The Secret of Abdu El Yezdi

LIVERPOOL & AUSTRALIAN NAVIGATION COMPANY

STEAM FROM AUSTRALIA TO LIVERPOOL

UNDER 60 DAYS

THE MAGNIFICENT STEAM CLIPPER

“ROYAL CHARTER”

Thursday. 1st day of September 1859.

8.00 a.m.

In Doldrums off West Africa. Unable to establish exact position. Compass spinning. At midnight, the Northern Lights appeared (this far south? I’ve never heard of such a thing). As bright as day. No stars visible for the remainder of the night. No breath of wind. A curious atmospheric effect: all flames have died, and no match will strike. We can’t fire-up the engines. I’ve traversed the tropics hundreds of times and have never before seen combustion suppressed this way. The men are mad with the loss of their pipes and cigars.

3.00 p.m.

A slight current has got up. Drifting eastward, albeit slowly. Crew short-tempered. How we all depend on our tobacco!

10.00 p.m.

Another night with light from horizon to horizon. The sea is like glass and so reflective we appear to be floating through clouds of shifting colours. A marvellous but very unnerving effect.

Friday. 2nd day of September 1859.

8.00 a.m.

Still becalmed. No wind. No fire. Compass useless. Humidity tremendous, making sleep almost impossible. Second Officer Cowie reports the passengers are increasingly restless and quarrelsome. He broke up two disputes last night.

Noon

Indications that we’re still moved by a current in a generally easterly (perhaps NE) direction.

11.00 p.m.

No change. Again, the Northern Lights. Passengers rowdy. More fighting. A man named Samuel Grenfell (gold miner) stabbed another, William James Ferris (storekeeper) in the arm. Has been locked in his cabin.

Saturday. 3rd day of September 1859.

2.00 a.m.

Seaman William Draper reports he can “smell land.”

11.00 a.m.

Lack of sleep overtaking all. Thank God passengers too tired for troublemaking.

Midnight

The aurora has partially cleared, now being confined to a portion of sky to the east of us, and has taken on a most curious aspect, funnelling downward onto a mountainous island just visible on the horizon. We’re at 3°10′N 8°42′E. According to my charts, the island is Fernando Po. The current is pushing us toward it. Still no fire.

Sunday. 4th day of September 1859.

7.00 p.m.

No change in our circumstance. A deep lassitude creeping over all.

Monday. 5th day of September 1859.

Noon

Drawing close to Fernando Po. The island is dominated by a huge conical peak, clothed in tropical forest. We’re drifting toward a cove, Clarence Bay, by the charts. If we make land, we can at least lay up until the weather changes.

10.00 p.m.

Ashore. At 4.40 p.m., the Royal Charter touched ground just off a narrow beach, backed by steep banks of yellow clay. I led a landing party and a small crowd of people greeted us. We followed them up ladders and, beyond the top of the banks, discovered a row of buildings, newly erected by recently arrived Spanish colonists and christened Santa Isabel. Already, the dwellings are rotten and infested with vermin and their inhabitants are languid to the point of semi-consciousness, gripped by deadly ennui and disease.

After leaving the ship, we discovered that our matches were strike-able once more and we took to our tobacco with much enthusiasm, yet as soon as we stepped back aboard, no combustion was possible. Whatever the atmospheric disturbance is, it’s somehow clinging to the vessel, so other than a rotating watch of seven men, the crew and passengers have abandoned her and are all put up in filthy lodgings. I fear for the women and children. This is no kind of place for them.

Tuesday. 6th day of September 1859.

2.00 a.m.

Can’t sleep. There are drums thundering from somewhere inland. They’ve not let up for a single moment since the sun set.

11.30 a.m.

Humidity, sandflies, mosquitoes, prickly heat. This place is unbearable. The vegetation hangs limply beneath the blinding sky. Everything’s still, as in death.

Wednesday. 7th day of September 1859.

9.00 p.m.

