The Wreck of the Mary Deare (27 page)

‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘But you must realise it's impossible now.'

‘But—' He reached out his hand and gripped hold of my arm. ‘For Christ's sake! Don't you understand? They'll refloat her and then they'll sink her out in deep water. And after that I'll never know . . .' He had a beaten look and I was sorry for him. And then a spark of anger showed in his eyes. ‘I thought you'd more guts, Sands,' he said, and his voice quivered. ‘I thought you'd take a chance—you and Duncan. God damn it! You said you'd take me.' He was coming up again, the muscles of his arm tightening, his body no longer sagging . . . unbelievably there was strength in his voice again as he said, ‘You're not scared, are you, just because there's a warrant out for my arrest?'

‘No,' I said. ‘It isn't only that.'

‘What is it then?'

I reached across the table for the envelope. ‘This for one thing,' I said and I threw it down on the table in front of him so that the fivers spilled out of it and lay there, white and crisp, black-inked like funeral cards. ‘You let me bring that back for you, not knowing what it was.' I watched him staring down at them uncomfortably and I went on, ‘Now suppose you tell us the truth—why you took that money, why you didn't tell the Court about Dellimare's offer.' I hesitated, still staring at him, but he wouldn't meet my gaze. ‘You took that money from his cabin after he was dead, didn't you?'

‘Yes.' His voice sounded weary, exhausted.

‘Why?'

‘Why?' He lifted his eyes then, staring straight at me, and they were suddenly the eyes of the man I had first met on the
Mary Deare
. ‘Because it was there, I suppose. I didn't reckon it belonged to him any more . . . Oh, I don't know.' He was frowning, as though trying to concentrate on something that didn't interest him. He seemed to be lost in some private hell of his own creation. ‘I suppose I was a fool to take it. It was dangerous. I realised that afterwards. But at the time . . . well, I was broke, and when you know you've got to fight a company to prove you did your best to bring a ship home that they didn't want brought home . . .' He let it go at that, his mind still on something else.

‘Is that why you didn't tell the Court about Dellimare's offer?' I asked.

‘No.' He got suddenly to his feet. ‘No, it wasn't that.' He stood for a moment looking out through the open hatch and then he came back to the table. ‘Don't you understand yet?' His eyes were fixed on my face. ‘I killed him.'

‘Dellimare?' I stared at him in shocked silence.

‘He didn't go overboard,' he said. And then, after a pause, he added, ‘His body is still there on the
Mary Deare
.'

I was so staggered I could think of nothing to say. And then suddenly he began to pour out the whole story.

It had happened on the night of the gale, just after the fire in the radio shack had been reported to him. He had gone out on to the wing of the bridge, to see whether the fire could be tackled from there, and he'd seen Dellimare making his way aft along the upper deck. ‘I'd warned him I'd kill him if I found him trying to monkey with the ship. There was no reason for him to be going aft.' He had rushed down from the bridge then and had reached the after end of the deck just in time to see Dellimare disappearing through the inspection hatch of Number Four hold. ‘I should have slammed the lid shut on him and left it at that.' But instead he'd followed Dellimare down into the hold and had found him crouched by the for'ard bulkhead, his arm thrust down into the gap between the top case of the cargo and the hull plates. ‘I can remember his face,' he breathed. ‘Startled and white as hell in the light of my torch. I believe he knew I was going to kill him.'

Patch's voice trembled now as he relived the scene that had been pent-up inside him too long. Dellimare had straightened himself with a cry, holding some sort of cylinder in his hand, and Patch had moved in with a cold dynamic fury and had smashed his fist into the man's face, driving his head back on to the steel of the hull, crashing it against an angle iron. ‘I wanted to crush him, smash him, obliterate him. I wanted to kill him.' He was breathing heavily, standing at the end of the table, staring at us with the light shining down on his head deepening the shadows of his face. ‘There were things happening to the ship that night—the for'ard holds flooding, the fire in the radio shack, and then that little rat going down into the hold . . . and all the time a gale blowing hurricane force. My God! What would you have done? I was the captain. The ship was in hellish danger. And he wanted her wrecked. I'd warned him . . .' He stopped abruptly and wiped his forehead.

