by Gafford, Sam
The captain looked astounded, as though not knowing whether to take what I said as truth or some elaborate lie.
“You sure your imagination isn’t getting the better of you, lad?”
“Yes, sir, my body was filled with such pain it was all I could do to throw my knife.”
By now the two A.B.s had arrived and the companionway was adequately lit with extra lantern light. Bridges was groaning and slowly returning to full consciousness. Captain Gregson walked over to him and crouched down to give a greater inspection of his condition.
“You’ve been burnt badly around the neck, mister. What the devil’s been going on here?”
“You wouldn’t want me to say it out loud, sir,” said Bridges groggily.
I saw a light of understanding flicker in the captain’s eyes.
“Get this man taken below and ask the doctor to tend his wounds,” he said to the two A.B.s. “I’ll speak to him later when his mind’s in a fit state.”
He walked over to me and handed my sheath knife back, then spoke in a much more understanding tone than before.
“Do you feel well enough to continue in your duties, Jenson?”
“Yessir.”
“Good. I think we’d best hurry and get this ship fully lit up for the night.”
*
The captain stayed with me while I finished lighting the rest of the ship’s lanterns, and for this I was truly grateful, as you will think. But afterwards he left me to stand watch on the starboard bow, telling me to keep my eyes peeled for aught unusual, and that he would be back very soon with extra men. Still, I cannot deny that a feeling of great unease pervaded me as soon as I was left alone on the shadowy deck, since it was a fact that my nerves had now become badly jangled by that dread form which had made to attack us.
For a while I paced slowly to and fro, keeping very alert as to my surroundings, but then I walked over to the larboard rails and gazed out into the tropical night. The air was still as hot as ever, though now I knew enough not to wish for a cooling breeze or anything of that sort. But it was as I leant forward on the rails and looked down at the stilled sea beneath us that I became gripped by a sudden thrill of terror. For the calm, glassy surface was now illuminated by the light from the lanterns aboard the Spirit Moon, so that it had all become akin to one large mirror, and in it I saw reflected the image of that dire form which had made to claim Bridges’ life.
I turned and looked fearfully about the decks, for it was my thought that the Thing now meant to attack me while I was unawares. Yet it was strange that not one sight of aught untoward then met my eyes. At this, I returned my sight to the sea, but I could barely believe the awful vision which I then saw. Two rows of fiery figures were now apparent upon the flat surface of the water. It was as though they had actually been painted into it, and before them stood the huge figure which had attacked Bridges.
The image was not a reflection given from the Spirit Moon, as I had previously thought. It was a potent and frightening scene being portrayed for the sole benefit of my own eyes, as though some pervading force of evil had now become aware of my currently isolated state, and also the open mind of youth. Thus it had purposely revealed only to me an example of those dread forms which meant to end our lives.
Icy shivers ran through my body as I gazed down at those hateful figures. It was very obvious that they held some kind of military standing, for I saw that each man carried a shield and a heavy sword, while the tops of their heads were protected by way of ancient-looking metal helmets, these fitting squat atop their skulls.
Though this image in the sea quickly dispersed, still the threat it transmitted towards me personally, lingered on. I now realised I had been made to look upon the sight as a means of psychological revenge for the physical attack I had made to help save Bridges’ life. I had been exposed to an internal danger I could share with no one.
In a little while the captain returned with two other men. The watch had now been doubled, and so I felt more at ease than previously; but still I could not bring myself to tell anyone of the strange image I had witnessed, for I knew their reaction would be to think my mind had become unbalanced. But in the following seconds I was suddenly snapped back into full awareness when I saw a glow of fire out at sea.
“Sighting made over to starboard, sir!” I shouted loudly.
“What is it, lad?”
“There’s a flame rising up from the surface of the ocean, sir!”
And truly, even at that very moment my eyes gazed upon an immense coffin-shaped image that stood upright upon the horizon, its outline totally fringed with emerald flame which burnt up the dark of the night.
Captain Gregson immediately lifted the night-glasses to his eyes; then I heard him swear an oath of shock at the sight he looked upon. After some time spent in silent study, he said: “Whatever that thing is, it’s surely nothing created by the hand of our own Lord!”
“Perhaps it’s one of those corposant lights that people report seeing,” I offered.
“I don’t know, lad, I’ve never seen the like before. There’s something not right going on out there. . . .”
It was at this moment that there came a sudden chorus of frightened cries from the maindeck.
“Get a lantern and come with me, Jenson!” bellowed the captain. “It sounds like we’ve got something more urgent to deal with now.”
“Yessir.”
Hurriedly I plucked a lantern from its fastening and made to follow in Captain Gregson’s footsteps. When we arrived on the maindeck we found the first mate standing in front of the men whom the captain had earlier allocated to the watch. Every man’s countenance wore an expression of intense fear as they gazed upon an area of deep shadow which shrouded the wall of the chart house.
“What the hell’s going on here?” bellowed the captain. “You sound more like a load of old women than a group of hardened shellbacks!”
“Higgins called me from below, sir,” replied the mate, nervously. “There was something lurking in the shadows, and now it’s attacked Simmons. . . . I’m afraid he’s dead, sir.”
