The Lost Voyage
By Paul Kane
1: The Impetus for Travel.
Malone, 17, Hill Street, Streatham
– Come at once! And pack!
– Yours, G.E.D
It was the above telegram that saw me on my way to the delightful Surrey retreat of my friend, Professor George Edward Challenger. I was used to such abrupt missives (in fact the new and surprising addition of “Yours” took me aback), yet it had been a good long while since I had heard from the scientist on any matter. Not since his daughter Enid and I had parted company, even though said parting was amicable – Enid having gone off to pursue her career as a journalist in America.
In years past, I would have sought permission to leave from my old editor McCardle – who would inevitably agree, knowing as he did that the upshot of any such summons would mean a write-up from me (and increased sales for the Gazette). But, having taken over the mantle of editor myself upon his retirement, that was not an issue this time. So, off I went to pack a few belongings and catch the next train.
There, waiting for me at the station, was Challenger’s long-suffering chauffeur and general dogsbody, Austin. He had taken over the mantle of looking after the Professor – or “the master” as he called him – after his wife Jessie’s passing. “’E’s a great man,” Austin had once remarked to me, “But ‘e does try one cruel at times.”
We rattled past the sign I’d come to know so well: “WARNING: Visitors, Pressmen and Mendicants are not encouraged. G.E. Challenger.” I was certainly two of the three – and possibly the only person on the planet he’d tolerate who was – however it had been he who’d “begged” for my assistance.
Austin deposited me at the doorstep and I rang the bell. Seconds later, the large wooden door – closely resembling a drawbridge gate (Challenger having become ever more insular of late, it seemed) – opened a crack.
“H-Hello!” I called, nudging the door open even more.
I saw the briefest glimpse of my host, disappearing into a room on the right. I made my way inside, and started up the corridor. “Hello Professor. It’s me, Malone.” Challenger emerged again, striding across into the room opposite. He nearly collided with me, in fact, which would have knocked me flat on my back. Stooping slightly, and considerably more advanced in years than when I first clapped eyes on him, he nevertheless remained an imposing figure.
“Professor?” I called after him, and he shot out of the room carrying some scientific equipment I did not profess to understand. “Professor!” I shouted. He paused only momentarily, as if seeing me for the first time; staring at me with those blue-grey eyes of his. Once sharp and clear, they were now housed behind spectacles I could tell he hated wearing.
His beard, once dark, was now grey-white, but it had lost none of its thickness and still flowed over his chest. The same, sadly, could hardly be said for his hair – though I could not comment, having recently seen signs of loss myself in that department. He was dressed in a tweed suit which, as ever, looked too small for him. When he spoke, that bellowing voice of his had lost some of its volume... but not much.
“Malone! Whatever kept you, man?”
“I came as soon as I got your telegram,” I told him, as he harrumphed and again turned his back on me, transporting his equipment to its destination. It was as though he’d expected me to psychically know he needed me, perhaps even before he’d known himself. I followed through the doorway, spying more equipment, open bags and cases. He was busy cramming the piece of machinery into a portmanteau, so I took hold of the other side to give him a hand.
“Professor...” I persevered as we hefted the square metallic thing inside, “... could you please tell me what is going on!”
He rose, then gaped at me again – as if I should already have the answer to that enquiry. As if his telegram had been enough to deduce it. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m finishing packing,” he told me in no uncertain terms.
I looked around again and thought about my meagre collection of luggage, still in the boot of the car.
“Yes, I can see that...but what for? Where are you...?” I paused, then changed it to: “Where are we going?”
“After Roxton, the fool,” stated Challenger, again as if this told me everything.
“Lord John? What of him?” He was another I had not seen in some time.
“We really don’t have time for all this. Our ship leaves port in just a few hours.”
“Port?” I spluttered.
“I’ve managed to secure the services of a small cargo vessel heading in our general direction; it was the first one leaving to be doing so.”
I joined the Professor around his side of the case, standing in front of him. “Heading what way? And what does this have to do with Lord John? If I’m to come with you, I really must know.”
Challenger sighed, closed the lid of the case, and sat on it. “Very well. I have received word that Roxton set out well over a month ago to revisit the site of our very first exploration together.”
I couldn’t help gasping at that. Roxton had always professed a desire to return to that lost plateau: the scene of our first real triumph. Indeed, Lord John had begun talking about it not long after our return, pledging that he would put the money made from that venture into funding another expedition. But, as these things often do, it became nothing more than talk. Life, and all its responsibilities, had always gotten in the way. But it seemed that Lord John had no longer been able to ignore that urge; the sense that something was missing, that we’d left a little piece of ourselves behind.
I have to admit, I’d always thought that if we did return, it would be all of us setting foot on that soil once more. And with Summerlee having passed away himself, I think both Challenger and I had given up on the idea totally. Maybe that was why Lord John had not told us of his plans in advance? Perhaps he simply wanted to go back while he still could, before age caught up with him – as it was doing rapidly with us all. I confess to becoming depressed of late by the aching of my limbs, the relative slowness of my movements.
“He was no doubt after more of those blessed stones,” said Challenger, as if sensing my musings about Roxton; doing what I had not been able to accomplish on reading his note.
I shook my head. “How can you say that, after everything we have been through together? The four...” Challenger looked sideways at me, veiled pain in those eyes. “The three of us,” I rectified. I could see, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that Challenger still missed his old verbal sparring partner, the other professor in our team. I also knew why he was saying that about Roxton. Like myself, he felt somewhat hurt that Lord John hadn’t asked us directly to be part of the proceedings. “More likely, he ran out of conventional animals to hunt,” I countered. Indeed, now I came to think about it, he had said as much upon his return from the Alps one time.
Challenger waved a dismissive hand. “In any event, it has turned out to be his undoing. He did not reach the stopover point of Para, I am duly informed by representatives of the Peieira da Pinta Company. And there has been no word from him or sightings of his seemingly fated expedition.”
