Waves pounded against the hull like the blows of fists. The one remaining candle stub, sure to die within the hour, cast a dim flicker over the sacks of grain, the crates of fine porcelains, the casks of whiskey. Laying as I was across some of those sacks, I pondered my situation.
I had lost my crew. It is not unusual for a seaman of my experience to be the lone survivor of such a torrid storm, but alas, it was a storm of a new and peculiar kind that leaves me here, alone in the hold of my ship. I cannot help but laugh.
Cornelius was gone. He had been gone a day now, so I reckoned. It was hard to tell; the skies have been so gloomy that there was little point guessing at the time.
Cornelius, oh Cornelius. My first mate, and a damn good one at that. The last man I had left. I admit I kept his body down here far too long. It was only once the rot set in that I could bring myself to throw him overboard.
A mighty shame, a twist of fate that no man could account for. I told him we had to lower the mainsail, and I was right, of course. If the sails were up, the gales would toss us about like fleas in a matchbox. They would certainly be torn from their mast.
I told him to do it and so he walked the stairs and climbed the hatch. Soon as he stood on the deck, the boom swung around and cracked his head open like a coconut. I don’t reckon he felt a thing.
His body fell so that his upper half was on the deck and his legs dangled down where I could see them. The water on deck washed the blood out from his skull so that, by the time I brought him down to the hold, I could see the grey-pink of his brain, splintered with fragments of skull.
I didn’t vomit; if you had seen what I had seen in these last few days, you’d rightly think less of any captain who couldn’t hold his stomach at such a quick and pleasant death. We had no way of knowing that the sails were already down, that the boom was swinging freely. If only we had known. Goodbye, Cornelius.
I wish I could say that Harding and Walter perished peacefully. Those men died a terrible death, more terrible than anything we tried to scare new boys with. No, those sea tales were cruel and terrible, but never so inhumane and ungodly as what I had seen. What Cornelius and I had seen. I wish my old friend was still here with me! How was I to know that the mainsail was not open to the winds? How was I to know?
The pounding again. It has to be the waves. For my own sake. It would be madness to believe that it was ought else; but then it would be madness to see what I had seen.
They’ll hang me when I make it to land. I am the captain and my crew are my charge. I am alive and my crew are dead.
I’ll tell the magistrates of what I have seen, but he will laugh at me. It will only further convince him of my guilt, for if anyone can kill his loyal crew mates, it must surely be a man who is insane of mind. That’s what they will say. A captain whose mind has succumbed to the perils of the seas.
Perhaps they are right. But then they do not know what I know of the seas. I have seen those perils with my very own eyes, sun blinded as they are. Those perils are not of the mind, though one cannot discount the ill effects such an encounter will have on a man’s inland vitality! No. They have not seen what I have seen, and so they will hang me.
I dream of landing on a far off shore, a yellow beach in exotic climes, with tall palms and bountiful fruit, clear waters and fertile soils. Ah, what a balm for the soul that would be, how it would rehabilitate me so! Alas, I know such thoughts are folly. This wretched vessel, tore of her clothes and left bare, is heading only for home. I am at the mercy of the Irish sea, and her currents have no want but to guide me home.
In many ways, I long for the sea to swallow the vessel, captain and all, and assert her dominion. Seeing what I have seen, I know it is no short honour to die a seaman’s death. You would agree that a drowning is far preferable to whatever sick fate Harding and Walter befell.
Somehow, I know it is not meant to be. She will deliver me home. A warning to those who will listen; not to the magistrates nor the land folk, no, but to the seamen who are of such a mind to heed my story.
The flame is shrinking now. A barely discernible glow on the other side of the hold. The long oak timbers of the hull have been softened by a century of sea, and are now cold and moist to the touch. Other than the faint lingering scent of Cornelius’ remains, there is the thick odour of rotten grain; the spillage from previous voyages that my men failed to clean up.
