The Mary Celeste Read online

  The Mary Celeste

  Brian Freemantle

  writing as John Maxwell

  To John Killick, without

  whose understanding so much

  would have been impossible.

  And to Rae, of course.

  ‘Wouldst thou’ – so the helmsman answered –

  ‘Learn the secrets of the sea?

  Only those who brave its dangers

  Comprehend its mystery.’

  H. W. Longfellow, The Secrets of the Sea

  Introduction

  The Mary Celeste, an American half-brig of 282 tons, became a maritime legend a little past three o’clock on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 5, 1872.

  Her precise location was latitude 38.20 N., by longitude 17.15 W., due east of the Azores and 591 miles from Gibraltar.

  At that point, she passed a British brigantine, the Dei Gratia. By a coincidence – later to occur to many people as just too incredible – its master, Captain David Reed Morehouse, had been the dinner guest of the master of the Mary Celeste, Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, the night before the American vessel had sailed from New York with a cargo of 1,700 barrels of commercial alcohol, bound for Genoa.

  Morehouse therefore knew the destination of the Mary Celeste. And recognised her to be on course, although sailing in the wrong direction. What he had first thought to be a fluttering distress signal was a ripped, tattered sail. The wheel, unmanned and unsecured, spun with every fresh thrust of wind.

  Across the narrow gap separating them, Morehouse hailed his friend’s ship. There was no response.

  ‘What in God’s name can have happened?’ Morehouse asked first mate Oliver Deveau. The question has been posed repeatedly over the past hundred years in an attempt to solve the mystery of the world’s most famous ghost ship.

  Mutiny and murder was the attempted answer of Mr Frederick Solly Flood, Attorney-General and Admiralty Proctor of Gibraltar, the port to which a salvage crew from the Dei Gratia sailed the derelict. So convinced was the Attorney-General of crime – and that a chemical analyst had bungled an examination – that he suppressed for fourteen years a forensic report that stains on deck and upon a sword blade were not blood.

  It was a conviction that caused him, within six weeks of the Mary Celeste’s being found, to write in an official report to the Board of Trade in London:

  My own theory is that the crew got to the alcohol and in the fury of drunkenness murdered the master, whose name was Briggs, his wife and child and the chief mate; that they then damaged the bows of the vessel with the view of giving it the appearance of having struck on rocks or suffered a collision so as to induce the master of any vessel which might have picked them up, if they saw her at some distance, to think her not worth attempting to save; and that they did some time between the 25th of November (the date of the last log entry) and 5th December, escape on board some other vessel bound for some North or South American port or the West Indies.

  The British government accepted his view. On March 11, 1873, Sir Edward Thornton, British Ambassador to Washington, passed on to the American administration evidence assembled in Gibraltar and asserted in his covering letter: ‘You will perceive that the enquiries which have been initiated into the matter tend to rouse grave suspicion that the master and his wife and child were murdered by the crew.’

  Responding to the British government’s belief, U.S. Secretary to the Treasury William A. Richardson circularised customs officials throughout the United States on March 14, instructing them to look out for any ship carrying the alleged murderers to America.

  Captain James Winchester, principal owner of the Mary Celeste, fled Gibraltar after giving evidence at an enquiry because he feared the official determination to prove a crime. To the U.S. Consul in Gibraltar, Horatio Jones Sprague, Captain Winchester wrote from the safety of New York on March 10, 1873, that he had quit the colony after being convinced by a friend there that the judge and Attorney-General intended arresting him for hiring the crew to murder their officers.

  Captain Winchester wrote that although the supposition was ridiculous, ‘From what you and everybody else in Gibraltar had told me about the Attorney-General, I did not know but he might do it as they seem to do just as they like’.

  In such a fertile atmosphere of fear, suspicion and preconception – where innuendo became evidence and facts that didn’t fit were blatantly concealed – the conjecture blossomed.

