The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘Ready about,’ Hal said. And then he swung the wheel. Sea Witch began to pay off, slowly, very slowly. For a moment it looked as though she was going to poke her long bowsprit through the steamer’s rusty plates. Then she was round and I made up the starboard rudder as the boom swung over. There was little wind now that we were close under the Mary Deare. The sails flapped lazily. The cross-trees were almost scraping the steamer’s sides as we rolled in the swell. I grabbed a torch and ran to the mast, climbed the starboard rail and stood there, poised, my feet on the bulwarks, my hands gripping the shrouds. Her way carried me past the for’ard davit falls. There was still a gap of several yards between me and the ship’s side. Hal closed it slowly. Leaning out I watched the after davit falls slide towards me. There was a jar as the tip of our cross-trees rammed the plates above my head. The first of the falls came abreast of me. I leaned right out, but they were a good foot beyond my reach. ‘This time!’ Hal shouted. The cross-trees jarred again. I felt the jolt of it through the shroud I was clinging to. And then my hand closed on the ropes and I let go, falling heavily against the ship’s side, the lift of a swell wetting me to my knees. ‘Okay!’ I yelled.

Hal was shouting to Ian to shove off. I could see him thrusting wildly with the boat-hook. Then the end of the boom hit me between the shoulder-blades, the jar of it almost making me lose my hold. I hauled myself upwards with desperate urgency, afraid that the stern might swing and crush my legs against the ship’s side. There was the slam of wood just below my feet and then I saw Sea Witch was clear and standing out away from the ship. ‘Don’t be long,’ Hal shouted.

Sea Witch was already heeling to the wind, the water creaming back from her bows and a white wake showing at her stern as she gathered speed. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can,’ I called back to him, and then I began to climb.

That climb seemed endless. The Mary Deare was rolling all the time, so that one minute I’d be swung out over the sea and the next slammed against the iron plates of her side. There were moments when I thought I’d never make it. And when, finally, I reached the upper deck, Sea Witch was already half a mile away, though Hal had her pointed up into the wind and was pinching her so that her sails were all a-shiver.

The sea was no longer oil-smooth. Little waves were forming on the tops of the swell, making patterns of white as they broke. I knew I hadn’t much time. I cupped my hands round my mouth and shouted: ‘Mary Deare! Ahoy! Is there anybody on board?’ A gull shifted his stance uneasily on one of the ventilators, watching me with a beady eye. There was no answer, no sound except the door to the after deckhouse slatting back and forth, regular as a metronome, and the bump of the lifeboat against the port side. It was obvious that she was deserted. All the evidence of abandonment was there on the deck — the empty falls, the stray pieces of clothing, a loaf lying in the scupper! a hunk of cheese trampled into the deck, a half-open suitcase spilling nylons and cigarettes, a pair of sea boots; they had left her in a hurry and at night.

But why?

A sense of unease held me for a moment — a deserted ship with all its secrets, all its death-in-life stillness — I felt like an intruder and glanced quickly back towards Sea Witch. She was no bigger than a toy now in the leaden immensity of sea and sky, and the wind was beginning to moan through the empty ship — hurry! hurry!

A quick search and then the decision would have to be made. I ran for’ard and swung myself up the ladder to the bridge. The wheelhouse was empty. It’s odd, but it came as a shock to me. Everything was so very normal there; a couple of dirty cups on a ledge, a pipe carefully laid down in an ash-tray, the binoculars set down on the seat of the captain’s chair — and the engine-room telegraph set to Full Ahead. It was as though at any moment the helmsman might return to take his place at the wheel.

But outside there was evidence in plenty of heavy weather. All the port wing of the bridge had been stove in, the ladder buckled and twisted, and down on the well-deck the seas had practically stripped the covering from the for’ard holds and a wire hawser was lying uncoiled in loops like dannert wire. And yet that in itself didn’t account for her being abandoned; another tarpaulin hatch cover had been partly rigged and fresh timbering lay around as though the watch on deck had just knocked off for a cup of tea.