Maritime Mysteries (9 page)

A
mong those many islands in Mahone Bay there are, from time to time (but not recently) reports of a flaming ship that sails over the waters, then dips it bow and disappears beneath the sea. Is it the phantom ship
Teazer
, or merely the imagination of those who wish to believe. Perhaps it's a combination of moon reflection, fog banks, and island shadows, and bored fishermen wanting to tell a tall sea tale. Regardless, there have been many sightings and those who have come forward stand by what they have seen.

History tells us that during the war of 1812, the United States navy commissioned many privately owned ships to harass their bitter enemy, the British. One such vessel was the
Teazer
. She was caught and burned by the Brits in 1812. A gentleman's agreement was reached between the British and the
Teazer
's officers: they would win their freedom if they promised not to engage in further attacks on British merchant ships. Naturally, the officers of the
Teazer,
including a Lieutenant Frederick Johnson, agreed. But promises are made to be broken, even by gentlemen. In time, the original
Teazer
was replaced by young
Teazer,
and who do you think proudly walked her deck? Lieutenant Frederick Johnson, himself, who had promised the British he would never again attack one of their ships. The day of reckoning came when young
Teazer
was being chased by two British warships. Rather than being caught and hanged, Lieutenant Johnson threw a flaming torch into the ship's powder magazine. In an instant, young Teazer reached skyward in a million pieces. The explosion was heard in the kitchens of Tancook and other islands in Mahone Bay.

It's been a long time since anyone has reported seeing this phantom of the sea. But she has been there, seen by fisherman who were so close to her that they said they could see men in her fiery riggings.

The Sea Ghost of Sable Island

T
his is one of my favorite Edith Mosher mysteries. It's from her book,
Haunted
.

It was in September 1856, when the American brigantine
Alma
, outward bound from New York and heading to St. John's, Newfoundland, was stranded about half a mile offshore on the treacherous shoals of Sable Island. A life-saving crew from the island station set off in a boat but ran into seas so heavy that the sturdy boat capsized before it could reach the stranded craft. The bow oarsman was thrown overboard and drowned. His body was never recovered.

On December 7 of that same year, another vessel, the schooner
Eliza Ross
from Sydney, got into trouble off Sable Island. The lifeboat crew, using the same lifeboat, again set out to attempt a rescue. As they rowed toward the distressed schooner, the men saw something that looked like the head of a man swimming. It was just about at the place where they had had the accident on their other mission. As they rowed closer they saw it was a man, but with eyes they had never before seen; vacant, staring eyes that seemed fixed on the distant horizon. Whatever it was seized the side of the boat and climbed aboard. Dripping, it sat on the vacant seat, grasped the oars and helped to row to the stranded vessel. This time the crew had better luck and were able to save the sailors on the doomed schooner. They pulled for shore, with the strange wild-eyed figure doing his share of rowing along with the others.

When they reached the place where he had boarded their boat, he dropped the oars, slid over the side, and vanished beneath the waves. The last thing the startled crew saw were the staring eyes as the waves swirled over the strange creature's head.

This ghost supposedly appeared several times to that same lifesaving crew, but never attempted to enter the boat after a new man took the place of the drowned oarsman. Some said they had seen it, others denied that there was anything there to be seen. But all admitted to the feeling of their drowned friend in the boat with them.

A Fisherman's Shack

T
his story takes place in a fisherman's shack in a remote Nova Scotia village, where agonizing screams in the night kept all but the bravest behind locked doors. At one time, the shack in question, like so many others, was a warm and safe place for weary fishermen waiting for the out-going tide. But not any more; not since those terrible screams were indeed heard coming from inside the shack. The fishermen who went to investigate came away trembling and mumbling that the screams were coming from inside, but when they looked through the window, the place was empty!

Not long after the screams were first heard, a Cape Islander, not far offshore, floundered in a violent storm. Because of the raging seas, the local fishermen could only watch helplessly from the shore the sinking of the vessel. The villagers who stood on the banks could hear above the wind the screams of the fishermen aboard the sinking vessel. When the storm ended, the bodies of the fishermen who were washed up on shore were temporarily placed in a fisherman's shack—the same shack where the mysterious screams are heard. It was then the people of this remote fishing community understood the mystery surrounding those terrible screams. What they heard was a forerunner; a warning of an impending disaster, like that of the drowned fishermen who were washed up on their shores.

The fishing shack where this unholy story began is now gone. It is said a whale-oil lamp was thrown through a window late one night and burnt it to the ground. Still, some say that when they pass the spot where the shack once stood, they can still hear screams above the wind.

Chapter Four
Love and War

Millie's Last Ride

I
t was a hot and dry Saturday afternoon when I stopped at a sidewalk cafe for something to quench my thirst. As I sat there sipping my drink, I noticed in the middle of the street the forming of a dust devil. Strange, I thought, very strange indeed, because there was on that unbearably hot afternoon absolutely no wind at all. But there it was beginning to take shape. Then it began to move snakelike toward me. Cars ran over it, but didn't crush it or break it into harmless tiny dust-devil pieces. I became hypnotized by it. It was upright, swaying its shapeless head from side to side as if searching out its prey. Then, what looked like one monstrous eye in the centre of this shapeless mass saw me and the dust devil bolted straight up. It moved slowly back and forth, gauging the distance, and then with lightening speed it came at me. But just before it reached me, it got caught up in a woman's skirt and disappeared.

As I finished my drink, the image of that dust devil took me back to a time I hadn't thought of since I was a child growing up in the Whitney Pier area of Sydney, where this story took place.

