MYSTERIOUS SEA STORIES
Compiled and Edited by
WILLIAM PATTRICK
A DELL BOOK
UNUSUAL AND UNEXPECTED TALES BY CAPTAIN FREDERICK MARRYAT, HERMAN MELVILLE, JACK LONDON, W. CLARK RUSSELL, JOSEPH CONRAD, JOHN MASEFIELD, C. S. FORESTER, RUDYARD KIPLING, ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, RICHARD SALE, WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON, H. G. WELLS, EDGAR ALLAN POE, AND RAY BRADBURY
“These, then, are your means of transport to mystery on the high seas—if, like me, you would prefer to voyage safe and warm in the comfort of your armchair. For those watery places where spirits haunt the upper deck and monstrous creatures tear at the ship’s bowels are not for the landlubber or the faint-hearted.’’
—William Pattrick, from the Introduction
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This work was first published in Great Britain by W. H. Allen & Co., PLC.
Copyright © 1985 by William Pattrick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: W. H. Allen & Co., PLC, London, England.
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ISBN: 0-440- 16088-X
Reprinted by arrangement with W. H. Allen & Co., PLC
Printed in the United States of America
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Contents
INTRODUCTION
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE - Edgar Allan Poe
THE LEGEND OF THE BELL ROCK - Captain Frederick Marryat
HOOD’S ISLE AND THE HERMIT OBERLUS - Herman Melville
A BEWITCHED SHIP - W. Clark Russell
J. HABAKUK JEPHSON’S STATEMENT - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
THE BENEVOLENT GHOST AND CAPTAIN LOWRIE - Richard Sale
MAKE WESTING - Jack London
THE BLACK MATE - Joseph Conrad
A MATTER OF FACT - Rudyard Kipling
THE FINDING OF THE GRAIKEN - William Hope Hodgson
DAVY JONES’S GIFT - John Masefield
IN THE ABYSS - H. G. Wells
UNDERSEA GUARDIANS - Ray Bradbury
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE - C. S. Forester
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Not long before his death that great British seaman, Lord Nelson, remarked, (At sea, nothing is impossible and nothing improbable.’ Although he put it splendidly, what he said was really nothing new, even then - for almost since the first man pushed himself gingerly away from the safety of the shore and cast himself and his frail craft to the mercy of the waves and the elements, sailors have come to appreciate the mysterious powers of the sea. Even today when shipping has all the sophisticated equipment provided by modem technology at its disposal, there is still the element of the unknown lurking just across the horizon - and it is a foolish seaman who would choose to ignore such a fact.
Of course, in the early days of sail, mariners believed if they went too far from land their ships might fall off the edge of the world; and even in later ages seafarers clung tenaciously to the most amazing superstitions which gave the sea and all things above and below it quite extraordinary powers. The discoveries of the early explorers may well have removed fears about a flat earth, but there are still many of those old superstitions being religiously observed. Their influence is as powerful and mysterious and timeless as the very sea itself.
Because of the uncertainty of life at sea and the temperamental nature of the wind and weather - not forgetting the unusual conditions that can exist far from land - sailors have always been coming home with stories of strange, inexplicable happenings. Of ships beset by phantoms, of deep sea creatures unlike any seen before, and of places where none but the most foolhardy would go. These have provided the raw material for storytellers and have ultimately developed into what we now know as the sea mystery story.
Although the mysterious incidents which have given rise to these stories can be traced back many, many years, it is in fact only in the last couple of hundred years that they have become a literary genre in their own right. To be sure, there are whole libraries of books of ancient sea voyages in which are recorded encounters with strange people, sea serpents and ghostly vessels. But it is primarily with the work of Edgar Allan Poe at the beginning of the last century that such tales emerged and took on the form now so recognisable and widely read.
In this collection I have tried to assemble some of the best and most representative of the short sea mystery stories, taking a tale by Poe as my starting point. As the reader will discover, the tales range across many years and most of the great oceans of the world. They have for their themes some of the best known mysteries of the sea, and convey us as often by sail as by steam. They also happen to be written by some of the most popular authors of maritime fiction - although I have tried as much as possible to avoid frequently anthologised works by these people.
Consequently, you will find some rather unusual and, I trust, unexpected tales by authors such as Captain Frederick Marryat, Herman Melville, Jack London, W. Clark Russell, Joseph Conrad, John Masefield, and C. S. Forester. All of these keep happy company with some other familiar figures who were fascinated by mysteries of the sea and put pen to paper in a most imaginative way. There is Rudyard Kipling on sea monsters, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cleverly trying to solve the mystery of the Marie Celeste, Richard Sale doing the same for The Flying Dutchman, William Hope Hodgson exploring the legendary Sargasso Sea, H. G. Wells taking us into the depths of the ocean, and Ray Bradbury with a grim little fantasy about war at sea.
