A CONVERSATION WITH THE CAPTAIN

One ship which I call to mind now had the reputation of killing somebody every voyage she made.

JOSEPH CONRAD

Like mushrooms after a rain, the passengers commenced popping up everywhere. They paraded on the saloon deck, converged in the saloon and in their dining room. Passing one another on their shipboard excursions, they chattered volubly in the passageway. In the afternoon, cards were broken out and the doctor joined his charges for a game of whist. All the hatches were open, the air was fresh, and one could sit at the table with a glass of wine or a brandy with no need to hold tightly to the stem. The day passed pleasantly and in the evening Dr. Doyle took his dinner with the officers. Over brandy, Captain Wallace entertained him with stories of the sights afforded the tourist on the Dark Continent. He told of native tribes who offered human sacrifice to alligators, which devilish creatures swarmed the shore when they knew their tribute was due. One could hear, he said chillingly, the screams of the victims for miles down the river. On another occasion, the captain had seen a human skull protruding from a giant anthill, a fate, he learned, reserved by one tribe for its enemies in another. White men couldn’t survive for long in Africa, he opined. Its malignancy infected their souls, no matter how much liquor they took, and they took a lot.

Doyle, startled by these horrors, spoke of the more wholesome oddities of the Arctic, of a captain who, seeing it was light for twenty‑four hours a day, decided to change day for night, and of the massive white bears, stretched out full length on their stomachs, wrapping their great paws around an ice hole, waiting patiently for a seal to come up for a breath of air, and when it did – whack, lunch was served.

“Clever creatures,” chuckled Wallace, amused by this image.

At length the two men, in companionable spirits, agreed to take a turn on the quarterdeck, where passengers were strictly forbidden to roam. Wallace swept a sharp eye over his vessel, to the bow, the waist, the strolling passengers on the saloon deck, and at last, to the horizon, which was shrouded in a damp mist. The fresh air of the morning had given way to an oppressive humidity and the doctor would have shed his coat had he not thought it an impropriety to do so. As they contemplated the lazily lapping waves, the dog watch went down and the first watch came on, saluting their fellows as they passed with mild humor. “Wasn’t Mither right?” said one cheerily. “Sell the farm and go to sea.”

“They’ll sleep tonight,” Wallace observed. “And dry for a change.”

“Was the fo’c’sle flooded?” asked the doctor.

“Was it, indeed? Their beds were awash and the cook got up the stove, so it was a veritable steam bath, I’m told, and they could hardly find their way about their slops.”

“They are stalwart fellows,” Doyle opined.

Again, Wallace fixed upon his medical officer a stern look. Then he turned away and positioned himself at the rail, gazing out over the water as it streamed away behind them. Dr. Doyle, unflustered, joined him there.

“I say, what’s that?” said the captain, pointing to the air off the starboard bow.

The doctor followed the line indicated by the captain’s raised arm. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“Don’t you?” Wallace replied. “Look again.”

Obediently, the doctor surveyed the sea. It was dark, and the heavy mist confused him, but he thought he did see something, a triangle of brighter white than the mist. He saw it, then it was gone, then he saw it again. “What is it?” he asked.

“It’s a ship,” Wallace replied.

“Is it? Is it coming our way?”

The captain had his binoculars out and for several moments he stood at the rail peering through the glasses. The doctor could only try to see, unassisted, what his commander saw, but he made nothing out, if he ever had. A feeling of helplessness and lethargy – it was really so much warmer than one might expect an open deck could be – came upon him and he coughed, trying to clear his head. The evening cocktail ritual might prove a mistake.

“No,” Wallace spoke at last. “No, she’s gone on. She’s on an odd course.” He pulled the glasses down, and grinned at his companion. “She must be the ghost of the Mary Celeste .”

Doyle recognized the name, as who would not? He was a boy at school when he read about it. It must be ten years, he thought, since that ship was hauled into Gibraltar for a salvage hearing that quickly became international front‑page news. A ghost ship she’d been, but was she still? The doctor felt the fine hairs at the nape of his neck stir infinitesimally. “The Mary Celeste ,” he repeated.

“She was picked up in these waters, and it was this time of year.”

“And you think the ship itself is a ghost?”

