The Ghost of the Mary Celeste

by Valerie Martin

  Well, this is good news, of course, and I breathed a sigh of relief, but my poor darling has made this vow before and been forced by circumstances to break it. He and Olie were set to take over Mr. Hardy’s store, but they hesitated when it came down to it and the chance eluded them. Olie is of the same mind. They are both sick of going to sea and want to be home. Olie bought the land abutting his father’s house last year and before he left, he built a wall around it. Hopefully, between them, they can make a go of some shore concern and we can raise a passel of glorious landlubbers and do our sailing on a ferry.

  At supper Mr. Head reported that Mr. Lorenzen has a fever and is delirious. B. went forward and dosed him with laudanum for the pain and bathed his forehead with vinegar. B. said the other Mr. Lorenzen stood by, murmuring to his brother in German, trying to comfort him. B. was reminded of Olie and the time when they shipped together—Olie was just a boy—and B. felt he was growing a third eye that kept a lookout for his brother. Then we both wished we’d not missed Olie in New York before we sailed, and we said a prayer that we find him, hale and hearty, in Messina.

  NOVEMBER 15

  Have I mentioned that I dislike going to sea? And here is the reason: if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Today it is fog, all day, socked in over us like—well—like a sock! A heavy, sodden, white woolen sock. It even smells a little like sheep. And as we can’t see a thing and as the sea is wide and plied by ships, we must ring a bell constantly and hang out lamps, and creep along with every sailor squinting into the mist and every officer taking a turn at the scope to see if he can detect a sail in time to get out of its way. They are rotating the sick German’s watch and B. did two in a row, because he said he wouldn’t sleep anyway, and came in tired to death, but of course, he still couldn’t sleep. I took Sophy up to have a look and she said, “Clouds.” “Fog,” I said, and she gave a nod, though she didn’t try to say it. Gloom is universal, as it is common knowledge that these fog banks on the Atlantic presage a storm.

  Mr. Head and I got together in the pantry and decided to cheer everyone up with a plum dessert, as I’ve got two dozen jars put up and we may as well eat them. He only knows duff, but I suggested something more elegant, since there are only nine of us plus Sophy, so I amused myself in mixing up a cake in the cabin and Mr. Head came later to take it off to his oven. It came out well, with the plums all knit into the top in a pattern, and B. smiled to see it for the first time today. Mr. Head said the Germans wolfed it down. Mr. Lorenzen is still suffering, but B. said his fever is down. It is revealed that he has brought thirteen books on board, two of which B. recognized as navigation texts. Well, he will have plenty of time for reading, though I doubt he’ll navigate much beyond the galley for the near future.

  After supper Sophy wanted singing, so I played and sang the old tunes I know she likes, and B. joined in on the ones he knows. I always end with “There Is a Happy Land,” which is soporific, and also a favorite of Olie’s. It made me think of home and of Arthur, who is, God willing, asleep in his bed. He’s afraid of the dark. It gets dark so early now, and he has to go out to do the evening chores. I used to go with him to get the milk, but I doubt Mother B. will indulge his childish anxiety. She’ll advise him to pray.

  NOVEMBER 16

  Here’s a conundrum. I sit in the dying light though it’s not yet noon. All I can hear is pounding hammers.

  B. came in, looking serious and stern, to tell me that the men will be battening the windows, as we are already shipping seas over the bow, and the barometrical instruments, including the one B. has in his head, prognosticate rough weather ahead. There. They have fit the canvas over the first one and hammered the boards into the frame.

  “Must we?” I wanted to say, but of course, I know we must. Sophy is sitting among her blocks gazing up curiously. “Legs,” she shouted when the two sailors arrived, hauling their lumber, for that was all she could see of them. B. says we’ll have the skylight, so we won’t be in utter darkness—though of course we will be, once whatever is coming for us comes for us.

  Because this sea is dark, though sometimes it sparkles gaily, and it is often angry.

  And we are nothing to it.

