The Wreck of the Mary Deare (14 page)

I smiled, overwhelmed by a desire to laugh—to tell him what it had been like down there in the Minkies. But by now I was reading the statement made to the authorities by
le Capitaine Gideon Patch
, and suddenly it was borne in on me that he had not stated the
Mary Deare
's position. He hadn't even mentioned that the ship was stranded and not sunk. ‘. . . 
and you and I are the only people who know she's there
.' His words came back to me and I sat staring down at the paper, knowing suddenly that this wasn't going to be the end of the
Mary Deare
.

‘A strange affair, is it not, monsieur?'

I nodded, not smiling now. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Very strange.'

THE FORMAL ENQUIRY
into the loss of the
Mary Deare
was finally fixed for Monday, May 3rd, at Southampton. For a Ministry of Transport Enquiry, this must be considered unusually expeditious, but I learned later that the date had been brought forward at the urgent request of the insurance companies. The sum involved was a very large one and right from the start it was the question of insurance that was the vital factor.

In fact, we had only been in Lymington a few days when I had a visit from a Mr F. T. Snetterton representing the H. B. & K. M. Insurance Corporation of San Francisco. It was that section of the cargo consigned by the Hsu Trading Corporation of Singapore that interested him. Could I testify as to the nature of it? Had I been down into any of the holds? Had Patch talked to me about it?

There was a devil of a racket going on.
Sea Witch
had just been slipped and the yard men were drawing keel bolts for inspection and Mike and I were stripping the old engine out of her. I took him down to the waterfront, where we could talk in peace.

‘You understand, Mr Sands,' he explained earnestly, ‘I have to be sure that the cargo was exactly what the Hsu Trading Corporation claim. I have to establish the manifest, as it were. Now surely you must have seen something that would enable you to give an opinion as to the nature of the cargo? Think, sir. Think.' He was leaning forward, blinking in the bright sunshine, quite over-wrought by the urgency of his problem.

I told him I had been down the inspection hatch of Number Three hold. I described the charred bales to him. ‘Please, Mr Sands.' He shook his head impatiently. ‘It's the aero engines I am interested in. Only the aero engines.'

That was the first time anyone had mentioned aero engines to me. ‘I heard she had a cargo of explosives.'

‘No, no—aero engines.' He sat down on the railing of one of the pontoons where the boats were laid up, a neat, dapper man dressed in black with a brief-case. He looked entirely out of place. ‘The ship herself,' he said in his precise way, ‘is not important—twice the break-up value, that's all. And the cotton was insured by a Calcutta firm. No, it's the aero engines we're worried about. There were a hundred and forty-eight of them—surplus American stores from the Korean war—and they were insured for £296,000. I must be certain that they were on board at the time the ship went down.'

‘What makes you think they weren't?' I asked him.

He looked at me quickly, hesitating and fidgeting with his brief-case. ‘It's a little difficult,' he murmured. ‘But perhaps—since you're not an interested party . . . perhaps if I explain, it may help you to remember something—some little thing . . . an unguarded word, perhaps.' He looked at me again, and then said, ‘Shortly after the claim was filed, we heard from our agent in Aden that a man named Adams had been talking about the
Mary Deare
and her cargo in a Steamer Point bar. He was reported to have given it as his opinion that she contained nothing but bales of cotton at the time she went down.' And he added hastily, ‘You understand, sir, this is in the strictest confidence.' And then he asked me again whether I couldn't remember some little detail that would help him. ‘Surely if you were on that ship for forty-eight hours you must have learned something about the cargo?'

‘There was a gale blowing,' I said. ‘The ship was sinking.'

‘Yes, yes, of course. But you must have talked with Mr Patch. You were with him through a critical period. A man will often say things in those circumstances that he would be reluctant . . .' He let the sentence go, staring at me all the time through his glasses. ‘You're sure he said nothing about the cargo?'

‘Quite sure.'

