Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction (8 page)

“I paused to think. Should I go back to Mick and take the chance of getting to the water with the sheep, and let the horses be?

“’Boro’ had gone, also three horses, and all our waterbags. No doubt of that. I was awfully thirsty, but I could not now leave Mick and the rams. I turned and rode slowly back. My thirst was increasing, and my mouth was dry and harsh. Just as I passed a large cotton bush, a minute later, one of those confounded blue-grey Tarcoo snakes made a dash at my horse’s legs. You know well enough what those deadly brutes mean—death in about twenty minutes for a man. ‘Black Jack’ gave a plunge, and fell clean over, throwing me just clear. He was so startled that he fell for the first time in all his life, I believe. The next moment he was up, off and away, as if the devil had kicked him.

“In the scrimmage and flurry, for we were all floundering about in a lump, I felt a sharp puncture on my wrist. I was certain I had been bitten. I examined it carefully. Sure enough, two punctures, with a small drop of blood in each. The death mark! I got my knife, cut the place out pretty deep, sucked it furiously, and tied a ligature just above the wound (the direction nearest to the heart), with a silk cracker I happened to have in my pocket. Oh, the agonies of mind I felt! Death staring me in the face! But I reflected that I had taken all reasonable precautions,
and
at once. The flow of the blood and the sucking
might
have removed the deadly virus. So I staggered on, half-dead with thirst, bruised, sore and very sick and nervous. ‘Black Jack’ had sprung into a crab hole in his fright and gone clean over nearly on top of me, right on to the rough stony ground. I had made sure that I saw the snake dash at me afterwards, and that I had put my hand on it!

“I began to feel like a man in a dream, and staggered on and on, not knowing in the least what I was going to do, or where I was going.

“So,” I thought, “it has come to this at last. Cut off in my prime by a beastly accident; bitten by a snake, and if the poison has taken hold of my blood, I shan’t have very long to live. It’s destiny, I suppose—my fate! This is the end planned by a higher Power from the very first moment that I was born! I am not the first or the only one in this world who has had to suffer in the same way, and they had to meet their fate, and must have felt very much as I do now. Death, the end of all things! I wonder what poor Tom felt before he pulled the trigger of his revolver? Hundreds of men and women, thousands of them, perish every year by awful accidents—drowning, burning and shipwreck, plague, pestilence and famine.

“Some are annihilated in a moment. Others die fearful deaths. Well, life has been very pleasant to me, in spite of its many ups and downs, and I must meet death like a man.

“I had better write a few lines describing how I came to my end. I began to hastily jot down the details in my pocketbook, and whether it was with the worry at my repeated bad luck, the unavoidable accident, or terror at the approach of grim, unflinching, unalterable Death, I half lost my senses. I was vaguely conscious of staggering on, choking with thirst, and fighting with something or some one, I could not tell what. I had a sort of idea that my name was Robert McIlwaine, and I had to do something, but that it would be no use because I was dead. Then I must completely have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing until I came to myself lying at full length in a thick scrub. I vaguely wondered what it was all about. What was I there for? How did I come there? Who was I? Then I fainted again. Then—but how long a time after I have no idea—a thought came upon me that I was dreadfully oppressed with thirst. Then I became conscious that there was a weight on my chest, and that ‘Joker’ was licking my face. I gradually came round, and, after a period during which my mind refused to work at all clearly, I began to understand that it was really ‘Joker’ who was by me. I must have been asleep somewhere. No, I was dead and ‘Joker’ was a ghost. He must have died too, then, to be with me? Was this heaven, this scrub? No, I was dead, I had had a sharp fall with a horse. I had been bitten by a snake. What was ‘Joker’ here for? He ought to be with Mick and the rams. He must be a ghost. I feebly felt him. No, it was ‘Joker’ right enough. I found myself sitting up somehow, and I realised that it was moonlight.

