The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

by William Hope Hodgson

  “Great, Sir!” he says, an’ bolts off; and I then away up quiet onto the bridge, and crept to the starboard end, keeping behind the starboard dodger.

  I took out my knife, an’ ripped a hole in the canvas, an’ peeped down along the ship’s side. The two boats was lying close to our side, amidships, an’ already they was getting the ladders up into place.

  Presently I saw as they’d five ladders up and the men was beginning to get onto them. I knew now was the time, an’ I shouted just the three words “Heave, Mister! Heave!”

  The Third was smart on the word, too! He struck a bunch of matches before ever the third word was clear out of my mouth. An’ he’d hove the second flaming chunk of oakum before I’d got my guns proper to bear. Then I let ’em have it alongside, leaning well over the bridge rail as I fired. And forrard an’ aft there came the thump! thump! of the Mates’ heavy shooters; while under me the Third got clean up onto the t’gal’en’ rail, an’ shot down through the wire nettin’ into the swarm of ’em.

  A wonderful sight it was, too, for the Third had slung five of them flaming balls into the boats before he began to shoot, an’ there was the five ladders, with two an’ three men apiece on ’em, all froze stiff that one instant with the blaze of light so unexpected, just as they was sure they’d worked the surprise packet on us proper.

  Bang! bang! I let out with my Colts, an’, away aft, there was the Second Mate’s thump! thump! thump! An’ under me the Third, belting lead down into the thick of the boatloads of men, an them fallin’ slump off the ladders atop of the others, an’ yells an’ screams an’ cursings like I reckon them as goes to hell must be given to. An’ forrard, the Mate firin’ boomp! boomp! boomp! as steady as a clock running; an’ me with my two empty Colts, hot an’ smokin’ in my hands, before I knew I’d emptied ’em; an’ every one of them five ladders stark empty, an’ the boats that full of men with the pip, some cursin’ and fightin’, an’ the others screechin’, that they hadn’t no chance to shoot back for thirty seconds an’ more, an’ that give me, an’ all of us, the chance to load up a gun each an’ loose it off into ’em again. An’ then they got the last of the lights rolled on an’ trampled on, an’ a dozen or more of them was shootin’ back, an’ I’d a bullet through the side of my neck, an’ my shoulder gouged with another before I could get out of the way.

  I down then on the deck of the bridge; an’ a fine fight the men was having to port, as I could hear them; for the other two boats had attacked the same time as we opened on the starboard lot; so as to get us on both sides at once.

  I made two jumps to the deck; but I needn’t have troubled, for the boats began to draw off from us on both sides, an’ we heard ’em pulling away as fast as if the devil was chasin’ ’em; which I don’t doubt, for crooked work means a deal of trouble dodgin’!

  Ten minutes later, with my night-glasses, I saw all four boats join company about five hundred yards off on our port beam, an’ pull away for their own vessel. Then I guess the three Mates an’ me just shook hands mighty hard.

  The we went round the decks; and a sad business it was, for there was two of the Stokers and one A.B. shot as dead as ever men need be; and four of the others was shot in the arms an’ shoulders; but not to kill.

  I had grog served out all round. Then we put the dead men over the side at once; for I can’t abide dead men in a ship. No more can any sailorman as I knows.

  An’ after that I turned to an’ doctored the four men an’ the three Mates, for the three Mates ’ud all got nicked, but not one of them, by the wonder of Providence, more than a bad graze. And, after that, the Mate and the Second fixed me up, and we went up again on deck, where we had a bit of a talk, and I showed them that we’d got to get the steam pipe repaired and steam up an away without waste of time; for them devils had been given a kind of broth that would make ’em want our blood pretty bad; and the chances were they’d wait till daylight, an’ then come in on us, and finish us, maybe with explosives, or maybe they’d some kind of a gun aboard big enough to blow a hole in our side that would let half the Pacific Ocean in on us in a hurry.

  This talk made the three Mates stop their little crowing over what they’d reckoned was just a right, tight little victory. They began to understand that, maybe, there was a lot more of a worse kind of trouble coming to us.

  I didn’t stop long to talk; but I left the Mates to fix the same kind of watch all round the decks as before and to fetch me the moment they saw anything rummy. Then I went down again into the engine room with the two men I’d last been working with and the two I’d had earlier, trying to fit the copper plate round the elbow of the steam pipe.

