The Golden Age of Weird Fiction MEGAPACK™ Vol 2: George T. Wetzel

by George T. Wetzel

  Soon Cromwell waxed tiresomely upon some mediocre matters so that Helmuth bade him good night.

  * * * *

  The old fish house containing his barracks was padlocked about ten o’clock every night from the outside; which meant escape in that direction was not possible; he could not reach the outside lock to pick it with the few minute burglar tools he carried secreted inside his belt buckle.

  When Cromwell spoke of former holes in the buildings through which refuse shells were dumped, Helmuth decided to look for the one where he was quartered. He found it half nailed up by an unconscientious workman. It required but little effort over several days to secretly extract the nails except for one which he left to retain the wooden cover in place. Escape only waited for the proper moment.

  CHAPTER 4.

  Pawn’s Gambit

  Occasionally some of the seamen would take a dip, clothes and all, before breakfast in the shallow waters on the north side of Shell Castle. Helmuth, Brannigan and Carrick were removing their shoes before plunging in. Helmuth stopped, his brows knitted in concentration. Brannigan looked at him questioningly.

  “I’ve got it,” Helmuth exclaimed. “Now I remember where I know Captain Thatcher from—back during the war. It explains other things…”

  Brannigan finished taking off his shoes, then looked at Helmuth expectantly. Carrick had already jumped in the water.

  “Would you like to hear it?” Helmuth asked his companion who nodded assent. “Well, it was in 1864. I and two other Confederate officers (Keily and Breckinridge) escaped from the prisoner of war camp at Point Lookout in southern Maryland—don’t ask me how—that’s another completely different story. And don’t ask me to explain how we came by the man-of-war’s gig we had when off the Carolinas.

  “We were debating that day whether to chance crossing Sherman’s lines to join Johnson’s retreating army or to return to our individual homes. We had a little water and almost no food when a brig drifted slowly down on us. Getting out our sweeps, we pulled for her. As we neared, her captain hailed us and ordered us off.

  “’Can’t you spare some food and water? We’re shipwrecked men,’” I begged him.

  “As we rounded his stern, we could see he had mustered his entire ship’s company at the rail. The two mates held muskets, the crew clutched marlin spikes, even the cook carried a weapon—a cleaver. The captain held a revolver in his hand.

  ‘”Keep off, I told you,’ he warned us again, ‘or I’ll let fly. Boys, make ready.’

  “One of the mates drew a bead on me. Our eyes met in a line over the sights of his barrel. I pulled our rudder around and we made away.

  “We were puzzling over the inhumanity of the captain, whose brig was still in sight, when Keily excitedly pointed to the southwest and a thin ribbon of beach. Grasping my glasses I made out a ruinous old building of the type called a fish house—similar to these here—a place where ships come into to load up with barrels of fish packed in brine. A few humans either lounged or slouched about.

  “‘Maybe we can get provisions there?’ said Keily.

  “Discussion was unnecessary. We made course for the place. Several negroes, and some I took to be Cubans, looked up sleepily as we docked.

  “’Cut-throats,’ whispered Keily.

  “’We better have a bluff if they are,’ I suggested.

  “’We’ll say we’re wreckers,’ said Keily, ‘and have come in to buy provisions and water.’

  “We both stuck revolvers prominently in our belts before we stepped on the wharf. Breckinridge stayed aboard to guard our rear. The most villainous looking of the lot asked us in broken English what we wanted.

  ‘”Provisions and water,’ said Keily, and added we would pay.

  “The man motioned us to follow him inside the fish house. Here another man wearing a wide plantation hat and a dirty white tropical suit invited us to sit. Other than a rusty scabbard and sword on the table before him, there was nothing to justify his claiming to be a Major Valdez—of what army or nationality he didn’t bother to explain. His accent was Latin.

  “His interminable bickering about the price with Keily finally aroused our suspicions that he was attempting to delay our leaving for some reason. So that Keily slapped a twenty dollar gold piece down and with an air of finality stated, ‘Take it or leave it,’ at the same time he tossed a smoked ham to me and he himself hoisted a small keg of wine. We went out.

