Mariana is a popular story from the first issue of Tales of the Unreal. You can purchase issues of Tales Here. You can read them for free Here . Earlier this month, Mariana was read by Lucas Bineville for his youtube channel
By Daniel Gavilovski Read by Lucas Bineville
September 2nd, 1855
Being now the assistant cook to chef Mr. Fig Neil, following the disembarking of the previous assistant after the Ship's return to the Cape of Good Hope, I have been advised that it may be useful, and I agree, to keep note of HMS Mariana’s provisions on its voyage to Bimini. This includes its supply of good water, cutlery, glassware, tinned meat, fresh meat, livestock, vegetables, fruit, lime juice, spices, and any other foodstuffs relating to the ship kitchen. There are few things which evade such a description. Of sweet biscuit and cream I will take particular note, as the Mariana kitchen has experience being the lair of petty thievery of such confections. Probably deckhands. I have no issue with a biscuit disappearing every now and then, but the Royal Navy is founded on order and documentation, and I must embody my role and duty. Therefore – a record will be kept.
What is more worrisome than the biscuits are the fresh oranges which I have already found missing and unreported in the manifest. Immediately I suspected Mr. Fig Neil. As I've discovered, he has an affinity for secretly distilling fruity gin "for the officers", as he says. So I confront him in his quarters where he's asleep in his own sweat but he tells me that the produce was blue with mold when he checked on it and so, seeing it was unfit for crew or officer, threw it overboard with haste. To my ears, it sounds like a lie. How can two crates of oranges picked at an atoll go from tree to blue in two days? But both Mazlov and Evans on deck saw with their own eyes that the fruit was inedible. Noted in manifest.
Perhaps it is just how tropical fruits are but, just in case, I will wash down the storeroom of any black disease that might have caused this.
For the 5 officers of Mariana, dinner tonight will consist of two freshly slaughtered sucklings caramelized and stuffed with peacock liver and dates. Accompanied by aubergine roasted in butter, and baked potato. As dessert: crimson syllabub topped with bilberry and mint leaf.
For the crew of 87: tinned pork, fresh courgette roasted in honey, and boiled potato. As dessert: crimson syllabub mentioned previously.
No sign of gin...
September 5th, 1855
Raleigh the seaman along with surgeon Lezisky will be absent from dinner due to some injury the sailor sustained. The man is unable to hold his spoon apparently. Though the pain should already subside come the morning, Lezisky tells me he'll give Raleigh some laudanum and stay by his bedside tonight.
This comes as if in exchange for yesterday when, after having nothing but crew meals for three nights, Lieutenant Fitzroy finally quit his hunger strike and re-joined his fellows at the office table. If a certain Irish topman is to believed, the Lieutenant had a disagreement with the Captain so caustic that he refused to share a table with the good man until now. Something about wanting to turn the ship back – signs of bad winds.
He personally came down below decks to thank the chef but, finding only myself, invested in me his compliments. I had never seen someone quite so content and delighted as he (who had just devoured a golden brown pullet stuffed with mash and leek). He must have been starving. "Marvellous, boy," he told me. "Simply marvellous. And they taught you that in the Rochelle did they? Well my God, my saliva was like a waterfall at the very sight! Keep it up, my friend!"
It's such moments that make up the dessert of life.
Tonight for five officers: ortolan drowned in armagnac and braised in rouge, alongside vegetable moussaka topped with oriental tomatoes and dried parsley. As dessert: raspberry kaiserschmarrn with apple sauce.
For crew of 85: Boiled beef, roasted carrot and sweet potato mixed with oriental medley. As dessert: dried raisins.
September 6th, 1855
Surgeon Lezisky and the deckhand are back for dinner as expected. Though today is not the best day to have two hungry mouths to feed: during stock check I discovered an immense amount of items that have gone inedibly bad. This includes 2lbs of ham, 9 loaves of yesterday's fresh bread (blue as the sky), 2 crates of turnip, and 16 crates worth of potatoes which up until now had no green in sight but have each and every one exploded saplings. I cannot understand why these goods that were meant to last weeks more have gone bad so rapidly, just as the oranges did. If this is an indicator of some disease in the storeroom, I thought, then it'll only get worse unless something is done.
