December 31st, A.D. 1899, Day 143 at Sea.
I am tempted to lament our fate, or to curse whichever Devil invented the steamboats and automatic rifles that spelled the end of our fair Ship. But this will be my last entry. I can feel it in the weariness that settled on my lungs, see it in the tremors that render my handwriting so sadly illegible, hear it in the merciless crash of waves against the tender’s hull. So, in a vain attempt to save my immortal soul, I shall not weigh it down further with sin of thought or word.
Instead, I hope against hope that if anyone reads these lines, they will relay word to my fair wife Brittany, and my children, Jefferson and Winona, and tell them that I love them very much. My crew, were they still alive, would wish the same, and while I understand that a captain who survives his crew deserves not his position at all, I hope that you may believe me that my late survival was through no fault of mine, but instead by the foolish wish of the men under my command. I have no way to repay their kindness, and their faith, other than begging you, dear reader, to pray for their souls and spread word of their untimely deaths.
Attached to this book, you may by God’s grace find the charter, detailing all of my Crew’s names and known places of residency. On next page, you will find stories to tell their families abt. th. bravery. Each one should have at least one sentence. Wished to write more, but time coming to an end.
Please pray for my soul. May God Save the King. And if you find a cat on this boat, please take care of it as if it were yours.
Captain Jerome Miller, A.D. 1899/1900
-Last Log Book entry of the H.M.S. Spirit of the Century
#
Immy hadn’t been petted for days now. It was outrageous.
Even when she rubbed her head against the Captain’s hand, he did not pet her!
At first, Immy thought it was because he was still writing, but the little feather he wrote with had long since been carried away by the wind. He should have held on to it tighter, but he was sleeping, and so perhaps he had been dreaming of flying, and let it go. Immy also dreamed of flying, sometimes, to catch all those birds that taunted her from the rigging where she couldn’t reach them in time, even though she tried.
Still, the Captain was sleeping for too long, and Immy was getting annoyed. Didn’t the Captain know that he had important duties he couldn’t sleep away? Like petting her, or feeding her, or running the ship? Immy also had duties, and you wouldn’t catch her slacking off on them. Like for example wandering the ship whenever she pleased, getting petted by the crew, or stealing food from the kitchen in creative ways that made the cook laugh.
She missed the cook. He was still on the ship, like the rest of the crew. They’d also all gone to sleep, just before it started sailing downwards, after the loud animals had started to eat the hull. The loud animals had come from a different ship, which didn’t even have sails, and had bitten right through the wood and even the metal, making a mess of most of her favorite hiding spots, except for her own ship, which had hung off the starboard side, away from the weird ship.
Immy padded along her small vessel. It was only about 30 cats long, and only had a single sail, instead of the many, many that the Spirit of the Century had, but she liked it because it was named after her. The crew said so, and that it was a mighty vessel, and also that she was its fearsome captain! So she stood at the bowsprit and looked fearsome, even though she was scared she might fall into the ocean.
Would the captain wake up and fish her out if she did? He had done it before. But he was really fast asleep, and she didn’t want to bother him. He was a great place to sleep on, after all.
At least usually.
Now he was all cold and clammy, and she had to scare away all the flies that wanted to steal her napping spot. Not even the loud flies that had dug deep into the Captain’s chest. That one scared Immy, even if she would never admit it. No, just regular old flies. Scaring them away would have been an easy task for a fearsome captain like her if she wasn’t so hungry. But as it was, the flies didn’t even pay attention to her anymore. Immy was sure that if she got some food in her, those flies would sing a very different tune!
If only the other cat hadn’t eaten it all. She must have, Immy was sure of it. Because the other cat was a filthy thief. She had stolen her favorite napping spot atop the Captain’s chest, too, so why not all the food as well? Immy had of course tried to scare her away, but the other cat was a tough nut to crack. She just laid there, eyes closed, between all the flies, and was as cold as the captain. Immy walked over and swatted her once or twice before giving up. No reaction. The nerve!
With a tiny noise of indignant indifference, Immy decided it was time to climb to the crow’s nest to look out for other ships. If she spotted one, she would ring the tiny bell the crew had placed there for her, and that would wake the captain up.
#
Immy sat lookout for a long time. Not too long, just long enough.
Eventually, she saw another ship approaching, its dark sails almost invisible in the deep night, but not to her, because she was a cat, and could see well in the dark, especially if the stars were out, and the sea was calm, like today.
As it approached, it became clear the ship’s sails were not the only thing that was black. The hull was, too. Just like Immy! She immediately liked it. She was so excited, she even forgot to ring the bell as the ship approached, only remembering to ring it when their hulls touched. The sound echoed over the waves, clear and bright, and below her, she could see the captain stir.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Ha! She had been right. As always.
The ship was about as big as Immy’s, but she could have sworn it had looked far bigger from the distance. She could only spot a single person on board, a tall, pale man wearing dark oilskin and holding something that looked like a harpoon, but with a bigger metal part.
Immy climbed down the rigging to welcome the stranger aboard, as was her duty as a captain. For his part, the man just watched her. Or at least Immy thought he was watching, it was hard to see his face under his dark oilskin hat.
Landing on the deck with all four feet, Immy saw that the Captain had gotten up, but a different captain lay next to him, with the stupid thief cat, and the flies, and the hole where the loud fly had bitten him still on his chest. She rubbed against his legs, and he smiled, but it was a sad smile, and when he tried to pick her up, Immy slipped through his fingers to stand atop the starboard railing, facing the stranger.
