The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

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.

‘There won’t be any help. No call went out.’ He leaned suddenly down towards me, his hands clenched and his jaw, thrust into the grey light coming in through the porthole, showing hard and knotted. ‘Why the hell didn’t you stay on your yacht?’ And then he turned abruptly and made for the door.

He was halfway through it when I called after him. ‘Taggart!’ I swung my legs off the bunk.

He spun round on his heels as though I’d punched him in the back. ‘I’m not Taggart.’ He came back through the doorway. ‘What made you think I was Taggart?’

‘You said you were the captain.’