Sandy Hook

Uh, uh, well, I guess, uh, the only other one was the, uh, in Sandy.

It was, was I in Sandy Hook? I think I was in...

Can't remember if I was in Sandy Hook.

I, there was a real...

Everybody was, like, telling me, "There's really bad storms." I'm like, "Yeah."

The buoyant old barkie dipping her bows under and giving the star-crowned maiden with golden ringlets that did duty for her figurehead an impromptu shower bath as she parted the indignant waves with her glistening black hull, sending them off on either hand with a contemptuous swish.

on their trying in mad desperation to leap on board first to port and then to starboard as the ship listed in her roll it was however but a vain task for these mad myrmidons of neptune to attempt strive as recklessly as they might in their wrath for the good ship spurned them with her forefoot and the star-crowned maiden bowed mockingly to them from her perch above the bobstay laughing in her glee as she rode over them triumphantly and sailed along onward and so the baffled roisterers were forced to fall back discomfited from their rash onslaught swirling away in circling eddies aft where anon the cruel propeller tossed and tore them anew with its pitiless blades ever whirling round with painful iteration to the music of their monotonous refrain thump thump thump thump and ever churning up the already seething sea into a mass of boiling brawling bubbling foam that spread out astern of us in a broad shimmering wake in the shape of a lady's fan stretching backward on our track as far as the eye could see and flashing out sparks of fire as it glittered away into the dim distance like an ever-widening belt of diamonds fringed with pearls the s s star of the north was a large schooner-rigged cargo steamer strongly built of iron in water-type compartments and of nearly two thousand horse-power but working up under pressure of nearly half as much again on a pinch having been originally intended for the passenger trade she belonged to one of the great ocean lines that run between liverpool and new york and was now on her last outward trip for the year and rapidly nearing her western goal the fastnet light and according to our reckoning when we took the sun at noon in latitude forty-two degrees thirty-five minutes north and longitude fifty degrees ten minutes west that is just below the banks of newfoundland our course to our american port having been a little more southerly than usual for the season this was in consequence of captain applegarth our skipper wishing as i said before to take advantage of the varying winds of the northern ocean as much as possible so as to economize his steam-power and limit our consumption of fuel for freights across the herring pond as the yankees call it are at a very low ebb nowadays and it is naturally a serious consideration with shipowners how to make a profit out of the carrying trade without landing themselves in the bankruptcy court so they have to cut down their working expenses to the lowest point practicable with efficiency where full speed all the way is not a vital necessity as in the case of the mail steamers and first-class passenger ships of enormous steam-power and corresponding speed which of course run up a heavy coal bill for they always carry on all they can to and fro across the atlantic accomplishing the passage now between queenstown and sandy hook veritable greyhounds of the ocean that they are within the six days all told from land to land and i even this record promises to be beaten in the near future prior to our leaving liverpool on this voyage the very day before we sailed in fact greatly to my surprise and satisfaction as may be imagined i was made fourth officer the owners having unexpectedly promoted me from the position of apprentice which i had filled up to our last run home without any thought of so speedy a rise of course i had to thank my old friend captain applegarth for my good fortune though why the skipper thus spoke up for me i'm sure i cannot say for i was very young to hold such a subordinate post having only just turned my seventeenth year besides being boyish enough in all conscious and beardless too at that but be that as it may fourth officer i was at the time of which i write i recollect the evening well enough it was on the seventh of november the anniversary of my birthday a circumstance which would alone suffice to imprint the date on my memory were i at all disposed to forget it but that is not very likely no i can assure you it would be impossible for me to do that as you will readily believe when you come to know my story for on this eventful evening there happened something which somehow or other thenceforth whether owing to what visionary folk term destiny or from its arising through some curious conjecture of things beyond the limits of mere chance appeared to exercise a mysterious influence on my life affecting the whole tenor and course of my subsequent career i had better tell you however what occurred and then you will be able to judge for yourself end of chapter one recording by richard kilmer rio medina texas chapter two of the ghost ship this is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org The Ghost Ship by John C. Hutcheson Sail Ho! Away forward, I remember, the ship's bell under the break of the forecastle, or fo'c'sle as it is pronounced in nautical fashion, was just striking two bells in the first day watch.

In other words, more suited to a landsman comprehension, it was five o'clock in the afternoon when I came on deck from my spell of leisure below, to relieve Mr. Spokeshave, the third officer, then on duty, and the sight I caught of the heavens across the gangway was so beautiful that I paused a moment or two to look at the sunset before going up on the bridge, where Mr. Spokeshave, I had no doubt, was anxiously awaiting me, and equally certainly grumbling at my detaining him from his tea.

This gentleman, however, was not too particular as to time in relieving others when off watch, and I did not concern myself at all about Master Conkey, as all of us called him aboard on account of a very prominent and, so to speak, striking feature of his countenance.

All right, Señor Applegarth, replied the colonel, who could not drop his Spanish phraseology all at once, though otherwise gradually returning to his and our native tongue, and becoming less of a foreigner in every way.

I will return with you.

Both were as good as their word, he and little Elsie coming home with us, and the skipper making the passage from Sandy Hook to the Mersey in eight days from land to land, the fastest run we had ever achieved across the Atlantic, whether outward or homeward bound.

But quick as we were, the Saint-Pierre managed to reach Liverpool before we did, the pilot who boarded us off the Skerries bringing the news that she had gone up the river a tide ahead of us.