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Synopsis
Against a backdrop of Victorian-era political tensions and advances in science and technology, the Nautilus’ crew venture across the world’s oceans to further their twin missions of science and liberty by exploring shipwrecks, aiding the oppressed, and supporting freedom fighters. But everything changes for Nemo when a shocking naval crisis leads to confrontation with his most dangerous foe yet, a zealot whose actions could alter the international balance of power.
Release date: June 7, 2021
Publisher: Blackbyrd Press
Print pages: 261
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The Lone Captain
Lewis Crow
1
I am grateful for the warm reception given to my first volume of autobiography. Mine has been, to say the least, a very unusual life. At age 37 I learned that my father, who disappeared after the tragic 1863 Polish rebellion, became the infamous Captain Nemo—a man who explored the ocean depths in his submarine Nautilus while exacting revenge on Russia for what that nation did to him and his countrymen. When an American scientific expedition found the sunken Nautilus, I salvaged and refurbished her. With my own crew, I continued Papa’s nobler work of studying the sea and aiding oppressed people across the world.
We spent January 1895 cruising around the northern Indian Ocean while conducting our customary observations and data-gathering. The Chagos Archipelago, Agalega Islands, Amirante Isles, and Cargados Carajos Shoals were among the island chains whose waters we navigated.
Moving southwest around the African continent at 40 knots, our ship reached the southeastern Atlantic on February 9th. We surfaced at 6 p.m. to get a fresh navigational fix. Stepping out on deck with Brian Innes, my Canadian first officer, I found the air brisk and invigorating.
As he shot the evening sun, I noticed a peculiarity about the water. It had a dirty, discolored look with a pinkish cast and piqued my curiosity. Either we had stumbled upon a previously unknown phenomenon, or something was not right in this part of the ocean.
Brian noticed it, too. Our inquisitive minds came up with no explanation, but we were reasonably sure the stain did not originate below the surface. We decided to follow it and see if its source could be located.
I returned to the wheelhouse. “Ahead slow. Mr. Hawkins, steer course three-two-five. I want to see where this strange patch of water leads.”
Brian temporarily relieved Lavakos, my sharp-eyed Greek lookout. Scarcely half a mile north from our starting point he saw an odd-shaped gray blob float by. Then another, followed by several more. He called out, “Large object dead ahead, sir. And the water. . .it’s red!”
“Crimson it is, sir,” Gustafson, the engine room telegraph operator, chimed in.
“Stop engine! Let us drift with the current for a while, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Innes, get Dr. Sommaire and join me topside.”
I knew what was going on but prayed I was somehow wrong.
In two minutes, Bertrand, my French physician and childhood friend, appeared on deck and confirmed my dark suspicion. “That is blood in the water!” He sniffed the air. Curling up his nose, he gasped, “What is that smell?”
“Dead fish,” Brian answered as he struggled against nausea.
“Dead whales,” I corrected him.
Moments later, the “large object” Brian saw drifted past. It was the carcass of an infant southern right whale. The corpse bumped into the Nautilus, its left fin moving back and forth with the waves as if beckoning for help.
I was furious and sickened. With petroleum so plentiful, the continued senseless massacre of whales was unfathomable to me. No innocent animals have ever been hunted as savagely as the cetaceans. Many species are perilously near extinction, all for the sake of perfume and ivory.
Our journey northward would have to wait. There was a whaling ship in the area, and regardless of nationality, her skipper would answer for this. To “have dominion over the fish of the sea” is one thing, but such butchery is quite another.
Ironically, with so much blood in the water, it became easier for us to follow the trail of the whaling ship. Just before sunset, we came upon her. A dead right whale had been hoisted aboard, and the ship’s crew was wasting no time in carving it up and heaving the unwanted pieces overboard.
Even Gustafson, probably the most stoic man aboard, was moved to disgust by what he saw.
The ship was a small two-masted steamer, about 175 feet in length, with a single funnel. From her mainmast clearly flew the flag of Norway. As I watched through my spyglass, she stopped and prepared to drop anchor for the night.