Chef Fig was too drunk for concern, so I alone spent the day carrying up and throwing overboard each item that seemed to have even the tiniest bit of disease, lest it spread further.
I've also moved all goods that are not tinned or salted to the spare armory on the gun deck, lest we have some airborne infection abound in the storeroom.
It's a strange place, this ship. The boards groan behind me.
September 7th, 1855
As I sit here in my quarters and prepare to write what I have just now seen, I find myself...in a state. Each time my pen touches paper it stalls from writing anything at all, as it seems as if I have missed some key fact which will make sense of a matter otherwise senseless – which will illuminate everything. But no matter how long I muse, no such fact comes to me and so I have no choice but to reconcile with what has happened not even a full day after moving the food store upstairs.
It is all rotten.
Each and every fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, flour, and bread. Rotten to the very core.
Even the salted meats and oatmeal, meant to withstand years, stinks so badly it makes me gag, as if it has all been stewing in the sun for decades. But it's not so. Not so. It was perfectly fine just yesterday. This – is a fact.
I am in disbelief. How could this have happened? Thinking logically now: is it possible that someone played a cruel trick on the kitchen? Has someone deliberately replaced our good food with rot? What's the motive? Perhaps they are disgruntled with the high quality of the officer's dining and, wishing to humiliate the royal hierarchy, have tainted their food as a form of protest. But this is ridiculous, surely. Potatoes are dined upon by even the lowliest deckhand. And the bread … By the time we reach Bimini we will have nothing to eat but the tins. The tins. Yes, they remain tight and unspoiled, and the hardtack crackers too are as edible as ever. And we can't forget about the livestock on the main deck, fresh and hot. Evermore a source of fresh meat. We will have good food yet.
... And anyway, why am I even entertaining such conspiracies? I have not in my short life come across a method of curdling butter or browning bananas. If this is the situation at hand, I must think about it soundly. I can't afford to run off on these wild mental chases. Clearly what is happening is a natural, albeit weird, phenomenon. I've told Chef Fig (to the extent that he’ll listen) and that's all I can do apart from carrying on with what's left.
I'm slowly regaining myself as I write this. Dinner is approaching fast, so I must think of something for Mariana to dine on.
Tonight for 5 officers: Roast pork, salted, peppered, and seasoned with coriander seeds, alongside tinned vegetables. For dessert: caramel.
For the crew of 83 (Raleigh bedridden again. And two other deckhands who have some ailment or other): hardtack with tinned vegetables. No dessert.
September 8th, 1855
It saddens me to say that Mister Arthur Raleigh will not be joining his fellows for dinner this evening nor ever again, as he passed away this morning from his ailment. Will be holding a wake this evening.
In addition, six more crew have become bedridden with ailments I know not of. That makes 8 missing crewmates as well as the good doctor.
September 9th, 1855
It's a good thing I got him to leave... I found him – Surgeon Lezisky – examining the cutlery and dishes this morning, wandering about the kitchen in his bedclothes as if he’d gotten lost on the way to the Head. He didn't notice me, so preoccupied was he with inspecting every tiny nook.
"Can I help you, doctor?"
"Not at all."
“Would you like something?”
“Just checking its vitals!”
This was all he said before he arose and left my kitchen. I think he suspects that something is off. And I have been wondering for a while about these patients of his. What is it that they're suffering from? What killed Arthur Raleigh? It cannot be scurvy, as the lime juice has remained unspoiled. If it was consumption wouldn't I and the rest of the crew have been checked by now?
Then the whole riddle seemingly answers itself. It must be the food that's making them sick.
The food they're eating, even what I considered good, must be causing all manner of bellyaches. I have been getting them too, running to the Head and back constantly. I'm sure Lezisky must suspect the kitchen.
