The Wreck Of The Mary Deare

Shortly after breakfast we raised the Casquets — the north-western bastion of the Channel Islands. The tide turned and began to run against us and we had the Casquets with us for a long time, a grey, spiked helmet of a rock against which the seas broke. We thrashed our way through the steamer lane that runs up-Channel from Ushant, seeing only two ships, and those hull-down on the horizon. And then we raised Guernsey Island and the traffic in the steamer lane was just smudges of smoke where sky and sea met.

All morning Patch remained on deck, taking his trick at the helm, dozing in the cockpit or sitting staring at the grey acres that separated us from Griselda. Sometimes he would dive into the charthouse and work frenziedly with parallel rule and dividers, checking our course and our E.T.A. at the Minkies. Once I suggested that he went below and got some sleep, but all he said was, ‘Sleep? I can’t sleep till I see the Mary Deare.’ And he stayed there, grey and exhausted, existing on his nerves, as he had done all through the Enquiry.

I think he was afraid to go below — afraid that when he couldn’t see her Griselda would somehow creep up on us. He was frighteningly tired. He kept on asking me about the tides. We had no tidal chart and it worried him. Even when the tide turned around midday, pushing us westward again, he kept on checking our bearing on the jagged outline of Guernsey Island.

I should perhaps explain that the tidal surge of six hours flood and six hours ebb that shifts the whole body of water of the English Channel builds up to an extraordinary peak in the great bight of the French coast that contains the Channel Islands. At ‘springs’, when the tides are greatest, it sluices in and out of the narrow gap between Alderney and the mainland at a rate of up to 7 knots. Its direction in the main body of the Channel Islands rotates throughout the twelve hours. Moreover, the rise and fall of tide is as much as from 30 to 40 feet.

I mention this to explain our preoccupation with the tide and because it has a bearing on what followed. Moreover, the whole area being strewn with submerged reefs, rock outcrops and islands, there is always a sense of tension when navigating in this section of the Channel.

Holding to our course, we were headed direct for the central mass of Guernsey. I was relying on the westward thrust of the tide to push us clear, and as we closed with the broken water that marked the submerged rocks known as Les Frettes, we were all of us watching to see what Griselda would do. In fact, she had no alternative, and when the rock cliffs of the island were close to port she altered course to come in astern of us.

The westernmost tip of Guernsey is marked by Les Hanois, a lighthouse set seaward on a group of rocks. We passed so close that we could see every detail of it — the cormorants standing like vultures on the rocks and the swell breaking white all along the edge; and dead astern of us Griselda followed in our wake, pitching and rolling with the spray flying from her bow wave. She was less than a quarter of a mile away and Patch stood with his body braced against the charthouse, staring at her through the glasses.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘is it Higgins?’ I could see a figure moving on the deck.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it’s Higgins all right. And Yules, too. There’s another of them in the wheelhouse, but I can’t see who it is.’

He handed me the glasses. I could recognise Higgins all right. He was standing by the rail, staring at us, his big body balanced to the movement of the boat. Higgins and Yules and Patch — three of the men who had sailed the Mary Deare! And here we were, within forty miles of where the ship was stranded.

Mike was at the wheel and he suddenly called to me. ‘If we turn now, we could make Peter Port ahead of them.’

It was a straight run before the wind along the southern coast of the island. We could make St Martin’s Point without their gaining on us and then a few miles under engine and we should be in Peter Port. I glanced at Patch. He had stepped down into the cockpit. ‘I’ll relieve you,’ he said. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.

‘No,’ Mike was staring at him, anger flaring up into his eyes.

‘I said I’ll relieve you.’ Patch reached for the wheel.

‘I heard what you said.’ Mike swung the wheel over, shouting to me to ease the sheets. But Patch had his hands on the wheel, too. Standing, he had more purchase and he slowly got it back, holding it there whilst Mike shouted obscenities at him. Their two faces were within a.foot of each other — Patch’s hard and tense, Mike’s livid with rage. They were like that for a long two minutes, held immobile by the counteracting force of their muscles like two statues.