A lump came to my throat, and it was almost as if I could hear the man himself saying: “Well, I’ve gone and done it this time, young-fella-me-lad!”
“And you mean for us to go in search of him,” said I.
“Of course, of course!” Challenger blurted, holding out his hand for me to help him up again. “We can’t leave the madman going round in circles out there, can we now.” He allowed himself a slight grin. The main reason we were heading out after Lord John was that he was our friend and he needed us. That, plus it had been too long since our last caper.
I couldn’t help remarking how unprepared I was for a journey of this kind, though. At least when we had set out for that land previously, I had known what I was letting myself in for. Or thought I had. “Your telegram simply said ‘pack’. It didn’t state whether it was for overnight, a weekend or... or longer.” Which I judged this would be (not realising quite how long we might be away).
Challenger gawped at me a final time, again unable to grasp how I’d missed the hidden meaning in his communication. Of course, why wouldn’t I have guessed we’d be heading out to sea!
“And here you are with... with all this!” said I, in exasperation. “I mean, what exactly is all this for?” I could not even conceive of it fitting inside the car with us.
“Oh Malone, you of all people should be aware by now. One never knows when one might encounter something of interest. Something out of the ordinary that requires study.”
If only the Professor had known.
If only we both had known.
2: Aboard The Ulysses.
The vessel upon which Professor Challenger had secured passage was the complete antithesis of the Booth liner we’d travelled aboard all that time ago. The Ulysses was functional at best, a floating eyesore covered in plated patches where it had quite obviously been repaired...badly. It looked even older than the Professor! The only appropriate thing about it was the name, as we were setting out on our own odyssey, in search of the missing Lord John.
Its captain, whose greeting when he first met us was to ask for payment in advance, was a stern-looking man called Hardy. If he was an ancestor of Nelson’s famous lieutenant, then the apple had certainly fallen quite far from the tree. His second-in-command was more personable, a fair-haired fellow called Lewis who oversaw the loading of our belongings onto the ship. Though, as he did so, I spotted the lethal-looking knife at his hip and realised then that he was no stranger to action himself.
We said our goodbyes to Austin – for Challenger, this involved a list of instructions for tasks to be completed before his return – and were underway not long afterwards. Our individual quarters, not that far from the crew, were cramped, but I felt sure we would not be spending any great length of time in them. Luckily I didn’t need much space to write in my notebook, recording events up to this point.
The Professor, for his part, had been busily setting up a makeshift lab in the hold, amongst the crates. This was where I found him again after “settling in” myself. “I never got the opportunity to say this, because of our haste, but it really is good to see you again, Professor,” I told him.
He regarded me, before waving his hand again, saying nothing in return. As he was setting up a microscope, I ventured further with my conversation: “It was unfortunate how things transpired with Enid, but, well, from what I can gather she is happy.”
Challenger muttered something under his breath, then carried on working. I knew he missed his daughter, but had no idea how he felt either way about what had happened between myself and her. It appeared, from his continued silence, I would not find out on that day, either.
I decided to try another tack to prompt him. “Professor, I have also been meaning to ask: how exactly are we going to locate Lord John, if indeed he is still out here? You have assured me we’re taking same route he did, but he might have drifted off course or…” I hated to say it, but felt I must: “Or, heaven forbid, sunk. We’d need Jules Verne’s creation, the Nautilus, to find his ship then.”
“This is no science fiction story, Malone!” snapped Challenger. “I deal in science fact, my boy.” I suppose to him I was still a youngster, though there were many who’d vehemently disagree these days; myself included. Boys tended not to have thinning salt and pepper hair, for one thing. “As a reporter you should yourself also be familiar with the notion, though whether one could call what is chronicled in the Gazette ‘fact’ is another matter.” He patted one of the machines he’d brought with him, which was being powered by its own batteries. “We shall find him, if indeed he is to be found, by using this.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A device that is a variation and extrapolation of the ideas put forward by Heinrich Hertz, James Clerk Maxwell and the German engineer Christian Huelsmeyer. It detects and displays images of any objects in the vicinity by way of bouncing radio waves off them, rather like the way a bat ‘sees’. I have set up an external transmitter, with Hardy’s grudging permission, on deck.”
I’d certainly heard of the latter name, Huelsmeyer having actually invented a system for avoiding shipping collisions in foggy conditions. “I see…and that’s all well and good for objects that are still above sea level but–”
“If you’d allow me to finish, Malone, you would discover that the machine is also capable of receiving underwater sound waves, utilising an acoustic transducer and projector. The same way underwater vessels like submarines or your Nautilus might be detected. Once I’ve calibrated it, this should allow me to differentiate Roxton’s small explorer from any other older wrecks that might be out there, by means of any distinguishing features: its name, for example, The Voyager.” A suitable moniker for Roxton’s vessel, as he was forever travelling; pity his was now a lost voyage. I joined the Professor and watched shapes flash up on the screen. It was equipment well in advance of its time, but then again Challenger was also a man far ahead of this current era.
In addition, myself and agreeable members of the crew also took turns keeping watch from the deck, sweeping the ocean with binoculars. If Roxton’s ship or any of its lifeboats should be out here (and I had to wonder whether they still had sufficient provisions), we were doing everything in our power to locate them.
What we did not see, nor indeed anticipate, was the strange and terrible mist that descended only a week after setting sail.
3: Inside the Mist.
It came upon us quickly, and without warning save for a sudden drop in temperature, covering us like a blanket…or a shroud. It reduced our visibility to practically zero.
I was on deck when it happened. One minute I was looking out through the binoculars over a calm and beautiful mid-afternoon vista, the water tranquil and blue to match the sky above. The next, it was as if night had fallen – and I could see no further than a few feet ahead of me. The only light there was came from the odd greenish-grey glow the mist was emitting, and a faint ozone smell. I coughed hard, shivering at the same time, as I took in a lungful of air infused with it.
