I suddenly clapped my hand to my forehead. I had just remembered Friar Tuck’s expression of fear, and that of the poor derelict in the Merry Heart Tavern.
I related the incident to Jellewyn. He slowly nodded.
‘I mustn’t exaggerate Friar Tuck’s clairvoyant powers,’ he said. ‘When he first saw the schoolmaster, he said to me, “That man makes me think of an unscalable wall behind which something immense and terrible is taking place.” I didn’t question him because it would have been useless: that was all he knew. His occult perceptions take the form of images, and he’s incapable of analyzing them. In this case, his apprehension goes back even further. As soon as he heard the name of our schooner, he seemed upset and said there was great malice behind it…’
‘How shall we sail?’ I asked, abandoning nearly all authority.
‘We’re on the starboard tack,’ he said. ‘The wind seems very steady.’
‘Shall we heave to?’
‘Why? Let’s go on making headway. I don’t see any sign of a storm, but I think we’d better reef our sails a little just the same.’
‘Walker will take the helm to begin with,’ I said. ‘All he’ll have to do is watch for patches of white water. If we hit a submerged rock…’
‘It might be the best solution for all of us,’ said Jellewyn.
I could not have agreed with him more.
While a known danger strengthens a leader’s authority, the unknown brings him closer to the level of his men.
That evening the forecastle was deserted and everyone crowded into the narrow room that served as my cabin. Jellewyn gave us two demijohns of excellent rum from his personal provisions, and we used it to make a gigantic bowl of punch.
Turnip was soon in an amiable mood. He began an endless story about two cats, a young lady, and a house in Ipswich, a story in which he had played a favorable part.
Steevens had made some fantastic sandwiches of hardtack and corned beef.
Heavy tobacco smoke made a dense fog around the kerosene lamp hanging motionlessly from its gimbals.
The atmosphere was pleasant and friendly. With the help of the punch, I was on the verge of smiling at the fairy tales Jellewyn had told me earlier.
Walker took his share of warm punch in a thermos bottle, picked up a lighted lantern, bade us good night, and went up to take the helm.
My clock slowly struck nine.
An accentuated movement of the ship told us that the sea was growing rougher.
‘We don’t have much sail set,’ said Jellewyn.
I silently nodded.
Turnip’s voice droned on, addressed to Steevens, who listened as he ground hardtack between the admirable millstones of his teeth.
I emptied my glass and handed it to Friar Tuck to fill. Then I saw the wild expression on his face. His hand was squeezing Jellewyn’s, and they both seemed to be listening to something.
‘What…,’ I began.
Just then we heard loud imprecations overhead, followed by the sound of bare feet running rapidly toward the deckhouse, and then a terrible cry.
We looked at each other, horrified. A high-pitched call, a kind of yodel, came from far away.
We all rushed up on deck at once, jostling each other in the darkness.
Everything was calm. The sails were purring happily; near the helm, the lantern was burning brightly, illuminating the squat shape of the abandoned thermos bottle.
But there was no one at the helm.
‘Walker! Walker!’ we shouted frantically.
Faraway, from the horizon blurred by the night mists, the mysterious yodel answered us.
The great silent night had swallowed up our poor Walker forever.
A sinister dawn, purple like the swift twilight of tropical savannahs, followed that funereal night.
The men, dulled by anguished insomnia, watched the choppy waves. The bowsprit frenziedly pecked at the foam of the crests.
A big hole had appeared in our crossjack. Steevens opened the sail-locker to replace it. Friar Tuck took out his metal palm and prepared to do a conscientious repair job.
Everyone’s movements were instinctive, mechanical, and morose. Now and then I turned the helm and murmured to myself, ‘What’s the use? What’s the use?’
Without having been ordered to, Turnip began climbing up the mainmast. I watched him distractedly until he reached the main yard, then the sails hid him from sight.
Suddenly we heard his frenzied shout:
‘Hurry! Come up, there’s someone on the mast!’
