The Mary Celeste

by Brian Freemantle

  Morehouse put his head to one side, considering the statement. Most would have thought that being a sea captain required more bravery than being a country pastor. Briggs was a wise man as well as a pious one.

  ‘I never had any doubts,’ said Morehouse. ‘In Nova Scotia there seemed no other career but that of the sea and I first shipped out when I was sixteen. Discovered I had a natural aptitude and got my master’s certificate when I was twenty-one.’

  Briggs added coffee to his cup from a pot the steward had left upon the table.

  ‘Like to buy into ownership one day?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s my dearest ambition,’ confessed Morehouse. ‘But establishing the initial capital is the difficulty. There’s enough ways of raising money along this and any other coast if you are prepared to load at dusk and dawn, but to do it honestly requires more luck.’

  ‘I had the benefit of a good pursekeeper behind me,’ said Briggs.

  ‘Which gives you the advantage over me,’ said Morehouse.

  Briggs stared down into his coffee cup, apparently in thought, then looked up again. ‘Would you like to make the acquaintance of Captain Winchester?’ he said. ‘I could easily provide a letter of introduction.’

  ‘It’s a considerate thought,’ said Morehouse. ‘But to little purpose, unless I’m backed by money.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to lose,’ argued Briggs. ‘Captain Winchester is wiser than either of us in the ways of commerce. Perhaps he’ll have a suggestion as to how you could establish capital. I know from my meetings with him that he’s keen to meet trustworthy men.’

  ‘I appreciate the compliment,’ said Morehouse.

  ‘Will you take the letter then?’ demanded Briggs.

  Morehouse considered it for several moments.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘It’ll be a contact made, if nothing else.’

  Unhappy with the taste of his pipe after their meal of boiled beef, Morehouse tapped the dottle against the ashtray edge and returned it to his pocket.

  ‘Finished loading?’ he asked.

  ‘Everything inboard,’ said Briggs. ‘There’s only the final stowage check before sailing.’

  ‘How’s your crew?’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Briggs. ‘I’ve known Richardson from previous voyages. Andrew Gilling, the second mate, is New York born although of Danish parentage and a good man, already with his first mate’s ticket. And one of the Germans has a mate’s ticket, too.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Arien Martens.’

  Morehouse nodded. ‘He’s sailed under me. A first-rate man.’

  ‘Then if the weather improves,’ said Briggs, ‘it should be an uneventful voyage.’

  Morehouse glanced towards the porthole against which the rain was slapping in a constant patter.

  ‘Showing little sign of that,’ he said. ‘Encountered a schooner captain yesterday who said he’d never known the Atlantic like it. Had to cut their deck cargo adrift and cast it overboard for risk of shifting within days of leaving Plymouth. Now he’s involved in an insurance dispute.’

  ‘I’m grateful to have got everything inboard and below decks,’ said Briggs. ‘What’s your shipment?’

  ‘Petroleum, bound for Gibraltar for further orders,’ said Morehouse. ‘Yours?’

  ‘Commercial alcohol,’ said Briggs. ‘Genoa and then back with fruit.’

  ‘Any difficulties?’

  ‘Not with the cargo,’ said Briggs.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Holed the main lifeboat a couple of days ago. No way of getting it repaired before we sail. And I can’t get a replacement in time.’

  Morehouse looked up at his friend curiously.

  ‘You’re not sailing without a boat!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Of course not. Captain Winchester had already provided a second, when he learned I was taking Sarah and the baby. And there are the rafts, of course.’

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘No cause to be. I’m charting as southerly a route as possible. It might add a little to our time, but I might miss some of the worst weather.’

  ‘You sail tomorrow?’

  ‘Hopefully,’ agreed Briggs.

  ‘I’m heading northerly, which should give me some time over you,’ said Morehouse. ‘Even though I’m sailing after you we might make Gibraltar around about the same time.’

  ‘I’m estimating the last week of November, maybe the first week of December,’ said Briggs.

