Tudor Ghost Story Contest Winner

Tudor Ghost Story Contest Winner 2015

A Skeleton of a Ship in the Ghost of Water

By Katherine Marcella

October 11, 1982

“Come on Louise! We’ll miss the whole thing if you don’t hurry!”

“I can’t pedal any faster in this rain gear. Can’t I take it off?”

“No, you can’t. Someone will spot your school uniform and report us to Mrs Martin. Then we’ll all get in trouble.”

“We’re going to be in trouble anyway.”

“No, we won’t. Anne will just say it’s history and she wanted to see it, and Mrs Martin will excuse us as long as nobody else reports us.”

“This is too much trouble. Can’t we stop and have tea? Who wants to see some old shipwreck anyway?”

“Well, Anne wants to see it. If we stop for tea, we’ll be too late. And you want to see Prince Charles don’t you? He’s there.”

“Okay,” Louise sighed and started pedaling again.

“And make it fast. Anne’s probably already there.”

Louise and Jane were both breathing heavily when they pulled up to the agreed-upon spot close to Southsea Castle. Anne Doyle was waiting on the shore, sitting on the grass with her knees pulled up, her arms wrapped around them. Her gaze was out to the water where a giant crane was being deployed to lift what was left of Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose.

Louise glanced around the area and pouted. “Where’s Prince Charles? There are too many boats to see where he is. Does my hair look okay?”

Jane elbowed her in the ribs. “Wherever he is, he’s not going to be watching you, so who cares about your hair?”

Anne heard them and tore her eyes away from the crane. “I think he’s on the barge. Did you bring the binoculars?”

Louise dug into her pocket. “Here they are!”

Jane looked at them disdainfully. “I thought you were bringing proper binoculars. Those are opera glasses.”

“It’s all we had. Mum bought them at a charity shop. She calls them binoculars.”

“Well, I guess they’ll have to do when there’s something proper to look it. It shouldn’t be long now.”

Louise yelled, “There it goes! Right there!” The huge structure had been slowly inching its way upward. Now the yellow frame supporting what was left of the recovered ship broke the water. A screech of boat whistles and horns sounded, and a canon boomed from the castle near them causing Louise to drop the binoculars onto the sand.

“Here, give me those!” Maybe it was the urgent tone in Anne’s voice or maybe because she hadn’t been able to spot Prince Charles, but Louise passed them over immediately.

Anne lifted them and focused on the remains of the ship.

“That’s what I thought. They never had a chance,” she spoke softly. “The command to close the gun ports wasn’t given or was ignored after they fired from the port side. They were turning to fire the starboard guns at the French. But the wind gusted and tipped them too far. They heeled over, took on water, and sank.”

“That’s it?? Jane was skeptical. “They weren’t blown up? They just fell over? Then why didn’t the sailors just swim away?”

“A few swam off or clung to her mast, but most couldn’t. They were trapped below decks by the anti-boarding nets.”

“The what?”

“The ship had netting to prevent the French from coming aboard if they got close enough. But it just trapped the crew inside and they drowned like rats.”

“How could you possibly know that? You weren’t there.”

Anne lowered the binoculars and stood up. “Come on. That’s all to see. There’s time for tea and a sausage roll before we start back if you’d like.”

Louise’s eyes lit up as she righted her bicycle.

Anne smiled to herself. She had handled that well.

* * *

19 April 2001

“Fourth form, we’ll have twenty minutes here before we go down to the museum. Use your time wisely.”

I ignored the general murmurs of assent and pressed my nose to one of the large windows. The screens on the other side blocked out most of the view. Cupping my hands around my eyes to cut out the side light helped. What was left of the Mary Rose was propped up on scaffolding in a darkened room. Sprays of water and chemicals shot out at her from several directions and lingered in the air as billows of heavy mist. The ship was backlit by one weak light that shone through the gaps of her planking. The planks themselves poked up like broken ribs.