  I set two of them to their old job of sawing the cover pipe lengthwise, and the two others I sent down into the fore hold, to pass up about two hundredweight of sheet lead from among the plumbing stuff that we was carryin’ cargo.

  I told ’em, to tell the cook, on their way, to get the galley fire in as smart as he could, and to make a devil of a good fire, too. As soon as they’d got the lead cut off one of the big rolls, they was to take it along to the galley an’ shove it in two or three of the Doctor’s iron saucepans, an’ tell him to get it melted as quick as he liked.

  “When you done that,” I said, “an’ while the stuff’s meltin’, pass me up one of them middle-gauge coils of wire out of the cargo, an’ bring it down here, an’ your marline spikes; an’ look smart, lads, so we can get this darn pipe gadget fixed, an’ get off before them devils has another go at us.”

  VI

  My two lads at the hacksaw got through the elbow pipe just after the other two had come down with the wire and their spikes, after shoving the lead on the galley stove to melt.

  An’ this is the way I shaped to fix up that blessed steam pipe, an’ I don’t reckon there was ever a main steam pipe in this world as was fixed like that one.

  Before I fitted the two halves of the cover pipe onto the steam pipe itself, I cut a good, deep notch with a file in the edges, so as to make a hole through for the lead to be poured in, to fill the space that there was between the steam pipe and the cover pipe; for they wasn’t by no manner of means anything of a steam-tight fit.

  When I’d done this, I fitted the two halves of the cover pipe together round the steam pipe—at least, that’s what I made my men do, and the same with all the other handwork, as you’ll understand; for I was putting in the headwork.

  When I’d fitted the two halves round the pipe, I set the two men to lash them together with the wire, and to heave the wire taut an’ solid with their spikes. When this was done, I’d got what you ought call a metal sleeve fitting loosely round the steam pipe.

  The next thing I did was to make the men pack the two ends of the sleeve with oakum, an’, while two of ’em was doing this, I sent the others to see how the lead was getting along in the galley. By this time it was coming down, and I stepped up on deck to have a word with my officers and to take a look round.

  “We think that’s her, Sir,” said the First Mate; “only you can’t make sure of nothing with the thin mist there is on the sea.”

  I had a good look through my night-glasses; for, though the dawn was coming, it was still middlin’ dark. I could see somethin’ off the beam that looked like the dull loom of a ship’s hull an’ spars.

  While I was watchin’ it, the men came up to report as the lead wasn’t melted yet, an’ I sent ’em into the galley an’ told ’em to fetch it along the moment it was.

  It came broad daylight while the Mates an’ me stood watchin’. An’ I took a walk forrard, and had a look down the fore hatch, which was still open. There was a mint of pipes of all sizes, from two inches wide to a foot; an’ some of them had a pretty hefty lot of metal in them, so that I guessed they was meant to stand a bit of pressure. An’ it was while I stood there, lookin’ at ’em, that I got the first notion of an idea that I took no particular heed of then; though I thought more about it in a bit.

  But just then I heard one of the me
n at my back sing out, and, when I turned, there was the mist gone away, an’ yon ugly devil of a whale ship, with her boats out ahead of her, plain to see, being towed toward us, an’ I know then as there was ugly work coming, that we couldn’t have no hope to escape from.

  The three Mates came running forrard to me.

  “They’m busy at something on the poop, Sir,” said the Second Mate. “I’ve just had a-squint from the main rigging; but I can’t make nothin’ of it all.”

  “They’s stopped towin’,” said the First Mate. “Look at that there, Sir! They’m haulin’ her round broadside onto us. What do you make of that, now?”

  The whaler was something less, maybe, than half a mile away, an’ I got a sick feelin’ as I saw what they was doin’.

  “They’m goin’ to sink us,” I said, speaking low an’ quiet. “They’m goin’ to stay off there, where we can’t touch ’em, an they’m just goin’ to knock holes through us. They’ve some sort of a gun aft there, on the poop, an’ I guess they’re loadin’ her.”

  “My God!” said the Mate, and hauls out his revolver.

  “Put it away, Mister,” I said. “You can’t do nothin’ that way.”

