Epistle from the Damned

Michael J. Paluka

Diary and Last Words of Almeric J. Hunt, Captain, USS Saracen, Frigate, Year of Our Lord 1822.

De profundis.

May this document stand before Man and God as truth, upon my immortal soul, as best I can recall it; and as witness and warning of the events described within. I bear this witness, lest my name be anathema amongst all good men of the sea. No fault share I of the fate that befell my officers and crew, other than that which can be assigned to any captain who, in the performance of his duty, loses both ship and crew -- and soon, ultimately, his life.

A tropical storm had battered my ship for two days. The next day was clear and sunny, and we saw a welcome sight: birds. Land was near. Soon its warm, thick smell would fill our noses and wash the salt from our lungs. No man of court or king could offer a greater reward than the sight and smell of land to a weary crew.

By late afternoon we could all smell land; but the smell was unlike any we had known. I knew the smell of an underwater kelp forest, the stink of rotting whale flesh, and the putrid gas of a gangrenous leg. All these I preferred to the smell of this island. At first, it smelled of the biting sting of onions; but later, a heavy, malodorous stench overpowered us as the island entered view. We didn't bother to consult the maps, as most of these islands were uncharted. Since we were low on fresh water, I ordered the first mate to put to and drop anchor.

The first mate, eight crewmen, and myself entered the longboat. We carried the first three of the empty barrels that were to be filled with fresh water. After they had been filled, they would be too heavy for any three men to carry. However, I had learned a trick from the Algonquin Indians: we would place each of the barrels in a modified travois and drag them back to the ship.

Landing on the shore we secured the longboat and headed into the tropical jungle. I allowed the first mate to select our course as I was unfamiliar with these filthy jungles. I had spent most of my career killing Indians and British in the Great Lakes. I had even served under Admiral Oliver Perry for a time. After the war, as punishment for a crime not germane to this discourse, I was transferred here to endlessly patrol the Caribbean in search of non-existent pirates. Nearly all had been sent to hell fifty years ago. Lafitte, if still alive, was plying his trade much further north, in the Gulf.

We started to circle the island in order to locate a fresh-water stream. Nightfall was approaching. As dusk set upon us, we located a suitable stream feeding into a broad, swampy lagoon. Of course, we would have to travel some distance up-stream to find water suitable for long-term storage. Water from a fast-flowing stream or waterfall seemed to keep the longest.

We camped on some high ground a distance from the swamp, as the miasmic gasses that rose from swamps were known to cause malaria. I assigned half the company to stand watch with the first mate for four hours to be followed by myself and the remainder of our party for the last four hours. I laid down and went to sleep.

Late in the night I was woken by the first mate. The sentries had seen several natives circling our camp. I ordered the remainder of the crew woken. Now with the guard doubled, each man facing outwards with their muskets, forming a wide circle, I gave the command for the first watch to fire. After they had nearly reloaded their muskets, I ordered the second watch to fire. This I repeated twice.

The natives of these islands were merciless cannibals. They were best dealt with by fear and force and firepower. They were an odd lot. They would hunt the most dangerous animals with nothing but a sharpened stick, but would run like cowards at the sound of a simple musket.

Some of the men were dragging the bodies of three savages. One of them was still alive and muttering gibberish. I asked if any of the men recognized the tongue. None could. Since he didn't appear to be a chief, and therefore of no value as a hostage, I ordered his throat cut.

The next morning we continued our trek. We walked lazily for hours through the jungle and up into the wooded hills. It was late afternoon when we heard gunfire off in the distance. We smiled at each other and made jokes about how we were missing-out on the target practice.

After a minute or two I recognized the distinctive blast of the swivel cannon; more tinny than the main cannons. And again it fired. The two blasts were too close together; you couldn't reload it that fast. They must be using both the fore and aft cannons. Then I heard the main cannons. Something was wrong. The muskets continued to fire.

Now I began to worry. If the ship were in trouble, they would put out to sea and we'd be left to fend for ourselves. The ship was more important than anything or anyone. I would sacrifice a hundred men to save my ship and expected the same of my officers.

After rushing to a clearing, we looked back. Off in the distance and rising above the trees was a thin brown plume. I ordered one of the men to the top of a large rock outcrop. His voice was weak and high-pitched as he reported that my ship, the Saracen, was on fire.

We headed back down the hills and through the jungle as fast as we could. The musket fire stopped for about a quarter-hour, and then resumed. The swivel cannon could be heard, but only infrequently. Even allowing for the time necessary for the gun to cool (to prevent it from melting), it seemed they were only using one cannon now. It took two hours for us to retrace our footsteps and emerge onto the beach. The musket fire had ended.

We watched the Saracen burn; half-submerged and listing. The brown smoke of wood and canvas had been replaced by the deep, black smoke of paint, supplies, and the tar that made her waterproof. The foremast had collapsed out of sight. Her mainmast was almost completely obscured by the dark, black smoke rising into the air. I grabbed my telescope and examined her. I wanted to see if her anchor had been weighed; giving some idea of how quickly she had been overrun; but it was on the starboard side, out of sight.