The Nautilus remained a safe distance back and, with the approaching dark, was not observed by the whaler. That is what I wanted, for it gave me time to decide on an appropriate response. I called a meeting of the officers in the library to discuss the situation.
“Papa would have sent them straight to the bottom. We, however, cannot consider such an option. We must intervene and stop the slaughter, but not with violence.”
My Second Officer, William Pendergast, said, “A force more powerful than either ship is at work here, namely economics. You would be asking them to give up their way of life.”
“Whaling is dying out, due in no small part to the fact whales themselves are dying out. If the Norwegians must do this to survive, then something deeper is wrong with their country.”
“Which we cannot fix,” William added.
“Why would they come to the South Atlantic?” Brian asked. “It’s about as far away from home as they can get.”
“To hunt whales in the Antarctic, the only place their numbers haven’t been decimated.”
“This is only one ship from one country. Is turning it away really going to make any difference?” Bertrand wondered.
“Tammar was one tyrant in one country. Did eliminating him get rid of tyranny? No. Did it make a difference? Most certainly. Granted, we can’t stop Norway’s whaling industry alone. But perhaps we can convert one crew, make a believer out of one captain, and send him back home. That’s all it takes. Look at what William Wilberforce did for the cause of abolition.”
“Our goal is not quite as important,” Bertrand softly noted.
“But no less necessary. Now, in the morning what is the most effective thing we could do?” I asked.
Brian said, “The Nautilus can scare the bejeebers out of them by appearing as the ghost of that whale they just killed.”
William looked at me. “Perhaps, but we could also end up looking rather foolish if our light show doesn’t put the fear of God in them. The best choice I see is to use the Nautilus as a buffer. Interpose the ship between their harpoon gun and the next whale. At the very least, it will distract them.”
Nodding, I said, “Yes. Our practical options are rather limited, unfortunately. Does anyone object to William’s suggestion?”
The others shook their heads.
“Then that will be our plan. We shall dog them until they acknowledge us. When I have their audience, I will need a translator. I don’t speak Norse.”
“Bjornson, the engine room machinist, is bilingual,” Brian pointed out.
“Good. Please tell him to join my bridge crew at first light.”
“He’ll have the time of his life, I’m sure.”
In the next few minutes, we worked out some final details, and I was ready to dismiss the meeting. “I should emphasize one point before you leave. This is a unique moment in our travels, because it’s the first thing we’re attempting which is both scientific and political. As men who respect the sea and everything in it, we have a moral duty to protect these animals. And make no mistake, whaling is a dying industry. I only hope it becomes extinct before whales do.”
At sunrise, the Norwegian vessel raised anchor and headed southwest once she got up steam.
Partially submerged, the Nautilus shadowed her inconspicuously. We would take action at the most dramatic moment, when she was pursuing a whale and ready to harpoon it. With the crew’s attention focused on the creature, we would seem literally to come out of nowhere.
Around nine, Lavakos spotted a right whale nearly a mile to starboard. The Norwegians saw it, too, and within minutes we were increasing speed to keep up with them.
Bjornson, my soon-to-be translator, watched his ancestral countrymen’s ship with a mixture of interest and fear. “Sir, you won’t hurt them?”
“No. My aim is to persuade, not attack.”
He relaxed considerably.
As the chase went along, I told Hawkins, “Drop back and stay on her port quarter. That will give us sufficient room to maneuver if we have to make a sharp turn.”
The whale may have sensed it was being pursued, for I noticed a change in its behaviour. As soon as the Norwegian ship started following, the creature ceased its playful moves and began fleeing like a fugitive.
The pursuit moved at approximately fifteen knots. When I saw one of the Norwegians man the harpoon cannon, I knew it was time.
“Increase speed to 20 knots. Mr. Hawkins, when we pull ahead of them, immediately execute a hard turn to starboard and cross their bows.”
“Won’t we collide, sir?”
I smiled. “Not with you at the helm.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the Brit answered.
“And don’t hit the whale. That’s a given.”
As the Nautilus burst into view, I observed several of the Norwegian crew point at us with amazement.
