The Wreck of the Mary Deare (32 page)

We moved fast then, slithering and tumbling down to our own dinghy, scrambling into it and pushing off with no time to plan our route across the reefs, knowing only that the tide, which was west-going at that time, favoured Higgins and that we had to cover those three miles and reach the safety of the salvage company's vessel before he caught up with us.

Of course we should never have shown ourselves against the skyline at the top of that rock. If we had thought about it at all, we must have known that, the instant the fog cleared, he would be standing on some vantage point watching for us. It wasn't that we had forgotten about him. You can't forget a man when he has followed you all night through a treacherous, abandoned stretch of sea with murder in his heart. But I think the fog had so isolated us mentally that the moment it cleared we rushed to the highest point to get a sight of the world that had been hidden from us for so long. It was an instinctive reaction, and in any case we were dull-witted with cold and exhaustion.

The one sensible thing we did was to put on our life-jackets and then we pushed off from the rock that had been our perch for almost twelve hours and Patch began to row, heading south-west across the tide. Away from the lee of the rock we were conscious immediately of the weight of the wind and the way the sea was kicking up; it was a west wind, blowing over the tide, and already the waves were beginning to break. It crossed my mind that this might be the beginning of the depression. The sunshine had a brittle quality and long tongues of pale cloud, wind-blown like mares'-tails, were licking out across the sky.

The tide wasn't strong, but it carried us inexorably towards the greatest mass of the dried-out reefs. This mass is actually split by two channels, but we couldn't see that and for a time Patch attempted to make up against the tide to pass to the east of it, where we could see there was open water. But then, suddenly, he altered course. I was baling at the time, using a sou'wester, and I looked up enquiringly. I thought perhaps the tide had become too strong or that he felt we were shipping too much water.

But he nodded across the stern. ‘Higgins,' he said, and I turned to see the big blue dinghy emerging from behind a jagged huddle of rocks. It wasn't more than two cables behind us.

We were in open water then, in the broad channel that separates the outer wall of reefs from the main fortress mass. There were no rocks to shelter us and the breaking wave-tops constantly slopped over the gunn'ls so that, though I never stopped baling, the water in the bottom of the dinghy steadily increased. I could hear Patch's breath escaping between his teeth and every time I glanced aft, it seemed that Higgins was nearer, the big metal dinghy riding higher and easier than ours. He was keeping a little to the east of us, heading us off from the open water, and all the time the outer rocks of the main reef were slowly closing in on us, the swell breaking all along their edge, the white water piling in over the black teeth of the outer fringe.

‘You'll have to turn into the wind,' I shouted.

Patch glanced over his shoulder, still rowing steadily, and then nodded. The twenty-foot wall of rocks was very close now. But each time he turned, the starboard bow of the dinghy caught the full force of the breaking waves and water poured in, threatening to sink us. There was nothing for it but to hold our course, head for the rocks and hope for the best.

The tide helped us here, sliding us westward, along the face of the rampart, into a bay where the swell built up to 4 or 5 feet and broke on outlying ledges in a cataract of foam. Every stroke of the oars carried us deeper into the bay, making escape from it more impossible. ‘We'll never get out of this,' I shouted to Patch.

He said nothing. He had no breath left to talk. I glanced over the stern and saw that Higgins had closed the distance to less than two hundred yards. Patch had to go on rowing. And then, over his shoulder, I saw the rocks at the inner end of the bay draw apart and, unbelievably, there was open water between them. ‘Look!' I pointed.

Patch glanced quickly over his right shoulder, saw the gap and turned the dinghy towards it. We were in the first of the two channels with the wind behind us. The dinghy rose and fell to the steep swell. We shipped hardly any water now and I was able to bale her right out so that we rode light and easy. ‘We'll make it now!' Patch's voice came to me through the wind and the noise of the sea breaking along both sides of the channel and it was full of confidence. He was grinning through his bared teeth, recklessly squandering his energy as he rowed with quick, straining tugs at the oars.

