The Wreck of the Mary Deare (18 page)

The court was very still as Holland reached the point at which Patch had assumed command. ‘According to your entry in the ship's log, Captain Taggart died some time in the early hours of March 2nd. Is that correct?'

‘Yes.'

‘You had no doctor on board?'

‘No.'

Janet Taggart was leaning forward, her face very pale, the knuckles of her hands white as they gripped the back of the seat in front of her.

‘Did you treat Captain Taggart yourself?'

‘I did what I could.'

‘And what was that?'

‘I got him to bed. I tried to get him to take a sedative, but he wouldn't.' Patch's voice trailed off and he glanced quickly across the court at Janet Taggart.

‘Did you lock him in his cabin?'

‘Yes.' His voice was scarcely above a whisper.

‘Why?'

Patch did not reply.

‘You state in the log that, in your opinion, Captain Taggart died of heart failure. Would you please explain to the Court what it was that caused his heart—if it was his heart—to fail?'

‘Mr Holland.' Bowen-Lodge's voice cut in, sharp and high. ‘I must remind you of what I said before. I do not consider this relevant or necessary.'

But Holland was obstinate this time. ‘With all due deference, Mr Learned Chairman, I consider it highly relevant. The witness is showing commendable restraint regarding the nature of Captain Taggart's illness. That illness, however, has a considerable bearing on the efficiency of the command he inherited and in fairness to him the Court must be informed.' And, without waiting for permission, he swung round on Patch and said, ‘Now that you know the reason for the question, perhaps you will answer it. What was the basic cause of death?'

Patch stood there, obstinately silent, and Holland became suddenly impatient. ‘The man died locked in his cabin. Isn't that correct?'

It was brutally put and there was a shocked look on Patch's face as he nodded dumbly.

‘Why did you lock him in his cabin?' And when Patch didn't answer, Holland put a leading question. ‘Is it true that you locked him in his cabin because he was raving?'

‘He was delirious, yes,' Patch murmured.

‘He was upsetting the crew?'

‘Yes.'

‘Making wild accusations?'

‘Yes.'

‘What accusations?'

Patch glanced unhappily round the court, and then said, ‘He was accusing the officers of stealing liquor from his cabin.'

‘Now, will you please answer this question.' Holland was leaning forward. ‘What was the basic cause, as far as you know, of Captain Taggart's death?'

Patch might have remained obstinate on this point, but Bowen-Lodge's voice cut in from high up on the judge's seat. ‘Witness will kindly answer the question put to him by Counsel. I will repeat it for his benefit—what was the basic cause of death?'

Patch hesitated. ‘Drink, sir,' he said reluctantly.

‘Drink? Do you mean he died of drink?'

‘Because of it—yes.'

The stunned silence that enveloped the court was broken by a girl's voice. It was shrill and high and quavering as she cried out, ‘That's not true. How can you say a thing like that—when he's dead?'

‘Please, Miss Taggart.' Holland's voice was gentle, almost fatherly. ‘The witness is under oath.'

‘I don't care whether he's under oath or not, he's lying,' she sobbed wildly. Patch's face had gone very white. Fraser was trying to pull her back into her seat. But she had turned towards the Chairman. ‘Please stop him,' she sobbed. And then, flinging up her head, she declared, ‘My father was a fine man, a man anybody here would be proud to have known.'

‘I understand, Miss Taggart.' Bowen-Lodge's voice was very quiet and soft. ‘But I must remind you that this Court is investigating a disaster in which many men lost their lives. The witness is under oath. Moreover, he is not the only witness. You may rest assured that this accusation will be probed and the truth revealed. Will you please be seated now. Or if you prefer it, you may leave the court and wait outside until you are called to give evidence.'

‘I'll stay,' she answered in a small, tight voice. ‘I'm sorry.' She sat down slowly, her face completely white, her hands fumbling for a handkerchief.

