The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

I am not a deeply religious man, and before the war was avowedly irreligious. I did not have convictions that could be called atheistic, but they were certainly agnostic. The war brought me back to an acceptance of the doctrines of the Church of England. I suppose I believe in ghosts. Certainly in good and evil spirits. But all that speculation had always seemed unimportant – chit-chat for a winter’s evening at home, by a log fire, in the good old days of indifference. All thoughts of religious subjects, angelology, demons and what not were far from my mind that evening. I had no worries, other than the navigational one of successfully finding the island K.; and there was no obvious difficulty about that; I only call it “worry”, because I have never sailed anywhere without wondering whether I would find the place. It is difficult to describe what happened to me at six o’clock that evening, yet I must attempt it, for on it hangs the whole significance of this experience from a personal point of view. It was as if—. It is impossible to state it simply enough and sound credible. It was as if—. I woke up with a start, the sweat pouring off me. I trembled. The cabin was filled with an evil presence and it was concentrated twelve or eighteen inches from my left ear. Fully awake, I heard with my ear, so it seemed to me, the word “TOMORROW.” It was spoken clearly and quite loudly. Then the evil thing withdrew. Never have I felt so relieved at the departure of an unwanted guest as I was by that one. The electric light on the table, throwing its warm, yellow circle of light on the dark blue cloth, the books on the shelves, the luminous clock, the barometer, the coffee percolator, the chairs, a pair of sea-boots, an old sweater, an etching of New York on the bulkhead, all these things seemed so friendly and clinging, as if they had resented the intruder as much as myself. For there was no doubt of the meaning conveyed in that one word “Tomorrow”. A whole sentence had been condensed, with evil intent, into that word. It had said, in fact, “Tomorrow you will die an unpleasant death.” Now, death is a fearful thing, and often terrible, and much has been thought and written on the subject, but it has never preoccupied my mind. We are hedged in with platitudes about death . . . we must all die – that makes death seem easier and less important. The poems of Beddoes I have always found funny. Death held no special terrors for me, I’m convinced. But there was something in that evil experience which shook me. Not so much the personal, unpleasant message as the feeling that swept through me that this had been a devil’s voice, and if the workings of this curious world were controlled by devils, then life was the most wretched affair, human kind the saddest creation, children merely sent into the world to mock a man with. This was diametrically opposed to what I had always believed to be true. To have trusted such a voice would have been to banish God and render Christ ridiculous. “If I am to die tomorrow,” I said to myself, “why can I not be informed by an angel, or one of the fates, or the ghost of an angry saint, if I must be told supernaturally? Why must I be told by this evil, sneaking, contemptible thing?” That gave me hope, for there was something gossipy, hearsay and underhand about that voice. I went on to the bridge.

“Hullo,” I said.

“Hullo,” said Jimmy.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “You look white.”

“Do I?” Jimmy gave a direction down the voice-pipe. “If I do it’s because I feel a bit sick. Just had a bit of a scare. Don’t know what it was. Got the creeps. But it’s O.K. now.”

I was silent for a moment and looked round the horizon. It was getting dark, and all land had disappeared.

“How’s the barometer?” I asked.

“Steady.”

The Peter was beginning to roll a little – not an unusual occurrence even in a calm sea. But I didn’t like the soft sighing sound in the rigging. I do not think there is a more melancholy lonely sound in the world than that whine of wind on wires and ropes. Curious, but sometimes you hear it, and it makes you shiver, when you can hardly feel a breath of wind on your face. The air round the ship seemed quite gentle, but the sighing was there unmistakably. Then suddenly a hard, bleak puff of wind screamed down, turning the small black waves white, tugging at one’s hair, the flag, sending doors banging, lifting the heavy canvas lashed over the hold, raising the sadness in the rigging to a screech, and passing as swiftly as it had come. Oh, that depressing sound, and the cold, leaden splash of the bow wave breaking on the night sea! I sent for a duffel coat and remained on the bridge.