‘I should have been advised,’ said the owner.
‘I didn’t think a reminder would be necessary,’ said Cornwell defensively. ‘Isn’t there anyone who will honour a note from you?’
Winchester considered the question. There was a broker whom he had known in Cadiz. But the man had died the previous year.
‘Not that I can…’ he began, then stopped. The day he had left New York for Gibraltar, the Daisy Boynton had lifted anchor with a cargo also for Cadiz. Captain Henry Appleby had been a schoolfriend of his daughter; they had even discussed a possible social meeting during their chance encounter at the shipping commission office.
‘Maybe,’ he corrected.
‘I think you should consider arranging it,’ said Cornwell. ‘I think we should take every care to avoid antagonising the court further.’
‘The judge is not convinced that sending Deveau to Genoa was a genuine misunderstanding,’ warned the American Consul. He had not anticipated that the affair would become as difficult as it had. Or as protracted. Washington’s interest surprised him.
‘The damned man is convinced of only one thing, like the Attorney-General,’ said Winchester. ‘I tell you, Mr Sprague, I’m worried. Very worried indeed.’
As always in their after-court discussions, the New York shipowner roamed the room, too indignant to sit.
‘Did you know that Flood and Cochrane have nightly conferences, after the hearing!’ said Cornwell.
‘At which the discussions are a good deal less innocent than the conversations we have here, I’ll be bound,’ said Morehouse.
Winchester stopped parading, looking intently at Sprague.
‘Why don’t you complain officially through Washington that American citizens are being harassed here?’ he suggested. ‘Get them to take it up with London.’
‘Captain Winchester,’ said Pisani warningly, ‘can you imagine how that would appear, while a court was still in session considering a claim for salvage? There’s enough suspicion being cast about as it is, without our contributing to it by raising with your government something that could be construed as our having something to hide.’
‘I’m damned if I’ll sit here and do nothing,’ said Winchester. ‘This is more like an inquisition of the Middle Ages.’
Pisani appeared embarrassed, looking up at the bespectacled ship-owner:
‘As I left the court tonight the Attorney-General’s clerk advised me that, in Deveau’s absence, Flood intended to recall you tomorrow morning.’
‘They’re out to get me, any way they can,’ accepted Winchester softly.
The importance of recognising crew behaviour had been one of the earliest lessons he had received from his father and Briggs accepted realistically that with any other crew, upon a voyage such as they had endured since leaving New York, trouble would have erupted far sooner. And probably far more violently. But when it came, it still surprised him and initially his annoyance was not so much by what Boz Lorensen and Gottlieb Goodschall had done but at his unpreparedness for it. No matter how good a crew they had proved to be, he should still have been aware of the constant strain imposed by the squalls and gales, which meant that they had only been able to rest for the minimum of time and then perhaps had not slept away the fatigue from the unremitting work throughout their periods of watch. And now the gales were lessening, albeit very slightly, the weather had become thundery, covering everything with a sultry, oppressive heat. He should have been aware of the explosive potential, just as he should have known that the incident of the sinking ship, reminding them all how vulnerable they were even in a vessel as sound as the Mary Celeste, would provide the fuse.
He had been taking his last turn on deck, standing very near Volkert Lorensen at the conn, when the argument had broken out in the fo’c’sle, so he had been able to hear it. The first mate had heard it, too, even though his quarters were farther away, and Richardson reached the dispute first.
By the time Briggs had entered the crews’ quarters, the younger Lorensen and Goodschall had been pulled apart and Richardson had positioned himself between them. The two seamen stood panting, glowering at each other. A bruise was already forming beneath Goodschall’s right eye but apart from that there appeared to be no injury to either man. In the scuffle, some of the playing cards that Briggs had banned before the voyage commenced had spilled over on to the floor.
As soon as he saw the captain enter, Boz Lorensen thrust his hand towards the other German and said, ‘My money. He stole some of my money.’
‘I did not,’ said Goodschall, denying the accusation immediately.
‘My cabin,’ Briggs stopped them, refusing an impromptu hearing. ‘Nine tomorrow.’
Sarah was already preparing to retire, her long hair streamed over her shoulder as she brushed it, when he returned to the cabin. She listened without interruption as he told her of the fight, hair brush cupped in her lap.
‘Appears a small thing,’ she said, when he had finished.
‘Not if there’s been cheating or theft,’ contradicted Briggs. ‘I should have anticipated the possibility of trouble.’
‘The weather has affected us all,’ said the woman. ‘First the gales, now this heat. It’s dulling us.’
‘A captain can’t afford to be dulled,’ he said. He hesitated, then decided against telling her that no doubt carelessness had caused the tragedy upon which they had come the previous day.
‘To magnify it too much would be as great an error, don’t you think?’ she asked sensibly.
‘You’re right,’ he agreed. He wouldn’t be caught unawares again, he determined.
The contrition of both men was obvious immediately they entered his cabin the following morning. The bruise had worsened on Goodschall’s face, blackening his cheek and half-closing his eye. Both stood with caps held before them, staring down.
The circumstances of the dispute, outlined by the first mate, were as simple as the argument itself. The playing cards had been brought aboard by Lorensen, who insisted that he had had no intention of disobeying the captain’s orders against engaging in games of chance. Goodschall admitted complaining of boredom after such an arduous crossing, and at first they had only engaged in tricks, starting a game only when the amusement had begun to wane.
Goodschall had been the loser and when Lorensen had returned from a visit to the heads he had discovered some money missing.
‘Did you take it, to make up for what you had lost?’ demanded Briggs. On a ship as small as his, with the men having to occupy confined quarters, stealing was a serious crime.
Before Goodschall could reply, Lorensen blurted out, ‘I found it.’
‘Found it?’ said Briggs.
‘I’d put some in my pocket. I forgot about it.’
Briggs sighed. Now that there was no question of dishonesty, the matter assumed far less importance. But there was still the disobedience of a captain’s order to be considered.
‘I expressly forbade wagering for precisely the reason that you two are standing before me now,’ he said. ‘The ship is too small and, as it’s transpired, the voyage too difficult for bad feeling to be allowed over a gambling dispute. Wasn’t that made clear enough?’
‘We didn’t set out to play,’ repeated Lorensen. ‘It just… sort of developed.’
This man was guiltier than Goodschall, decided Briggs. He remembered Richardson’s remark about Lorensen’s keenness to acquire money. He would resent paying the fine that Briggs intended to levy. He wondered if the resentment would linger in the fo’c’sle. The Lorensen brothers and Arien Martens all came from the same small island, he remembered. It was easy to imagine the ostracism that could arise in the crews’ quarters.
‘It won’t occur again,’ promised Goodschall.
‘Of that I’ll make quite sure,’ said Briggs. ‘I’m confiscating the cards.’
Such action might be regarded as petty, he knew. But Briggs decided it would be better for any bad feelings to be transferred to him than confined to the crew area.