‘A pity!' he murmured. ‘I had thought . . .' He shrugged his shoulders and stood up. I asked him then how he thought it was possible for a cargo consigned to a ship not to be on board her at a later date? He looked at me. ‘All things are possible, Mr Sands, where a great deal of money is involved.' I remembered Patch saying the same thing about the loss of the
Belle Isle
. And then he suddenly asked me whether Patch had mentioned the name of another boat whilst we were together on the
Mary Deare
?

‘I don't think so,' I said quickly. If Snetterton wanted to find out about the
Belle Isle
, he could find it out from somebody else.

But he wasn't to be put off so easily. ‘You don't think so?' He was peering at me. ‘I want you to be quite certain about this, Mr Sands. It may be vitally important.'

‘I am quite certain,' I said irritably.

‘Mr Patch never mentioned the name of another ship to you?'

Damn it, the man had no right to come here questioning me about what Patch had said. No, I told him. And I added that if he wanted to find out what ships Patch had been connected with why the devil didn't he go and ask him.

He stared at me. ‘This isn't a ship that Mr Patch ever sailed in.'

‘Well, what ship is it then?'

‘The
Torre Annunziata
. Now please think back very carefully. Did Mr Patch ever mention the name
Torre Annunziata
to you?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Definitely not.' I felt relieved and angry. ‘What's the
Torre Annunziata
got to do with it?'

He hesitated. ‘It's a little delicate, you understand . . . so much supposition . . .' Then he suddenly made up his mind and said, ‘The Dellimare Company owned only two ships—the
Mary Deare
and the
Torre Annunziata
. The
Torre Annunziata
was in the Rangoon River at the same time that the
Mary Deare
put in to load her cotton cargo.' He glanced at his watch and then rose to his feet. ‘Well, sir, I won't trouble you any further for the moment.'

He turned then and began to walk back towards the slip, and as we negotiated the wooden duck-boards of the pontoons, he said, ‘I'll be quite honest with you. This is a matter that might in certain circumstances . . .' He hesitated there and seemed to change his mind. ‘I am waiting for a report now from our agent in Rangoon. But . . .' He shook his head. ‘It is all very disturbing, Mr Sands. The
Torre Annunziata
has been sold to the Chinese. She has vanished behind what I believe is called the Bamboo Curtain—not only the ship, but her crew as well. And Adams has disappeared, too. We are almost certain that he shipped out in a dhow bound for Zanzibar. It may be weeks before we can contact him. And then there are these two fires on the
Mary Deare
and the loss of Mr Dellimare. A fire in the radio room is most unusual, and Mr Dellimare had been in the Navy. The possibility of suicide . . . small firm, you know . . . might be in difficulties . . .' He tucked his brief-case more firmly under his arm. ‘You see what I mean, Mr Sands. Little things in themselves, but together . . .' He glanced at me significantly. And then he added, ‘The trouble is the time factor. The H. B. & K. M. are making great efforts to increase their business in the Pacific. And Mr Hsu is a big man in Singapore—considerable influence in Eastern ports. They feel it calls for prompt settlement of the claim unless . . .' He shrugged.

We had reached the slip and he paused for a moment to admire
Sea Witch
's lines, asking questions about our diving plans, the aqualungs we were using and the depths at which we could work. He seemed genuinely interested and I explained how we had financed ourselves by salvaging bits and pieces from the wreck of a tanker in the Mediterranean and that we were now going to work on the wreck of an L.C.T. in Worbarrow Bay off the Dorset coast. He wished us luck and gave me his card. ‘Think about what I've said, Mr Sands. If you remember anything—well, you have my card, sir.'

It was only after Snetterton had gone—when I had had time to think over what he had told me—that I began to understand what the loss of the
Mary Deare
was going to lead to. There would be other people besides Snetterton coming to ask me questions. He was just the breeze before the storm. The newspaper reports I had read had all taken it for granted that the ship was sunk—so had Snetterton and the two reporters who had come to see me when I had arrived with
Sea Witch
. Everybody thought she was sunk. But sooner or later they would start probing, and before then I had to see Patch and find out his reasons for concealing her position.