The captain grinned again, shaking his head slowly from side to side. “No, Doyle, I don’t, man. But you’re such an impressionable lad, I thought I’d try it out on you.”

The doctor was unabashed. “I haven’t thought of that story in years,” he said. “I recall it was a great mystery at the time. Was it pirates took the crew? I can’t remember.”

“There haven’t been pirates in these waters in fifty years,” said Wallace. “And there were no signs of violence and nothing taken.”

“Yes,” Doyle agreed. “That’s right. The ship was in good condition, but not a soul on board.”

Wallace nodded, his brow thoughtfully knit. “I knew the captain a little,” he said. “A Yankee gentleman, upright, family man. Name of Biggs, or Tibbs, something like that. I happened to be in port with him at Marseille; it must be twenty years now. He was a young man then, and a handsome one. He had his wife along, and she was much relieved to find English speakers. She had no French and they’d been loading a week. Very dark‑eyed, pert creature, confident in that American way, always slyly mocking anything foreign. I invited them on board for dinner and we had a pleasant enough time. He was teetotal, but he didn’t fuss if others took spirits. I liked him for that. There was nothing puritanical about him; he was a cordial man. I remember one thing especially about that night. We got to singing round the table, more polite songs than usual because the lady was present, and his wife took a turn. She had a lovely voice, almost a professional voice, and she sang a song I didn’t know, an American song, I presumed. I’d never heard it before or since, but I recall the refrain. It was ‘All things love thee, all things love thee, so do I.’ ” Wallace tilted his head to one side, as if listening to the remembered voice, while the doctor studied him with a questioning eye. “She stood up to sing, and when she got to that refrain, she turned to her husband, and he, with a smile of the purest satisfaction, looked back at her. They looked into each other’s eyes, you see, while she told him she loved him, and it was as if there were no other people in the world but those two. The look on her face! I’ve never thought to bring my missus along on a voyage, but I think if she ever looked at me like that for one moment in my life, well, I might consider it. I can tell you there was not a man there that didn’t feel envious of Captain Tibbs at that moment. We were all going off to our bunks with a last tot of brandy for a bedmate, and he was going back to his cabin with a woman who adored him.” Here Wallace paused, having concluded his story.

“And the wife and child were aboard, when they abandoned ship.”

“Yes. They were never seen again.”

“Wasn’t there something odd about the cargo? Do you know?”

“Well, that’s an interesting detail. The captain kept a dry ship. There was not a drop of spirits allowed above deck, but he had loaded a thousand barrels of alcohol at New York. That fool proctor at the Admiralty hearing tried to make something of that. He was convinced the crew had gotten at the barrels and killed the officers and the family in a drunken fury. Then they put down the yawl and sailed away.”

Doyle considered this scenario. “One of them would have had to be able to navigate,” he suggested. “It’s possible, I suppose.”

“It would be if the alcohol was brandy. But it was distilling spirits. If you could make yourself swallow it, it would kill you.”

Doyle frowned at this thought. “So it wasn’t mutiny and it wasn’t pirates.”

“No. I mean yes, it was neither of those.”

“Do you have a theory?”

“I do not. It appeared that she was abandoned in a hurry. That, I believe, is a fact. But she had too much sail set to tie up to her with a painter, as the salvagers claimed must have happened. Any sailor would have more sense than to try that. Ten people in a yawl on the open sea, tying up to a ship rigged to run dead downwind; it would be suicide.”

“So, in your view, leaving the ship as they did was an irrational act.”

Wallace expelled a huff of exasperation. “You may say so, sir.”

Doyle pressed his fingertips over his lips, disarranging his mustache. His eyes scanned the horizon, which was dimly visible now, as the mist had cleared and the moon was half full. “Then there must have been foul play.”

“Or they were mightily frighted of something.”

“Out of their senses with fear. Yes. But if the captain was, as you say, a steady man, of some experience …”

“That’s what has always puzzled me about the incident. I can’t think the man I met in Marseille would abandon a seaworthy ship in a panic.”

The doctor smoothed his mustache ruminatively, and the captain moved his head from side to side, pondering the unsolved mystery.

“Perhaps,” concluded the doctor, “they didn’t all leave at once.”

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 640