  Four years before creating the legendary Sherlock Holmes, a Portsmouth doctor named Arthur Conan Doyle earned £30 for a short story purporting to be the account of a surviving passenger, J. Habakuk Jephson. Conan Doyle misnamed the derelict Marie Celeste and had J. Habakuk Jephson, ‘the well known Brooklyn specialist on consumption’, tell of another passenger, a half-caste from New Orleans named Septimus Goring, infiltrating the crew with henchmen, having the captain and officers killed and then sailing to Africa to establish a black empire there. Only a black stone shaped like a human ear, a talisman venerated by Negroes, saved J. Habakuk Jephson from death.

  U.S. Consul Sprague sent the account – printed in the magazine Cornhill – to the State Department in Washington with the somewhat conservative verdict that it was ‘replete with romance of a very unlikely or exaggerated nature’.

  Amazingly, Attorney-General Flood seized it as an eye-witness account and informed the American authorities he was in contact with officials in Germany, believing that some of the Mary Celeste’s German crew were hiding there after joining Septimus Goring in the mutiny.

  Mrs Fannie Richardson, wife of the Mary Celeste’s first mate Albert Richardson, told newspaper reporters on March 9, 1902, that she believed that her husband, the captain and the captain’s wife and child had been murdered by the crew. Albert Richardson’s sister, Mrs Priscilla Richardson Shelton, thought the same, while his brother, Captain Lyman Richardson, was convinced they had been killed by the crew of the Dei Gratia.

  British author J. L. Hornibrook wrote in Chamber’s Journal in 1904 that the crew were plucked from the ship, one by one, by ‘a huge octopus or devil fish’, recalling evidence at the enquiry of an axe-slash upon a deck-rail and suggested it had been caused in a futile attempt to fight the monster off.

  The Nautical Magazine published an account by another alleged survivor of the vessel, in which Barbary pirates had boarded and slaughtered everyone aboard, and in the British Journal of Astrology in 1926 author Adam Bushey had the crew being ‘dematerialised’ because they had sailed at a psychically vital moment over the very spot where the lost city of Atlantis had sunk beneath the waves. Professor M. K. Jessup, instructor in Astronomy at Michigan University, wrote in a book, UFO, in 1955 that the people aboard the Mary Celeste didn’t go downwards but upwards – snatched off the vessel by the crew of a hovering flying saucer.

  As the theories became wilder, so did the ‘facts’ surrounding the finding of the Mary Celeste by the Dei Gratia.

  Within half a century, it was unquestioningly believed that, when Captain Morehouse had come upon the vessel, there had been a half-eaten breakfast upon a cabin table, together with three cups of warm tea, a bottle of cough mixture open but unspilled upon another table, a phial of oil and a thimble beside a sewing machine upon which a child’s dress was being repaired, the captain’s watch still ticking, the stove in the galley warm to the touch, the galley fire burning, a cat peacefully asleep on a locker, sailors’ pipes half-smoked, their washing hanging out to dry, the ship’s boats still at their davits and no sign of damage or violence.

  Not one of these suppositions is accurate.

  There were facts established about the mystery. And upon them it is possible, I believe, for a conclusion to be suggested as to the fate of Captain Briggs, his wi
fe Sarah, their two-year-old daughter Sophia and the seven-man crew.

  Although fictionalised for ease of narrative, The ‘Mary Celeste’ is based upon facts presented at the Gibraltar enquiry into the salvage claim by the Dei Gratia crew, and evidence taken from the surviving documents and statements of people directly involved in the affair.

  On November 3, 1872, two days before the Mary Celeste slipped her moorings at Pier 50 on New York’s East River, Captain Briggs wrote to his mother: ‘Our vessel is in beautiful trim and I hope we shall have a fine passage.’

  Despite fierce storms, it was so until November 25. At eight o’clock that morning, the half-brig was within six miles of Santa Maria, most easterly of the Azores group of islands, and in sight of Ponta Castello, its most easterly point.

  Then disaster struck.

  Four hours later, the Mary Celeste was a ghost ship.

