Tales of Terror from the Black Ship Page 12

  ‘Are you such a soul?’ said Cathy.

  ‘Aye,’ said Thackeray. ‘I yearned for brine as soon as I’d let go of my mother’s tit – begging your pardon, Miss Cathy.’

  Cathy blushed – not at the coarseness of Mr Thackeray’s expression, but at his apology. No one had seen her worthy of an apology before.

  ‘But not everyone can take the sea-road with ease,’ said Thackeray. ‘Some men are born to it, like I was – my father being a mariner and his father too – but others are not. Some men are trapped ashore, a sailor in a landlubber’s body. There are few things sadder.’

  Here he seemed to give me a special conspiratorial look that I resented, for how could this man know anything of my life? If I had forsaken a life at sea, I had done so willingly and he should mind his own business, for he knew nothing of mine. I was about to tell him so when Cathy spoke up.

  ‘You said you were sweet on a girl,’ she said. ‘Would you have given up the sailor’s life for her?’

  ‘In a heartbeat, Miss Cathy,’ he answered. ‘In a heartbeat. But it was not to be. My father stood between us and would never have seen us wed. He said she was not good enough for me – but she was the loveliest girl a man could ever wish for. My father was a rich man, an important man. He persuaded her father to forbid her seeing me. She would not go against him.

  ‘So she was betrothed to a man unworthy of her, a weak man. Still, I always believed she loved me best. though that is scant comfort. She had children with this creature. Children she might have had with me. Children who I would have loved and cherished.’

  He broke off here and gave us such a piteous look.

  ‘I went to sea to forget her, but the sea is no place to forget. A man has so much time to remember. I never saw her again – and never will now, rest her soul. When news reached me of her death, I was already . . . already aboard my present ship.’

  ‘And what became of the husband and the children?’ asked Cathy.

  ‘He took his own life,’ said Thackeray bitterly. ‘He was a weak man, as I said.’

  ‘And the children?’ said Cathy.

  ‘This is a sad tale, miss,’ said Thackeray. ‘Let’s dwell on it no further.’

  ‘What was her name?’ asked Cathy. ‘Your sweetheart?’

  ‘Mr Thackeray doesn’t want to talk about it any more,’ I said sharply, for I did not believe a word of Thackeray’s story and felt that he was taking advantage of my sister’s sympathetic nature.

  ‘Catherine,’ said Thackeray, ignoring me. ‘Though everyone called her Cathy.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ began Cathy, all flustered.

  ‘Mr Thackeray is teasing you, Cathy,’ I said, making it clear by my expression that I thought that his behaviour towards my sister was unacceptable.

  ‘I assure you I am not,’ said Thackeray. ‘Cathy was her name, I promise you.’

  ‘I’m not sure what to make of your “promises”, Thackeray,’ I said. ‘If that is your name.’

  ‘Ethan, Ethan,’ he said, with his arms outstretched. ‘You have no fight with me. If I have said anything to offend you – or Miss Cathy here – then I apologise. I am no longer used to polite conversation. I have been too long away from . . . ordinary people.’

  I raised an eyebrow and grimaced at the stress Thackeray placed on the word ‘ordinary’, but I let it pass without comment.

  ‘I’m sure you haven’t offended anyone,’ said Cathy, frowning at me. ‘And if anyone is being impolite it is my brother.’

  I told Cathy in no uncertain terms that I thought she was being unfair and we quickly became embroiled in the kind of enthusiastic bickering well known to siblings all over the world. We had barely begun when we were interrupted by our guest banging on the table with the flat of his hand.

  ‘Ethan, Miss Cathy! I should not want to be the cause of any argument. No more cross words now.’

  Cathy turned up her nose and arched an eyebrow haughtily and turned away from me. I countered this with a grunt and a shrug. Thackeray beamed, looking happier than he had the entire time he had been in our company. I rather resented the pleasure he seemed to be taking in Cathy and I falling out, however briefly.

