Clive Cussler; Craig Dirgo (23 page)

“Go ahead and board,” he told the brothers, who entered and took a seat.

The loading was going quickly. Harbens and Goodschaad, then Head and Richardson. Briggs came alongside and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Climb on in,” Briggs told him. “I enter last.”

Ten people total, on a small boat attached to the mother by a thin line.

A WHALE BREACHED near
Dei Gratia
and blew water from its blowhole.

“Whale a port,” Deveau shouted.

Moorhouse made a note in the ship’s log, then shot the horizon with the sextant. They were on a true course and making time. The weather had moderated, and the sun was peeking through the clouds. All in all, it was an ordinary day at sea.

He had no way to know of the drama unfolding five hundred miles distant.

PULLED LIKE THE last child in a game of crack-the-whip, Briggs stared at
Mary Celeste
in the distance ahead. An hour had passed, and the ship was riding the same—his caulking job must have worked. By now, with the hatches off the hold would be vented. The fresh air had cleared his head, and now he was doubting his decision. “I think it’s safe to pull in the line and board,” he said to the others on the boat.

The men nodded; their heads, too, had cleared. Although they were at home on the water, being crowded on a small boat far from land was disconcerting, to say the least. Everyone wanted to board
Mary Celeste
and return to their normal duties. It had been a scare and nothing more—a tale to tell their children. A lesson to be learned.

“Do you want me and Gilling to start pulling?” Richardson asked.

Right then, before Briggs could answer, another squall descended. Two hundred and seventy-five yards ahead,
Mary Celeste
surged forward like a greyhound leaving the starting gate. The line connecting them to their home at sea went slack, then pulled hard against the stanchion and snapped. Almost instantly, the small boat began to slow, as the brigantine loaded with alcohol continued on. Richardson raised the now-limp line and stared back at Briggs.

“Row, men, row,” he shouted.

TEN DAYS ADRIFT and they were dying. They lost sight of Mary
Celeste
the first day, and all efforts to row back to St. Mary’s Island had been in vain. There had been no food and water for a week, and now when they most needed it, there was no rain.

Baby Sophia was gone, committed to the sea with Sarah soon after.

Harbens, Gilling, and Richardson were gone as well. Goodschaad had died quietly in the night and lay in the bottom of the boat, while Head had died of a heart attack but three days adrift. A broken heart, Briggs had thought to himself as soon as he realized he would never again see his bride.

“Help me with Goodschaad,” Briggs said near 10 A.M. when some strength returned.

Boz and Volkert helped him over the side.

Briggs stared at the Germans—it gave him an idea of his own condition. The skin on both men’s faces was peeling off in sheets. Their cracked and dried lips were as plump as sausages. Dried blood was below Volkert’s nose, while greenish pus was visible at the comer of Boz’s eyes.

The French explorer La Salle’s
L’Aimable
(Arist : Richard DeRosset)

Magnetic anomalies
investigated by Ralph Wilbanks
in the search for
L’Aimable
(Ralph Wilbanks)

The
New Orleans,
the first steamboat on the Mississippi River (
Artist: Richard DeRosset
)

Full-size replicas of the Twin Sisters at the San Jacinto Monument on the 150th anniversary of the battle (
University of Houston College of Technology, and Gary C. Touchton)

The first ironclad built in the United States, the C.S.S.
Manassas
(
Artist: Daniel Dowdey)

The Battle of Charleston. The
Keokuk
upper left, the
Patupsco
right, and the
Weehawken
center
(Clive Cussler)

The sinking of the
Keokuk
after she was struck by ninety-two Confederate shells (
Clive Cussler
)

Photograph of the U.S.S.
Mississippi
taken the day before she burned and sank
(Louisiana State University Library Special Collection
)

Painting of the
Mississippi
burning
(Artist: Tom Freeman)