I let the glasses fall to my chest, and began to retrace my steps – back to the hatch and steps that would take me into the bowels of the ship. I knew at that moment what it must feel like to be blind, and didn’t relish the experience one bit. At the same time, I fancied I saw shapes out there in the mist, which caused me to suck in another breath, chilling my lungs. They were the vaguest of outlines, but spurred me on to find my way back inside. My shaking fingertips brushed against wood, metal. I bumped into the rail at one point and almost found myself pitching overboard.
At last, I found the hatch and gratefully opened it. Finally inside, and warming up again, I breathed quickly in and out. Now able to see by the lights dotted up and down the corridor, I hurried to Challenger’s workspace.
“Professor–”
He shushed me, engrossed as he was with twiddling the controls on his radio wave machine. Then he banged the top of it. “Blasted thing!”
The images on screen were scrambled dots, and in spite of the Professor’s best efforts to tune back in, he was unsuccessful. “It... it might have something to do with that queer mist outside,” I informed him.
He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. Obviously the irony of a device based on something to avoid collisions in fog being disabled by the phenomenon itself wasn’t lost on him. “We must get to the conning tower as quickly as possible,” said Challenger.
“Go back out there?” I swallowed dryly.
“Why ever not!”
“Well...” I pushed those strange shapes to the back of my mind. “One can barely see the hand in front of one’s face, Professor!”
Frowning and rubbing his chin, he began rummaging around in his luggage, finally producing two sets of goggles. “I thought these might come in useful at some point during our mission.”
“What are they?” I asked, turning them over in my hands.
“They allow the wearer to see heat signatures, drawing on principles first discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1800 and refined over time...including by myself.” He abandoned his spectacles hastily in favour of the goggles. “Now come along, man, we have no time to lose.”
Sighing, I followed Challenger back up and onto the deck, placing the goggles over my own eyes as I did so. They at least allowed me to see a little further ahead than I had been able to before, and now I could distinguish the shape of objects to avoid. “Even our surroundings leave residual heat traces,” the Professor informed me. Then I spotted members of the crew: they appeared as strange red, blue and orange figures, stumbling about on deck, blindly, as I had been doing.
Challenger dragged me in the direction of the bridge – but as I looked back over my shoulder I swear one of the figures simply vanished. And I thought I heard a muffled gargle from its direction.
“Professor...” said I, tapping him on the shoulder, but he was too intent on reaching Hardy to take any notice.
We finally reached the conn, and removed our goggles. Hardy was there, along with Lewis and the navigator of The Ulysses, a tall, thin streak of a man called Brooke, whose face was contorted into a rictus of fear.
Shutting out the fog behind us, Challenger stormed across to demand a report on our current situation.
“I imagine you can already discern that,” Hardy retorted gruffly.
The Professor’s hands balled into fists, then he breathed slowly in and out and asked for more facts.
“The fog descended on us without warning,” Lewis added.
I nodded. “There was nothing there one minute, the next...”
“Are you able to keep track of our location?” asked Challenger.
As if Brooke’s face wasn’t confirmation enough, he told us that the instruments were useless, just like the Professor’s machine below decks. I moved over to look at the compass, its dial spinning wildly.
“My guess is there’s some kind of underlying magnetic quality to the fog,” stated the Professor, with a conviction that did not usually accompany a guess. But then Challenger’s guesses were on a par with most people’s certainties.
We remained in the conn for a while, looking out through the window ahead and seeing nothing but mist. I removed my binoculars and placed them on a ledge – they were of no use to me during our predicament.
It was only when the screaming started that we were roused from our inertia. I remembered the crewman who’d vanished so suddenly outside and, as the Professor opened the door again, I had a sinking feeling that the two were connected.
Another bloodcurdling scream; it was difficult to tell from which direction it had originated.
“Man overboard?” asked Lewis, appearing behind Challenger.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said he, descending the steps and placing the goggles over his eyes once more. I followed, hesitantly, in spite of the fact I too had goggles.
We moved out into the strange land of coloured contours and forms. Another cry, this time more a grunt – stifled by who knows what!
There was a figure to my right, another crew member, and I turned just in time to see him get dragged off along the deck. By what, my goggles did not reveal. Perhaps the “spectres” in the mist I’d seen before, or even the mist itself: though the Professor would no doubt reject such foolish science fictional notions.
There then came a bizarre clicking sound, which was at the same time instantly familiar. I saw the heat signature of a crew-member heading in our direction, only to be snatched away by unseen “hands”, a shriek accompanying his departure. “W-What the devil is going on?” I asked.
Seconds later, I wished I hadn’t. Something hard and large barrelled into us from the side, sending both the Professor and I toppling. We skidded along the deck; I cast my head left and right, but still could see nothing. Whatever had attacked us must have been invisible! Science fiction was rapidly becoming science fact in front of our very eyes.
“The goggles!” shouted Challenger.
My brow furrowed and he reached across to snatch them from my head. His own had become damaged in the fall, one of the lenses smashed. I quickly realised what he was about, because although my visibility was impaired by the mist still closing in on us, I could now see what had attacked both the crew and us.
The briefest flash of a claw was enough, clicking as it loomed sideways into view, pincers breaking the fog. A crab – just like those I had come across on various coastal holidays. The difference being this brute was the size of a large dog, perhaps even a small pony. It was a mottled cream and brown colour in the main, its practically transparent, jointed legs carrying it sideways. Twin black eyes jutted out on either side of its head: glassy, like marbles.
“They’re cold blooded,” cried Challenger in my ear, ever the zoologist, “that’s why they were undetectable to us.”
It was altogether the wrong time for a lecture on the subject, however, as the enormous crab clacked its jagged pincers together just inches from my head – forcing me to pull back quickly. Stupidly, we had no weapons about us to fend off this creature; not that we had been expecting to encounter anything so peculiar out here. At the place Roxton was heading for, yes. But not here, and not now!
