Tales of Terror from the Black Ship

by Chris Priestley

  ‘You never did explain how you came to be here,’ I said. ‘And on a night such as this. You say you used to live hereabouts. I know of no Thackerays in the village.’

  The stern and suspicious tone of my voice seemed to amuse Thackeray and he chuckled to himself. But he made no reply all the same.

  ‘Do you have family nearby?’ I persisted.

  ‘None that’s living,’ he said.

  ‘Then why –’

  ‘Is it the one whom you loved you’ve come to see?’ asked my sister.

  ‘Cathy,’ I said. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Thackeray smiled, but I saw a tear twinkle in his eye.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She’s gone too, rest her soul. But it is true that the memory of her drew me here.’

  The storm seemed to have abated somewhat while Thackeray had been telling his tale, but it returned now in force. The crashing of the sea against the cliffs sounded so close as to be waves crashing against the hull of a ship.

  Indeed, with the raging sea all about us and the roaring gale whining round the eaves, it did feel as though we were in the cabin of some storm-tossed brig instead of on dry land. It was an illusion that seemed to please Thackeray. He recovered his good spirits and leaned forward with a wink.

  ‘As the storm has not yet had its fill of us, shall I tell you another tale?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ said Cathy.

  ‘Ethan?’ he asked, looking at me.

  ‘If it will keep my sister entertained,’ I said with a shrug, ‘then let us hear another. My father may return at any moment and interrupt it –’

  At that moment, a cat leapt on to the sill of a nearby window and Cathy and I both flinched, much to Thackeray’s amusement. It was the enormous brindled tomcat that was a frequent visitor to the kitchen door of the inn.

  ‘Quite a beast,’ said Thackeray. ‘Does he belong to you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He is a feral cat. Father tolerates him because he says he keeps the vermin down from around the house. He is never allowed inside, but in any case he would not enter. He is wary.’

  ‘Wary?’ said Thackeray with a raise of an eyebrow. ‘Of what?’

  Cathy and I exchanged glances.

  ‘Our father has, on occasion, become . . . annoyed with the cat,’ I said.

  ‘Your father is a bad-tempered man, then?’ said Thackeray.

  ‘He tried to kill him once,’ said Cathy. ‘More than once. He never normally comes so close, does he, Ethan?’

  ‘Cathy,’ I hissed. ‘Mr Thackeray does not want to know all our business.’ I actually had rather the opposite impression.

  ‘No matter,’ said Thackeray with a wave of his hand. ‘I was to tell you another tale. Now let me see. Oh yes. I think I have one that may interest you. And it concerns a cat. Would you like to hear it? I am afraid it also involves a murder, Miss Cathy. I assume you have no problem with that?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Cathy eagerly.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Thackeray. ‘Then let us begin . . .’

  g

  Pitch

  Billy Harper had a tattoo of a death’s head on the back of his left hand – a grinning skull etched into his leathery skin. It was the hand he used for killing, or so he said, and, true or not, it put the fear of the devil in the hearts of the youngest of the Lion’s crew and most gave him a wide berth.

  Harper did not appear especially formidable; he was no more than sixteen years of age and not particularly tall or thickset, or in any way the sort of figure you might mark out as fearsome from a distance. But he had soul-piercing wolf’s eyes and a gaze that few could hold, and men twice his age kept a cautious distance. Some people give off a scent of danger that the wise know and avoid and that the foolish are drawn to; so it was with Billy Harper.

  Already at this young age he was a drinker and prone to unpredictable moods, as changeable as the Bay of Biscay, with storms to match. One moment he would be laughing and joking, and the next he would lash out at any poor lad whose misfortune it was to be near at hand.

  What little gentleness he possessed seemed reserved for Pitch, the coal-black ship’s cat. It was strange to see a youth such as he, one so full of anger and darkness, with that cat on his lap, stroking his fur and feeding him scraps of his own food. The cat, for his part, was just as devoted to Harper and would follow him about as he worked, purring and mewing all the while.

