Unquestioning, the second mate began to unfasten the stays and Volkert Lorensen momentarily let the painter trail while he heaved them over. The young Lorensen took the lines and began paying them out, so that the two rafts were spaced out astern of the lifeboats.
Briggs handed down the articles he had taken from his cabin, gesturing Martens into the boat.
‘Secured?’ he asked Lorensen.
‘Aye,’ said the man.
‘Into the boat,’ said Briggs.
Richardson was standing, holding the boat against the side of the Mary Celeste. He handed it back along the deck edge until it was nearly at the stern. The gas convulsions were now so persistent that there was a constant vibration through the vessel and the first mate’s hand shook against the decking.
‘Getting worse,’ said Gilling.
‘Into the boat,’ said Briggs again.
Fumes were still spurting from the opened hatch, like a volcano without lava. There would be flames and heat soon enough, thought Briggs. There was a sudden sound, not quite an explosion, and a piece of dunnage wood arced like a spear through the hatchway and then disappeared over the bow of the vessel.
‘Abandon the wheel,’ Briggs ordered Goodschall.
Head made his third return from the galley, with a final gunny sack, and the German stood aside for the cook to enter the boat first. For a moment alone in his ship, Briggs looked around, frowning at the shambles of collapsed sails and the hurry of their departure. The boat-launching had made a bad cut into the rail. Above, the sails still set hung limp and lifeless from the yards.
‘It’s building up,’ warned Richardson, hands still against the deck-edge. ‘It’s almost shaking me off.’
Reluctantly, Briggs climbed over the rail and got into the boat, giving the halyard a final pull to check its freedom over the pulley. The Lorensen brothers were already at the oars. Behind the boat, the rafts bobbed like chicks following the hen.
‘Pull away,’ said Briggs.
From the stern came a sob louder than that being made by the child and as he looked up Briggs saw that Sarah had bitten the sound off, lips tightly together, her face close to Sophia’s head.
There was another eruption and more stowage material was thrown up. A piece of matting, without the weight of the dunnage wood, drifted leaf-like slowly back and settled gently on the water.
Richardson was pulling constantly at the halyard line, to ensure that no snagging developed on the ship from which they were pulling away. A naturally tidy man, Briggs stacked the things he had taken from his cabin beneath his seat. Head had already stowed the provisions in the rear section, where Sarah sat.
Satisfied that the line was free, Richardson settled himself beside the captain.
‘Not a lot of freeboard,’ he said, hand against the gunwale.
Briggs looked to starboard. The slack water was less than a foot from the rail edge. He came back into the boat and realised that Richardson had already bailed the water that had been shipped when they had launched from the side of the Mary Celeste. He swivelled, looking over Sarah’s head. The outline of Santa Maria was smudged on the horizon.
‘Safe enough in this water,’ he said. ‘And the rafts are near to hand.’
Richardson nodded.
Briggs jerked his head towards the landfall.
‘Not a good coast,’ he said. ‘No anchorage worth talking of.’
Richardson frowned, as if the idea of making land had not occurred to him.
‘Don’t you think she’ll clear?’ he said, turning back to the half-brig.
‘It seemed to be getting worse,’ Briggs pointed out. ‘Might have been better if we’d got the main hatch off.’
‘I’m surprised at the concentration that was there,’ said the first mate.
‘Rest now,’ ordered Briggs.
The Germans stopped rowing, leaning forward against the oars. They were almost three hundred feet from the ship, which was the extent of the halyard, and it dipped only very slightly into the water. Everyone sat silently, waiting and watching the ship. Even Sophia had quietened, caught by the feeling in the boat. It rose very gently in the swell, tiny waves tapping at the hull. Across the water came the empty-belly echo from the deserted ship.
It was almost thirty minutes before Richardson broke the silence.
‘If it’s going to happen,’ he said, ‘it’s taking long enough.’
‘I don’t think it’s as loud as it was,’ said Gilling.
Richardson turned to Briggs, suddenly hopeful.
‘Perhaps it’s going to be all right,’ he said, smiling uncertainly. ‘Perhaps the for’ard hatch is going to be sufficient and it’s going to ventilate.’
Immediately he received it, the American Consul had considered it his duty to communicate the contents of Captain Winchester’s letter to both the Attorney-General and Sir James Cochrane, before the formal reconvening of the enquiry.
Sir James had ordered an adjournment, for Sprague to attempt contacting the New York owner in Cadiz, but the consul there reported that he had already left for Lisbon. It took over a week for a reply to be received from the American authorities in the Portuguese capital and by that time the Caledonia had already sailed for America.
Flood had been kept informed of Sprague’s efforts to bring Winchester back into the jurisdiction of the court. He set out for the final hearing of the enquiry in greater anticipation than he had all those weeks ago, when it had begun. It had been similar weather then, he remembered, with mist closing off the Peak and the threat of rain later in the day.
Just as he had on that first morning, he strained up as the carriage got near the Governor’s residence, able after the almost daily routine to isolate the Mary Celeste in harbour.
Flood decided that he had succeeded in the task he had set himself. It had been a devilish scheme, as he’d told Sir James that first day. And, to be completely truthful with himself, he had failed to confirm the reason for it. But he’d pointed to the motive clearly enough. The attempt to get Deveau from the court had been proof, had any more been needed, that the crew of the Dei Gratia were involved in the disappearance of Captain Briggs and his family. Now the departure of Captain Winchester showed where the guilt lay.
He knew that the Board of Trade in London had already accepted his version of events and passed on to Washington the British government’s belief in mutiny and murder. Doubtless they would alert Washington to the owner’s flight, so that the authorities would be waiting when he arrived in New York.
The Gibraltar Chronicle and Commercial Intelligencer had announced the conclusion of the enquiry and the crowd around the door was greater than it had been on the first day.
Flood had become a celebrity through the hearing. To a degree, he had anticipated the interest that would be shown in British and American newspapers, but had never expected it to extend to the European journals. He had kept a file, containing every mention of the enquiry and the theories that had been advanced; in nearly every report, his name had been prominently mentioned. As he had hoped, the two American newspapers which had conducted personal interviews had accompanied their articles with photographs of him in his official robes.
When his carriage arrived, he recognised four of the journalists who had covered the progress of the enquiry and nodded to them.
‘Available for comment afterwards, Mr Attorney-General?’
Flood had not seen who shouted the remark. He looked back to them, nodding again.
‘Perhaps,’ he said. It would be wrong for him to appear to be courting the public interest.
Baumgartner was waiting just outside the robing room and walked forward to meet the bustling Attorney- General.
‘Sir James is anxious to see you before the hearing.’
‘I’ll robe,’ said Flood.
‘He said it was urgent… that you should come immediately,’ said the registrar, stopping him.
Shrugging, Flood put his briefcase in the room and then walked behind the court official to the judge’s chambers. There was none of the usual cordiality as he entered. Cochrane was at his desk, the ledger into which he had made his notes throughout the hearing open before him.
Flood went to his accustomed chair, without waiting for the judge’s invitation.
