Tales of Terror from the Black Ship (18 page)

He was about to put the tooth in his trunk when he stared again at the picture engraved on its surface. Though common sense and reason told him it was impossible, he had the strongest possible impression that the blurry figure had moved. Where it had once occupied a space at the far right of the tooth, it was now further to the left and distinctly closer to the sailor.

Edward peered at the space where the figure had been, but there was no sign of a mark; the surface of the tooth was untouched and as smooth as silk. He must have been mistaken. And yet he knew in the pit of his stomach that he was not.

As Edward sat there staring at the scrimshaw tooth, old Morton stepped over to see what was the cause of his troubled expression.

‘What’s that you have, boy?’ he asked, and then seeing the tooth in Edward’s hand, said, ‘Ah – ’tis a piece of scrimshaw work, and a fine one too, by the looks of it.’

He asked to take a closer look, and Edward passed it to him, calmed by being brought back to normality. Already, with Morton beside him, the possibility that he had simply misremembered the image seemed the more likely explanation than that it had somehow moved.

‘Did you do this?’ said Morton.

‘Me?’ said Edward. ‘No. I have no skill in such things. It was . . . given to me.’

‘That’s quite a gift,’ said Morton. ‘That’s the
Buck
and no mistake. What does it say there? It’s too small for my eyes.’

Edward told him. Morton sucked the air between his teeth with a whistle.

‘What do you think it means?’ said Edward.

‘I don’t know,’ said Morton. ‘I don’t like the sound of it though. You say someone gave it to you? Who?’

Edward licked his lips and looked at the floor.

‘I . . . in a way, I found it.’

‘Did you – in a way – steal it?’ asked Morton.

‘No!’ said Edward. ‘Not really . . .’

With a big sigh, Edward told Morton what had happened: about the injured man and the scrimshaw tooth. Morton shook his head.

‘There’s something bad here,’ he said, turning over the tooth. ‘This figure,’ he went on, seeing Edward’s confusion. ‘Supposing that’s you. It looks like you, come to think of it.’

Edward had noticed that already, but then, with its neckerchief, jacket and trousers, it could have been any sailor.

‘And what about that figure following behind?’ continued Morton.

‘Following?’ said Edward, though he knew it was true. He could not bring himself to tell Morton that it also appeared to move.

‘Maybe that’s the Scrimshaw Imp,’ said Morton, handing the tooth back. ‘Maybe that’s what you have to beware.’

The thought of such a thing following him anywhere made Edward’s guts clench and troubled his sleep when he eventually lay back in his bunk and closed his eyes. He opened them five hours later to find Morton looking into his face.

‘Get rid of it, lad,’ he said, pointing to the tooth, which lay on top of Edward’s bunk. ‘Get rid of it if you know what’s good for you. There’s sorcery in it. Take a hammer to it, lad. Smash the thing and be done.’

Morton was already going before Edward had fully come to his wits, but he knew there was something in what the old man had said. He followed Morton up and out on to the deck just as the call came out that they were setting sail.

Edward walked to the side of the ship and took the scrimshaw tooth from his pocket. The eerie light of daybreak shimmered across its surface and gave it an even more unearthly quality. The whale tooth took on a weird lustre, as if lit from within.

The little boats of local traders and fishermen clogged the harbour. They had all made their last attempts to sell their wares to the foreigners and now they watched them leave, readying themselves for a new ship and new customers. A boy on a nearby fishing boat waved and Edward waved absent-mindedly back at him.

Morton was right, he thought. No good could come of keeping such a thing. It was bewitched in some way, he was sure of it. It had clearly done the previous owner no good, a fact acknowledged by the dying man’s desire to get rid of the thing. Perhaps Edward should do what that man was trying to do but could not.

Edward held the scrimshaw tooth over the side of the ship and let go, letting it fall into the shimmering sea. It struck the water, point down, with barely a splash, and Edward walked away, feeling as if whatever spell the tooth had cast over his life was now ended.

He had not taken two steps, however, before he was overcome by the strangest sensation. He felt suddenly cold, despite the heat of the morning, but worse – far worse than that – he could not breathe.

Edward choked and reached for his throat, feeling for some blockage but knowing that the sensation was different. It felt as though the very air he was trying to breathe had become solid; as if, instead of air, he was swallowing water.

Edward staggered back to the side of the ship and looked at where the tooth had fallen in.

The Egyptian boy on the fishing boat had seen the whole scene, and while he had found Edward’s behaviour baffling – as he did so much of the behaviour of these foreigners – he had an eye for an opportunity and, speculating that the sailor might be pleased to have whatever it was he had dropped returned to him, he dived into the water and emerged, waving the tooth in the air.

As soon as the tooth was above the water, the air flooded back into Edward’s lungs. He leaned over the rail, coughing and thanking the boy profusely and waving for him to bring the tooth aboard.

Edward gave the breathless, smiling boy a handful of coins – more money than the boy might normally see in a year – and sent him back to his father aboard the fishing boat, where they both waved back at the crazy Englishman with broad grins.

Edward acknowledged them, but he could not share their smiles. His fate seemed to have become entangled with that of the tooth he held once more in his shaking hand. He thought of Morton’s exhortation to ‘take a hammer to the thing’ and felt a shudder run through his body.