  This morning before it got so choppy, the fog lifted and I took Sophy up. B., coming off his watch, escorted us for a stroll along the deck. He keeps the same rule his father did—no sailor may stand between the captain and the wind—so it’s amusing to watch the Germans, who have somehow been informed of this rule, which, being Germans, they embrace wholeheartedly, being careful to stay on the lee side of the “old man.” B. says of our ship that she is only a fair sailer. He would like to open the hatches to ventilate the cargo, which is volatile, but now is not the time.

  We are barreling along before a west wind, very choppy sea now. Our ship’s bow thwacks the waves as she rams through them. Now they have the canvas on the second window and are hammering away. I can hear their voices, but, of course, don’t understand what they are saying.

  We’ll have to light the paraffin lamps at dinner. B. is in a confab with Mr. Richardson in the main cabin. They are anxious because, with Mr. Lorenzen down, we are shorthanded.

  And now I must lay down my pen, as Sophy is weepy and the dimly lit cabin in which I am sitting has commenced to roll.

  NOVEMBER 18

  How can I write these words? Benjamin. My life. My love.

  NOVEMBER 21

  I’ll try to write what I can. But why should I? I hardly know who I am. I haven’t eaten, washed, left this room for three days, except that first night when I opened the cabin door and found Mr. Head on the settee. I was angry. What are you doing here? I cried, and he sat up looking flustered. He explained that Mr. Richardson had the watch and he didn’t want Sophy and me to be left alone in the stern in case we might need something.

  What could I possibly need? I said and closed the door. But the look on his face let me know they are afraid of me.

  My poor Sophy. I frightened her as well, and she was terrified enough by the storm. The roar of the wind, the ship nearly vertical climbing each wave bow up, and then, the sea pouring over the deck, stern up, descending. We huddled in the bed together and I held her close to my heart singing the lullabies she likes, but her eyes were wild with terror and she sobbed until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

  Benjamin said, Mr. Gilling is lashed to the helm.

  And he was pulling on his boots to take the watch. He’d hardly slept at all.

  And I said. What did I say?

  Did I say, Be careful?

  It didn’t matter. He couldn’t hear for the noise. We were sliding down a wave; the cabin floor was uphill.

  He fell to his knees before he got to the door, then staggered to his feet and went out. He looked like a walking tent in his waterproofs.

  I had Sophy tucked in the curve of my legs and I clung to the footboard as the bed rose up, pushing us steadily down, and then went down, driving us back up, like sands in an hourglass being turned over and over forever.

  I heard the hatch open and close. No, what I heard was the bellow of the storm grow louder and then less. And I thought, He has gone out. I felt sick to my stomach and my head ached, but there was nothing to do but hold on.

  I heard a shout. I couldn’t make it out. Mr. Richardson’s voice, his cabin door flung open, his rapid footsteps and again the hatch opening, the roar of the wind, and then the shout again, this time from him, and I heard it. I understood it. He had shouted—Man Overboard.

  What did I do? My first thought was that it must be Mr. Gilling, because it couldn’t be Benjamin. But then I knew it must be. I leaped from the bed and fell headlong on the floor. Sophy plummeted out behind me and let out a wail. I gathered her in my arms and staggered through the cabin into the companionway, up the steps to the hatch. I struggled to open it.

  The men were shouting. Where the sky should have been was a white cliff made of water, dark, yet strangely bright. From somewhere Mr. Richardson appeared, blocking me.
Sophy was howling; his face was livid. “Go back down,” he shouted, “for God’s sake.”

  “Who is it?” I said.

  The stern dropped away and a great sea shipped over the bow, so that we both clung to the hatch rail while water surged over the deck and down the hatch around my legs.

  “It’s the captain,” he shouted. “Please go back.”

  “No!” I screamed. “Where is he? Let me out.” I tried to push past him but as the ship pitched, my feet went out from under me. I lost my grip on the rail and landed on my back in a foot of water with Sophy clinging to my neck. Mr. Richardson leaped down and lifted us up, counseling me as he helped me to my feet. “We’re trying to find him, Mrs. Sarah. You can help us best by staying below. I’ll come to you as soon as I can.” Then he rushed up the steps, closing the hatch behind him, and I found myself standing in water to my knees, clutching my terrified, wailing daughter in my arms.