Thankfully, we’d had more than enough practice at reacting to its like with calmness and rationality. So it was that the Professor edged round the thing while it was focused on me, and attempted to clamber onto its hardened shell. Its efforts to claw at him all failed, so it bucked up and down – drawing comparisons to those rodeos over in America.
“Run!” called the Professor from his perch, hands slipping on the smooth surface. But I could not simply leave him – the sense of comradeship with Roxton that had brought us out here in the first place was just as strong between the Professor and I.
One quick buck, though, and he was dislodged, falling backwards and out of sight into the mist. The crab, now free of its encumbrance, turned its attentions back to me, dark eyes almost popping out. I began shuffling backwards, with the crab in sideways pursuit.
I threw my goggles at it, but they simply bounced off its shell. I held up my hands, poor protection from its claws I knew, then offered up a silent prayer.
That entreaty was answered moments later when something long and hard struck the beast. It had been fired with such velocity and at such close range that it managed to penetrate the thick covering on the crab’s back, if only a fraction.
A figure pushed its way through the fog: Lewis, hefting some kind of harpoon gun! He let go of this, pulling that knife from its home on his belt and advancing. I thought for a second he was going to tackle it head on, but at the last moment he dropped and slid under the creature, disappearing beneath its veiny white underbelly.
“No!” I heard from behind, and Challenger appeared, waving his arms. “I want it alive!”
Too late, for Lewis’ knife was up and into the soft flesh of the crustacean, a pulpish slime covering both him and the deck. He just about managed to slide out again before the crab tipped over.
“Damn it all!” I heard Challenger bark. No doubt he’d wanted to study the thing, though exactly how he intended to subdue it was another matter.
The sound of gunshots interrupted. Several more screams came next and, in spite of the fact lives were in danger, I saw Challenger’s eyes sparkle. There was at least one more crab alive on deck!
Now that our goggles were gone we could only go by hearing and, as we traced the noises, we passed a number of crates covered with rigging. The Professor rubbed his chin.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking...” I began, but already he was asking for Lewis’ knife, which the man offered up with a puzzled look. Challenger cut away enough of the netting for his purpose, but not so much that he destabilised the cargo, then returned Lewis’ blade.
We moved forward, the three of us: myself and Challenger each holding an end of the net. A bullet ricocheted off some wood not far away, and I voiced my concern at moving towards it like this. “We could be struck ourselves,” I argued.
The shots were replaced by the sound of clacking. Suddenly, another massive crab scuttled out of the mist, this one a more orangey hue. If anything, it was even bigger! It looked about to pounce, but paused when it encountered Lewis.
“Now!” called Challenger, urging me to fling the net over it. I had my doubts as to whether it would even fit over the thing, and these were substantiated when the net fell uselessly across it and slid off its back. Nonetheless, the crab lurched sideways, its feet entangled in the netting. It tumbled over with a loud crash that threatened to break through the wooden decking. Thrashing about there, angry but helpless, its claws became entwined as well.
Hardy appeared, holding a pistol, flanked by two more of his crew. One was bearded, the other clean-shaven: both hefted Lee Enfield rifles.
“We’ve just seen two more of them off, haven’t we?” His men nodded, but looked uncertain. “This appears to be the last of the bastards,” Hardy growled, pointing his revolver at the one that lay at our feet. Then, suddenly, Challenger was lifting Hardy’s gun arm just as he pulled the trigger. The shot fired harmlessly into the air.
The Captain pushed Challenger back, something many a man has regretted. But Hardy was the one with the pistol. “We need a live specimen,” the Professor told him.
Captain Hardy squinted. “What on Earth for?”
“Apart from the fact we have never seen its like before, there might be more of the creatures out there in the mist! Studying them could very well lead to a means of defending ourselves.”
“I have my means right here.” The Captain patted his gun.
“We have experience in such matters,” said I. “You’d do well not to dismiss the Professor out of hand.” Whilst I was not entirely comfortable with Challenger’s suggestion, I could see why he had made it. I was also starting to feel quite sorry for the trapped crab.
“I’m more than familiar with your...exploits,” spat Hardy, the last word dripping with sarcasm. Then he pointed the gun at the crab once more and, point blank, put a bullet between its marbled eyes. I might have been mistaken, but I thought I even heard the creature whine as it died. “I’ve lost too many of my men today already.” Hardy strode off again, back into the mist. The sailors were staring at the crab still, and only joined him when he shouted: “Frost, Donovan! What are you waiting for, with me!” His men, indeed, to be played with like toy soldiers.
“He’s probably right,” Lewis said softly. “It would have been too risky.”
Challenger simply harrumphed and bid us help him to get the creature below decks so he could begin examining its carcass.
***
The mist was still present when I visited the Professor a little later, though there had been no more attacks on The Ulysses.
He had finished his dissection of the “specimen” by this time, standing back finally as I walked in and declaring: “Fascinating. Simply fascinating... Ah, Malone, you need to document this!”
The professor went on at length about how, although these creatures were related to decapod crustaceans of the infra-order Brachyura, they were in fact a brand new species of crab: one that had somehow grown much larger than their native cousins. That last piece of information I could have told him myself.
“Whether it is an effect of the mist, or these waters, I’ve yet to determine,” he added, a thought that made me wonder what else might have increased in size in this region.
“At least it looks like we’ve seen the last of them,” I offered.
He held up his finger, gazing at me through those glasses he’d been forced to don again. “Don’t be so sure. What we witnessed out there might simply have been an advance scouting party,” he said, and that sent a shiver down my spine. “We have, after all, encroached on their territory. We are the intruders and they were merely defending their home. Hardy has no respect for that.”
I nodded. But what kind of territory had we wandered into exactly? I thought to myself.
And how long would we remain there?
4: Victims of the Weed.
