Horror on the High Seas: Gambi's Ghost

Happy Hallowe'en, Brethren and welcome to the final installment of Horror on the High Seas week. Whether you are sad to see it go or happy it's almost over, I hope you enjoyed something about our week of spine-tingling, grotesque and sometimes tragic tales.

Today, a ghost story. What could be more fitting for Hallowe'en? I first told this story online over at HoodooQ last April. It is familiar in many forms around southeastern Louisiana, where ghost pirates and buried treasure are a time honored tradition. The story was included in the Depression era collection Gumbo Ya~Ya, edited by Lyle Saxon. In Saxon's version, the island where the treasure is buried is called Isle de Gombi. In this version, the pirate is none other than Vincent Gambi himself.

So sit back, relax, bundle up if need be and allow yourself to slip away to an ancient, Louisiana bayou, where the frogs are chirping, the willow-the-wisps are flitting, and the drown just won't stay dead...

There was a quadroon man named Louis who lived on Bayou Grand Caillou. He was and fisherman. Sometimes he was happy with his trade. Sometimes he was not. Louis heard, from the other men who pulled oysters and mud bugs out of the bayou, that a nearby island was the spot where the Baratarian pirate Gambi had buried a horde of treasure. Now the talk went that Gambi was the most ruthless and treacherous of the pirates who aligned themselves with the famous Jean Laffite. He would slit a man's throat for no reason. It was said that if anyone tried to steal his buried treasure, his ghost would slit that man's throat as well.

Louis was a brave man if, it must be admitted, not very bright. He began to inquire about the pirate's treasure. His friends told him he was crazy. But Louis persisted. Finally one old Cajun told him that the only way to find Gambi's treasure was to go to the little island on a full moon night and look for a patch of moss that glowed silver. That was were the pirate had hidden his horde.

Being brave, if not very bright, Louis waited until the next full moon. Then he packed up his little pirogue with a shovel and canvas and everything he thought he would need to bring that treasure home. He sailed out to the deserted island, which as it turned out was no more than a muddy chenier. There was nothing there but a broken down boat shed, two sad cypress trees and big patches of green moss that looked black in the darkness.

Louis pulled his boat up high onto the broken shells of the island's shore. He looked around, hands on hips, almost sure that old Cajun had tricked him good. Then he saw it. A patch of moss that glowed like silver close to one of those scraggly trees.

He set to his task right away. The chuff and hiss of his spade, the croaking of frogs and his own breathing were the only sounds beside a mournful wind off the Gulf. But then Louis heard another sound, like something being dragged across the shells at the water's edge. He turned and was surprised to see his pirogue down in the water when he was sure he had dragged her high up on land. Throwing down his shovel, Louis marched into the water. He dragged that boat clear up to the other sorry cypress tree, and tied her to it.

Louis stomped back to the hole he had started, grumbling about the wind and the tide. Just as he was putting spade to soil he noticed four ugly, hairy feet with their toes just hanging over the edge of his little ditch. At that moment, Louis felt cold despite the heat. He gulped, although his mouth was dry as winter. Mustering all his dumb bravery, he looked up from his spade.

There stood two grinning, horrible pirates. They were sodden with water and seaweed. Mud bugs crawled through their beards and clothes. Their cutlasses dripped red with rust or blood - Louis did not want to know which. They stared at him with eyes that gleamed cold silver.

Now Louis was a good Catholic and he knew what to do when the Devil jumped up. He fell to his knees, crossed himself, and began to recite the Hail Mary over and over again. After his seventh sincere recitation of the prayer to the Virgin, Louis opened just one eye. Sure enough, those silver-eyed, watery pirated had disappeared and Louis, to his everlasting relief, was still alive.

As Louis' breathing settled down, he heard that awful scraping sound once again. Turning, he saw a third pirate sitting comfortably in his pirogue. This one wore a long dagger, held a fine ivory-handled pistol and sported a long, bristling black mustache. He was also dripping wet, covered with detritus and creatures from the Gulf and wearing high leather boots that marked him as a man in charge.