  “I’d sooner man the boats, an’ go for ’em,” said the Third Mate. “If we’ve got to be wiped out. I guess there’ll be a bit of satisfaction in cutting some of them brutes up first.”

  “You’d never get within a hundred fathoms of her, my laddie,” I said. “They’me well fit out with rifles an’ there’d not be a live one of us in the boats once we got out on the sea to give ’em a fair chance at us.”

  “The lead’s melted, Sir,” said one of my men, coming up to me.

  I was watchin’ the whaler as he spoke, and spotting as there was no name on her as could be seen, and then, just as I realised what the man was tellin’ me, there was a bit of a red flash on the poop of the whaler. I saw it pretty plain, with the morning being grey.

  “They’re shooting at us,” the Third Mate was startin’ to say; but he never finished for there was a mighty big jet of water kicked up, about twenty fathom away on the beam, an’ then a crash against the ship’s side, and one of the big rolls of netting we’d stowed along the bulwarks was flung right out onto the main hatch, an’ one of the Stokers with it; an’ the two of them things lay there on the hatch, an’ the Stoker was just as quiet as the big roll of netting, for he’d been hit with a ball of iron as big as my fist. As for the roll of netting; it had a great dint in the side of it, where the iron chunk had caught it a clip, before it plunked into the Stoker.

  An’ then, while I still stood there, stiff a bit at what had happened’ there came the loud thud of a big gun rolling over the sea, heavy and solidlike.

  It was surprisin’ the time that bang took to come to us; just a red flash over yonder in the grey mornin’, an’ a dull, big thump of sound, and a round hole in our bulwarks, as big as the top of a jam pot an’ the big roll of wire on the hatch an’ the Stoker lyin’ as quiet as a baby beside it. Just dead before he knew anything had happened at all.

  By Gum! but I felt something begin to boil in me. I went over an’ looked at the Stoker an’ the dinge in the roll of wire then I walked back to the side again, never sayin’ nothing; nor did a man aboard say one word in that blessed moment, only they was all lookin’ at me to do something; an’, by Gum, but I meant doing something, too, when I got the thing that was come again into my mind properly sorted.

  “Look out!” shouted one of the men suddenly.

  We had all seen the flash, and we waited in a middlin’ sick, helpless sort of way.

  The shot hit the water again, this time about ten yards from the ship’s side, and kicked up a mighty great chunk of spray, that wet me where I stood. I heard the shot strike our hull before the spray reached me, and afterward I jumped up onto the rail and looked down. There was a hole punched in through our side, not two feet above the water line. All round where the shot had struck the plates was bent in, an’ I guessed from that as the shot hadn’t as much steam to it as the first one, or it’d have gone clean through, without no dentin’ of the plates to speak of.

  I took another look at the first hole that was through the bulwarks. This had been punched clean through, an’ it’d scarce dinged in the plate at all. By this difference I reckoned they wasn’t usin’ a reg’lar charge of powder, an’ that told me as they wasn’t usin’ ready-loaded cartridges; but just measurin’ out loose powder each time. An’ by the same reasonin’, an’ that they was usin’ just round iron balls, I reckoned they’d not got no modern cannon, but an old-fashioned piece, as would take time to load an’ fire; an’ they might take a dozen or maybe five dozen shots before they put a hole through us as would sink us.

  I stood a bit, thinkin’ all this out, an’ then I took a few steps fore an’ aft along the deck, to see my way clear; an’ no one speakin’ a word.

  Then one of the men sung out again as they’d fired, an’ this time there was no splash, but, the first thing we knew, there was a queer sort of zipp against our metal rail, an’ the Greaser was hit with a splinter of sharp iron a yard long that had been stripped off the iron rail by the shot.

  An’ I guess in that moment I saw how I could do the thing I’d been turnin’ over in my mind.

  “Handy-billy tackle to the fore hatch!” I roared out. “Aymes, lift the after hatch. Take a couple of men and pass out one of them cases of black powder.”

