Tales of Terror from the Black Ship (2 page)

These stories, though gruesome, were as much a comfort to us in their familiarity as a nursery rhyme might be to another child, and it was to these tales we turned in the hope of being transported from our present woes and worries. They took us back to that happy time when all was well at the inn, a time when death and sorrow were confined to stories and the lives of others.

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The wind was so loud about the house and made such moans and mournful howls in the chimney that I had to raise my voice to a most unnatural level to ensure that Cathy could hear me, but she made no complaint and merely sat in rapt attentiveness, hanging on my every word.

‘A scene of the most horrible butchery ensued,’ I read. ‘The bound seamen were dragged to the gangway. Here the cook stood with an axe, striking each victim on the head as he was forced over the side of the vessel by the other mutineers . . .’

The fearsome gale had been tugging at the barn door and slamming it shut repeatedly for an hour or more, and so it was a little while before we registered that the booming we were now hearing was not that sound, but someone pounding at the front door.

I ran to have a look, assuming it to be my returning father. The main door to the inn stood at the end of a small and gloomy stone-flagged hallway and had a round window of thick glass, like that at the end of a bottle. Even in outline I could see it was not Father.

‘Hallo there!’ said the man outside. ‘Will you let a poor sailor bide out the storm?’

‘We’re closed,’ was all I could think to say, mindful of Father’s warning to let no one in and to stay in the house until he returned.

‘Have pity, lad,’ the stranger shouted above the storm’s din, clearly divining my adolescence from my nervous voice. ‘All I ask is safe harbour for a while and then I’ll be gone. You would not leave a man to die in this foul weather now, would you?’

At these words the roar of the tempest rose to another level of wildness. It did seem cruel to let even a stranger spend another minute in that storm. The wind was so strong it had lifted a barrow and hurled it into the sea only moments before he’d arrived. It could do the same with a man, of that I was in no doubt. Whatever Father had said before he left, I was sure he would let the man in himself were he here.

When I lifted the latch it was all I could do to prevent myself being pinned to the wall by the violence of the opening door, and the roar of the storm and the sea crashing at the cliffs was such an assault on my senses that it took me a while to fully register the figure standing in the doorway, a flash of lightning throwing him into inky silhouette and almost seeming to shine through him in its intensity.

I could not detect any features – he remained a shadow in the doorway – but something in his face twinkled like a tiny star.

‘I’ll be no trouble nor harm to you or your kin, you have my word.’

Another crack of thunder exploded overhead and I could not in all conscience have closed that door on anyone on such a night.

‘Aye,’ I said reluctantly. ‘Come in, come in.’

‘You’re a good lad,’ said the stranger with a smile. ‘Jonah Thackeray doesn’t forget a good turn. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Ethan Matthews,’ I said, taking the hand he had offered and finding it as cold and wet as a fishmonger’s. He was comprehensively soaked, water dripping from him as readily as though he had just climbed from the sea.

‘Come in,’ I said. ‘You’ll catch your death out there.’

‘I thank you kindly,’ he said, stepping over the threshold, and I put my shoulder to the door and, after a struggle on the stone flags, managed to get it closed and bolted against the storm. The relative peace once the door was shut was marvellous to behold and our little house seemed more comforting as a shelter than it had before.

When I turned to face the stranger I was surprised to discover that he could not have been very much older than I was – seventeen or eighteen at most. He was dressed in the uniform of a midshipman (though hatless and in a somewhat old-fashioned style), with a black topcoat with brass buttons and a white waistcoat and white shirt beneath. A sword hung from his hip.

There was a black silk neckerchief around his throat and the face above was handsome: dark eyes, like those of a seabird, set in a pale face and framed all about by jet-black hair that snaked downward in shining wet locks. A gold tooth glinted in his broad white smile. Catherine came and stood by me, peering round at him.

‘And who might this rare beauty be?’ he said. Cathy blushed and hid her face.

‘This is my sister, sir,’ I said a little stiffly, not overly keen to hear her spoken to in such a forward manner. ‘Catherine is her name.’

‘Though everyone calls me Cathy,’ said my sister.

‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Cathy,’ said the sailor, as he gave her a shallow bow.

‘Pleased to meet you too, sir,’ said Cathy with what I took to be a curtsey.

‘But are you all alone here?’ asked Thackeray, looking past us.

I felt my hand clench into a fist, suspicious of this line of questioning. Thackeray noted it and smiled.

‘Come now, friend,’ he said. ‘Stand down. I was only asking. Is your mother here perhaps?’

‘Our mother is long dead, sir,’ said Cathy. ‘Ethan and I have been awful sick and Father has gone to fetch the doctor.’

‘Cathy!’ I hissed, annoyed that she should be so free with a total stranger.

‘Well,’ she sniffed, ‘Father told you not to let anyone in and you have. So there!’

