by Steve Vernon
“The hand had seized up, right then and there,” Culhane went on. “He couldn’t bend a joint in his finger, not even with a set of cold iron pliers. He spent the rest of his days sitting and shivering by his kitchen fire, trying to keep warm. Even in the hottest of summers, you would find the man sitting there with the flames roaring up like Jimmy-Be-Jeepers.”
Now it was Perry’s turn to shiver.
“For the rest of his natural life, the ache in the fingers and bones of his right hand never left the man a moment of peace,” Culhane continued. “And every time the joints would creak and twinge and ache, he would shiver as he remembered the sight of his daughter walking out into that cold, lonely sea.”
“Liar,” Perry spat.
“Liar back at you,” Culhane retorted. “My granddaddy told me this story and something else besides. He swore that he was out there at the harbour side watching at the last of it. He saw her clamber up the boarding net that those skeleton-ghosts hung for her over the side of the Phantom Ship. He watched her clamber up like a sailor with monkey blood running through her veins. The cold blaze dried her dripping form as the blue fire rose and crackled and sung through the long tresses of her hair.”
“What did she do then?” Little Jimmy wanted to know.
“She took her place at the bow of the ship, and stiffened into a figurehead that both leaned away and sang towards the lost and lonely crew of the Phantom Ship of the Northumberland Strait.”
For a half a moment everyone in the room sat and held their breath.
Finally, being the youngest and least patient of the lot, Little Jimmy spoke.
“Is that a true story?” he asked Culhane.
Culhane fixed Little Jimmy with a look that could freeze a fully grown furnace.
“It’s a story, truly told.”
A Recent Sighting
In mid-January 2008, seventeen-year-old Mathieu Giguere stepped out from a local Tatamagouche gym to catch his breath. He stared out across the ice-locked mid-winter stretches of Tatamagouche Bay and was amazed to realize that he was looking at an unbelievably eerie sight—a vessel where no ship could possibly be, sailing calmly through a field of ice.
“It was bright white and gold, and it looked like a schooner with three masts,” Mathieu said. “Just like the Bluenose.”
The sight was, in a word, impossible. The ship that Mathieu described was a sailing vessel of a sort that hadn’t been witnessed in Tatamagouche Bay for well over a hundred years. And there was no way that it could have sailed through that ice-bound harbour.
Mathieu stared at the glowing vessel for several minutes before returning inside to the gym. After he had completed his workout, he came back outside and was surprised to see that the vessel had disappeared completely, in spite of the ice-locked condition of the harbour.
A short time later, the details of Mathieu’s sighting were noted and corroborated by local artist Barb Gregory at her Bay Head establishment, the Phantom Ship Art Gallery. It seems that young Mathieu took one look at the artist’s rendition of the Phantom Ship—a painting that she had developed through careful research of dozens of previously recorded sightings of the mysterious spectral vessel—and recognized it immediately. And so Mathieu’s sighting joined a long line of ghostly sightings stretching back through the centuries.
A Misinterpretation of Squid
So is there any single scientific reason behind the sightings of this eerie flaming leviathan? Some researchers believe that the encounters are nothing more than a sort of mirage conjured by the glint of the setting sun over the water, which is perhaps enhanced by the silhouette of tall spruce trees as seen through the common and deceptive filter of sea fog. Others believe that the apparitions of the ship are caused by the release of methane gas, trapped under the dozens of coal beds beneath Nova Scotia waters.
These underwater methane deposits are also blamed for the booming sounds of the “sea guns,” which some people believe to be the cannons of a ghostly pirate vessel—often the Phantom Ship itself. The presence of sea guns has been reported as many times as the Phantom Ship has been sighted, if not more. The guns are usually heard rumbling across the water in a series of three to six cannonades—boom, boom, boom. The sound of the guns is often accompanied by an eerie splash of light, which gives credence to the theory that both the sea guns and the flaming Phantom Ship are nothing more than the by-products of exploding methane gas.