Holland cleared his throat. ‘Only one more question on this subject and then we will leave it. About how much liquor was Captain Taggart in the habit of consuming each day?'

‘I cannot answer that. I don't know.' Patch's voice was scarcely audible.

‘You mean you didn't actually see him consume any set quantity?'

Patch nodded.

‘But you must have some idea. What was it he habitually drank—whisky?'

‘Yes.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Sometimes a bottle of cognac. Occasionally rum.'

‘How much?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Had this been going on ever since the start of the voyage?'

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘Then, since it affected you directly as first officer, you must have made enquiries as to how much he drank. How much did you gather he consumed each day?'

Patch hesitated, and then reluctantly: ‘The steward said a bottle, a bottle and a-half—sometimes two.' The court gasped.

‘I see.' The sound of suppressed sobbing was distinctly audible in the stillness of the court. ‘So that he was completely incapable as the Master of the ship?'

‘Oh, no.' Patch shook his head. ‘Towards the end of the day he would become a little fuddled. But otherwise I would say he was reasonably in command of the situation.'

‘You mean to say'—Bowen-Lodge was leaning forward—‘that he was in full command of his faculties when he was steadily drinking one to two bottles a day?'

‘Yes, sir. That is to say, most of the time.'

‘But you admitted that he was raving and you had to lock him in his cabin. If he was raving, then surely . . .' the Chairman's brows lifted in a question.

‘He wasn't raving because he was drunk,' Patch answered slowly.

‘Then why was he raving?'

‘He had run out of liquor.'

A shocked silence gripped the court. Janet Taggart had stopped sobbing. She was sitting quite rigid, staring at Patch with a sort of fascinated horror.

‘I would like to get this point perfectly clear before we go any further,' Bowen-Lodge said in a quiet, controlled voice. ‘What you're suggesting is that Captain Taggart did not die of drink, but the lack of it. Is that correct?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Do you really think absence of liquor can kill a man?'

‘I don't know,' Patch answered wretchedly. ‘All I know is that he lived on nothing else, and when he hadn't got it, he went raving mad and died. He never seemed to have anything in the way of food.'

Bowen-Lodge considered for a moment, his pencil tracing lines on the paper in front of him. At length he looked down at Counsel. ‘I think, Mr Holland, we should call medical evidence to establish the point one way or another.'

Holland nodded. ‘I have already arranged for that—it seemed necessary after reading his deposition.'

‘Good. Then we can leave the matter in abeyance till then.' He sounded relieved. ‘Please proceed with the examination of the witness.'

The next stage of the voyage was uneventful, but Patch was taken through it in detail and the picture that emerged was of a conscientious officer doing his best to pull a ship's company together with the presence of the owner a constant irritant. The incidents that came to light under Holland's steady questioning were trivial enough in themselves—the crew's mess table uncleaned between meals, cockroaches, several men lousy, the galley dirty, a lifeboat without provisions, a man injured in a fight, the engines stopped for the replacement of a bearing that had been allowed to run hot—but together they produced an impression of a ship that was badly served by the men who ran her.

Other things emerged, too. The log was improperly kept, the wells not sounded regularly, water consumption unchecked, and as often as not it was Higgins, by then acting as first officer, who was responsible. Patch showed that he was coming to depend more and more on his second officer, John Rice, and the growing sense of comradeship between the two men ran like a strong thread through the evidence.

Twice Patch referred to Dellimare. Once of his own accord, when he was dealing with the lack of supervision of the engine-room staff. ‘He was encouraging Mr Burrows, my chief engineer, in his poker playing. I had to insist that he stopped entertaining Mr Burrows in his cabin. They were playing cards together till all hours of the night and it was throwing undue responsibility upon Mr Raft, the second engineer.'

‘Did Mr Dellimare raise any objection?' Holland asked.

‘Yes.'

‘What did he say?'

‘He said it was his ship and he would do what he damn well liked and entertain any of the officers he pleased when he pleased.'

‘And what did you say to that?'

