if you are fond of a mystery i believe you will ponder over this curious narrative just as i have pondered.
certain persons, having heard rumours of the strange adventures that once happened to me, have asked me to write them down in detail, so that they may be printed and given to the world in their proper sequence. therefore, in obedience, and in order to set at rest for ever certain wild and unfounded reports which crept into the papers at the time, i do so without fear or favour, seeking to conceal no single thing, but merely to relate what i actually saw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears.
i read somewhere the other day the sweeping statement, written probably by one of our superior young gentlemen just down from oxford, that romance is dead. this allegation, however, i make so bold as to challenge—first, because in my own humble capacity i have actually been the unwilling actor in one of the most remarkable romances of modern times; and, secondly, because i believe with that sage old chronicler, richard of cirencester, that the man whose soul is filled with greek has a heart of leather.
fortunately i can lay claim to neither. apart from my association with the present chain of curious events i am but an ordinary man, whose name is paul pickering, whose age is thirty-two, and whose profession at the time the romance befell me was the very prosaic one of a doctor without regular practice. you will therefore quickly discern that i was not overburdened either by fame, fortune, or fashionable foibles, and further that, as locum tenens for country doctors in ill-health or on holiday, i advertised regularly in the lancet, and was glad enough to accept the fee of three guineas weekly.
hard work in a big practice at stepney and poplar had resulted in a bad touch of influenza with its attendant debility; therefore, when one of my patients, a sun-tanned old salt named seal, suggested that i should go a trip with him up the mediterranean, i hailed the idea with delight.
job seal was quite a chance patient. he called one evening at the surgery in commercial road east, where i was acting as locum for a doctor named bidwell, and consulted me about his rheumatism. a big, deep-chested, thick-set man, with grey hair, reddish uncut beard, big hands, shaggy brows, and a furrowed face browned by sea and sun; he spoke in a deep bass, interlarding his conversation with nautical expressions which were, to me, mostly unintelligible. the liniment i gave him apparently suited his ailment, for he came again and again, until one evening he called and declared that i had effected a cure as marvellous as that of sequah.
“my boat, the thrush, is layin’ at fresh wharf, and i sail on saturday for cardiff, where we take in coal for leghorn. now, if you ain’t got anything better to do, doctor, don’t you sign on why as steward at a bob a day, and come with me for the round trip?” he suggested. “you told me the other night that you’re bein’ paid off from here on saturday. my boat ain’t exactly a liner, you know, but i daresay you could shake down comfortable like, and as the trip’ll take a couple o’ months, you’d see most of the ports up to smyrna. besides, this is just the right time o’ year for a blow. it ’ud do you good.”
the suggestion certainly appealed to me. i had never been afloat farther than ramsgate by the marguerite, and for years had longed to go abroad and see those wonderful paradises of the sunny south of which, like other people, i had witnessed highly-coloured dissolving views. therefore i accepted the bluff old captain’s hospitality, signed the ship’s papers in a back office off leadenhall street, and on saturday evening boarded as black, grimy, and forbidding a craft as ever dropped down the thames.
job seal was right. the thrush was not by any means a liner, and its passenger accommodation was restricted. my cabin was very small, very stuffy, and very dirty; just as might be expected of a mediterranean tramp steamer. as the outward cargo was invariably cardiff steam coal consigned to the well-known firm of messrs. agius, of naples, and malta, there was over everything a layer of fine coal dust, while the faces of both officers and crew seemed ingrained with black.
the first day out i confess that i did not feel over well. a light vessel and a choppy sea are never pleasant to a landsman. nevertheless, i very soon got my sea legs, and then the voyage down channel was pleasant enough. it was the end of june, and the salt breezes were gratifying after the stuffy back streets of stepney. before my advent job seal was in the habit of eating alone in his cabin, because he was an omnivorous reader, and the chatter of his officers disturbed him. he welcomed me, however, as a companion. max pemberton, conan doyle, and hyne he swore by, and in one corner of his cabin he had whole stacks of sixpenny reprints.
the first day out i rather regretted my hasty decision to sail with him, but ere we sighted lundy island and penarth i was as merry and eager to smoke as any of the villainous-looking crew.