There is yet another argument on the nature of the Phantom Ship, which states that the many and varied sightings of the eerie glowing ship are an optical illusion caused by squid ink. Certain scientists claim that when panicked by attack, schools of squid will produce an abundance of blackish-brown phosphorescent ink. It is believed that the combination of wind, water current, and static electricity acting upon the glowing ink creates the illusion of a giant phantom vessel.
Squid, sunshine, and the flatulence of saltwater coal are certainly intriguing theories. However, the truth of it is that nobody knows for sure what really causes the Phantom Ship to appear.
Wedged like a fish bone in the throat of Halifax Harbour lies McNabs Island, the location of many strange incidents and coincidences throughout history, and the setting of many local storytellers’ ghost stories.
One of the island’s most prominent features is the long, tenuous point that juts out from it into the belly of the harbour like the blade of an open jackknife. Back in the eighteenth century, the point was known as Deadman’s Beach on account of the many skeletons found scattered and strewn upon its rocky shore when the British first settled in 1749. These skeletons were rumoured to be the remains of the French invasion fleet of 1745, captained by the unlucky Duc D’Anville, whose story is more properly told in my book Halifax Haunts. It is estimated that Duc D’Anville lost over a thousand men to fever, shipwreck, and storms. Many of the dead were simply and unceremoniously cast into the harbour with a cannon ball knotted to their feet.
In March 1753, Deadman’s Beach and the salt marsh that surrounded it were deeded to one Joshua Mauger, a seafaring merchant with a bad reputation for smuggling rum and contraband. The point was known as Mauger’s Beach until the British raised a gallows at the end of the beach. These gallows gave birth to the nickname that hangs on the point to this very day: Hangman’s Beach.
Further down McNabs Island, towards the mouth of Halifax Harbour, broods the Thrumcap Shoal—a nasty hook of submerged rock that tore the belly out of the Royal Navy frigate HMS Tribune on November 16, 1797, and took her and over two hundred sailors to the bottom of the harbour.
It was from this point that poor Peter McNab IV stared out one hot August morning in 1853 and watched as a sea serpent, nearly six metres long with an evil nub of a head, writhed and twisted through the white-capped waves. Whether or not the sea monster was to blame, McNab died screaming in Mount Hope Asylum twenty years later.
There are many more stories attached to McNabs Island—stories of murder and mayhem and things that go bump in the night—but none is more mysterious than the tale of Dermot McGregor and his piebald mare.
Broken Dreams
The summer thunder drummed and rumbled over the length of McNabs Island. A crackle of heat lightning split the July night sky, and Dermot McGregor’s head felt like it was going to burst apart from the headache that was coming on. Dermot was a short man with a shorter temper and a shock of red hair that made it look as if his head had caught alight.
The children were crying again. It seemed like they were always crying about something. Six-year-old Elias had been tug-of-warring with three-year-old Mara over their favourite toy stick. Only the stick had snapped, Elias had fallen, and Mara had jammed a willow splinter deep into her thumb.
“Let me take a needle to that splinter,” Dermot’s wife, Annie, said to Mara. “If I leave it you’ll weep for seven long years.” Which only made Mara cry all the louder.
Dermot looked longingly out the kitchen window. “Sometimes I think I’d like to just get off of this lousy little island,” he said to Annie. “And away from everything that is bound to drag me down.”
Annie did her very best to humour his morose complaining while trying to simultaneously juggle a pair of constantly crying children, a very hungry and smelly dog, and a needy and slightly gone-to-seed husband. “Are you planning to go to Halifax, then?” she asked with half a grin. She had heard him sing this tired old tune many a time. Dermot was a dreamer who had never quite learned to be happy with the fate life had dealt him. He always felt that he was missing out on some better dream, just a little over the horizon. “Be sure to take me with you when you go. I need to buy some new blue ribbon.”