The first mate grabbed my arm and pointed. There was a longboat on the shore. I glanced up to where I recalled we had stowed ours, and it was still there. We ran up to the shore. The longboat had not been secured, it had just been dragged halfway onto the beach; its stern was still being rocked by the waves. The inside of the vessel had been carelessly littered with muskets, pistols, and a powder keg. It looked as though they had loaded every gun from the armory into the boat. After we towed the longboat further up onto the beach, I climbed inside with the first mate to inspect it. There was one large pool of blood to the aft, which seemed to have been splashed in several directions.

I cleared away some of the litter and opened the life-hatch; this is where we always kept fresh water and supplies in case we had to abandon the ship quickly. I inspected the hold: water, food, rope, string, hook, and bait to fish with. Whale fat to protect the skin from the sun; candles, holders, matches to signal ships at night; and an odd contraption that was made in the Orient, which when lit, would shoot up into the sky, assumably alerting any ships in the area. Nothing seemed to have been touched, not even the medicinal keg of rum. I opened the keg and drank deeply; then passed it around. If we were going to survive, I would need the men brave and vengeful.

It was easy to spot the trail the men had made while apparently racing at full speed from the boat. Additionally, there were the telltale tracks of blood amongst the footprints. The first mate looked at the bloodied path and reached down into the longboat and extracted some cloth bandages and a short rope. We then began to follow the trail.

The trail ran about a quarter-mile parallel to the beach and then was met by a large rock outcropping, leading down from the side of a steep, volcanic ridge. I didn't need to follow the bloodstains; I knew where they had gone. Halfway up the ridge was what appeared to be small plateau, forming a natural fortalice. We called out to the stronghold but received no reply. We climbed up the jagged ridge while continuing to call in vain.

When I reached the plateau I was startled. I had never seen anything as brutal, not even during the war. Not a single body was left whole. I had read stories about Indians in the new territory of Louisiana that cut off a man's scalp, but I had never heard of anything like this! Most of the torsos had been disemboweled, their innards stretched out in the sun, still moist. Several had lost one or more arms and legs. None of the heads could be found, except for one. It had been nearly split in two, with only shards of skin holding the skull fragments together. He was one of the ship's mates. In his hand was an expended pistol. I examined his scalp and saw the telltale powder burns. He must have taken the pistol from one of the deceased officers before shooting himself in the temple.

The first mate, who was more of a doctor than the ship's surgeon, picked up one of the torsos and examined it. He began saying something to the other mates who then gathered around him, like women at a fish market inspecting the day's catch. I turned away, sickened; I had recognized the corpse by its shirt and had known him well.

I was staring across the bay at my burning ship when the first mate, followed by the crew, approached me. They were convinced that this was not the work of the savages, but some kind of animal. The first mate explained that the bones had been crushed, not hacked or sawn, similar to the shark wounds he had seen over his many years at sea.

The crew was clearly terrified. They were beginning to feed upon their superstitions. They were whispering to each other. The first mate was looking to me for orders. Soon the whispering died down and crew was silently pleading with their eyes for an order, anything. I turned away towards my dying ship. I had nothing to say. I was afraid, but more afraid to show fear. I knew that if I tried to utter one word, my voice would tremble and crack, and then all command and control would explode into flotsam.

I was saved by the first mate. He commanded the crew to begin burying the dead. They became like obedient zombies, afraid to think, afraid to reason. They were just tired dogs, walking off to bury their bones.

The duty had been completed about an hour before sunset. There had been no eulogy and no one noticed. We found only one of the swivel guns. Apparently, in their hasty and futile flight, the victims had left the other cannon aboard the Saracen. I wondered if it would have made any difference.

We needed a plan, but I was a naval officer, not a ground soldier. I fought my battles on the high seas, using the wind and tide to my advantage. What ships I could not out-maneuver, I could out-think; they would be planning their next move while I was delivering a broadside. There were many with Davey Jones who knew I was the best -- but none of that helped me now. What the hell could scissor through fifteen well-armed men? Had the swivel gun no effect upon the beast? We had stumbled upon the gates of Hell; we had mocked Cerberus. Now we were only ten. We had to run. We had to put out to sea while there was time. We didn't have a chance on land.

The first mate said he wanted to take two of the crew out into the jungle to look for a more defensible position. He saw the hesitation in my eyes and motioned me to follow him behind some rocks, so the crew wouldn't hear us argue.

I told him that we should head into the longboats. There was no hope for defense here, especially at night. At least on the high seas we knew how to fight, we knew how to stay alive. There were so many islands in this area it wouldn't take three days to find another.