after four days loading in cardiff the vessel was an inch deep in coal dust, and as the heavy-swearing hands in the forecastle began “cleaning up” we slowly glided out of the bute docks to the accompaniment of shouting, gesticulating, and strong language. at seal’s suggestion i had provided myself with certain articles of food to my taste, but as the grit of coal and the taste of tar were inseparable from the cuisine, and the cook’s galley the most evil-smelling corner in the whole vessel, i enjoyed eating least of all. the weather was, however, perfect, even in the long roll of the atlantic, and the greater part of each day i spent with the burly skipper on his bridge, lolling in an old deck-chair behind a screen of canvas lashed to the rail to keep off the wind. i had quite a cosy corner to myself, and there i smoked my pipe, breathed the salt ocean breezes, and yarned with my deep-chested friend.
“we don’t carry forty-quid salooners on this ’ere boat,” remarked joe thorpe, the first mate, when i mentioned casually that the rats gnawed my boots at night and scampered around my cabin and over my bunk. “when a passenger comes with us he has to rough it, but he sees a sight more than if he travelled by the p. and o. or the orient. you’ll see a lot, doctor, before you’re back in london.”
his words were prophetic. i did see a lot, as you will gather later on.
craft and crew were, as i have said, as forbidding as can be well imagined. the vessel was black, save for a dirty red band around her funnel, old, ricketty, and much patched. on the second day out from cardiff mike flanagan, the first engineer, imparted to me the disconcerting fact that the boilers were in such a state that he feared to work them at any undue pressure lest we might all take an unwelcome flight into space. hence at night, when i lay in my bunk sleepless owing to the dirty weather in the bay of biscay, the jarring of the propeller caused my medical mind to revert to the instability of those boilers and the probability of catastrophe. i am not a seafaring man, but i have often since wondered in what class the thrush might have been entered at lloyd’s.
day followed day, and after we sighted finisterre the weather became delightful again. seal told me long yarns of his younger days in the pacific trade, how he had been wrecked off the tasmanian coast, and how on another occasion the steamer on which he sailed was burned at sea. the dreamy hours passed lazily. we ate together, laughed together, and at night drank big noggins of rum together. cape st. vincent loomed up in the haze one brilliant evening, and afterwards the great rock of gibraltar; then, on entering the mediterranean, we steered a straight course for that long, sun-blanched town with the high lighthouse lying at the foot of the blue apennines, leghorn, which port we at last entered with shrieking siren and flying our dirty red ensign.
but it is not with foreign towns that this narrative concerns. true, i went ashore with seal and drank vermouth and seltzer at nazi’s, but during the weeks i sailed in company with the big-handed, big-hearted skipper and his villainous-looking crew we visited many ports in search of a cargo for london. naples, palermo, smyrna, and tunis were to me, an untravelled man, all interesting, while job seal was, i discovered, a most popular man ashore. shipping agents welcomed him, and he drank vermouth at their expense; customs officers were civil, with an eye to the glass of grog that would follow their inspection; and even british consuls were agreeable, unbending and joking with him in their private sanctums.
yes, job seal was a typical mediterranean skipper, a hard drinker in port, a hard swearer at sea, and a hard task-master at any time. in bad weather he put on his pluck with his oilskins. from the bridge he addressed his men as though speaking to dogs, and woe betide the unfortunate hand who did not execute an order just to his liking. he would roar like a bull, and conclude with an interminable cascade of imprecations until he became red in the face and breathless.
“i’ve done this round trip these nineteen years, doctor,” he explained to me one night while we were having our grog together, “and i really believe i could take the old tub from the gib. to naples without a compass.” and then in his deep bass tones he began to yarn as sailors will yarn, telling tales mostly of adventures ashore in foreign towns, adventures wherein mike flanagan—to whom he always referred as his “chief”—and alcoholic liquors played leading parts.
after leaving tunis for valencia, homeward bound, we experienced bad weather. the wind howled in the rigging, and the sea ran mountains high, as it often does in those parts at certain seasons of the year. one afternoon, attired in the suit of yellow oilskins i had purchased in cardiff, i was seated on the bridge, notwithstanding the stiff breeze and the heavy sea still running, for i preferred that to my stuffy, tarry cabin with its port-hole screwed down.
seal, in ponderous sea-boots, black oilskins, and his sou-wester tied beneath his chin, had been chatting, laughing and pacing the deck, when of a sudden his quick eye observed something which to my unpractised vision was indistinguishable. he took his glass from its box, stood astride, and took steady sight of it.