To avoid any embarrassment to the living, I refer to the couple in this story as only Millie and Rufus. Millie died on a cold December morning in 1912. She was eighty-five, and the last of her family. Millie, as everyone will agree, was a chronic complainer. She complained that her life was one of great hardship and suffering. What few friends she had thought otherwise. They believed she had it pretty good, considering she had become a widow twelve years earlier. That, they concluded, had to count for something. They should be so lucky.

Millie's bitterness was due to a failed relationship. She had been engaged to a young man who recognized something in Millie he didn't appreciate, so he disappeared for good.

Time being the great healer, she married Rufus, who eventually found out exactly what his new bride was like. Millie not only had a cruel streak, but also a vicious temper. If truth be known, on more than one occasion Rufus got the busy end of more than one air-born frying pan.

Theirs was a marriage of convenience. For Millie, it kept food on the table; for Rufus, it meant having someone to cook the food. Needless to say, the relationship was soured from the beginning.

Rufus had but one true love in his life. Her name was Victoria—a green-eyed seventeen-year-old redhead, who died in a fire one cold winter's night. Rufus prayed for the day he would join his beloved in that other world.

One evening, after one beer too many in the local watering hole, Rufus boasted to his drinking buddies that he would get even with Millie. The day would come when he would make her pay. “We'll drink to that,” his friends echoed, “but maybe in the next world, not in Millie's.” Rufus smiled and thought to himself, yes, precisely, in the next world. Rufus then emptied his glass, said goodnight to his buddies and stepped out into the night. With unsteady legs he set off into the blackness. Halfway up Calvary Hill, Rufus was suddenly confronted by a brilliant blue light. There was no time to determine as to what was causing the illumination. Its force sent him to his knees and into the next world—and into the arms of his beloved, Victoria.

Twelve years had passed since Rufus died, and what he had feared the most while alive was about to happen. The woman who made his life on earth a living hell was about to lie down beside him for all eternity.

Moments before Millie died, she confessed that she may have been a little harsh with Rufus and prayed for his forgiveness. The old girl was hedging her bets. Millie did not fear death as much as she feared the unknown and Rufus's threats that he would get even with her from the next world. If he had the power, she would never get beyond the cemetery gates. Millie, now a frightened old woman, looked up at the familiar faces gathered around her bed and asked if that were possible? Could Rufus do that from the grave? With those fearful questions still on her lips, Millie gave a whimpering sigh and passed over. Outside, a wind came up and with it the worst snowstorm in memory.

On the morning of Millie's funeral, the snow had stopped, but lay deep throughout the region. With roads barely passable, it was wisely decided by the undertaker to transport Millie's body to the cemetery by horse and sleigh. What really concerned the undertaker was the old priest who was brought out of retirement on Millie's final wish, and the pallbearers, who were also all hand-picked by Millie herself. Most of them were well into their late seventies. It would be a miracle, the undertaker confided in his young assistant, if they didn't all drop dead before reaching the graveyard.

When the funeral mass ended, a small group of mourners came out of the church. Old men blew warm breath into their hands and stomped their feet to keep warm. The women stood some distance from the men and watched the six pallbearers struggling to keep Millie's coffin upright as they came down the church steps.

Millie's close friends wisely decided not to make the hazardous trek to the cemetery. They stood huddled against the icy wind and watched as the funeral procession made its way from out of the churchyard across the square and up Calvary Hill. Fighting to keep up were the old priest, his black robe dragging in the snow, and still further behind, the pallbearers.

Under hoof and under foot, there were three feet of snow. With fear in his heart the undertaker kept a tight rein on the horse as the animal lifted one heavy hoof after the other. Twice the animal stumbled and nearly fell. Fearing that the horse might indeed fall, the funeral director told his assistant to lead the animal by his head.

Halfway up the treacherous road, three of the pallbearers collapsed from exhaustion and spent the rest of the journey sitting on Millie's coffin.

When the procession reached the cemetery gates, a rumbling noise was heard. It appeared to be coming from just inside the graveyard, near a newly dug grave: Millie's grave. The awful noise sounded like high-pitched screaming. The old men covered their ears with their hands in an attempt to block out the terrible noise. Then they saw it! A black shape rising up out of the empty grave. The old priest fell to his knees blessing himself. Whatever it was, it spun into a cyclonic shape that grew bigger and bigger. Then it began spinning faster and faster until it became a shadowy white mass of snow, much like a prairie dust devil. It moved along the ground, under the gate, and slammed up against the horse. The startled animal, rearing up on its hind legs, fell over on its side, upsetting the sleigh. The three pallbearers who were sitting on Millie's coffin went sailing into the snowbank, while Millie and her coffin went careening back down the mountain. The undertaker and his assistant raced after the run-away coffin, but eventually gave up the chase. All they could do—anyone could do— was watch as the coffin disappeared down the mountain. What they didn't see, of course, was the coffin's disintegration when it slammed up against the railway abutment. Nor did they see Millie's body go sailing over the abutment. When her body came down on the other side, it landed on a moving train that was shunting a cargo of Cape Breton coal to waiting ships that were docked at the international coal piers. When the cars were positioned over the chute, the bottom doors of the car carrying Millie's body were opened and ten-thousand tons of coal, along with the body of Millie, went down into the ship's hold. The coal was destined for the furnaces of Upper Canada. Was the incident at the cemetery caused by the dead hand of Rufus? He did promise when alive to keep Millie from lying beside him for all eternity. Or was it merely a sudden burst of winter wind?