  The only human aboard the ship that Harper seemed to have any affection for at all was a young lad called Tom Webster, though Tom never understood why, for he was as wary of Harper as the next man – maybe the more so for his paying him so much attention. Tom felt as if he were forever sitting on a keg of powder, knowing that at some point it must explode.

  And though Tom had done nothing to win Harper’s affection, still he was hated for it by his fellows, who shunned him and behaved towards him as if it were Tom himself who treated them so ill, and not Harper.

  Tom was as sullen and offhand as he dared be, yet Harper would nevertheless greet him with a grin and a slap on the back, and all about him Tom could sense the cold stares of the crew: Harper was a curse put upon him for a crime he had no knowledge of committing.

  Tom feared and resented Harper from the beginning, but these feelings grew over time, distorted and amplified by some growing malady of his mind, until finally Tom hated Harper with a loathing so intense it felt separate from him: almost a living thing in its own right. The violence of his feelings towards Harper were completely out of proportion to the youth’s actions and were all the more sinister for being concealed to those around him. He hated Harper and he despised his fellows. He was better than all of them.

  That said, Tom had never planned to do it – or so, at least, he told himself afterwards. He was sure that he was not a bad person; leastwise not until that moment. He believed that things just happened to set themselves out that way. Fate lined up the skittles and he had no choice but to knock them down.

  After all, had young Tom Webster not been on watch that moonless night, had Harper not stumbled past him, drunk, and leaned over the gunwales – well, then Tom might never have grabbed those legs of his and tipped him over. It was fate, pure and simple. Or so he told himself.

  As Harper tumbled overboard, he shot out a hand – that tattooed hand – to grab the rail. Tom stepped back, not knowing whether to help him or not. Some pang of guilt did prick his conscience, but not enough to send him forward. He just stared at that hand and at the death’s-head tattoo, twitching and grinning as the tendons flexed and strained.

  Then Tom saw that Harper’s grip was improving. He could hear him groaning with the effort of hauling himself up. He could hear Harper’s feet scrabbling to gain purchase, and now he saw his other hand reaching up to grasp the rail.

  That small part of Tom – the wholly good, sane part of him – felt glad of it. But by far the greater part began to imagine what Harper would do to him when he was back on deck. In panic Tom looked about him, and the very first thing that his eyes laid sight on was a heavy hatchet left by the carpenter, embedded in a block of wood nearby.

  Without thinking further, Tom ran to where it was and yanked it free. Four or five steps took him back to Harper, whose face had now started to rise above the rail, his expression one of confusion and fury and fear all mixed up together. Tom lifted the hatchet over his head and struck.

  Harper had seen the attack coming. His eyes had bulged wide and his mouth opened to cry out, but the sickening blow from the hatchet severed his hand at the wrist and he instantly lost his grip and fell, hitting the water, all sound sucked under like the man himself.

  Tom watched for a sign of him among the waves and if he had seen one, he might even have raised the cry of ‘Man overboard!’ – but the sea had swallowed Harper up greedily. It was as if he had ne
ver existed, and though Tom felt a strange feeling in his gut, he could not truthfully have called it guilt or shame; relief was more like it.

  The severed hand lay on the deck like some hideous crab, the death’s head staring upward. Gagging with revulsion, Tom eased his foot under the thing and flicked it towards one of the nearby drainage holes that pierced the bulwarks, and then he kicked it overboard.

  Tom was suddenly horribly aware of being watched and turned slowly to look, fearing that someone had observed his crime. At first he saw nothing at all but the beshadowed ship, then slight movement near the mainmast revealed the source of his uneasiness – Pitch, the ship’s cat.

  Tom smiled when he saw him. Despite the fact he had never liked the creature – he was associated with Harper in his mind, and was so black as to seem more shadow than flesh and blood – he was so relieved that it was this dumb animal and not a crew member that he could have kissed the cat there and then.

  g

  g

  Pitch strolled slowly out into the lamplight and sat looking at him with an expression that seemed to accuse, silently and malevolently.