We continued on through the fog for quite some time, perhaps a few days, maybe more. I cannot judge with any degree of certainty exactly how long, for none of our watches, nor the clocks on board, were working. Another effect of the curious weather conditions we were experiencing. Time seemed to stand still, the absence of any light apart from that haunting emerald glow ensuring we could not mark the passage of day or night.
It reminded me a little of our encounter with a similar mist in the past, something the Professor and I found ourselves discussing on occasion, reliving the old days. He also continued to study the oversized crab, examining samples of its blood, flesh and shell.
His comment about Hardy and the lack of respect shown was validated by the fact that our Captain had the other remains cooked and served to him. We had a good stock of food on board already, so I can only assume this was to gain some sort of revenge on the creatures.
At any rate, the first we knew of the next turn of events was a thud. I was in my cabin and lurched forwards; in fact I almost collided with the hull of the ship. Stepping out into the corridor, I saw several crewmen go past. Then the Professor. He stopped and we exchanged grim glances, then we both raced up to the deck to see what had happened.
By the time we reached the open air, the fog around The Ulysses was abating a little. The blanket – or perhaps that should be curtain, now – had been drawn back a tad, allowing us to see exactly what we’d run into.
Hanging over the side, the Professor and I spotted the strange weed instantly, clinging to the ship like glue, holding us fast. It was several different shades, olive and brown predominantly, and at its thickest its “fingers” were spread out on the ocean like the roots of a tree. Here and there, slimy round seed pods were attached to the glistening stuff. It undulated, as if breathing, though I knew it was just the motion of the waves beneath.
It wasn’t long before Hardy and Lewis were on deck, the Captain’s face as red as a tomato. He looked over the side and spat at the weed. “This is all your fault!” he snarled at Challenger. “You and your damned search.”
“You sailed us into this!” the Professor replied angrily.
The Captain gritted his teeth. “I should have known better than to take you on board. You and your hack friend attract this sort of thing!”
Challenger was about to step forward, until I stood between them. “Aren’t we in enough trouble without arguing amongst ourselves? We should be thinking about how we might get out of this predicament, not focussing on how we got into it.”
The Captain snorted and went to shout at some of the men who were milling around. The next thing we knew, he’d ordered teams to be hoisted down over the side to try cutting away the weed.
The Professor and I viewed their useless efforts, for no sooner had one bit been chopped away than another took its place. Their attempts, at the Captain’s insistence, to try and burn off the weed resulted in similar disappointment. They did, however, report that gaps in its surface might allow a smaller vessel to make its way through.
“What use is that to me?” roared the Captain. Not “us”: “me”. But while his men had been working fruitlessly, we saw exactly what use it might be. Because the fog had parted a bit more, revealing the true nature of the place we’d found ourselves in.
At first they were just silhouettes, shadows in the mist; sharp angles protruded, yet the whole remained hidden from view. However, after a while we could discern smokestacks and funnels, masts and figureheads. Ships of all shapes and sizes: first one, then two or three, then perhaps a dozen. Vessels that had become fast in the weed, just like ours. “It’s a graveyard,” said I when I looked out, then quickly added: “A ship’s graveyard, I mean.”
The nearest, most of its hull riddled with the same slimy substance as ours – in addition to the odd barnacle – was wooden. “It looks very old,” I said, my mouth hanging open. I turned and saw that twinkle in the Professor’s eye once more, the explorer in him taking charge. I was not at all surprised when he suggested we venture over to the wreck to examine it. “I can gather some samples of the weed at the same time.”
The Captain’s initial response was predictable enough. “If you want to risk your own lives, that’s your concern. You will not do it in one of my lifeboats, nor take any more of my crew with you.”
It was a shock, therefore, when some time later he approached us to say he’d had a change of heart...if indeed he possessed one. “In fact, I must insist on coming along!” he said, attempting a crooked smile. “I will leave The Ulysses in the capable hands of Lewis.”
We soon realised why when we were alongside the other ship: myself, the Professor, Hardy, and a young fellow with curly hair named Smith; he’d climbed up the side of the ship like a monkey (in my younger days, I’d have given him a run for his money) to fasten a rope ladder for the rest of us. “Before we go any further, I lay claim to whatever salvage might be on board,” announced the Captain, producing empty sacks. Now it all made sense: Hardy was looking for treasure on this derelict! How he intended to return it to dry land was anyone’s guess. Our passage through the weed had been uneventful enough, mind, navigating our way through the patches of non-infested water – but drawing close enough to one section for Challenger to snag his samples, which he deposited inside a glass jar.
It took myself and the Professor a little longer to reach the deck of the ship, which did not feel at all stable; time having done its worst to some sections, as indeed it had to us, sadly. “Watch your step,” Challenger warned me, while the Captain trotted off to find a way inside. He gained entrance through a hatch similar to the one on The Ulysses, pistol cocked as he descended. Smith pulled a face, then trailed him, rifle raised, leaving us to bring up the rear.
Once inside, we made our way through corridors with rooms off to the left and right. Hardy entered the first of these, drawing back quickly and drawing in a breath at the same time. As red as he’d been when he found out about the weed, now all the colour had drained from his face entirely. I peered past, and saw what had caused this reaction. Hanging from a rafter was a skeleton, the rags of what was left of its clothes hanging from that.
It was the same state of affairs in many of the rooms we explored – one poor unfortunate had a dagger still poised which he must have used to end his own life. Though once Hardy had recovered from his initial shock, he soon began filling his sack with whatever he thought might be of some value: dagger included.
“Have some respect for the dead, man!” the Professor protested, but he took no notice, ordering Smith to follow his lead...which he did with some degree of hesitation, I have to say.
