Gannet Rock
A Ghost Story for Christmas
23rd January 1875
To the Board of Commissioners, North-Western Lighthouse Board
Sirs,
I write at your request with my account of an interview conducted with Lighthouse keeper McLintock concerning the tragic events at the Gannet Rock Light last month that have causedmuch consternation to the Trustees and Governors, but which cannot be compared to the consternation caused to this long-serving and loyal employee of the Board.
I met with McLintock at his home on the Isle of Lewis. He is a clear-eyed, articulate man of a thoughtful disposition and in the time I spent with him saw no reason to doubt his conviction the events happened as he described. Enquiries in the locality tell me he is a man of excellent character, hard-working and honest and certainly not disposed to wild fantasy or deceit. He is from a respectable local family.
While McLintock can read a little, he can write but a few words so the account that follows was transcribed by me as he told it. Occasionally I would interject with questions or clarifications which I have not included here, but be assured this account is as close as possible to being verbatim.
In the light of the events described McLintock is of the strong opinion that the board’s proposal to decommission the Gannet Rock Light should be reconsidered with some urgency.
Yours etc.
James McAuley
Shipping Agent, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
You have my word as a God-fearing man that what I am about to set down is a true record of the events at Gannet Rock as witnessed by me, Fraser McLintock, lighthouse keeper.
As you are aware I am a keeper with 25 years in the service, the last ten of which have been spent at Gannet Rock. Throughout those many years I have served the Board diligently and unquestioningly. I have a loyal and amiable wife with whom I have been blessed with three fine sons, the eldest of whom joined the service last year and is currently at Montrose.
The story I am about to relate is one still difficult for me to tell. Other than my communications with the company and my wife I have not related these events to anyone beyond the fact there was a storm and that my colleague David Ferguson was swept away while attempting to effect a rescue.
At first, our month’s turn on the light was like any other, except that before we set out we had heard the news that the Gannet Rock was to be decommissioned. Naturally we spoke at length with each other on this subject, much regretting the development, and speculating where the three of us might find our next posting.
As can be confirmed by Board records, on the night of December 24th there were but two keepers at the light instead of the required three. Our colleague Andrew Grant suffered a broken leg early in the morning of the 23rd and was transported back to the mainland by skiff, sailed by myself. There being no reserve keeper within half a day’s journey and with the wind rising and a storm visible on the horizon I thought it expedient to return as quickly as possible once Grant had been collected by the doctor. I could not leave Ferguson alone longer than necessary and any delay risked my being stranded unable to return until the storm abated.
The storm came on around midnight on the night of December 23rd. The glass fell rapidly in the hours before; it was clear the storm was to be a severe one.
In my ten years on Gannet Rock I have never heard the wind scream as it did that night. Where it is customary for two men to take four-hour watches together while the third rested Ferguson and I knew we would have to remain constantly on duty until the storm blew out. We took turns every thirty minutes in ascending to the light room to ensure all remained in order.
At around 7am on the 24th I was making a hot drink when I happened to look out of the window. It was still dark but in the sweep of the light I thought I saw something moving out on the rock. To my amazement it was a man on his hands and knees, visibly exhausted.
I ran to the store and took a blanket, for I could see he was naked, and ventured out into the storm. It was difficult to find him in the driving rain with the sea spray washing over the rock and when I called out ‘Ho!’ my voice was whipped away by the wind.
Eventually I reached him, wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as best I could and helped him to his feet. He seemed all but insensible, very weak, but we made it back to the light where I pulled up a chair, placed him by the stove and prepared him some beef tea. He was shivering greatly and his eyes were wide, frightened and uncomprehending. I did not expect him to speak for he was still shivering but I was concerned there might yet be others from his vessel in need of assistance.
When I questioned him about his ship, its last position and the fate of his crewmates he just stared at me as if he did not understand the English language.
After my next check on the light I returned to the ground floor and found Ferguson asking the same questions and receiving only blank looks in response. The man was clearly in shock. Now that he had stopped shivering I fetched some warm clothes from the stores and he put them on, regarding them with some curiosity.
At 9am the storm was relentless. Our guest had stopped shivering and taken a little food but still we were concerned as to the identity and fate of his ship. Finally he spoke in response to our questions, which is when we realised he was a foreign gentleman. Not having any foreign words Ferguson and I pulled out charts from the chest, laid them in front of him at which he pointed to Spain, specifically Corunna. I drew a crude ship on a piece of paper and gestured to the Gannet Rock and he indicated a position approximately three miles to the south west, repeating the name Santa Iago, which we took to be the name of his vessel.
All we could do in view of our location and the storm was to keep as much watch as we could for further survivors while maintaining the light. Although it was the middle of the day the storm had turned it into the blackest night, and never have I heard so much noise in the light room as the wind’s screeching. Steepling waves boomed against the structure and I reflected on what a miracle it had been that this man, who indicated he was named Pedro, had washed up on our small rock in the vast Atlantic.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, with the storm still high and the sky still dark, the next extraordinary event occurred. Ferguson ran down from his inspection of the light with the news that a large piece of driftwood had washed up and wedged on the rock to which clung a man. Not willing to leave the light entirely unmanned I bade Ferguson to go out and take this Pedro with him to recover the gentleman. When they had departed I prepared more warm clothes and a blanket, and within a matter of minutes the two men returned supporting the insensible castaway. He wore britches to his knees but all other clothing had been lost in the sea. He was a man of about forty years, dark hair, and we lay him on Fraser’s bunk. He slept for four hours and emerged bewildered and frightened but took a cup of beef tea.