There was a fantastic sound of aerial struggle, then a howl of agony, and at the same time a whirling shape shot upward, and then fell into the waves a great distance away from the ship.
Jellewyn swore vehemently and began climbing up the mast, followed by Friar Tuck.
Steevens and I leapt toward the only lifeboat on board. The Fleming’s formidable arms were sliding it toward the water when we were rooted to the deck by astonishment and terror. Something gray, shiny, and indistinct, like glass, suddenly surrounded the lifeboat, the chains snapped, an unknown force tilted the schooner to port, and a wave broke over the deck and poured into the open sail-locker. An instant later, the lifeboat had vanished without a trace.
Jellewyn and Friar Tuck came down from the mast. They had seen no one.
Jellewyn took a rag and wiped his hands, shuddering. He had found the sail and the rigging splattered with warm blood.
In a faltering voice, I recited the prayer for the dead, interspersing the holy words with curses against the ocean and its mystery. It was late when Jellewyn and I went topside, having decided to spend the night at the helm together.
At one moment I began to weep and he patted me affectionately on the shoulder. I became a little calmer and lit my pipe.
We had nothing to say to each other. He seemed to have fallen asleep at the helm. I stared into the darkness.
I leaned over the port rail and was suddenly petrified by an unearthly sight. I straightened up, uttering a muffled exclamation.
‘Have you seen it, Jellewyn, or are my eyes playing tricks on me?’
‘You’re not mistaken,’ he said softly, ‘but for the love of Christ don’t say anything about it to the others. Their minds are already close enough to madness.’
I had to make a great effort to go back to the rail. Jellewyn stood beside me.
The bottom of the sea was aflame with a vast bloody glow that spread beneath the schooner; the light slid under the keel and illuminated the sails and rigging from below. It was as though we were on a boat in the Drury Lane Theatre, lighted by an invisible row of flares.
‘Phosphorescence?’ I ventured.
‘Look,’ whispered Jellewyn.
The water had become as transparent as glass. At an enormous depth, we saw great dark masses with unreal shapes: there were manors with immense towers, gigantic domes, horribly straight streets lined with frenzied houses. We appeared to be flying over a furiously busy city at an incredible height.
‘There seems to be movement,’ I said.
‘Yes.’
We could see a swarming crowd of amorphous beings engaged in some sort of feverish and infernal activity.
‘Get back!’ Jellewyn shouted, pulling me violently by the belt.
One of those beings was rising toward us with astounding speed. In less than a second its immense bulk had hidden the undersea city from us; it was as though a flood of ink had instantaneously spread around us.
The keel received a tremendous blow. In the crimson light, we saw three enormous tentacles, three times as high as the mainmast, hideously writhing in the air. A formidable face composed of black shadows and two eyes of liquid amber rose above the port side of the ship and gave us a terrifying look.
This lasted less than two seconds. A heavy swell was headed for us broadside.
‘Helm hard to starboard!’ shouted Jellewyn.
The lines holding the boom snapped, and it cut through the air like an ax
. The mainmast bent almost to the breaking-point. Taut halyards broke with a sound like that of harp strings.
The awesome vision became vague. The water was foaming. To starboard, the glow ran like a burning fringe across the high, galloping crests, then abruptly vanished.
‘Poor Walker, poor Turnip,’ said Jellewyn.
The bell rang in the forecastle: the midnight watch was beginning.
An uneventful morning followed. The sky was covered with thick, motionless clouds of a dirty, yellowish color. The air was chilly.
Toward noon, shining feebly through the mist, I saw a spot of light that might have been the sun. I decided to determine its position, despite Jellewyn’s opinion that it would be meaningless.
The sea was rough. I tried to hold the horizon, but a wave would always invade my field of vision, and the horizon would leap up into the sky. Finally I succeeded. But as I was looking for the reflection of the spot of light in the mirror of the sextant, I saw a kind of white streamer quivering in front of it at a great height.
Something indefinable rushed toward me. The sextant flew into the air, I received a jarring blow on the head, and then I heard shouts, sounds of struggle, and more shouts.