“I’m not just talking about Halifax,” Dermot grumbled. “There is a whole big old world out there waiting for me, just out beyond those waves.”
“And what are you going to use for money?” Annie asked. “You’re a little short on looks and long on debt as far as I can see.”
“I have a plan,” Dermot said mysteriously.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Dermot always had some sort of a plan—which didn’t necessarily mean that he knew just what he was doing while he was doing it.
“Tommy Crowse says he knows where some treasure is buried at.”
Annie snorted her disdain.
“If Tommy Crowse told me that fire will burn you, I’d still most likely want a second opinion.”
“Tommy Crowse is a very smart man.”
“Tommy Crowse doesn’t know if he was born, hatched, or planted,” Annie said. “If shoes were clues, that man would walk about barefoot.”
“He’s seen it himself,” Dermot insisted. “Five stones under a cherry tree, halfway up the side of Strawberry Hill. He swears that those stones were put there by pirates.”
“Any pirate with half an ounce of brain would spend what treasure he had in the tavern rather than bury it where any idiot could dig it up.”
“That’s not what a pirate does,” Dermot argued.
“And what would you know about pirates?”
At this point in the argument, Dermot was not about to be swayed by anything remotely resembling common sense. He had hit upon a plan and was bound to see it through.
“It’s a treasure map,” Dermot said. “Tommy Crowse traded Billy Bulger a nearly full bottle for it.”
“Well, why in blue bloody blazes would Billy Bulger trade a treasure map for a nearly empty bottle of gin?”
“It was rum!” Dermot roared. “And I told you the bottle was nearly full. Besides, what good would treasure do old Billy—what with him being half-blind and near-illiterate to boot?”
“Would you listen to yourself talk?” Annie asked.
“I’m not listening,” Dermot snapped. “Consider me deaf as a knothole post to whatever you have to say.”
“A fine stew it is that you’re brewing,” Annie said, with a laugh. “The blind leading the deaf and the dumb.”
Dermot shook his head in confusion. “How can you call Tommy Crowse dumb?” he asked. “Tommy talks just as fine as paint.”
“Tommy Crowse can talk the ears off a dead moose,” Annie said. “And I’m looking straight at the only man dumber.”
That did it. Dermot slammed the door. Annie opened the door and slammed it again after him.
Dermot jumped on his old piebald mare. He missed and fell in the mud. He climbed back up while Annie watched from the window, trying hard not to laugh. By now even young Elias and his sister Mara had come to the window and were trying just as hard, only not nearly as successfully—which didn’t help Dermot’s temper one bit.
Dermot dug his heels into the mare’s mottled rump, clicked his tongue against the edge of his teeth, and galloped off down the old Cliff Trail, aiming himself straight at Hangman’s Beach.
“Where’s Daddy going?” Elias asked, balancing on his toes by the windowsill in order to have a better look.
“Is he going for a ride?” Mara asked around a mouthful of splinter-stuck thumb.
“Your father has hitched up his sadly wounded dignity and taken it for a long hard gallop,” Annie said. “And it’s time you both were in bed.”
A half hour later, once the children were both asleep, Annie went back to the window, peered out into the night, and shook her head. Her man most likely wouldn’t be back until morning, when he would come stealing in—most likely with a fistful of freshly picked dandelions, daisies, and buttercups—meekly asking after his breakfast.
Dermot wasn’t a bad man, only bad-tempered and inclined to bouts of unpredictable stupidity. Annie knew very well that he was just trying in his own simple-minded way to find a better life for their children. Foolish man, she thought to herself. Doesn’t he know that life is as good as it gets so long as you’re left alive to live it?
Annie lit a tall white candle and placed it gently in the window in case Dermot found his way home that night. Then she sat down in her old willow rocker, tilting it back and letting it slide forward, rocking herself down to an untroubled sleep.
The candle flame flickered and danced. The wind blew cool under the window. The old cotton curtains shifted with the hot July breeze. Annie slept on dreamlessly.