The governor of Santa Isabel, a man named de Ruvigas, has advised us to move inland to a town called Santa Cecilia, which is some 1,300 feet above sea level and less dangerous to health. Tomorrow we’ll do so, remaining there until the weather improves, or until we can fire-up the ship’s engines.

Thursday. 8th day of September 1859.

2.00 a.m.

The drums. On and on. I feel I might lose my mind.

6.00 p.m.

Leaving the watch aboard ship, I today led the crew and passengers inland along a steeply ascending jungle trail until we arrived, exhausted, at Santa Cecilia. The village is little more than a huddle of shacks, all raised up on poles in the centre of a wide clearing, but the inhabitants willingly made room for us in return for gifts of alcohol, tobacco, pocket watches, rings, belts, and whatever else we could afford to give them. The female passengers have set about cleaning the place up.

Midnight

The air is fresher here. The mosquitoes less numerous. But the drums are just as insistent.

Saturday. 10th day of September 1859.

3.00 p.m.

I’m remiss in my log-keeping. The days are endless, the nights worse.

Monday. 12th day of September 1859.

8.00 p.m.

We feel we are being watched. The women grip each other, their faces taut with fear. The men have become strangely quiet. I find myself checking my pistol again and again.

Tuesday. 13th day of September 1859.

3.00 p.m.

Such torpor. Sleep evades us but we slip in and out of prolonged periods of dark reverie, almost a trance, wherein we are paralysed by a sense of being examined, like pinned insects.

5.30 p.m.

From 3.00 p.m. until 5.00 p.m. every day, clouds form with astonishing rapidity and rain falls in a solid sheet. The thunder is as violent as I’ve ever heard. Our huts leak, and after the downpour we crawl from them soaked to the skin to dry ourselves beneath the returned sun. It’s causing our clothes to rot from our backs. By all that’s Holy, I’ve never beheld such a ragged band of miserable souls.

Friday. 16th day of September 1859.

7.00 p.m.

I dread nightfall and the commencement of the drumming. There’s been so little sleep, I’m in a state of living dream. More difficult than ever to maintain this log.

Monday. 19th day of September 1859.

9.00 a.m.

Last night, I was roused by Seaman Joseph Rodgers, who was near hysterical and swearing blind that, “The devil himself is among us.” It took nigh on an hour to calm him.

Tuesday. 20th day of September 1859.

8.00 p.m.

Another day has passed like an opium dream and now the drums have begun their nightly torment. A terrible sense of menace pervades the village.

Tuesday. 27th day of September 1859.

11.00 a.m.

A week has gone by in a haze, with no attention paid to this record. I remember nothing of what’s passed, if anything has, beyond the repetitive torture of heat, rain, and drums, heat, rain, and drums. We’ve had twenty-seven days now without the merest hint of a breeze; twenty-two days on this loathsome lump of rock. Writing exhausts me.

3.00 p.m.

Something brought us here. Something is holding us captive. None of this is natural. God help us.

Wednesday. 5th day of October 1859.

11.30 a.m.

Joseph Rodgers and a passenger, John Judge, have suggested we investigate the source of the drumming. By Christ, we do something or we remain here and die of languor, so I’ve agreed, and will lead the expedition myself. I pray I can raise strength enough for it.

4.00 p.m.

It’ll be just the three of us. The rest lie limp and vacant-eyed. A stiff climb faces us, for our hosts insist that the drummers are located in a crater, called the Pico Santa Isabel, at the top of the central mountain, which is obviously an ancient and dormant volcano. We’ll set out at dawn.

Thursday. 6th day of October 1859.

7.00 p.m.

The climb is steep but not impossibly so. There’s a trail with steps cut into the sheerest stretches. John Judge is a giant, Herculean in strength and endurance, but Rodgers and I are all too mortal. The heat sucks out what little energy we’ve been able to muster. Frequent stops necessary. No progress at all when the rains came. Nevertheless, we’ve covered a good distance. We’ll reach the peak tomorrow. For now, Rodgers has made a little fire, which we’ll huddle around while we endure the night and the damnable drums.

