The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘Did you see?’ He had hold of my arm and was pointing. And then the sudden excitement left him as the wreck on which we stood split across at the after end of the upper deck. A great crack was opening up across the whole width of the ship. It tore the port ladder leading down to the well-deck from its fastenings, twisting it slowly as though an invisible hand were squeezing it. Rivet fastenings were torn out in machine-gun bursts and steel plates were ripped like calico. The gap widened — a yard, two yards; and then it was dark and night clamped down on the Mary Deare. By then the falling tide had exposed the reef, the seas had receded and the wreck was still.

We went back into the cabin and lay down under our sodden blankets. We didn’t talk. Maybe we slept. I don’t remember. I have no recollection of that night. It is like a blank in my mind. The sea’s incessant roar, the wind piping a weird note through twisted metal and the sporadic clanging of a loose plate — that is all my recollection. I didn’t feel any sense of fear. I don’t think I even felt cold any more. I had reached that stage of physical and mental exhaustion that is beyond feeling.

But I remember the dawn. It filtered into the dim recesses of my mind with the sense of something strange. I was conscious of movement — a long, precipitous roll, first one way, then the other. I could hear the sea, but there was no weight in the sound. The crash and roar of mountains of water smashing down on to rocks was gone, and someone was calling me. Bright sunlight stabbed my eyeballs and a face bent over me — a face that was sweaty and flushed under the greying stubble of a beard with eyes sunk deep in hollow sockets and skin stretched taut across forehead and cheekbone. ‘We’re afloat!’ Patch said. His cracked lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. ‘Come and look.’

I staggered weakly to the entrance and looked out on a strange scene. The reefs had disappeared. The sun shone on a heaving sea, but there wasn’t a sign of a rock anywhere. And all the Mary Deare for’ard of the well-deck had gone, vanished. The well-deck was under water, but it was as Patch had said — we were afloat; just the stern section and nothing else. And the sun was shining and the gale was diminishing, I could feel Patch trembling where he stood against me. I thought it was excitement. But it wasn’t. It was fever.

By midday he was too weak to move, his eyes staring, his face flushed with unnatural colour and the sweat pouring out of him. He had been too long in the East to stand up to nights of exposure in sodden clothing without food. Towards nightfall he became delirious. Much of his raving was unintelligible, but now and then the words came clear and I realised he was back on that voyage up through the Bay, giving orders, talking to Rice… disjointed scraps that were an appalling revelation of the strain to which he had been subjected.

Towards evening a small aircraft flew over. I watched it circling low down to the northwest, its wings glinting in the setting sun. They were searching for us on the Minkies. And then night closed in and we still floated, very low in the water. There was a young moon hanging in a clear sky full of stars and the wind had gone so that the moon carved a small silver path across a placid, kindly sea that still heaved gently like a giant resting.

That night I was almost too weak to move and Patch lay like a corpse, shivering occasionally, his face still hot and his eyes wide in the faint moon-glow. Once he started up and seized my hand, trembling all over, words tumbling from his lips, words that had no meaning. But this sudden outburst — this raving — lasted only a short while. He hadn’t the strength to keep it up and he suddenly fell back exhausted. I lay close against him all the rest of the night, but I had no warmth to give and in the morning he looked like a ghost, small under the stinking blankets.