I could hardly argue with this accusation and felt my cheeks burn. The wind roared like an angry beast and seemed to hammer at the door as if trying to gain entrance. The visitor looked at us both with such a strange expression.

‘It’s a rough night out there,’ said Thackeray. ‘Has your father been long?’

‘Yes,’ said Cathy. ‘He’s been an awful long time, hasn’t he, Ethan?’

Again I glared at Cathy for her infuriating habit of saying more than was strictly necessary.

‘He will be back in no time, sir,’ I said, ‘rest assured. We are expecting him at any moment.’

‘Are you?’ he said in a tone I did not care for.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I replied.

‘I am mighty pleased to hear it, young fellow,’ said Thackeray. ‘In the meantime perhaps I might have a sip of rum and share your company.’

He took a purse out of his pocket, shook some coins into his hand and emptied them noisily on to the counter.

‘I am sure my father would not want us to send you out until the storm eases, sir,’ I said, looking at the coins. ‘You may help yourself to rum. There is a bottle on the counter. Cathy shall fetch you a glass.’

We all three sat down at a table near the fire, Cathy and me at one side, Thackeray at the other. There was a pile of books on the table and our visitor picked them up, reading the titles out loud with a wry smile.

‘
Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship
Essex,
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
,
Tales of the Grotesque and the Arabesque
– these are deep waters for ones so young.’

‘Do you not like Mr Poe?’ said Cathy.

‘I like him well enough,’ he replied, ‘though he can be a mite elaborate for my tastes.’ He grinned. ‘I found
The Tell-Tale Heart
very amusing – wonderfully gruesome.’

Cathy smiled at this unusual pairing of words, clearly seeing a kindred spirit in Thackeray. I was more wary.

‘You are a reader, then, Mr Thackeray?’ I asked with a marked tone of surprise. He smiled.

‘When I have the opportunity,’ he replied. ‘But we sailors are more likely to tell a tale than read one. It is part of the life of a ship, even a ship such as mine.’

He looked into the fire for a moment, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. I wondered what he had meant by that.

‘You have not yet told us how you come to be out on a night like this,’ I asked.

‘I used to live not far from here,’ he said. ‘But that was long ago . . .’

Once again Thackeray seemed to drift off into his own world, and I looked at Cathy, regretting my soft-heartedness at letting this stranger in through the door. We knew most people hereabouts and I knew of no Thackerays. But Cathy seemed spellbound as our visitor turned to face her.

‘I was sweet on a girl and would have wed her.’ He smiled weakly at Cathy. ‘But she married another. I married the sea instead.’ He took a swig of rum and looked into the fire again. I rolled my eyes at Cathy and she slapped me on the arm.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, looking back at us, ‘and I only say perhaps – perhaps I might while away some time, as I drink my drink and wait for the storm to quieten, by sharing with you a few tales I’ve gathered on my travels. How might that be?’

Cathy readily and excitedly agreed that that would be an excellent notion, providing that our guest would not find it too tiring. I mumbled something to the effect that whatever Cathy wanted was fine by me, though in truth I did not want to give this stranger any excuse to tarry.

‘My only concern,’ said Thackeray, ‘is that my tales are too shocking for your tastes. I am used to the company of seafaring folk and our stories have a tendency to be – how shall I say? – of a more bloodthirsty nature than those you may have heard before.’

Cathy and I exchanged glances and I knew that she felt the same as I.

‘I assure you, sir, that my sister and I are quite equipped to deal with anything you tell us. We are not babes. We have been brought up in an inn and we are well used to the ways of seafarers like yourself.’

Thackeray rubbed his hands together and they creaked like old leather. He grinned and his gold tooth twinkled like the evening star in the twilight at the edge of the fireglow.

‘Very well, then, young listeners,’ he said, ‘I shall have to think . . . Ah yes. I think I have one you might find diverting. It is a romance of sorts.’

‘A romance?’ said Cathy with a curl of her lip. She had a spirited aversion to romances of any kind. I smiled at how swiftly Thackeray seemed to have lost my sister’s interest.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘
of sorts
. . .’

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Piroska

Ships can carry many cargoes: opium or cocoa beans, oranges or timber, cotton or cast iron. They have carried invading armies; they have carried slaves. But the cargo the
Dolphin
carried, though human, was of a very different kind.

For a ship can also carry dreams, and the
Dolphin
carried emigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean bound for a new life in America. It carried their physical bodies, their rough clothes, their meagre possessions, but it also carried their hopes and aspirations. And it carried their fears.

These people were not the travelling kind. For generations their families had clung to the tough lives that had been handed down to them – peasants eking out a living in the shadow of ancient castles. They were a deep and superstitious people, whose fierce attachment to the land of their ancestors had been hard to break.

And so the passengers had boarded the ship with great excitement, had sung folk songs and danced on the deck to the amusement of the crew. The lilting music of fiddles and clarinets filled the air and the ship quickly gained the atmosphere of a country wedding or a May fair.