  I went down myself into the fore hold an’ got a hold of what I needed. I took two of them lengths of pipe that was plainly made of rolled metal an’ meant for pressure. It took me five minutes to find just what I wanted; for I was lookin’ for two lengths of pipe, with a screw plug in one end of ’em, meant for section ends, I guess I wanted one pipe to fit tight inside the other, so as to double their strength; an’ I found just the two of ’em as I was needing. The smaller of ’em had a bore of maybe two or two an’ a half inches, an’ had a hefty steel screw plug in one end. The bigger pipe just took the smaller one into it, fine an’ tight; but, after I’d got ’em on deck, an’ before I fitted the smaller one down into the big un, I poured about a quart of melted lead down into the plugged end of the bigger pipe, which was likewise a lot shorter than the thin one.

  Then I shoved the thinner pipe down, plug end first, slow an’ strong into the bigger pipe, until the butt of it was sweated down solid into the melted lead, an’ when they cooled I guess they was like one piece of mighty thick pipe with a narrow bore, an’ the length over all would be about two fathoms.

  With the lead being ready melted, an’ the pipes fittin’ into each other so wonderful well, we had the job done in less than five-an’-twenty minutes after I gave the word for the handy-billy.

  But them devils in the whaler had been at us all the time, an’ four shots more they’d fired with their big gun; but not a one of ’em that had done us any great harm, except that they’d punched two holes through the funnel an’ bu’sted the top off one of our port forrard bitts as clean as if it’d been cut.

  Every man aboard was on the jump, by this, to get the thing done; for they saw, by the shape of it, that I’d a notion to make some sort of a shootin’ thing, to get back a thump or two at them murderin’ swine to the whale-ship.

  I’d got half of the men at one of the hand winches, heavin’ up a lathe bed out of the fore hold, an’ while they was doin’ this, three of the other men was takin’ one-minute spells an’ workin’ hell-like-fury with a hand drill to make a touchhole near the butt end of the big pipe-gun gadget.

  “Take a man or two, Gilchrist,” I said to the Third Mate, “an’ rout out a bunch of them window-sash weights an’ shove two or three in the galley fire.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir!” he sung out under his breath; an’ was streakin’ for the fore hatch before the words was proper out of his, mouth, an’ two of the men after him.

  As he went, they loosed off again from the whaler, an’ the shot hit a iron chunk of the rail clean away, an’ the chunk hit th
e end of the sheep pen, an’ killed one of the sheep in a manner that would surprise you, but the shot itself stuck hard an’ fast, bedded in the place where it had knocked the iron chunk out of the rail.

  I swore a bit, an’ then I laughed, for there’s nothing like a cheerful grin or two when men is feelin’ they’m sure lost an’ dead an’ done for, if you can’t show ’em a way out.

  “There’ll be fresh meat for dinner today, lads.” I said. An’ they laughed, too; but it was the way you’ll see men laugh when they’m needing to hide how mortal bad they feel.

  There was a bit of rifle shootin’ from the whaler, off an’ on, when we shoved our heads into sight above the rail; but not one of us got touched. They was servin’ the big gun slower, an’ I guessed they was findin’ they’d want to tow in a little nearer, an’ maybe that might suit me very well, too.

  We got the touchhole bored just after they’d brought the lathe bed aft. An’ then they shoved the iron lathe bed on the hatch, an’ we lifted the gun, all together, an’ laid it along the bed of the lathe, and there we lashed it firm an’ solid.

  I’d got two irons from the stokehold for rammers, an’ a bag of oakum from the Bo’sun’s locker, for wads; an’ set them to load her.

  We put two pint pannakins of black powder into the gun for a test charge, as you might say, an’ rammed down a dry oakum wad on the top of it. Then I told the Third to damp another wad, an’ work it up good an’ hard; an’ jamb it down solid on top of the dry oakum.

  The Mate had been busy makin’ a oakum-n’-paraffin torch on the end of a long piece of wire, an’, after I’d primed the touch hole, he give it to me, with his own box of matches. An’ that was the last thing he ever did, for one of the odd rifle bullets took him, just as I was tryin’ to get a sight along the pipes at the whaler.

  Lord, how I burnt up that moment, inside of me; for I’d always liked the First Mate; but I never said anything, only just nodded to the men as was standing all sick an’ white round about, to heave the lathe bed up an inch, an’ then to cant her forrard a bit, an’ afterward to make fast the handy billy, for a kickin’ tackle, to one of the bulwark stanchions.