The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘Yes, yes, of course. Pity to drag you away from your diving. Heard you had started work on that wreck in Worbarrow Bay.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘You know, we seriously considered approaching you over the question of the Mary Deare. We were going to try an asdic search. But then some new information came up and it became unnecessary.’

‘What new information?’ I was wondering whether the Mary Deare had been found. The weather had been bad during most of April, but there was always the chance …

IS ‘You’ll see, Mr Sands. Interesting case, most interesting …’ And he hurried off down the corridor.

The official opened the door for me then and I went into the court. ‘The seats for witnesses are on the right, sir,’ he whispered. There was no need for him to have whispered. The room was full of the murmur of voices. I stood there in the doorway, a little dazed. There were many more people than I had expected. The whole court seemed crammed to overflowing; only in the public gallery was there any vacant space. The witnesses were crowded into the seats usually occupied by jurymen called but not serving and some of them had spilled over into the jury box itself. Patch I saw at once, sitting well down towards the front, his face pale and taut, but harder now, like a man who knows what is coming and has nerved himself to meet it. Behind him, and to the right, the crew were clustered in a little hard knot round Higgins’s solid bulk. They looked awkward and ill-at-ease, a little exotic in their new shore-going clothes. Fraser, the captain of the Channel packet that had picked us up, was there, too, and, sitting beside him, was Janet Taggart. She gave me a quick smile, tight-lipped and a little wan, and I wondered why the devil they needed to drag her in as a witness.

And then somebody was signalling me from just behind her and, as he craned his neck up, I saw it was Hal. I pushed my way down the row and squeezed in beside him. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here,’ I whispered.

‘Very important witness,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget that it was I who first reported the ship as a derelict hulk containing the person of my erstwhile and somewhat foolhardy skipper.’ He smiled at me out of the corners of his eyes. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Going to be a damned interesting case if you ask me.’

At the time I had entered, men in various parts of the court, but chiefly on the side across from me, were standing up to give their names and state their business and who they represented. There were a surprising number of them, for, besides the insurance companies and the owners, the builders of the Mary Deare were represented, the Marine Officers’ Association, the Radio Operators’ Association, the various unions; there was even a solicitor appearing for the relatives of Captain Taggart deceased.

The atmosphere was very informal by comparison with a court of law — no wigs, no gowns, no police, no jury. Even the judge and his three assessors wore lounge suits. Across the court from where I sat the desks were occupied by the various counsel appearing for interested parties. They were very crowded. The witness box nearby stood empty and beyond was the Press desk with two reporters at it. On our side of the court the desks were occupied by the Treasury counsel and his junior and the Treasury solicitors and assistants.

Hal leaned towards me. ‘Do you know who’s representing the insurance people?’ he whispered.

I shook my head. I had no information about the legal representatives. All I knew was that a Mr Bowen-Lodge QC was chairman of the Enquiry.

‘Sir Lionel Falcett. About the most expensive man they could have got.’ His blue eyes darted me a quick glance. ‘Significant, eh?’

I glanced down at Patch. And then I was remembering that I, too, might have to go into the witness box, and all the counsel had the right to cross-examine.

A hush slowly spread through the room. The Chairman, who had been engaged in earnest discussion with his assessors, had turned and faced the court. As soon as there was complete silence he began his opening address. ‘Gentlemen. This Court meets here today, as you are well aware, to investigate the loss of the steamship Mary Deare. It will be the duty of the Court to examine, not only the circumstances of the loss itself, but all the relevant factors that may possibly have contributed to that loss. The scope of this investigation, therefore, covers the state of the ship at the time she started on her ill-fated voyage from Yokohama, her seaworthiness, the condition of her machinery, the nature of her cargo and the manner of its stowage, and, in particular, the state of her fire-fighting equipment. It covers also the behaviour and conduct of all those concerned in the running of the vessel to the extent that they may or may not have contributed to the disaster.

‘For disaster it was, gentlemen. Out of a total crew of thirty-two, no less than twelve men — over a third of the ship’s complement — lost their lives.