September 11th, 1855
Once again the doctor came down where I and a deckhand had little work to do, since office and crew alike would be dining on hardtack, lime juice, and tins.
He begins making conversation with me. About the weather, about the ship's course, top deck rumours. Then, opening up a tin in front of me, he takes a large dollop of the pork and closes his lips around it. And chews. And his face goes sour. Instantly, I know what the issue is. It's what I've been fearing for days.
"All good, doctor?"
"Mr. Nelson". He swallows.
"Yes, doctor?"
"Have you tried the tins yourself recently?"
"Of course. I'm the cook."
"And what do you think of them?"
"Doctor?"
"The taste, Mr. Nelson."
"As well as can be expected. They're sealed well and are edible. And though the fresh food has been having some trouble with mold recently–"
And at that moment he loses all pretence of civility and dons the demeanour of a hunter with a trapped hare.
"Mold?" He's almost feverish. "Mr. Nelson, say that again. Are you telling me right now that you've been having trouble with mold on your produce?"
I knew I should've held my tongue, but instead I kept talking. "Not just mold, doctor. Some of the fresh food is quite inedible – rotten as it were."
"Rotten? And it took quite a while to reach such a stage? Bad supply? Tell me."
"It was fresh, well, just a few days ago, doctor. Now – even the salt pork has been tossed."
Now the good doctor spoke each word softly so I would miss nothing. He was pale and wet on the forehead, his eyes drilling into my soul.
"When did this begin, Mr. Nelson?"
This is it, I think. He's connecting the point at which the food began rotting to when the sailors started getting sick. Having no good lie at hand, I'll say when it started, and he'll see that I am the cause behind his mess.
"It started," I say, "on the 6th. Perhaps the 7th. I'd have to check my log."
The doctor is now so white with rage I am sure he could strangle me here in the bowels where no one sees us. He utters nothing for what seems like an eternity, staring at some fixed point behind me. Finally, his eyes meet with mine, and his lips twitch before uttering a single thing.
"Lord have mercy."
I didn't know what to say exactly. I told him that I would never cook spoiled food and that the patients' aches are not from my meals, but even I didn't believe myself. He spat out that he must take me to the Captain immediately, no time to lose, and when I lingered he grabbed my arm and dragged me to his quarters himself.
With no civility at all, he interrupted the Captain's tea and flew straight into a confrontation:
"You see? I've been telling you this whole time."
"This again, Mr. Lezisky? Haven't we put it to rest?"
"It's not just the men, captain. Their sickness. I thought it couldn't be explained – but this young man – he's been witness to the same disease."
And he plucked me forward like some auction showpiece. I'm sure I had tears in my eyes.
"He's sick as well?" replied the confused Captain.
"No. It's the food, Captain. He's your cook. The food has rotted."
"It is my understanding that it's the nature of produce not to last indefinitely..." wagered the Captain. "What has this to do with our ailing sailors? And why is it so serious that I should turn the ship around to the Cape, as you suggest?"
"Because if it continues, you will have no food left at all, nor a whole sailor to feed it to. I've tasted today's tins. They're already turning rank."
I am nauseated. Feel the sickness within me, twisting my guts. The Captain's coming around now, beginning to understand. In just a few short words I will be stripped and flogged for everyone to see, and the ship will feast on my flesh. And for the murder of the bright young sailor Arthur Raleigh – I’ll be hung from the mast. I can't bear it. The surgeon is counting on me staying silent, hoping to submit me as dead game for a neat reward from the crown. I realise suddenly that if I speak my side now, then I retain a chance to ease my punishment. I compose myself, find the right words, and finally:
"It's not my fault" I cry. "The fruit – the pork – the tins. How could I have known? How could I know they'd spoil so quick? I – I – and the men! Why, their bellies could be aching from anything – anything! Sailors die all the time!" I continue, astonishing both of them.
"Just a minute, Nelson", says the surgeon in a decidedly kinder voice. "Belly aches? My patients aren't suffering from belly aches. Not predominantly at least."