I was not exactly unconscious. I was sprawled against the deckhouse. Bells were ringing endlessly in my ears; I even seemed to hear the solemn booming of Big Ben. Mingled with these pleasant sounds were clamors that were more alarming, but also further away.
I was about to make an effort to stand up when I felt myself seized and lifted. I began howling and kicking with all my returning strength.
‘Thank God!’ said Jellewyn. ‘He’s not dead!’
I managed to open my eyelids, which felt as though they were made of lead. A patch of yellow sky was cut by diagonal ropes. I saw Jellewyn staggering as though he were drunk.
‘For the love of God, what’s happened to us?’ I asked dolefully, for Jellewyn’s face was streaming with tears.
Without answering, he led me to my cabin.
I saw that one of the two bunks was occupied by a motionless mass.
At this point, I completely regained my senses. I put my hands over my heart. I had just recognized Steevens’ hideously swollen face.
Jellewyn gave me a drink.
‘This is the end,’ I heard him say.
‘The end,’ I repeated stupidly, trying to understand.
He put cold compresses on Steevens’ face.
‘Where’s Friar Tuck?’ I asked.
Jellewyn sobbed aloud.
‘Like…the others…We’ll never see him again!’
He told me, in a tear-choked voice, the little he knew.
It had happened with incredible swiftness, like all the successive tragedies that now formed our existence. Jellewyn had been below, checking the oilcups, when he heard shouts of distress from above. He hurried topside and saw Steevens furiously struggling inside a kind of silvery bubble. A moment later, Steevens collapsed and lay still. Friar Tuck was gone; his metal palms and sail-needles were scattered around the mainmast. Fresh blood was dripping from the starboard rail. I was lying unconscious against the deckhouse. He knew nothing more.
‘When Steevens comes to, he’ll give us more information,’ I said weakly.
‘When he comes to!’ Jellewyn exclaimed bitterly. ‘His body is nothing but a horrible bag filled with broken bones and crushed organs. Because of his Herculean constitution he’s still breathing, but for all practical purposes he’s dead, dead like the others.’
We let the Mainz Psalter sail as she pleased. She had little canvas spread, and she drifted sideways almost as much as she moved forward.
‘Everything seems to show that the danger is mainly on deck,’ said Jellewyn, as though talking to himself.
We were still in my cabin when evening came.
Steevens’ breathing was labored and painful to hear. We had to keep wiping away the bloody froth that ran from his mouth.
‘I won’t sleep,’ I said.
‘Neither will I,’ replied Jellewyn.
We had closed the portholes despite the stuffy atmosphere. The ship was rolling a little.
Toward two in the morning, when an invincible torpor was dulling my thoughts and I was sinking into a half-sleep already packed with nightmares, I suddenly started.
Jellewyn was wide awake. He was looking up in terror at the gleaming wooden ceiling.
‘Someone’s walking on deck,’ he said softly.
I seized the rifle.
‘That’s useless. Let’s stay where we are…Ah, they’re making themselves at home now!’
We heard rapid footsteps on the deck. It sounded as though a busy crowd were moving around.
‘I thought so,’ said Jellewyn. He laughed. ‘We’re gentlemen of leisure now: we have others working for us.’
The sounds had become more precise. The helm creaked; an arduous maneuver was being carried out in the head wind.
‘They’re unfurling the sails!’
‘Of course.’
The ship pitched heavily, then listed to starboard.
‘A starboard tack, in this wind,’ Jellewyn said approvingly. ‘They’re monsters, brutes drunk with blood and murder, but they’re sailors. The most skillful yachtsman in England, sailing a racer built last year, wouldn’t dare to sail so close to the wind. And what does it prove?’
No longer understanding anything, I made a gesture of discouragement.
He answered his own question: ‘It proves that we have a fixed destination, and that they want us to arrive somewhere.’
After reflecting for a moment I said, ‘It also proves that they’re neither demons nor ghosts, but beings like us.’