  “Breckinridge pointed behind us where we saw the man had built a huge bonfire that sent a thick pillar of black smoke high in the air.

  ‘”A signal fire!’ shouted Keily. ‘They’re signaling someone. Let’s get outa here fast!’

  “The breeze was only moderate so that we had made little headway when, after an hour, we spied a schooner of thirty tons standing down toward us. We guessed it was what those cutthroats had made the signal fire to.

  “We put out our sweeps—the schooner had more canvas and was overhauling us fast. We were in a bay of barrier beaches. Shoals extended lengthwise there, with narrow deep channels between them like the furrows in a plowed field, with occasional openings from one channel to another. Some shoals were just awash, others bare. We steered into this maze.

  “Through my glasses I saw the captain and crew of the schooner all grinning grotesquely—and something else! One man wore a Union forage cap, another a Confederate grey coat, and so on.

  “’Why they’re deserters—from both sides!’ I warned my friends.

  “The schooner got to within a half mile of us when their captain picked up a speaking trumpet.

  ‘”Heave to. We want to talk,’ he said.

  “’Damn pirate,’ Keily yelled at him.

  “The captain laughed.

  “’We’re only small fry—why bother us?” Keily asked.

  “’In my net all fish are welcomed,’ the captain came back, with that awful leering grin of his that gave me goose-bumps.

  “Then they opened fire on us with small arms and a boat gun. Minie balls struck our hull. A cannon shot thudded into the water short of us. We all ducked down.

  “During a lull—when they reloaded—I threw things overboard to lighten our draft… Then followed them with myself, to relieve the gig of my weight, and commenced pushing against the stern to get our keel off the half-awash shoal it had snagged on. My friends needed no explanation—the entire idea was obvious—and they too slipped overboard and helped.

  “We got across and back into deeper water where the wind caught our sail. The schooner in pursuing us grounded on the same shoal where she had to sit until the tide turned.

  “We now understood the strange actions of the brig captain. He no doubt had had some experience or heard something of deserters turned pirates infesting these waters and thought we were part of the same breed… But the grinning captain of that pirate schooner—I’m certain of it—was none other than our Captain Thatcher!”

  Brannigan sat in silence.

  Helmuth walked into the water. He was in waist-high when he felt a sudden, dull ache in the toes of his right foot. Immediately he waded several feet shoreward and spoke to Brannigan, “I think a nettle stung me.”

  For reply, Brannigan pointed a few feet beyond, behind Helmuth, and exclaimed, “What’s that?”

  Looking around, Helmuth saw lazily drifting just at the surface a large, blackish shadow of four feet in length—from which something like a fin protruded above the water.

  “Get out!” Helmuth cried to Carrick, thrashing through the water himself.

  Brannigan met them and all three watched the strange object, still just below the surface, swim leisurely away.

  “Sharks are bottom-feeders—which is where your toes were,” Carrick knelt down and studied the puncture marks on Helmuth’s toes. “He bit, swam on, smelled the tiny drop of blood, and came back; but you had moved… The ship
chandlery has a first aid kit.”

  * * * *

  “Trouble?” The chandler saw Helmuth limping.

  “Shark bite.” Helmuth sat on a keg.

  The chandler looked at the toes, poured some iodine over the punctures. “Probably a mackerel.” He had a look of tolerant amusement. “No sharks here in a long time.”

  “Garbage attracts them if it’s dumped overboard near the coast,” Carrick said irritably, and Helmuth recalled the Rook’s cook throwing some into the sea a week or so earlier.

  “I could bleed the wounds, if you like,” the chandler said gleefully.

  “No thanks.” Helmuth got up and limped stiffly outside. On the boardwalk Carrick examined the wounds a second time.

  “When I was beachcombing in the South Pacific a couple years ago I saw sharks always swam in close to the beach if we had a long dry spell—and we’ve had one here.” He sucked on an empty pipe. “Shark’s teeth are crooked—so’s those bite marks.”

  Helmuth had not understood why Thatcher showed no particular concern about any impressed seaman escaping by swimming, and now thought prowling sharks were the answer.

