THE GHOST SHIP Read online

Addressing the officer, Lawrence flung his arm at the wheel. “Look there,” he said, his face twisted in disgust. “The steering mechanism has been destroyed. The binnacle's been smashed. She was without a compass when she hit the shoal.”

  In her mind, Ann saw the wheel spinning in the little man's hands, and willed herself not to break down again.

  “Scuttled,” the officer muttered. “The rogues.”

  Rogues? More like murderers.

  The officer went on, “Sir, I have information. It comes from the Cape Lookout Lightship Master. Two days ago he saw the Carroll A. Deering pass his lightship. A man on board who did not look or talk like a captain hailed the lightship and reported that the schooner had lost both anchors while riding out a gale. The crewman asked that this information be reported to the ship's owners. The Master said that the crewman was tall, thin and had reddish hair. He was standing on the poop deck with several other crewmen around him.”

  “Most irregular for crew to be on the quarterdeck,” Lawrence said.

  “A short time after the schooner passed the lightship, a steamer went by,” the officer continued. “The lightship's radio didn't work, and so the Master signaled the steamer to get a message to the schooner's owners. They got no response from the steamer.”

  “Curious. It's against maritime law not to respond to the whistles of a lightship. Did they recall the steamer's name?”

  “Her name was covered up with a tarp.”

  “Even more curious. You go to the forward house. We'll investigate the afterhouse.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  When the officer swayed away, she asked, “What's the afterhouse?”

  “Follow me,” Lawrence said. “The afterhouse is near the stern. It has rooms for the ship's officers. One room is the captain's quarters. Near the ship's bow is the forward house where the crew works. The forecastle is where they bunk.”

  The afterhouse had once been plush. She saw it in the texture of the woods – mahogany, ash and cypress – but the stench of mold and dead things hung like a pall.

  “She has running water,” Lawrence said, flicking a metal light switch to no avail. “And the latest in modern conveniences. Not many ships are equipped with generators.”

  “When was she built?”

  “1919.”

  She'd heard them say the ship was two years old. It is indeed 1921. She smiled to herself. She felt no apprehension; the irrational had become rational.

  Lawrence opened the door to the captain's quarters. The wooden beds were tossed and tangled with blankets, papers were strewn, and several pairs of boots lay haphazardly on the planking.

  He lifted three boots. “All different. They don't look like boots that would belong to a captain.” Surveying the room, he remarked, “And I don't see the captain's trunk, his grip or his canvas.”

  She spotted a few books in a walled case and went to pick up a leather-bound black one. “Someone's Bible,” she said handing it to him.

  Opening it, he read, “Willis B. Wormell, born Lubec, Maine on September 16, 1854.” He held up a picture. “Here is a photograph of the captain standing with a young woman, presumably his daughter.” He handed her the sepia print.

  Captain Wormell looked intense, like he might have a religious streak. If the young woman standing beside him was of average height, then Wormell must have been over six feet tall. His light hair and mustache could have been gray. His eyes, too.

  Meanwhile, Lawrence continued to look through the Bible. He took out a sheet of paper. “It appears Captain Wormell secreted a list of his crew in his Bible.”

  “Unusual?”

  “I'd say. Here, it says his first mate is one Charles B. McLellan. His engineer is Herbert Bates, and Wormell writes next to his name that Bates is 'quite reliable'.”

  “No notation for McLellan?” she asked, going to his side to look at the paper.

  His index finger ran down the list and she noticed the pinkie of that hand was crooked. “None,” he said. “Johan Fredrickson from Finland is the bosun. The cook, J. A. Benjamin, is from the French West Indies. The rest of the crew is from Denmark – N. P. Nielson. Niels Olsen, S. Christian Pedersen, Peter Sorensen, Alfred Jorgensen, Hans Carl Jensen.”

  She said, “Interesting how he describes each man and how much they're paid. Nielson, 24, 5-5, fair hair, brown eyes. $100.00 a month.” She glanced at Lawrence. “That's a paltry amount to risk your life for.”

  “It's a fair wage for the time.”