  I carried her back to the cabin. “We have to pray,” I said to her. “We have to pray so hard for Papa.” I remember saying that.

  And I did pray. But God wasn’t listening.

  NOVEMBER 22

  I have lived now four days in this cruel world without my beloved. He is gone, without a word of farewell, without a grave, swallowed by the sea. I can’t realize it.

  Last night I saw him in a dream, walking ahead of me. I woke, reached out for him. Sophy turned toward me in her sleep and said, “Papa.” And I thought, He’s here.

  She keeps looking for him, not fearfully—she doesn’t understand that he’s gone—just expectantly, whenever one of the men passes outside the door or overhead on the deck.

  It’s a nightmare from which I can’t awaken.

  But wake I must. I must cast a line and hold on to life. I have my darling’s darling, the sweetest child I’ve ever known, and his poor, anxious son, waiting at home, bearing up as best he can, and this unknown, unborn child, whose mother is a widow.

  I don’t think I have the strength to bear this test. I can’t say, as Mother Briggs never stops saying, God’s will be done. His will will be done.

  Is this His will?

  Mr. Head is saving his own soul by his great kindness to me. That first day, when I was simply raving—I have no idea what I said or did—he came and took Sophy away to the galley and looked after her, even put her down for a nap in his own berth. She came toddling back in the evening holding his hand. Now she calls him Ed-ded. That night he slept on the settee in the cabin again, insisting that when Mr. Richardson was on deck, he didn’t think it right that Sophy and I should be alone in the stern. He brought me food I couldn’t touch. He took it away without comment.

  The storm went on for twenty-five hours: we ran before it. Running away from my beloved, leaving him behind. Mr. Richardson came to me as he promised, within an hour. Sophy and I were flat on the carpet, as it was the only location that couldn’t toss us down. I was praying; I actually had some mad hope that they would pull Benjamin out of the sea, though I’d seen that high white wedge of water, and I knew the only boat we had was lashed across the hatch, impossible to launch in such a fury, and even if they had tried, it would have been more men lost, for there could be no rowing about in the towering mountains of water bearing down on this little ship. Mr. Richardson looked like he’d been beaten near to death; he was pouring off water, his face was ashen. The floor pitched up and swatted him down onto the floor with us. When he got to his knees I saw tears streaming from his eyes. “Mrs. Sarah,” he said. “We couldn’t save him. He was gone so fast. The wave picked him up off the poop; it took him straight up. He was high above us. Then he was gone.”

  I felt a hard fist of pain gathering in my gut. Sophy was screaming, clinging to my waist. “Leave me,” I managed to say. I have no clear memory of what happened next. Presumably he went out and left me howling on the floor.

  This afternoon, as I lay on the settee trying to feel anything but dead, there was a knock at the door. Sophy was on the floor trying to teach her doll to talk. She looked up and said, “Papa.” Tears leaked from my eyes. I turned my face toward the cushion and croaked, “Come in.”

  It was Mr. Head. He had a brown Betty in a covered pan warm from the oven. I knew what it was because the mouth-watering smell of apples and cinnamon preceded him into the cabin. Sophy got to her feet and rushed to him, saying “Ed-ded, Ed-ded,” joyfully. I turned to face him. He was bending over Sophy, patting her head and saying “Apples, Miss Sophy. I brought you a nice apple pudding.”

  “Are you married, Mr. Head?” I asked through my tears.

  He looked up, startled, I think, by both my haggard appearance and my evident lucidity.

  “Just these six months, ma’am.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Just six months.”

  “I’ll leave this here,” he said, lowering the dish to the table. Sophy immediately began climbing onto the chair. I pulled myself up and shoved my feet into the pattens on the floor. Mr. Head’s eyes followed me, full of hope and as kind as a mother’s. He will make a dear father to his children, with his gentleness and his cooking. He just wants to see me eat something, I thought, and he won’t rest until I do. I patted my hair down, it felt moist and flat like a mouse’s nest, and wiped my eyes with my fingertips. “It smells delicious,” I said. “Sophy, say thank you to Mr. Head.” She looked from his face to mine and said “Anka.”