Barely a hundred feet from the hunter, the submarine veered sharply across her path just as the harpooner fired his gun. I heard the deadly spear clank against the side of the ship before it fell into the sea.
Bjornson kept his eye on the whale and assured me the creature got away safely.
“Hard a-port. Cross their bow once more.”
The Norwegians shot at us again, this time deliberately. The result, however, was the same.
I began to enjoy the game. “Hawkins, circle them a couple of times.”
Before we completed our second go-round, the befuddled Scandinavians came to a complete halt and were no doubt trying to figure out what the Nautilus was.
I told Hawkins to bring us alongside the vessel. When we stopped, I sent Bjornson out on deck to deliver my initial message. To say the least, he had an interested audience!
“My captain,” he shouted in their tongue, “offers greetings to you, fellow men of the sea. This ocean is our home, as it is yours. However, we are not the only inhabitants. Remember, on the fifth day, ‘God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly….’ This is their world, and we are but foreigners. My captain wants to speak privately with your captain. May he come aboard?”
The man whom I took to be the Norwegian commander made his way to the railing. He was short and stocky, with snowy white hair and a beard to match. Sounding more than a little nervous, he cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled back, “No, stay there! I—I will come to you.”
Bjornson translated for us.
Standing with me near the open hatch, Brian laughed. “I think we’ve put the old man in a state of shock.”
I saw no humor in the situation. “That was not my intention at all. I must go out of my way to reassure him.”
The Norwegian hurriedly climbed down a Jacob’s ladder and gingerly stepped over the small gap between his ship and ours. He stood on the aft deck as Bjornson and I came to greet him.
We went through introductions, and I learned I was dealing with Captain Edvard Knutson of the Stavanger. “If you wished to get my attention, Captain Nemo, you have it.”
“I believe I’ve also caused you needless fear. I assure you I mean no harm to your vessel.”
He was visibly relieved.
“I bear no ill will toward you. Your actions, though, are unconscionable. Last night, we found a dead infant whale floating among pieces of what was probably its mother. How would you feel about someone killing you in utero and then cutting your mother apart?”
“Captain, that question is offensive!”
“So is the trade which you engage in! Whalers are responsible for nearly wiping out these animals altogether. You know man was not born with a harpoon in his hand. He learned to kill to get what he didn’t have. But that’s the way it’s always been, isn’t it? Using whales gave us better lamps and candles, lots of ivory, and sweet-smelling fragrances for the ladies. Whaling was good for industry, good for shipbuilding, and good for sailors.”
Knutson’s eyes got wide. “Especially good for us. Do you wish to take away our means of putting food on the table? Shall I send my family to the poorhouse? It is easy to criticize when you have no country and no responsibility to others.”
“Whaling is rapidly declining. Someday soon, the force of economic reality will hit all of you, and you’ll have no choice but to abandon this increasingly unprofitable enterprise. What then? How will you feed your families?”
“The Antarctic is a fertile whaling ground, and should remain so for years to come.”
“You don’t understand. Whether the animals are plentiful or not, whaling is obsolete. Whale oil is simply not needed anymore. A nation that depends on a dying industry is headed for disaster. Stop the killing, go home, and put your energies to the task of building for tomorrow. Better to do it now, while you have time, than to wait until you’re forced into it. Norway is a great nation, but it need not continue this savage harvest.”
“If I stop hunting, my fellow captains will mock me and take the income that should be mine.”
“Are you a man without influence or respect? Talk with your peers. Whalers can become fishermen. Developing better techniques can mean better catches.”
“The men would never understand. All they would see is the loss of work. Besides, who are you to talk to us like some god of the deep?”
“I have a responsibility to speak out and take action against abuse of the sea, whether it be using the ocean as a battlefield or obliterating these benign creatures. Is your heart so pure you can lecture me without hypocrisy?”
“I ask you the same.”
Clearly, we were doing nothing more than debating. I had to try another approach. “Have you ever wanted to change the world, even just a small part of it?”
“I suppose we all dream that, sooner or later.”
“My men and I are actually doing it. I would like you to help us.”
