The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

I went slowly back down the ladder to the chartroom. Maybe the log book would tell me something. But it was no longer open on the table. I went through to the wheelhouse and was halted momentarily by the sight of a shaggy comber rearing up out of the murk on the port bow, spindrift streaming from its crest. It crashed down on to the iron bulwarks, and then the whole fore part of the ship, all except the mast and derricks, disappeared beneath a welter of white water. It seemed an age before the shape of the bows appeared again, a faint outline of bulwarks rising sluggishly, reluctantly out of the sea.

I hurried down the companion-way and made straight for the captain’s cabin. But he wasn’t there. I tried the saloon and the galley, and then I knew he must be down in the stokehold again. There was no doubt in my mind what had to be done. The pumps had to be got going. But there was no light in the engine-room, no sound of coal being shovelled into the furnaces. I shouted from the catwalk, but there was no answer; only the echo of my voice, a small sound lost in the pounding of the waves against the outside of the hull and the swirl of water in the bilges.

I felt a sudden sense of loss, a quite childish sense of loneliness. I didn’t want to be alone in that empty ship. I hurried back to his cabin, the need to find him becoming more and more urgent. It was empty, as it had been before. A clang of metal aft sent me pushing through the door to the boat deck, and then I saw him. He was coming towards me, staggering with exhaustion, his eyes staring and his face dead white where he had wiped it clean of sweat and coal dust. All his clothes were black with coal and behind him a shovel slid across the deck. ‘Where have you been?’ I cried. ‘I couldn’t find you. What have you been doing all this time?’

‘That’s my business,’ he muttered, his voice slurred with fatigue, and he pushed past me and went into his cabin.

I followed him in. ‘What’s the position?’ I asked. ‘How much water are we making? The seas are breaking right across the bows.’

He nodded. ‘It’ll go on like that — all the time now — until the hatch cover goes. And then there’ll only be the shored-up bulkhead between us and the sea-bed.’ It was said flatly, without intonation. He didn’t seem to care, or else he was resigned.

‘But if we get the pumps going…’ His lack of interest checked me. ‘Damn it, man,’ I said. ‘That was what you were doing when I came aboard, wasn’t it?’

‘How do you know what I’d been doing?’ He suddenly seemed to blaze up, his eyes hard and angry and wild. He seized hold of my arm. ‘How do you know?’ he repeated.

‘There was a wisp of smoke coming from the funnel,’ I said quickly. ‘And then all that coal dust;

you were covered with it.’ I didn’t know what had roused him. ‘You must have been down in the stokehold.’

‘The stokehold?’ He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, of course.’ He let go of my arm, his body gradually losing its tautness, relaxing.

‘If the pumps could keep her afloat coming up through the Bay …’ I said.

‘We had a crew then, a full head of steam.’ His shoulders dropped. ‘Besides, there wasn’t so much water in the for’ard hold then.’

‘Is she holed?’ I asked. ‘Is that the trouble?’

‘Holed?’ He stared at me. ‘What made you…’ He pushed his hand up through his hair and then down across his face. His skin was sallow under the grime; sallow and sweaty and tired-looking. The ship lurched and quivered to the onslaught of another wave. I saw his muscles tense as though it were his own body that was being battered. ‘It can’t last long.’

I felt suddenly sick and empty inside. The man had given up hope. I could see it in the sag of his shoulders, hear it in the flatness of his voice. He was tired beyond caring. ‘You mean the hatch cover?’ He nodded. ‘And what happens then?’ I asked. ‘Will she float with that hold full of water?’

‘Probably. Until the boiler-room bulkhead goes.’ His tone was coldblooded and without emotion. That hold had been flooded a long time. The ship had been down by the bows when we had sighted her through the mist. And last night… I was remembering the draught marks high out of the water at her stern and the blades of the propeller thrashing at the wave tops. He had had time to get used to the idea.

But I was damned if I was going to sit down and wait for the end. ‘How long would it take to get steam up — enough to drive the pumps?’ I asked. But he didn’t seem to hear me. He was leaning against the deck, his eyes half-closed. I caught hold of his arm and shook him as though I were waking him out of a trance. ‘The pumps!’ I shouted at him. ‘If you show me what to do, I’ll stoke.’

His eyes flicked open and he stared at me. He didn’t say anything.

‘You’re just about all in,’ I told him. ‘You ought to get some sleep. But first you must show me how to operate the furnace.’