Then he went on, more quietly, describing what had happened after Dellimare had crumpled up, lying in a heap on one of the aero engine cases with blood glistening red in his pale thin hair. He hadn't realised he'd killed him—not then. But the anger had drained out of him and somehow he had managed to get him up the vertical ladder to the deck. He had nearly been knocked down by a sea that had come surging in-board, but he had made the ladder to the upper-deck. That way he wouldn't meet any of the crew. But when he had almost reached the bridge housing the lights shining out of the after portholes showed him Dellimare's head and he knew then that the man was dead. ‘His neck was broken.' He said it flatly, without emotion.

‘But surely you could have said he'd had an accident—fallen down the hold or something?' I suggested. I was remembering the coal dust and the sound of shifting coal in the bunker, knowing what was coming.

He reached for the packet and lit a cigarette. Then he sat down opposite me again. ‘I panicked, I suppose,' he said. ‘Poor devil, he wasn't a pretty sight—all the back of his head smashed in.' He was seeing the blood and the lolling head again, and the sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘I decided to dump him over the side.'

But he had set the body down to examine it and when he bent to pick it up, he'd seen Higgins coming out through the starboard doorway from the bridge-housing. He hadn't dared carry the body to the rail then. But just beside him the hatch of the port bunkering chute stood open for some strange reason and, without thinking, he pitched the body down the chute and slammed the lid on it. ‘It wasn't until hours later that I realised what I'd done.' He took a pull at his cigarette, dragging at it, his hands trembling. ‘Instead of getting shot of the man, I'd hung his body round my neck like a millstone.' His voice had fallen to a whisper and for a moment he sat in silence. Then he added, ‘When you came on board, I'd slung a rope ladder down into that bunker and was in there, trying to get at the body. But by then the rolling of the ship had buried him under tons of coal.'

There was a long silence after that and I could hear the wind in the rigging, a high, singing note. The anchor chain was grating on the shingle as the boat yawed. And then, speaking to himself, his head lowered: ‘I killed him, and I thought it was justice. I thought he deserved to die. I was convinced I was saving the lives of thirty odd men, my own included.'

And then he looked at me suddenly. ‘Well, I've told you the truth now.'

I nodded. I knew this was the truth. I knew now why he had to get back there, why he couldn't reveal Dellimare's offer to the Court. ‘You should have gone to the police,' I said, ‘as soon as you reached England.'

‘The police?' He was staring at me, white-faced. ‘How could I?'

‘But if you'd told them about the offer Dellimare made you . . .'

‘Do you think they'd have believed me? It was only my word. I'd no proof. How could I possibly justify . . .' His gaze switched to the envelope lying on the table. ‘You see this money?' He reached out and grabbed up a handful of the fivers. ‘He offered it to me, the whole lot. He had it there in his cabin and he spilled the whole five thousand out in front of me—out of that envelope that's lying there; and I picked it up and threw it in his face and told him I'd see him in hell before I did his dirty work for him. That's when I warned him that I'd kill him if he tried to lose me the ship.' He paused, breathing heavily. ‘And then that gale and the for'ard holds suddenly making water and the fire in the radio shack . . . when I found him down in that hold—' He was still staring at me and his features were haggard and drawn, the way I'd first seen them. ‘I was so sure I was justified—at the time,' he whispered.

‘But it was an accident,' Mike said. ‘Damn it, you didn't mean to kill him.'

He shook his head slowly, pushing his hand up through his hair. ‘No, that's not true,' he said. ‘I did mean to kill him. I was mad at the thought of what he'd tried to make me do—what he was doing to the ship. The first command I'd had in ten years . . .' He was looking down at his glass again. ‘I thought when I put her on the Minkies, that I could get back to her, get rid of his body and prove that he was trying to sink her—' He was staring at me again. ‘Can't you understand, Sands . . . I had to know I was justified.'

‘But it was still an accident,' I said gently. ‘You could have gone to the authorities . . .' I hesitated, and then added, ‘There was a time when you were prepared to—when you altered course for Southampton after rounding Ushant.'