These, then, are your means of transport to mystery on the high seas - if, like me, you would prefer to voyage safe and warm in the comfort of your armchair. For those watery places where spirits haunt the upper deck and monstrous creatures tear at the ship’s bowels are not for the landlubber or the faint-hearted. All the stories will, I believe, intrigue, chill and entertain you, and in leaving you to your pleasures I am reminded of those lines by Shakespeare: There are more things in Heaven and Earth . . ./ Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. ’ When you have finished reading Mysterious Sea Stories, I have more than a suspicion you will want to add ‘and in the Sea* to that perceptive phrase. . .
WILLIAM PATTRICK Suffolk, 1984
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
Edgar Allan Poe
Although sailors of all nations had been telling stories for many centuries about the strange and bizarre things that could be experienced at sea, the first writer to produce a group of tales that could be categorised as sea mysteries was that tormented American genius, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Poeys interes
ts were widespread, and amongst his work can be found some of the very first stories of detection, pioneer science fiction, and also some outstanding horror stories.
But the sea also exerted a special fascination for this remarkable man. Apart from using it as the theme of several short stories, it also formed the basis of his only novel The Mystery of Arthur Gordon Pym, which he left incomplete at the time of his death in 1849. However, the novel was finished in 1897 by the famous French fantasy writer, Jules Verne, under the title of An Antarctic Mystery?
In his work, Poe gave clear evidence that he sensed all the terrors and strangeness that lurked in the vastness of the world's oceans, using this knowledge to brilliant effect. The very first of his sea mysteries was MS. Found In A Bottle which appeared in 1833, and which has since proved a model for many later similar stories. Apart from its vivid description of a storm at sea, it also deals with an ancient superstition that the earth was hollow and that there were entrances to this ‘inner world9 in the sea near the poles which could suck in the unwary vessel. It therefore makes a most suitable story with which to begin our voyage into the realms of mystery. . .
‘Qui n’a plus qu’un moment à vivre
N’a plus rien à dissimuler. ’ — Quinault - Atys
Of my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill-usage and length of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from the other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common order, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me to methodise the stores which early study very diligently garnered up. Beyond all things, the works of the German moralists gave me great delight; not from any ill-advised admiration of their eloquent madness, but from the ease with which my habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect their falsities. I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age -1 mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries of fantasy have been a dead letter and a nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18— from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java, on a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda Islands. I went as passenger - having no other inducement than a kind of nervous restlessness which haunted me as a fiend.
Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons, copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was freighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to beguile the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with some of the small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular isolated cloud to the N. W. It was remarkable, as well for its colour as from its being the first we had seen since our departure from Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at once to the eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapour, and looking like a long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more than usually transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising from heated iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away, and a more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled, and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I went below - not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed, every appearance warranted me in apprehending a simoom. I told the captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck. As I placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to stern.
The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the salvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from the sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of the tempest, finally righted.
By what miracle I escaped destruction it is impossible to say. Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery, jammed in between the stem-post and rudder. With great difficulty I gained my feet, and, looking dizzily around, was at first struck with the idea of our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck, with the exception of ourselves, had been swept overboard; the captain and mates must have perished as they slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance we could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our exertions were at first paralysed by the momentary expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful velocity before the sea, and the water made clear breaches over us. The framework of our stern was shattered excessively, and in almost every respect we had received considerable injury; but to our extreme joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting of our ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we looked forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing, that in our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no means likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and nights - during which our only subsistence was a small quantity of jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle- the hulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first violence of the simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had before encountered. Our course for the first four days was, with trifling variations S. E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of New Holland. On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although the wind had hauled round a point more to the northward. The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees above the horizon — emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds apparent, yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as we
could guess, our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun. It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow without reflection, as if all its rays were polarised. Just before sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim, silver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean.
We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day - that day to me has not arrived - to the Swede never did arrive. Thenceforward we were enshrouded in pitchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an object at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which we had been accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that, although the tempest continued to rage with unabated violence, there was no longer to be discovered the usual appearance of surf, ^ foam, which had hitherto attended us. All around were horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering desert of ebony. Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent wonder. We neglected all care of the ship as worse than useless, and securing ourselves, as well as possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast, looked out bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means of calculating time, nor could we form any guess of our situation. We were, however, well aware of having made farther to the southward than any previous navigators, and felt great amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice. In the meantime every moment threatened to be our last - every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not instantly buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship; but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling. At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross - at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.
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