Pirate’s Gold and Pennies Aplenty
Dermot galloped up to Tommy Crowse, who was standing at the foot of Strawberry Hill with a lantern in one hand and a pick in the other. Dermot nearly threw himself from the mare and tried his best to make it look as if that was how he had originally intended to dismount.
“Have a care with all that tearing about,” Tommy warned him. “You gallop like that and you’re apt to make a ghost out of yourself.”
Tommy crossed himself from habit at the word “ghost.”
“Have you got the map?” Dermot snapped.
“No,” Tommy said. “I left it at home for safe keeping with my old tomcat. Of course I brought the map!”
Tommy held up the map, nearly shattering the lantern with the blade of the pick.
“Careful, yourself,” Dermot scolded. “You catch the map alight and we’ll all go penniless.”
“No fear of that, man,” Tommy said, hastily dropping the pick in the dirt. “There will be pirate’s gold and pennies a plenty when this night is done.”
Pennies. That was really what this whole thing was about. It hurt Dermot deeply to watch Annie eke out a bare minimum existence, counting every penny. He didn’t like that he couldn’t afford to dress her in finery. He didn’t like that they had to depend upon the berry harvest and the rabbits he could snare to feed the kids. He didn’t like that his children couldn’t afford to play with anything better than a stick. All that Dermot wanted was a better life for his family. Was that so much to ask?
“The map says one hundred paces north of the oak tree,” Tommy read aloud. The oak tree was easy. It was the biggest tree in Hangman’s Marsh.
“All right, navigator,” Dermot said. “So which way is north?”
Tommy looked about to his left and right.
“I think that’s the North Star,” Tommy said, pointing straight up.
“Well, isn’t it a shame that I forgot to bring my sky-walking boots?”
“Is there any moss on the side of the oak?” Tommy asked. “Moss always grows on the north side.”
“We’re in the middle of a marsh,” Dermot pointed out. “And as far as I can see there is moss all around here.”
Tommy thought about that.
“Uphill,” he finally decided.
“Come again?”
“North is up on the map, isn’t it?” Tommy said. “And the North Star is up in the sky. So it stands to reason that if we pace uphill, we’re bound to hit north.”
It was a little too late for thinking so hard about such m
atters. Dermot stuck his finger straight ahead, pointing uphill. “Lead on, navigator,” he said.
The two men began trudging uphill, counting each pace as they went. “One, two, three, four, five…”
“Whatever you do, don’t look up,” Tommy warned. “There’s a full moon tonight and it’s fearful bad luck if you stare at the moon through the fork of a tree.”
“Tommy, we’re in the middle of a forest,” Dermot pointed out. “How else are we going to look at the moon, if we aren’t staring up through branches?”
“Well all the same, don’t go looking,” Tommy said. “That’s when a ghost will sneak up on you—while you’re staring at the moon.”
Dermot’s old mare blew her breath through her lips as he pulled her up the hill. She reeked of hay and horse sweat. Secretly, Dermot was glad he had her along with him. In a way she kind of comforted him. “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Dermot said.
“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”
“That shows you just what you know,” Tommy said. “Why, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if one reached out and grabbed the both of us right now.”
“Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…”
“So how are you going to spend all the gold we find?” Tommy asked.
“Once we find it,” Dermot corrected.
“I’d like to go back home to the old country,” Tommy went on as if Dermot hadn’t said a word. “I’d like to open up a tavern and keep the door locked all day long and just drink my worries away.”
Dermot laughed. That sounded a lot like Tommy’s kind of thinking.
“Well, what would you do with your money?” Tommy asked.
“I’d like to give my family a better life. I’d like to see them in a better place with all that a family ever needs. I’d like to buy Annie dresses and little Elias and Mara some proper toys.”
“What’s wrong with a toy stick?” Tommy asked. “That’s all you and I ever had to play with.”