“h’m,” he grunted deeply, “that’s durned funny!” and turning to the helmsman gave an order which caused the man to spin the wheel over, and slowly the bows of the thrush swung round in the direction in which he had been gazing.
“like to look, doctor?” he asked, at the same time handing me his glass.
i stood up, but the vessel rolling about like a bottle made it difficult for me to keep my feet, and more especially for me to focus the object. at last, however, after some effort i saw as i swept the horizon a curious-looking thing afloat. indistinct in the grey haze, it looked to me like two square-built boxes floating high from the water, but close behind each other. i could not, however, see them well on account of the haze.
“that’s curious!” i ejaculated. “what do you think they are, captain?”
“haven’t any idea, doctor. we’re goin’ to inspect ’em presently.” and he again took sight for a long time, and then replaced his glass in its box with a puzzled air. “queer lookin’ craft, anyhow,” he remarked. “they don’t seem to be flying any signals of distress, either.”
“where are we now?” i inquired, much interested in the mysterious object in the distance.
“about midway between fomentera and algiers,” was his answer, and then, impatient to overhaul the craft that had attracted his attention, he pulled over the brass handle of the electric signals and turned it back again, causing it to ring thrice. an instant later came the three answering rings, and a few moments afterwards the long cloud of dense black smoke whirling from the funnel told us that mike flanagan was about to get all the work out of his boilers that he dared.
seal roared an order in the howling wind, and a tiny, coal-grimed flag ran up to the mast-head and fluttered in the breeze, while with eyes glued to his glass he watched if any response were given to his signal.
but there was none.
news of something unusual had spread among the crew, and a few moments later the first mate, thorpe, whose watch had ended an hour before, sprang up the ladder to the skipper’s side.
“look, joe!” exclaimed seal. “what the dickens do you make out o’ that?”
thorpe swung his body with the motion of the vessel and took a long look at the object of mystery.
“thunder, cap’n!” he cried. “looks like noah’s ark, sir.”
by this time the smutty-faced crew, in their dirty blue trousers and sea-boots, had emerged from the forecastle and stood gazing in the direction of the mystery, heedless of the waves that now and then swept the deck from stem to stern. some of the men shaded their eyes with horny hands, and the opinions expressed were both forcible and various.
job seal borrowed a fusee from me and lit his foul-smelling pipe, a habit of his when puzzled. with his blackened clay between his teeth he talked to thorpe, while the spray showered in our faces and the vessel rose and fell in the long trough of the sea.
again and again he sighted the object which his sea-trained eyes had so quickly detected, and each time growled in dissatisfaction.
at length, in a voice quite unusual to him, and with all the brown gone out of his face, he said:?—
“there’s something very uncanny about that blessed craft, doctor! i’ve been afloat these thirty-three years come august, but i never saw such a tarnation funny thing as that before! i believe it’s the flyin’ dutchman, as true as i’m here on my own bridge!”
he handed me the binocular again, and steadying myself carefully i managed to focus it.
sailors are nothing if not superstitious, and i could see that the unusual sight had sent a stir of consternation through the ship.
“what do you make her out to be?” roared seal to the look-out man.
“never saw such a thing before, sir,” responded the man in oilskins; “maybe she’s one o’ them secret submarine inventions of the french what’s come to the surface”—a suggestion which pleased the crew mightily, and was greeted with a chorus of laughter.
“submarine be hanged!” exclaimed one old seaman whom i had heard addressed as dicky dunn. “it’s old noah a-making for marseilles! can’t yer see the big square port in the stern where he lets his bloomin’ pigeons out?”
and so the suggestions went on, and while the thrush rapidly bore down with full steam ahead, with the salt spray flying across her bows, the mystery of our discovery increased.