“What you ask is impossible.”
I touched his shoulder. “Captain, we could argue for hours. Neither of us exactly has an open mind. From your perspective on the world, the views you hold are completely natural. I once saw the ocean only as you see it, from above. I invite you to come with me for half an hour and see the deep as it really is.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about that. I need to get back to my ship. I—”
“Please, go into the Nautilus. She welcomes those who seek to understand her realm. It is perfectly safe.”
He still wavered.
“Consider this: you will never have another chance to view the sea from the inside out.” I began walking back to the hatch with Bjornson.
“Wait, Captain!” he shouted. Looking up to his crew he said, “I am going with this man. I will return in 30 minutes. Anchor here and wait for me.”
Bjornson and I escorted Knutson belowdecks to the salon. On the way, I paused briefly at the wheelhouse to give Brian sailing instructions.
The three of us settled down in front of the starboard viewing port, and I opened the panels as the ship submerged.
Though the Norwegian’s reactions were predictable, they reassured me, nonetheless. He stared in awe at the shimmering blue of the water and fish darting by. When we passed near a small pod of whales, they paid us little heed, and he could not help but notice. The Nautilus was one of them.
Just watching their movements made an impact on him. Their grace and elegance, obvious only underwater, gave them an aura which commanded respect and could not be denied, even by one of their enemies. The man’s eyes sparkled with reverence as he took in the majesty of the scene. A veteran whaler was being transformed.
The time went by all too quickly, even for me. I never tired of this tranquil view, and the pleasure of sharing such an experience with someone who really needed it made me even more appreciative. I had no doubt I won Knutson over.
Right on schedule, the Nautilus surfaced alongside the Stavanger. Bjornson and I escorted the captain up on deck.
Quietly, he said, “I am indebted to you, Captain Nemo. You have softened my old heart. Your world is too beautiful, and the whales have more right to be here than I.” He glanced over at his ship. “I know mine is a dying business. I’ve known for some time. I was scared to admit it, because I worry about the future. But you are right. Its end is coming, and no one can alter that.
“I will do what I can to help at home. As you pointed out, I have some influence among my fellow captains. But first...I have to convince my own men.” He sighed. “Of one thing I am sure. Whatever else happens, I can never hunt another whale. Not after what I’ve just seen.”
“When the last harpoon is finally gone, it won’t be just the whales who benefit. Men will have regained a bit of civility.”
He shook my hand. “I must be going. Thank you again.”
“You are most welcome.”
He scampered back up the Jacob’s ladder, and the men eagerly crowded around when he set foot on deck. He had a mighty task before him.
Our work, however, was done. I followed Bjornson below, sealed the hatch, and took my station on the bridge. “Mr. Innes, plot a course for the west coast of the British Isles, speed 40 knots. Mr. Hawkins, take us northward. I shall be in the library.”
If all went well, the next item on our itinerary would go down as the most ambitious underwater project ever accomplished: locating and cataloging the wrecks of the Spanish Armada. To give an idea of the massive scope of this undertaking, I must retell a bit of history.
In 1588, King Philip II of Spain assembled a fleet of 130 ships and 27,000 soldiers and sailors to invade England. The English, however, were prepared, and their combined force of 90 fighting ships and 100 light vessels were commanded by competent and skillful seamen, unlike the Spaniards. The English ships were also more maneuverable, which gave them a decided advantage.
In a week-long battle, the Spaniards suffered heavy losses. The remnants of their invasion fleet were driven north of the British Isles where they ran into a brutal storm which wreaked havoc. Several ships went down along the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, and Norway. Only 60 vessels returned home, and this defeat put an end to Spanish naval power.
The task I proposed was therefore enormous. Our library contained a couple of books on the Armada, but neither of them mentioned the exact site of any of the ships which went down. I knew in all likelihood we would not be able to locate or explore each of the 70 wrecks. Deterioration did have a 300 year head start on us. Even if we found only a portion of the hulks it would be a milestone in underwater archaeology.
We came upon the southwest coast of England on February 19th. I held a meeting with the men to explain what I proposed to do. The magnitude and length of the project intimidated them. Even my officers found it overly ambitious!
