Tales of Terror from the Black Ship Read online

  ‘Twitched, you say?’ said the ship’s carpenter.

  ‘Aye,’ said Jacob. ‘Twitched. At first Dawson thought his eyes had tricked him, that the sun had taken its toll on his mind – but no; the body twitched again. There could be no doubt this time.

  ‘Then all at once the body lifted itself up, water dripping from its lank black hair, and raised its arms and waved. Dawson stared in horror. There was no way that the man could be alive. He had not moved for days. In any event, the cry that escaped his lips was one that no living man might make, the sea gurgling in his lifeless throat more like a bilge pump than a human voice.

  ‘Then Dawson saw another body lift itself – and another – and another – until half a dozen corpses waved and cried out like hideous mermen, their faces all pale and soft, like fish that have been pickled in brine.

  ‘Dawson looked to the ship, his need for rescue all the more urgent for being surrounded by these living corpses of his fellows.

  ‘He was about to call out, but saw that the crew were already helping aboard a man he knew to be as dead as a marlinspike. Not only did they show no horror at his appearance, they greeted him most warmly as if he were an old friend.

  ‘Dawson looked at the ship with new eyes and saw its true form. The timbers were black, holed and rotted so near the waterline that there was no godly way that the ship could stay afloat.

  ‘The masts were likewise black, rotted and cracked, eaten by worms and bored by beetles. The sails were frayed and thin, as flimsy as a fly’s wing.

  ‘As the crew of the ship helped another of the floating dead aboard, Dawson realised that this was the Black Ship that mariners spoke of, crewed by the corpses of shipwrecked seamen.

  ‘Though the thought of another minute in that briny waste filled him with horror, Dawson grabbed the mast with both hands and submerged himself as the ship approached. He saw its rotten planks pass by beneath the water as he held his breath and prayed that they would not see him.

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  ‘When he finally burst to the surface, the ship was gone and the fog with it. All the corpses of his crewmates were gone, too. He was alone once more and half mad with what he’d seen.

  ‘Dawson had given up all hope when another ship appeared on the horizon, and he was rescued and brought back to Bristol, where he vowed never to sail again – a vow he broke within the year, knowing no other life than that of the sea. In time he came to serve as cook aboard a Royal Navy ship-of-the-line – a ship on which I also served – and there, one night, he told the tale I have now told to you.’

  Though he had not been sure what reaction he might get from the hardened sea dogs round the table, Jacob had not expected the total silence that greeted the end of his tale.

  No man spoke and though every eye was turned to Jacob, the faces did not show fear or amusement, but were instead wearing strange and melancholy expressions.

  ‘Now, then,’ said Jacob, banging his fist down on the table. ‘Was that a tale or no?’

  ‘Aye, lad,’ said the captain, but still no one else spoke nor moved.

  ‘What is it?’ said Jacob. ‘Do you not believe the tale? I swear I heard it from Dawson’s own lips and he was a man who was not given to foolish talk.’

  ‘Aye,’ said the captain. ‘Every man here knows of the Black Ship.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Jacob, noticing for the first time that fog was curling in through the open window.

  ‘How came you to serve on this ship, Jacob?’ said the captain.

  It struck Jacob as an odd question for the captain to ask, as it must have been he who granted him leave to serve aboard his ship. All the same, for some strange reason, Jacob could not remember how he came to be there.

  ‘Wreck ahoy!’ came a voice. The captain stood up with a sigh.

  ‘Look lively, lads,’ he said. ‘There’s work to do.’

  ‘Aye aye, Captain,’ they responded and rose as one to go out on to the deck.

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  It was then that Jacob noticed with horror that Gibson had a huge piece of his side missing. His clothes hung down limply, mercifully covering, though only just, what must have been a massive bite-shaped wound.

  Then as Finch left the cabin, Jacob saw that the ragged hole in his cap now glowed with the milky light coming from the open door. The hole passed completely through his head. The captain saw the expression on Jacob’s face and smiled grimly.