  ‘Then we should meet,’ said Morehouse.

  Briggs pulled the pocket watch from his waistcoat. He had promised his wife he would not be late.

  ‘I know Sarah would delight in repaying your hospitality,’ he said.

  ‘It was a pity she couldn’t come as well.’

  ‘She was sorry, too. But with the strangeness of being aboard ship, we felt it best she remained with Sophia.’

  ‘Arthur sad he couldn’t accompany you?’

  ‘Very,’ said Briggs. ‘And so are we. We don’t like the family split. But his education is obviously more important.’

  ‘Does he want to follow the family tradition and take to the sea?’

  ‘At the moment,’ smiled Briggs, ‘his only ambition is to become an Indian fighter.’

  Morehouse joined in the amusement: ‘What’s your reaction to that?’

  Briggs’s smile slipped away. ‘“Thou shalt not kill”,’ he quoted. He smiled again, before his friend had time to become discomfited: ‘Not even if someone is chasing you with a tomahawk.’

  He pushed his chair from the table, rising.

  ‘Sarah will be waiting,’ he said. He extended his hand.

  ‘I’ll despatch the letter to you before we sail and write to Captain Winchester, telling him to expect a call upon him.’

  ‘You’re very kind, Benjamin,’ said Morehouse.

  In such weather, it was too far to walk from the Erie Basin, where the Dei Gratia was moored, to Pier 50 and so Captain Briggs took a carriage. Even so, he got very wet during the short run from the dockside to the Mary Celeste.

  Sarah was waiting for him, bent over her needle, the lamp casting a yellow glow over her auburn hair. She was very beautiful, decided Briggs, recognising the near-constant thought. Sarah would be embarrassed if she knew how frequently he thought of her; just as he would have been embarrassed to tell her. But she knew, he suspected. Just as he was sure of her feelings about him.

  ‘I don’t think the rain will ever stop,’ she said, as he stripped off his overcoat and hat. ‘Was it a good evening?’

  ‘Boiled beef and excellent greens,’ said Briggs. ‘Morehouse has got a good cook aboard.’

  He looked at Sophia’s dress that his wife was mending, then at her sewing machine in the comer.

  ‘Why by hand?’

  She nodded towards the tiny cot from which came faint stirrings of the baby girl.

  ‘I thought the noise might disturb her.’

  ‘She’ll have to get used to noise, during the voyage,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s wait until the voyage,’ said his wife. She watched him go to his desk and take out his writing case.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I promised Morehouse I would write him a letter of introduction to Captain Winchester. I’ll send a letter to Winchester as well, warning him to expect an approach.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Morehouse is keen to buy into a company, like us. I thought Winchester might enjoy meeting him.’

  ‘Does he have any money?’

  ‘No, but Captain Winchester might know a way.’

  Sarah bent over her mending and Briggs settled at his desk to write his letters. Almost ten minutes passed before the woman spoke again.

  ‘Do you like Morehouse?’ she asked suddenly.

  Briggs looked up from his correspondence, frowning.

  ‘Like him?’ he echoed. ‘That’s an odd question.’

  ‘Do you?’ she persisted.

  ‘Of course,�
� said Briggs. ‘He’s a friend of mine. We’ve known each other almost since we went to sea. Why do you ask?’

  She went back to her mending, considering her reply.

  ‘There have been times,’ she said, ‘when I felt he was jealous of you.’

  He laughed, a disbelieving sound:

  ‘David Morehouse, jealous of me! Shame on you for harbouring such thoughts, Sarah. He’s our friend.’

  ‘I’ve my reservations,’ said the woman stubbornly.

  ‘If there’s any envy, it’s my marriage to you.’

  She made a movement of irritation.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Trust me at least to be able to recognise that. It’s not our marriage he covets. It’s your success.’

  Now it was Briggs’s turn to show annoyance.

  ‘I consider David Morehouse to be my friend,’ he repeated warningly.

  ‘I felt you should know my feelings,’ she said, aware she had gone too far.

