The storm that struck Whitby was one of the most sudden and violent storms anyone could remember.
The day had started warm and pleasant, just as an August day normally would. Thousands of holidaymakers had gone out to enjoy trips around Whitby, visiting places such as Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Runswick, and Staithes. The steamers Emma and Scarborough were also taking passengers along the coast.
Everything remained peaceful until the afternoon.
People sitting in the churchyard high on the East Cliff noticed strange, thin clouds spreading across the northern sky. An old fisherman who had spent more than fifty years watching the weather immediately became worried.
“A storm is coming,” he said firmly.
The coastguard also noticed the warning signs.
Yet the sunset was so beautiful that people gathered along the cliffs to watch it. The sky filled with brilliant shades of red, purple, pink, green, violet, and gold. Dark clouds stood out against the glowing colors like enormous black shapes.
Some artists hurried to sketch the scene.
Several local boat captains also decided they would not take their boats out until the weather had passed.
By evening, the wind disappeared completely.
Around midnight, the sea was almost perfectly calm. The air was hot and heavy, and there was an uneasy feeling in the atmosphere. Only a few lights could be seen at sea. Most boats had stayed close to shore or returned to harbor.
One foreign schooner, however, was still out there with all her sails raised.
People watched her anxiously.
“She must be foolish,” someone said.
“Or her officers don’t understand the danger,” another replied.
Some people even tried to signal the ship to lower her sails.
But the schooner continued on.
Later, the wind died almost completely, and the ship rolled slowly on the dark water, her sails hanging uselessly.
Shortly before ten o’clock, the silence became almost unbearable.
The people on shore could hear sheep bleating far inland and dogs barking in the town. Even the cheerful music from the band playing on the pier sounded strangely wrong against the unnatural silence.
Then, shortly after midnight, a strange sound came from the sea.
A deep, hollow booming echoed overhead.
And then the storm exploded.
The change was almost impossible to believe. Only minutes earlier the sea had been calm. Now enormous waves were rising one after another, crashing against the shore like a living monster.
White waves smashed onto the beach and rushed up the cliffs. Others broke over the harbor walls and sprayed the lighthouse lanterns with foam.
The wind screamed with such force that even strong men struggled to remain standing.
The police and coastguards ordered everyone off the piers.
“If you stay out there, people will be killed!” they shouted.
Then another danger appeared.
A thick sea fog began moving inland.
It came in cold, wet clouds that seemed almost alive. People shivered as the mist passed them. Some imagined that the spirits of sailors who had died at sea were reaching out through the fog.
Lightning suddenly tore across the sky.
For a moment, the sea became visible.
Huge waves rose like mountains, throwing enormous clouds of white foam into the air. Fishing boats struggled desperately toward safety. Sea birds were blown wildly through the storm.
On the East Cliff, the new searchlight was finally put into operation.
Its powerful beam swept across the sea whenever the fog briefly cleared.
At one point, the light revealed a fishing boat rushing toward the harbor with the water almost covering its sides.
The beam guided the boat safely between the piers.
A huge cheer rose from the people on shore.
But the excitement quickly turned to fear.
The searchlight soon found the foreign schooner.
She was still carrying every sail.
By then, the wind had shifted to the east.
The ship was heading directly toward a dangerous reef between her and the harbor. Many ships had already been wrecked there.
“There is no way she can make the harbor,” one old sailor said.
“She’ll have to hit something,” another said grimly.
The waves were enormous, and the schooner was moving at terrifying speed.
Then another wall of fog swallowed everything.
For several minutes, nobody could see the sea.
The searchlight remained fixed on the entrance to the harbor.
Everyone waited.
Then the wind suddenly shifted again, this time toward the northeast.
The fog began to break apart.
And suddenly the schooner appeared.
She was racing straight toward the harbor.
Wave after wave lifted her and dropped her again, but somehow she passed between the piers and entered the harbor safely.
The people watching could hardly believe their eyes.
Then the searchlight revealed something horrifying.