  Had he seen what Tom had done? Had he understood? Tom knew that he should not have concerned himself with such matters, for the cat could hardly peach on him, but there was something about that creature’s cold stare that filled him with anger.

  Tom moved to chase him away, but before he had taken a step, the cat bolted through his legs and disappeared out of sight into the surrounding darkness. Tom cursed him under his breath, but he had more pressing concerns.

  He quickly cleaned the blood from the rail with water from a nearby pail and threw the hatchet into the sea. Then, with a calmness that surprised him, Tom carried on with his watch as if nothing had happened, and when it came time to be relieved, he took to his bunk and slept easily. Just as the ever-changing sea had closed over Harper, so too had Tom’s thoughts; he paid him no mind at all.

  The following day the crew were called to attention and told that a man was missing, and that the man was Harper. Tom naturally feigned surprise and joined in with the mutterings and so forth until he realised that Captain Fairlight was standing at his side.

  ‘You were on watch last night, Webster,’ said the captain. ‘Did you see anything?’

  ‘I did not,’ said Tom, all serious and grave and shaking his head. ‘Well – that is . . .’ he began, with mock confusion.

  ‘Come now, lad,’ said the captain. ‘Let’s hear it, if there’s anything to hear.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Tom, ‘I did see Harper at one point. But I don’t think I should say . . .’

  ‘Say what, lad?’

  Tom took a deep breath and studied his feet for nearly a minute before replying.

  ‘He was drunk, sir,’ he said, staring at the deck all in sham reluctance. ‘And he was still drinking. I told him he ought not to be there but he bade me go to hell, sir, and made to strike me, so I was too afeared to stop him, sir.’

  Tom was so taken with his story that he surprised himself when tears sprang to his eyes.

  ‘I know he was not a popular man, sir, but I wish to God now I had been braver so as I could have been some help to the poor wretch. If I had spoken up, then he might still be here, sir.’

  Tom flinched as the captain clapped a hand on his shoulder. He feared he had gone too far and given himself away. But the captain was smiling.

  ‘No blame can be laid at your door,’ he said. ‘Not wanting to speak ill of the dead, but Harper was a devil for the grog and, though I like a drop of rum as well as the next man, the sea ain’t the place for drunkards.’

  There was much nodding and muttering at this, for every man aboard knew it to be true. It was all too easy to imagine Harper had simply fallen overboard in a drunken stupor. Tom could picture it perfectly himself, even though he knew otherwise.

  The captain spoke a few words from the Good Book and the crew said their amens. In no time at all they were on with the business of sailing and Harper was lost in their wake. It may seem harsh to those who do not know the sea, but a sailor accepts these things and moves on.

  In the days that followed, Tom was surprised to find that some of the crew who had most scorned him for his supposed friendship with Harper now gave him a sympathetic nod and smile and included him in their talk. All the old animosity was gone in an instant. The curse of Harper had been lifted.

  The world seemed so much brighter, so much better for Harper not being in it that Tom found it hard to believe that his actions could have been wrong. If anything, his death felt like a blessing. In fact it would have been true to say that Tom’s thoughts would have been entirely untroubled had it not been for the cat, Pitch.

  Tom could no longer, in any degree, bear the company of that creature Harper had held so dear. He had never wasted any affection on the animal and felt the dislike to be mutual, but the cursed feline now seemed to strike a pose whenever he saw Tom, pausing in his cattish activities to look at him in such a way that made the boy feel the cat was judging him.

  And how could a cat – a cat! – stand in judgement of him, an animal that killed without thought or conscience? Why, Tom had seen that flea-bitten creature kill a thousand times with no more motive than boredom or amusement, torturing some mouse for half an hour before absent-mindedly leaving its headless, uneaten corpse as litter on the deck. How dare this murderous devil judge him? Just because he reserved some special affection for that bully Harper!

