The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘Ah. You’d better ask him that.’ And he turned and looked at Patch.

Patch came slowly back from the street door. ‘What exactly do you mean by that, Higgins?’ he demanded. His voice was quiet, but it trembled slightly and his hands were clenched.

‘Wot a man’s done once, he’ll do again,’ Higgins said, and there was a gleam of triumph in his eyes.

I thought Patch was going to hit him. So did Higgins, for he stepped back, measuring the distance between them. But Patch didn’t hit him. Instead, he said, ‘You deserve to be strung up for murder. You killed Rice and those others as surely as if you’d taken a gun to them and shot them down in cold blood.’ He said it through clenched teeth and then turned abruptly to walk out.

And Higgins, stung, shouted hoarsely after him: ‘You won’t get away with it at the Enquiry — not with your record.’

Patch swung round, his face white, and he was trembling as he looked at the pitiful little gathering, his eyes passing from face to face. ‘Mr Burrows.’ He had picked on a tall, thin man with a sour, dissipated face. ‘You know damn’ well I never gave any orders to abandon ship.’

The man shifted his feet nervously, not looking at Patch. ‘I only know what was passed down to me on the blower,’ he muttered. They were all nervous, doubtful, their eyes on the floor.

‘Yules.’ Patch’s gaze had switched to an undersized little runt of a man with a peaked, sweaty face and shifty eyes. ‘You were at the wheel. You heard what orders I gave up there on the bridge. What were they?’

The man hesitated, glancing at Higgins. ‘You ordered the boats swung out and the men to stand by to abandon ship,’ he whispered.

‘You damned little liar!’ Patch started to move towards him, but Higgins stepped forward. And Yules said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ His voice was high-pitched on a note of sudden spite.

Patch stared at him a moment, breathing heavily. And then he turned and went out quickly. I followed him and found him waiting for me on the pavement outside. His whole body was shaking and he looked utterly drained. ‘You need some sleep,’ I said.

‘I need a drink.’

We walked in silence up to the square and sat at a little bistro that advertised crepes as a speciality. ‘Have you any money?’ he asked. And when I told him Fraser had lent me some, he nodded and said, ‘I’m a distressed seaman and a charge on the Consul. It doesn’t run to drinks.’ There was a note of bitterness in his voice. And then, when we had ordered cognac, he suddenly said, ‘The last body wasn’t brought in until two o’clock this morning.’ His face looked haggard as it had done on the Mary Deare, the bruise along his jaw even more livid against the clean-shaven pallor of his face.

I gave him a cigarette and he lit it with trembling hands. ‘They got caught in the tide-rip off the entrance to Lezardrieux.’ The drinks came and he knocked his back and ordered two more. ‘Why the hell did it have to be Rice’s boat?’ The palm of his hand slapped viciously against the table. ‘If it had been Higgins …’ He sighed and relapsed into silence.

I didn’t break it. I felt he needed that silence. He lingered over his second drink and every now and then he looked at me as though trying to make up his mind about something. The little square bustled with life, full of the noise of cars hooting and the quick, excited chatter of French people as they hurried along the pavement outside. It was wonderful just to sit there and drink cognac and know that I was alive. But my mind couldn’t shake itself free of the Mary Deare, and watching Patch as he sat, staring down at his drink, I wondered what had really happened on that ship before I boarded her. And that little huddle of survivors in the office overlooking the bassin … ‘What did Higgins mean — about your record?’ I asked. ‘Was he referring to the Belle Isle?’

He nodded, not looking up.

‘What happened to her?’

‘Oh, she ran aground and broke her back … and people talked. That’s all. There was a lot of money involved. It’s not important.’

But I knew it was. He’d kept on talking about it, saying you wouldn’t think it could happen to the same man twice. ‘What’s the connection between the Belle Isle and the Mary Deare?’ I asked.

He looked up at me quickly. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well…’ It wasn’t easy to put it into words with him staring at me like that. ‘It’s a pretty strange story, you know — the crew saying you ordered them to abandon ship and you saying you didn’t. And there’s Taggart’s death,’ I added. ‘Dellimare, too.’

‘Dellimare?’ The sudden violence of his voice shook me. ‘What’s Dellimare got to do with it?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But…’

‘Well, go on. What else are you thinking?’

It was a question that had been in my mind for a long time ‘That fire …’ I said.

‘Are you suggesting I started it?’

The question took me by surprise. ‘Good God, no.’

‘What are you suggesting then?’ His eyes were angry and suspicious.