A man was tied to the ship’s wheel.
His head hung forward.
He was dead.
There was no one else on deck.
The schooner had somehow reached the harbor with a dead man still lashed to the wheel.
Before anyone could fully understand what they were seeing, the ship rushed across the harbor and crashed onto the sand and gravel at Tate Hill Pier.
The impact shook the entire vessel.
Ropes snapped tight. Wooden poles and other equipment crashed onto the deck.
Then something even stranger happened.
A huge dog suddenly jumped up from below deck.
It landed on the deck as if the impact had thrown it upward.
The animal raced to the bow, jumped onto the sand, and disappeared into the darkness beneath the cliffs.
No one managed to stop it.
At that moment, nobody was on Tate Hill Pier. Most nearby residents were either asleep or had gone up onto the cliffs to watch the storm.
The coastguard on duty ran down to the wreck first.
He climbed aboard and hurried toward the stern.
When he reached the wheel, he suddenly stopped.
The people watching from shore became curious and began running toward the pier.
The journey from the West Cliff to Tate Hill Pier was not short, but I ran as fast as I could.
By the time I arrived, a large crowd had gathered. The police and coastguards would not allow anyone onto the ship.
Because I was reporting for the newspaper, I was allowed aboard.
I was among the first people to see the dead sailor at the wheel.
It was a terrifying sight.
The man’s hands had been tied together around one of the spokes of the wheel.
A small crucifix hung between his hands, with a string of beads wrapped around both his wrists and the wheel.
The ship’s violent movement had dragged his body back and forth until the ropes had cut deeply into his flesh.
A doctor, Surgeon J. M. Caffyn of East Elliot Place, arrived soon afterward and examined the body.
“He has been dead for at least two days,” he said.
In the dead man’s pocket was a tightly sealed bottle.
Inside it was a small piece of paper.
It turned out to be the final addition to the ship’s log.
The coastguard believed the sailor had tied his own hands, probably using his teeth to tighten the knots.
The captain’s body was carefully removed from the wheel and taken away for an inquest.
Many people felt that he had died doing his duty.
One local man compared him to the famous young Casabianca, who remained at his post even when death was certain.
By morning, the storm had begun to weaken.
The crowds slowly went home, and the sky over the Yorkshire countryside began to turn red.
But the mystery of the strange ship had only begun.
The next day, more information became available.
The schooner was Russian.
Her name was Demeter, and she had sailed from Varna.
Most of her cargo consisted of silver sand and a number of large wooden boxes filled with earth or clay.
A Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, formally took possession of the cargo because it had been consigned to him.
The Russian consul also took official possession of the ship and paid the necessary harbor fees.
The whole town was talking about the strange arrival.
Everyone wanted to know what had happened aboard the Demeter.
People were also searching for the enormous dog that had escaped from the ship.
Members of the local animal welfare society tried to find it, but the animal had vanished.
Some believed it had fled onto the moors.
Others were worried because the dog seemed extremely dangerous.
That morning, a large half-breed mastiff belonging to a nearby coal merchant was found dead in the road.
It had clearly fought with another animal.
Its throat had been torn open, and its stomach had been ripped as if by a powerful claw.
Later that day, I was allowed to examine the Demeter‘s logbook.
The entries were complete until three days before the ship arrived in Whitby.
Most of the important information concerned the crew members who had disappeared.
But the most disturbing document was the small piece of paper found inside the bottle.
It contained the captain’s final record.
The Russian consul’s clerk translated it for me. Because time was short, some technical details about sailing and cargo had been left out.
The captain’s writing suggested that something terrible had happened aboard the ship.
It began on 18 July.
“Strange things have been happening, so from now on I will record everything carefully until we reach land.”
On 6 July, the Demeter finished loading her cargo of silver sand and wooden boxes.
At noon, the ship left Varna.
The crew consisted of five sailors, two mates, a cook, and the captain.
On 11 July, they entered the Bosphorus.