  ‘Think, lad,’ he said. ‘Do you not remember how you came aboard?’

  Jacob tried to remember, closing his eyes to help, but his mind seemed filled with the same fog that encircled the ship. Then it came back to him all at once: the French frigate off Gibraltar, the grapeshot whistling past, the mainmast crashing to the deck, the sound of cannon blast and the howls of the dying, and the musket ball that broke his ribs above his heart and snuffed out the candle of his life. He put his hand to his jacket and let his finger explore the hole.

  The ship had gone down, taking most men with it, including Dawson, sucked down into the slimy depths of the ocean, where crabs grew fat on the glut of food. He alone had floated free, as if in a dream, and it was he alone who had answered the Black Ship’s call.

  ‘Come, lad,’ said the captain. ‘Let us meet our new shipmates.’

  *

  There was a great suffocating silence as Thackeray finished his story, as if we were all now in the hold of a sunken ship and the sounds of the dry world were muffled by submerged ears. The raucous clamour of the storm had died away, and its breath was now a sigh, now a whisper.

  ‘You can’t say that tale was true,’ I said, trying to assuage my own fear by a forced return to the rational. ‘How could anyone be dead and not know it and how could you know what goes on aboard the Black Ship, if such a vessel exists?’

  ‘Well, now,’ he said with a smile. ‘I think you know the answer to those questions.’

  I certainly had not expected such a reply and after a moment I assured him that I did not, and Cathy grabbed my sleeve.

  ‘What does he mean, Ethan?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘He is trying to frighten us, Cathy,’ I said. ‘They are only yarns, and I am afraid that Mr Thackeray does not know when to stop.’

  Thackeray looked at us both, but his smile seemed now tinged with sadness. I saw something that looked very much like pity in his eyes, and I resented it.

  ‘Why do you look at us in that way?’ I asked, standing up and making clear that I meant to knock him down if he did not give me a satisfactory answer.

  ‘Calm yourself, friend,’ he said. ‘I meant no harm.’

  ‘Perhaps it is time that you finally left, Mr Thackeray,’ I said coldly. ‘The storm seems to have passed.’

  Thackeray took a deep breath and sighed. This time there was no objection from Cathy.

  ‘Aye. It’s time I was going,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘My fate lies elsewhere.’

  A bell sounded some way off in the distance, like a church bell but with an unearthly resonance that seemed to vibrate in my very bones and which made the glass on the table hum to its tune.

  ‘My ship is calling,’ said Mr Thackeray, ‘and I must answer. So I bid you adieu. Ethan, Miss Cathy – ’twas a pleasure to meet you both.’

  ‘Mr Thackeray,’ I said, but I did not shake his hand.

  ‘’Twas an honour to meet you too,’ said Cathy, blushing in a most annoying way, and I noted that she seemed to flutter her eyelashes. ‘Thank you for telling us so many stories.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said, gazing at her with a haunted expression. And Thackeray finally walked away towards the door with Cathy and I following close behind.

  He opened the door and stood on the threshold for a while, gazing out into the night. He seemed annoyingly reluctant to actually leav
e, and I was sorely tempted to shove him out and bolt the door behind him. In any event, he turned and bowed to Cathy and to me, and, with one last twinkling smile, he set off towards the cliff edge as though he were about to throw himself off.

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  Cathy let out a little shriek as he made no attempt to stop himself but did indeed step over the edge, and we ran to see what had become of him. To our amazement he was sliding and hopping down the sheer cliff face with the agility and sure-footedness of a mountain goat. He reached the bottom in seconds and stepped nonchalantly on to the rocks and sand of the bay as if he did this kind of thing every day.

  The great heavy mass of cloud that had blanketed the night sky and hidden every star from view now parted theatrically from east to west, like the curtains at a music hall, and there, taking centre stage in the bay, was a three-masted sailing ship, spot-lit by a milk-white moon.