  ‘Come, let’s leave that squall behind us and sail on. Who’s for a new story?’ he said, rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Cathy, nose and eyebrow descending slowly. ‘What is it about?’

  ‘Well now, have you ever heard of scrimshaw?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, eager to disabuse him of the notion he seemed to have gained that we were mere ignorant children. ‘It is the name given to the decorative carving in whale teeth and the like.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Thackeray, nodding and leaning forward. ‘So it is. Well, my next story concerns just such a piece of work.’

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  The Scrimshaw Imp

  Edward Salter was walking back to his ship, waiting in the harbour at Alexandria. He had become separated from his fellow crewmen, who were all older than he, and while he had been fascinated by the exotic sights and sounds of the city, it was dark now and he had become fearful of being alone.

  As Edward walked the long, poorly lit quay, a little nervous of the shadows, he saw ahead that someone was lying prone on the cobbles.

  He had been brought up to believe that you should not walk by someone in distress but should help your fellow man if you’re able, and so he ran towards the figure. As he approached, Edward was shocked to see that the man looked as though he had been mauled by a lion or a bear, his clothes ripped, as was the flesh beneath, his bones clearly broken, his head crushed like a melon, his face horribly reshaped and ruined. Incredibly, though, the man was still alive.

  ‘Who did this?’ said Edward, bending over him.

  The man groaned pitifully but made no reply. Edward could see someone walking away further along the quayside – another sailor it looked like. He almost called out, but, looking again at the man on the ground, thought twice and kept his peace.

  The injured man was holding something in a ruined hand, and with all his remaining strength – for it was clear his life was ebbing away – he tried to hurl it towards the sea. It skittered over the cobbles and came to rest a yard or so from the edge.

  He motioned for Edward to come closer, and this he did. The man grabbed his jacket and tried to speak, but though he moved his mouth no sound other than a strangulated choking emerged, and within seconds his grip loosened and he slumped lifeless to the ground.

  Had he been at home in London Edward might have sought out a constable, or called for help. But he was not at home. He was a sailor in a foreign land with a mutilated corpse at his feet.

  In that instant he decided that he could do no more to help the man. He had not seen the attacker and could not assist in his capture. Better by far that he return to his ship. But as he was walking away, curiosity got the better of him.

  Edward was intrigued to discover what it was that the dead man had been so determined to throw into the water. He walked over and picked the object up, and almost as soon as he did so he heard voices. They were a long way off, but even so he did not want to be found there and, putting the thing in his pocket, he walked briskly away.

  Once back on the Buck, Edward turned it over in his hand. It was a whale tooth – a big one, from the jaws of a great sperm whale no doubt – and etched into the surface was some kind of picture. Edward could not see what the picture showed because the light was too poor, but he could see that it was done with that odd mixture of crudeness and intensity that gave such pieces their strange charm. He certainly was glad it had not ended up in the harbour.

  Edward went below deck. An old mariner called Morton, who had no interest in carousing ashore and little remaining curiosity for foreign ports, was sitting on a barrel, reading a book by lantern light. His ey
es were failing and he was using a magnifying glass. Taking the scrimshaw tooth from his pocket, Edward asked Morton if he could borrow it.

  Morton agreed and Edward held the tooth near a lantern and peered through the glass, marvelling again at the astonishing complexity and intricacy of the carving.

  One side of the tooth carried a depiction of a quayside, along which was walking a sailor. Behind the figure was a tall building with ochre walls, a terracotta tiled roof and a tall castellated clock tower on which there was a weathervane in the shape of an arrow.

  When he turned the tooth over, Edward found another carved scene, this time showing a three-masted sailing ship, much like the Buck, in a harbour much like Alexandria. Along the curve of the tooth, below the picture, were some words written in a neat, if a little awkward, sloping italic script. They read:

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  Behold and beware the Scrimshaw Imp.