Turkish customs officers came aboard, collected the usual payment, and found everything in order.
On 12 July, they passed through the Dardanelles and entered the Aegean Sea.
On 13 July, they passed Cape Matapan.
The crew had begun acting strangely.
“They seem frightened,” the captain wrote, “but they refuse to tell me why.”
The following day, he questioned the crew again.
They were experienced sailors who had worked with him before, so he knew their behavior was unusual.
Finally, they admitted that something was wrong.
“There is something aboard,” they said.
They crossed themselves as they spoke.
The first mate became angry with them and struck one of the sailors.
The captain expected a fight, but strangely, everyone became quiet.
On 16 July, the first mate reported that one of the sailors, Petrofsky, was missing.
Nobody knew where he had gone.
He had taken his watch the previous night but had never returned to his bunk.
The other sailors were terrified.
“They said they knew something like this would happen,” the captain wrote, “but they still refused to tell me anything except that there was something aboard.”
The first mate was becoming increasingly angry with them.
On 17 July, another sailor named Olgaren came to the captain’s cabin.
He was visibly frightened.
“Captain,” he said, “I think there is a stranger aboard this ship.”
“What did you see?”
“A man. A very tall, thin man.”
“Where?”
“I was standing behind the deckhouse during the rain. I saw him come up the stairs from below. He walked toward the bow.”
“And then?”
“He disappeared.”
Olgaren followed the figure.
But when he reached the bow, nobody was there.
All the hatches were closed.
The captain worried that the man’s fear would spread through the entire crew.
So he decided to search the ship himself.
He gathered everyone together.
“If you believe someone is hiding aboard this ship,” he told them, “then we will search every part of it.”
The first mate objected.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “If we give in to these superstitions, the men will lose their nerve.”
He even said he could keep the crew under control with a handspike if necessary.
The captain ordered him to take the wheel while the others searched.
They checked every part of the ship with lanterns.
There were no hidden spaces large enough for a man to conceal himself. The only major objects aboard were the large wooden boxes.
They found nothing.
The crew were greatly relieved.
For the first time in days, they returned to work in a better mood.
The first mate remained angry but said nothing.
On 22 July, rough weather kept everyone busy.
There was little time to think about ghosts or strangers.
The crew seemed to have forgotten their fears.
The first mate became cheerful again.
They passed Gibraltar and entered the Atlantic.
Everything seemed normal.
But on 24 July, the captain wrote:
“There is some kind of doom hanging over this ship.”
Another sailor had disappeared.
He had finished his watch and then simply vanished.
The remaining men were terrified.
They asked for two men to stand watch together because they were afraid to be alone.
The first mate became furious.
The captain feared that either the crew or the mate might eventually kill someone.
By 28 July, the ship had been trapped in terrible weather for four days.
The sea was violent, the wind was screaming, and nobody had been able to sleep properly.
The men were exhausted.
The second mate volunteered to take the wheel so the others could rest.
The wind eventually weakened, although the sea remained dangerous.
On 29 July, another man disappeared.
The crew had been too exhausted to maintain double watches.
When the morning watch came on deck, nobody could find the man who had been standing watch.
Only the helmsman remained.
The captain and first mate searched everywhere.
Nothing.
Now the second mate was also gone.
The remaining crew were terrified.
The captain and first mate agreed to carry weapons from then on.
They intended to discover what was causing the disappearances.
On 30 July, the captain wrote that they were finally getting close to England.
The weather was calm, and all the sails were raised.
Exhausted, the captain went to sleep.
He was awakened by the first mate.
“Captain, both men on watch are gone.”
“And the helmsman?”
“Gone too.”
Only the captain, the first mate, and two sailors remained aboard.
On 1 August, they entered two days of thick fog.
Not a single sail could be seen.
The captain had hoped that once they reached the English Channel they could signal for help.
But they had too few men to work the sails properly.
They could only allow the ship to drift with the wind.
“We seem to be sailing toward some terrible fate,” he wrote.
The first mate had become even more frightened than the others.