Looking at the carvings again, he saw that in the image of the
Buck
the ship was preparing to set sail – just as the actual ship was. The fishing boat was also shown, father and son waving. And there was a sailor at the gunwales, waving back. Edward stared wide-eyed; was his life being mirrored in the scrimshaw tooth, or was it being determined by it,
controlled
by it?

If so, was he doomed then to stand idly by as a spectator while his destiny was made a puppet to this infernal creation? But what could he do? He clearly could not destroy the thing, but neither could he discard it, for who knew what accident might befall it, and what effect that could have on his life?

No – he would have to keep it by him at all times and take especial care of it. Perhaps, when he had calmed a little and understood more of its power, he might glean something that would provide an escape route from its grip.

And so the
Buck
sailed on, moving west along the Mediterranean and calling at the port of Naples, one of half a dozen stops they would make before heading home to London. Vesuvius reared up behind the city, smoke still belching belligerently from its cone after one of its frequent eruptions.

As they moored Edward looked at the volcano in the distance, and the idea that it might at any moment explode into violent life, showering rock and ash down on the city, struck a chord with him. He felt able now to appreciate something of the nature of living in the shadow of such a monster. Perhaps the secret was in accepting his fate as the Neapolitans had done. Perhaps the scrimshaw tooth really did show him what would happen in any case, no matter what choices he made. Perhaps he had never been as free as he thought.

Edward took the scrimshaw tooth from his pocket and turned it over in his hand, feeling again the weight of it, the smoothness of the untouched areas, the texture of the incised drawing.

He looked at the image of the
Buck
and saw – as he knew he would – that the ship was in the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius scratched into the background. He registered this with a calmness that surprised him. Was it possible, after all, that even something as dark and strange as this could be accepted?

He did not look at the drawing of the sailor. He did not find that image so easy to accept. The scene with the ship seemed simply to reflect what he could see around him and, miraculous though that evolving drawing was, it did at least have its roots in the world he knew.

The drawing of the sailor and the thing that followed him – the Scrimshaw Imp, he supposed – portrayed a mystery, and a mystery that troubled him both in its inscrutability and in the sinister nature of what it illustrated.

Edward’s mind was still buzzing with questions as he stepped ashore. What was it that the picture represented? Did it show an actual event or was it symbolic in some way? What did it mean? Was it a warning? Was the scrimshaw tooth signalling danger or luring him towards some kind of unknown and unknowable peril? Then, all at once, as if in answer to these questions, he looked around and noticed for the first time where he was.

A sense of dread numbed his entire body as he gradually recognised the scene around him. He felt like he had when the scrimshaw tooth had been dropped in the ocean. He felt as though he were drowning.

This was the quayside depicted on the scrimshaw tooth. There was the tall ochre building with the clock tower, the pantiled roof and the arrow-shaped weathervane. One of his crewmates was up ahead. He had an urge to call to him, to tell him of the dread that was mounting in his heart – but how could he? He would sound deranged.

It seemed utterly incongruous that on a day such as that day – with the sun high in a cobalt sky, with seabirds crying and fishermen singing as they brought their catch ashore – that on a day like that there could be something so dark and from the sunless world of shadows so near.

And yet he knew with every fibre of his being that the thing from the scrimshaw tooth, the Scrimshaw Imp, whatever it was, was there. If he turned now he would see it, the shadow-thing, and the fear and dread of seeing the terrible vagueness of it was almost unbearable. He could feel its breath on the back of his neck.

In desperation Edward took out a clasp knife and, opening it with shaking hands, he began to gouge and scrape away at the image of the Scrimshaw Imp on the tooth. Why had he not thought of this before? He felt a giddying sense of triumph. In seconds, all that was left of the shadowy form was a collection of deep scratches. Then the pain began.

Every inch of his body was aflame with agony. Blood was pouring from him, dripping on to the scrimshaw tooth and the cobbles. His legs would no longer support him and he fell to the ground. As he lay there, his life draining away, he could see his arms and hands were slashed and scratched as if by some giant blade, and he knew he was not the
sailor
in the picture. He was the Scrimshaw Imp.

Edward’s vision blurred . . . He became aware of a face, of someone leaning towards him, asking him who he was and what had happened. The face was full of horror at the sight of such injuries. It was the expression his face must have worn in Alexandria.

With his dying breaths he tried to warn the sailor, who even now was picking up the scrimshaw tooth. But his mouth would no longer answer the brain’s call, and was so entirely ruined that were it still connected it could not have formed the words.

Just as Edward had, the sailor saw that there was nothing he could do and, not wanting trouble, he chose to leave. The last thing Edward saw, as he lay with one ragged ear to the ground, was the image of the sailor stopping to look at the scrimshaw tooth, putting it in his pocket and walking on.

*

‘Ethan,’ said Cathy, ‘you’re hurting.’

I had been holding Cathy’s hand to comfort her during the story, because I could see she had been unduly frightened by it from the very start. But the tale had clearly had an effect on me also, for I was now crushing my poor sister’s hand as every muscle in my body contracted with dread.

g

As always, Thackeray looked mightily pleased to have caused such a reaction in us and again I had to fight the urge to punch him on the nose. Outside, the storm was easing and there was a welcome calm about the headland and our inn. The branches at the window had ceased their fidgeting and clawing.