THE GHOST SHIP Read online

  She looked up at him. “No, I have asked to be with you. It's what I want. I can go through hell if you are with me.” She felt the now-familiar stiffening of his body and saw his eyes cloud over. “What is it, Lawrence?”

  He shook himself and looked down at her. “Nothing, my dear. Now,” he took her hands in his, “you mustn't fear for your life.”

  She didn't fear for her life; she feared losing him. “I won't if you're here with me.”

  “I can't stay with you …”

  She squeezed his hands. “You can't leave me.”

  “Listen, those devils won't go looking for the Swedish gentleman aboard this ship. You're not in their consciousness, although I fear you could make yourself known if you wanted to. So we shall keep our distance from them, and we'll be fine.”

  “I'm not afraid for my life, Lawrence.”

  He ran the back of his fingers over her cheek. “I know that. But I'm afraid of – for you.” He turned to leave. “Now I have something topside that I must see to. Rest well, my Ann.”

  He left before she could find adequate words to continue her protest. She swayed to the porthole, looked out to sea and let despondency flow in. Who was the enigmatic man who'd brought her here? And why? How could she help in his quest? And why was he afraid of her? Yes, he'd meant afraid of her – not for her. Her eyes streamed tears and suddenly her pent-up emotions erupted and she hit the porthole with her fist. I must get out of this room. Get out and breathe.

  She ran to the door leading into the captain's stateroom. She turned the knob as if at any moment someone on the other side would throw the door wide. No one did. The stateroom was dissonantly silent and stank of a slaughterhouse. She skirted the dining table with its brown-red stains and white bone pieces. On deck, calm seas glistened like glass beneath the moon. McLellan stood at the helm, looking like a statue of stone. Then she saw why he stood so still. Fredrickson sat on an iron winch nearby, holding a gun aimed at his chest.

  Lawrence stood by the rail with his hand gripping a shroud. Perhaps it was the gibbous moon that made him look translucent; perhaps it was her imagination that he’d become a dream, a chimera. His head turned and he saw her. Solidifying like a photograph developing in its pan of liquid, he touched a fully fleshed finger to his lips. Quietly, he inched around the rail and stood next to her.

  “Please, my dear, go to your stateroom. I couldn't stand for you to witness more brutality.”

  She said, “Lawrence, just now you seemed …”

  His brow creased. “Yes?”

  How could she tell him that he'd looked like a figment when he stood before her, bone and flesh.

  He came close and kissed her forehead. “It has been a horrendous day for all of us. Good night, my dearest Ann.” She searched his face, white in the shadows of the moon and the sails. She reached up, and, with a finger, touched his lips. They curved upward, reaching his dimples. She said, “I'm – bewitched.”

  “C'est la mer.”

  --

  Chaos ruled her dreams. Lawrence faded in and out of the nightmares like a phantom. Then a great crash brought her fully awake. She rose, terror strumming her nerves like a madman playing violin. Voices boomed from the captain's room, drunken and profane. It took several moments before she realized they weren't coming for her. Through the thin bulkhead, she heard Fredrickson speak in English. “The old bastard lies with the bottom fish. No more grog. We celebrate with rum.”

  A Dane cried out in his own language. It sounded to her like he was making a toast. Hands clapped against the boards.

  The bosun said, “We'll take on plenty more when we drop anchor at eight bells.”

  Plenty more rum?

  It was deep into the night when their revelry ended, and she fell into a twilight sleep. Tap, tap. The light sound looped around her nerves. She sat. The double tap came again, at her door. Her heart flopped against her ribs. She daren't breathe.

  Then the whisper, “It is I. Please let me in.”

  She cracked the door to let Lawrence in and looked past him into the interior of the captain's cabin. The bosun slept in the captain's bed, and another man slept in the spare bunk. A third man sprawled across the nasty table.

  Lawrence told her that Bates was tied up and that the cook, Benjamin, was confined to the galley.

  She whispered, “They've got something aboard.”

  “I know. Rum. They secreted it on board in Barbados, hidden with other the supplies.”