“‘Joker’ was whining. I managed, I never knew how, to stagger to my feet, and grasp a sapling to keep myself from falling down again. Oh, this dreadful thirst! I had suffered from it once before, when I had started on a very hot day and ridden thirty miles away from the river to where I expected to find water, but it had dried up. That was thirst, but I got relief then, for I found the lid of an old tin ‘billy’ which some idiot had pricked full of holes, but I plugged these with bits of green polygonum and then milked my mare ‘Flirt’ for she had a foal at home. But I shan’t get relief from this! No water anywhere. This thirst! I can’t speak, I can’t even make a noise! I shall go mad!
Who
am I?
Where
am I? Bitten by a snake and dying, and no water. Oh, God! What can I do? I can hardly walk! Two steps and a frantic clutch at another sapling. Dying, oh, my God! I made a feeble step or two forward, poor old ‘Joker’ whining with delight. I got a firm hold on the next sapling and rested panting. As I looked up again, as I live and am here to tell you all, I saw a little open glade, with the moon bright on it, and Tom Imrie sitting on his roan horse, as I often remember him doing, half-turned round in his saddle towards me. He pointed with a gesture of authority right across me. I looked steadfastly at him. He was only vapour, so was his horse. I could see the trees through both of them. But his gesture was very clear, commanding yet kind, and his index finger pointed straight in one direction.

“I remember trying to say weakly, ‘Hallo, Tom, old chap,’ but no sound came, and I thought: ‘Yes, I’m dead. That’s Tom. We are together again. This is the other world!’ But Joker jumped upon me, almost pushing me down. Tom was still there, he and his horse. I saw what he meant. I was to go where he pointed.
Must
go, to save my life.
Must
go! I made a line slowly in the direction he indicated, and before I had gone six yards I saw a pool of water—a good clay pan!

“I managed to reach it, fall flat down, and drink a little. And I have a dim consciousness of shouting and singing, and then a long period of rest.

“When I came to myself again it was daylight, warm and sunny. And there was ‘Joker’ with a bandicoot he had caught. My senses were a little better. Where had Tom gone to? I remembered. Tom showed me the water. Came out of his grave to do it!

“Poor old Tom and ‘Joker’! Good dog, ‘Joker’. I felt ever such a little stronger. Oh, the snake! What time is it? Time must have passed! Moonlight and sunlight. I was too weak to rejoice; I couldn’t take it in yet. I was close to the water; I drank some more, then lit a fire, cooked the bandicoot on the hot embers, and ate it ravenously, slaking my thirst with the life-saving water. I was coming round, but the thought of the snake struck through me like white-hot iron every now and then. I have, personally, a nervous horror of snakes. Some fellows don’t care a button for them, and will catch them by the neck and handle them, but to me they are a terror. Well, I wasn’t dead after all. And slowly my thoughts came back, and I began to want to go back and find Mick. ‘Joker’ never faltered. I was in a gully, a good bit off the track, or tracks, we had made. I hadn’t the slightest idea of my whereabouts, but he took me in a straight line to more water. Caught a ‘paddy melon’ and we cooked that. I came up with Mick two days afterwards, a little dazed still. He had got the rams to water all right after a very severe and thirsty trip, but had been terribly uneasy about me. So he sent ‘Joker’ off to find me.

“You can’t beat a rough cattle dog with one blue eye and one brown one. Best breed of the lot. And so you see, boys, why I don’t like to make a mock at ghosts. Poor Tom Imrie! I saw him as plain as I see you, ghost or no ghost. I am quite open to argument that I was off my head for a bit. I don’t deny it. I know I was, but where did the idea come from—the positive conviction that I saw Tom Imrie at a critical point in my lifetime when I should have gone mad and died of thirst unless I
had
seen him? Was not the idea providential in itself, if I had not been guided? Therefore I believe in this sight of Tom Imrie’s ghost as the one means of preserving me, and I hold it sacred. But whether I really saw him or my poor excited over-wrought brain brought the fancy that I did, I cannot tell you. I simply narrate the impression and belief left. And ‘Joker’ was a bit of a ghost too at first. He turned out real. And the vision showed me the water. We finished our journey with the rams all right. I hunted all over the Fassifern Camp for ‘Boro,’ but never saw him again.