It looked like the skeleton of a ship in the ghost of water. Oh, that was a good one. I’d have to remember it to tell Mum. Maybe she could use it in one of her books.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see movement: just scamperings along the planks at first. But when I concentrated I could pick out people standing where the decks would have been. They must be the conservators. But they didn’t look like conservators, and, surely the wreck wouldn’t support all that weight. Re-enactors? They seemed to be wearing costumes. No, that would have been silly. They would have gotten all wet. I sighed. I had really been hoping there was a rational explanation, but I knew there wasn’t one. These people were the crew of the Mary Rose.

I should have expected it. Sudden violent deaths lead to spirits unable or unwilling to make a transition. That’s what Mum thought. They continued with their lives as they always had, not wanting to admit they were dead. I watched them, fascinated with how absorbed they seemed to be with whatever it was they were doing, as if the entire ship was still there…

“Daft Lucy is seeing ghosties again!” The shriek echoed down the broad viewing gallery. I tried not to hear the laughter that followed. I should be used to it by now, but it still hurt.

“Fourth form, queue up. And that means you too, Betsy Waller and Lucy Hughes. We’ll walk down to the museum.”

I took my place in the queue and refused to acknowledge the sharp poke in my ribs or the hiss in my ear. Daft Lucy! Mum was right. I should never have told anybody what I could see.

* * *

28 July 2015

“Excuse me … are you all right?”

The sound pounded me in waves. I heard words but couldn’t make sense of them. I was too deep, the distance too crushing. The sound — or was it a light now — was too far above, flickering, now here, now there. I tried to focus on it and claw my way up, hand over hand, arm over arm, feet kicking wildly. After what seemed an eternity, I broke the surface to find it wasn’t light or sound. A man’s face swam into focus. It was a longish face, regular features, and topped with a thatch of dark blond hair. The blue eyes staring at me showed concern.

I opened my mouth but managed to produce only a low moan. Maybe if I could figure out what had happened … I was on a bench, seated but doubled over, elbows to knees, shaking and gasping for air. The papers I had been carrying were scattered across the floor around my feet.

“Take your time.” His voice was soothing.

I nodded and started to release my cramped muscles one at a time, stretching arms and legs until I could sit up straight. I was still gasping, so I shifted my attention breathing.

“Yes, that’s it. Deep breaths. Do you think you can stand up? I’ll help you. Come on, I think I have just what you need.”

I still couldn’t trust my voice, but I let myself be led into one of the restoration labs in the lower floors of the Mary Rose Museum where my rescuer sat me down carefully at a large work table. He then moved quickly to a small kitchen area where he put a kettle to boil on a gas ring and pulled together a tray of tea things

I was better by the time my rescuer brought the tea tray to the table and poured two mugs out.

“No lemon, I’m afraid. I hope milk will do. And I suspect you haven’t have had lunch, have you?” He looked me carefully in the face. “No, I didn’t think so. You must have sugar then and a ginger biscuit or two.” He spooned sugar in my mug and opened the biscuit tin, shaking out several biscuits on a plate that he pushed across to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself … Jeffrey Elkins.” He extended a hand.

I took it immediately. “Of course, one of the metallurgists from Cambridge. You’re here early. The project isn’t starting up until next week. I managed a small smile at the surprise on his face. “I wrote up the press release last month. I didn’t know any of the team had arrived already.”

He lifted his mug to me. “And you must be L.A. Hughes, Public Relations and Media Enquiries?”

I laughed. “Obviously.” That was what my badge read. “Though I generally go by Lucy Hughes. And I owe you an apology and an explanation. I’ve just always had a bad reaction to seeing blood. I try to avoid it, but I can’t always, so sometimes …”

“You see them, don’t you?”

Daft Lucy. Daft Lucy.

“I don’t know what you mean.” My voice sounded tight, the words clipped. “As I said, I’ve always had a bad reaction to seeing blood. The doctors say it isn’t serious, but I get very light-headed. And I need to thank you for helping me. That was kind of you. This tea is delicious.” I took a swallow. “It is exactly what I needed.” I smiled as my mother had always suggested and tried to change the subject. “Is it a private blend?”