  “The captain didn't know about it?”

  “They didn't put enough aboard to make him suspicious, so he didn't check the holds. He would be suspicious if the ship rode lower in the water than she should.”

  “I heard the bosun say that they would drop anchor at eight bells and bring more on board.”

  “That's two hours from now. We should be in Bahamian waters by then.”

  Two hours later, Ann could hear the mutineers grumble and stir, and then leave the captain's cabin. She went inside the stateroom. It reeked of loathsome animals, of booze and death. Some time later Lawrence came to tell her they were dropping anchor near Freeport. All day the crew loaded kegs of rum onto the Deering while she watched from the porthole. Frequently, the bosun came and went into and out of the captain's cabin.

  Next day, Lawrence came to her twice – early with coffee and oatmeal, and an inadequate excuse why she couldn't go up on deck. In the evening, he brought noxiously cooked ribs. He refused to discuss what was happening topside. That night, the Danes came back to drink themselves into stupors.

  Next morning, at dawn, despite throbbing nerves, she climbed over the dead drunk men and went onto the deck to stroll through the masts. The wind was strong enough to push her overboard if she wasn't careful, but she welcomed the freshness. McLellan rotated the wheel while his captor sat on a barrel picking his nose with a knife. A little while later, Lawrence came up behind her. “You must tread lightly. This is a dangerous time.”

  “I can't stay in my stateroom much longer. I'll lose my mind.”

  “Look at the east. We've a red sky. Gale coming.”

  She thought of the lightship and lost anchors. “It's about time, isn't it?”

  He looked into her eyes. The sadness in his, the inevitability, was like a river in flood, leaving her standing on the bank preparing to dive in. She glanced into sails that bellowed in the wind. “I want to enjoy this short time, before – before – what happens.”

  Eventually, he said, “So do I.”

  She turned her back to him, and he held her arms with firm hands, bracing her against the running schooner for what seemed like hours. I'm obsessed, she thought, I'm obsessed with a man I can’t figure out and a mighty ship.

  She heard a shout. Fredrickson had ordered McLellan to change course. The first mate pulled the wheel to starboard, and the rudder brought the great ship to port. Each Dane manned his sail. Lawrence grabbed her waist and pulled. “We must leave now. They're bringing down the sails, and then they're going to drop anchor. The storm is racing upon us.”

  “Where are we?”

  “South of Cape Fear.”

  Inside her stateroom, she heard the anchor chains at the bow descending into the deep. Reluctant to quit her run, the schooner rotated violently, throwing Ann onto the bunk. She jumped to her feet when a jolt vibrated through the massive hull. She reeled to the porthole fearing any moment the ship would explode. She looked out to see black water crashing into the ship.

  I will not panic. I will not panic.

  The ship pitched – sliding down skyscraper waves only to be rammed to the crests. Monstrous walls of water arced over the ship, propelling Ann backward. Her head bounced against the small stool. This can't last, she thought. We'll be upside down in the sea.

  Lawrence where are you?

  Just then, the door burst open and Lawrence flew through, stumbling headlong into her. The great ship rolled, flinging them into the bulkhead beneath the porthole.

  “We're ahull,” Law
rence called against the roar.

  “What's that mean?” she shouted, not hearing her own words.

  “Our poles are bare and beam-on to powerful winds.”

  “Who's at the wheel?”

  “No one. They pointed her into the wind and lashed her helm and abandoned the deck.”

  The storm seemed to last for hours. Death seemed as close to her as Lawrence. But, after a time, she grew accustomed to the sea's pounding and the ship's plummeting. Even with the greasy dread that she would drown and wash onto some sandy shore, she never felt more alive than here in the cocoon of Lawrence's arms. And when the storm slackened, and Lawrence's arms loosened from around her, she hated giving him up to safer seas.

  He urged her up and said, “Wind's changed. Those idiots will have her up soon.”

  The force of the ship's rising flung Ann and Lawrence into a corner. Upright, the schooner heaved in the deep waves, and Lawrence said acidly, “There are better techniques for riding out a storm.”

