MYSTERIOUS SEA STORIES
Compiled and Edited by
William Pattrick
Published by
Dell Publishing Co., Inc.
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
New York,
New York 10017
This work was first published in Great Britain by W. H. Allen & Co., PLC.
Copyright © 1985 by William Pattrick
Contents
INTRODUCTION - William Pattrick
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE - Edgar Allan Poe
THE LEGEND OF THE BELL ROCK - Captain Frederick Marryat
HOOD’S ISLE AND THE HERMIT OBERLUS - Herman Melville
A BEWITCHED SHIP - W. Clark Russell
J. HABAKUK JEPHSON’S STATEMENT - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
THE BENEVOLENT GHOST AND CAPTAIN LOWRIE - Richard Sale
MAKE WESTING - Jack London
THE BLACK MATE - Joseph Conrad
A MATTER OF FACT - Rudyard Kipling
THE FINDING OF THE GRAIKEN - William Hope Hodgson
DAVY JONES’S GIFT - John Masefield
IN THE ABYSS - H. G. Wells
UNDERSEA GUARDIANS - Ray Bradbury
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE - C. S. Forester
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
Not long before his death that great British seaman, Lord Nelson, remarked, ‘At sea, nothing is impossible and nothing improbable.’ Although he put it splendidly, what he said was really nothing new, even then - for almost since the first man pushed himself gingerly away from the safety of the shore and cast himself and his frail craft to the mercy of the waves and the elements, sailors have come to appreciate the mysterious powers of the sea. Even today when shipping has all the sophisticated equipment provided by modem technology at its disposal, there is still the element of the unknown lurking just across the horizon - and it is a foolish seaman who would choose to ignore such a fact.
Of course, in the early days of sail, mariners believed if they went too far from land their ships might fall off the edge of the world; and even in later ages seafarers clung tenaciously to the most amazing superstitions which gave the sea and all things above and below it quite extraordinary powers. The discoveries of the early explorers may well have removed fears about a flat earth, but there are still many of those old superstitions being religiously observed. Their influence is as powerful and mysterious and timeless as the very sea itself.
Because of the uncertainty of life at sea and the temperamental nature of the wind and weather - not forgetting the unusual conditions that can exist far from land - sailors have always been coming home with stories of strange, inexplicable happenings. Of ships beset by phantoms, of deep sea creatures unlike any seen before, and of places where none but the most foolhardy would go. These have provided the raw material for storytellers and have ultimately developed into what we now know as the sea mystery story.
Although the mysterious incidents which have given rise to these stories can be traced back many, many years, it is in fact only in the last couple of hundred years that they have become a literary genre in their own right. To be sure, there are whole libraries of books of ancient sea voyages in which are recorded encounters with strange people, sea serpents and ghostly vessels. But it is primarily with the work of Edgar Allan Poe at the beginning of the last century that such tales emerged and took on the form now so recognisable and widely read.
In this collection I have tried to assemble some of the best and most representative of the short sea mystery stories, taking a tale by Poe as my starting point. As the reader will discover, the tales range across many years and most of the great oceans of the world. They have for their themes some of the best known mysteries of the sea, and convey us as often by sail as by steam. They also happen to be written by some of the most popular authors of maritime fiction - although I have tried as much as possible to avoid frequently anthologised works by these people.
Consequently, you will find some rather unusual and, I trust, unexpected tales by authors such as Captain Frederick Marryat, Herman Melville, Jack London, W. Clark Russell, Joseph Conrad, John Masefield, and C. S. Forester. All of these keep happy company with some other familiar figures who were fascinated by mysteries of the sea and put pen to paper in a most imaginative way. There is Rudyard Kipling on sea monsters, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle cleverly trying to solve the mystery of the Marie Celeste, Richard Sale doing the same for The Flying Dutchman, William Hope Hodgson exploring the legendary Sargasso Sea, H. G. Wells taking us into the depths of the ocean, and Ray Bradbury with a grim little fantasy about war at sea.
These, then, are your means of transport to mystery on the high seas - if, like me, you would prefer to voyage safe and warm in the comfort of your armchair. For those watery places where spirits haunt the upper deck and monstrous creatures tear at the ship’s bowels are not for the landlubber or the faint-hearted. All the stories will, I believe, intrigue, chill and entertain you, and in leaving you to your pleasures I am reminded of those lines by Shakespeare:
There are more things in Heaven and Earth
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
When you have finished reading Mysterious Sea Stories, I have more than a suspicion you will want to add ‘and in the Sea’ to that perceptive phrase. . .
WILLIAM PATTRICK
Suffolk, 1984
Edgar Allan Poe
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
Although sailors of all nations had been telling stories for many centuries about the strange and bizarre things that could be experienced at sea, the first writer to produce a group of tales that could be categorised as sea mysteries was that tormented American genius, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Poe's interests were widespread, and amongst his work can be found some of the very first stories of detection, pioneer science fiction, and also some outstanding horror stories.
But the sea also exerted a special fascination for this remarkable man. Apart from using it as the theme of several short stories, it also formed the basis of his only novel The Mystery of Arthur Gordon Pym, which he left incomplete at the time of his death in 1849. However, the novel was finished in 1897 by the famous French fantasy writer, Jules Verne, under the title of An Antarctic Mystery?
In his work, Poe gave clear evidence that he sensed all the terrors and strangeness that lurked in the vastness of the world's oceans, using this knowledge to brilliant effect. The very first of his sea mysteries was MS. Found In A Bottle which appeared in 1833, and which has since proved a model for many later similar stories. Apart from its vivid description of a storm at sea, it also deals with an ancient superstition that the earth was hollow and that there were entrances to this "inner world" in the sea near the poles which could suck in the unwary vessel. It therefore makes a most suitable story with which to begin our voyage into the realms of mystery...
‘Qui n’a plus qu’un moment à vivre
N’a plus rien à dissimuler.’ — Quinault - Atys