"Gambi?" Louis ventured.

"At your service," the phantom replied. "And if you do not get in this pathetic dinghy and row for your life, I will shoot you for no good reason." Gambi smiled a wicked smile. One gold tooth gleamed like fire in the moonlight.

Louis didn't need to hear that order twice. Abandoning his tools, he untied his boat, jumped in and began to row. He rowed as hard as he knew how while the pirate sat across from him, grinning and pointing his pistol and Louis' gut.

Once the pirogue was a few leagues out in the bayou, Gambi's ghost put away his ancient pistol. Without another word, he slipped over the side of the boat and disappeared into the black paint water. Louis would later say that he knew for truth the creature was not of this Earth as no bubbles rose to the surface when it sank.

So Louis went straight home and there is wife nearly shot him herself, for he looked so different. His hair had turned white to a strand and he would never smile again. Though he told his story to anyone who would listen as though trying to relieve himself of memory, it wasn't long before Louis went to bed one night and died right there in his sleep. Rumor among the fishermen said that old Louis had joined the phantom pirates on that chenier off Bayou Grand Caillou...

Header: The Pirate's Ghost by Howard Pyle via Wikimedia

Horror on the High Seas: Of Lice and Sailors

Horror is not always about things done to us against our will - hauntings, tragedies, torture - sometimes our own bodies are invaded with horrors. Or produce them. That is the stomach-churning subject of today's post.

In 1480, Friar Felix Faber, a Dominican monk from the Swabian city of Ulm, set out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This was a popular undertaking at the time what with spiritual favors and dispensations available from the Catholic Church if one made the trip. The popularity of such travel created its own problems, however. People unaccustomed to shipboard life crammed together like olives in a jar was a recipe for personal and public disaster. And Friar Felix wrote it all down for posterity.

On parasites, and lice in particular:

On a boat, too many people travel without a change of clothing; they live in sweat and foul odors, in which vermin thrive, not only in clothing but also in beards and hair. Therefore the pilgrim must not be lax; he must cleanse himself daily. A person who has not a single louse right now can have thousands an hour from now if he has the slightest contact with an infested pilgrim or sailor. Take care of the beard and the hair every day, for if the lice proliferate you will be obliged to shave your beard and thus lose your dignity, for it is scandalous not to wear a beard at sea. On the other hand, it is pointless to keep a long head of hair, as do some nobles unwilling to make the sacrifice. I have seen them so covered with lice that they gave them to all their friends and troubled all their neighbors. A pilgrim should not be ashamed to ask others to scour his beard for lice.

Friar Faber's "zest for the pen," as his translator Arthur Goldhammer puts it in The History of Private Life: Revalations of the Medieval World, actually makes one's skin itch as they read that paragraph. The interesting point, at least to me, is that the good Friar admonishes the pilgrim to "cleanse himself daily," something many historians have previously discounted as even possible aboard ship. But Friar Felix does not spare his reader much if anything in the way of instruction...

On elimination at sea:

Each pilgrim has near his bed a urinal - a vessel of terra-cotta, a small bottle - into which he urinates and vomits. But since the quarters are cramped for the number of people, and dark besides, and since there is much coming and going, it is seldom that these vessels are not overturned before dawn. Quite regularly in facts, driven by a pressing urge the obliges him to get up, some clumsy fellow will knock over five or six urinals in passing, giving rise to an intolerable stench.

In the morning, when the pilgrims get up and their stomachs ask for grace, they climb the bridge and head for the prow, where on either side of the spit privies have been provided. Sometimes as many as thirteen people or more will line up for a turn at the seat, and when someone takes too long it is not embarrassment but irritation that is expressed...

