Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo (22 page)

“What was it?”

“We were home in Germany and mother was still alive.”

“A good dream.”

“Not really,” Volkert said. “It was her head, but her body was a potato.”

“Mother did love the spatzel.”

“Why don’t you crack the porthole?” Volkert asked.

“Because water comes in,” Boz said, before turning over to try to sleep.

DEI GRATIA’S
SECOND mate, Oliver Deveau, stared up at the mainsail. The sail had been rigged six months before, on a layover in London, and while slightly weathered by time, it appeared unfrayed. The brass grommets, where the lines attached, showed no wear, and the hemmed edges had yet to unravel. That was a good thing. Since the start of the voyage from New York,
Dei Gratia
had faced strong winds. And while the temperature had warmed as the ship had dropped into lower latitudes, the winds had not diminished.

Twin wakes flowed from the bow as
Dei Gratia
made way, and the wind buffeted Deveau’s hair. To port, Deveau caught sight of a trio of bottlenose porpoises jumping the wake, and he smiled. The ship was making good time, and if it continued, there might be a bonus from the grateful owners upon completion.

Deveau did not know his bonus would come from an unexpected source.

ON
MARY CELESTE,
First Mate Albert Richardson was straining his eyes to catch a glimpse of Santa Cruz das Flores Island. The landmass and its sister island, Corvo, would be the first land to be passed since leaving New York. The date was November 24, 1872. The wind continued to blow.

Belowdecks in the captain’s cabin, Benjamin Briggs and his wife, Sarah, were enjoying the last of the fresh eggs. Captain Briggs liked his fried, Sarah poached; baby Sophia just liked them. Sarah slid an egg onto a piece of thick-sliced bread, then spoke to her husband.

“I saw a rat,” she said easily. “We should have a cat aboard.”

“I’ll have the men clean the hull when we off-load the alcohol,” Briggs said, “before the fruit is loaded.”

“Won’t the fruit have insects?” Sarah asked. “Scorpions and roaches?”

“Possibly, dear,” Briggs admitted, “but they won’t last once we reach the colder climates.”

“I think the fumes are affecting Sophia,” Sarah said.

“She seems fine,” Briggs said, reaching over and tickling Sophia, who sat in her mother’s lap.

“Well, they’re affecting me,” Sarah said. “I feel like I’ve been embalmed.”

“Two more barrels are leaking,” Briggs said. “I’m afraid since they were filled when it was cold that as we pass farther into warmer water they will expand more.”

“That wouldn’t be good,” Sarah said.

“No,” Briggs admitted, “it wouldn’t.”

DEI GRATIA
SAILED east, and the sailors began a ritual as old as time. There was cleaning and tending to the sails. Scrubbing and soapstone on the decks. Brightwork needed to be attended to—rust had to be dealt with harshly. The weather was lifting, allowing more time on the open upper deck. The sun shone through the clouds on the faces of the sailors.

So far the voyage had been like many others, but that was about to change.

Off course from the fickle winds. This was not an unusual thing aboard a sailing ship, but one that did require an adjustment in plans. During the night,
Mary Celeste
had passed north of St. Mary’s Island, not south, as caution and ease would have indicated. For one thing, the Gibraltar Strait now lay south and east of their position and was more easily accessed by passing south of the Azores. For another, just twenty-one miles north of St. Mary’s, not many miles from where
Mary Celeste
was now passing, lay the dangerous group of rocks known as the Dollabarat Shoals. In bad weather, waves broke over the area with great force. In calm seas, they lay just below the surface, ready to rip the hull out from under unsuspecting vessels.

A good navigator could thread the needle through the danger, but most avoided the area. In the first place, there was little reason to pass to the north. St. Mary’s Island had no usable anchorages. No fresh water, towns, or help available.

SHIP’S LOG—Mary Celeste

November 25, 1872 Eight bells.

At 8, Eastern Point bore SSW, 6 miles distant.

This was to be the last entry in the log under “Captain Benjamin Briggs.”

The ship.was passing the last of the Azores, and the eastern point was Ponta Castello, a high peak on the southeastern shore of the island.

Andrew Gilling wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief.

“Six hundred miles to Gibraltar,” he whispered to himself.

