Haggopian and Other Stories

And when dreams such as these come in the night to sour the sweet embrace of Shoosh, I wake and tremble and pace the crystal-paved floors of my rooms above the Bay of Klühn, until Cthon releases the sun from his net to rise again, and ever and ever I recall the aspect of Zar-thule as last I saw him in the flickering torchlight of his deep-dungeon cell:

A fumbling grey mushroom thing that moved not of its own volition but by reason of the parasite growth which lived upon and within it…

The Night Sea-Maid Went Down

I wrote a handful of stories while serving as a recruiting Sergeant in Leicester. “Sea-Maid” was one of them and I completed it in mid-December 1969. Derleth liked it and found it suitable for inclusion in The Caller of The Black. Like quite a few other tales of mine, it hints strongly of my fascination with the sea—and with the Cthulhu Mythos, of course.

J. H. Grier (Director)

“Queen of the Wolds Inn,”

Grier & Anderson,

Cliffside,

Seagasso

,

Bridlington,

Sunderland,

Yorks.

Co. Durham.

Nov. 29th

Dear Johnny;

By now I suppose you’ll have read my “official” report, sent off to you from this address on the fourteenth of the month, three days after the old Sea-Maid went down. How I managed that report I’ll never know—but anyway, I’ve been laid up ever since, so if you’ve been worried about me or wondering why I haven’t let on about my whereabouts till now, well, it’s not really been my fault. I just haven’t been up to doing much writing since the disaster. Haven’t been up to much of anything for that matter. But, as you’ll have seen from my report, I’ve made up my mind to quit, and suppose it’s only right I give you what I can of an explanation for my decision. After all, you’ve been paying me good money to gang-boss your rigs these last four years, and no complaints there. In fact I’ve no complaints period—nothing Seagasso could sort out at any rate—but I’m damned if I’ll sink sea-wells again. In fact I’m finished for good with all prospecting—sea, land…it makes no difference. Why!—when I think of what might have happened at any time in the last four years—

And now it has happened!

But there I go stalling again. I’ll admit right now that I’ve torn up three versions of this letter, pondering the results of them reaching you; but now, having thought it all out, frankly I don’t give a damn what you do with what I’m going to tell you. You can send an army of head-shrinkers after me if you like. One thing I’m sure of though…whatever I say you won’t suspend the North Sea operations—”The country’s economy”, and all that.

At least my story will give old Anderson a laugh; the hard, unimaginative, stoic old bastard; and no doubt about it the story I have to tell is fantastic enough. I suppose it could be argued that I was “in my cups” that night (and it’s true enough, I’d had a few) but I can hold my drink, as you well know. Still, the facts—as I know them—drunk or sober, remain simply fantastic.

Now, you’ll remember that right from the start there was something funny about the “site” off Hunterby Head. The divers had trouble; the geologists, too, with their instruments; and it was the very devil of a job to float Sea-Maid down from Sunderland and get her anchored there; but nevertheless the preliminaries were all completed by late in September. Which, where I’m concerned, was where the trouble started.

We hadn’t drilled more than six-hundred feet into the sea-bed when we brought up that first star-shaped thing. Now, Johnny, you know something?—I wouldn’t have given two damns for the thing—except I’d seen one before. Old Chalky Grey (who used to be with the “Lescoil” rig Ocean-Jem, out of Liverpool) had sent me one only a few weeks before his platform and all the crew, including Chalky himself, went down twelve miles out from Withnersea. Somehow, when I saw what came up in the big core—that same star-shape—well, I couldn’t help but think of Chalky and see some sort of nasty parallel. The one he’d sent me came up in a core, too, you see? And Ocean-Jem wasn’t the only rig lost last year in so-called “freak storms”!

But anyway, regards those star-shaped stones, something more: I wasn’t the only one to escape with my life on the night Sea-Maid went down. No, that’s not strictly true, I was the only one to live through that night—but there was a certain member of the team who saw what was coming and got out before it happened—and it was mainly because of the star-shaped things that he went!