The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Early in May a new Commanding Officer was appointed, Lieutenant-Commander Schelle. A strict disciplinarian, he refused to tolerate “any damned nonsense about ghosts”, and made it clear that any man who so much as mentioned the word would have cause to regret it. As if in justification of his uncompromising attitude the fearsome tales died down, and the next two operational cruises were without incident. In June, however, the ghost reappeared, and two men deserted rather than sail in that haunted ship. They were arrested and tried by court-martial, but they sturdily maintained that nothing would induce them to return to U65. Sentenced to death, both were reprieved and drafted to a penal battalion on the Western Front. (One, at least, survived the war, and wrote an excellent account of his experiences in the submarine in a journal devoted to psychical research.)

On 30 June, U65 sailed on what was to be her last voyage. True to form, her death was to be as mysterious as her life, for no real explanation of her loss was ever found. The main facts, however, are well authenticated.

Early in the morning of 10 July the US submarine L2 was patrolling at periscope depth nine miles off Cape Clear on the southern Irish coast. Suddenly she sighted a German U-boat on the surface, cruising slowly as she charged her batteries. She was U65. Conditions were ideal and the American captain manoeuvred his vessel into the attacking position. He was about to give the order to fire when there was a tremendous explosion. As soon as the mountain of water had subsided the startled officer saw that his prospective victim had vanished, leaving masses of wreckage and oil-slick on the calm surface.

There have, of course, been a number of theories to explain her destruction. She may have been torpedoed by another German submarine in mistake, for there were a number of these operating in the vicinity at the time, but I have been unable to trace any official report to that effect. It is also possible that yet another defective warhead (as had happened at the outset of her career) had exploded, setting off a chain reaction among the others. That would account for the tremendous violence of the explosion which L2 had noted.

The explanation of this strange story? There is none that I can see. In 1921, Professor Dr Hecht, a very distinguished psychologist, conducted a profound investigation into the whole matter, seeking out and questioning as many witnesses as he could trace. He had access to the archives of the German Admiralty, but even with these facilities he could produce no satisfactory explanation of the haunting of U65. As a man of science he naturally deprecated any suggestion of the supernatural, but in his conclusion he rather ruefully, as it seems to me, refers to Hamlet’s dictum to the sadly puzzled Horatio.

There are also more things in the sea than our philosophy can yet compass.

“Vengeance Is Mine”

Algernon Blackwood

Location:  Louvain, France.

Time:  March, 1918.

Eyewitness Description:  “The spell of this woman’s strange enchantment poured over him, seeking the reconciliation he himself could not achieve. Yet the reconciliation she sought meant victory or defeat; no compromise lay in it. . .”

Author:  Algernon Blackwood (1869–1951), like Arthur Machen, was a rebel against conformity and turned his back on a strict religious upbringing to travel across North America and make his living as a reporter and short story writer. One of his earliest successes was “A Haunted Island” (1899), a narrative in the first person set on a remote Canadian island haunted by a murderous Indian, which bears the hallmarks of personal experience. Later stories were to contain similar ingredients of supernatural insight and after Blackwood had become a familiar figure broadcasting on UK radio and television, he was labelled, “The Ghost Man”. During the First World War, he was initially a Red Cross worker and then recruited for “secret service” work, following in the footsteps of Somerset Maugham to operate a network of agents in France and Switzerland. From his war experiences came several short stories including, “Wireless Confusion”, “The World-Dream of McCallister” and particularly “Vengeance is Mine”, which has echoes of Arthur Machen’s classic. Here, the narrator is pondering if the ancient gods are favouring not the British, but the Germans, and finds himself thrust into a horrifying situation when the soul of a terribly wronged young woman demands the sacrifice of an enemy POW.

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