His watch was almost over, and Gilling was glad. All night he had felt a foreboding, a sense of unease without definition. It was strange.
Mary Celeste
was currently out of the clouds, but in the early-morning light Gilling had seen them to the south and east—a black wall that ebbed and flowed like a living organism. Twice during the night, waterspouts had sprung up near the ship but dissolved before fully forming. And squalls had come and gone quickly and mysteriously, like a knock on the door with no one there.

Albert Richardson walked along the deck unsteadily.

“Watch change,” he said when he reached Gilling.

Gilling stared at the first mate—his eyes were red and bloodshot and his words were slightly slurred. There was a palpable order of alcohol saturating his skin. If the Dane was to hazard a guess, he’d have to conclude that Richardson was drunk.

“Where’s Captain Briggs?” Gilling asked.

“Sick belowdecks,” Richardson said, “as is most of the crew. The fumes are wreaking havoc with everyone. Just before sunrise, I could hear Mrs. Briggs playing her melodeon and singing. The noise woke everyone.”

“Sir,” Gilling said slowly, “I’ve been in fresh air all night. Perhaps I should continue my watch.”

“I’ll be okay,” Richardson said, “once I air out.”

“Very good, sir,” Gilling said. “Just be careful—the area ahead is uncharted and might contain a few unrecorded shoals.”

“I will, Andrew,” Richardson said, as he assumed control of the helm.

Baby Sophia smiled at the black spot in front of her eyes. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, but the little dots remained. Benjamin Briggs was singing the Stephen Foster song “Beautiful Dreamer.” He and Sarah, who sat at the melodeon playing like a woman possessed, had slept little.

“More baritone,” she shouted.

Forward in the seaman’s cabin, the Germans were playing cards. Arian Harbens had dealt the hand nearly an hour ago—no one had yet screamed gin. Gottlieb Goodschaad tried to concentrate on the cards in his hand. The joker seemed to be talking. The nine looked like a six.

In the galley, Edward Head was trying to start the stove. Finally, after much effort, he gave up. Removing a side of preserved meat from storage, he reached for a knife to slice off chunks, but his hand refused to answer the signal from his brain. It was as if his brain were coated in molasses. But he didn’t care. A rat walked along a high shelf, and Head tried to communicate with the rodent telepathically. Strangely, he thought, he received no answer.

Volkert Lorenzen was packing tobacco in a pipe. Once filled, he handed it to his brother Boz and then packed another for himself. Maybe a smoke up on deck would clear their heads. Their heads needed clearing—Boz had just told him for the tenth time how much he loved him. Volkert knew Boz loved him—they were brothers. Even so, the two had never found the need to say it out loud.

Mary Celeste
was a ship of fools under the influence of an invisible vapor.

TWELVE FEET BELOW the surface of the water dead ahead was an underwater seamount, uncharted and without a name. A series of rocky plateaus with scattered pieces of volcanic rock formed hundreds of thousands of years in the past.

Mary Celeste
might have barely passed over the hazard—she drew but eleven feet, seven inches—but the waves were ebbing and flowing, and the ship was pitching up and down a full four feet.

Wood was about to meet stone with disastrous result.

ALBERT RICHARDSON STARED to the south. The ship was passing lee of St. Mary’s, and only time and six hundred miles of water lay between them and Gibraltar. And then it happened. A lurch, a crash, a scraping along the length of the hull.
Mary Celeste
slowed as the keel ran along the rocks, but in seconds the forward momentum carried her free.

“Aground!” Richardson shouted.

Even in his befuddled state, Captain Benjamin Briggs knew that sound.

Racing from his cabin, he climbed the ladder on deck and ran to the helm. Staring astern, he could see that the sea in their wake was dirty from where the ship had scraped. He stared ahead and was reassured with what appeared to be deep water. Looking starboard, he could see St. Mary’s Island.

“Why are we north of the island?” he shouted to Richardson.

“The storm,” Richardson said, “carried us north in the night.”

The Lorenzen brothers, Goodschaad, and Harbens ran on deck, along with Gilling and even a slow-moving Edward Head. They all knew the sound, and they all feared the result.

“Stay at the wheel,” Briggs shouted. “Come with me,” he said to the sailors.

Water flooded into the hold between the spaces in the planking. Two feet lay inside the hull, and the depth was rising. Several more barrels of alcohol had burst, mixing with the sea mist into a toxic vapor.

