury of rage.

The boats separated then with a tearing of wood and bubbling of water and I didn't see any more. Patch had put our engine into reverse and I staggered into the cockpit, shouting at him to stop. ‘Mike is still there. You can't leave him.'

‘Do you want the belly torn out of your boat?' he demanded, turning the wheel as
Sea Witch
began to go astern. ‘Those props were drilling the guts out of her.' Dimly I realised that he meant
Griselda
's props and understood what had caused the deck planks to vibrate under my body.

I turned and watched as the gap between us and the motor boat widened.
Griselda
was down by the stern with a hole torn out of her port quarter as though a battering ram had hit her. Higgins was going back into the wheelhouse. There was nobody else on her deck. I suddenly felt sick and tired. ‘What happened to him?' I asked. The sickly-sweet taste of blood was in my mouth where I'd bitten through my lip. My arm and all that side of my body was heavy and numb with pain. ‘Did you see what happened?'

‘He's all right,' Patch said. ‘Just knocked cold.' He started to ask me about my shoulder, but I was telling him to get into forward gear and start sailing again. ‘Don't lose her!' Already
Griselda
's outlines were fading and a moment later she disappeared. Patch had put the gear lever into neutral and we could hear her engines then, racing with an ugly, grinding noise. There was a sharp report and, a little later, another. After that we couldn't hear her any more.

‘Prop shafts by the sound of it,' Patch said.

Sails and mast and boat began to spin before my eyes and I sat down. Patch seemed immensely tall, standing at the wheel, and his head swung dizzily over me. I steadied myself and the roll of a swell lapped into the cockpit. I stared at it stupidly, watching the water roll back down the forward-sloping deck. And then the engine spluttered and gave out.

I shook my head, bracing myself against the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me. There was nobody at the helm. I called to Patch and struggled to my feet. He came up out of the main hatch, his trousers dripping. ‘It's up to the galley already.' And then my eyes took in the tilt of the deck, following it down to where the bowsprit was buried in the back of a wave. All the foredeck was awash. I stared at it, taking it in slowly, whilst he pushed past me into the charthouse. He came out with a jack-knife in his hand. ‘She's going down,' I said. My voice sounded dead and hopeless in my ears.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Not much time.' And he began slashing at the dinghy tie-ers. I watched him hoist the praam over so that she fell with her keel on the guardrails and he was able to slide her into the water.

We were still sailing, moving sluggishly through the water, and over Patch's back, as he bent to secure the dinghy painter, I caught a glimpse of the
Griselda
again, a vague shape rolling sluggishly on the edge of visibility.

‘Is there any food up here?' Patch was gathering up things from the charthouse and tossing them into the dinghy—blankets, duffle coats, torches, flares, even the hand-bearing compass.

‘Some chocolate.' I got it from the drawer of the chart table—three small slabs and some sweets. I got life-jackets too, from the locker aft. But my movements were slow and clumsy and by the time I had dropped them in the dinghy the whole length of the deck was awash, the mast tilted forward and the foot of the yankee below the water.

‘Quick!' Patch said. ‘In you get.' He was already untying the painter. I clambered in. It wasn't difficult. The dinghy rode level with the deck. He followed me and pushed off.

I never saw her go down. As we rowed away from her, she slowly disappeared into the fog, her stern a little cocked-up, the big jib and the mizzen still set, and nothing but sea for'ard of the charthouse. She looked a strange sight—like the ghost of a ship doomed everlastingly to sail herself under. I could have wept as she faded and was suddenly gone.

I turned then to look at
Griselda
. She was lying like a log, badly down by the stern and rolling slowly to the long swell—as useless as only a motor boat can be when her engines are out of action. ‘Pull on your right,' I told Patch.

He stared at me, not saying anything, his body moving rhythmically to the swing of the oars. ‘For God's sake pull on your right,' I said. ‘You're still not headed for
Griselda
.'

‘We're not going to
Griselda
.'

I didn't understand for a moment. ‘But where else . . .' My voice broke off abruptly and I felt suddenly deadly scared. He had the box of the hand-bearing compass set up at his feet, the lid open. His eyes were watching it as he rowed. He was steering a compass course. ‘My God!' I cried. ‘You're not going to try and make it in the dinghy?'

‘Why not?'

‘But what about Mike?' I was suddenly desperate. I could see Higgins struggling to get his dinghy into the water. ‘You can't do it.' I seized hold of his hand as he leaned forward, gripping hold of one of the oars, pain bursting like an explosive charge in my body. ‘You can't do it, I tell you.'

He stared at me, his face only a foot or two from mine. ‘No?' His voice grated in the stillness, and faint across the water came a cry for help—a desperate, long drawn-out cry. He wrenched the oar free of me and began to row again. ‘If you don't like it, you can get out and swim for it like that poor bastard.' He nodded across his left shoulder and at the same moment the cry came again. This time I was able to pick him out on the lift of a swell, a black head and two dripping arms thrashing their way toward us. ‘H-e-lp!'