Captain’s Log

by Peter Gifford

Log of Captain Benjamin Briggs, Captain of the Mary Celeste
Discovered wrapped in a whaleskin pouch at 200 metres by a dive team working on the foundations of the oil rig Atlantic Star, 2008

November 27, 1872
Daniels just opened the last of the strangely marked nine barrels, and it too was like the rest. I finally have come to face the fact that nine of our of 1701 barrels are strangely tainted. When I get my hands on that son of the devil Cartwright back in Staten Island I will have him hung up by his thumbs in the public square, I swear it! Where did he get this strange liquid, and why would he try to have it sent to Genoa on my ship? Surely he would have known that as soon as customs had cracked a barrel and seen the thick, luminous green liquid within, the entire shipment would have been confiscated and I would come searching for satisfaction, by legal means if by no other. But ... perhaps he believed that they indeed contained industrial alcohol just like the rest, and ... no, he must have checked his consignment, seen the strange symbol upon these nine barrels. None of this makes any sense.

I suppose I must be greatful to Bonden, though I still intend to dock his pay for broaching the barrel. I still believe that he tasted the substance before reporting the whole matter to me, perhaps in the mistaken belief that I was carrying several barrels of some exotic American liqueur! The man is a fine sailor but not blessed with brains, and drink has been his undoing on more than one occasion. As indeed it may be on this one, as he languishes in sick bay, enduring not only some virulent sickness, but the taunts of his shipmates as one by one, they come to visit him and make amusing remarks about his capacity to hold his drink.

November 28, 1872
We are strangely becalmed. Despite all predictions for this time of year, the wind has dropped and we sit in the doldrums. The sky is grey and cold and a heaviness hangs over the ship.

Bonden’s sickness grows worse. perhaps I should have commissioned a doctor on this trip, but I thought Sarah, with her small nursing experience, would be able to attend to any matters that arose on our trip, and a doctor’s wage is not cheap. But Sarah comes to me ashen-faced and confused, unable to explain the rapid progress of Bonden’s disease—for disease it must be. While the violent expluslions have eased, a truly horrible skin rash has begun to spread over his body, with large sections of his skin sloughing off like wet cardboard. I have urged Sarah to stay away from the man but she refuses to obey, insisting that the man, like any of God’s creatures, deserves all the help we can provide. I am not so sure. Already the men begin to mutter among themselves, no doubt fearing that Bonden’s condition may spread throughout the ship.

November 29, 1872
Bonden has died, at 4.13am this morning. I conducted a hurried ceremony and, wrapped in his hammock with lead weights in his feet, consigned his body to the still waters. We have had no wind now for nigh on two days, and the crew grows more and more restless, with talk of curses and diseases running like widening ripples among them. I was forced to empty the nine barrels overboard, as Johnson the first mate came to me saying the men feared having it aboard and believed it carried the disease from which Bonden died. I complied for the good of morale, but I fear the decision was rash, as the heavy green liquid sits on the still ocean around the ship and refuses to mix with the clean waters.

November 30, 1872
Mary, mother of God, protect us. Yesterday I was a man blessed by innocence, and now my eyes have seen that which no man should ever see. My hand shakes as I try to pen these words. Truly the devil himself walks among us as our ship sits on these leaden seas. At night we are surrounded by an unearthly green glow from the waters, lighting each terrified face so it seems that we are shades walking in the land of the dead. And so it must be, for the dead walk among us. Bonden was seen last night. The man who I myself sent to the depths of the dark ocean—but not a man, a grinning, decaying parody of one, dripping with glowing green ichor as he dragged his shattered corpse over the gunwale and took the first of three men to his rotten breast. Four men were on deck when he came. The first, Wright, saw nothing before the wet hands grasped his throat. Immediately Jacobs, Plaice and Harris set up a horrible screaming, so that I was woken from my cot and with several others rushed on deck as Wright dropped to the deck and the fearful creature stood before us, one hand still holding Wright’s limp body by the neck. It was Bonden, we all recognised him by his clothes, but little remained of the man’s face. It was silent. This ghastly tableau held for long moments, then Jacobs and Harris rushed at the thing, still screaming. With unholy strength it fended off the blows and returned them, and the two men fell before it, their heads cracked open. It stopped then—I realised I had my gun in my hand, hastily loaded it, and fired. The creature started back, and sodden flesh exploded from the point where I had hit. It looked at me—dear God, it looked at me—and the white jaws flexed, tendons stretching and glinting in the terrible green light, then it dragged the bodies of the men—what strength!—back to the gunwale and with them, plunged into the ocean.

As I write this I still cannot believe what I have seen, and yet ten men saw it with me. We fear the coming night. Will the creature return? I have locked my wife and daughter in their cabin with no explanation. The men arm themselves with boat hooks and belaying pins, but one look at their grey faces reveals the question in all their eyes—will all three return, and how long before we join them —our fleshy shells slowly consumed, what is left of our minds driven by some repulsive hunger—deep under the ocean’s surface?