The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

‘I didn’t hear nothin’ further for about quarter of an hour. But I knew it was fire orl right ‘cos the after derrick lights was switched on an’ there was a lot of activity with men running about the deck. Then Mr Patch comes up to the bridge lookin’ very wild and all covered in smoke grime an’ says he’s ordered the boats swung out just in case. I asked him whether he’d like me ter take charge of the fire-fighting party and he said No, Mr Rice was in charge. He stood aba’t fer a bit after that as though he couldn’t make up his mind aba’t somethin’. An’ after a bit Rice comes runnin’ up to the bridge in a bit of a panic an’ says the fire’s getting worse. And at that Patch orders him to pass the word to stand by to abandon ship. “You notify the engine-room, Mr Higgins,” he says. “Then take charge of the fire-fighting party. Mr Rice, you’ll have charge of the upper deck. See there’s no panic when I give the word.” An’ that’s the last I saw of him,’ Higgins added.

The rest was a pattern of disaster that comes from absence of command. Higgins and his men had fought the fire for a further fifteen minutes or so, and all the time it seemed to be gaining on them. The men were scared. They believed the ship was jinxed, that the cargo was explosives. Higgins sent Rice to tell Patch he couldn’t hold the men much longer and Rice came back to say he couldn’t find Patch anywhere. ‘By then the men were near ter panic. Some were already on the upper deck, piling into Number Three boat. There weren’t nothing I could do ‘cept give the order to abandon ship.’

The order had resulted in a stampede for the boats. When he reached the upper deck, Higgins saw Number Three boat hanging by its bow falls with one man clinging to it. Number One boat had also been cleared. She was empty and being battered to pieces against the ship’s side. By using his fists he’d got some sort of order out of the chaos on deck and he and the officers had organised the men into the two remaining boats. He had put Rice in charge of Number Four boat and had waited to see him safely clear. He had then lowered and released his own boat. Owing to the speed at which the ship was travelling he had lost contact with Rice by the time his boat hit the water and he never regained it.

‘Do you mean to say,’ Holland asked, ‘that you took to the boats with the ship still steaming?’

‘Yes. Acting on Mr Patch’s instructions I had ordered the engine-room staff to stand by to take to the boats. When I gave the order to abandon, they didn’t ‘ave no instructions about stopping the engines an’ afterwards none o’

‘em would go below to do it.’

‘But surely if you gave the order-’

‘What the hell use were orders?’ Higgins growled. ‘Patch’d gone — vanished. One boat was already hanging in her davits, the men in her all tipped into the sea; another was bein’ smashed up alongside. The men were panicking. Anybody who went below stood a good chance of coming up and finding the last two boats gone. It was as much as Rice an’ I could do ter get those boats away orderly-like.’

‘But good heavens!’ Holland exclaimed. ‘Surely, as an experienced officer, you had some control over your-’

But Higgins interrupted him again. ‘Ain’t you got no imagination?’ he burst out. ‘Can’t you see what it was like — Patch gone and the crew in a panic and a fire raging on top of a cargo of explosives.’

‘But it wasn’t explosives.’

‘Ow were we ter know?’

‘You’ve heard the evidence proving that the cases loaded at Yokohama contained aero engines. There was no justification for believing-’

‘We know now they was full of aero engines,’

Higgins said quickly. ‘But I’m telling you wot we thought at the time. We thought they was full of explosives.’

‘But you’d seen the manifest,’ Holland reminded him. ‘Mr Patch even posted a copy of it on the crew’s notice board.’

‘What difference does that make?’ Higgins demanded angrily. ‘A crew don’t ‘ave ter believe everything that’s posted on their notice board. An’ let me tell you, mister, men that sail in ships like the Mary Deare don’t go much by the manifest, pertickly in the China Seas. We may be uneddicated, but we ain’t stupid. A manifest is just a piece of paper somebody’s written what he wants believed on. Least, that’s the way I look at it — an’ I’ve me reasons for doin’ so.’

There was no answer to that. The outburst called for a rebuke from the Chairman, but it was given mildly. Higgins was accepted for what he was, a piece of human flotsam speaking with the voice of experience. In a sense he was magnificent. He dominated that drab court. But not by the power of his personality, which was crude. He dominated it because he was different, because he was the obverse of the coin of human nature, a colourful, lawless buccaneer who didn’t give a damn for authority.

‘In other words,’ Holland said, ‘you’ve known a lot of strange things happen aboard ships around the world. Now, have you ever known a stranger set of circumstances than those that happened aboard the Mary Deare?