How do I know that the sea is asserting her will over me? I will tell you. The vessel should have sunk long ago. Water should have poured in from the hatches. The hull should have split like an eggshell. No boat can withstand this storm, not without repairs and bailing. She wants to deliver me.
The pounding grows more frequent. The boom resonates around the hold. She is knocking at the door, reassuring me of her presence.
It all came at once.
The storm came quickly, heralded only by an hour or so of clouds granite grey, so heavy that they threatened to fall out of the sky. Within the day, I began losing my crew. I don’t know where they went. Did they abandon me? Perhaps.
The whispers also began on the same day. The seas herself, she began whispering to me. Sometimes she whispered on the wind. Other times, the waves carried hisses. She told me how to guide the ship to safety.
I made the call to the crew. They must lower the sails imminently; else the storm will do away with us. They were unsure, but they trusted in my experience. We must wait until the storm settles, I told them.
That very night, I had a visitor in my chambers. Young James, not quite sixteen. His second voyage, a boy brought on board to scrub the decks. How dare he invade my evening rest! What hubris!
The boy had the gall to question my wisdom. He claimed we were taking the wrong heading, that the currents were pulling us further into the storm. He made a case for the sails being raised and our course being changed.
I told him I know the sea. I told him that the sea talks to me. She tells me where we are to go and what we are to do. She protects me.
He accused me of lunacy, but I saw it was him that was the lunatic, that he was a mutineer. I had no choice before he poisoned the minds of my good men.
I know not of what happened to young James, only that he was never again seen after that night. Perhaps the storm got to him. I am confident that I bear no responsibility; if it were to arise that he died by my hand, I would rest easy knowing that it was the sea’s doing, that she guided my hand. She protects me.
In any case, I found it was too late; Bill had been poisoned. He, too held the disease within his head. I do not know what I would’ve done with him if the sea hadn’t taken him from me. He spoke to me so that no one else could hear; whispers so faint that they travelled directly to my ear, bypassing the ears of everyone else present. When I questioned him, my crew claimed nobody had spoken. I know not how he did it.
It was his eyes that confirmed he was beyond redemption. He began looking at me when his back was turned, when his eyes could not possibly have met mine. I knew he was watching me, even if he could not humanly do such a thing. Demonic! Abilities that God himself would surely never permit! Bill was a madman, captured by the young lad’s illness of the mind. A shame, for he was a fine man. Idle, but nonetheless, an able rope man.
When he fell overboard, I knew it was the sea claiming him, taking the problem from my hands. She has designs for me, and she would not allow Bill to stand in the way. The sea, she protects me.
When the other men began turning on me, I saw that the diseased thoughts had become widespread. Then the beast came. My men were no longer my men, they had been transformed into something else entirely. Something not of this world; neither of the sea nor the land.
First it was Wemys. He came to my quarters at night. His eyes were not eyes, but pearls. They lolled in their sockets, seeing without pupils. He wore no weapon, and so I must conclude that his transformed being was itself the tool by which he could enact his murderous intentions. Most horrifying of all, his flesh was flayed, and it billowed around him as though it were a loose coat in the wind. His musculature writhed around his bones like slipknots around posts. He walked in the usual manner, as if he were a complete man. He spoke, or at least I saw his mouth and the tongue within it move as a man’s might when he speaks, yet I could not make sense of his utterances. Nonsensical words, the words of a madman. Or, the words of a demon trying to appear as man!
Only the skin of his face was untouched, and by that I knew it was Wemys. A demon had possessed him. It was the only explanation. The sea, she told me he was not of my kind.
I picked up the rope splice from my desk. The very splice my father had given me, the same splice my grandfather had given him.
Wemys, or the demon beast that had stolen his form, approached me slowly. I screamed, harmonised the wind’s howls, and drove the splice through his head. The quick cleaving of his skull, then the sensation one might feel sticking a knife in a fatty cut of pork.
He slumped to the ground without delay. I did not want to do it. I had to do it.