  Behold and beware thy self.

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  To his amazement, when he held the magnifying glass closer over the skillfully etched ship, he could see clearly that it was not merely like the Buck – the name on the side stated very clearly that it was the Buck.

  Was the owner of the scrimshaw tooth trying to get to the Buck? Edward had never seen him before, he was sure of that. Perhaps he had sailed aboard the ship in the past. Perhaps he was the artist.

  Edward turned the tooth over again, and had another look at the side showing the sailor on the quayside. He noticed something he had not seen before. On the right-hand side of the image, further along the quayside, was another, far less distinct figure.

  The skill of the scrimshaw artist seemed to have deserted him in this depiction, for where the first figure was all detail, down to the buttons on his jacket and the neckerchief about his throat, the second figure seemed vague and blurred, as if caught in the act of movement. The maker had clearly not been satisfied by his work because he had tried to scratch the figure out. Edward suddenly had a vision of the injured man and shivered.

  He was about to put the tooth in his trunk when he stared again at the picture engraved on its surface. Though common sense and reason told him it was impossible, he had the strongest possible impression that the blurry figure had moved. Where it had once occupied a space at the far right of the tooth, it was now further to the left and distinctly closer to the sailor.

  Edward peered at the space where the figure had been, but there was no sign of a mark; the surface of the tooth was untouched and as smooth as silk. He must have been mistaken. And yet he knew in the pit of his stomach that he was not.

  As Edward sat there staring at the scrimshaw tooth, old Morton stepped over to see what was the cause of his troubled expression.

  ‘What’s that you have, boy?’ he asked, and then seeing the tooth in Edward’s hand, said, ‘Ah – ’tis a piece of scrimshaw work, and a fine one too, by the looks of it.’

  He asked to take a closer look, and Edward passed it to him, calmed by being brought back to normality. Already, with Morton beside him, the possibility that he had simply misremembered the image seemed the more likely explanation than that it had somehow moved.

  ‘Did you do this?’ said Morton.

  ‘Me?’ said Edward. ‘No. I have no skill in such things. It was . . . given to me.’

  ‘That’s quite a gift,’ said Morton. ‘That’s the Buck and no mistake. What does it say there? It’s too small for my eyes.’

  Edward told him. Morton sucked the air between his teeth with a whistle.

  ‘What do you think it means?’ said Edward.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Morton. ‘I don’t like the sound of it though. You say someone gave it to you? Who?’

  Edward licked his lips and looked at the floor.

  ‘I . . . in a way, I found it.’

  ‘Did you – in a way – steal it?’ asked Morton.

  ‘No!’ said Edward. ‘Not really . . .’

  With a big sigh, Edward told Morton what had happened: about the injured man and the scrimshaw tooth. Morton shook his head.

  ‘There’s something bad here,’ he said, turning over the tooth. ‘This figure,’ he went on, seeing Edward’s confusion. ‘Supposing that’s you. It looks like you, come to think of it.’

  Edward had noticed that already, but then, with its neckerchief, jacket and trousers, it could have been any sailor.

  ‘And what about that figure following behind?’ continued Morton.

  ‘Following?’ said Edward, though he knew it was true. He could not bring himself to tell Morton that it also appeared to move.

  ‘Maybe that’s the Scrimshaw Imp,’ said Morton, handing the tooth back. ‘Maybe that’s what you have to beware.’

  The thought of such a thing following him anywhere made Edward’s guts clench and troubled his sleep when he eventually lay back in his bunk and closed his eyes. He opened them five hours later to find Morton looking into his face.

  ‘Get rid of it, lad,’ he said, pointing to the tooth, which lay on top of Edward’s bunk. ‘Get rid of it if you know what’s good for you. There’s sorcery in it. Take a hammer to it, lad. Smash the thing and be done.’

  Morton was already going before Edward had fully come to his wits, but he knew there was something in what the old man had said. He followed Morton up and out on to the deck just as the call came out that they were setting sail.

