He gripped the rail and went up the stairs toward the bridge, catching a glimpse of the Mary Watson’s lonely funnels staggering overhead in the dark. Forward, he was barely able to discern the bridge wingtips with their glass weather-breaks. The high howls of the wind on the boat deck smothered the deep thunder of the raging seas alongside as they swept by, white, mad, hungry.
He stepped off the bridge and slammed the door shut behind him, shaking his shoulders, soaking with rain. He stared across the darkness of the bridge at Bruno, and said, ‘It’s a fine night to call a man out.’
Bruno said nothing. There was nothing to say. The weather conditions spoke for themselves, and even a seasick landlubber could tell by the way the Mary Watson pitched and rolled that all was not well.
Captain Lowrie walked over to the helmsman, who clung to the wheel nervously, his eyes wide as he peered through the rain-studded window. The helmsman’s name was Murphy, and he was young. He was nervous because he was having his first taste of a whole gale.
‘How does she go, Mister?’ asked Captain Lowrie.
‘She goes hard and heavy, sir,’ replied Murphy, his voice flat.
Bruno said, ‘I’ve been in communication with Mr McNulty, sir, in the engine room, and he reports excessive vibration in the shaft. I changed speed to dead slow, but that seemed to make little difference. To my way of thinking we should heave to for the night, until this blows out.’
‘To my way of thinking, there’s little sense in that,’ said Captain Lowrie. ‘Change your course, mister. Due southwest, nothing off. Look alive now.’
There was thunder in the seas as the helmsman brought her over. Her blunt prow dug in hard and firm, the blows running through her body. The starboard bow vanished under the weighted seas, but in another moment it was clear and she was dead in the wind, pitching and tossing, the sickening rolls now gone.
They could all feel the difference at once. The strain went out of her rusty plates. Her fore and aft motion was short and sharp, as a good pitch should be. Mr Murphy at the helm relaxed.
‘Well, now,’ said Captain Lowrie, ‘that was a small thing to get a man out in this kind of night for. How did you expect her to go easy with the waves on her beam?’
Bruno did not mind the jibe. Indeed, Captain Lowrie did not mean for it to be taken seriously. They both knew that the course could be changed only with the captain’s permission. And for all the heartiness in Captain Lowrie’s voice, there was still a troubled look around his eyes. Bruno noticed it and knew what it meant. For dead in the wind, her blunt bow rebuffing the staggering blows of the giant waves, the Mary Watson was safe enough. But there were many things that could happen: a broken screw, a burned-out bearing, or another ship out there in the darkness, unseen. Power was the thing. Without it, they were lost.
Captain Lowrie said, ‘What does Sparks report?’
‘Sparks was in touch with Cape Town half an hour ago, and he reports there ain’t a ship within seventy miles of us. The nearest one is the Nichyo Maru. She’s due west of us, so we’ve nothing to worry about in the way of a collision.’
‘It’s nice to know,’ said Captain Lowrie. ‘A lookout couldn’t sight the devil’s own seven masters on a night like this. ’
Bruno shivered. ‘Aye, sir,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen a night like this only once in fourteen years at sea. And I never want to see another. It’s the son of black dark night when seamen’s yams come true. Mr Franklin was telling me a while back that he saw St Elmo’s fire on the mast.’
Franklin was second officer of the Mary Watson.
‘St Elmo's fire!’ Captain Lowrie exclaimed. ‘And what’s so mythical about St Elmo’s fire? I’ve seen it many a time at sea, and not a stormy night needed for it, either. When I was mate of the schooner Chaffy fishing the Grand Banks out of Gloucester, a long time ago, I seen St Elmo’s fire time and again. Little crackling flames, sharp and clear, dancing across the yardarms. St Elmo’s fire is no myth.’
Murphy at the helm stirred uneasily and opened his mouth. But he shut it again without saying anything.
Captain Lowrie stared at him. 'Was you goin’ to say something, mister?’
Murphy wet his lips, swallowed hard. 'You were talking of seamen’s yams, Captain, and it was just that I was remembering some others I’ve heard. Tales of the Sargasso, the mystery of the Marie CelesUy and of the Flying Dutchman.’
'Ah,’ said Captain Lowrie. 'The Dutchman!’ He rubbed his hand through his shaggy mustache, and the bristly sound of it filled the bridge. 'The Dutchman indeed.’
He said it with such fervour that Bruno turned and stared at him. ‘Surely, sir,’ he said, ‘you don’t believe them old wives’ tales?’
Captain Lowrie did not reply at once. He stared out through the storm window above the faint miserly glow which illumined the compass card, and he locked his hands behind his back and swayed easily with the motion of the freighter.
‘Old wives’ tales, eh?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘You’re young, Mr Bruno, and maybe that’s the reason; but me - I’ve been a seaman nigh on twenty-five years, and there’s strange things happen in the seas. Strange indeed.’
Mr Murphy swallowed again, so hard this time that he made a clucking sound. There wasn’t much light on the bridge, but the little there was showed his face pale and white. The sound of his gulp drew the old man’s eyes.
'Feeling seasick, mister?’ the captain said.
‘No, sir,’ replied Mr Murphy. ‘I was just rememberin’.’
'Rememberin’ what?’
‘I was rememberin’, Captain, that we’re off the Cape of Good Hope in a blow. And that’s just about what happened to the Flying Dutchman, isn’t it?’
‘Mind the helm!’ Mr Bruno said sharply. He glanced at the quartermaster with some contempt. ‘You’re nervous enough, mister, without getting scared about a ghost. ’
‘Yes, sir,’ Mr Murphy said.
‘Aye,’ Captain Lowrie ruminated soberly. ‘There’s strange things in the sea. You, Mr Bruno, you don’t believe in sea serpents, I take it. There’s more things in heaven and earth and ocean than a man could ever dream about.
‘I believe in sea serpents. I believe there is things in the ocean no man has ever seen. Why, bless St Christopher, it was near this very spot that a trawler hauled a fish out of the sea that was supposed to have been dead for fifty million years. Them scientific fellows have been reconstructing it from fossils they found some place in Europe.
‘And right here, near Cape Town, a smelly trawler hauls it topside. Extinct for fifty million years, and yet not dead at all! I tell you, Mr Bruno, no man knows what’s under the sea. And for that matter, no man knows what’s above the sea, either. So who’s to say the legend of the Flying Dutchman ain’t true?’
Bruno sniffed. ‘Personally, sir, I don’t believe in ghosts,’ he said.
Captain Lowrie snorted gruffly. ‘And I suppose you don’t think it’s bad luck to kill an albatross or a gull? I suppose you don’t think a ship is a “she”. I suppose you don’t think a shark following in the wake is bad luck. Silly superstitions for old fools like me, eh?’
‘I didn’t say that, sir.*
‘What’s the difference, man, if you think it?’
Bruno shrugged. Captain Lowrie continued:
‘When I was mate aboard the S.S. Gulf City - she was a Standard Oil tanker in the coastwise trade - we had two seamen die of ptomaine poisoning. We buried them at sea, somewhere off Hatteras. I’d always heard that yarn about a dead man following the ship he loved, just as easily as a rat deserted a ship that was doomed.