  A boat was rowing ashore from the anchored ship to meet him. There was something so dreamlike and unearthly about the scene that it was a little while before I began to see the detail of it.

  The moon was near full and as bright as a beacon. I squinted at the ship and at the boat, trying to make sense of what the spectral light was telling me.

  The hull of the ship seemed to be holed like a moth-eaten coat, the moonlit sea clearly visible through its pierced ribs. The sails were furled but seemed tattered and frayed. In fact the whole ship looked worm-eaten and rotten to the rib-timbers.

  I assumed that this damage was as a result of the tempest, but the more I looked, the less this explanation seemed to hold true. The ship appeared to be corrupted by the ravages of time more than by the actions of the weather.

  There was something equally ragged about the crew of the rowing boat that neared the shore and of the crew that was visible standing at the gunwales and who were silhouetted among the rigging.

  As the boat reached the shore, Thackeray grabbed a line that was tossed to him, waded into the sea and nimbly jumped aboard, helped by hands and arms that seemed not to possess the prerequisite amount of flesh. A thought had wormed its way into my head, but it was Cathy who gave voice to it.

  ‘That’s the Black Ship, isn’t it?’ she said, and, though I dearly wanted to reply that such a notion was childish nonsense, my security in the rational world had taken flight and I could not bring myself to say the words.

  For I knew in my heart that it was true.

  ‘And if that’s the Black Ship, then . . .’ Cathy did not finish the sentence, but there was no need to. If that was the Black Ship, then our storyteller, just like the crew who now crawled over the ship like spiders, unfurling the sails and hauling up the anchor, was dead.

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  Wolfsbane

  Cathy and I watched the Black Ship sail away, dissolving into a fog that had mysteriously built up on the horizon. So Thackeray had been telling the truth. He could not drown in the storm because he was already dead – already drowned most like, as he had no signs of injury. The cliffs held no fear for him. What had he to fear, after all?

  We returned slowly to the inn and, once inside, the hypnotic strangeness of the moonlit bay, the ragged ship and its ragged crew, the storyteller and his fearful yarns – they all seemed to retreat from view like a nightmare does to the waking dreamer who, when asked what it was that woke him so afraid, can recall only the fear itself and not the cause.

  And as this spectral world retreated, the real world and its concerns came flooding back, and with them the realisation that our father had still not returned. I could see that Cathy was worried and I put my arm around her shoulder to reassure her.

  We went back to the settles by the fire, where we had so recently been listening to Thackeray’s sea tales. His empty glass still sat on the table. His strange aura clung to the place with such vivid persistence that we both found ourselves staring at the space he had vacated as if he might materialise in front of our very eyes. I shook my head, still troubled by his visit. Why had he been drawn to our inn? Why did he not go and haunt his childhood home, and where was that exactly?

  It struck me then that if Thackeray really was dead, we did not have any way of knowing how long ago his death occurred. His uniform was old-fashioned. That must be why we had not heard of any Thackerays living nearby. Thackeray, his family, his sweetheart Cathy, were all from the past, how distant though I did not know.

  But I needed to shake off the enchantment of Thackeray’s visit, if such a thing were possible, to look to the present and address the all too real predicament we had been so long distracted from.

  The first faint gleaming of the new dawn would soon be appearing in the east and I told Cathy that since we were fully recovered from whatever had ailed us, we would at first light, if Father had still not returned, make our way down to the village.

  The storm had passed now and whatever our father had said about staying where we were, we could hardly be expected to sit there and do nothing. I had wanted to believe that his act in racing out into the teeth of the storm to try to find help for his sick children was a turning point in our lives. He had gone away from us over the past years with his drinking and evil temper, and strangely, despite his physical absence, he felt closer to us than he had for a long, long time. But I began to wonder now if he had not simply deserted us.