“The horses were all found and sent over, water-bags and all. We went down the Tarcoo afterwards, arranged matters with O’Hooligan, and made a most successful trip to Adelaide with the fat cattle, topping the market.

“Then I went to Sydney, and found that Miss Imrie had gone to England, but I kept true to my trust and never said a word that would prejudice my old friend Tom’s case.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Jemmy, “you’ve simply been letting the cat out of the bag the whole bally time!”

“What? You think I have given him away all through, do you? Well, none of you fellows know Tom Imrie or his sister either, for they don’t exist. I never told you the real names, and the facts of the case are completely forgotten. It happened too long ago to come to light, as only the actors in it can say anything, and there’s not one of them near the district now. What do you say to a game of whist?”

HULK NO. 49, by J. A. Barry

The Queenslander
, December 1893

John Arthur Barry (1850-1911) was born in Torquay and was apprenticed to the Orient Steam Navigation Co. at the age of thirteen. He found himself in Australia during the gold rush and joined the Palmer diggings in North Queensland in about 1870. Over the next few years he was engaged on various outback occupations such as droving and boundary riding. In 1879 he accepted a position as overseer and station-manager, probably at a property near Scone in New South Wales. In 1893 he visited England and there published his first collection of short stories,
Steve Brown’s Bunyip
, for which Rudyard Kipling provided some introductory verses. He soon returned to Sydney and continued writing popular tales of sea adventure. He remained a bachelor, and died of chronic myocarditis at his home at North Sydney on 23 September 1911, aged sixty-one.

There was a big crowd of officers and men “looking for a ship” one damp, foggy morning at the old Tower Hill office in London. A barque for the Cape, two or three steamers, and a four-master for Calcutta filled up before I could get a show at all. At last “A second mate and eight ABs for the West Indies!” was sung out. Lots of seamen still hung about, but not a man except myself stirred.

“Now then!” shouted the doorkeeper again, “here y’are! Who’s for the Cumberland—three pound a month, and a six months trip, all in the warm weather?”

“Not me,” replied a big, grey-bearded, mahogany-faced seaman, drawing back. “I likes a light in my fok’sle, I does. An’ I ain’t taken’ any stock in stinkin’ ghosts wot can’t leave a poor shellback alone in his watch below!”

This much I heard as, passing in, I found myself in the presence of the captain of the Cumberland and the shipping-master.

“What’s the matter with the men, Mr Jackson?” the former was saying. “They simply rushed the other vessels, and now they won’t look at mine.”

“Oh,” replied the other, “I expect some of them have got hold of the old story about the barque. I remember once or twice, years ago, the same thing happening. I should have thought, though, that by now the thing had died out. Probably one of the men outside has sailed in her and told his mates the yarn. It’s said that to keep a lamp alight in her fok’sle’s an impossibility—that—or—in fact, a ghost comes and blows it out.” And old Jackson grinned and looked rather sheepishly at us.

“What rubbish!” exclaimed the captain—a pleasant-faced man of about 30—laughing heartily. “And I’m to lose my ship because a pack of idiots have got some old woman’s story into their thick heads! Why, the Cumberland’s been laid up for years, and has, they tell me, only just come out of dock after a good overhauling, as sweet and fresh and clean as a new pin.”

“That’s so,” replied Jackson; “and the very reason she lay idle for so long is the one that stops the men signing to her now. Before your present firm bought her and altered her name she was known as the Carlisle, and was in the same trade as she’s going to run in at present.”

“The deuce!” exclaimed the skipper. “I’ve heard of her. But, Mr Jackson, if the devil himself comes and blows the fok’sle lamp out every night, I’m going to sail her if I can get a crew. And, at any rate (turning to me), here’s one to start with.”