She comforted me. She told me that Wemys had long since ceased to be, that the deceased horror before me was not him, but a demon. She guided my hand; she protected me.
I braved the hazardous conditions on deck and, by the light of the moon, laid Wemys’ stolen body to rest in the waves. He deserved a proper funeral, but I could not allow my men to see what had become of him. Their fortitudes are not sufficiently tempered to bear such miseries.
Alas, Wemys was not the last. The murderous beast men came to me like a procession. I dispatched of them as I had to. Three able men taken by a demon of the seas. Their skin flayed, their minds in demonic mutiny.
In those moments of despatch, my hands were moved by a power beyond my own. Even if I protested, even if I wanted to allow these men to best me, the sea had her designs. She would have protected me, even if I would rather my men remain living. I am not proud of my defence, but then I know, too, that I am not responsible for it.
Only good Cornelius remained. He had taken shelter in the hold. The door to the hold had been nailed shut but, with no small effort, I broke through. I had to find my first mate. I had to tell him the ship was safe now.
I found him in the corner, hiding himself away behind two large crates bearing vases from the Orient. There he was, trembling, crying. I have never seen such fear in a man’s eyes. He flinched away from my touch. It is I, I said, your captain. Fear not, Cornelius, the demon has not taken me. There is no more danger. You are safe now, good Cornelius. I’m sure of it. He was in shock. I believe any man would be if he too had survived an onslaught of still-living flayed men. I could not bring myself to tell him it was I who put them out of their misery; I seek neither honour nor admiration. It was enough for him to know that the danger was no more.
I could not allow him to leave the hold. Who knew what remnants of the disease lie above? My crew is my charge; I cannot permit a man to put himself in danger, and certainly not my first mate! What captain would put his crew at risk? Not an honourable one such as I.
And so we waited. We rested and allowed the storm and the currents to carry our tired old vessel homeward. Though we had been down here a day or more, I did not see Cornelius sleep, not for a single moment. He would, at times, check to see if I was asleep. I didn’t sleep; I only listened, listened to the sea’s whispers, to the stories she told me of my ancestors and their fates.
His eyes often met the rope splice in my hand. My fingers had hardened around it like a claw. I sense he revered it, for he knew it was the tool by which I would guarantee our protection.
Then it struck me; the sails! We could not leave the main sails up! The storm winds would surely pull them free. What use is a ship without sails?
He protested. He argued that the sails had already been brought down, that I had given the very order! Were these the first signs that he too had fallen to the thought disease?
I spoke to him calmly, patiently. I confessed to him that the sea had been speaking to me. The sea whispered to me; she had told me we will be delivered safe. And now she tells me the sails must be lowered. It would be foolish, nay, dangerous to disregard her warnings.
His face dropped. It dawned on him. His eyes widened and he swallowed hard, swallowed his doubts. Perhaps it was a sudden acceptance that I was right after all, that I saw everything clearly. The sails had to be lowered, else the storm will take them.
When he headed for those steps, he wore a grave countenance. Perhaps a delayed mourning for our departed crew. Perhaps guilt for his doubting his captain. Or, perhaps he held a deep regret; for I began to suspect it may have been him who was maddest of all, that he was behind the darkness that had consumed my vessel.
His head disappeared out of sight and I heard a mighty crack, like the sound of a mighty tree branch snapping in two. A damn shame.
And now he is gone. Farewell, good Cornelius. It seems the madness had long ago taken root anyway, and so it is some small comfort that his passing was instantaneous. It would have been difficult to deliver him with my rope splice, if it had come to that.
I lie in darkness, alone. I can only wait for the winds and the currents to take me home. Is that not how all sailors spend their days at sea?
Alone. I am alone, because my crew abandoned me. Where did they go?
Still, the waves pound against my vessel; could it be her heartbeat?
She whispers to me. She tells me her truths and I cannot help but laugh, for she has her designs for me. She protects me.
She protects me.
She protects me.