  Not trusting her feet, she sat against the bulkhead and adjusted her suit. “I certainly don't want to know them first-hand.” When she glanced at Lawrence's face, she knew she never would.

  Lawrence stood and assured her that he would return soon and left. When he got back, he told of the damage done to the ship and of the news that she knew would come. “Our anchors fouled. We lost both.”

  “How bad is that?”

  His grin was rueful, but it was a grin. “Anchors are a good thing to have when you want to stop a ship.”

  “Make new ones,” she said, likewise smiling through her dread.

  “Fredrickson has ordered the engineer to do just that.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  --

  After an uneventful day of blue skies and calm seas, Lawrence said that the mutineers sailed a strange course and that he needed to find out what they were up to and where they intended to take the ship. He cautioned her to stay mum and keep off the deck.

  The first day she tried to read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but her mind wouldn't concentrate on the first sentence of any adventure. Neither did The Bible comfort. She slept a little and looked out the porthole a lot. The second day, when the crew was topside, she went to forage in the galley. For breakfast she ate ill-cooked salt bacon and oatmeal, just enough to keep her stomach from gurgling. Also, she crept through the lower decks in search of Lawrence. His quarters, he said, were near the cargo hold, but neither he nor the quarters were to be found. I'm fooling myself, I know. But she wanted to keep up the fiction of Lawrence being – so hard to accept the obvious – a flesh and blood person.

  In the evening she nibbled the salmon the cook had left on the stove after he'd been banished to his hold in chains. The taste and texture could only be described as dastardly. She pressed the bones in her hips with her fingers. They were sharper, but she must keep up her strength for the days ahead. She found bread with mold on it, scraped it off and took the hunk to her stateroom. For exercise, she strained into Yoga positions and ran in place.

  The third day she left her prison. Frustration had given way to recklessness, and she sneaked to the top deck. Lawrence, she concluded, was either hiding from her or was not on the ship. The dangerous crew, who were drunk all the time, didn't see her or paid no attention. In the open air, she beseeched the sky and the wind and the water: Where is he?

  That evening she went topside again. The ship's poles were bare. Twilight shone on the calm seas. High up, in the shrouds, near the yard arm, an apparition appeared. She knocked wood and make the sign of the cross; her mental talismen. Pressing her lips against calling out, she squinted into the skull face peering down at her, the expression one of a zombie trying to overcome mortal chaos. She heard it gasp. She backed against a shroud, and the apparition faded.

  Suddenly the bosun spoke loudly in his native tongue, and she dropped to the deck beneath a boom. When his boots passed and disappeared into the wheelhouse, she slivered her way back to her stateroom. The apparition stayed in her mind, consuming her. She walked the floor never daring to sleep, folding her nervous hands, pulling at her hair.

  The next morning, Lawrence appeared with a smile of apology, but no word on where he'd been, or what he'd been doing.

  Dry-mouthed and bitchy, she confronted him. “I searched the ship. I couldn't find you.”

  “Ah, but I was near.”

  “Near? Where is your stateroom?”

  “My dear, you are overwrought.”

  “I looked everywhere.”

  “I wasn't everywhere.”

  “You know what I mean, Lawrence. Where were you?”

  His face grew indistinct, like fog shrouding it. He waved a dismissive hand. “I'm sorry if I worried you.”

  “That's not an answer.”

  “Perhaps not, but I assure you that I looked out for you.”

  “It's not that, Lawrence. I don't need looking out for so much as ...” She stopped and looked past him. She couldn't bring herself to say, for someone to want to be with me, to allay my imaginings, my fears. Instead, she griped. “This confinement – didn't you tell me that before the storm we were near Cape Fear?”

  “Yes.”

  “I'm not a geographer, but I would have thought we'd be near Norfolk by now.”

  “We're going in a circle. The Danes are taking her out to sea and then bringing her back while they wait for their rendezvous ship.”

  “Do you know when they will meet this ship?”

  “I’m not clairvoyant.”

  “Oh no?”

