Richardson gave the order to Martens, at the helm, then came back to the captain.
‘It’s frightening,’ he said. The sail was some way off now, the spar still beckoning.
‘Yes,’ said Briggs. ‘There’ll be a lot of that in the Atlantic this winter, after the weather we’ve been meeting.’
‘Hope I’m not the one to come upon it,’ said the first mate.
The effect of the disaster was immediate. Always a quiet ship, the Mary Celeste became quieter. Beyond orders from Briggs, there was virtually no talk. Men who knew the power of the sea and who therefore had no reason to be embarrassed by their feelings, they still moved about with eyes lowered against contact, each as if his fear were different from the other man’s, a weakness to be hidden.
They only looked up to stare out at the heaving water, aware that they were many cables distant from where the unknown ship had foundered, but wondering if the same waves which had smashed a ship to oblivion could, by the same capriciousness, cast its crew into their path, to safety.
They secured lashings extra-tightly and checked the bindings of the furled sails, and the Lorensen brothers found a reason to examine the ship’s boat, ensuring that it could be easily slipped from its fenders and that the water canisters were easily to hand.
It was not until the evening, and then perhaps because the weather began to improve, that the feeling began to lift from the vessel. Briggs stood aft with Richardson, behind the helmsman, looking out at the slackening water.
‘Wonder if it will last this time?’ he said.
‘Pray to God it does,’ said the first mate. ‘The earlier improvements have been short enough lived.’
‘How’s the splintering?’
‘As far as I can see from the decking, there’s been some wood shorn off, but its finished now. There’s still no leakage.’
A wave swept the deck, fountaining up over the hatch-covers.
‘There’s no doubt about the seepage from the barrels,’ added Richardson.
‘Any way of knowing how much?’
‘Not until we can lift the covers. And even then, it wouldn’t be practical to examine every barrel.’
Reminded by Martens’s presence at the wheel, Briggs said, ‘I’m gladdened that so many are going to stay with the ship.’
Richardson nodded. ‘I wish every crew were as good,’ he said. ‘The younger of the Lorensen brothers is after making his fortune before he marries.’
‘Whatever the reason for their staying, it’s good news for us.’
‘And there won’t be the worry over the return cargo that there is with this,’ said Richardson.
‘After this crossing, I wouldn’t object to a little time in port,’ said Briggs. ‘For Sophia’s sake, particularly.’
‘May I show you something?’ said Richardson.
‘Of course.’
‘In my cabin.’
Briggs followed the first mate to his quarters, smiling as he approached at the sound of Sarah’s melodeon. Her feelings were improving along with everyone else’s.
‘I didn’t know what plans you had made,’ said Richardson, when they got into his living quarters. ‘But it’s likely that we’ll all be aboard for Christmas. I’m carving this for the baby.’
Although still roughly shaped, it was clearly a replica of the Mary Celeste. The detail around the bowsprit was perfect.
‘A souvenir of her first voyage,’ said the chief mate. The pride was very evident.
‘It’s a fine gesture, Mr Richardson,’ said Briggs. ‘I’m grateful. Mrs Briggs will be, too. I can foresee battles between the baby and Arthur when we get home.’
‘There’s still a month before Christmas,’ said Richardson. ‘There will be time to do one for him, too.’
‘It’ll not only be a reminder for the child,’ said Briggs, ‘it will be a memory for me, my first voyage as owner-captain.’
Sarah stopped playing as Briggs entered his quarters. He stopped, taking Sophia into his arms but holding her out, so that her face was opposite his.
‘She’s still pale,’ he said.
‘The sun will soon cure that.’
‘No more sickness?’
‘Two eggs for supper. And some bread.’
‘In New York, she was eating hash and meat,’ he remembered.
‘Give her time,’ said Sarah.
Briggs drew the baby close to him.
‘The first mate is carving her a Yuletide present,’ he said.
‘It would have been nice to be home before Christmas,’ said Sarah.
Briggs sat on the couch, still holding the child. She began groping into an accustomed pocket, seeking his silver watch. He pulled it out and held it to her ear. She smiled at the ticking, moving her head in time to the sound.
‘I’ll not enjoy the festival without Arthur,’ continued the woman. ‘He’s at an age when these things are important.’
‘Richardson is making a gift: for him, too.’
‘I can’t clear my mind of what happened today,’ said Sarah.
‘She was badly rigged,’ said Briggs, trying to reassure her. ‘It could never have happened with the sort of crew we’ve got.’
‘Do you know what I’ve been thinking?’
‘What?’
Tired of the watch, Sophia clambered from her father’s lap and went to where she had left a rag doll, beside the desk. ‘I wonder if there were any children aboard, like Sophia.
‘You mustn’t dwell upon it,’ said Briggs gently. ‘It might have been an old ship… unseaworthy. There’s more danger from a horse-drawn buggy in Marion’s Main Street than there is crossing the Atlantic in the Mary Celeste ’
She smiled thinly, trying to respond to his lightness.
‘I know we’re secure enough,’ she said. ‘I thought that, too, looking down at that torn sail today. Poor people, whoever they were.’
‘There must have been some good reason for them ignoring the rigging like that.’
‘How horrible,’ said the woman. ‘Imagine being too sick to do anything, feeling your ship being thrown about and knowing disaster was about to happen.’
Although it was unlikely that everyone could have perished in the same way, there was always the possibility that the crew of the unknown vessel had been swept overboard before they had even sighted her. Briggs decided not to mention the thought to his wife. It wasn’t a discussion he wanted to prolong.
‘There’ll be sight of land soon,’ he said. ‘The Azores.’
‘Will we make port there?’
Briggs shook his head.
‘We’ve lost enough time as it is,’ he said. ‘I’ll continue for Gibraltar.’
‘I wonder if the Dei Gratia will be there,’ said Sarah.
Briggs remembered his wife’s reservations about Captain Morehouse.
‘You’ll not forget my invitation?’ he said.
She looked up from her sewing, faintly annoyed at the reminder.
‘I’ve promised you he’ll be welcome at our table,’ she said.
In the galley, where the crew had taken their meal, speculation about the identity and cause of the wreck had continued unabated for two hours.
Volkert Lorensen thrust his cup aside during a break in the conversation and said, ‘It might have seemed a fair reservation in New York, but after the sort of crossing we’re enduring, I’d welcome something a little stronger than coffee.’
Goodschall waved his hand in the direction of the bulkhead. ‘There’s drink enough in the holds,’ he said. ‘Gallons of it.’
‘Commercial alcohol!’ laughed Richardson. ‘Have you smelt it?’
‘Impossible not to,’ complained Gilling.
‘Believe me,’ said the first mate, ‘it tastes worse than it smells. Commercial alcohol is undrinkable.’
Frederick Flood liked bullfights.
He did not see them, as they were frequently dismissed by fainthearted tourists, as gory, orgiastic spectacles. Or even as the simplistic illustrations of courage, man against primitive beast, of which the Spanish aficionados spoke. He liked to sit in an arena and imagine the emotions of the matador, conjuring in his own mind the fear the man would know in the early moments of confrontation, when one mistake could mean death, and then the other feeling, the sensation of which he was even more convinced, the almost sensuous euphoria that must come at the fighter’s realisation that he was going to win. It must be very similar to the feeling he knew now, thought the Attorney-General, as he watched the swearing-in of his first witness.