The Wreck of the Mary Deare (35 page)

The galley was dark and it stank. The sea had been there before us, and so had the French. There wasn't a tin of any sort in the place. There was a cupboard full of bread that was a pulped, mildewed mass and there was meat that heaved with maggots and butter thick with slime and sand. All we found was some cheese that was good in the centre, a jar of half-dried mustard, some pickles and a broken pot of marmalade. We broke our fast on that, wolfing it down, and then we searched the saloon and all through the officers' cabins and the crew's quarters. We found a sticky mass of boiled sweets and a jar of ginger and, best of all, some stoker had gone to earth with two tins of bully beef. We took our miserable haul back to the little deckhouse on the poop and ate it, sitting there, shivering and listening to the rising note of the wind.

The gale came up fast with the turn of the tide and soon the waves, breaking against the side of the wreck were reaching up to the bridge-deck and we could feel the stern beginning to move under us. Once, when I went to look out of the door, I saw the blue dinghy still bobbing in the lee of Grune à Croc.

By midday it was blowing full gale. All the forepart of the
Mary Deare
was being pounded and battered by huge seas, her bridge-deck hidden every now and then in sheets of white water, the whole hull quivering to the onslaught. Water swirled across the well-deck below us and the boom of the waves striking against the plates of her side was so shattering that I found myself holding my breath, waiting for them, as though the blows were being struck against my own body. The noise went on and on. It filled my head and left no room for any thought beyond the terrible, everlasting consciousness of the sea. And out beyond the sea-swept wreck of the
Mary Deare
, the stumps of the reefs dwindled as the Minkies gradually vanished in a welter of foaming surf.

I saw Higgins once more. It was about two hours before high water. The
Mary Deare
was beginning to lift and shift her bottom on the gravel bed and Grune à Croc was a grey molar stuck up out of a sea of foam with water streaming white from its sides and spray sweeping across in a low-flung cloud, driven by the wind. Higgins was moving on the back of the rock, climbing down towards the dinghy. I saw him get into it and pick up the oars. And then a squall came, blurring the shape of the rock, and I suddenly lost sight of him in curtain of rain.

That was the last I saw of Higgins. It was the last anybody saw of him. I suppose he was trying to reach the
Mary Deare
. Or perhaps he thought he could reach the mainland in the dinghy. He had no choice, anyway; Grune à Croc would have been untenable at high water.

I stood in the doorway of our deckhouse for a long time, my eyes slitted against the rain and the driving spray, watching for a glimpse of him through the squall. In the end the seas drove me in and when I told Patch how Higgins had gone, he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Lucky bastard! He's probably dead by now.' There was no anger in his voice, only weariness.

The cabin in that deckhouse was about ten feet by six, steel-walled, with a bunk, some broken furniture, a window that had no glass in it and sand on the floor. It was damp and cold, the air smoking with wind-driven spray, and it resounded like a tin box to every sound throughout the ship. We had chosen it for our refuge because it was perched high up on the stern, and it was the stern part of the ship that was afloat.

For a long time we had been conscious of movement, a rising and falling of the steel walls that coincided with the gunfire bursts of the waves crashing against the hull below us. But now there was a shifting and a grating of the keel. It was a sound felt rather than heard, for nothing was really audible except the incredible, overwhelming noise of the sea. And then gradually it lessened. Spray ceased to come in through the window. The door blew open with a crash. The
Mary Deare
had struggled free of the sea bed and was turning head to wind.

I looked out and saw that Grune à Croc was no longer on the port bow, but away to starboard. The
Mary Deare
was afloat. The movement was easier now, the noise of the sea less terrifying. The high stern was acting as a steadying sail and she was bows-on to the breaking waves. I could hear them thundering against the bridge deck, see them burst in a great cloud of spray, forcing water through every opening of the bridge housing as the broken tops swept by on either side. And all the time Grune à Croc was fading away.

I shouted to Patch that we were clear and he came out from the cabin and stood looking at the incredible sight—a wreck floating with her decks streaming rivers of water and sloped flown so that all the fore part of her was below the waves. ‘We're clear,' I cried. ‘If we clear Les Sauvages we're all right.'