The captain chimes in: "Calm now, boy. You're in no trouble. Is he Mr. Lezisky?"
"Mr. Nelson, it's not stomach pains my men are suffering from. It's everything but. Small cuts, bruises. Arthur Raleigh died from a splinter."
"I don't understand", is all I said. "I'm not sure what–"
Just then some new stranger emerged out of nowhere and shoved me aside, bursting into the captain's cabin.
It was Mazlov the bosun, red in the face.
"What is the meaning of this!" cried the Captain.
Breathless, Mazlov kept it brief: "down in the orlop...looking for rope...the walls, sir. The wood.
It's decaying."
September 13th, 1855
It's now been two days since the severity of our situation has come to light and Captain Ferdinand turned HMS Mariana around towards the Cape.
In order to assess our further plan of action he today assembled the officers, accompanied by the surgeon Mr. Lezisky, the carpenters, the bosun, alongside the purser, quartermaster and myself – all stuffed into the Captain’s cabin.
"Mr. Lyndon here says the dry plank he's used to replace and reinforce the orlop deck should, winds being fortunate, allow Mariana enough time to reach port safely. He's sure of this. Though in our case we can't afford overconfidence. Who knows what this disease will bring. Mr. Lezisky, how are your patients looking this morning?"
The surgeon looked distraught enough for me to guess at his answer.
"Yesterday I had in my care 14 men. Today 3 more have come to me complaining. That's seventeen seamen who a week ago were perfectly healthy, with strong constitutions. All with conditions that would seem petty even to an ailing grandmother. A deckhand came to me complaining of a 3 day old bruise that wasn't healing. Instead, it seemed to be creeping up his thigh. Today, the majority of his left leg is yellow with dead flesh. If I see no sign of improvement by dinner tonight, I'll be amputating it."
"Have you any experience with such a disease?" asked the Captain,
I noticed the surgeon stifle a sad-eyed grin before saying no, no he has not. "Perhaps if I hadn't seen the food and the orlop, I could say it's some violent gangrene. But...I don't think it is. I understood it when Mr. Nelson told me about his produce. Whatever is infecting my men has already done our food supply. And the ship too. Certainly, it's not the freshest ship, Captain, but I
saw the orlop. For timber to go from dry and sturdy to that? Soft and worm-ridden? These things happen eventually given enough time. It is the natural process of necrotic collapse. Decay. But at such a pace..."
For a moment he was gone. Suddenly he straightened up and spoke sharply to the room: "Gentlemen, what we are dealing with here is one of the most bizarre things I've come upon in my years of study. If Science can explain this conundrum, then there is not a man on this ship or otherwise literate enough yet to understand it. One thing is clear: all the natural processes of decomposition we are so familiar with in our daily lives are accelerated at a rapid pace on this ship. The timber, the cans. The men are healthy because they are alive and beating, but the moment they attain dead flesh, no matter how miniscule – a bruise is sufficient – it devours the whole limb like mold on Mr. Nelson's oranges or rot on the hull Mr. Mazlov discovered." "What's causing it then?" chimed in a Lieutenant.
"Aye, so we can stop it," from the quartermaster.
The surgeon stopped dead in his tracks. He thought for a moment before replying simply, "I do not know.”
Maybe it was some cargo we picked up carrying an oriental illness. Maybe it's this place – the air. Maybe it is even the ship itself, something in its walls. I'm sure once we get to shore we can inspect the men and ascertain the cause, but right now... I don't think it matters. It is here and we must deal with whatever it entails rationally until we reach the Cape."
With that, I think we all understood the gravity of the situation. Proceeding calmly, the Captain asked me how we are for food, and I told him as follows.
For the five officers of Mariana, dinner tonight will consist of seven hardtack crackers each, coated with sugar.
For the crew of 86, six hardtack crackers each, equally coated.