  “For 1921?”

  He gave a quick nod and spun for the door. In the chart room, an ocean chart lay on a table. Lawrence sat down, picked up a magnifying glass and ran it over the lines, pausing now and again to study the writings. She stood over his shoulder and tried to fathom the illegible scrawl.

  “The handwriting changes on January 23,” Lawrence said, and tapped his finger on an entry. “One assumes that it's Captain Wormell's up until that time.” He scanned for several more minutes. “According to this unknown man's hand, it seems to have taken the Deering six days to sail from Cape Fear to pass the Cape Lookout lightship. It should have taken less than twelve hours.”

  Lawrence laid the chart aside, rose, and poked through the rest of the mess. He looked cross. “The ship's log is gone. I'd hoped it could tell us what might have happened.”

  “Evidently something happened that somebody didn't want read about.”

  “Also there's some instruments missing – no sextant, quadrant, chronometer.” Flinging aside papers, he said, “There should be a map of the mid-Atlantic, and there isn't.”

  There was a thump on the door. Lawrence called, “Enter.”

  The officer came in and saluted. “With your permission, Sir, I've come to report that the fo'c'sle is empty of crew and all their belongings.” He took a small Maltese cat out of his pocket. Its ribs showed through its scruffy fur. When it mewed, a heart string vibrated in Ann's chest. The officer said, “It appears that the only living thing on board is this kitty.” He grabbed a paw and spread the toes. “It has six toes, look.”

  “A six-toed cat,” Lawrence said. “Unlucky.” He took the cat in his palm, and held it at eye level. “If only you could talk, little fellow. If only …” He handed the cat back.

  Pushing the cat into his pocket, the officer said, “In the galley, there was a meal set out. Coffee on. Pea soup and spare ribs on the stove. Looks like the crew was surprised at, or just before, their meal.”

  “Yes, but by what? Or whom?”

  The officer shrugged, and then left to search the cargo holds. Ann studied Lawrence – head bowed so that his chin nearly rested on his chest while his hands were locked behind his back. Apparently lost in thought, she was certainly lost in the allure of him – an allure that he fostered at times and discouraged at others.

  What does he want of me?

  She moved to him and laid a hand on his arm. “Why do you suppose the men fled in a hurry?”

  Shaking the trance, he rubbed his temple where a small birthmark marred it. “Mutiny,” he said. His voice vibrated doom. “Or pirates.”

  “Pirates in the twenty-first century? Like Blackbeard?”

  His eyebrows drew together. “You've skipped a century. Unfortunately piracy always exists. We're in a world war, and war-piracy is rife. It's a different kind of piracy than Blackbeard practiced, but piracy is piracy.”

  1921.

  At last she felt the time had come to confront him. “Which world war are we talking about?”

  “The Great War. Are there others?”

  Dare she speak and lose the moment? “Well – there's Two. World War Two.”

  “When will this war come?”

  “In Europe, in 1939. Hitler's war. Don't you know about it?”

  He lifted her chin with a forefinger. “I'm not prescient, my dear.”

  Her thinking blurred, and she confessed, “I'm living in a different time from my own.”

  His arms stretched out to her, each hand embracing a shoulde
r. “Isn't it wonderful to be able to?”

  Caught up in his exuberance, she stepped closer to him. “Oh Lawrence, it's so wonderfully overwhelming. I'm not sure I understand how it happened. Or why it happened. But I love this time.”

  “I knew you would, that's why I brought you with me.”

  She leaned closer, inviting him to fold his arms around her. Instead, he stiffened, took a step backward and dropped his hands.

  She felt like he'd slapped her with a cold fish. When she spoke, her words came too fast and sounded too desperate. “Then you also know that there is nothing for me in my time but an emptiness I can do without. This time with you, this place, it's enchanting and I want to remain.”

  His expression grew indistinct as if her emotions had washed some of it away. “I can't guarantee that.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked away. “Our lives are on a track, like a train.”

  “You'll have to explain.”

  “We go forward with ease ...”

  “Going forward I understand. Backwards, though?”