  ‘And now you must know mine. I never want this discussion to arise between us again.’

  She remained with her head lowered over her mending.

  ‘Further,’ continued Briggs, ‘there’s a strong chance of our encountering the Dei Gratia in Gibraltar. If we are in port at the same time, I’ve invited him to dine with us. I want him made welcome at our table.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  ‘Properly welcome, Sarah,’ he insisted.

  She looked up at him.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve annoyed you, husband,’ she said. ‘You know I’ll make your friend properly welcome. And never doubt him again.’

  ‘Our friend,’ Briggs corrected her.

  ‘As you say,’ accepted Sarah. ‘Our friend.’

  Frederick Solly Flood knew himself to be a man of some confidence (although he would have angrily disdained conceit) but prided himself, too, that it was an attitude always tempered with the proper objectivity.

  And objectively he accepted that the previous day he had been bested. Not worryingly so. Nor to a degree to affect the final outcome of the enquiry. Indeed, few people present would have recognised it with the honesty he was showing. But by the standards he set himself – and by which he was known and respected within the community of Gibraltar – the Attorney-General did not consider he had sufficiently controlled Captain Winchester as a witness.

  Still objective, he realised the fault was none but his own. He had insufficiently anticipated the deviousness of the man, which was a grave mistake. He should have appreciated that a mind capable of evolving a scheme the true extent of which they still had to learn – and he was increasingly convinced that Captain Winchester was involved – would not be easily upset no matter how probing the questions.

  Continuing his self-analysis, Flood knew that he was a man to learn from his mistakes. And he was determined not to repeat the errors of the previous day.

  And they would be easy to avoid, he decided, looking up from his table as Captain Morehouse came to the end of the evidence through which he had been guided by his counsel, Henry Pisani. Captain Winchester was a different cut from this man: Morehouse was a sailor, more used to a quarter-deck than a boardroom.

  At the invitation from Cochrane, Flood rose more purposefully this time, without the pantomime of unpreparedness. Morehouse was a man to be influenced by determination rather than lulled by vagueness.

  ‘You knew the destination of the Mary Celeste?’ he demanded abruptly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From your night-before-sailing dinner with Captain Briggs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And had even arranged a convivial evening, here in Gibraltar?’

  ‘I have already given evidence as such.’

  ‘Indeed you have, Captain Morehouse. And to that dinner party, the night before the Mary Celeste was to sail upon this now infamous voyage, we will return later, but for the moment I want you to assist me on some technical matters.’

  Morehouse was regarding him uncertainly, the Attorney-General realised. Almost as if he were frightened.

  ‘I will assist as best I can.’

  ‘An assurance for which I am sure this court is grateful, Captain Morehouse. From that dinner party, as you have attested, you knew the destination of the Mary Celeste?’

  ‘Captain Briggs told me Genoa.’

  ‘Quite so. And before that, Gibraltar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you could estimate, from your expertise as a master-mariner, his likely course?’

  ‘We discussed it,’ said Morehouse. ‘In view of the continued gales and storms of which we were getting reports before we left New York and the fact that he had his family aboard, Captain Briggs intended to set a southerly course.’

  ‘Remind the court, if you will, of your setting when you came upon the Mary Celeste on December 5.’

  ‘I’ve already given that.’

  ‘I asked you to remind the court again, Captain Morehouse.’

  ‘Latitude 38.20 N. by longitude 17.15 W.,’ said Morehouse.

  Despite the man’s full, almost theatrical beard, Flood recognised the slight burst of colour to Morehouse’s face at the reminder of who was conducting the questioning. And his eyes seemed to be staring more obviously from his face. Flood judged Morehouse to be a man of violent temper.

  ‘You are a master of some experience?’

  ‘I have been qualified for the past thirteen years,’ said Morehouse, the pride obvious.

  ‘A fine record,’ said Flood genially. ‘Now, from the experience of those thirteen years, advise the enquiry of a likely setting for a vessel taking a southerly course from New York, en route for Gibraltar, some eighteen days after departure.’