The sailors themselves had stopped panicking. They simply worked quietly and waited for whatever was coming.
At midnight on 2 August, the captain woke after only a few minutes of sleep.
He heard a cry outside his cabin.
He could see nothing through the fog.
He rushed onto the deck and collided with the first mate.
“You heard it too?” the captain asked.
“Yes,” the mate replied.
“But the man on watch is gone.”
Another man had disappeared.
The first mate believed they had already passed the Strait of Dover.
“For a moment the fog cleared,” he said. “I saw North Foreland just as I heard the cry.”
The captain looked out into the endless fog.
They were now somewhere in the North Sea.
There was no way to know where they were going.
They could only pray.
On 3 August, the captain went to relieve the man at the wheel.
But when he reached the wheel, nobody was there.
The wind was steady, and the ship continued straight ahead.
He could not leave the wheel, so he called for the first mate.
A few seconds later, the mate rushed onto the deck wearing only his night clothes.
He looked exhausted and terrified.
He came close to the captain and whispered:
“It is here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what has been taking the men.”
The mate’s voice shook.
“I saw it last night. It looked like a man. Tall, thin, and deathly pale. It was standing near the bow.”
“What did you do?”
“I crept up behind it and stabbed it.”
He pulled out his knife.
“But the knife passed straight through it.”
He suddenly drove the knife into the empty air.
“It wasn’t solid.”
The captain stared at him.
The mate continued:
“It is still here. It must be hiding in the hold. Maybe inside one of those boxes.”
“You think it’s in the cargo?”
“I am going to open them one by one.”
He pointed at the wheel.
“You stay here and steer the ship.”
The mate hurried below with a toolbox and lantern.
The captain could only watch.
“He has completely lost his mind,” he wrote.
But there was no way to stop him while the ship was moving through the fog.
The captain remained at the wheel and continued writing.
“I can only trust God and wait for this fog to clear.”
A little later, he heard the mate working below.
Then came a sudden scream.
The captain’s blood ran cold.
The mate burst back onto the deck like a man being chased by death.
“Save me!” he screamed.
He looked wildly into the fog.
Then his expression changed.
He seemed to understand that there was nowhere to run.
“You should come too, Captain,” he said quietly. “Before it is too late.”
“What happened?”
“He is there.”
The mate’s voice became strangely calm.
“I know the secret now. The sea will save me from him. It is the only thing left.”
Before the captain could stop him, the mate climbed onto the railing and threw himself into the sea.
The captain stood frozen.
He now believed he understood what had happened.
Perhaps the first mate had murdered the crew one by one.
And now he had killed himself.
“God help me,” the captain wrote. “How will I ever explain this when I reach port?”
Then he stopped.
“When I reach port. Will I ever reach port?”
On 4 August, the fog was still there.
The sun rose, but its light could not penetrate the thick mist.
The captain had not dared leave the wheel all night.
Then, in the darkness, he saw it.
Him.
The captain finally understood why the first mate had been so terrified.
“God forgive me,” he wrote. “The mate was right to jump.”
But he refused to abandon his ship.
“I am the captain. I cannot leave her.”
He decided what he would do when his strength failed.
He would tie himself to the wheel.
And he would place the crucifix and beads around his hands so that the creature could not touch him.
“I will protect my soul and keep my honor as captain,” he wrote.
His strength was fading.
Night was coming.
“If the ship is wrecked, perhaps someone will find this bottle and understand what happened.”
“And if nobody finds it, then at least God will know that I did my duty.”
That was the end of the captain’s record.
The official inquest could reach no definite conclusion.
There was not enough evidence to determine what had happened to the missing crew.
Some people still believed the captain himself had killed them.
But almost everyone in Whitby considered him a hero.
The town planned a public funeral for him.
His coffin would be carried by boat up the River Esk before being brought back to Tate Hill Pier. From there, it would be carried up the Abbey Steps to the churchyard on the cliff.
More than a hundred boat owners had already volunteered to follow the funeral procession.