As soon as I had finished baling I took my place on the thwart beside him and we rowed in unison, not saying anything, just pulling and watching Higgins as he fell into the troughs of the endless waves and was borne aloft again on the next crest. The world smiled with the brittle glitter of white water. Only the rocks were ugly and their menace was oddly enhanced because the sun shone.

We reached the narrowest point of the channel, guarded by a single rock outcrop, and then it suddenly opened into a broad area of water with a reef mass ahead, but plenty of water round it. It was protected somewhat from the wind so that, though the swells still surged across it, there were few whitecaps—just patches of broken water here and there.

But as we moved out into that broad patch of open water, a strange and terrifying change began to come over it. The first indication of something wrong was a swell that suddenly reared up behind the dinghy's stern and broke, slewing us broadside in the surf and very nearly turning us over. Patch shouted to me that we were on a reef and we pulled the dinghy clear of the danger spot. The swell was building up and breaking continuously at that point. And now, looking round, I noticed it was breaking at many other points—places where it hadn't been breaking only a few minutes before.

‘The tide!' Patch yelled in my ear. ‘Pull, man! Pull! It's the tide!'

I needed no urging. I would have pulled both arms out of their sockets to get out of that fearful place. All round us now were patches of white water, patches that joined up with other patches till there were irregular lines of surf breaking. What had been, only a few minutes ago, open water, was now, suddenly, transformed into a seething, roaring cauldron of broken water as the tide dropped like a lift to expose the rocks and gravel of the sea bed contained within the ramparts of the central reef mass.

I had only just grasped what was happening when a sudden wave lifted us up and crashed us down on to a rock. The jolt of it ran right up my spine like a blow to the base of the head. Water boiled all round us, white in the sunshine, glittering like soapsuds; rocks and boulders showed for an instant and then vanished as another wave of green water swept in, lifted us up and crashed us down again. And in the instant of being uplifted I have a sort of panoramic recollection of the scene: black reefs piled round that arena and the water all brittle white and boiling mad and little sections of sea bed showing—all passing before my eyes as the dinghy was swung violently round and then finally smashed down upon a little exposed hillock of grey gravel. It was a tiny oasis in the middle of chaos that came and went as the surf rolled across it.

We stumbled out, knee-deep in the spill of a wave, and, as it receded, we tipped the dinghy up, emptying it of water. But one glance told us that it was damaged beyond any repair we could effect on the spot—two planks were stove in for practically the whole length of the boat. ‘Doesn't matter,' Patch shouted. ‘We'd have to abandon it, anyway. Come on!' He bent down and removed the hand-bearing compass from its case. It was all he took. ‘Come on!' he repeated. ‘We walk and swim the rest.'

I stood and stared at him. I thought for a moment that he'd gone mad and imagined he was Christ, capable of walking the surface of that surging carpet of broken water. But he wasn't mad. He was a seaman and his mind worked quicker than mine. Already a change had come over the scene—there was less white water, and rocks and boulders and patches of gravel were appearing as the tide receded. And two hundred yards away Higgins was ploughing through water up to his knees, dragging his dinghy after him.

I bent to pick up the painter of our own dinghy and then realised it was useless. ‘Come on!' Patch said again. ‘We've got to be out of here before the tide comes back.' He had started to walk south and I followed him, stumbling over hidden boulders, floundering into pot-holes, wet and dazed and exhausted.

The noise of the surf rolled back till it dwindled to a distant murmur, and in a moment, it seemed, all those acres that had been a roaring holocaust of tumbled water were suddenly still and quiet. No waves broke. Little raised beaches of boulder-strewn gravel shone wet in the sun and about them lay pools of water ruffled by the wind, and all round were the black rocks of the reef.

The sense of isolation, of loneliness and remoteness, was appalling. And it was enhanced by something that Higgins did, following on behind us. He came to our dinghy and, glancing back, I saw him pick it up in his two hands and smash it down against an outcrop of rock. The splintering crash of the wood breaking up was a sharp, savage sound. All the bows were stove in and my last contact with
Sea Witch
was wantonly destroyed.