He looked at me. I think he was considering leaving me in ignorance. But then he said, ‘It must be very near high water.'

I nodded. ‘Just about,' I said. And then it came to me: for six solid hours after high water the tide would be north and west-going—driving us back on to the Minkies, back on to the Minkies at low water with all the reefs exposed. ‘God Almighty!' I breathed, and I went back into the cabin and lay down on the bunk.

The hell of it was, there was nothing we could do—not a single damn' thing we could do to help ourselves.

We struck towards dusk in a maelstrom of white water where there wasn't a single rock showing. I don't know whether I was asleep or merely lying there on the bunk in a sort of daze, but the shock of our hitting threw me to the floor. It came like the blow of a mailed fist, a fearful crash up for'ard and then a slow crunching as the plates gave and the rocks disembowelled her; and the thunder of the seas became suddenly louder, more overwhelming.

I lay quite still where I had fallen, feeling the probing teeth of the rocks through my whole body, expecting every moment that the waves would engulf us as she slid under. But nothing happened, except that a thin mist of spray touched my face as it drifted over the ship and the grinding, gut-tearing sound went on so continuously that it became a part of the general uproar of the sea.

The cabin floor was canted over and, as I got to my feet, a sudden shifting of the ship flung me through the door and I fetched up against the bulkhead with a sickening thud that wrenched at my arm and drove the breath out of my body. I saw the ship then, and the pain didn't seem to matter any more. She was lying heeled over, all the length of her clear against a boiling background of surf. Her bridge-deck was a twisted, broken mass of wreckage, the funnel gone, the fore-mast snapped off halfway up and hanging loose in a tangle of derrick wires. And over all the for'ard half of her the seas broke and rolled and tumbled incessantly.

Patch was lying, half-reclined against the steel plates of the deck-house entrance and I shouted to him: ‘How long . . .' The words seemed to get caught up in my throat.

‘Before she goes?'

‘Yes. How long?'

‘God knows.'

We didn't talk after that, but stayed there, too cold and tired and fascinated to move, watching as the first jagged points of the reef showed through the foam. The weary half light faded very slowly into darkness. We heard the bows break off; a protracted agony of tortured metal, tearing and rending up there beyond the wreck of the bridge-deck. And then the remainder of the ship lifted slightly as it was freed of their weight, shifting across the saw-edged rocks with a terrible trembling and groaning. We could see the bows then, a black wedge out in the break of the waves to port, with cargo spilling out of a cavern of a hole where the plates had been torn open. Bales of cotton bobbed about in the white water and the waves played with the great square cases that were supposed to contain aero engines, smashing them to matchwood on the reef.

Patch gripped my arm. ‘Look!' he shouted. A case had been flung towards us and it was splitting open. The contents cascaded into the sea. God knows what it was. The light by then was very dim. But it certainly wasn't the solid lump of an aero engine.

‘Did you see?' He had hold of my arm and was pointing. And then the sudden excitement left him as the wreck on which we stood split across at the after end of the upper deck. A great crack was opening up across the whole width of the ship. It tore the port ladder leading down to the well-deck from its fastenings, twisting it slowly as though an invisible hand were squeezing it. Rivet fastenings were torn out in machine-gun bursts and steel plates were ripped like calico. The gap widened—a yard, two yards; and then it was dark and night clamped down on the
Mary Deare
. By then the falling tide had exposed the reef, the seas had receded and the wreck was still.

We went back into the cabin and lay down under our sodden blankets. We didn't talk. Maybe we slept. I don't remember. I have no recollection of that night. It is like a blank in my mind. The sea's incessant roar, the wind piping a weird note through twisted metal and the sporadic clanging of a loose plate—that is all my recollection. I didn't feel any sense of fear. I don't think I even felt cold any more. I had reached that stage of physical and mental exhaustion that is beyond feeling.