  “Most humans don't know that they can, and so they never try.”

  “Did I try?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did I get on your track?”

  “A convergence.”

  “A convergence of what?”

  “I can only guess that we have a mutual quest.”

  “If I have a quest,” she said, “I don't know about it.”

  “It could be something as simple as getting a new life.”

  “Simple?”

  “It is simple,” he said with an encouraging smile. “If you break old habits and open your mind to new possibilities.”

  By now she knew that Lawrence didn't put himself forth as a new possibility. That didn't stop her from being spellbound by him and this mysterious quest of his, but there was something illusory about him. As a time traveler herself, perhaps she was an illusion to him. But at last she knew he was real. I've been touched by him, consoled by him. She asked, “What quest are you on?”

  “I'm on two, actually. One is an official mission.”

  “The Deering's fate?” Intensity streamed from his eyes in answer to that question. “What's the second quest?” she asked.

  He grinned; a spark came into his eyes. “Someday you'll know, I hope.”

  At times his oblique way of answering maddened her. “Lawrence, that's not an answer.”

  “I can't predict your future. And I can't influence it, either, or much of it. But time will tell, both me and you.”

  “Time. Time is confusing. And what is happening in my life while I'm here in yours?”

  “When you return, you will be exactly as you were when you left. A few moments will have gone by, that's all.”

  “I don't want to go back.”

  His face hardened, telling her that that was inescapable. Then he smiled. “But for now, we must go farther back in time. Care to continue with me on my mission?”

  “How far back?”

  “Just a few months. I think you'll enjoy seeing the Carroll A. Deering as she was before the rascals deliberately destroyed her.” The dark look on his face had probably scared a sailor or two in his own time. “Be warned, though, it could be dangerous, and you could witness unspeakable evil.”

  Danger be damned. “I don't want to be anywhere else.”

  When he looked at her, the glimmer in his eyes nourished the anticipation in her soul. He said, “I don't either.”

  Giddiness spread through her like the scent of jasmine on a fine summer's day. “But Lawrence, what in the world shall I wear?”

  He laughed. “My dear, I am sure you can conjure up just the right clothing for any occasion.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  --

  Rio de Janeiro

  --

  Ann resisted swaying to the rhythm of the samba in the little bar on Avenida Beira-Mar while she sipped rum and kept her mouth shut. The wind outside the Callejon de Gato tried desperately to blow the tile roof off as rain blasted the windows. A typical December in Rio, everybody said. Under the Macintosh, she wore a dull gray-and-black plaid sack suit with black brogues. Her bright hair hid under a Patagonia bucket hat. She'd been introduced to the company as, “A Swedish young man with no English, and an interest in the sea.”

  Lawrence, too, sat quietly drinking a cachaca – the vile sugarcane liqueur that faintly resembled anise if you got past the fiery sensation in your mouth and throat. She'd heard a man say that the poor people of Brazil loved it because in an instant it made them forget their poverty.

  Captain Wormell and his friend, Captain Goodwin drank a kind of draught beer called chopp. They'd finished their dinner of feijao amigo – friendly beans. She thought it disgusting black bean soup. Everyone in the dim bar smoked except her and Lawrence. Captain Wormell was so addicted to cigarettes that he would lay his fork aside and light a cigarette during his meal, and when he finished eating, he chain-smoked during the conversation. When he laughed out loud, she saw his large yellow teeth protruding through his bushy moustache.

  Captain Wormell, like his friend, Captain Goodwin, was deeply religious. Talk of faith and family and mutual friends over, they began their sea tales. They told of unsatisfactory seamen, unfit food, stingy vessel owners, water spouts they'd piloted around, and the Bermuda Triangle. Captain Goodwin reported that the last time he crossed The Triangle, his ship went dead in the water and his compass spun erratically. He said, “And then, we got a backing wind, and the compass came back to true north, and we had a storm. It wasn't the storm that gave me frights; it was the calm before the wind.”

