The Grain Ship Part 1

The Grain Ship.

by Morgan Robertson.

I could not help listening to the talk at the next table, because the orchestra was quiet and the conversation unrestrained; then, too, a nautical phrasing caught my ear and aroused my attention. For I had been a lifelong student of nautical matters. A side glance showed me the speaker, a white-haired, sunburned old fellow in immaculate evening dress. With him at the table in the restaurant were other similarly clad men, evidently of good station in life, and in their answers and comments these men addressed the white-haired man as Commodore. A navy captain, I thought, promoted on retirement. His talk bore it out.

"Yes, sirree," he said, as he thumped the table mildly. "A good, tight merchant ship, with nothing wrong except what might be ascribed to neglect such as light canvas blown away and ropes cast off the pins, with no signs of fire, leak, or conflict to drive the crew out, with plenty of grub in the stores and plenty of water in the tanks. Yet, there she was, under topsails and topgallant-sails, rolling along before a Biscay sea, and deserted, except that the deck was almost covered with dead rats."

"What killed them, Commodore," asked one; "and what happened to the crew?"

"n.o.body knows. It might have been a poisonous gas from the cargo, but if so it didn't affect us after we boarded her. The log-book was gone, so we got no information from that. Moreover, every boat was in its chocks or under its own davits. It was as though some mysterious power had come down from above and wiped out the crew, besides killing the rats in the hold. She was a grain ship from 'Frisco, and grain ships are full of rats.

"I was the prize-lieutenant that took her into Queenstown. She was condemned in Admiralty proceedings and, later, restored to her owners.

But to this day no man has told the story of that voyage. It is thirty years and more since then, but it will remain one of the unexplained mysteries of the sea."

The party left the table a little later, and left me, an ex-sailor, in a condition of mind not due to the story I had heard from the Commodore. There was something else roused into activity--something indefinite, intangible, elusive, like the sense of recognition that comes to you when you view a new scene that you know you have never seen before. It was nothing pertaining to myself or my adventures; and I had never heard of a ship being found deserted with all boats in place. It was something I must have heard at some time and place that bore no relation to the sea and its mysteries. It tormented me; I worried myself into insomnia that night, thinking about it, but at last fell asleep, and awakened in the morning with a memory twenty-five years old.

It is a long stretch of time and s.p.a.ce from that gilded restaurant of that night to the arid plans of Arizona, and back through the years of work and struggle and development to the condition of a sailor on sh.o.r.e beating his way, horseback and afoot, across the country from the Gulf to the Pacific. But in my sleep I traversed it, and, lying on my back in the morning, puffing at my first pipe, I lived again my experience with the half-witted tramp whom I had entertained in my camp and who changed his soul in my presence.

I was a line-rider for a cattle company, and as it was before the days of wire fences, my work was to ride out each day along my boundary and separate the company's cattle from those of its neighbor, a rival company. It was near the end of the day, when I was almost back to camp, that I saw him coming along the road, with the peculiar swing to his shoulders and arms that, once acquired, never leaves the deep-water sailor; so I had no hesitancy in greeting him after the manner of seamen.

"Well, mate, how are you heading?" I inquired, as I leaned over the saddle.

"Say, pardner," he said, in a soft, whining voice, "kin you tell me where a feller might git a bite to eat around here?"

"Well," I answered, "yes and no. I thought you were a sailorman." Only his seamanly roll had appealed to me. His face, though bearded, tanned, and of strong, hard lines, seemed weak and crafty. He was tall, and strongly built--the kind of man who impresses you at first sight as accustomed to sudden effort of mind and body; yet he cringed under my stare, even as I added, "Yes, I'll feed you." I had noticed a blue foul anchor tattooed on his wrist.

"Come along, old man," I said, kindly. "You're traveling for your health. I'll ask no fool questions and say nothing about you. My camp is just around that hill."