‘Oh, that’s saying a lot!’
‘I’m expressing myself badly. What I mean is that they’re material beings, with only natural forces at their command.’
‘I’ve never doubted that,’ Jellewyn said calmly.
Toward five in the morning, another maneuver was carried out, making the schooner roll heavily. Jellewyn opened a porthole. A dirty dawn was filtering through compact clouds.
We cautiously ventured up on deck. It was tidy and deserted.
The ship was hove to.
Two calm days went by.
The nocturnal maneuvers had not been resumed, but Jellewyn pointed out that a very swift current was taking us in what should have been a northwesterly direction.
Steevens was still breathing, but more feebly. Jellewyn had brought a portable medicine chest in his baggage, and from time to time he gave the dying man an injection. We spoke little. I think we had even stopped thinking. For my part, I was stupefied by alcohol, for I was drinking whisky by the pint.
One day, when I was drunkenly cursing the schoolmaster and promising to smash his face into a thousand pieces, I happened to mention the books he had brought on board.
Jellewyn leapt forward and shook me vigorously.
‘Careful, I’m the captain,’ I said gently.
‘To hell with captains like you! What did you say? Books?’
‘Yes, in his cabin. There’s a trunk full of them. I saw them myself. They’re written in Latin; I don’t know that pharmacist’s jargon.’
‘Well, I know it. Why didn’t you tell me about those books?’
‘What difference would it have made?’ I muttered thickly. ‘Anyway, I’m the captain.…You…you ought to…respect me.’
‘You damned drunk!’ he said angrily, going off toward the schoolmaster’s cabin. I heard him step inside and close the door behind him.
The inert and pitiful Steevens was my companion during the hours of drinking that followed.
‘I’m the captain of this ship,’ I mumbled, ‘and I’ll…I’ll complain to the authorities…He called me a…a damned drunk…I’m the master after God on my ship…Isn’t that right, Steevens? You’re a witness…He insulted me basely…I’ll put him in irons…’
Then I slept a little.
When Jellewyn came in to swallow a has
ty meal of hardtack and corned beef, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were glittering.
‘Mr. Ballister,’ he said, ‘did the schoolmaster ever tell you about a crystal object, a box, perhaps?’
‘He didn’t confide in me,’ I grunted, still remembering his rudeness.
‘Ah, if only I’d had those books before all these things began happening!’
‘Have you found anything?’ I asked.
‘I’m getting a few glimmers…A path is opening up. It’s probably senseless, but in any case it’s amazing, more amazing than you can possibly imagine!’
He was terribly excited. I was unable to get anything more out of him. He hurried back to the schoolmaster’s cabin, and I left him alone.
I did not see him again until the beginning of evening, and then only for a few minutes. He came in to fill a kerosene lamp and did not say a word.
I slept until late the next morning. As soon as I woke up, I went to the schoolmaster’s cabin.
Jellewyn was not there.
Seized with painful anxiety, I called him. There was no answer. I ran all over the ship shouting his name, even forgetting prudence to the point of going up on deck. Finally I threw myself on the floor, weeping and invoking the name of God.
I was alone on board the accursed schooner, alone with the dying Steevens.
Alone, horribly alone.
It was not until noon that I went back to the schoolmaster’s cabin. My attention was immediately caught by a sheet of paper pinned to the wall. I read these words in Jellewyn’s handwriting:
Mr. Ballister, I am going to the top of the mainmast. I must see something. Perhaps I shall never return. If so, forgive me for my death, which will leave you all alone, because Steevens is doomed, as you know. But quickly do what I tell you: Burn all these books; do it on the stern, far from the mainmast, and do not go near the edge of the ship. I think an effort will be made to prevent you from burning the books. Everything inclines me to believe it. But burn them, burn them quickly, even at the risk of setting fire to the ship. Will it save you? I dare not hope so. Perhaps Providence will give you a chance. May God have mercy on you, Mr. Ballister, and on all of us!
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 45