When he spoke it was with an American accent and he informed us he was second mate on a three-masted whaling vessel out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, returning from whaling grounds south-east of Iceland, that had been dismasted and swamped. He had given himself up for lost when he grabbed at a piece of timber from the ship, lashed himself to it and prayed for the sea’s mercy. The next thing he knew he was being lifted by Ferguson and Pedro and had no idea how long he had been in the sea. Other than some superficial lacerations to his legs the man, who gave his name as Ned Masterton, was uninjured.
A few minutes later Masterton sought to engage Pedro in conversation as to his circumstances at which I explained Pedro to be a foreign gentleman from Spain. What fortune, Masterton had in the course of his seafaring life learned the Spanish tongue and began to question the man in his own language as to the circumstances of his ship. Within a handful of exchanges Masterton began to look bemused and a little agitated. When I asked to know the subject of their conversation Masterton stood up and took me aside.
He related to me an extraordinary thing. Pedro, he said, was a naval man, first officer on the Santa Iago which had it seemed undergone much deprivation prior to sinking in the storm. He paused and shook his head. He then told me that Pedro was asking after news of the invasion. When pressed further he said that he spoke of the invasion of England.
To my astonishment it transpired that Pedro believed he was a member of the Spanish fleet that had sailed from Corunna under the Duke of Medina-Sidonia to invade England and overthrow the heathen queen in the name of King Philip of Spain in the year 1588.
I put this down to a possible blow to the head as he was washed onto Gannet Rock, told Masterton so and asked whether he had managed to convince him he was actually near the coast of Scotland in the year 1874.
It was as if a cloud had passed over Masterton’s brow and he looked at me askance. 1874, he said, and laughed, relating that he knew the Mary Elizabeth had been at sea for a long time but it was certainly nearer two years than thirty-two. I asked what he meant and he avowed with some conviction that the year of our Lord was eighteen hundred and forty two.
When I realised that he was not in jest I took him to our date calendar and showed him a copy of Stornoway Intelligencer from the day we left for Gannet Rock a fortnight earlier, the 14th December 1874. Masterton sat down heavily and fell into a deep, brooding silence that would endure many hours, despite Pedro’s attempts to ascertain from him in what circumstances the men found themselves.
By 6 o’clock it was around 36 hours since we had slept at all and the storm showed no sign of yet abating.
At around half past the hour of six, as Ferguson supervised the light, to my astonishment I discerned a knocking at the external door. On opening it I found two bewildered and bedraggled figures, a woman of about 35 years and a child, a boy of around eight years. Both were soaked through and I ushered them in, noticing before I closed the door to the storm that a small open boat had washed onto the rock and was in the process of being dashed to pieces.
The woman told me they had been on a steamer from Lerwick, where she abided, bound for Dublin, where she intended to visit relations with her husband, a crew member on the ship, and her son. The storm had come on, the seas had suddenly risen higher than she had ever seen, a fire broke out in the boiler room and soon the whole ship was ablaze. Her husband had placed the woman and her son in a lifeboat but before anyone else could join them the davits gave way and the boat dropped into the sea. The woman had passed out and when she regained her senses her boat was wedged in a crevice but twenty yards from the door of the lighthouse.
Before I could ask her name and the name of her stricken vessel Ferguson descended the stairs and startled me greatly by crying out in great alarm. I turned to look at him, the man’s eyes were wide and his mouth open. He fell to his knees, covering the lower half of his face with his hands.
At which the woman spoke his name.
David, she said. David is it you.
It was only later I learned that Ferguson had joined the service four years earlier, a few months after his wife and child had been lost on the steamer Duchess Mariana on which he had served as cabin steward and been one of but three survivors. I had sensed a vague air of melancholy about the man but as is customary in this service when men are obliged to live and work together for many weeks I never ventured to learn its origin.
How anyone can explain the presence of a widowed man’s wife and child, as alive and fleshly as you standing there now, after they had been reported lost at sea five years earlier I do not know.
Ferguson, the woman and child disappeared into the chart room and I heard urgent and emotional conversation and much sobbing. Subsequently I ascended the stairs to the light room as I have done countless times over the last decade to perform my checks and trim the wick. It was a slower ascent than usual as I was exhausted, and I was also deep in thought about the events of the previous hours, for which I searched in vain for an explanation. I am a simple man and these matters were beyond my understanding.
I began my descent and was about halfway to the ground level when I missed my footing and went tumbling down the stairs, and that is the last I remember until regaining my senses on a stretcher being carried to the relief vessel that had brought a replacement keeper for Grant. The sky was blue and clear and the sun was shining over a becalmed sea. I had, I learned, been insensible for some 18 hours.
When I reflect upon the events hitherto related I would have convinced myself I was insane but for what the boatmen told me. They said that while there was no sign of Ferguson or anyone else, and they had found me injured and the only occupant of the lighthouse, everything else was absolutely in order. All that seemed out of place were two sets of keepers’ clothing and two blankets left folded neatly on chairs either side of the stove and a soaking wet woman’s bonnet on the table in the chart room in which were placed Ferguson’s cap and keys.
This is my story told exactly as I remember it. I have considered the events at Gannet Rock on 23rd and 24th December at great length, recollections I find distressing, but I am sorry to say I can provide no rational explanation for them.
The sea is a powerful thing and we are but trifles tossed upon its surface. In this age under our Queen Victoria man has made great progress in conquering many of elements of nature but man can never subdue the sea. I urge the Board of Lighthouse Commissioners, even as a humble man of trifling rank, to reconsider the decommissioning of the Gannet Rock Light.
© Charlie Connelly 2024