Friday. 7th day of October 1859.

6.30 a.m.

Not a wink of sleep. The feeling of looming menace is overpowering. We’re resuming our ascent.

Saturday. 8th day of October 1859.

8.00 p.m.

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.

We achieved the summit yesterday at 4.00 p.m. and stood at the lip of the crater. On the opposite side, a village, from which the nocturnal drumming no doubt emanates, has been built around about a quarter of the depression’s outer edge. Its inhabitants soon spotted us, but rather than approach, they simply stared.

We paid them little attention; our eyes were pulled down to the incredible object lying amid the bubbling pools at the base of the bowl. It appeared to be the aurora borealis, somehow condensed into a globe, about two hundred feet in diameter, but with a large section missing, like a bite from an apple. As we descended toward it, details began to stand out. Though formed entirely from light, the apparition started to remind me of a steam sphere, though of gigantic proportions. There were rows of rivet-like protrusions, portholes, and the missing section was seemingly lined with broken spars and torn plating, as if exploded from within.

We climbed past pools of steaming water and sulphurous mud, stumbling constantly, unable to look away from the seething colours before us. Rodgers began to utter a prayer but was hushed by John Judge, who commanded us to listen, and in doing so confirmed what I had already noticed: that there were whisperings coming from the globe; voices, which as we drew closer gained clarity, becoming fragments of conversations, orders, pleas, and shouts. I clearly heard:

“. . . advancing west. Their forces stretch from . . .”

“. . . will do as I bloody well say, Private, or so help me I’ll put him before a firing squad. Now get down there and tell him to . . .”

“. . . isn’t seaworthy and is beyond repair, sir. The long and short of it is that the Britannia is wrecked. If we make a last stand, it has to be here. You have to tell General Aitken there’s no way out of . . .”

“. . . German units to the south and west of us. Unless he can do what he says, we’ll not live beyond . . .”

“. . . I’m hit! Mother of God! I’m . . .”

“. . . and what is left worth fighting for? Surrender, I say. It’s the . . .”

“. . . can’t trust him to . . .”

“. . . Get down! Get down! He’s dead, damn it! Sweet Jesus, they aren’t human! We have to . . .”

And more. These odd, panicked, desperate echoes became, unmistakably, the yammering of men caught in warfare and making a last stand against superior forces. I’m not certain how, but I was taken by the notion that their one hope had betrayed and abandoned them, and that whoever or whatever that last hope had been, it was here, now, on the island, and was the awful presence we’d all sensed.

We were but a few steps from the globe when the illumination suddenly increased until it blazed like the sun. The next thing I knew, I was on the ground and Rodgers was shaking the wits back into me. I sat up, looked around, and saw only rocks and pools and the sloping sides of the crater. The mirage was gone.

“Let’s get out of this accursed hellhole,” John Judge said. “I beg of ye, Cap’n Taylor, let us get back to our people.”

I’d no hesitation in agreeing, and we climbed out of the crater as fast as was possible and immediately started down the path toward Santa Cecilia. Minutes later, the rain fell, and we were sent slithering wildly down the track amid mud and water. Lord knows how we survived that slide.

Night fell before we’d completed the descent but we hastened on by starlight, convinced that we were being pursued, though by what we couldn’t guess. Never have I felt such stark terror!

Sunday. 9th day of October 1859

3.00 p.m.

We didn’t realise it at the time, but there were no drums last night. We reached the village at dawn and, being fatigued beyond endurance, immediately took to our huts and, at last, slept.

Midnight

Again, no drums. Why does this cause me such dread?

Monday. 10th day of October 1859.

9.00 a.m.

A cannon heard from the Royal Charter! It can mean only one thing! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! For He, in His infinite mercy, has given us fire! We can flee this detestable place!