At night, it is a difficult business to approach the privies owing to the huge number of people lying or sleeping on the decks from one end of the galley to the other. Anyone who wants to go must climb over more than forty people, stepping on them as he goes; with every step he risks kicking a fellow passenger or falling on top of a sleeping body. If he bumps into someone along the way, insulst fly. Those without fear or vertigo can climb up to the prow along the ship's gunwales, pushing themselves along from rope to rope, which I often did despite the risk, and the danger. By climbing out the hatches to the oars, one can slide along in a sitting position from oar to oar, but this is not for the faint of heart, for straddling the oars is dangerous, and even the sailors do not like it.

But the difficulties become really serious in bad weather., when the privies are constantly inundated by waves and the oars are shipped and laid across the benches. To go to the seat in the middle of a storm is thus to risk being completely soaked, so that many passengers remove their clothing and go stark naked. But in this, modesty suffers greatly, which only stirs the shameful parts even more. Those who do not wish to be seen this way go squat in other places, which they soil, causing tempers to flare and fights to break out, discrediting even honorable people. Some even fill their vessels near their beds, which is disgusting and poisons the neighbors and can be tolerated only in invalids, who cannot be blamed: a few words are not enough to recount what I was forced to endure on account of a sick bedmate.

Despite all these myriad hardships, Friar Felix is very clear that one should not avoid the privy at sea. In fact, he recommends visiting it three or four times a day "even when there is no natural urge" to avoid constipation. He warns that pills or suppositories to help nature along are not "safe" aboard ship because "to purge oneself too much can cause worse trouble than constipation." It is easy to imagine what type of trouble the Friar implies.

Even with all the hardships, Friar Faber went to the Holy Land twice. One wonders, however, how many of his fellow Dominicans and others who had the privileged to be able to read were discouraged by his conversational and graphic descriptions of the nitty-gritty of sea travel at the time.

Header: Ship of Fools by Pieter van der Heyden c 1559 via Wikimedia

Horror on the High Seas: The Sinking of HMS Bounty

I had a lovely post about mermaids eating people (seriously; the originals did that) planned for today, but this morning's tragic loss of the HMS Bounty warrants more attention than women with fish tails. Hurricane Sandy has claimed a little piece of history, and two of her crew are still missing. This is the kind of horror that our ancestors faced every time they put out to sea, and here it is right in front of us.

From Bounty's Facebook page:

We received a distress call from Bounty at 1830 Sunday evening that the Ship lost power and her pumps were unable to keep up with the dewatering. At that time we immediately contacted the USCG for assistance.

Bounty had departed Connecticut late last week bound for St. Petersburg, Florida according to Hampton Roads online via the HMS Bounty Organization. The ship, manned by a crew of 16, hoped to sail around the hurricane. It is reasonable to imagine that no one knew at the time Bounty set out just how formidably large Sandy would become.

The Coast Guard managed to rescue 14 members of the crew, all of whom had abandon ship when Bounty took on more water than her pumps could handle. The men were lifted into Jayhawk helicopters and taken safely to the Coast Guard Air Station at Elizabeth City, North Carolina. The other 2 crewmen, who as of this writing have yet to be found, were reported to be in survival suits and wearing personal floatation devises. The search continues for both sailors.

Bounty, a 180 foot three masted frigate-type, was built in 1962 for the Marlon Brando vehicle Mutiny on the Bounty. She has been used in several movies since, most notably Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean series. She now rests below wave off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Though the loss of Bounty is surely felt by those of us who love the sea, in the immortal words of Dominique Youx, one can always get another ship. I'm sure I speak for the Brethren when I say that our hearts go out to those who love the men still missing, and we pray for their quick and safe return.

Header: HMS Bounty July, 2010; Assoc Press file photo by Mark Duncan via Hampton Roads

Update 6:40 PM Alaska Time:

According to HMS Bounty's Facebook page, one of the two missing crewmen, Claudene Christian, has been found. She has, tragically, passed away. Bounty's captain is now the only mariner still missing. Please keep everyone involved in this horrible tragedy in your thoughts and prayers. 

