The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

A good deal of publicity was given to the affair at the time and, as a result of it, Patch was given command of the Wacomo, a 10,000-ton freighter. He and Janet were married by then, but our diving programme had prevented us from attending the wedding and I didn’t see him again until September of the following year. Mike and I were in Avonmouth then, getting ready to dive for a wreck in the Bristol Channel, and the Wacomo came in from Singapore and moored across the dock from us. That night we dined on board with Patch.

I barely recognised him. The lines were gone from his face and, though the stoop was still there and his hair was greying at the temples, he looked young and full of confidence in his uniform with the gold stripes. On his desk stood the same photograph in its silver frame, but across the bottom Janet had written: For my husband now — bans voyages. And framed on the wall was a letter from the H.B. amp; K.M. Corporation of San Francisco.

That letter had been handed to Janet by Snetterton at their wedding reception, and with it a cheque for Ł5,000 for her husband’s part in exposing the fraud — a strangely apt figure! At the time Mike and I had been working on a wreck off the Hook of Holland and when we got back I found a similar letter waiting for me, together with a cheque for Ł2,500 — as some compensation for the loss of your vessel.

The body of Alfred Higgins was never recovered, but in August of that year a metal dinghy, with patches of blue paint still adhering to it, was found wedged in a crevice of the rocks on the south side of Alderney. It had been battered almost flat by the seas. One final thing — an entry in the log of Sea Witch II made on September 8, just after we had located and buoyed the wreck in the Bristol Channel. It reads: 11.48 — Freighter WACOMO passed us outward-bound for Singapore and Hong Kong. Signalled us: ‘Captain Patch’s compliments and he is not, repeat not, trying to run you down this time! Good wrecking!’ She then gave us three blasts on her siren, to which we responded on the foghorn. A month later, with Sea Witch II laid up for the winter, I began this account of the loss of the Mary Deare.