‘I still had the ship then,' he muttered, and I realised then what his ship meant to a man like Patch. So long as he'd had the
Mary Deare
's deck under his feet and he was in command he'd still had confidence in himself, in the rightness of his actions.

He reached out his hand for the bottle. ‘Mind if I have another drink?' His tone was resigned.

I watched him pour it, understanding now how desperate was his need to justify himself. I remembered how he'd reacted to the sight of the crew huddled like sheep around Higgins in the office at Paimpol. His first command in ten years and the whole thing repeating itself. It was an appalling twist of fate. ‘When did you feed last?' I asked him.

‘I don't know. It doesn't matter.' He swallowed some of the drink, his hand still trembling, his body slack.

‘I'll get you some food.' I got up and went through into the galley. The stew was still hot in the pressure-cooker and I put some on a plate and set it in front of him. And then I asked Mike to come up on deck. The freshening wind had thinned the mist, so that the hills were dim, humped-up shapes, their shadows thrown round the cove and falling away to the narrow gap of the entrance. I stood there for a moment, wondering how I was going to persuade him. But Mike had guessed what was in my mind. ‘You want
Sea Witch
, is that it, John?'

I nodded. ‘For four days,' I said. ‘Five at the most. That's all.'

He was looking at me, his face pale in the faint glow of the riding light. ‘Surely it would be better to put the whole thing in the hands of the authorities?' I didn't say anything. I didn't know how to make him understand the way I felt. And after a while, he said, ‘You believe him then—about the Dellimare Company planning to sink the ship in deep water?'

‘I don't know,' I murmured. I wasn't sure. ‘But if you accept that the cargo has been switched, that the whole thing was planned . . .' I hesitated, remembering how scared Higgins had been. If Higgins had started that fire and knocked Patch out and panicked the crew . . . ‘Yes,' I said. ‘I think I do believe him.'

Mike was silent for some time then. He had turned away from me and was staring out towards the entrance. At length he said, ‘You're sure about this, John? It's a hell of a risk you're taking for the fellow.'

‘I'm quite sure,' I said.

He nodded. ‘Okay. Then the sooner we get under way the better.'

‘You don't have to come,' I said.

He looked at me with that slow, rather serious smile of his. ‘
Sea Witch
and I go together,' he said. ‘You don't get the one without the other.' He glanced up at the masthead. The burgee hadn't been taken down and it showed the wind westerly. ‘We'll be able to sail it.' He was thinking we'd make better time under sail, for our engine was geared for power, not speed.

Down below I found Patch leaning back, the glass in his hand, smoking a cigarette. He hadn't touched the food. His eyes were half closed and his head lolled. He didn't look up as we entered.

‘We're getting under way,' I told him.

He didn't move.

‘Leave him,' Mike said. ‘We can manage. I'll go and start the engine.' He was already pulling on a sweater.

But Patch had heard. His head came slowly round ‘Where are you making for—Southampton?' His voice had no life in it.

‘No,' I said. ‘We're taking you out to the Minkies.'

He stared at me. ‘The Minkies.' He repeated it slowly, his fuddled mind not taking it in. ‘You're going out to the
Mary Deare
?' And then he was on his feet, the glass crashing to the floor, his body jarring the table. ‘You mean it?' He lurched across to me, catching hold of me with both his hands. ‘You're not saying that just to keep me quiet. You mean it, don't you?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I mean it.' It was like trying to convince a child.

‘My God!' he said. ‘My God, I thought I was finished.' He was suddenly laughing, shaking me, gripping Mike's hand. ‘I think I'd have gone mad,' he said. ‘The uncertainty. Ten years and you get a ship and you're in command again, and then . . . You don't know what it's like when you suddenly lose confidence in yourself.' He pushed his hands up through his hair, his eyes alight and eager. I'd never seen him like that before. He turned and scrabbled up a whole pile of fivers that were lying on the table. ‘Here. You take them.' He thrust them into my hand. ‘I don't want them. They're yours now.' He wasn't drunk, just a little crazed—the reaction of nerves strung too taut.