Update 8:01 AM Alaska Time:

Please see the comments on this post and/or continue to check HMS Bounty's Facebook page for updated information. As of this writing, Captain Walbridge has not yet been located. Please continue to send positive energy his way; we pray for his safe return. 

Horror on the High Seas: Return of the Man from Olon

It was the custom of L'Olonnois that, having tormented any persons and they not confessing, he would instantly cut them to pieces with his hanger, first some flesh, then a hand, an arm, a leg, and pull out their tongues.

~ Alexander Exquemelin in The Buccaneers of America

Doctor Exquemelin is, of course, talking about Francois L'Olonnais. Born David Nau in Olon, France, L'Olonnais ("the man from Olon") became one of the most infamously blood thirsty of the buccaneers. His most notorious act of cruelty, in which he slit open a man's chest with his cutlass (or "hanger"), pulled out the man's heart, took a bite from it and then shoved it into the mouth of the man's mate, is depicted above in a woodcut from the book.

Horror on the High Seas: Dead

The word dead has a lot to do with Hallowe'en, which if we're honest is a celebration of the dead. So what better word for our Sailor Mouth Saturday during Horror on the High Seas week? I mean, we did devil last year.

We've discussed dead reckoning before, that amazing ability of our ancestors to make an educated guess about the positioning of their ship in blue water without reference to the stars or the planets. A keen trick if you could pull it off, but potentially deadly if your guess was wrong.

Many times the word dead has to do with components of a ship or her rigging. Dead doors are those attached to the inner bulwark of a ship's quarter gallery, this being the private latrine of the commanding officer. Since the quarter gallery is shifted slightly outward from the hull - for obvious reasons - dead doors are set in place to keep water out should the quarter gallery proper be, as Admiral Smyth puts it, "carried away." Wooden blocks, often made of elm, are used as stationary harnesses for rope to pass through; these blocks are known as dead eyes which comes from the older term, dead man's eyes. It is thought that the "dead" in this instance refers to the blocks' lack of movement.

The timber just at the midship bend, about a third of the length from her head, is known as a dead-flat. The dead-rising, by contrast, is the area of a ship near the stern post and is usually a reference to her bottom rather than her deck. Dead ropes are those which do not run through a block. Dead wood is used to correct certain inherent aberrations in a ship's keel; the blocks used were known individually as dead wood knees.  Dead works refers to the entire part of the ship which is above the water line when that ship is fully laden.

Dead lights are the shutters which can be attached to the outside of the stern windows which light the commanding officer's cabin in larger ships. These are fastened shut in anticipation of dirty weather. Dead lights is also a term for swamp gas or the elusive jack-o-lantern.

Dead can also be applied to weather conditions and navigation. A dead calm indicates no wind whatever, a sailor's nightmare. This is similar to a dead-lown, which Admiral Smyth tells us in The Sailor's Word Book is a "completely still atmosphere." Dead on end refers to a full backing wind blowing in the exact opposite direction from the ship's course. Dead upon a wind is to slightly better advantage with the ship braced up and close hauled while hard tacking.

The dead months signified winter, and a dead lift was the act of moving a "very inert body" - perhaps your fallen mate. Dead weight is the amount a merchant vessel must pay for goods she did not ship. Dead pay was that given for a man on a ship's books who did not appear when compensation was handed out; as the Admiral puts it "as was formerly practiced with widow's men."

Dead men's effects were those sold via auction at the main mast when a mate died. The purchaser would often have his pay docked in the ship's books to compensate for whatever he had won at auction. This was not always done for each man, but was often reserved for those who had no family to return any belongings to.

A dead ticket is a document, signed by surgeon and commanding officer, that certifies the man is in fact dead at sea. This was the first step to clearing the seaman off the ship's books.