  He waved his hand. “I know that it's overdue. Fredrickson is on edge. And if they don't meet it soon, they will have drunk up all their rum profits.”

  “I wish I had some.”

  His brow creased. “Ann, my dear, I'm so sorry. I didn't think. I'll siphon some out of a keg for you.”

  “I'm fine, really. This waiting is getting on my one last nerve. I'm beginning to see things.”

  “It won't be long.”

  “Let's walk on deck.”

  She saw doubt in his glassy eyes, the hesitancy, but then he said, “You must be prepared to see the blackest of evils that men can do.”

  “I've already seen,” she snapped.

  --

  On deck, Lawrence's charm reasserted itself. Ann looped her arm in his. He patted her clutching hand and lifted his chin. Looking out to sea, he seemed the proudest man on earth.

  For some minutes the sun drifted in and out of a tunnel of magenta clouds, the refracted light giving the atmosphere an eerie radiance. Then, more suddenly than one could expect, the clouds turned the color of black plums floating in the golden mists of heaven.

  “Squall,” Lawrence said. “Let's …”

  A bolt of lightning hit the yardarm. Water pounded her face. She flared backward and slipped to the deck, landing awkwardly on her foot. Lawrence knelt beside her and rubbed the ankle gently. He said, “We must get below.”

  Struggling against fierce wind and lashing rain, he slipped his right arm beneath her knees and lifted her. Her arms circled his shoulders, and he carried her through the lines toward the afterhouse. Through the storm shadows, she saw McLellan leave the helm and lunge at the Dane holding the gun. She nearly cried out when the Dane fell forward, and McLellan knifed him in the back of the neck. At that same moment, the ship slogged fore and aft. Lawrence slid against the lines, and McLellan hurried back to the wheel and steadied the schooner.

  “Let me walk now,” she whispered. “I can.”

  Lawrence steadied her while she tested the ankle. “Not broken, thank God.” Clutching his hand, she swayed forward against the savaging torrent. They reached the great winch and hunkered down. Lightning bolted across the deck, one crack after another, with thunder cavorting after it. From behind the winch, through the gears, she made out another Dane lurching toward McLellan. When the Dane's arm came up, and then down on McLellan's skull, shock reverberated through her chest. McLellan fell against the helm. The s
hip heeled to starboard. A wave washed over the deck, and McLellan went into the sea.

  “My dear God.” she whispered. “When does it end? How many times must I witness that evil?”

  Later, Lawrence came into her stateroom, bringing food – grisly spare ribs – and an announcement. “I have news.”

  She felt skittish of any news, fearing an appalling revelation. “Are we almost to Norfolk?”

  “Afraid not, my anxious one. I was on deck this afternoon when we passed the Cape Lookout Lightship. Fredrickson gathered his Danes on the quarterdeck. They hailed the lightship master. Fredrickson called out that we'd lost our anchors in the gale, and that the master should radio the Deering's owners that all was well otherwise.”

  She gnawed a rib. “We already knew that part, but do we now know why Fredrickson brought attention to himself?”

  Lawrence hadn't touched his food. He never seemed to eat. He said, “We should have been in Norfolk days ago. Fredrickson's trying to forestall an investigation while he waits for his rendezvous ship to come alongside. It's his escape ship, and because he's given the lookout ship master this news, it will be quite a time before anyone looks for the Deering. By that time, she'll be on a shoal and he'll be far away.”

  “I see,” she said. “If he's caught, he'll surely be hanged for mutiny. So will his fellow mutineers.”

  Lawrence shook his head. “If they'd been caught, I would have learned about it before …” He stopped speaking abruptly and looked away.

  “Before what, Lawrence?”

  His face paled and seemed to lose its shape as if he'd put on a loose-fitting rubber mask. “Before the investigation was closed by the Navy.”

  “That wasn't what you were going to say,” she insisted. “Before what? I can face the truth now. I think I know – about you.”

  He shook his head as if to throw off her words. “We investigated the shipwreck for several months, and then closed the case without having found any of the crew – dead or alive.”