The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

It had happened on the night of the gale, just after the fire in the radio shack had been reported to him. He had gone out on to the wing of the bridge, to see whether the fire could be tackled from there, and he’d seen Dellimare making his way aft along the upper deck. ‘I’d warned him I’d kill him if I found him trying to monkey with the ship. There was no reason for him to be going aft.’ He had rushed down from the bridge then and had reached the after end of the deck just in time to see Dellimare disappearing through the inspection hatch of Number Four hold. ‘I should have slammed the lid shut on him and left it at that.’ But instead he’d followed Dellimare down into the hold and had found him crouched by the for’ard bulkhead, his arm thrust down into the gap between the top case of the cargo and the hull plates. ‘I can remember his face,’ he breathed. ‘Startled and white as hell in the light of my torch. I believe he knew I was going to kill him.’

Patch’s voice trembled now as he relived the scene that had been pent-up inside him too long. Dellimare had straightened himself with a cry, holding some sort of cylinder in his hand, and Patch had moved in with a cold dynamic fury and had smashed his fist into the man’s face, driving his head back on to the steel of the hull, crashing it against an angle iron. ‘I wanted to crush him, smash him, obliterate him. I wanted to kill him.’ He was breathing heavily, standing at the end of the table, staring at us with the light shining down on his head deepening the shadows of his face. ‘There were things happening to the ship that night — the for’ard holds flooding, the fire in the radio shack, and then that little rat going down into the hold … and all the time a gale blowing hurricane force. My God! What would you have done? I was the captain. The ship was in hellish danger. And he wanted her wrecked. I’d warned him …’ He stopped abruptly and wiped his forehead.

Then he went on, more quietly, describing what had happened after Dellimare had crumpled up, lying in a heap on one of the aero engine cases with blood glistening red in his pale thin hair. He hadn’t realised he’d killed him — not then. But the anger had drained out of him and somehow he had managed to get him up the vertical ladder to the deck. He had nearly been knocked down by a sea that had come surging inboard, but he had made the ladder to the upper deck. That way he wouldn’t meet any of the crew. But when he had almost reached the bridge housing the lights shining out of the after portholes showed him Dellimare’s head and he knew then that the man was dead. ‘His neck was broken.’ He said it flatly, without emotion.

‘But surely you could have said he’d had an accident — fallen down the hold or something?’ I suggested. I was remembering the coal dust and the sound of shifting coal in the bunker, knowing what was coming.

He reached for the packet and lit a cigarette. Then he sat down opposite me again. ‘I panicked, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Poor devil, he wasn’t a pretty sight — all the back of his head smashed in.’ He was seeing the blood and the lolling head again, and the sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘I decided to dump him over the side.’

But he had set the body down to examine it and when he bent to pick it up, he’d seen Higgins coming out through the starboard doorway from the bridge-housing. He hadn’t dared carry the body to the rail then. But just beside him the hatch of the port bunkering chute stood open for some strange reason and, without thinking, he pitched the body down the chute and slammed the lid on it. ‘It wasn’t until hours later that I realised what I’d done.’ He took a pull at his cigarette, dragging at it, his hands trembling. ‘Instead of getting shot of the man, I’d hung his body round my neck like a millstone.’ His voice had fallen to a whisper and for a moment he sat in silence. Then he added, ‘When you came on board, I’d slung a rope ladder down into that bunker and was in there, trying to get at the body. But by then the rolling of the ship had buried him under tons of coal.’

There was a long silence after that and I could hear the wind in the rigging, a high, singing note. The anchor chain was grating on the shingle as the boat yawed. And then, speaking to himself, his head lowered: ‘I killed him, and I thought it was justice. I thought he deserved to die. I was convinced I was saving the lives of thirty-odd men, my own included.’

And then he looked at me suddenly. ‘Well, I’ve told you the truth now.’

I nodded. I knew this was the truth. I knew now why he had to get back there, why he couldn’t reveal Dellimare’s offer to the Court. ‘You should have gone to the police,’ I said, ‘as soon as you reached England.’

‘The police?’ He was staring at me, white-faced. ‘How could I?’

‘But if you’d told them about the offer Dellimare made you …’