And then Higgins started after us again, still dragging his dinghy. The tinny sound of it striking against the boulders was with us for a long time as we stumbled across stretches of exposed beach or waded through water that was sometimes so deep we had to swim. And at the back of my mind was the thought that we were twenty miles from the French coast, in an area that only a few of the local fishermen ever dared to visit. And in six short hours all this area of rock-strewn debris would be thirty feet below the sea, compressed, imprisoned, flattened by countless million tons of water. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of that salvage ship, so close now. It couldn't be more than two miles away, three at the most . . . and there'd be a bunk and dry clothes and hot soup.

I saw Patch stumble and fall. He got up and staggered on. We were halfway to the black southern bastion of the reefs, floundering over a stretch of jagged, up-ended rocks. He fell several times after that. We both did. There was no strength left in us and when a foot slipped, the muscles gave. Our sodden clothing weighed us down, tripped us up.

The sun gradually died amongst the mares'-tails. Thicker clouds came up. I didn't see them come. The sweat was in my eyes. I saw nothing but what was immediately at my feet. But rock and gravel became drab and sombre. And later, much later, there was a light drizzle on my face. The sound of the sea began to come back, but by then we were crawling amongst the great up-ended slabs of rock that lay strewn about the main outcrop.

I hadn't looked back for a long time then. I didn't know where Higgins was. I couldn't hear the sound of his dinghy any more. It was lost in the noise of the sea and the drumming of the blood in my ears. And then we were clawing our way up the final slope of weed-grown rock. I paused to see Patch up at the top, leaning against a shoulder of rock and staring southwards. ‘Can you see her?' I gasped.

‘No.' He shook his head.

I came out on to the top beside him and stared south. It was still the Minkies. But different. More sea. There were still rock outcrops. But they were fewer, more isolated. All ahead of us was open water, dimmed and blurred by the drizzle of rain. ‘I don't see her,' I gasped.

‘She's there somewhere.' His voice was flat and weary. His black hair hung wet over his eyes and his hands and face were streaked with blood where he had fallen—blood and dirt and sodden, shapeless clothing. He took my arm. ‘You all right?' he asked.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes, I'm all right.'

He stared at me and for the first time I saw an expression of concern in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something and then thought better of it and turned his head away. ‘I'm sorry,' he said, and that was all.

‘How much farther do you reckon?' I asked.

‘About a mile.'

A mile to swim. I wondered whether we should ever make it.

He took my arm again and pointed across the litter of outcrops to a compact mass that stood higher than any of the others. ‘I think that's Grune à Croc.' It stood on the edge of visibility, half hidden by the drizzle, and at the mention of its name it abruptly vanished as the rain thickened and drove across it. Somewhere beyond that rock lay the
Mary Deare
.

Behind us, the tide came licking hungrily back across the beaches, coming in from the north-west, driven by the wind and the south-going set of the stream. But Higgins was clear of it by then, rowing slowly, easily, to a nearby rock, where he moored his dinghy and sat watching us like an animal that has treed its quarry. He could afford to wait, for with each foot the tide rose the size of our rock perch was halved.

We found an over-hanging slab of rock that gave us some shelter from the wind and the rain and still enabled us to watch him, and there we crouched, huddled close together for warmth whilst the tide rose and night closed in. If only the visibility had been better; if we could have seen the
Mary Deare
, perhaps attracted the attention of the salvage people. But we could see nothing; we couldn't even hear them. All we could hear was the waves pounding on the other side of the reef mass and I wondered what it would be like at the top of the tide. Would the waves break right over these rocks? But by then we should be gone. Our plan was to slip into the water an hour before high tide and make for Grune à Croc. We were relying on a southward thrust from the tide coming through the main reef body to spill us out towards the rock, and though Patch had lost the hand-bearing compass, we thought the rock would be reasonably conspicuous, since it was the only one in the whole area to the south of us that would be exposed at high water.