  * * * *

  At dusk the side-wheel steamer, towing the Monitor, headed seaward, trailed by the Rook. Thatcher would be gone for at least twelve hours—the time it took for the next high tide to make the inlet navigable. This was the opportunity the detective had waited for to crack the pirate’s safe for whatever evidence was there, perhaps even the secret purpose for salvaging the Monitor.

  Going back to the fish house that served as barracks, he waited for the time of lights out, the nightly head count of the crew by the second mate and the subsequent padlocking of the only door. Grabbing the binoculars he had borrowed from Carrick, he stepped carefully past the sleeping men till he reached the old trap door. Prying it up, he dropped through and below with a hard crunch upon the shell cluttered ground. Then stealthily he climbed the ladder near the now empty dry dock to the boardwalk. No officer appeared to be then on watch, so he got to the front of Thatcher’s quarters unchallenged.

  Opening the lock with his burglar tools was simple. Solving the safe’s combination by listening to the fall of the tumblers was also effortless. Within were stacks of greenbacks, and miscellany such as account books, bills of lading, and the island’s deed; and amidst them was a single sheet of folded paper written in ink with the cryptic title of “Monitor Project.” He read the following:

  STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES: demand ransom of a coastal city under threat of naval shelling (ransom to be taken from city banks).

  TACTICAL MEASURES: A. Terrorism—1st, position ironclads in harbor where their guns can be seen threatening the city. 2nd, consider arson of any anchored merchantmen as both proof of intentions and to create confusion. B. Interdiction—1st, isolate city by blowing up railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires. 2nd, forestall local constabulary or citizens’ posse by kidnapping hostages.

  LOGISTICS: salvage all known foundered ironclads of late war.

  On the bottom of this carefully penned document was penciled the names of four ironclads, each with a set of bearings following the dates of their sinking:

  Monitor—Dec. 1862, Cape Hatteras

  Weehawken—Dec. 1863, Charleston Harbor

  Keokuk—April 1863, ditto

  Patapsco—Jan. 1865, ditto

  By itself the document could have been only a fantasy. But coupled now with the known salvage of at least one ironclad, the original Monitor, it was frightening. It also proved the second mate’s unusual familiarity with Charleston harbor was not accidental but implied plans there for the future.

  Helmuth carefully folded the document and placed it in his wallet. The other items of the safe he returned to their near original arrangement and closed the door. The pilfered document made it imperative that he attempt escape now and warn the authorities.

  He crept softly back along the boardwalk and to the ladder leading beneath the building. As he neared the beached skiff, he heard muffled footsteps overhead and he became motionless.

  They died away along the distant end of the boardwalk, and he commenced to spring the lock and then removed the chain. Then he stopped.

  The footsteps were returning. Whoever stood the night-watch ceased his promenade almost above him and was lighting a pipe. Helmuth settled back to await the other’s departure and in a relaxed state fell off into a brief catnap.

  * * * *

  When he awoke he listened intently but all was still save for a pleasant cool breeze whispering under the buildings and the rhythmic lapping of the waves against the creosoted pilings. Deciding it might be daylight very soon, he chanced discovery and silently shoved the skiff into the sea and poled it with one oar until some distance away. Then cautiously he began to row in the direction of Ocracoke, four miles away.

  At first a trickle of water wet his bare feet, and he saw it was not spray but a leak through the unfinished caulking in the bottom, and he took the bailer and scooped a portion of it out.

  At daybreak he reached Ocracoke village. The fishermen, getting ready in Silver Lake Harbor to go out on their daily fishing, looked at him in veiled curiosity, but did not utter any sociable greeting. He attempted to engage one to take him across the Sound to the mainland. He promised $100 but added he would have no money until he could reach a telegraph.

  “Why should I take you? You only promise me money.” The man looked questioningly at Helmuth’s skiff.

  In response to the unvoiced question Helmuth explained, “That has a bad leak in the seams.”

  “Besides,” continued the man, “I’ve fishing to do—I’ve a family.”