  Cathy readily agreed with me that we should leave the inn at daybreak. Like me, she felt the need to do something. Thackeray’s tales, however unsettling, had with their odd intensity fired our spirits and filled us both with a kind of crackling nervous energy.

  Suddenly there was someone at the door, rattling the handle. Assuming it to be Father, we ran over, but quickly saw through the window that there were at least two men beyond. Cathy leapt to my side. Had the spectral storyteller returned? Had he brought some of his ghostly crewmates with him? No – it could not be. We had watched the Black Ship sail away.

  And yet who could know what such spirits were capable of? He and his grim companions might have flown across the bay like crows or bats. I cannot recall a time I felt so afraid or so unsure of what I knew or trusted that I knew.

  For Thackeray was one thing, but the thought of a dozen of those dead-but-somehow-living mariners entering the inn and occupying it with their tattered presence filled me with dread, and I could see that Cathy felt the same. We heard the sound of jangling keys.

  But before I could think about a plan of action, the door burst open and I grabbed Cathy’s hand and pulled her into an adjoining storeroom, out of sight, praying we had not been seen. Crouching with Cathy at my side, we could peer through the gap between the door and the jamb.

  Two men had entered the inn, both young, in their twenties, and both curiously dressed, wearing trousers as sailors do, though they were like no sailors I had ever seen. Their clothes were well made but of a strange design, as were their hats, which were domes with a narrow brim.

  ‘We are taking something of a risk entering the place,’ said one of the men. ‘It has been liable to fall into the sea for many years.’

  Cathy looked at me and shared my puzzled expression. Who were these men and why did they not call out for assistance? They seemed to assume the inn was empty.

  ‘Do you know I’m sure I felt the building move just then?’ he said.

  ‘It is an incredible place,’ said the other man. ‘But it is deserted you say? It does not feel empty.’

  Cathy nudged me, but I had already seen it: the man who spoke these words seemed to look straight at us as he did so, as if he knew we were there.

  ‘Well, I assure you it is,’ said the other. ‘Feel free to look around. We shan’t be disturbed.’

  They were robbers, I was suddenly certain of it. If they searched they would surely find us, and I decided that it was time to make a move. Thackeray’s insinuation that I was not as brave as he for stay
ing here with my family had roused me into recklessness. I stood up and walked into the room to confront them.

  ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ I said. ‘My father has just stepped out for a moment, but will deal with you on his –’

  ‘The locals shun the place completely since the incident,’ continued the first man, ignoring me completely.

  ‘Ah yes,’ said the other. ‘The incident. And it all happened in this very place, Hugh?’

  ‘I must insist!’ I said loudly, stepping closer to them with fists clenched, angry beyond words that they should treat me with such utter disdain. Cathy had joined me now.

  ‘Yes,’ said the man called Hugh. ‘I thought it might amuse you to soak up the atmosphere. I know how fascinated you are by such things, Montague.’

  ‘They can’t hear us,’ said Cathy. ‘Or see us.’

  ‘And it was your father who found them?’ said the man called Montague.

  ‘Why can’t they see us, Ethan?’ said Cathy, frightened and puzzled in equal measure.

  ‘I don’t know, Cathy,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘And it drove him to an early grave, I always felt. He never forgave himself.’

  ‘But from what you have told me he had nothing to admonish himself about,’ said Montague.

  ‘He always felt that he should have been able to tell that the father’s drinking had gone beyond the realms of drunkenness and into madness. He was their doctor, after all.’ He had tears in his eyes now. ‘To poison your own children, Montague . . .’ said Hugh. ‘What kind of man would do a thing like that?’

  ‘A madman, Hugh,’ said Montague, ‘as you said.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Make them stop, Ethan,’ said Cathy. ‘Please make them stop.’

  I stepped even closer to the man called Hugh and was about to poke him in the chest, when he turned suddenly and walked towards the settles, where we had listened to Thackeray. He walked straight through me.