“Hello,” Immy said.
“Hello,” the Stranger said. It sounded weird. Like the strange, beardless men the crew sometimes visited when they were ashore.
“I’m Immy.”
“Hello, Immy. You are a very good cat,” the stranger said, stating the obvious.
“Do you want to come aboard?” Immy asked. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t really know what to say. There had to be some procedure, but she didn’t know it.
“Oh, no, I was actually looking to pick you up,” said the stranger.
That was odd. Why would Immy want to be picked up? She had her own boat and could go wherever she wanted.
But the Captain looked at Immy again--still sad even when Immy pressed her head against his legs--and put his foot on the railing. Then, with one jump, he boarded the other vessel. Immy didn’t quite know how to feel about that.
“Are you coming?” asked the stranger. It sounded calm and welcoming. Nice, almost. But Immy couldn’t.
“A captain can’t leave her vessel,” Immy said.
“Oh?” said the stranger. “I think that’s alright. Your captain did, too.”
Immy shook her head. “He didn’t! That was the crew, they made him go. He got bitten by a loud fly, and they put him into my ship so I could keep him company until the bite goes away.”
The stranger looked at Immy for a while longer, then he jumped on the ship with an odd motion that didn’t look or sound like jumping at all. More like gliding.
“Are you a bird?” Immy asked, immediately suspicious.
The figure laughed, bent down a little, and scratched Immy between the ears, and so all was forgiven. Then the stranger walked over to the other Captain still sleeping on her ship. With a slow, deliberate flick of the weird harpoon, a thin bit of yarn that Immy hadn’t even seen before came undone, and on the other ship, Immy's Captain sighed and went below deck.
“Don’t you want to follow him? See what’s down below?” the stranger asked, and that sounded very enticing indeed and made her whiskers twitch, but Immy shook her head again.
“I won’t leave the ship.”
“Even if it goes under?”
Immy didn’t really know what that meant, but she shook her head again nevertheless. “A captain stays until the very end.” She didn’t quite understand what that meant, either, but her Captain said it over and over—more than three times—when the crew had lowered her boat into the water, and so it must be true.
“You are a very good cat,” the stranger said, rightfully, and in one fluid motion picked Immy up, sat down on the small bench opposite the rudder (underneath the tarp, where it was nice and shaded during the summer), and nestled Immy into the dark oilskin that didn’t feel like oilskin at all. Then the stranger started petting her in earnest, and Immy started to purr.
The robed figure held the Captain’s book up close, so close it almost touched the dark hat, and leafed through it. With a sigh and what felt like a wink at Immy, the book vanished into the oilskin.
“That’ll be our little secret, okay?” the stranger whispered conspiratorially.
Immy, who loved a good conspiracy and adored secrets, rolled to her back and presented her belly for petting. She got what she wanted, and so adequately bribed, she nodded. “Sure. What are you going to do with it?”
“Bring it to the shore,” said the stranger. “To the right place, where it needs to be so it can be found.”
“Are you a courier?” Immy asked because she liked couriers. They were the nicest kind of passengers.
The figure chuckled. “In a way, yes.”
“And you sail the ocean in your ship and bring things where they need to be so they can be found?”
“Yes!” the stranger said and laughed.
“That sounds nice,” Immy said. “I will do that, too, with my ship.”
“Oh? All alone? Just you and your ship, little Immy?”
“I would have liked the Captain to be here, too. But he needs to go back to his own ship, doesn’t he?”
The figure just nodded and resumed petting Immy.
“Then yes,” Immy said.
“Do you know that sometimes, it takes a long, long time to get everything to its right place?”
“No, I didn’t know that…” Immy said, eyes opening slowly as she thought. Then they closed again, content. “But whenever I wanted back into a cabin, all I had to do was paw at the door, meow loudly, and it would open. So whenever I want to go back to the ship and the captain, I will just find you and you will let me back in.”
The figure tilted its head at this statement of self-evident and true fact, but eventually, it seemed as though a smile flashed in the shadow under the dark hat, and the figure nodded.
“Of course, Immy,” the figure said and got up. Immy was lifted by strong arms and deposited behind the wheel, where a captain like her belonged.
The stranger petted her one last time, then jumped back to the black vessel. The wind picked up and carried Immy forward, and when she turned to look over the aft, there was another boat behind her, with the sleeping captain and the thief cat in it, and there was a long rope that connected them.
“Here, let me…” the stranger said, and it sounded close even though Immy couldn’t even see the black ship anymore.
“Nono, don’t worry,” Immy said, extended her claws, and cut the rope close to where it was attached to her own ship. With the ballast gone, her sails bellowed, pushing her forward into the starry night.
----------------------------------------
As the 20th century progressed, and inventions such as radar and the radio revolutionized naval safety, rumors of Ghost Ships became increasingly rare. Still, a few of the most curious legends remain, with the myth of the Immortality being chief among them.
Several eyewitnesses from all over the world have recounted tales where late at night after an unfortunate death aboard vessels of various shapes and sizes, they spotted a ship sailing besides their own from the corner of their eyes. Each story varies, of course, but all of them have two things in common: The ship in question was a sailing vessel, with at least one, but up to as much as a hundred sails; and when the wind was quiet and the motor was turned off, a faint meowing could be heard across the waves.
-Naval Myths of the 20th Century and Beyond, 1st Edition.