  It was offensive, and in spite of the fact that none of the crew could possibly know why the cat stared at him so, Tom still vowed that he would not tolerate it. When the opportunity arose, Pitch would join his friend Harper at the bottom of the sea.

  The cat seemed to register this change in Tom and, though Tom would still turn to find the animal staring at him from some vantage point or other, as soon as he made the slightest move towards him, the cat would speed away as if the Devil himself was at his tail. Tom had even found the beast peering out of the drain hole through which he had kicked Harper’s severed hand. He had come close to doing the same to the wretched cat, but Pitch was too quick for him again.

  Tom determined to bide his time. Eventually the cat would let down his guard and Tom would come across him napping on a coil of rope, as he was often wont to do, and then he would see to the animal once and for all. Once. And. For. All.

  g

  Later that same week Tom was on deck, lost in these thoughts of how he would do for the cat, when he noticed that the captain and two of the crew were in a huddle near the rail where he had sent Harper to his watery death.

  The fear that he was about to be found out hit Tom with such violence that he could barely breathe in that instant and his throat felt as if Harper’s ghost had risen up from the deep and gripped him round the neck.

  With all his remaining strength Tom approached the captain and the others, sidling towards them so as not to arouse their suspicions. He was disturbed to see that one of the crew was pointing to a nick in the rail, and heard the other say that there was a hatchet missing that had been nearby and this looked for all the world like it had struck the rail.

  ‘And is that blood there?’ asked the captain, pointing to the decking under the rail.

  ‘Aye, sir. Blood, sir,’ said the sailor, crouching down and peering at it.

  ‘There’s been some evil afoot,’ said the captain slowly. ‘Say naught for now, mind you, but keep your eyes and ears open.’

  Tom cursed himself for a fool. He had cleaned the blood from the rail but had not thought to look at the deck. In any case, it being so dark, he had seen nothing.

  But then, of course, he had been distracted by that damn animal too. Had it not been for the cat, he should have thought more clearly. Curse that creature! But it was too soon to panic.

  What did they know? Tom th
ought to himself. They knew nothing. So a hatchet had gone missing and there might be blood on the deck. Harper could have done all that himself. Who knew what a drunk might do? He might have hurt himself and taken the hatchet with him when he fell or jumped. Anything was possible.

  And even if they could say it was murder, which they could not – not with any certainty – then they manifestly could not say who the murderer was, not with any kind of hanging-proof.

  Harper had had more enemies than Judas, as every man aboard knew, and had barely been missed since his disappearance, let alone mourned. In fact the whole ship knew that Tom alone received kind words from Harper. Tom was the least likely of all to kill him, or so it must seem.

  There was no reason to suspect him of anything. It mattered not one jot that the cat seemed fascinated by the scene of the crime – he was not about to speak to anyone. Just the day before, Tom had seen him scrabbling over the side of the ship at that spot and clambering about on the rigging below, where the ropes were fixed to the hull. If only the hated beast had fallen overboard! But the stinking flea-bag could stare at Tom as much as he liked – that meant nothing. Nothing!

  As if on cue, Tom turned to see Pitch sitting looking at him with his smug and knowing expression, and Tom lashed out with the mop, almost, but not quite, hitting him.

  ‘What have you got against the cat?’ said Captain Fairlight, suddenly appearing at his side.

  ‘Against the cat, sir?’ said Tom a little nervously. ‘Nothing, sir. Why would I?’

  The captain grinned and clapped a hand on Tom’s back.

  ‘Easy, son,’ he said. ‘I have no love for that animal either, but he keeps check on the vermin, so he has his uses, eh?’

  The captain wandered away. How dull-witted, how simple-minded he was, thought Tom. He shook his head and gave a little chuckle, noticing that he must have chuckled louder than intended, for some sailors nearby turned and stared at him. But Tom paid them no heed. They were all fools too.

  g

  Days passed and Tom’s mood lightened. The hated Pitch seemed to have disappeared. Tom hoped that some fatal misfortune had overtaken the beast, but would have preferred to see the creature’s corpse lying at his feet to know for sure.