The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘That ship.’ His voice came out of the darkness at my side, a little hesitant, bridging the gap of my silence. ‘Damned queer,’ he murmured. ‘You know, if there really was nobody on board …’ He checked and then added, half-jokingly, That would have been a piece of salvage that would have set you up for life.’ I thought I sensed a serious note underlying his words, but when I glanced at him he shrugged his shoulders and laughed. ‘Well, I think I’ll turn in again now.’ He got up and his ‘good night’ floated back to me from the dark gap of the charthouse.

Shortly afterwards Mike brought me a mug of hot soup. He stayed and talked to me whilst I drank it, speculating wildly about the Mary Deare. Then he, too, turned in and the blackness of the night closed round me. Could there really have been nobody on the bridge? It was too fantastic — an empty ship driving pell mell up the Channel. And yet, cold and alone, with the pale glimmer of the sails swooping above me and the dismal dripping of mist condensed on the canvas, anything seemed possible.

At three Hal relieved me and for two hours I slept, dreaming of blunt, rusted bows hanging over us, toppling slowly, everlastingly. I woke in a panic, cold with sweat, and lay for a moment thinking about what Hal had said. It would be queer if we salvaged a ship, just like that, before we’d even … But I was asleep again before the idea had more than flickered through my mind. And in an instant I was being shaken and was stumbling out to the helm in the brain-numbing hour before the dawn, all recollection of the Mary Deare blurred and hazed by the bitter cold.

Daylight came slowly, a reluctant dawn that showed a drab, sullen sea heaving gently, the steepness flattened out of the swell. The wind was northerly now, but still light; and some time during the night we had gone over on to the other tack.

At ten to seven Hal and I were in the charthouse for the weather report. It started with gale warnings for the western approaches of the Channel; the forecast for our own area of Portland was: Wind light, northerly at first, backing northwesterly later and increasing strong to gale. Hal glanced at me, but said nothing. There was no need. I checked our position and then gave Mike the course to steer for Peter Port.

It was a queer morning. There was a lot of scud about and by the time we had finished breakfast it was moving across the sky quite fast. Yet at sea level there was scarcely any wind so that, with full main and mizzen set and the big yankee jib, we were creeping through the water at a bare three knots, rolling sluggishly. There was still a mist of sorts and visibility wasn’t much more than two miles.

We didn’t talk much. I think we were all three of us too conscious of the sea’s menace. Peter Port was still thirty miles away. The silence and the lack of wind was oppressive. ‘I’ll go and check our position again,’ I said. Hal nodded as though the thought had been in his mind, too.

But poring over the chart didn’t help. As far as I could tell we were six miles north-north-west of the Roches Douvres, that huddle of rocks and submerged reefs that is the western outpost of the Channel Islands. But I couldn’t be certain; my dead reckoning depended too much on tide and leeway.

And then Mike knocked the bottom out of my calculations. ‘There’s a rock about two points on the starboard bow,’ he called to me. ‘A big one sticking up out of the water.’

I grabbed the glasses and flung out of the charthouse. ‘Where?’ My mouth was suddenly harsh and dry. If it were the Roches Douvres, then we must have been set down a good deal farther than I thought. And it couldn’t be anything else; it was all open sea between Roches Douvres and Guernsey. ‘Where?’ I repeated.

‘Over there!’ Mike was pointing.

I screwed up my eyes. But I couldn’t see anything. The clouds had thinned momentarily and a queer sun-glow was reflected on the oily surface of the sea, merging it with the moisture-laden atmosphere. There was no horizon; at the edge of visibility sea and air became one. I searched through the glasses. ‘I can’t see it,’ I said. ‘How far away?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve lost it now. But it wasn’t more than a mile.’

‘You’re sure it was a rock?’

‘Yes, I think so. What else could it be?’ He was staring into the distance, his eyes narrowed against the luminous glare of the haze. ‘It was a big rock with some sort of tower or pinnacle in the middle of it.’

The Roches Douvres light! I glanced at Hal seated behind the wheel. ‘We’d better alter course,’ I said. The tide is setting us down at about two knots.’ My voice sounded tense. If it was the Roches Douvres and the wind fell any lighter, we could be swept right down on to the reef.

He nodded and swung the wheel. ‘That would put you out by five miles in your dead reckoning.’

‘Yes.’