My attitude was the same as when we attempted to cross under the North Pole. “I would rather try and fail,” I said to them, “than fail to try.”
So, try is what we did, and our efforts met with a good deal of success. I shall not attempt a detailed description of the operation, which lasted until October. Those who are truly interested can find an extensive discussion of our work in my scientific text, The World Below the Oceans, published in 1910.
I should, however, mention the results. In eight months of painstaking exploration and diving, we located 29 wreck sites in all, 26 off Ireland, two near Scotland, and one off England proper. I believe our information will aid future divers in finding other wrecks and in identifying the ones we visited.
I let the men have a few days off to thank them for their diligent work. The officers and I needed a break as well, since we had been busy assembling data and writing descriptions for each site. But it was not long before I went to work on preparations for our next task.
As I was leaving the bridge one evening, I invited William to join me for a private meeting. I told him, “It’s time to find the Monitor.”
Searching for the famed U.S. Union ironclad gave me a curious mix of feelings. It offered the chance to explore a unique modern shipwreck, something I could not possibly turn down, but it also served as a reminder of war’s wastefulness and a monument to men’s fascination with finding “better” ways of destroying each other.
The Monitor’s innovation, a freely revolving gun turret, made obsolete overnight the concept of fleets of ships firing fixed broadsides at each other. Her opponent in battle, the Confederacy’s Virginia, was a floating citadel. Armored warships were nothing new in 1862, but these two took the concept a step beyond.
Their one and only engagement, the Battle of Hampton Roads, actually ended in a draw, with both ships taking important hits in a prolonged gunfight. Because the Monitor’s presence prevented the Virginia from further menacing the Union fleet, the little “tin can on a shingle,” as the craft was derisively called, is given a marginal victory by historians.
The Confederate ironclad was later blown up to prevent her capture, but the Monitor fared no better. She sank with the loss of sixteen men on December 31, 1862 while being towed near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina—our next destination.
William and I dug through the two volumes on the eastern U.S. seaboard which the Nautilus’ library contained. Our resources on the American Civil War were even more limited: three history books, one of which I purchased in Australia, of all places. We had nothing to show us the location of the Monitor, so our search would be anything but easy.
It took the better part of nine days to reach the Carolina coast. We arrived on October 28th, well after sunset. I spent the evening with Brian and William, trying to work out a search strategy.
The area where the Monitor went down is nicknamed “Graveyard of the Atlantic” with good reason: several hundred shipwrecks line the bottom. Finding one, 172 foot-long vessel posed quite a challenge. With the scant information available to us, the odds were even higher. Fortunately, we had a hidden asset—William himself.
My Second Officer had not made his suggestion to search for the Monitor on a whim. The ship had been a mild obsession with him for years. Discovering and exploring it was an unreachable dream for my diving archaeologist, until the day he joined the Nautilus’ crew.
The facts about the ironclad which he committed to memory somewhat compensated for our lack of written information. He had studied the sinking and postulated the general vicinity where the wreck ought to be. Still, even with his efforts, we were left with a search area encompassing almost 100 square miles of underwater terrain.
Before the meeting was over, we divided the area into grids and established a systematic schedule for going through them. Lookouts would be posted in the salon as well as on the bridge. I knew we would find the elusive wreck. The only question was when.
“When” proved to be nearly a week after the search began. It was the morning of November 3rd, and since the Monitor was discovered so early in the day, we were able to spend several good hours diving and investigating it.
The wreck lay upside down in 220 feet of water. Her distinctive shape (oblong, with identically tapered ends) was unmistakable. Surprisingly, her revolving gun turret came loose during the sinking, and it was partially lodged under the port side of the hulk.
I had gotten out of the habit of diving, but I quickly donned my suit and went out with the first team. I resolved to do so more often and enjoy the pleasant feeling it gave me. I was getting too staid in my captain’s persona.
I wish I had been able to take a photograph of the unusual scene which lay before my eyes: the Nautilus and the Monitor, two unique and revolutionary vessels, side by side.
