The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

There is no doubt in my mind now that Mike was right and, had I done as he suggested, the disaster for which we were headed might have been avoided. But the changed motion induced by our heading into the wind had brought Patch on deck. I could see him sitting on the main hatch, staring aft for glimpses of Griselda, and I wondered what his reaction would be if we went over on to the port tack, heading back towards the English coast. Also, we were over-canvassed, and when you go about there are backstays to set up as well as the sheets to handle; one slip and we could lose our mast!

‘I don’t like it,’ I told Mike. We were short-handed and it was night. Also, of course, in those conditions, when you are tired and cold and wet, there is a great temptation to sit tight and do nothing. I thought we were drawing ahead of them.

Apparently Mike had the same thought, for, instead of pressing his point, he shrugged his shoulders and went into the charthouse to turn in. It seems extraordinary to me now that I didn’t appreciate the significance of the fact that Griselda’s light was no longer showing astern of us, but way out on the port quarter. Had I done so, I should have known that we were not gaining on her, merely diverging from her. She was steering a more southerly course, maintaining her speed by avoiding the head-on battering of the seas. And I for my part — as so often happens at night — thought our own speed was greater than it was.

By the end of my watch it was clouding over and the wind was slackening. I called Patch and when he came up, we eased the sheets and altered course to sou’-sou’-west. We were no longer butting into the seas then, but following the lines of the waves with a wild, swooping movement. The wind was free and Sea Witch was going like a train.

I heated some soup then and we drank it in the cockpit, watching the dawn break. It came with a cold, bleak light and Patch stood, staring aft. But there was nothing to be seen but a waste of grey, tumbled water. ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘We’ve left them way behind.’

He nodded, not saying anything. His face looked grey. ‘At this rate we’ll raise the Casquets inside of two hours,’ I said, and I left him then and went below to get some sleep.

An hour later Mike woke me, shouting to me to come up on deck, his voice urgent. ‘Look over there, John,’ he said as I emerged from the hatch. He was pointing away to port and, at first, I could see nothing. My sleep-dimmed eyes absorbed the cold daylight and the drabness of sea and sky, and then on the lift of a wave I thought I saw something, a stick maybe or a spar-buoy raised aloft out there where the march of the waves met the horizon. I screwed up my eyes, focusing them, and the next time I balanced to the upward swoop of the deck, I saw it clearly — the mast of a small ship. It lifted itself up out of the waves and behind it came the hull of the boat itself, drab white in the morning light.

‘Griselda?’ I said.

Mike nodded and passed me the glasses. She was certainly rolling. I could see the water streaming off her and every now and then a wave burst against her bows, throwing up a cloud of spray. ‘If we’d gone about last night…’

‘Well, we didn’t,’ I said. I glanced aft to where Patch sat hunched over the wheel in borrowed oilskins. ‘Does he know?’ I asked.

‘Yes. He saw her first.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. He didn’t seem surprised.’

I stared at the boat through the glasses again, trying to estimate her speed. ‘What are we doing?’ I asked. ‘Did you get a log reading at six?’

‘Yes. We did eight in the last hour.’

Eight knots! I glanced up at the sails. They were wind-bellied out, tight and hard, solid tons of weight pulling at the mast, hauling the boat through the water. My God! it was hard that we hadn’t shaken them off after a whole night of sailing.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Mike said. ‘If they come up with us …’

‘Well?’

‘There’s not much they can do really, is there? I mean …’ He hesitated, glancing at me uncertainly.

‘I hope you’re right,’ I said and went into the charthouse. I was tired and I didn’t want to think about it. I worked out our dead-reckoning, based on miles logged, courses sailed and tides, and found we were ten miles north-north-west of the Casquets. In two hours’ time the tide would be east-going, setting us in towards Alderney and the Cherbourg Peninsula. But that damned boat lay between us and the coast, and there was no getting away from her, not in daylight.

I stayed on in the charthouse and got the forecast: wind moderating later, some fog patches locally. A depression centred over the Atlantic was moving slowly east.