I thought it must be connected in some way with his past record and when I was in London two days later to sign our salvage contract with the underwriters, I made a few enquiries about the
Belle Isle
. She had been wrecked on the Anambas Islands north-east of Singapore nearly ten years ago, and she was entered in the records as a ‘total loss.' Her master was given as Gideon S. Patch. An Enquiry had been held in Singapore and the Court had found the stranding to be due to default of the Master and had suspended his Certificate for a period of five years. That was all. There were no details. But, discussing it with one of my friends in the marine section of Lloyd's, who specialised in the Far East, I learned that some ugly rumours had got about afterwards to the effect that the stranding had been a put-up job. The ship had been very heavily insured.

I was very close to St Mary Axe and I decided to have a look at the Dellimare Company office. It was partly that I was curious to see the sort of company it was, and also I wanted to find out where I could contact Patch. Their offices were at the Houndsditch end, on the fourth floor of a dingey building full of small trading businesses. I found myself in a poky little room with a desk and a gas fire and some filing cabinets. The single typewriter had its cover on and dirt-grimed windows looked out across a litter of chimney pots to the white-tiled rear of a big office block. There was a bell on the counter and amongst a litter of papers was some Dellimare Company notepaper. It gave the directors as J. C. B. Dellimare, Hans Gundersen and A. Petrie. When I rang the bell, the door of an inner office was opened and a full-bosomed, fleshy-looking woman appeared, dressed in black with a lot of cheap jewellery and blonde hair that was startling because it was clearly natural.

When I gave her my name, she said, ‘Oh, are you the Mr Sands who was on board the
Mary Deare
? Then perhaps you can help me.' She took me through into the other office. It was a much brighter room with cream walls and a red carpet and a big green and chromium steel desk that was littered with Press clippings, mostly from French newspapers. ‘I'm trying to find out what really happened to him,' she said. ‘To Mr Dellimare, that is.' And she glanced involuntarily at a big photograph in an ornate silver frame that stood beside her on the desk. It was a head and shoulders portrait, showing a rather hard, deeply-lined face with a small straight mouth under the thin pencil-line of a moustache.

‘You knew him well?' I asked.

‘Oh, yes. We formed the Company. Of course, after Mr Gundersen joined, it was all different. Our main office became Singapore. Mr Dellimare and I just looked after the London end.' There was something entirely personal about the way she said ‘Mr Dellimare and I', and after that she began asking me questions. Had Captain Patch said anything to me about how Mr Dellimare had been lost? Did I go into his cabin? Had I talked to any of the survivors? ‘He had been in the Navy. He couldn't just have gone overboard like that?' Her voice trembled slightly.

But when she realised I could tell her nothing that she didn't already know, she lost interest in me. I asked her then for Patch's address, but she hadn't got it. ‘He came in about three days ago to deliver his report,' she said. ‘He's coming back on Friday, when he'll be able to see Mr Gundersen.' I gave her the address of the boatyard and asked her to tell Patch to contact me, and then I left. She came with me to the door. ‘I'll tell Mr Gundersen you've been,' she said with a quick, brittle smile. ‘I'm sure he'll be interested.'

Mr Gundersen! Perhaps it was the inflection of her voice, but I got the impression that she was a little nervous of him, as though he were entirely remote from the Dellimare Company office that she knew with its silver-framed photograph and its view over the chimneys.

It never occurred to me that I should meet Gundersen, but on Friday afternoon the boy from the yard's office came down to the slip to say that a Mrs Petrie was calling me from London. I recognised the slightly husky voice at once. Mr Gundersen had just arrived by plane from Singapore and would like to have a talk with me. He was coming down to Southampton tomorrow, would it be convenient for him to call on me at the yard at eleven o'clock?

I couldn't refuse. The man had come all the way from Singapore and he was entitled to find out all he could about the loss of the Company's ship. But, remembering the things Snetterton had hinted at, I had a feeling of uneasiness. Also, my time and all my energies were concentrated on the conversion of
Sea Witch
and I resented anything which took my mind off the work that Mike and I had planned and struggled for over years of wreck-hunting. I was worried, too, about what I was going to tell him. How was I to explain to him that nobody had been notified of the position of the wreck?