When he had finished speaking, the mate held out a lantern to illuminate the deck some little way in front of him, and immediately I saw the bloodied body of Simmons lying there. The features of his face had been burnt to total blackness.
“Pass me the lantern, Jenson,” said the captain, already reaching for his sheath knife. “Whatever unholy thing has boarded my vessel is going to pay for this!”
“I wouldn’t advise it, sir,” said the mate, but the captain had already taken the bull’s-eye lantern from me and was walking determinedly into the darkness. I remember noticing how the light from the lantern was almost completely ineffectual, as though the darkness had a will of its own and refused to shrink away at the mercy of the light.
Very suddenly my view of Captain Gregson disappeared as though he had been shrouded by a blanket of darkness; and following this I heard him swearing loudly, at first in anger, but then in terrible pain. I stepped forward quickly, ready to join in the fight on behalf of the captain, but the mate immediately blocked my way.
“No, Jenson, we don’t know what we’re up against here.”
My heart pounded as the man’s steely gaze met with my own eyes.
“I’m going to try and help,” I said. “We can’t just stand back and do nothing!”
But in the following seconds I witnessed a sight which I could barely conceive to be possible, for the captain was a man of more than fourteen stone in weight, and yet he was hurled violently from the darkness as though he had been naught but a rag doll. His body smacked into four of the watchmen and knocked them to the floor, hurting them physically and also stunning them with shock. Then I saw that his face was burnt badly down one side, and that he was grimacing in pain; one of his hands was still gripping the bull’s-eye lantern tightly, but now its metal framework had been twisted out of shape and its flame extinguished. Yet still the man’s iron will was such that he
began to rise to his feet at the same time as the men he had collided with. Suddenly came a fearful cry from Higgins: “Lord love us! I can see a figure stood in the dark . . .”
I turned and looked towards the chart house; then once more my eyes focused on the fiery outline of the unholy form which had attacked Bridges. The thin strip of flame surrounding it was such that I could see the charred features of its face. Blackened lips began to move and a sound of sinister hissing reached our ears. We stood in utter silence, listening. At first I could hardly distinguish what was being said. Then it came to me that the same two sentences were being repeated very slowly, over and over again.
“Have you seen the Drakkar? The Drakkar is coming to burn you all!”
All at once the voice ceased. Following this, the deep shadows about the wall of the chart house retreated until the area was lantern-lit once more, the malign figure simultaneously diminishing in its solidity until it was reduced to nothingness. The first mate walked over to the captain, a look of concern on his face.
“Maybe you ought to go below and see the doctor, sir?”
“Never mind me, mister, my ship’s in danger! Listen, you’re an educated man and have a smattering of languages. Have you any idea what ‘Drakkar’ means?”
The mate’s face frowned as he tried to think back to the years of his education.
“I think it’s Nordic if I remember rightly, sir. If I’m not mistaken, I believe it’s their word for ‘dragon.’”
The captain shook his head, as though suddenly troubled by some fresh thought. A few seconds later came a shout from one of the men who had remained on watch; his message was that something had now emerged from within the coffin-shaped fire image, and it looked to be heading towards us.
“Higgins, Jenson, get over to starboard pretty sharpish and start preparing the lifeboat,” said the captain. “I’m a little bit too old to start believin’ in dragons, especially one with a mind to set fire to my ship! We’ll take a look what’s really out there, and then we’ll see what we can do about it.”
We both ran over to starboard, and I noticed a red glow of fire which was now travelling away from the deathly image of the coffin and across the calm surface of the sea in our direction. At this, we made quick to begin emptying the lifeboat of all the flotsam and jetsam which had been slung into her as a means to keep deck space clear. Within a few minutes the boat had been made ready and Captain Gregson had arrived with the original members of the watch; to my surprise I saw that even old Bridges had returned above decks and was glaring out to sea with much determination on his face.
The captain stood in front of us and began to speak.
“Right, my lads, this little matter decided to crop up in the period of our watch, and so it’s only right that we should be the ones to go out there and deal with it!”
He turned to me and went on to speak to me in a low voice.
“It’s not the done deal for a ’prentice, but we need your help, too, Jenson.”
He looked at me gravely.
“Are you willing to join us, lad?”
“Yessir.”
In only a short while more the boat had been lowered and we were pulling hard on the oars, moving out across the stilled surface of the sea to meet whatever dread Thing had made to threaten us. After we had travelled some good distance towards the fiery object, Captain Gregson gave us the order to back-water with the oars, and thus bring the rowboat to an eventual standstill. Following this, we turned her until we’d acquired a position of good observation, then went about using the night-glasses to see if we could pick out any detail at all.
Even with my naked eyes I could tell the object was much thinner than I had first thought, but it was also much longer. It was with relief that I noticed its progress towards us had now halted. At this time it was Bridges who was observing the mysterious sight through the night-glasses, having just been handed them by the captain.
“What do you make of it, mister?” asked the captain. “Have you ever seen the like before?”