  Winchester, 1979

  J.M.

  Already it had been officially recognised as the worst winter for centuries and the storms and gales that had scoured the Atlantic for months were even affecting Gibraltar. It was colder than normal for January and the familiar mist clung stubbornly to the Peak, like a tuft of sheep’s wool on a hedgerow thistle.

  Despite the coolness of the weather, Attorney-General Frederick Solly Flood drove with the carriage hood down. He liked to be seen and his position within the tiny community to be marked with the respectful smiles and occasional head-nod of greeting, particularly since his additional appointment as Admiralty Proctor.

  Speed was rarely possible anyway along the narrow, cluttered streets, but his coachman proceeded in the knowledge that there was no hurry.

  Today the attention was greater than normal, because everyone knew where he was going. The Gibraltar Chronicle and Commercial Intelligencer had announced the commencement of the enquiry and even published a review of everything so far known about the American half-brig Mary Celeste since she had been brought in by the salvage crew.

  Where the highway suddenly climbed, between the Fortress and the Governor’s residence, he strained up, to catch sight of the tiny vessel far below in the bay, secure under its order of Admiralty arrest. Before he had finished with the witnesses who had been assembling during the past weeks, there would be available a great deal more information than that recorded by the Intelligencer. It wouldn’t be easy, because Flood recognised that much effort had been devoted to destroying the evidence. But some still remained; more than the culprits suspected, he believed. Upon that evidence he was going to prove that a dreadful crime had been committed. And the Board of Trade in London were going to appreciate the advantage of having as their representative a lawyer of his ability.

  The far-away mist had merged with the rainclouds and as the carriage reached the Supreme Court building the shower began. There was already a crowd waiting for the doors to open and they began shifting impatiently at the prospect of being kept in the wet. The smiles of recognition were more obvious as the Attorney-General’s carriage passed through the gate and pulled up in front. He saw among the spectators several foreign journalists, some even from as far away as New York, who had arrived to report the proceedings. He had already been interviewed by most of them and consented to having his picture taken to accompany the articles; he hoped they used the one of him in his official robes.

  Flood responded to their greetings, remaining seated in the carriage until the door was opened for him. He hurried inside, a diminutive, portly man who held his head high in an effort to attain the height he didn’t possess. He was aware but unworried that his critics called him ‘pouter pigeon’. Some thought it an apt description; he had a jerky, bird-like habit of moving his head during conversations or court appearances and walked in abrupt, thrusting movements. Had he had any say in the appellation, Flood would have preferred being called a hawk. After all, a hawk was a wary, sharp-sighted bird. And that’s how the enquiry was going to find him.

  His clerk had already preceded him with his document case, so Flood went immediately to the robing room. He had almost finished dressing when the door tentatively opened behind him and Edward Baumgartner, the court registrar, entered.

  ‘Morning, Attorney-General,’ he said formally.

  Flood nodded, but didn’t speak.

  ‘So at last everything is to become clear?’

  Baumgartner spoke hopefully, anxious to convey the belief that the elucidation would come from the cleverness of Flood’s questioning.

  ‘That’s my intention,’ said Flood. He had been so long in Gibraltar that there was hardly a trace of his Irish accent. Only when he was excited or angry did it become pronounced.

  ‘Quite a number of witnesses,’ said Baumgartner.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ said the Attorney-General. ‘I’ll keep the court convened for a year if necessary.’

  ‘Sure it won’t be,’ said Baumgartner, again intending the remark as admiration for the Attorney-General’s ability to get to the truth. He waited, but when Flood failed to respond, said, ‘Sir James would like to see you before we begin.’

  Flood nodded again, as if he had anticipated the invitation, and followed the official out into the corridor and along to the Commissary’s rooms.