“There’s no blood out there. It’s just residual. It’s attached to that rather wicked-looking saw that went into the temporary display case this morning, the one you must have walked past to get to where I found you.”

Jeffry Elkins fingered his own tea mug and spoke softly. “The man whose blood you saw was a gunner named John Cobb. His hand and forearm were crushed when a canon broke loose and pinned his arm against one of the timber frames, or a ‘futtock’ as he calls it. The wound developed gangrene, and the surgeon on the ship had to amputate it to save his life. Something went wrong though — I suspect they didn’t cauterize it properly — and he bled to death. That’s why you see all the blood.”

“How could you have known that?”

“The common term for it is psychometry. I can’t physically see anything, but I can read histories, memories if you will, attached to objects. That saw belonged to a barber surgeon. And no, it wasn’t the Mary Rose‘s surgeon. He acquired these instruments after the death of the previous owner, the one who did the amputation. I’m not sensing any later memories than the one you can see and I can — for lack of a better word — intuit. I generally don’t talk about it much. I don’t think most people could understand. It’s nice when I find somebody who can.”

My words gushed out. “He was a strong man, John Cobb, barrel-chested, with thick arm muscles. He had skimpy blond hair pulled back behind his ears and a reddish complexion and close-clipped beard. I think they had to get him drunk before the amputation. He looked glassy-eyed, almost unconscious. And, as you said, there was a lot of blood.” I shuddered slightly. “Poor man.”

“Don’t you have a great deal of difficulty working here? There must be a lot of them around?”

I nodded. “More than you probably expect. But it’s not bad. Most drowned, so there’s no blood. The ones still here generally just go about their business and don’t interact with any live people. I occasionally see one look up with a puzzled expression, as if he’s suddenly become aware of the visitors and wonders what is going on. I can’t get any information from them like you can and like my mother can.”

“So you inherited it?”

“Yes, I believe so. She writes popular history books under her maiden name, Anne Doyle. She uses her ability for that. You’ll have to meet her some time when she comes down to Ports–“I caught sight of my watch and cursed under my breath. “I’m going to be late for a meeting … My papers?” I looked around me.

“Here.” He handed me my folder. “I picked them all up. I’m afraid I might have stepped on some of them though.”

“That’s not a problem. It was just some notes I had made. They’re replaceable.” I rose to leave. “Thank you. You helped me more than you know.”

He smiled. “Do come back again for tea. In fact,” he paused, “Would you like to go out for a glass of wine after work one day next week.

“Yes, I’d like that.” In fact I’d like that a lot, I thought as I headed for the lift and up to the main level.

I loved the new museum. It was so much larger than the one from my school days. The ship, now free of its water and chemical bath, was the centerpiece of the museum, as she had once been of Henry VIII’s navy.   The main level was always busy in summer. I inched my way through the crowds, marveling at the variety of languages to be heard. Some studies on the bones of the crew members suggested that many weren’t English. And Admiral George Carew, the commander of the Mary Rose the day she sank was reported to have complained, “I have the sort of knaves I cannot rule!” Perhaps the ship’s decks sounded like the museum now did?

One voice floated up from the cacophony: a child’s voice, a small boy, American I thought. He was behind me, near the Mary Rose herself. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t need to.

“But there are pirates there! There are! Can’t you see them? They’re all over the ship. Why can’t you see them?”

“Aidan, please. I need some coffee before we catch the train back to London.” That was almost certainly his mother.

“But there are pirates. I can see them!

“Listen, we’ve seen the whole museum and you know this was a war ship. It never had pirates on it.” I could hear her exasperation. “You watch far too many pirate movies. That’s why you see them all the time where there aren’t any. Maybe one day you’ll realise the truth is far more interesting than those movies.”

Yes, maybe one day, everybody will realise that…