An expression of fear slowly spread over Bridges’ features. “Aye, I’ve seen the like before all right, but only ever in paintings and books! It’s a Drakkar, sir—a Viking longboat—and this one’s being used as a fire ship! Thank the Lord she’s weighed anchor, that’s all I can say.”
Not a word was spoken in reply by any man; there was only stunned silence as we gazed upon that funereal vessel which had purposely sailed through a portal from the past in order to bring death to each and every one of us.
“Here, Jenson, your eyes are better than mine: see what you make of her. It’ll be the first and last time you ever look upon a sight like this.”
I took the night-glasses from Bridges and raised them to my eyes, then made to focus them until my vision became clear. But what I then looked upon I could never have imagined in even my worst nightmare.
“There’s figures walking through the flames!” I said, almost choosing to disbelieve my own eyes. “I can see they’ve all been burnt to total blackness.”
“They must be in agony!” said the captain. “Who would ever choose to do such a thing to living men? It’s a blessed wonder we can’t hear their screams . . .”
“No, sir, I don’t think they can feel any pain now,” I replied. “They’re rising up from the decks and joining with other figures sat at the oars.”
I put the glasses back to my eyes, but now a shocking change in the scene caused myriad shivers to run down my spine. Standing among the flames at the bow of the ship was the dreadful figure which only minutes before had attacked Captain Gregson aboard the Spirit Moon. It stood with arms folded arrogantly and its blackened face staring towards us, and with this I could have sworn it had somehow become aware of my own prying eyes.
Then I witnessed something even more incredible.
“The oars are moving—it’s heading towards us again!”
“My God, there’ll be fifty men at the oars alone if she’s fully manned!” said Bridges. “If those fiends have the strength of the living they’ll probably be attempting to reach the Spirit Moon before we can get back there . . .”
A look of shock and fear played over Captain Gregson’s half-burnt features.
“Turn the boat around and put some beef into the rowing, boys. We need to get back ‘home’ b―― fast for the sake of the ship and the crew!”
While we rowed with all our strength I saw the Drakkar cutting over the stilled surface of the sea with as much speed as any modern-day vessel. The sight could have been plucked straight from the realm of nightmare, for the fiery oars moved with incredible precision and showed no sign of damage or weakness caused by the flames; the fire about them burnt only with the hatred and desire to bring death to the Spirit Moon and all her crew. In the centre of the ship the flames licked about the one mast and sail it owned, yet I saw that all the ferocious burning still didn’t prevent that rectangular sail from being filled by a supernatural breeze, which surely originated from some past dimension of Time.
As we neared the Spirit Moon the captain put his hands to the sides of his mouth and began yelling for the first mate and the men stood about him to unfurl the rope ladder down the hull. Only a few seconds later and they had complied with his wishes. Shortly after this the captain was able to snatch the ladder and hold it tight.
“Right, lads, get up there and make to break out the cut-and-thrusts from the stores. Higgins and Bridges, take this boat round to larboard in case worse comes to worse, and be quick about it!”
“Yessir.”
I climbed the ladder in the quickest time I had ever done in my life, and at the top the first mate helped me over the rails.
“I’ve been ordered to break out the cut-and-thrusts, sir!” I said, breathless from the exertion.
“Payne, Grady, go with Jenson and fetch every cut-and-thrust there is from the stores!” shouted the mate. “Holton, rouse every man from his sleep and get them up on deck and in a fighting mood, and I mean n
ow!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
We ran to the stores in such a hurry that I didn’t think to get the key from the office, but without hesitation Grady took the emergency axe from its fastening on the mizzenmast, and straightway smashed the lock off the door with one mighty blow.
Only a couple of seconds later and we had returned to starboard with three armfuls of swords each. The Drakkar now loomed upon us, its flames licking at us in cruel tongues of tremendous heat, and yet it was impossible to deny that a deathly coldness was also instilled within those unholy fires. It reminded me of the time Bridges and I had been attacked during the watch.
“Stand away, lads, she’s going to try and smash right into us!” the captain shouted loudly, his voice filled with outrage. Seconds later and the Drakkar crashed into our hull, the collision shaking all the Spirit Moon as though she’d been caught by the blast of some tremendous explosion. The prow of the longboat sliced halfway through our maindeck before it came to a rest, while all the air filled with screams of agony from those who hadn’t managed to avoid her path. I was knocked to the deck by the force of the collision, and from there I saw the sight of flames stretching upwards to embrace our furled sails, rigging, and mizzenmast.
In the following seconds I scrambled to my feet and picked up one of the swords which had been strewn across the deck, for now I saw the fire-blackened crew of the Drakkar were boarding our vessel. The sight of those dead forms which had no right to walk upright was a fearsome thing to behold, for within the empty sockets of their eyes was the presence of flame, this being ringed and emphasised by the metal eye-surround of the traditional Viking helmets, and contrasting horribly against their blackened faces.
One figure made straight for me; its heavy sword swung with so much power that it would have surely sliced me in two if it had made contact. And truly, it then took every bit of my concentration to avoid that horrible fate, for it seemed to me that those fiends held the gift of a supernatural speed in their movement, and an incredible force in their strength.