The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

I think he was asking the name of our ship, but the words were lost in the roar of the engine as I opened the throttle wide, and we went steaming out through the gap. The sails flapped wildly as we came under the lee of the cliffs and the boat heaved to the swell. Then we were through and the sails filled. Sea Witch heeled, the water creaming back from her bows and sliding white past the cockpit as she surged forward under the thrust of power and sail.

‘She’s turning,’ Mike shouted down to me.

I glanced over my shoulder. The motor boat’s masthead steaming light and the red and green of her navigation lights were showing in the black outline of the land behind us. She was coming out through the gap.

Mike tumbled into the cockpit, hardening in the main sheet for me as I headed south on a broad reach. With the ship blacked-out — not even a binnacle light — I sailed by the wind, my head turned every now and then over my shoulder to watch the motor boat. Her masthead light began to dance as she met the swell in the entrance, and then it was swinging steadily, rhythmically as she pitched to the sea, and the red and green of her navigation lights remained fixed on us like two eyes. Her spotlight stabbed the darkness, showing glimpses of black, lumpy water as it probed the night.

‘If we’d got away half an hour earlier …’ Patch was staring aft.

‘And if we’d been five minutes later,’ Mike snapped, ‘you’d be under arrest.’ His voice sounded on edge and I knew he didn’t like it any more than I did. ‘I’ll go and get the anchor on board.’ He disappeared for’ard and I sent Patch to help him.

It was cold in the cockpit now that we were under way. But I don’t think I noticed it. I was wondering about the boat behind us. It had gained on us slightly and the spotlight, reaching out to us across the tumbled waters, lit our sails with a ghostly radiance. It didn’t probe any longer, but was held on us, so that I knew they’d picked us out. The drizzle had slackened again and our white sails made us conspicuous.

Up for’ard Mike was coiling down the halyards, whilst Patch lashed the anchor. They came aft together. ‘John. Hadn’t we better heave-to?’

‘They haven’t ordered you to.’ Patch’s voice was hard and urgent. ‘You don’t have to do anything till they signal instructions.’ He was back at sea again and a man doesn’t easily give up in his own element. He came down into the cockpit. His face had tightened so that there was strength in it again. ‘Well, are you going on or not?’ It wasn’t exactly a challenge, certainly not a threat, and yet the way he said it made me wonder what he’d do if I refused.

Mike jerked round, his body bunched, his quick temper flaring. ‘If we want to heave-to, we will.’

The spotlight was switched off. Sudden blackness descended on us. ‘I was asking Sands.’ Patch’s voice trembled out of the darkness.

‘John and I own this boat jointly,’ Mike flung out. ‘We’ve worked and planned and slaved our guts out to have our own outfit, and we’re not going to risk it all to get you out of the mess you’re in.’ He stepped down into the cockpit, balancing himself to the pitch of the boat. ‘You’ve got to heave-to,’ he said to me. ‘That boat is gradually coming up on us and when the police find we’ve got Patch on board, it’s going to be damned hard to prove that we weren’t slipping him out of the country, especially with all that cash sculling around below.’ He leaned forward, gripping hold of my shoulder. ‘Do you hear me, John?’ He was shouting at me above the noise of the engine. ‘You’ve got to heave-to before that police boat comes up on us.’

‘It may not be the police,’ I said. I had been thinking about it all the time they’d been up for’ard. The police would have sent a patrol car. They wouldn’t have come by boat.’

‘If it’s not the police, then who the hell is it?’

I glanced over my shoulder, wondering whether perhaps imagination hadn’t got the better of reason. But there was the boat, still following us. The white steaming light was swaying wildly, showing the slender stick of her mast and the outline of the deckhouse. ‘She certainly rolls,’ I murmured.

‘What’s that?’

I turned to him then. ‘Did you get a good look at her, Mike, as we came out?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘What sort of boat was she — could you see?’

‘An old Parkhurst, I should say.’ Mike’s training as a marine engineer had given him a quite remarkable knowledge of power craft.

‘You’re certain of that?’

‘I think so. Yes, I’m sure she was.’

I asked him to go down below then and look up Griselda in Lloyd’s Register. ‘And if she’s in the book and her description fits, then I’d like an estimate of her speed.’

He hesitated, glancing quickly from me to Patch, and then he disappeared for’ard towards the main hatch. ‘And if it is Griselda? Patch asked.

Then she was chartered this morning,’ I said. ‘By somebody who was in that Court.’

The spotlight was on us again and he was staring at me. ‘Are you sure?’