The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

It was still blowing and the streets were wet as we drove to the court the following morning. Proceedings started sharp at ten-thirty with evidence about the cargo. And then a doctor was called who showed that it was quite possible for a man who lived on nothing but liquor to die for lack of it. Through all this the courtroom was restless as though waiting for something. The public gallery was packed, the Press desk crammed. And then at last Holland called ‘Alfred Higgins’ and, as Higgins thrust his huge bulk into the witness box, there was a sudden, expectant hush, so that the sound (X a clock striking eleven was quite audible through the taking of the oath.

He was forty-three years old, Higgins told the Treasury Counsel, and, when asked for his qualifications, he explained that he’d started life on his father’s barge, sailing the East Coast ports until he was fifteen; then he’d got mixed up in some smuggling racket and had stowed away on a banana boat. He’d stayed at sea after that, moving from ship to ship across the traffic lanes of the world — square-riggers, tramps and liners, tugs and coasters; he rolled the names of them out of his great barrel of a body like pages picked at random from Lloyd’s Register.

He began his story back where the Mary Deare steamed out of Yokohama. According to him, the ship was a floating deathtrap of rattling rivets and clanging plates, a piece of leaking ironmongery taken off the junk-heap of the China Seas. Of the captain, he simply said, ‘The ‘ole ship knew ‘e was drinking ‘isself ter death.’ The first mate was sickening for jaundice and the third officer, Rice, was only a kid of twenty-four on his second voyage with a watch-keeper’s certificate. The implication was that he, Higgins, was the only reliable deck officer on board, and though he looked like a bull about to charge, there was something impressive about him as he stood there and gave his evidence in a throaty rumble.

Singapore, Rangoon, Aden — and then he was covering the same ground that Patch had covered, but from a different angle. He thought the crew ‘not bad considerin’ the moth-eaten sort o’ a tub she was’. Patch he regarded as ‘a bit pernickity-like’ and added, ‘But that’s ter be expected when a man wiv ‘is record gets command again.’

And then up through the Bay of Biscay the Court got little glimpses of Patch, nervous, over-bearing, at odds with the owner, with his officers — ‘All ‘cept Rice. ‘E was the white-headed boy, as the sayin’ is.’ And when it came to the gale itself and the ship down by the bows and the radio shack gutted by fire, Higgins didn’t give it graphically as Patch had done, but baldly, factually. He had been asleep in his bunk when the hold had started to flood. He had taken over the bridge and had remained on watch until 10.00 hours the following morning — eleven solid hours. He had then organised a more thorough search for Dellimare. No, Mr Patch hadn’t ordered him to. He’d done it on his own initiative, having been relieved. He couldn’t believe that Dellimare ‘who was Navy an’ a good bloke on a ship’ could have gone overboard. Altogether he had been forty-two hours without sleep.

‘You liked Mr Dellimare?’ Holland asked him.

‘I didn’t like or dislike ‘im. I jus’ said ‘e was a good bloke, an’ so ‘e was.’

‘Did you advise Mr Patch at one stage to abandon ship?’

‘Well, yes, in a manner o’ speakin’. We considered it, Mr Dellimare an’ me.’

‘Why?’

‘Cos we knew the sort o’ ship she was. We’d bin through two gales already comin’ across from Singapore. Patch ‘adn’t. An’ the one in the Bay was a lot worse than wot we’d gone through before.’

‘And you thought an explosion had occurred in the for’ard hold?’

‘I didn’t think nothin’ of the kind. I knew she was rotten an’ we were takin’ a helluva pounding. We didn’t think she’d stand much more.’ And then he said, ‘If you’re suggesting we were scared, just remember what it was like out there. Ten to one the boats wouldn’t ‘ve got launched in that sea, let alone stayed afloat. It took guts to even think ‘o takin’ ter the boats, pertikly fer Mr Dellimare who’d had a basinful o’ that sort o’ thing during the war. Later, when we ‘ove-to, things was easier an’ I thought maybe we had a chance.’

And then he was dealing with the night the fire had broken out in the after hold and they had abandoned ship. Yes, it had been about 21.20 hours. It was a stoker who had discovered it, a man called West. He’d come out of the after deckhouse and had seen smoke coming from the hatch of Number Three hold. He’d reported at once to the bridge by phone. Rice had been there at the time and Higgins had sent him to check the report and notify Mr Patch. Not once in his evidence did he refer to Patch as the captain.

‘And what happened then?’ Holland asked him.