After 32 years underwater, not surprisingly, the ironclad was deteriorating. Marine life grew all over, and some of the iron plates were rusting away. Basically, it seemed to be intact.
Sketching from the salon window in the afternoon, William made some excellent drawings to go in our volume of scientific findings. I hope in the years to come more scientists will be able to go down to the site for observation and data collection. It really is an interesting wreck.
Despite the Monitor’s curious nature, I would not advocate any attempt to salvage its parts. My feelings about war are well-known, but I respect all graves, including those of combatants. At my suggestion, Bellaconte and Dietrich fashioned a small wreath out of seaweed and left it on the ironclad in memory of the men who did not escape her sinking.
We spent two days at the ironclad, then departed for yet another shipwreck site. The lower Florida Keys are perhaps the richest treasure field outside of Vigo Bay. In September 1622, a group of Spanish galleons loaded with wealth from the New World set sail for Spain. Some of them got caught in a hurricane and never made it.
The two wrecks we planned to visit, the Santa Margarita and the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, had been hunted before by others. Some salvage attempts were even made on the Margarita, but I knew we would do better. The Nautilus, after all, was immune to treacherous weather on the surface.
On November 6th, we anchored. Based on the information in Papa’s library and on an old Spanish map, we found the Margarita site within a few hours. The hard part came next. Much (and careful) digging was needed to uncover the ship’s treasure trove.
Of course, we had no professional salvage equipment, and that limited us in what we could bring up. However, what we did excavate from the silt was what we really wanted—gold coins and bars, jewelry, brass artifacts, and small instruments of many sorts.
Most of the treasure items badly needed cleaning, so William, Bertrand, and a couple of volunteers devoted themselves to chemically removing encrustation from the coins and delicate jewelry.
A week diving on the Margarita yielded a bounty for our treasure room. Still, I am quite sure we left behind far more than we took. Despite an additional week searching, we were not able to locate the Atocha. She remains hidden, for now.
One side benefit of all the diving we had done was a growing interest in the subject by other members of the crew. During our search for the Spanish Armada wrecks, the officers and I agreed that we needed more divers. I therefore opted to offer proper training to any man who wanted it. Only Hawkins, Pulaski (my cook), Lavakos, and Bertrand declined the offer.
Obviously, having sixteen available divers was advantageous in many ways. In the Armada operation, it allowed me to schedule diving in shifts and units, which enabled us to cover more area quickly. At the Margarita site, we were able to accomplish our work in half the allotted time.
We thought of ourselves quite properly as explorers, and on November 20th, we sailed for the island of Hispaniola, visited in 1492 by one of history’s most famous explorers, Christopher Columbus. The remains of his flagship, Santa Maria, lay off the north shore. We hoped to locate and positively identify her resting place.
According to Columbus’ diary, on Christmas Day the Santa Maria was wrecked on a reef near Cap Haitien, in what is now Haiti. She sank quickly, but with no loss of life.
Arriving off the Haitian coast on November 21st, we spent time poring over our navigational charts and trying to narrow down the site of the sinking. It looked as though this expedition was not going be as much fun as I had thought. In fact, it was no fun at all.
On paper, searching for the ship seemed to be one of the easier items on our itinerary, certainly much simpler than finding half the Spanish Armada. In actuality, it was a dismal failure. The divers spent ten days digging at the three most promising sites. For all their efforts, they unearthed a few handfuls of Spanish coins, two old bottles, broken dishes, a damaged sundial, and a patch of timbers which could not possibly have been old enough for Columbus’ ship.
Failure never has set well with me. Not since our unsuccessful attempt to cross the North Pole have I been so frustrated at the end of a dive. Brian tried to take the positive road and pointed out how some of the objects we found might have come from the Santa Maria, but that was not good enough for me. I wanted something that did come from her.
As December began, I decided to sit back and take a harder look at the kinds of expeditions we were undertaking. Some adjustment was probably needed.
I could at least take comfort from one fact: for our next project, gathering data in the Gulf of Mexico, success was practically guaranteed. Unfortunately, we never got there.
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