‘Row!’ urged Briggs, leaning forward to encourage the men. ‘The sails are filling. Row!’
‘The rafts,’ shouted Gilling. ‘They are dragging at us,’
Briggs hesitated, realising the importance of the decision. Regaining the ship was the only consideration, he judged. And they still had a chance of doing that.
‘Cut them adrift,’ he said.
For the first time, there was a discernible hesitation at an order. Then Gilling untied the towline to the rafts. Almost immediately, the rowers appeared to achieve more speed.
Briggs strained through the storm-gloom, intent upon the other sails set upon the Mary Celeste.
The foresail still drooped but the upper and lower topsails were gradually moving.
‘Less than two hundred feet now, lads,’ encouraged Richardson.
The two Germans were straining at the oars, eyes bulged and the veins in their faces and necks knotted starkly against their skin. They had got into a regular metronome movement, breath grunting from them. Briggs could see that they were almost exhausted. To exchange with Goodschall and Martens would be time-wasting. The line was no longer taut between them and the boat. It was almost completely submerged, just occasionally visible, curled and flaccid, just below the surface.
The jib filled completely and the stem of the Mary Celeste came up, making the long bowsprit shift in a curious, seeking movement, like a dog sniffing a scent.
‘She’ll move soon,’ warned Richardson.
There was a great deal of water in the boat now. It lapped just below the seats, so that they sat with their feet and legs submerged almost to their knees. Sarah had the baby pulled protectively from her lap and clenched against her chest. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving in constant prayer.
The Lorensen brothers were flagging, their rowing going out of time, the boat so heavy it was hardly making any way. He would have to change, Briggs knew.
‘Goodschall, Martens,’ he said. There was immediate comprehension. The Lorensens stopped, in unison, and flopped backwards, eyes glazed with near-unconsciousness, just pulling their legs over the seat for the other two Germans to take their places. The new men started with renewed fervency and the boat appeared to move faster through the water.
‘She’s picking up,’ reported Richardson from the prow and for the briefest moment Briggs thought the mate was talking about the craft they were in. Then he looked towards the Mary Celeste.
The sails would never fill completely because she was moving without a helmsman, but the foresail was stretched, together with the upper and lower topsails. Slowly at first, almost as if unwilling, but then gradually with increasing speed the Mary Celeste began to pick up.
‘Row, damn you I Row I’ pleaded Richardson.
Goodschall and Martens were making an incredible effort, oar blades falling and rising, but the distance between them and the ship was becoming visibly greater.
Because he was in the prow, Richardson was the first to realise that the rope that had been lost to sight was gradually emerging from the water again as the gap lengthened, like an obscene taunt at how far away they still were.
‘She’ll drag us,’ shouted Briggs.
Almost immediately the tow rope twanged tight and there was a shudder through the boat. It surged forward, achieving the sort of speed the seamen had been trying to attain, and they stopped, twisting curiously around.
‘In the stern. Get the weight in the stern,’ ordered Briggs, foreseeing the fresh danger. The men scrambled towards the woman, baby and stores, trying to bring the nose up. The two Lorensen brothers flopped completely in the bottom of the boat, only their heads and shoulders clear of the water, supported against the legs of Martens. He squatted over them, chaffing their heads and necks, trying to get some response from them.
‘She’ll yaw soon,’ predicted Richardson. ‘She can’t run on for ever.’
‘We’re being pulled away from Santa Maria,’ said Briggs.
‘So near,’ moaned Richardson. ‘We were so near.’
‘This wind will be scouring her holds,’ said Briggs, seeing the irony. ‘Making her safe.’
He eased around in the crush of people. Sarah still sat with her eyes pressed tight, unwilling to witness what was happening, her mouth twitching in perpetual prayer. She had completely enveloped the child in her protective clothing, so that only a small part of her face was visible. Sophia was trying to press closer to her mother, eyes blank and unseeing with fear. She was making no sounds, but spasms were jerking her tiny body, as if she were fevered. It would be terror, Briggs knew.
He felt out, touching his wife’s shoulder, and she opened her eyes.
‘You’re going to save us, aren’t you, Benjamin? It will be all right?’ she demanded. For the first time that he could ever recall in their married life, there was something like an accusation in her voice.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, honest even now.
‘I don’t want to die!’ she blurted. ‘I don’t want Sophia to die.’
‘The nose is going down,’ said Gilling, fear showing at last.
The rope connecting them to the Mary Celeste was so rigidly stretched that it could have been a piece of metal. And as relentlessly as a steel bar, it was pushing down against their stem, thrusting it lower and lower, so that the wind-driven waves were pouring in, every fresh gush of water bringing them nearer to becoming completely swamped.
‘Cut the line,’ said Briggs.
There was a hesitation when they realised that there was no axe aboard the boat. It was Gilling who produced the clasp knife, spluttering forward through the water and starting to saw at the painter. The water kept forcing him back, so that he constantly lost the spot against which he was trying to cut, and then suddenly, as abruptly as they had spurted forward, their crazy careering stopped.
‘Snapped,’ said Richardson. ‘It snapped somewhere on the ship.’
The waterlogged boat wallowed in the waves, hardly any freeboard remaining. Before anyone could prevent it happening, one of the seats was lifted out by the force of the water and floated free.
He didn’t know if he could do what Sarah wanted, Briggs thought suddenly. He didn’t know if he could keep her alive. Or any of them. Angrily he cast the thought aside. The despair which had momentarily gripped him and which he knew held the others was almost as dangerous as their predicament, he realised. With the need for the stern weight gone, he shifted back amidships, shouting the orders. The Lorensen brothers were recovering, he saw gratefully.
‘Raise the sail,’ he said. ‘We’ll set course for Santa Maria. Everyone who can, bail.’
Briggs stared back to the heaving water, seeking the life-rafts he now recognised it had been a mistake to abandon.
Richardson and Martens started trying to erect a canvas. Gilling and Goodschall continued with the bailing and the Lorensen brothers stirred. Without any utensils, they slumped in the boats on their haunches, trying to scoop the water back over the sides with their cupped hands. William Head had taken off his reefer jacket and tried to cover Sarah and Sophia with it, Briggs saw. As he looked, the cook began searching for a canister, then dropped into the boat and started to use his hands, like the two Germans. It was difficult to make any distinction between the sea and the gunwales, so deeply was the boat awash. Briggs was trying to bail now, jerking his hands in the sort of splashing movements he’d used the previous year, when they had taken Arthur to the beach at Cape Cod. It had been fun then.
‘No good,’ gasped Head. ‘It’s no good.’
Briggs paused, to stare out to sea. The Mary Celeste was bent fully into the wind, all her sails seeming full. Then a cloud thicker than the rest swept down and she was lost for the last time.
‘Weight,’ shouted Briggs, to the cook. ‘There’s too much weight. Throw the food over.’