Noon

The crew and passengers trekked from Santa Cecilia to Santa Isabel and from there boarded the ship. We had to carry John Judge. He is in such a deep sleep that he won’t wake.

We’ll be away from here!

“My hat!” Swinburne exclaimed. He untangled his legs, stood, and moved to the bar. “They spent more than a month on that island. Wasn’t the ship reported missing?”

“They were sailing from Melbourne,” Burton said. “With a voyage of that length, a month’s delay isn’t so unusual.”

Swinburne claimed fresh bottles of ale and brought them back to the table.

“What on earth was it?” he asked. “The globe of light? The aurora? It’s astonishing!”

“Born from the wreck of the SS Britannia,” Burton murmured.

Swinburne regarded him curiously. “What? What? What?”

“I’ll explain later. Here, I’ll pour the drinks, you continue with the log.”

The poet’s green eyes fixed on Burton for a few seconds then he gave a grunt, looked down at the book, and resumed.

Monday. 10th day of October 1859.

7.00 p.m.

I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Fernando Po is receding behind us! Admittedly, the going is slow. The steam engine was designed to augment the sails, not replace them, but at least it drives us from hell and gives us hope.

Tuesday. 11th day of October 1859.

3.00 p.m.

Crawling along. Currently at 1°34′N, 3°23′E.

Wednesday. 12th day of October 1859.

9.00 a.m.

Passenger Colin McPhiel found dead this morning. No ascertainable cause. Have ordered corpse preserved in lime for Christian burial in God’s good earth. Crew and passengers now convinced the ship is blighted. I argue against superstition, but in the name of the Almighty, I feel it myself.

3.00 p.m.

The lassitude that immobilised us on the island is still with us. Many men, women, and children affected, in various degrees, some practically comatose.

Thursday. 13th day of October 1859.

9.00 a.m.

Seaman Henry Evans and Second Steward Thomas Cormick both died in the night. Again, no reason apparent. Placed in lime.

Noon

2°38′N, 13°8′E.

9.00 p.m.

Passenger Benjamin Eckert has committed suicide by hanging. Used the last of the lime to preserve his corpse. What doom weighs so heavily upon this vessel?

Friday. 14th day of October 1859.

7.00 a.m.

Joseph Rodgers mad with terror. Insists he saw passenger Colin McPhiel walking the deck in the early hours of this morning. I have sent him (Rodgers), Seaman William McArthur, and Quartermaster Thomas Griffith to the hold to check on the corpse.

7.30 a.m.

They report the body is present but has been disturbed; lime scattered around the casket.

8.00 p.m.

Have put Seamen Edward Wilson, William Buxton, and Mark Mayhew on a rotating watch over the hold.

At 8°55′N, 20°39′E. Making for Cape Verde to resupply.

Saturday. 15th day of October 1859.

3.30 a.m.

Shaken from my bed at 2.30 a.m. by Cowie and Rodgers. Utter chaos in the hold. Buxton and Mayhew both dead. No marks on them, but by God, the look of horror on their faces! Edward Wilson a gibbering lunatic. Struck out wildly at all who approached him. Had to call upon John Judge to restrain the man. Corpse of Colin McPhiel stretched out on the deck, powdered with lime, a dagger embedded hilt-deep in its heart.

I’m at a loss. I’ve ordered the bodies of Buxton, Mayhew, McPhiel, Evans, Cormick, and Eckert cast overboard. Wilson bound and locked in cabin.

Noon

Finally, the wind has got up, but our evil luck continues, for it’s driving us westward. Currently at 9°24′N, 24°18′W.

11.00 p.m.

11°21′N, 28°57′W. We’ll not make Cape Verde this day.

Sunday. 16th day of October 1859.

10.00 a.m.

Passengers Mrs. C. Hodge, George Gunn, Franklin Donoughue, and Seaman Terrance O’Farrell, all dead. No indications of disease other than the severe lethargy from which they’d all suffered. By Christ, am I commanding a plague ship? Bodies thrown overboard. No energy or will for ceremony.