My business was soon finished; only, finding that I held a master’s certificate, Captain Habden offered me the position of chief in place of second mate, the man who was to fill the former billet having unexpectedly resigned at the last minute through his wife’s illness. I liked this well, and signed without a question. Indeed, neither for Jack nor his masters were these the days for hesitation. Besides, I took to the frank, good-humoured face of my new skipper, seeing no sign therein of what fate had in store for him.

“Would you mind having a work with the men, Mr Forbes?” he asked me presently, “and trying to reason with them a bit. Fancy an old ghost story like that getting hold of Jack at this time o’ day to the extent of making him refuse a good trip and a comfortable ship when both are such scarce matters.” So out I went into the dirty waiting room, foul with tobacco, and thick with the rank smoke of the weed.

“Now, my lads,” I commenced, without any preamble, and knowing my marks, “what’s all this nonsense? Because some fools, a dozen years ago, hadn’t enough sense to keep a lamp alight, are you going to lose money, and let the old woman and the kids go hungry? Come now, I’ve signed as mate of the Cumberland; aren’t there ten bullies, not afraid of their own shadows, that’ll keep me company. I’ll help you to trim your lamp, if you want help. I came in through the hawse-pipes, not through the cabin door, and haven’t forgotten how to cut a wick yet, as well as turn in a deadeye, if need be.”

At this there was a laugh; and I think if it had not been for the big fellow I have mentioned before I would have got my men at once, for I saw several pocket their pipes and shake themselves, preparatory to making a move. But the grey-headed sailor, stepping forward, and chewing viciously on his quid, said, quietly enough, “I’m one o’ them fools, mister, as you’re speakin’ on. I sailed in the old tub ten years ago, when Hellfire Jack Brown was skipper on her. There was a curse put on her them days—not the trip I was aboard. P’raps it’s off now. Any way, I ain’t goin’ to make one to find out. Mind ye, I’m not sayin’ anythin’ agen the barque, mates. Mebbe her’d be better to han’le if she had double tawps’is ‘stead o’ they big whole uns. But she’s tight an’ dry, or was in them days, an’ no doubt she’s right enough still. It was the bloomin’ ghost as knocked us—none o’ yer half an half happaritions, but a gennywise forty-power stinkin’ speciment. He came inter the eyes of her, in the shape of a blasted fog bank, and doused the glim every time we lit it. An’ cold—lor! you could ’ear our teeth a-rattlin’. An’ stinkin’ worser’n tanyard and bilge water mixed! Well, o’ course we clears like redshanks, an’ Hellfire trying to bounce us as we’d seen nothin’! But it warn’t good enough. Then the old man hisself, down he goes. An’ when he comes up agen he looks more’n sick, altho’ he never lets on a word. Nor he didn’t cuss an’ haze us, as he used to do, any more. An’ he doesn’t hobjeck when we rigs a fores’l over the after hatch and camps there durin’ the rest of the passidge. We wants our discharges at Kingston; he wouldn’t give ’em to us. So we takes chokee instead, an’ glad to git it. An’ the ship goes round to Savannah la Mar; there the new crew clears; and there, never havin’ got over the chill he catched in the fok’sle, Hellfire dies. It was four months afore a crew could be got to take the barque home; an’ when she came to the dock they was camped same as we’d been—on the after hatch. Wages out o’ the port o’ London is three pun’ a month. An’ if ’twere thirty pun, mates, Joe Harris (that’s me) ’d think twice afore he shipped on that there Cumberland, helias Carlisle. Nor—”

“Come, come, my lad,” I broke in impatiently, “belay all that. Your slack jaw’s as long as the main-t’gallant halliards. One would ha’ thought you’d had time to outgrow your fright since all that happened. I don’t want any croakers in my watch. But I dare say some of these other hearties ’ll come and help me keep the barque’s fok’sle lamp alight. Why, hang me if it wouldn’t make a man believe he’s put back a hundred years to hear the way you talk! Now, then, you tarpaulins, I’ll give you five minutes to come along and sign. I don’t hanker after Dagoes or Lascars or Dutchmen; but the Cumberland’s got to have her crowd; and, you know, I can get her one in five minutes over at Green’s Home.” And, so saying, I went into the next room.