In another room, I came across the remains of one man at a table, slumped over it. A quill was clamped in his bony hand, its tip resting on a journal in front. The pages were still remarkably preserved, considering. I couldn’t resist reading the last entry:
This being the final account of what has befallen us, the crew and passengers of the good ship Mary Elizabeth, in this the year of our Lord, sixteen hundred and seventy. I feel certain now that we must have wandered into some other realm. Hell, mayhap, for the time we have spent here has been torture indeed. We have seen such horrors as no human being should ever witness, yet many who have become trapped here before us so obviously have. I pray that God takes our souls when–
And there it ended abruptly. Something must have happened at that last moment, something so sudden and terrible it forced the writer to stop – literally – dead, and the other people on board to take their own lives. I couldn’t help feeling a sense of connection with this scribe, and a sense of grave portent. Pulling myself together, I reached forward to remove the journal; I had to see what else they had encountered out here. But, so disturbed, the pages started to crumble. Now I’d never know the horrors that hand might have chronicled.
It wasn’t long after this that the Captain yelled for us to be on our way. Little wonder, as his and Smith’s swag bags were bulging with tankards, jewellery and the like. Challenger shook his head, muttering as we joined them up on the deck.
Hardy was already on his way to the ladder, but Smith was staring out at the fog, squinting, gripping his rifle and the neck of his sack tightly. I noticed the Professor, too, was gazing out at the mist. I stood next to them, asking: “What is it?” But then I saw it myself.
Shapes forming, just as they had done when we first entered the fog. Only this time I could see faces, the beginnings of bodies materializing. Indistinct, corporeal... “My God,” I whispered, reminded of another adventure. A previous investigation the Professor had sent us on, one concerning the spirits of the dead.
“Come on!” Hardy shouted, interrupting the moment. “Or so help me, I’ll leave you all behind!” I turned to look at him and when I faced front again the shapes were just random patterns, swirling. I exchanged looks with Smith, then Challenger, but none of us said a word.
Indeed, the professor said nothing all the way back, just continued to stare out into space, face locked in anguish. Upon our arrival back on board The Ulysses, I caught his arm. “Professor, talk to me. What did you see out there?”
“I-I could have sworn I saw... No, it doesn’t matter.”
“What?” I pressed. “Tell me, Professor.
He looked at me forlornly. “My old friend.”
“Roxton?” Had the Professor seen our lost comrade out there somewhere, out amongst the weed?
He shook his head firmly. “Not Roxton: Summerlee. I thought that I saw Professor Summerlee...”
5: A Storm Brewing.
The Professor did not make any more mention of his sighting, in spite of my attempts raise the subject. However could Summerlee be out here, even if we had seen...? Unless it was some kind of warning from beyond?
In any event, those on watch reported seeing nothing else out amongst the derelicts, so I let the matter drop.
Hardy organised more salvage trips; some he went on, some he left to his men. But he steadfastly refused to let us leave the ship, stating it was more important that the Professor find a way to free us from the weed. “I have every confidence in you,” he told Challenger, sneering.
We were below decks when Lewis visited us with terrible news about the last team Hardy had sent out. “We heard shots in the distance some time ago, then nothing. Donovan and Smith still haven’t returned. Smith begged Hardy not to send him, kept saying that he’d seen something out there.”
“Your Captain is nothing but a pirate!” I informed Lewis. “He’s so intent on filling his pockets, he doesn’t care about anything else. Surely you can see that?”
Lewis rubbed his temple.
“We need to get away. Roxton is still out there, possibly still alive and perhaps stranded, the same as us.”
“Hardy would never allow it. He wants you to continue looking for a way to destroy the weed.”
“The weed,” spoke up Professor Challenger, taking a break from his microscope, “is unlike anything I have ever encountered before in all my years studying the natural world. It appears to be alive.”
“All vegetation is alive to some degree,” said Lewis. “Even I know that.”
“No, no...sentient. Capable of thought and reason,” said the Professor.
Alive indeed, I thought, remembering the way it moved on the ocean.
“And it has astounding regenerative powers,” Challenger continued, “which we have already seen some evidence of. If it is keeping The Ulysses here, then it has its reasons – and it will not easily be dissuaded from them.”
At this news, Lewis’ shoulders slumped.
“But this only adds to my developing hypothesis about where we are and what might have happened to us.”
Before I could ask what the Professor meant, we heard a distant rumbling outside. Lewis went to the nearest porthole and reported back that there looked to be a storm heading our way. “The weather here is nothing if not capricious,” commented the Professor.
The rumbles grew louder with each passing second, but there came another sound in its wake. More high-pitched. A constant beeping, which I traced back to the Professor’s sound-wave device. The picture was still fuzzy, but I could just about make out several shapes on the screen. “What now?” I asked, though my mind turned again to those spectral faces out in the mist. Perhaps they had grown tired of the Captain’s plundering?
The Professor peered through his spectacles. “I’ve been anticipating this turn of events,” he said, then reached for a glass vial and splattered himself, Lewis and I with liquid – as if he was anointing us. Perhaps performing some sort of uncanny exorcism?
“What are you doing?” I spluttered, then sniffed. I’d smelt the aroma before somewhere.
“No time to explain,” he shouted. The beeping was growing louder, the shapes on the screen increasing in number. There was a thud, not as hard as the one that had shaken the boat when it struck the weed, but enough to send vibrations through our feet. “Grab your belongings, Malone!”
I did as I was told – it was wise to heed whatever Challenger had to say in times of crisis – shouldering the emergency knapsack I’d had the foresight to stow away down here. As we left the “lab” the screen was full of the shapes and beeping madly. There were so many, in fact, they seemed to blur into one big splodge.
We made our way up the corridor, stopping only when a bearded Frost appeared. “Where are they going? They’re supposed to be working on getting us out of this mess!” he yelled. Like most of the crew, the stress of being here for so long had taken its toll on the man, whose rifle shook in his hands. His bloodshot eyes looked like they were trying to escape from his head.