  Flood was glad it was Sir James Cochrane who was to preside at the hearing. Although it would have been an exaggeration for him to regard Sir James as a friend, the Attorney-General felt they understood each other. He was confident there would be no interference from Sir James if he extended the questioning beyond that which might have normally been regarded as necessary for the purpose of a salvage enquiry. With so little positive evidence, he was going to need such allowance. Would he succeed in obtaining a blurted confession? he wondered. They were probably simple men, even if they were criminals. It might be possible.

  Sir James was at his window, staring out at the bay and Algeciras and La Linea beyond when Flood entered. He turned at the sound, smiling.

  ‘A little madeira, for a cold day?’ he asked.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Flood.

  The judge poured from a decanter alongside the desk and then handed the Attorney-General his drink. ‘Anticipating difficulties?’ Sir James indicated the room beyond the closed door where the enquiry was assembling.

  ‘If there’s a guilty man there, he’ll be evasive,’ predicted Flood.

  ‘Is there a guilty man?’

  ‘There’s been murder committed.’

  ‘Murder!’ The judge’s astonishment showed in his voice.

  ‘That’s my belief.’

  ‘It’s a salvage claim we’ll be considering,’ said Sir James gently.

  ‘Which makes the circumstances leading up to that salvaging very pertinent to the proceedings,’ replied Flood.

  ‘Quite,’ said the judge. ‘I’d just welcome a little more positive evidence than that which I’ve so far seen in the reports and affidavits. Murder’s a strong accusation.’

  ‘The evidence will be forthcoming.’ Flood was confident. ‘We’ve encountered a devilish clever scheme but I’m determined to upset the whole affair.’

  ‘If there’s been a crime, you’ll get every support from me,’ promised Sir James.

  ‘I knew I would,’ said Flood.

  The judge finished his drink, replacing the glass on the decanter stand, and Flood took the lead to do the same. The man’s assurance encouraged him.

  ‘Consul Sprague tells me there’s great interest in Washington over the whole affair,’ said Sir James. ‘I gather some well-known American journals have even sent special correspondents to report the enquiry.’

  A look of irritation settled upon the Attorney-General’s face.

  ‘It’s a pity the American Consul doesn’t see fit to pursue his position here more rigorously,’ he said.

  It was accepted within the tiny British colony that there was antipathy between the two men but to Sir James it appeared that the Attorney-General’s remark indicated more than their usual reserve towards each other.
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  ‘How so?’ he said.

  ‘He feels there might be a normal explanation for the affair,’ disclosed Flood.

  ‘Can’t there be?’

  ‘Not for anyone of average intelligence,’ said Flood.

  Sir James disguised the frown by returning to the window. The Attorney-General appeared very convinced of his case, he thought. He wondered if Flood had evidence of which he was unaware. London would expect him to do all he could to uncover a crime if one had been perpetrated; particularly murder.

  Baumgartner appeared at the door, reminding them of the time. Sir James nodded, following the man from the room, with the Attorney-General behind him. In the corridor outside the enquiry chamber, Sir James paused to allow Flood to overtake and precede him, so that court protocol could be observed.

  Everyone gazed at Flood as he bustled into the room. He hurried expressionlessly to his place, turning to nod at the counsel representing the claimant captain and crew and the Mary Celeste owner only after he had shuffled through some papers, as if expecting some vital document to be missing.

  Flood, who was fond of amateur dramatics, often thought of court and enquiry rooms as being very similar to the theatre, places where people staged performances. He gazed around the room, about which there was already an atmosphere of staleness because the windows were closed against the rain and cold, wondering at the portrayals they would witness before this hearing was concluded. He had no doubt that, whatever was attempted, he would be able to strip away the pretence.

  From pre-hearing interviews and meetings, Flood was able to recognise everybody who would be testifying.

  Captain James Winchester, the principal owner, who had travelled from New York to enter claim for possession of the vessel, sat immediately behind the counsels’ table, a neat, precise man whose deeply tanned face indicated the mariner’s life he had led before going ashore to become a businessman-sailor. It appeared to have been a successful transition. Winchester sat with a pince-nez upon his nose, pens regimented in his waistcoat pocket and an initialled briefcase by his side.