He walked beside my horse, and we soon reached the camp, a log house of one room, with an adobe fireplace and chimney, a rough table, and a couple of boxes for seats. Also, there was a plank floor, a novelty and a luxury in that country at that time. Under this floor was a family of huge rats that I had been unable to exterminate, and I had found it easier and cheaper to feed them than to have them gnawing into my stores in my absence. So they had become quite tame, and in the evenings, keeping at a safe distance, however, they would visit me. I had no fear of them, and rather enjoyed their company.

I fed and hobbled my horse, then cooked our supper, of which my guest ate voraciously. After supper I filled my pipe and offered him another, but he refused it; he did not smoke. Then I talked with him and found him weak-minded. He knew nothing of consequence, nothing of the sea or of sailors, and he had forgotten when that anchor had been tattooed on his wrist. He thought it had always been there. He was a laborer, a pick-and-shovel man, and this was the only work he aspired to.

Disappointed in him, for I had yearned for a little seamanly sympathy and companionship, I finished my smoke in the fire-light and turned to get the bed ready, when one of the rats sprang from the bed, across the floor and between the tramp and the fire; then it darted to a hole in the edge of the floor and disappeared. But its coming and going wrought a curious effect upon that wayfarer. He choked, spluttered, stood up and reeled, then fell headlong to the floor.

"h.e.l.lo!" I said, anxiously; "anything wrong?"

He got on his feet, looked wildly about the place, and asked, in a hoa.r.s.e, broken voice that held nothing of its former plaintiveness:

"What's this? Was I picked up? What ship is this?"

"No ship at all. It's a cow camp."

"Log cabin, isn't it?"--he was staring at the walls. "I never saw one before. I must have been out of my head for a while. Picked up, of course. Was the mate picked up? He was in bad shape."

"Look here, old man," I said, gently, "are you out of your head now, or were you out of your head before?"

"I don't know. I must have been out of my head. I can't remember much after tumbling overboard, until just now. What day is this?"

"Tuesday," I answered.

"Tuesday? It was Sunday when it happened. Did you have a hand in picking me up? Who was it?"

"Not me," I said. "I found you on the road out here in a dazed state of mind, and you knew nothing whatever of ships or of sailors, though I took you for a sh.e.l.lback by your walk."

"That's right. You can always spot one. You're a sailor, I can see, and an American, too. But what are you doing here? This must be the coast of Portugal or Spain."

"No, this is a cow camp on the Crossbar Range in the middle of Arizona."

"Arizona? Six thousand miles from there! How long have I been out of my head?"

"Don't know. I've only known you since sundown. You've just gone through a remarkable change of front."

"What day of the month is it?"

"The third day of December."

"h.e.l.l! Six months ago. It happened in June, Of course, six months is time enough for me to get here, but why can't I remember coming?

Someone must have brought me."

"Not necessarily. You were walking along, caring for yourself, but hungry. I brought you here for a feed and a night's sleep."

"That was kind of you--" He involuntarily raised his hand to his face.

"I've grown a beard, I see. Let's see how I look with a beard." He stepped to a looking-gla.s.s on the wall, took one look, and sprang back.

"Why, it isn't me!" he exclaimed, looking around with dilated eyes.

"It's someone else."

"Take another look," I said. He did so, moved his head to the right and left, and then turned to me.

"It must be me," he said, hoa.r.s.ely, "for the image in the gla.s.s follows my movements. But I've lost my face. I'm another man. I don't know myself."

"Look at that anchor on your wrist," I suggested. He did so.

"Yes," he said, "that part of me is left. It was p.r.i.c.ked in on my first voyage." He examined his arms and legs. "Changed," he muttered. He rubbed his knees, and pa.s.sed his hands over his body.

"What year was it when, as you say, you jumped overboard?" I asked.

"Eighteen seventy-five."

"This is eighteen eighty-four. Matey, you have been nine years out of your head," I said.

"Nine years? Sure? Can you prove that to me? My G.o.d, man, think of it!

Nine years gone out of my life. You don't know what that means to me."

I showed him a faded and discolored newspaper.

"That paper is about six months old," I said, "but it's an eighteen eighty-four paper."