There was more thumping, dents appearing in the hull now. “Listen,” said Lewis. “We don’t have–”
Frost raised his rifle to shoulder level. “Get back inside there!” Seconds later, the patchwork metal on his right bowed inwards, and a giant ridged claw appeared. Like a tin can being opened, it ripped away the hull to gain entrance. Frost turned the gun on the tan-coloured crab, which was forcing its way inside, jellied legs kicking out wildly. But before he could let off a shot, those pincers grabbed him by the middle. We looked away, unable to watch (the terrifying bellow was enough) and by the time we turned back, the corridor was awash with crimson. I felt bile rising, and swallowed it back.
Clicking, the insect-like crab entered the corridor fully – another one of its brethren, this one a pale yellow, appearing at the hole almost immediately: obsidian eyes flashing left and right. We were done for this time, it seemed.
Just when I thought it would finish us off, the first crab stopped...then stared at us. It was as if it recognised myself, the Professor and Lewis, who had his knife drawn, ready for defence. But that was impossible! It moved away, still clicking, joined by its companions who were flowing through the gap. I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I don’t understand. What happened?”
“I got the idea from Lewis there, when he was covered in crab innards during the last attack. The liquid I sprayed us with contains their scent. Crustaceans have quite poor vision, but a very keen sense of smell! They mistook us for their own kind.”
I couldn’t help smiling; we’d now become invisible to them! Then I remembered Frost and hung my head. Was that to be the fate of the rest of the crew, now that the Professor’s prediction had come true and a crab army was on the rampage? I had little time to ponder this, for we were on the move again: heading up the corridor, heading upwards, masked from the crabs by our scent.
When we reached the deck, we saw one of those visions of Hell the person from the Mary Elizabeth had written about. A scene Bosch would have been proud of. Everywhere we turned, another crew-member was being savaged. Limbs flew through the air, snipped off by razor-sharp claws.
Surveying the scene from the conn tower was Hardy, randomly firing into the chaos. “Take that!” he was shouting. “And that, you monsters!”
On the horizon, the storm we’d heard was fast approaching, swirling the fog encircling this ships’ graveyard and chilling us even more. The smell of ozone had returned, electricity crackling on the air.
A flash of lightning tore through the sky. The crabs were fast covering The Ulysses, like ants on a hill: varying in size from those we’d already seen to one that was quite enormous; about the size of the car Austin drove. They were simultaneously scrambling about on the weed and emerging from beneath it – being helped by it! We had to flee, especially as I could feel the first droplets of rain that threatened to wash away the only thing protecting us.
“We need to reach a lifeboat,” I called above the din. Lewis and the Professor nodded, the former leading the way. A crew-member stumbled into me, almost bowling me over. It was Brooke, the navigator, clutching a large boat hook he’d been using to fend off the creatures. His long face was bloodied down one side from a gash. “H-Help me!” he shrieked, before being dragged backwards and stamped on by a nearby rust-coloured crab, which proceeded to tear into his body.
Challenger tugged at my arm. “There’s nothing we can do for him, Malone,” he said in a weary voice. “Nothing we can do for any of them now.” I sighed my agreement.
When we reached the lifeboat, we found Hardy already inside it – having taken a shortcut over the crates. He held a swag bag in one hand, his pistol in the other.
“Get back!” he snarled.
“Hardy, have you gone completely mad,” said Lewis – though it was not phrased as a question – and stepped forward. The Captain let off a round, which caught his second in the shoulder. Lewis slumped, dropping his trusted knife, but I managed to catch him before he hit the decking.
Hardy was fiddling with the ropes that would let him down. “Every man for himself!” he cried. No sooner had he uttered those words than something large rose up behind him. It was curled and pink, ridged where it moved, with suckers on the underside; and it slid down to wrap itself around Hardy, lifting him up out of the vessel. He fired his pistol again, hitting nothing, then the weapon fell from his grasp and clattered inside the rowing boat.
I looked at the Professor, then glanced about me, seeing that more tentacles had appeared. The crabs were not the only things interested in The Ulysses, it seemed. The ship lurched to one side, as whatever this newcomer was rocked us. Hardy bellowed now at the top of his lungs, but still had hold of his sack of stolen items.
“Into the boat!” pointed Challenger, and I half-carried Lewis with me. The rain was starting to beat down and I knew we did not have much time. As we lowered ourselves onto the churning sea, I caught sight of Hardy dangling over the huge squid-thing’s maw: where row upon row of tiny sharp teeth waited. Then he was dropped inside and the monster chewed, its milky eye rolling over as it devoured the Captain and his booty.
We hit the water hard, breaking the weed where we struck: though as strange as this might sound, it almost gave the impression of parting for us, allowing us to row away from the sinking Ulysses.
Crabs were still pouring over its surface, but for the most part they left us be, and soon we’d put some distance between ourselves and them. The rain beat down on us cruelly, though, and Lewis was slipping in and out of consciousness, mumbling nonsensically. Lightning flashed, and it was then that I saw our audience: ghosts sailors from the Mary Elizabeth, striding out of the glowing fog, gathering on its deck in their old-fashioned garb – including the hanged man, the one who’d killed himself with the dagger, and...yes, the scribe with his journal!
All silently watching the display.
The thunder rolled, and we were flung about on the water like a cork bobbing on the rapids.
Propelled forwards as, behind us, The Ulysses disappeared in a flurry of scuttling crabs and rubbery tentacles, its hull a mess of holes, most of its cargo now on the weed, being sucked down. The ship was dragged beneath the surface until only its bow remained poking up through the weed.
I shielded Lewis as best I could, leaving the Professor to try and guide us, his spectacles lost to the storm. But it proved impossible as the winds whipped up, shoving us past more and yet more derelicts – a seemingly endless parade of vessels that had become trapped here over the centuries. Their phantom crews regarded our progress...or lack of it. I thought I even saw a craft from the age of Ulysses, but then we were pushed along again, almost capsizing in the wake of a huge wave.
Saturated, the Professor still attempted to row – drawing on strength I thought had left him years ago – but he was still no match for the elements.
For the last time we were flung forward, and I banged my head.
Then there was only the dark.
6: Home.