Finally there is the curious ritual of the dead horse, which was performed on merchant vessels. When work for which the seaman were paid via advance, such as preparing to put out to sea, was completed, the men - at least in theory - would once again begin earning new funds. At this point the effigy of a dead horse was dragged around the decks to represent the end of "fruitless labor." The doll horse was sometimes run up the yardarm thereafter and cast overboard, according to Admiral Smyth "amidst loud cheers." Now there's something most of us have never heard of but that was probably witnessed by more than one traveler in the 19th century.

And so an end to our discussion of dead. Horror on the High Seas week continues on the morrow and marches right on to Hallowe'en. Don't miss a minute, Brethren.

Header: Moonlit Night by Stefan Popowski c 1910 via Old Paint

Horror on the High Seas: A Sailor Man's Hallowe'en

It was never easy for Popeye trying to woo the always self-loathing Olive Oil, but when Bluto won't go home on Hallowe'en night, it can only get worse. Enjoy this very old timey cartoon on this delightful Friday. I'll spy ye tomorrow for more of Triple P's week long tribute to my favorite holiday.

Horror on the High Seas: Torture for Torture's Sake

Hard to believe but it is that time again... For the fourth year in a row, Triple P celebrates a seagoing Hallowe'en with Horror on the High Seas week. What, after all, is more fun than mayhem, torture, ghosts and disgust at sea? Seriously, we'll discuss all of that and more.

Let us start out with torture and pirates via that story of the unfortunate Aaron Smith. Smith, a pilot and some-time surgeon aboard an English merchant, was captured by pirates in the Caribbean in 1822. Pressed into unwilling service due to his knowledge of the islands, Smith witnessed atrocities that he would later write about to great acclaim. His pamphlet The Atrocities of the Pirates, was published after he was tried and acquitted on charges of piracy. Of course his Victorian contemporaries, already in love with the gruesome, snapped up his writing and, for a short time, the pilot knew a modicum of fame.

Here is a sample involving a member of the pirate crew whom the captain accused of plotting mutiny:

[The Captain] threatened me with vengeance for my interference, declaring that he had not done half that he intended to do.

Having said this, he turned to the man, told him that he should be killed, and therefore advised him to prepare for death, or confess himself to any of the crew whom I chose to call aside for that purpose.

The man persisted in his plea of innocence, declared that he had nothing to confess, and entreated them all to spare his life. They paid no attention to his assertions but, by the order of the Captain, the man was put into the boat, pinioned and lashed in the stern, and five of the crew were directed to arm themselves with pistols and muskets and to go in her. The captain then ordered me to go with them, savagely remarking that I should now see how he punished rascals, and giving directions to the boat's crew to row for three hours backwards and forwards through a narrow creek formed by a desert island and the island of Cuba. "I will see," cried he, exulting, "whether the mosquitoes & the sandflies will not make him confess." Prior to our leaving the schooner, the thermometer was above ninety degrees in the shade, and the poor wretch was now exposed naked to the full heat of the sun. In this state we took him to the channel, one side of which was bordered by swamps full of mangrove trees, and swarming with the venomous insects before mentioned.

We had scarcely been half an hour in this place when the miserable victim was distracted with pain; his body began to swell, and he appeared one complete blister from head to foot. Often in the agony of his torments did he implore them to end his existence and release him from his misery; but the inhuman wretches only imitated his cries, and mocked and laughed at him. In a very short time, from the effects of the solar heat and the stings of the mosquitoes and sandlies, his face had become so swollen that not a feature was distinguishable; his voice began to fail, & his articulation was no longer distinct.

The unfortunate man continued to be tortured in this manner for another half an hour. Finally, the boat was rowed back to the ship but, when the captain was informed that the man had not confessed, he ordered that the "rascal" be taken back to the sand bar and used for target practice. Surviving this, the poor devil was finally weighed down with "a pig of iron... fastened round his neck, & he was thrown into the sea."

An ignominious end for a man who clearly chose bad company and, in the final analysis, found a miserable death for it.

Header: Dead Pirate Ashore by Howard Pyle c 1887 via Wikipedia