But I remember the dawn. It filtered into the dim recesses of my mind with the sense of something strange. I was conscious of movement—a long, precipitous roll, first one way, then the other. I could hear the sea, but there was no weight in the sound. The crash and roar of mountains of water smashing down on to rocks was gone, and someone was calling me. Bright sunlight stabbed my eyeballs and a face bent over me—a face that was sweaty and flushed under the greying stubble of a beard with eyes sunk deep in hollow sockets and skin stretched taut across forehead and cheekbone. ‘We're afloat!' Patch said. His cracked lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. ‘Come and look.'

I staggered weakly to the entrance and looked out on a strange scene. The reefs had disappeared. The sun shone on a heaving sea, but there wasn't a sign of a rock anywhere. And all the
Mary Deare
for'ard of the well-deck had gone, vanished. The well-deck was under water, but it was as Patch had said—we were afloat; just the stern section and nothing else. And the sun was shining and the gale was diminishing. I could feel Patch trembling where he stood against me. I thought it was excitement. But it wasn't. It was fever.

By midday he was too weak to move, his eyes staring, his face flushed with unnatural colour and the sweat pouring out of him. He had been too long in the East to stand up to nights of exposure in sodden clothing without food. Towards nightfall he became delirious. Much of his raving was unintelligible, but now and then the words came clear and I realised he was back on that voyage up through the Bay, giving orders, talking to Rice . . . disjointed scraps that were an appalling revelation of the strain to which he had been subjected.

Towards evening a small aircraft flew over. I watched it circling low down to the north-west, its wings glinting in the setting sun. They were searching for us on the Minkies. And then night closed in and we still floated, very low in the water. There was a young moon hanging in a clear sky full of stars and the wind had gone so that the moon carved a small silver path across a placid, kindly sea that still heaved gently like a giant resting.

That night I was almost too weak to move and Patch lay like a corpse, shivering occasionally, his face still hot and his eyes wide in the faint moon-glow. Once he started up and seized my hand, trembling all over, words tumbling from his lips, words that had no meaning. But this sudden outburst—this raving—lasted only a short while. He hadn't the strength to keep it up and he suddenly fell back exhausted. I lay close against him all the rest of the night, but I had no warmth to give and in the morning he looked like a ghost, small under the stinking blankets.

I saw the Minkies again just after the sun had risen. They were on the horizon, small, jagged points of black etched sharp against the western sky. And then, much later, I heard the sound of an aircraft's engines. I had dragged Patch out on deck to get the warmth of the sun, but he was unconscious then. The aircraft went past us. I saw the shadow of it cross the water and I pulled myself up, searching the sky for it through bleared and gritty eyes. Then I saw it turning, banking out of the sun and coming back, very low over the water. I clutched the rail for support and waved a blanket at it as it zoomed over just above my head with its engines snarling. It flew off towards the Minkies and a long time afterwards, as I lay on the warmth of the deck in a semi-coma, I heard the putter of an engine and the sound of voices.

It was the Peter Port lifeboat. They came alongside and life stirred again at the sound of friendly voices . . . strong hands helping me over the rail, a lit cigarette thrust into my mouth. They stripped us of our salt-stiff, sodden clothing, wrapped us in blankets, and then sleep came to me, the wonderful relaxed warmth of sleep. But I remember, just before I lost consciousness, a voice saying, ‘Want to take a last look at your ship?' And a hand lifted me up. I shall always remember that last glimpse of what was left of her. She was stern-on to us, very low in the water so that the deckhouse, in which we had lived for two nights, looked like a chicken coop floating on the surface of the water. And then, in the trough of a swell, I saw the rust-streaked lettering of her stern—
MARY DEARE—Southampton
.

As far as I was concerned the story of the wreck of the
Mary Deare
ended there on the edge of the Minkies. But for Patch it was different. He was more directly involved and I was reminded of this as soon as I woke in the hospital at Peter Port. I didn't know it at the time, but I had slept for more than twenty hours. I was immensely hungry, but all the nurse brought me was a small plate of steamed fish, and she told me there was somebody urgently waiting to see me. I thought perhaps it was Mike, but when the door opened it was a girl standing there.