  Edward walked to the side of the ship and took the scrimshaw tooth from his pocket. The eerie light of daybreak shimmered across its surface and gave it an even more unearthly quality. The whale tooth took on a weird lustre, as if lit from within.

  The little boats of local traders and fishermen clogged the harbour. They had all made their last attempts to sell their wares to the foreigners and now they watched them leave, readying themselves for a new ship and new customers. A boy on a nearby fishing boat waved and Edward waved absent-mindedly back at him.

  Morton was right, he thought. No good could come of keeping such a thing. It was bewitched in some way, he was sure of it. It had clearly done the previous owner no good, a fact acknowledged by the dying man’s desire to get rid of the thing. Perhaps Edward should do what that man was trying to do but could not.

  Edward held the scrimshaw tooth over the side of the ship and let go, letting it fall into the shimmering sea. It struck the water, point down, with barely a splash, and Edward walked away, feeling as if whatever spell the tooth had cast over his life was now ended.

  He had not taken two steps, however, before he was overcome by the strangest sensation. He felt suddenly cold, despite the heat of the morning, but worse – far worse than that – he could not breathe.

  Edward choked and reached for his throat, feeling for some blockage but knowing that the sensation was different. It felt as though the very air he was trying to breathe had become solid; as if, instead of air, he was swallowing water.

  Edward staggered back to the side of the ship and looked at where the tooth had fallen in.

  The Egyptian boy on the fishing boat had seen the whole scene, and while he had found Edward’s behaviour baffling – as he did so much of the behaviour of these foreigners – he had an eye for an opportunity and, speculating that the sailor might be pleased to have whatever it was he had dropped returned to him, he dived into the water and emerged, waving the tooth in the air.

  As soon as the tooth was above the water, the air flooded back into Edward’s lungs. He leaned over the rail, coughing and thanking the boy profusely and waving for him to bring the tooth aboard.

  Edward gave the breathless, smiling boy a handful of coins – more money than the boy might normally see in a year – and sent him back to his father aboard the fishing boat, where they both waved back at the crazy Englishman with broad grins.

  Edward acknowledged them, but he could not share their smiles.
His fate seemed to have become entangled with that of the tooth he held once more in his shaking hand. He thought of Morton’s exhortation to ‘take a hammer to the thing’ and felt a shudder run through his body.

  Looking at the carvings again, he saw that in the image of the Buck the ship was preparing to set sail – just as the actual ship was. The fishing boat was also shown, father and son waving. And there was a sailor at the gunwales, waving back. Edward stared wide-eyed; was his life being mirrored in the scrimshaw tooth, or was it being determined by it, controlled by it?

  If so, was he doomed then to stand idly by as a spectator while his destiny was made a puppet to this infernal creation? But what could he do? He clearly could not destroy the thing, but neither could he discard it, for who knew what accident might befall it, and what effect that could have on his life?

  No – he would have to keep it by him at all times and take especial care of it. Perhaps, when he had calmed a little and understood more of its power, he might glean something that would provide an escape route from its grip.

  And so the Buck sailed on, moving west along the Mediterranean and calling at the port of Naples, one of half a dozen stops they would make before heading home to London. Vesuvius reared up behind the city, smoke still belching belligerently from its cone after one of its frequent eruptions.

  As they moored Edward looked at the volcano in the distance, and the idea that it might at any moment explode into violent life, showering rock and ash down on the city, struck a chord with him. He felt able now to appreciate something of the nature of living in the shadow of such a monster. Perhaps the secret was in accepting his fate as the Neapolitans had done. Perhaps the scrimshaw tooth really did show him what would happen in any case, no matter what choices he made. Perhaps he had never been as free as he thought.

  Edward took the scrimshaw tooth from his pocket and turned it over in his hand, feeling again the weight of it, the smoothness of the untouched areas, the texture of the incised drawing.