As I draw this account to a close, there are certain gaps I must now fill in. If I can...things are still more than a little hazy.
You are no doubt wondering what happened after our encounter with the storm. I distinctly remember being struck, Challenger wakening me by slapping my face, my vision blurry. We’d hit land, he informed me, deposited on a beach somewhere. Of our companion Lewis, there was no sign.
When I’d recovered sufficiently, we assembled a make-shift camp, cannibalising bits of the lifeboat. Then the next morning we set off down along the beach, where we eventually spied bits of driftwood washed up on the shore. The Professor stooped to pick up one that had writing on it. He raised an eyebrow, and handed it to me.
We continued on down the golden sand a way before returning, memories of the weed increasingly like some kind of dream – a bad one – under that baking sun. It wasn’t long after this, I don’t think (time still doesn’t mean much, even here) that we heard the strange sounds for the first time. An almost inhuman noise emanating from the forest that continued on well into the night – causing us to take turns standing watch with Hardy’s revolver, which contained just the one live bullet.
We discovered the source of the noise at dawn, when something emerged from the treeline. At first we thought it to be some sort of ape-man, a primitive thing that sniffed the air and crept towards us cautiously, holding a spear. The closer it came, however, the more of its features we could discern...even under the mud and hair-growth: Don Quixote moustache now rampant. However, it was those cold eyes that gave him away, finally.
“Roxton!” I called out. “Lord Roxton, is that you?”
He took me in, but I don’t think he actually saw me. The Professor moved forward slowly, holding his hands palm outwards to show we were no threat. The man in front of him gibbered something, grunting, and I thought back to those three letters we’d read on the piece of driftwood: VOY...
All that was left of The Voyager.
The Professor tried to communicate with Roxton, but to no avail. The poor man could only grunt and cry out, something he did again that night as we tried to rest. Challenger had called him a madman before we set off, and it looked as if those words had come back to haunt him.
I sometimes wonder if we haven’t all gone mad.
“Do you...do you suppose he passed through the area of weed, like us?” I asked the Professor later. “Perhaps spent even longer there?”
Of this Challenger would not speculate. Nevertheless, we had found him, the person we’d set sail to recover. Our old friend and colleague. A shame, and an irony, that in the process of looking for his missing ship, we had become part of a lost voyage as well. But what next? Would we wait here, like Roxton, hunting in the jungle for food and hoping for rescue? I wondered.
I certainly began to fear for the Professor’s own sanity, when he again spoke of seeing Summerlee, this time out amongst the trees. “It was him, I tell you!” And he appeared so certain, so sure, even without his glasses: Roxton’s descent into madness not the only thing haunting him. The Professor even took off after one such sighting and, as I followed, I heard the distinctive sound of him arguing with someone.
“Well, of course you would think that, wouldn’t you!” the Professor was barking. “Fiddlesticks, is it – dear me!” Then I heard laughter. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, Summerlee.”
When I reached the Professor, he was alone, but he insisted that Summerlee had been there just moments before. “Trying to debunk my theories once more. I ask you!”
Those theories being that the fog we’d passed through – in a similar fashion to that poison belt we once encountered – had altered our perceptions. That we might even have imagined everything after the point of entering it.
“But you said you knew where we’d ended up,” I put to the Professor when he first ventured this.
He nodded. “A place of fiction. A distorted version of a real stretch of ocean, as described by a writer once. I’ll wager we’ve both come across his work at some point, especially a fan of science fiction such as yourself... Much as I hate to admit it, like many works of imagination, perhaps there was an element of fact in those stories.”
A sea fog that affects the mind? Shared hallucinations... There can be nothing stranger than that, surely? It would certainly explain a lot. The confusion I experience whenever I read this report back myself, for example.
Yet I can’t help wondering if that scribe back on the Mary Elizabeth had got it right. Perhaps we did pass through some kind of portal to some other place, to some hellish realm. One we were finally allowed to leave, to find Roxton as we’d set out to do. (Does that make this place its opposite?)
Though, sometimes, just sometimes, I doubt we ever really left at all.
That we – I – even survived...
I expect you’re wondering what I mean by that, aren’t you? Surely you’re reading this report in The Gazette over your tea and toast of a morning. I cannot say... (I’m laughing out loud right now.) For like the account back in the Mary Elizabeth, it remains in this notebook, which I am rapidly running out of space in. And which I will leave here in our camp before we set off for our final destination.
If it has found its way to you, then perhaps there is a chance it might be published, even read. A chance that a search party might be sent out to look for us. Perhaps even led by Enid, who knows?
(Speaking of which, there is something I really must share as an aside before I let you go. One evening, when the fire in the camp was dying, Challenger looked at me and smiled – then said: “I would have been proud, Malone.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Proud to call you son.” I was about to say more, but he was already turning his back on me, readying for sleep.)
Where are we going? I shall get to that in a moment. Let me first tell you the following: I have seen Summerlee myself now! He appeared this very morning; there was no mistaking his angular form. Now you see why I might think all of us mad? Another shared vision, perhaps...?
Who knows? Who cares?
He’d come to tell us that through the jungle lies a place we know very well indeed. A plateau we are all very familiar with.
Even as we prepare ourselves for the trek, he is bickering with Challenger as they once so loved to do. We are all back together again, about to relive past glories. Going in search of those pieces of ourselves we left behind. Why, even Roxton seems improved of late.
So, if this is some form of afterlife, if we are in a Heaven of sorts, or even simply a dreamland, then I have to say I for one am glad.
I feel young, fresh...invigorated. My bones no longer ache; I am no longer slow in my movements.
Do not be sad. For the first time since we left here all those years ago, the four of us – Challenger, Roxton, Summerlee and myself – we feel like we are truly home. Nothing is missing anymore.
And we are no longer lost.
Sincerely,
Edward Malone.
*Professor Challenger is TM The Conan Doyle Estate – story presented as ‘fan fiction’ for non-profit only.