Briggs surveyed the situation quickly.

“Volkie, Boz, man the pumps,” he shouted. “Arian, you and Gottlieb bring me the barrel of caulking.”

As the men ran off, he got on his knees and felt around—a steady flow of water pressure. He dipped his head under the water. The alcohol burned his eyes, but he could see through the dirty water. No broken planks, just a fast seepage through planks that had been dislodged. Pulling his head from the water, he tasted the alcohol. His head was spinning, and he was unable to restore his equilibrium. A churning grew in his stomach, and he vomited.

“Here you go, sir,” Harbens said, handing the cask filled with waxed rope to Briggs.

“Go to my cabin,” he said, taking the cask of rope. “Tell my wife to prepare to abandon ship if necessary.”

Harbens sloshed over to the ladder and climbed up a deck.

“Mrs. Briggs,” he shouted to the closed door, “the captain asks that you prepare to abandon ship.”

The door opened, and Sarah stood there, smiling. Her eyes were beet-red and her cheeks were flushed, as if she had spent the morning ice-skating on a windswept Kansas lake. Peering inside, Harbens could see baby Sophia. She was sitting listlessly in her playpen, a thin trickle of drool hanging from her chin.

“What about Sophia?” Sarah asked.

“Make her ready,” Harbens said quickly. “She’s coming with us.”

A tainted layer of vomit floated on top of the water, but Briggs did not care. He plunged his head below the surface and began to stuff the waxed rope into any crack he could feel. Pausing to take breaths of air, he went under the water time and time again.

“Pumps are going,” Boz shouted, once, when his head was above water.

“Gottlieb,” Briggs said, “tell Harbens to make sure he packs my chronometer, sextant, and navigation book, as well as the ship’s register. Then you and Arian launch the shore boat.”

Briggs looked at a mark on the side wall of the hull. The water was not receding, but neither was it quickly rising. They might have a chance. Briggs stood upright; his head was spinning, and he fought to regain control. The air at head level was thick with the fumes. He shouted down the length of the ship to the Lorenzen brothers. Just then, a sudden squall hit the boat.

“Come topside,” he said. “We’ll take to the boat and ride this out.”

At the wheel of
Mary Celeste,
Richardson watched in amazement as a pair of waterspouts formed to each side of the vessel. Seconds before, it had been relatively clear, a light mist, a few random gusts, a sprinkling of rain. Then, all at once, the fury had descended like a slap from an angry lover.

“Use the main peak halyard to tie to the painter,” he shouted to Harbens and Goodschaad, who were preparing to lower the boat over the side. “It’s already out.”

The line, three hundred feet in length and three inches in diameter, remained on deck at all times; to take out another line would require the men to go forward to the lazeret where the spares were stored.

“Okay,” Harbens shouted.

Goodschaad tied the line to the boat’s painter, then he and Martens hoisted the boat over the rail and into the water. They played out the line around a deck stanchion and let the boat float back to the stern.

Briggs appeared on deck, just as Sarah, who was carrying Sophia in her arms like a football, made her way to the ladder topside.

“Furl the main sails,” Briggs shouted to Harbens and Goodschaad, as Sarah stepped on deck.

“Honey, what is it?” Sarah asked.

“We scraped bottom,” Briggs said. “I think I have the flow stanched, but just to be safe, I want to take to the shore boat for a time.”

“I’m scared,” Sarah said, as Sophia began to whimper.

Just then a wall of rain washed across the deck and disappeared just as quickly. Briggs stared aft; a wooden box with the items he had ordered Harbens to secure sat on the deck awaiting loading.

“Open the main and lazeret hatches,” he shouted to Harbens, “then make your way aft to the stem.”

The Lorenzen brothers appeared on deck.

“Help Sarah and Sophia aboard the boat, then board yourself,” he told the brothers.

“Should I lash the wheel?” Richardson asked.

“Leave it free,” Briggs ordered.

In the last few minutes, Gilling had remained out of the fray—his mind was clearer than the others’, and he believed that Briggs was overreacting. Even so, he was in no place to question the captain’s decisions, so he had gone to the galley and, along with Edward Head, had prepared food and water to load on the boat. Steadying the boat alongside the stem ladder, he waited until Head loaded the stores. Next, steadied by the Lorenzen brothers on each side, Sarah and Sophia boarded.