  “Who’s the head man in the village?”

  “Wahab. Up in that house.”

  The innermost part of the protected harbor shoaled into stagnant water flecked with a motionless, diseased-looking green scum on top, which merged into a marsh of weeds and evil smelling mud. Beyond it he traversed an open field, then passed a number of odd dwarf growths with palm like fronds and fuzzy cactus like trunks—a weird looking plant that would have been more at home in the tropics.

  As he approached Wahab’s house, Helmuth crossed a wood conquered yard in which stood an empty, narrow three story clapboard house, its wood coarse and silvery from decades of salty winds. In the yard was a rain cistern and near it several graves—such front yard burials he saw were common elsewhere in the Ocracoke community—and he reflected darkly that it would take a terrible thirst to make any man drink of its waters which flowed deeper than the dust of the nearby interred dead.

  Wahab was repairing a net in his yard. An elderly woman came to the kitchen door to study Helmuth. Where she had a soiled spot here and there on her dress, she had slovenly safety-pinned a small patch of clean cloth, rather than to bother washing it. Helmuth broached his request, adding it was urgent and had to do with the Federal government.

  The other man cursed. “I’ll do nothing where the damned Yankee government is concerned.”

  Helmuth was amazed, for these Outer Bankers had been almost alone among the old Confederacy in their loyalty to the Union during the Civil War. Nor could such bitterness be motivated by the horrors of Reconstruction, because they were virtually untouched by it out here, having neither carpetbaggers nor arrogant freed slaves to contend with.

  Having a vague suspicion, the detective asked abruptly, “Where did Captain Thatcher live here, before he settled at Shell Castle?”

  “You just passed it, crossing to my property.” Then an angry expression filled Wahab’s face. “You’re trespassing, mister. I’m telling you to leave.”

  As he strode off in defeat, he glanced at the weathered stone closest to the empty house. Its barely decipherable inscription read, “Here lies the corpse of Captain Edward Teach, murdered November 1718 by Robert Maynard.”

  CHAPTER 5.


  A Fire in the Swash

  When he returned to his skiff, it had accumulated water in the bottom again. After bailing it out, he pulled up anchor and rowed past the staring, unfriendly Ocracoke fishermen, not knowing what his next move should be. Fate made the decision. Water was seeping faster through the seams. He saw he could never bail sufficiently and row at the same time to get across the Sound; he would sink first undoubtedly. That is, if a search party from Shell Castle did not catch him. As he sat on his oars analyzing the situation, the ebb tide carried him southwestward towards the sea and it projected his mind to Portsmouth Island.

  Since he would quickly have to abandon his boat, he had a choice of either Ocracoke or Portsmouth. Except for the southern end, Ocracoke was an uninhabited sand bar 15 miles long and on an average one half mile wide, and with an endless open beach on the ocean side, while by the Sound there were innumerable hiding places in the tidal marsh vegetation.

  Portsmouth Island was one long sandy beach of six miles facing the ocean with a tidal basin separating it from its other half, an archipelago of one large and many small marshy islands along the Sound.

  A scheme began forming in his mind to steal back to Shell Castle and set it afire to partially thwart Thatcher’s plans. Then too a great fire would act as a beacon and he might appeal to whomever it brought to help him reach the mainland.

  With this decision he commenced rowing. But the ebb tide was a cross current carrying him out to the ocean. Water swished deeply around his ankles but he was afraid to stop rowing to bail lest the current take him past the point of safe crossing. He heard the breakers thundering and, looking, was aghast to find that he was so near the inlet that misty sheets of spray flung by the sea soaked him.

  A sudden creak of strained timbers, and water gushed up the unfinished caulked seams. The skiff began to sink lower in the water. He jumped overboard as the skiff foundered, a turbulent swirl marking her grave; and he thought uneasily of sharks. The water here was three feet deep and he began to wade shorewards, a whole mile away. Unexpectedly tumbling into the deep waters of the Wallace channel, he trod water over the watery nothingness, then in alarm began swimming shoreward, his heart in his mouth lest he see a dark shadow beneath the surface.