Darwinia

Her American captain, Truxton Davies, felt the urgency of the situation although he understood it no better than anyone else. He distrusted the Marconi system. The Oregon’s own radio rig was a cumbersome sparker, its range barely a hundred miles. Messages could be garbled, rumors of disaster were often exaggerated. But he had been in San Francisco in 1906, had fled along Market Street barely ahead of the flames, and he knew too well what sort of mischief nature could make, given a chance.

He had slept through the events of the night before. Let the passengers lose sleep gawking at the sky; he preferred the homely comfort of his bunk. Roused before dawn by a nervous radio operator, Davies reviewed the Marconi traffic, then ordered his Chief Engineer to stoke the boilers and his Chief Steward to boil coffee for all hands. His concern was tentative, his attitude still skeptical. Both the Olympic and the Kronprinzzessen Cecilie had been only hours east of the Oregon. If there was an authentic CQD he would have the First Officer rig the ship for rescue; until then… well, they would keep alert.

Throughout the morning he continued to monitor the wireless. It was all questions and queries, relayed with cheery but nervous greetings (“GMOM” — good morning, old man!) from the gnomish fraternity of nautical radiomen. His sense of disquiet increased. Bleary-eyed passengers, aroused by the suddenly more furious pounding of the engines, pressed him for an explanation. At lunch he told a delegation of First Class worriers that he was making up time lost due to “ice conditions” and asked them to refrain from sending cables for the time being, as the Marconi was being repaired. His stewards relayed this misinformation to Second Class and Steerage. In Davies’ experience passengers were like children, poutingly self-important but willing to accept a glib explanation if it would blunt their deep and unmentionable dread of the sea.

The gusty winds and high seas calmed by noon. A tepid sunlight pierced the ragged ceiling of cloud.

That afternoon the forward lookout reported what appeared to be wreckage, perhaps a capsized lifeboat, floating to the northeast. Davies slackened the engines and maneuvered closer. He was on the verge of ordering the boats prepared and cargo nets rigged when his Second Officer lowered his looking glass and said, “Sir, I don’t think it’s wreckage after all.”

They came alongside. It was not wreckage.

What troubled Captain Davies was that he couldn’t say what it was.

It bobbed in the swell, lazy with death, winter sunlight glistening on its long flanks. Some immense, bloated squid or octopus? Some part of some once-living thing, surely; but it resembled nothing Davies had seen in twenty-seven years at sea.

Rafe Buckley, his young First Officer, gazed at the thing as it bumped Oregon at the prow and slowly drifted aft, turning widdershins in the cold, still water. “Sir,” he said, “what do you make of it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what to make of it, Mr. Buckley.” He wished he hadn’t seen it ni the first place.

“It looks like — well, a sort of worm.”

It was segmented, a

The worm rolled as it fell away aft, exposing a slick white belly that had been scavenged by sharks. Passengers mobbed the promenade deck, but the smell soon drove all but hardiest of them below.

Buckley stroked his moustache. “What in the name of Heaven will we tell them?”

Tell them it’s a sea monster, Davies thought. Tell them it’s a Kraken. It might even be true. But Buckley wanted a serious answer.

Davies looked a long moment at his worried First Officer. “The less said,” he suggested, “the better.”

The sea was full of mysteries. That was why Davies hated it.

Oregon was the first vessel to arrive at Cork Harbor, navigating in the cold sunrise without benefit of shore lights or cha

This was both inarguable and impossible, and even the thought of it gave Captain Davies a sensation of queasy vertigo. He wanted to believe the navigator had brought them by mistake to some wild inlet or even the wrong continent, but he could hardly deny the unmistakable outline of the island or the cloud-wracked coast of County Cork.

It was Queenstown and it was Cork Harbor and it was Ireland, except that every trace of human civilization had been obliterated and overgrown.

“But that’s not possible,” he told Buckley. “Not to belabor the obvious, but ships that left Queenstown only six days ago are at dock in Halifax. If there’d been an earthquake or a tidal wave — if we’d found the city in ruins — but this!”

Davies had spent the night with his First Officer on the bridge. The passengers, waking to the stillness of the engines, began to mob the rails again. They would be full of questions. But there was nothing to be done about it, no explanation or consolation Davies could offer or even imagine, not even a soothing lie. A wet wind had risen from the northeast. Cold would soon drive the curious to cover. Perhaps over di

“And green,” he said, unable to avoid or suppress these thoughts. “Far too green for this time of year. What sort of weed springs up in March and swallows an Irish town?”

Buckley stammered, “It’s not natural.”

The two men looked at each other. The First Mate’s verdict was so obvious and so heartfelt that Davies fought an urge to laugh. He managed what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Perhaps tomorrow we’ll send a landing party to scout the shoreline. Until then I think we ought not to speculate… since we’re not very good at it.”

Buckley returned his smile weakly. “There’ll be other ships arriving…”

“And then we’ll know we’re not mad?”

“Well, yes, sir. That’s one way of putting it.”

“Until then let’s be circumspect. Have the wireless operator be careful what he says. The world will know soon enough.”

They gazed a few moments into the cold gray of the morning. A steward brought steaming mugs of coffee.

“Sir,” Buckley ventured, “we aren’t carrying enough coal to take us back to New York.”

“Then some other port—”

“If there is another European port.”

Davies raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t considered that. He wondered if some ideas were simply too enormous to be contained by the human skull.

He squared his shoulders. “We’re a White Star ship, Mr. Buckley. Even if they have to send colliers from America, we won’t be abandoned.”

“Yes, sir.” Buckley, a young man who had once made the mistake of studying divinity, gave the captain a plaintive look. “Sir… is this a miracle?”

“More like a tragedy, I should say. At least for the Irish.”

Rafe Buckley believed in miracles. He was the son of a Methodist minister and had been raised on Moses and the burning bush, Lazarus bidden back from the grave, the multiplication of loaves and fishes. Still, he had never expected to see a miracle. Miracles, like ghost stories, made him uneasy. He preferred his miracles confined between the boards of the King James Bible, a copy of which he kept (and left shamefully unconsulted) in his cabin.