“You talked to ’em like a father, sir,” remarked the old shipping-master approvingly. “We’ve heard it all through the side window here. If that kind of jaw don’t fetch ’em, nothing will. And here they come!”

Sure enough, a dozen or so of my late audience came shuffling in, grinning and nudging each other and cracking dim jokes in husky undertones. They were, too, I was glad to see, all British. For, inveterate growler as he is, and insubordinate at times, and apt to give more trouble all round than the subservient “Dutchman,” or the sneaking Dago, I confess to a strong preference for the British sailor-man, with all his faults. Blood’s thicker than water, for one thing; and you know that when you’ve got a crowd of English speakers you’ve got something that’ll stick to you and to your ship through thick and thin, and not crawl below out of the hurly-burly, or holystone the decks with their knees and call upon Saint Antonio to do their work for ’em.

We got all we wanted out of the mob, including one to act as second mate and boatswain. And, business over, old Jackson came and had some lunch with us. During the course of the meal we got him to tell us what he knew regarding the legend of the lamp, which, after all, didn’t amount to very much.

“One trip,” said he, “the Carlisle had a real bad crowd. But amongst them was a half-witted sort of chap that old Brown had picked up to act as ‘Jimmy Ducks’ and slush about generally just for his tucker. Well, one night he neglected to trim the fok’sle lamp, and a couple or perhaps more of the brutes—regular packet-rats they were—kicked and pounded him, so that he presently died. They got scared then; and, giving out that he was ill, they kept the body for three or four days in one of the bunks. Then they hove it overboard, and swore the poor wretch had committed suicide. Well, that very night the lamp went out. Nor, despite all attempts—and, between ourselves, I don’t think they made many—could ever a lamp be got to burn in that fok’sle again. I remember one of the crew telling me that a single experience of the cold and stench combined when the apparition appeared was quite enough for any average man. Indeed, crowd after crowd either ran away or went to gaol sooner than sail in her; and what with delays and court work, the vessel used to eat her freights. So they laid her up for sale. But, until your owners bought her, no one would look at such a losing concern as a haunted ship. Why, it’s over five years now since she first took up her quarters in ‘Rotten-row.’”

“Well,” said Captain Hebden as we rose from table to go aboard the barque, “surely the curse is run out by this time, and the spectre laid. I suppose, Jackson, you never put any faith in such a cock and bull story, anyhow?”

But the ancient mariner scratched his baldpate doubtfully as he replied.

“Well, I don’t know, captain. I’ve seen some curious things at sea in my time. However, you’ll be able to give me your opinion on the matter when we meet again. And I hope you won’t come up the river, as I’ve seen the barque do afore now, with a spare main’sl rigged across a lower stu’nsl-boom over the after-hatch to serve instead of a fok’sle.”

“Not much danger!” laughed Captain Hebden gaily. “If I can’t follow my profession without being molested by nasty, freezing, evil-smelling ghosts—why, I may as well give it up. No, Jackson, I’ve got too many barnacles on my hide to be scared by anything in that line.”

“So old Hellfire thought,” retorted the other with a boding shake of the head; “but they say it killed him.”

