The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

There was a long silence. She wanted to believe him, wanted to desperately. But she didn’t. Her eyes were very big and her hands were pressed tightly together. ‘Did you know him well?’ she asked. ‘Had you sailed with him before?’

‘No.’

‘Had he been ill at all — during the voyage, or before you joined the ship at Aden?’

Again the slight hesitation. ‘No. He hadn’t been ill.’ He seemed to pull himself together then. ‘I gather the owners didn’t inform you of his death. I’m sorry about that. I notified them by radio immediately, but I received no reply. They should have notified you.’ He said it without any hope that they would have done so.

‘What did he look like — before his death? Tell me about him please. You see, I hadn’t seen him-’ The pleading sound of her voice trailed away. And then suddenly in a firmer voice she said, ‘Can you describe him to me?’

He frowned slightly. ‘Yes, if you want me to.’ His tone was reluctant. ‘I — don’t quite know what you want me to tell you.’

‘Just what he looked like. That’s all.’

‘I see. Well, I’ll try. He was small, very small — there was almost nothing of him at all. His face was red — sun-burned. He was bald, you know, but when he had his cap on and was up on the bridge he looked much younger than-’

‘Bald?’ Her voice sounded shocked.

‘Oh, he still had some white hair.’ Patch sounded awkward. ‘You must understand, Miss Taggart, he wasn’t a young man and he’d been a long time in the tropics.’

‘He had fair hair,’ she said almost desperately. ‘A lot of fair hair.’ She was clinging to a five-year-old picture of him. ‘You’re making him out to be an old man.’

‘You asked me to describe him,’ Patch said defensively.

‘I can’t believe it.’ There was a break in her voice. And then she was looking at him again, her chin up, her face white. ‘There’s something more, isn’t there — something you haven’t told me?’

‘No, I assure you,’ Patch murmured unhappily.

‘Yes, there is. I know there is.’ Her voice had suddenly risen on a note of hysteria. ‘Why didn’t he write to me from Aden? He always wrote me… every port… and then dying like that and the ship going down … He’d never lost a ship in his life.’

Patch was staring at her, his face suddenly hard and angry. Then abruptly he turned to me. ‘I’ve got to go now.’ He didn’t took at the girl again as he turned on his heels and walked quickly out.

She looked round at the sound of the door closing, staring at the blankness of it with wide, tear-filled eyes. And then suddenly she slumped down into her chair and buried her head in her arms, her whole body racked by a paroxysm of sobs. I waited, wondering what I could do to help her. Gradually her shoulders ceased to shake. ‘Five years is a long time,’ I said gently. ‘He could only tell you what he knew.’

‘It wasn’t that,’ she said wildly. ‘All the time he was here I felt-’ She stopped there. She had her handkerchief out and she began dabbing at her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It was silly of me. I–I was just a schoolgirl when I last saw my father. My impression of him is probably a bit romantic.’

I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Just remember him as you last saw him,’ I said.

She nodded dumbly.

‘Shall I pour you some more tea?’

‘No. No thanks.’ She stood up. ‘I must go now.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked. She seemed so lost.

‘No. Nothing.’ She gave me a smile that was a mere conventional movement of her lips. She was more than dazed; she was raw and hurt inside. ‘I must go — somewhere, by myself.’ It was said fugitively and in a rush, her hand held out to me automatically. ‘Goodbye. Thank you.’ Our hands touched, and she was gone. For a moment her footsteps sounded on the bare wood of the deck outside, and then I was alone with the sounds of the ship and the dock. Through the porthole I saw the bare, grey walls of St Malo glistening wet in a fleeting gleam of sunlight — the old walls of the city and above them the new stone and roofing of buildings faithfully copied to replace the shattered wreckage that the Germans had left. She was walking quickly, not seeing the passengers or the French or the sombre, fortress-like beauty of the ancient city; a small, neat figure whose mind clung to a girl’s memories of a dead father.

I turned away and lit a cigarette, slumping wearily into a chair. The crane, the gangway, the passengers in their raincoats and the French dock men in their blue smocks and trousers; it all seemed so ordinary — the Minkies and the Mary Deare were a vague dream.

And then Captain Fraser came in. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what did happen? Do you know?’ The curiosity in his blue eyes was unveiled now. The crew say that he ordered them to abandon ship.’ He waited and when I didn’t say anything, he added, ‘Not just one of them; it’s what they all say.’