  Then Captain Goodwin asked his friend if he'd had any strange occurrences in The Triangle on the maiden voyage of the Carroll A. Deering. Captain Wormell answered, “Blessed that we didn't. But Lordy, it was a trial.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, let me begin with the launch of the Deering, and perhaps you will understand my misgivings. The G. G. Deering Shipyards in Bath, Maine built her, and she was named for Carroll A. Deering, the son of the shipbuilder. Carroll is not a seaman. Far's I know, he's never boarded a dinghy. Well, on launch day, his wife, Mrs. C. A. Deering, decided to have the launch dinner before the launch.”

  “What?” Captain Goodwin's fist came down on the wooden table. “Unheard of.”

  Captain Wormell leaned closer to his friend. “But you heard me correctly. Mrs. Deering had the dinner at King Tavern before the launch so that the guests could catch the afternoon train back west.”

  “Pshaw,” he spit. “Bad luck.”

  “Indeed. But listen. Then Mrs. Deering launched one of the biggest schooners ever built – she's a five-master, you know – with a large bouquet of roses.”

  “What man,” Captain Goodwin cried.

  “You heard me right. Roses. Not champagne. Not even beer, as God is my witness. As the schooner descended into the waters, the woman threw flowers at her.”

  “Dear God in Heaven. Flowers become wreaths. Wreaths mean death.”

  “These flowers were picked up by the launch guests for souvenirs.”

  “I fear hearing worse.”

  “The bad luck began soon after.”

  “I wouldn't wonder, but go on, man.”

  “I am not the original choice to captain the Deering.”

  “I did not know that.”

  “He got sick in Norfolk just before she was to leave with her load of coal to Rio, where we sit this evening. I am happy to report that we made it safely, but …”

  “Who was her original captain?”

  “William Merritt. His first mate was to be his son. When Merritt became too sick to captain the ship, I was hired. The son wouldn't leave his sickly father, and so I had to find a first mate. I hired one I hardly knew.”

  “Too bad. For a mate, you need a man you know and can trust.”

  “It was a jumped up affair, man, and I shouldn't have let myself be pushed into a hasty choice. But
there you have it.”

  “Who is this first mate you were harried to hire?”

  “Charles B. McLellan.”

  “I've not heard a word of him.”

  “He's a troublemaker. He's worthless. Worse, he's a drunkard.”

  “Ah, but how did he make trouble?”

  “He's a bucko. He bullies, especially when he's drunk. The crew lives in fear of him.”

  “Aye, that's too bad, my friend.”

  “Fortunately, I have at my back, a fine engineer in Herbert Bates.”

  “I know of the man. Yes, he is indeed quite reliable. What of the rest of the crew?”

  “The cook's from Africa. The bosun's a Finn. The rest are Danes who stick together like glue. They're hardy and they work, but they pretend they don't speak or understand English. I think that they pretend ignorance to get on McLellan's nerves, because I'm quite certain that they do understand our language.”

  “Cliquish. That means trouble.”

  Just then revelers broke into the bar – seven or eight rain-soaked men singing a familiar hymn in Portuguese and passing a hat.

  Lawrence sat back in his chair. “My God, they're drunk as loons and begging for money.”

  Captain Goodwin said, “It's the eve of the celebration of independence.”

  “Not a fit night for celebration,” Captain Wormell said.

  “Ah, who's to say,” Goodwin said. “They've just commissioned a statue of Christ the Redeemer to be constructed on Humpback Mountain.”

  Wormell brightened. “That's a fine idea.”

  “Those Catholic boys are collecting donations. All of Rio is full of anticipation. The Savior will have his arms outstretched to welcome travelers to the River of January.”

  Ann had been to Rio – in another life – and knew that the Bay of Rio de Janeiro was discovered on January 1st , and she'd seen Christ's statue on the summit of Corcovado Peak. Who couldn't when it dominated Rio's skyline? But she'd always thought that the Savior's arms looked like they were outstretched, ready to dive into the sea below.

  “Well,” Captain Wormell said, crushing his cigarette and rising. “I must bid you good evening.”

  Captain Goodwin got to his feet and clutched his friend's arm. “I wish you God Speed, my friend. And, watch your back.”