  So, to please them both, I got to my feet and joined my daughter at the table, where we took up our spoons and ate brown Betty from a pan.

  NOVEMBER 23

  How can I bear it? I’m trying to bear it. I’ve washed my face and changed my dress. I’ve eaten apple pudding. I’ve answered Sophy’s questions about the album and her blocks. I’ve sounded out the letters P and K. K. K. Kitty. But I won’t go out of this cabin. I won’t go and look at the sea, which is calm now, a light wind moving us along at a good clip. Through the skylight I can see a patch of blue sky. It’s warmer than it’s been since we left New York. Sophy slept all night without a blanket. I don’t sleep but in snatches. When I do, I seem to hear Benjamin coming into the cabin, or I feel him standing by the bed, or I wake because I hear him calling my name.

  They are busily running the ship around me. I am the cold, dead heart of it, which the sea has killed, and no one but Mr. Head cares whether I come back to life or not. Well, in truth, they are so shorthanded every man must be on double watches and taking orders from Mr. Gilling, who passes them on from Captain Richardson. I hear Mr. R. going in and out of his cabin. He’s taking his meals in the galley with the others, I presume so as not to disturb me here.

  It’s still dark as a dungeon, as the crew hasn’t had time to uncover the windows, though once the sun rises, the skylight sheds a block of white light down the center of the room. Mr. Head opened the skylights yesterday so we are aired out. This morning he looked in and offered to take Sophy up for a walk. She is full of energy and I am a worn-out thing who prefers the gloom, so I agreed. Then he tried to get me to come as well. “It’s a bright, clear day, ma’am,” he said. “It would do you good to walk about. Mr. Richardson is on deck and he charged me to encourage you to come up.”

  I was helping Sophy with her shoes. It all feels so automatic, this life. “No, thank you,” I said. “I have some letters to write. And I’d best do it while the desk isn’t pitching about and there’s enough light to see the page.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  Will everyone look at me with this indulgent pity now?

  As soon as her laces were tied, Sophy ran to him, her Ed-ded. How easily her affections are transferred, lucky darling. It burdens me that she’ll grow to be a woman with no memory of her father. It’s unbearable, actually. He loved her so.

  I did have it in my head to begin a letter to Olie, but all I do is write in this book. I am of two minds about what to do. The obvious choice is to cable Mother Briggs from Gibraltar, book a passage on whatever ship I can find, and head for home. But part of me wants to go on to
Messina and meet Olie, as we planned—in our tragic innocence, I see that now—and sail back with him on the Julia A. Hallock. Or Sophy and I could wait at Gibraltar for Olie to pass through on his ship. Finally, I might simply stay on this ship for the duration. This last, I confess, has little appeal to me. Am I to sew and play our melodeon and interest myself in the rivalry between Captain Richardson and Mr. Gilling, which is in abeyance now, but how long will that last, as the days drag by and every one reminds me that five, six, ten, twenty days ago, I woke in the night to find my darling at my side? I hate this ship.

  I will ask Mother Briggs—how does one compose a telegram to tell a mother her son is lost at sea?—I will ask her not to tell Arthur. I will write a letter to him—but how to tell him? He is such a serious child; it’s as if he knew there was a dark cloud upon his future. And he adores his father. I remember Benjamin’s expression, just exactly, the delight, the hesitancy, the pride, the sheer wonder, when he first held his red-faced baby son in his arms. He’d seen, he said, many babies, but none like this one.

  How bright the sun is on my page.

  I’m not going up there to stand on the deck and look out as far as I can see at the lightly dancing, sparkling waves, or feel the warm breeze rustling my hair, or gaze up into the blinding white of the sails, or receive kind condolences from Captain Richardson as he strides the deck of his first command. What madness. What vanity of men, to sail about in fragile wooden boxes tricked out with sails, putting their lives, their fortunes, their families at the mercy of this ravenous, murderous, heartless beast of a sea. No. I’m not going up until I can put my feet on land. The sea is my enemy, and it has defeated me.