But the captain only laughed again, and, bidding the shipping-master
goodbye, we made for the docks. We found the Cumberland (the first fight of her for both of us) a sound, wholesome looking barque, strongly built after the fashion of twenty years back; square in the stern, and bluff in the bows; no double raids, donkey engines, patent capstans, or other modern fallals about her; but still a homely, comfortable seeming kind of creature of a ship, such as builders don’t turn out of hand in those days of iron, steam, and steel. The stevedores were stowing the last of the cargo in the square of the hatchways. The riggers had the sails bent and furled, gear rove, stays and back stays well set up, and everything aloft ataunto; and with her shining white lower masts, brightly scraped upper spars towering to gilt-trucked royal poles, and the big spread of her square yards she looked, to the eye, coming down, took in her great beam, massive bulwarks, and shining brass work, a notable contrast to the sharp-nosed, gim-crack iron clippers that surrounded her. A tub the moderns might sneeringly call her; but, very certainly, she was the sort of tub whose decks you might walk in slippers whilst their lee-scuppers were breast high with green seas. On her main deck she carried an enormous longboat, fit child of such a buxom mother, and intended to cruise around the islands amongst the planters for rum, molasses, and sugar with which to return to the anchored barque, and fill up the capacious maternal interior. Technically, this boat was known as a “drogher.” But it took a lot of room; and, in addition, there was a host of spare spars, big water-casks, etc., that gave the decks somewhat of a lumbered-up appearance.

We were to haul out at high water that night; and, even now, the men were straggling down, more or less sober, and dumping their round-bottomed bags and their chests into the dark hatchway that led to their quarters below.

I was kept too busy for a time to think of anything outside my work; but, after we brought up at the Nore with a westerly wind in our teeth, and I went aft to turn in for an hour or two, I laughed to myself when, glancing down the fok’sle scuttle, my eye caught the gleam of a brightly burning lamp, and my ear the dull, peaceful, rumbling notes of men’s voices. Before daybreak the wind came round with plenty of westing in it, and, calling all hands, we got up our anchor, made sail, and wallowed away down channel with a wake like a paddle-steamer; steady as a pyramid, dry as a baker’s oven, and with half-a-gale of wind roaring and hooting in the bellies of our topsails.

“Fok’sle lamp burn all right last night, Mr Forbes, d’ye know?” asked the skipper at breakfast with a twinkle in his eye.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“At least, I’ve heard no complaint, so far.”

“Ah,” said he, laughing, “I thought that long spell in the docks would have taken all the energy out of the best and staunchest ghost going.”

And until we got clear of soundings it really seemed as if the captain was right; for his sake I only wish it had been so. But then the trouble began in earnest; and if I hadn’t so many available witnesses to back me up I don’t know that I’d care about putting what happened us into cold print. We had just cleared the Channel. It was four bells (six o’clock p.m.) in the second dog watch, a fine, bright cold evening, with a jump of a head sea on, and the Lizard light barely visible on the port quarter. As I stumped the poop to and fro from binnacle to break—having just relieved the second mate to let him get his supper—happening to glance for’ard, I saw, one after the other, the watch below come bolting up through their scuttle as if propelled from a catapult. It was not yet so dark but that I could distinguish the passionate gestures with which they told something to the little group of the port watch, that at once surrounded them, before, racing aft, they bundled up the poop ladder, at the head of which I met them. In each of the five faces fear and bewilderment strove for the mastery, and all five bodies shivered and trembled as with ague.

“If you please, sir,” at once began an elderly man named Jones, his brown face turned to a nasty slate colour, and his words jostling each other as they came out, “we can’t stop down there,” jerking for’ard with outstretched thumb. “We was just havin’ our supper whan a stinkin’, freezin’ THING comes an’ douses our lamp. We all seen It, so there’s no error. An’ we all felt It—leastways the cold an’ the stench of It. Poof! It’s in my mouth yet!” And he spat over the side, imitated scrupulously by his mates. “No, sir,” he went on, raising his voice as he saw me grinning at him, “we ain’t no fools, an’ we knows our work as sailor-men; but we ain’t a-goin’ to stand no such larks as them. Harris was right arter all. The ship’s harnted; an’ you can’t expec’, sir, as ornery flesh an’ blood ’ll put up wi’ a bloomin’ ghost as comes foggn’ an’ stinkin’, strong as a whole churchyard full o’ corpuses, into a man’s fok’sle whiles he’s a-eatin’ of his bit of supper.”