‘That it was endangering the safety of the ship and the morale of the engine-room and that I was the captain, not him, and the ship would be run the way I wanted it run.'

‘In other words you had a row?'

‘Yes.'

‘And did he agree to stop playing poker with the chief engineer?'

‘In the end, yes.'

‘In the end? You used some persuasion?'

‘Yes. I told him I had given Mr Burrows a direct order and that, if it wasn't obeyed, I should know what action to take. And I made it a direct order as far as he was concerned.'

‘And he accepted that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Will you tell the Court what your relations with Mr Dellimare were at this stage?'

Patch hesitated. He had revealed that his relations with the owner were strained. He could in one sentence explain the reason for those strained relations and in doing so gain the sympathy of the whole court. But he let the opportunity go, merely saying, ‘We did not see eye-to-eye on certain matters.' And Holland left it at that.

A further reference to Dellimare occurred almost accidentally. Patch had just assured the Court that he had personally checked all four holds as the ship ran into heavy weather off the coast of Portugal, and Holland, again being scrupulously fair to him, drew attention to the fact that he hadn't relied on his first officer's report to make sure that there could be no shifting of the cargo. ‘You didn't trust him, in other words?'

‘To be honest, no.'

‘Did Mr Higgins, in fact, check the holds?'

‘I don't know.'

‘You thought so little of him that you didn't even ask whether he had checked them?'

‘Yes, I suppose that is correct.'

‘Did anybody, other than yourself, check the holds?'

Patch paused a moment before replying. Then he said, ‘I think Mr Dellimare checked them.'

‘You think he checked them?'

‘Well, he was in Number One hold when I went in through the inspection hatch to check. I presumed that he was there for the same purpose as myself.'

Holland seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘I see. But this was the duty of one of the ship's officers. It seems odd that the owner should find it necessary to check the cargo himself. Have you any comment to make on that?'

Patch shook his head.

‘What sort of man was Mr Dellimare?' Holland asked. ‘What was your impression of him?'

Now, I thought—now he'll tell them the truth about Dellimare. It was the opening he needed. But he stood there, without saying anything, his face very pale and that nerve twitching at the corner of his mouth.

‘What I am trying to get at is this,' Holland went on. ‘We are coming now to the night of March 16. On that night Mr Dellimare disappeared—lost overboard. Did you know that Mr Dellimare had been in the Navy during the war?'

Patch nodded and his lips framed the word ‘Yes.'

‘He served in corvettes and frigates, mainly in the Atlantic. He must have been through a great many storms.' There was a significant pause, and then Holland said, ‘What was your impression of him, at this time, when you knew you were running into very heavy weather? Was he normal in every way?'

‘Yes, I think so.' Patch's voice was very low.

‘But you're not certain.'

‘I didn't know him very well.'

‘You had been on this ship with him for over a month. However much he kept to his cabin, you must have had some idea of his mental state. Would you say he was worried?'

‘Yes, I think you could say that.'

‘Business worries or private worries?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I'll put it quite bluntly. When you found him checking the cargo, what interpretation did you put on his action?'

‘I didn't put any interpretation on it.' Patch had found his voice again and was answering factually and clearly.

‘What did you say to him?'

‘I told him to stay out of the holds.'

‘Why?'

‘He shouldn't have been there. The cargo wasn't his responsibility.'

‘Quite. I'll put it to you another way. Would you say that his presence there indicated that he was getting scared, that his nerves were going to pieces? He had been torpedoed once during the war and was a long time in the water before being picked up. Would you say that his war experience was in any way affecting him?'

‘No, I would . . . I don't know.'

Holland hesitated and then he gave a little shrug. He had been a man seeking after the truth, using the depositions already made as a base from which to probe. But now he changed his tactics and was content to let Patch tell the story of the night the
Mary Deare
was hove-to in the wind-spun waters of the Bay of Biscay, not questioning, not interrupting—just letting it run.