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A good navigator could thread the needle through the danger, but most avoided the area. In the first place, there was little reason to pass to the north. St. Mary’s Island had no usable anchorages. No fresh water, towns, or help available.SHIP’S LOG — Mary CelesteNovember 25, 1872 Eight bells.At 8, Eastern Point bore SSW, 6 miles distant.
This was to be the last entry in the log under “Captain Benjamin Briggs.”
The ship.was passing the last of the Azores, and the eastern point was Ponta Castello, a high peak on the southeastern shore of the island.
Andrew Gilling wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
“Six hundred miles to Gibraltar,” he whispered to himself.
His watch was almost over, and Gilling was glad. All night he had felt a foreboding, a sense of unease without definition. It was strange. Mary Celeste was currently out of the clouds, but in the early-morning light Gilling had seen them to the south and east — a black wall that ebbed and flowed like a living organism. Twice during the night, waterspouts had sprung up near the ship but dissolved before fully forming. And squalls had come and gone quickly and mysteriously, like a knock on the door with no one there.
Albert Richardson walked along the deck unsteadily.
“Watch change,” he said when he reached Gilling.
Gilling stared at the first mate — his eyes were red and bloodshot and his words were slightly slurred. There was a palpable order of alcohol saturating his skin. If the Dane was to hazard a guess, he’d have to conclude that Richardson was drunk.
“Where’s Captain Briggs?” Gilling asked.
“Sick belowdecks,” Richardson said, “as is most of the crew. The fumes are wreaking havoc with everyone. Just before sunrise, I could hear Mrs. Briggs playing her melodeon and singing. The noise woke everyone.”
“Sir,” Gilling said slowly, “I’ve been in fresh air all night. Perhaps I should continue my watch.”
“I’ll be okay,” Richardson said, “once I air out.”
“Very good, sir,” Gilling said. “Just be careful — the area ahead is uncharted and might contain a few unrecorded shoals.”
“I will, Andrew,” Richardson said, as he assumed control of the helm.
Baby Sophia smiled at the black spot in front of her eyes. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, but the little dots remained. Benjamin Briggs was singing the Stephen Foster song “Beautiful Dreamer.” He and Sarah, who sat at the melodeon playing like a woman possessed, had slept little.
“More baritone,” she shouted.
Forward in the seaman’s cabin, the Germans were playing cards. Arian Harbens had dealt the hand nearly an hour ago — no one had yet screamed gin. Gottlieb Goodschaad tried to concentrate on the cards in his hand. The joker seemed to be talking. The nine looked like a six.
In the galley, Edward Head was trying to start the stove. Finally, after much effort, he gave up. Removing a side of preserved meat from storage, he reached for a knife to slice off chunks, but his hand refused to answer the signal from his brain. It was as if his brain were coated in molasses. But he didn’t care. A rat walked along a high shelf, and Head tried to communicate with the rodent telepathically. Strangely, he thought, he received no answer.
Volkert Lorenzen was packing tobacco in a pipe. Once filled, he handed it to his brother Boz and then packed another for himself. Maybe a smoke up on deck would clear their heads. Their heads needed clearing — Boz had just told him for the tenth time how much he loved him. Volkert knew Boz loved him — they were brothers. Even so, the two had never found the need to say it out loud.
Mary Celeste was a ship of fools under the influence of an invisible vapor.
Twelve feet below the surface of the water dead ahead was an underwater seamount, uncharted and without a name. A series of rocky plateaus with scattered pieces of volcanic rock formed hundreds of thousands of years in the past.
Mary Celeste might have barely passed over the hazard — she drew but eleven feet, seven inches — but the waves were ebbing and flowing, and the ship was pitching up and down a full four feet.
Wood was about to meet stone with disastrous result.
Albert Richardson stared to the south. The ship was passing lee of St. Mary’s, and only time and six hundred miles of water lay between them and Gibraltar. And then it happened. A lurch, a crash, a scraping along the length of the hull. Mary Celeste slowed as the keel ran along the rocks, but in seconds the forward momentum carried her free.
“Aground!” Richardson shouted.
Even in his befuddled state, Captain Benjamin Briggs knew that sound.
Racing from his cabin, he climbed the ladder on deck and ran to the helm. Staring astern, he could see that the sea in their wake was dirty from where the ship had scraped. He stared ahead and was reassured with what appeared to be deep water. Looking starboard, he could see St. Mary’s Island.
“Why are we north of the island?” he shouted to Richardson.
“The storm,” Richardson said, “carried us north in the night.”
The Lorenzen brothers, Goodschaad, and Harbens ran on deck, along with Gilling and even a slow-moving Edward Head. They all knew the sound, and they all feared the result.
“Stay at the wheel,” Briggs shouted. “Come with me,” he said to the sailors.
Water flooded into the hold between the spaces in the planking. Two feet lay inside the hull, and the depth was rising. Several more barrels of alcohol had burst, mixing with the sea mist into a toxic vapor.
Briggs surveyed the situation quickly.
“Volkie, Boz, man the pumps,” he shouted. “Arian, you and Gottlieb bring me the barrel of caulking.”
As the men ran off, he got on his knees and felt around — a steady flow of water pressure. He dipped his head under the water. The alcohol burned his eyes, but he could see through the dirty water. No broken planks, just a fast seepage through planks that had been dislodged. Pulling his head from the water, he tasted the alcohol. His head was spi
“Here you go, sir,” Harbens said, handing the cask filled with waxed rope to Briggs.
“Go to my cabin,” he said, taking the cask of rope. “Tell my wife to prepare to abandon ship if necessary.”
Harbens sloshed over to the ladder and climbed up a deck.
“Mrs. Briggs,” he shouted to the closed door, “the captain asks that you prepare to abandon ship.”
The door opened, and Sarah stood there, smiling. Her eyes were beet-red and her cheeks were flushed, as if she had spent the morning ice-skating on a windswept Kansas lake. Peering inside, Harbens could see baby Sophia. She was sitting listlessly in her playpen, a thin trickle of drool hanging from her chin.
“What about Sophia?” Sarah asked.
“Make her ready,” Harbens said quickly. “She’s coming with us.”
A tainted layer of vomit floated on top of the water, but Briggs did not care. He plunged his head below the surface and began to stuff the waxed rope into any crack he could feel. Pausing to take breaths of air, he went under the water time and time again.
“Pumps are going,” Boz shouted, once, when his head was above water.
“Gottlieb,” Briggs said, “tell Harbens to make sure he packs my chronometer, sextant, and navigation book, as well as the ship’s register. Then you and Arian launch the shore boat.”
Briggs looked at a mark on the side wall of the hull. The water was not receding, but neither was it quickly rising. They might have a chance. Briggs stood upright; his head was spi