He explained that that was unlikely. Without a proper sail, the Gulf Stream would carry us out towards the Atlantic; we could drift for weeks without seeing a single island. Any maps we had possessed were surely burnt cinders aboard the Saracen. He explained that even when Captain Bligh made his 3,500 mile trek in a longboat, he at least had maps and a sextant. I wondered if the first mate thought that we didn't even have a captain! I bit my lower lip, angrily.

I conceded and gave him the order to form a search party. I was afraid of him. I knew that the crew favored him, and that any rift between us at this critical moment could lead to mutiny. Let him go to his death; that would simplify everything; then they'll know why I'm the captain. I glanced out to where my ship had been. It was now dark and I saw nothing. I began to roll a cigarette and continued to look out into the darkness. Yes, they'll see that I was right again.

Several hours passed before the first mate returned with his party. He had found a cave not too far from here. It was situated well above us on a steep slope. He said it afforded us enough protection to defend against a dozen of those things.

How dare he! How dare he address the men with a plan before consulting me? I was their captain, now and forever. I told him it was out of the question. Whatever had gotten the men before would have a much easier time of it with us caged-in with nowhere to run! We've got to head for the open seas; that's the only hope!

The first mate further turned the men against me. I ordered him to ready the longboats. He didn't move. I ordered Briarson to place the first mate under arrest. He looked away. I ordered the crew to ready the longboats. They looked away. Then they slowly gathered their equipment and followed the first mate up the ridge and on towards the cave.

'Fools,' I screamed. 'Mutineers!' I watched them walk out of sight. Picking up an extra musket, I headed for the longboats.

I transferred all the supplies from the first longboat into the second. 'Dead men don't drink rum,' I chuckled, and drug the boat out to the sea. After hopping into it, I inserted the oars into the oarlocks and began to row out to safety. Suddenly, an image popped into mind. Amongst the supplies I had carried from one boat to the other there had been a wine bottle. Apparently, one of the crewmembers had secreted it there so he wouldn't have to share it with his fellow mates. What a novel hiding place. What a loyal bunch of bilge rats!

I struggled to free the cork with my pocket knife. Ploop! Open, ready, set, swallow, swallow, swallow. What a fine taste it had; like a stolen cookie; like a child's first peek into a whorehouse.

The moon was full, dropping slivers of argent across the bay. A movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned and stared at a tall black figure rising from the water. It was gaunt and thin and was dull in the moonlight. My eyes re-focused. It was the mainmast of the Saracen, all that remained of her above the water.

The mainmast seemed to blur. I tried harder to focus but its charcoal-burnt hue reflected very little moonlight. No, it wasn't blurring, it was moving, some final settling of her keel into the soft sand of the bay. The water should have been deeper than that, or at least, the helmsman shouldn't have brought her this close to shore. There's not one man jack in the whole crew that can be depended upon. I couldn't depend upon the sun to rise if they had anything to do with it --

I saw a long, flat outline at water's level below the mast. It grew wider and thicker. Soon I recognized the profile. The Saracen was rising! It rose and rose until its keel was visible. Then it listed a full ninety degrees to port, towards me, as if it were falling off of a mountain. It crashed into the water creating a tremendous wake, which nearly swamped my longboat. I grabbed for the starboard oarlock to keep from being flung from the craft. While still bobbing up and down amid the huge waves, I was able to bring both oars into the boat before they were lost.

I looked back to the Saracen. In the dim moonlight I could see her laying on her port side -- but she was growing lengthwise! No, that couldn't be. There was something behind her, the outline of which seemed to merge with the arisen vessel. Now they were two separate and distinct shadows. I was still rocking up and down in the wake, trying to identify the dark shape as it swam away from me towards the beach.

Whether through the mercy of God, or through the madness of hunger and thirst, I cannot recall exactly, the remaining events of that night. I swear this diary true to memory, yet I cannot swear that I am sane. My subsequent recollections beg the distinction.

I remember pictures, grotesque and obscene: the creature emerging from the water onto the beach. The horror of it is impossible to describe. It was like a giant crab-snake. It was like several crab shells, each one smaller than the first, linked together, tapering down to a spiked tail. It must have been fully one-hundred-fifty-feet long and forty feet wide at its front. The crab-shells worked in unison to the overall effect of a huge, segmented snake.

I remember the flashing of lights on the island. I know there was sound but my recollections are deaf. I knew; I knew; I knew; but I didn't want to know! The flashes were the firings of musket and cannon as the castaways fought for their lives. For a brief instant, I was in the cave beside them. I felt their fear. The cave was dark, but for the flash of gunpowder. I saw them loading and firing and reloading. I couldn't speak and I was deaf and immobile. They rushed passed me as if I were invisible. Then in one flash of man-made thunder I saw the beast at the threshold.

Whether memory be the judge of sanity, or the opposite; whether such a tale as mine is the mark, or the cause, of insanity is beyond my power and desire to discern. I float here in this tomb alive, and they are all dead.

Signed,

Almeric J. Hunt, Captain.