1.00 p.m.

Joseph Rodgers bearded me in my cabin and ranted for half an hour. He said: “Satan is sucking the souls right out of us, Captain Taylor. We’ll all be dead afore this ship touches another shore.”

Monday. 17th day of October 1859.

7.00 a.m.

Ten taken. Passengers: Mrs. J. B. Russell, Miss D. Glazer, P. N. Robinson, T. T. Bowden, T. Willmoth, and A. Mullard. Crewmen: Second Officer A. Cowie, Rigger G. A. Turner, Fourth Officer J. Croome, Seaman W. Draper.

3.00 p.m.

A strong southerly wind has driven us to 19°28′N, 30°14′W.

5.00 p.m.

There was a medium among our passengers, known to all as Mademoiselle Tabitha, though the manifest lists her as Miss Doris Jones. I didn’t see her on the island. Apparently she spent our days there curled up in a corner of a hut and spoke to no one. Since we departed, a similar story: locked in her cabin, opening the door only to receive food from a friend among her fellow passengers. An hour ago, I was told she wanted to see me. Went down and found her seemingly in a trance.

She said, “He is reaching out, Captain. Speaking through the mouth of a woman like me.”

I asked, “Who is?”

She said, “Our additional passenger. He who hides. He who feeds. He who endures to the end.”

I asked, “We have a stowaway?”

To this, she giggled like a madwoman and said, in an oddly deep voice, “Let us say au revoir before I embarrass myself any further. I have the royal charter. I’m on my way. We shall meet soon. Say goodbye to the countess.”

She reached out as if grasping something in the air and made a twisting motion, before then clutching at her chest and collapsing to the floor, stone dead. I have no explanation.

8.30 p.m.

I have had the ship searched from bow to stern. No stowaway detected.

Tuesday. 18th day of October 1859.

5.00 a.m.

Twelve more gone. I shan’t list them here but will add the date of their demise against their names on the passenger and crew manifests.

Rodgers informed me that he witnessed John Judge “creeping” around the ship during the night. I approached Judge half an hour ago. He explained that he’s started to keep a nightly watch. The man is not crew, but his intimidating size is such that I am glad of his vigil.

Noon

Developing storm. We are driven NNW.

Saturday. 22nd day of October 1859.

Time unknown. Daylight.

Impossible to maintain this log. Mass panic aboard. Fighting. Suicides. The death toll increases every night. Seaman Gregory Parsons attempted to lead a mutiny. Joseph Rodgers forced to shoot him dead.

We are in the stranglehold of an increasingly violent maelstrom. Compass spinning. Timepieces have stopped. Sky black with cloud. Unable to establish position.

Monday. 24th day of October 1859.

Time unknown.

Storm so intense I don’t know if it’s night or day.

Death. Nothing but death. Passengers refusing to leave their cabins.

Time unknown.

Rodgers has become convinced that John Judge is responsible for the evils that beset this vessel. He’s going after him with a pistol. I am powerless.

Time unknown.

Not enough crew remaining to man the ship. I have to get it to port. I have to—else we’re all dead.

Note.

This writ by Joseph Rodgers at Capt. Taylor’s command.

The Capt. pegs us as in the Irish Sea. He is bound to the wheel so as not to be washed overboard and is set on steering us to any port we can find. I am to wrap this logbook in sealskin and return it to him, so it might be on him if we are wrecked.

Beware of John Judge. Satan took him on the island and he has preyed on us this voyage through. He walks by night and steals a man’s soul from him and leaves the body dead but not dead. I saw Colin McPhiel rise and hunt for souls to replace what was took from him.

The Royal Charter is damned. Capt. Taylor is damned. I am damned. We are all damned. But I’ll not go without a fight. I have me pistol loaded and as God is me witness I’ll search this ship from bow to stern till I find Judge and send him back to hell with a bullet.

Lord have Mercy on my soul.