September 14th, 1855
The men who Mr. Lezisky amputated are recovering already. Seems that whatever the surgeon had in mind is working. One lad even joined a hunt today in search of fish and birds. Perhaps they'll give me something to do. And if one is to speak of bright sides, Mr. Fig seems to have kicked his drinking habit and often helps me in the kitchen here and there – not that there is much work to be done.
For livestock, HMS Mariana has now one rooster left along with one goat. Both feed on a ration of crackers. Saving them for an emergency situation.
September 15th, 1855
Could not sleep last night. Terrible belly pain and constant gas. So I snuck down into the kitchen to have myself a drink. It always tastes the best at night. And it's almost like eating. So I gulp down a cool deep mug of water and it's only when I lift my lips from the rim that I notice something is very off.
I sup again – slowly. It sticks to the roof of my mouth. Sup again. There are seventeen water casks on board and I sample from each one. In and out.
By the time I'm done with seventeen it's undeniable – the water's bad. Not so bad, I think, to be undrinkable. But it's putrefying. Tastes like one's mouth does an hour after eating a meringue.
Perhaps not even that. But it's there.
Lieutenant Fitzroy was impossible to reconcile with. "The food we must endure, of course. On one expedition we survived on nothing but seal and snow, and we stepped on shore stronger than when we left. But without water...my God, man. Without water what will we do?"
The Captain suggested a grand idea: take the seawater and separate the salt by boiling it, leaving us with clean drink. But if I spent each waking hour burning off salt I could still not produce even a tenth of a half ration of enough drinkable water to sustain ninety-one men. We must find a different solution, I told him. That leaves us with no option but to quench the sailors (why do I say this – quench ourselves) with the next drinkable liquid we have. That is to say, stout.
At least we shall not perish of thirst. What I am more worried about is the supply of crackers.
Waning.
September 16th, 1855
An oriental topman will be missing this evening. Fell from a height and cracked his skull. The rope tore apart neath his feat.
Also too, a hunting party of eight has taken with them the rooster and fled. I don't think they'll be back for dinner. In any case, the men can no longer tolerate having the goat – bleating beating roast – munching about on deck. It is late now, but tomorrow morning I will cut him up for an early luncheon. Otherwise, I suspect someone else will do it first.
September 17nd, 1855
Me and Lezisky today came to the conclusion that it doesn't much matter how it happened. I assumed someone did it on purpose, but the doctor was more forgiving. He does spend less time in the ship's rectum after all. Maybe he scratched his flesh on the bars or bit his cheek. All I know is I bade the goat goodnight and when I came at sunrise I found his bare skeleton, still locked in the pen.
September 21th, 84BC
How can I grow those Indian Sticks? I have acquainted myself with the deck and its miscreants. These foul, foul people The whole ship reeks of death. There is nobody on this round earth more greedful and conniving than the kind to eat another man's rations. I have been here for how many days lookit and I don't think I have a single time witnessed an act of charity a moment of kindness that is to say, the way of the Sailor is to never share his ration, never to sacrifice himself for his fellow man. Friend? I do not think so. What good would it do for him to help a bleading fellow? A yellow fellow? Even in the gunk of London I would see – many times! – a beggar give his last crumb to a kitten. I don't want it of course. I tell them that. Sugar alone doesn't sustain me. I don't need it. But it would be nice to see some kindness around here! That would fead me. I'd jump right up ho ho! Man the Sales boys! Actually when I sit there with those eidolons I am more Lucid than ever. That is to say, because I do not eat I have ample time to stare into their Eyes as they shovel down mugs of cane sugar and as they do I can see evil within them. Their teeth are gunking. Jackie sings to me with no teeth at all now. He is a sinciere kid but easily manipulated by the others. I must spend less time on the ship's throat, lest they get funny ideas
October
so, hungry.
??
haven't eaten anything in such and such days... must remember t
the pages are going. this journal is going. just like the sails the men my hand – it tickles.
and what did I ever keep it for in the first place? ah.