The enormous dog was never found.
People were disappointed and saddened by its disappearance.
The funeral was planned for the following day.
And so, for the moment, the strange arrival of the Demeter became another mystery of the sea.
On the morning of 8 August, I woke after a terrible night.
Lucy had been restless in her sleep, and I had barely slept either.
The storm had been frightening. The wind roared around the chimneys, and every sudden blast sounded like a distant cannon.
Strangely, Lucy never actually woke.
But twice during the night, she got out of bed and began dressing herself.
Luckily, I woke both times.
I quietly undressed her and put her back into bed without waking her.
Sleepwalking is such a strange thing.
Whenever I physically stop Lucy from doing whatever she seems determined to do, her purpose disappears completely. She simply gives in and returns to the familiar routine of her life.
Early that morning, we went down to the harbor to see what had happened during the storm.
There were very few people around.
The sun was shining, and the air was clean and fresh, but the sea was still wild.
Huge dark waves forced their way through the narrow harbor entrance. Their white foam looked like snow.
Watching them, I felt strangely relieved that Jonathan had not been at sea during the storm.
But then another thought came to me.
Was Jonathan actually safe on land?
Where was he?
What had happened to him?
I am becoming terribly worried.
If only I knew what I could do.
If only there were something I could do to help him.
On 10 August, the funeral of the poor captain took place.
It was deeply moving.
Almost every boat in the harbor joined the procession.
The captain’s coffin was carried from Tate Hill Pier all the way up to the churchyard by other sea captains.
Lucy came with me.
We arrived early and went to our usual seat.
The boats carried the funeral party up the river toward the Viaduct before returning.
From our seat, we could see almost the entire procession.
The captain was buried very close to us.
We stood on our old seat and watched the funeral.
Lucy seemed deeply disturbed.
She was nervous and restless throughout the ceremony.
I cannot help thinking that her strange dreams are beginning to affect her.
The odd thing is that she refuses to admit that anything is wrong.
Perhaps she doesn’t even understand what is troubling her.
There was another sad discovery that morning.
Old Mr. Swales had been found dead on our seat.
His neck was broken.
The doctor believed he had fallen backward in sudden terror.
His face still carried an expression of fear so terrible that the men who found him were shaken.
Poor old man.
Perhaps he had truly seen death approaching.
Lucy is unusually sensitive.
She seems to feel things that other people barely notice.
During the funeral, something happened with a dog that upset her terribly.
One of the men who often came to the churchyard to watch the boats had brought his dog with him.
The dog was always quiet.
I had never seen its owner lose his temper, and I had never heard the animal bark.
But during the funeral, the dog refused to come near him.
It stayed several yards away and began barking and howling.
The man tried speaking to it gently.
Then he became more forceful.
Then angry.
But the dog would not come.
It seemed almost possessed by terror.
Its eyes were wild, and every hair on its body stood straight up.
Finally, the man lost his temper.
He jumped down and kicked the dog.
Then he grabbed it by the neck and dragged it toward the stone where our seat was fixed.
The instant the animal touched the stone, it became completely quiet.
Then it began trembling violently.
It crouched against the ground, shaking with fear.
I tried to comfort it, but it was too frightened to respond.
Lucy felt sorry for it too.
But she would not touch it.
She simply stared at the poor creature with a look of deep distress.
I am afraid Lucy is too sensitive for her own good.
She feels everything so deeply that ordinary life itself may become painful for her.
I am certain she will dream about this tonight.
There is simply too much for her mind to process.
The strange ship arriving with a dead man tied to the wheel.
The crucifix and beads around his hands.
The captain’s funeral.
The dog that first became furious and then terrified when it touched the stone.
All of it will surely find its way into Lucy’s dreams.
I think the best thing I can do is make sure she is physically exhausted before bedtime.
So I am going to take her for a long walk along the cliffs to Robin Hood’s Bay and back.
Perhaps after such a long walk, she will finally sleep peacefully.