  Morehouse frowned, looking to Pisani. Flood was aware of the other lawyer’s unhelpful shrug.

  ‘Roughly that upon which I came upon the vessel,’ said Morehouse. ‘Although when we closed to the Mary Celeste she was sailing back upon herself, westwards, not eastwards as she should have been if the Straits of Gibraltar were her heading.’

  ‘Remind the court again, if you will, Captain Morehouse, of the date inscribed upon the slate-log found by one of your men after boarding.’

  ‘Eight in the morning of November 25,’ said the captain.

  ‘Ten days before, according to the evidence that you have presented to this court, you came upon the vessel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was she set?’

  ‘Her rigging and sheets were in great disarray,’ said Morehouse, his face creased with the effort of recollection. ‘What I first took upon the sighting through my glass to be a distress signal subsequently turned out to be a flapping sail, torn from its mast. What first struck me as peculiar was that although her jib and fore-topmast staysail were set upon the starboard tack, she was sailing upon the port tack, yawing as she came into the wind and then falling off again. I watched her doing that for two hours.’

  ‘What about the other sails?’

  ‘When we got close enough, I could see that her mainsail, gaff-topsail, middle staysail, topmast staysail, top-gallant sail, royal and flying jib were all furled.’

  ‘So what remained?’

  ‘Her main staysail appeared to have been hurriedly collapsed. The foresail and upper fore-topsail had been blown away. And the lower fore-topsail was hanging by the four corners. It was that which I had first taken to be the distress signal.’

  ‘A squall weather setting, in fact?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Morehouse doubtfully. ‘It could be described as such.’

  ‘What were the weather conditions on December 5 and the days immediately prior to that?’

  ‘Squally.’

  ‘How far had the Mary Celeste sailed from the slate-log entry of November 25 until December 5, when you came upon her?’

  ‘It’s impossible to know the distance,’ said Morehouse, ‘but I would estimate some 378 miles.’

  For the first time during his cross-examination, Flood bent over his pap
ers, creating a pause for what he was going to say. He actually waited until he could detect shufflings of impatience from those behind him in the chamber before looking up again:

  ‘Help me further, Captain Morehouse, if you will, over something I find quite remarkable. Indeed, utterly and completely inexplicable …’

  Flood allowed another break, to unsettle the man he was questioning.

  ‘Utilising all the experience and expertise that you have amassed during the thirteen years you have been a master-mariner, tell me how the Mary Celeste, more or less properly set for the prevailing conditions, came to be more or less precisely on course when, if the evidence you have presented to this enquiry is correct, the last log entry of any kind had been some ten days earlier, on November 25?’ Flood smiled up, ingenuously, content with the trap into which he had manoeuvred the witness. ‘How had the Mary Celeste sailed, unmanned, for 378 miles and remained on course, Captain Morehouse?’ he completed, his voice hardening.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Morehouse abruptly.

  ‘You don’t know!’ demanded Flood, pushing the incredulity into his voice.

  ‘How can I?’ protested the man.

  ‘A point we might later attempt to elucidate,’ said the Attorney-General, and before Morehouse could respond, added: ‘Have you ever before heard of an unmanned vessel, with sails set for the prevailing weather, cover nearly four hundred miles and remain on course?’

  ‘No.’

  Flood bent over his papers, for his own benefit on this occasion. Whatever the faults of the previous day’s examination, he had recovered now, he decided. With the major – and in his view the most devastating – part of his cross-examination still to come he had already proved Morehouse’s evidence illogical to the point of falsity. The satisfaction warmed through him.

  ‘I seek further assistance, Captain Morehouse,’ he started again, smiling up. ‘The prevailing currents in this part of the Atlantic, to my amateur eye, appear to be southwards.’

  ‘That is so,’ agreed Morehouse uncomfortably.

  ‘Cast your mind back to your recent crossing, if you will,’ Flood invited him. ‘What was the prevailing wind?’