:For the officers of HMS Mariana, dinner tonight will consist of, maggots.
crew is lucky tonight. they will have their maggots flambéed neath the open stars, salt and peppered with cinnamon dust – according to taste. The juice will be doled out – according to taste. Will the captain have some – according to taste? Oh yes, Lezisky told me. captain Ferdinand died a while ago. That was a shock. no one even informed me. who's steering? And mr. Fig as well. From thirst of all things. And quite a few others. we don't even bother clearing their bones anymore. sometimes i observe one carefully and I can see their eyes dissapearing inwords like custard, their bellys engorging, the face digesting away. and finally the worms descending like a squirming creamy porridge. Porridge. Porridge with lard. Porridge with lard and sauce de pomodoro alongside mashed potatoes and ginger. Good Lord I'm sorry! I just wanted something to eat! And now my writing hand is being devoured...
It was when Fitzroy was gorging on fly milk that I got fed up with the birds. Always flying beyond the ship, taunting us. So I took a handful of the grubs, and in plain sight lay waiting. Wasn't long before I knocked out. I awoke to a seagull guzzling them down. Immedietely I grab it by the throat and – I didn't think – snap its neck run down to the kitchen when no one's looking get a fire going skin it with haste leave the head. What am I doing I thought it's already growing discoloured. So I plunge into its still warm breast. But even in that starving state I could not bring myself to swallow. It was like chewing month old garbage. i throw the carcass on the ground. There'll be plenty more where that came from, i thought.
So I gather the men with limbs – can't find Lezisky anywhere – and we all stow ourselves away for the meat to descend.
And it works.
One by one, the men grab their gulls and immediately sink their teeth into flesh. No time for plucking. Hell, no time for killing. Let it still be throbbing when it hits the pipes. Its blood tastes like the sea tuna it ate last week. There was a savage noise as we were digging in, before finally a silence. In the moment when the meat hit the base of our bellies we were rapturous. In that moment we briefly became sober.
Each of us looked at the pale eidolons around us, with hair clinging, boneless hunches, spit dribbiling. Jackie pointed at me and goed chef you're bleedin. The bird must have scratched me without my noticing. Already the wound is flooding my arm with brown. Well let it. Because someones whistling a tune! A familiar shanty. The burlier man springs up the steps and takes the wheel, saying its time to bring this demonic vessel to Africa. Soon everyone's singing, first a jolly one, then something damn near operatic. Then a man leaves for the loo. Then another. Then another. Then the burlier man collapses on the wood and dies.
All alone now, my belly gargled. I became so weak that I sicked up the whole bird on the planks, already a lumpy sludge. I see now: Mariana is vengeful. She refuses us our portions. The food rots faster than we can digest it.
Again I noticed the rot which was circling my whole forearm. I took a cleaver from a corpse and aimed to lop it all off like a rabbit thigh. Steadied myself. And. i couldn't. i was so terrified of becoming another amputee. Even more than of the disease. The only thing Stirring in my mind was something Lezisky had said about the worms. The pupae. They only eat rot. Everything else they will ignore. Whatever it meant, it led to me grabbing a mouthful of the porridge and rubbing it into the puss. They squirmed – as they squirm now – and soon burrowed snugly in my meat. Now they devour me from the inside, lapping me up, chewing greedy and greedy to catch up with the sweetness. God in Heaven have Mercy on me – I am delicious!
Home
I am not sure how many survived, if anyone did at all.
When the Arab found me on the beach he took me in – fed me, gave me drink and shelter. During our late noon teas from my arm he would draw much amazement. Alive, but with a massive chunk taken out of it. It can never sautée again. If not for this journal which was miraculously immunized by the salt water, then I would scarcely recall my own account as anything other than the delusions of a scurvy-riddled mad man. But it is here. And it is true. May the sea that swallowed up that beast never regurgitate it. May what remains of its boards never be preserved by the salt as I was, and may it continue on the path it laid itself on. Of all the mysteries of sea and land, none is stranger than that of HMS Mariana.
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