Christmas Eve on a Haunted Hulk: A Ghost Story for Christmas by Frank Cowper
My rating: 4/5 cats
AND NOW I HAVE READ ALL ELEVEN OF THE BOOKS IN SETH’S GHOST STORIES FOR CHRISTMAS SERIES!!!
this is the first one that actually occurs at christmas. and it might be my favorite of seth’s cover designs in this series – it’s got that hardy boys vibe with a little candle cove thrown in for good measure.
the author’s bio reads thusly:
Frank Cowper (1849—1930) was an English yachtsman and author.
the fact that “yachtsman” takes top billing is telling. not that the story isn’t good, it’s fine, but it does take place on a boat and is full of boaty words like fore-chains and stern-post and companion-ladder and… rudders. i mention this because the bilge features prominently, and i’d just finished reading The Astonishing Mistakes of Dahlia Moss, in which there is a humorously heated debate over boat terminology; a “basement/belowdecks/bilge” argument, and it gave me a memory-giggle.
FYI this is a bilge:
internet says this is a companion-ladder, but i’m not so sure that is what is meant in this story.
IN ANY EVENT, this tale involves a man trying to be a good friend:
It was during the Christmas vacation 197—. I was staying with an old college friend who had lately been appointed the curate of a country parish, and had asked me to come and cheer him up, since he could not get away at that time.
which he does. because he is a nice guy. his friend, however, is not, and as soon as this sucker gets to his friend’s new neck of the woods, characterized by monotony with a vengeance, he discovers that ‘hospitality’ isn’t a thing that his pal jones does, and he’s going to be pretty much on his own.
”You will find it precious dull, old man,” said Jones, as we were eating our frugal dinner. “There’s nothing for you to do, unless you care to try a shot at the duck over the mud-flats. I shall be busy on and off nearly all to-morrow.”
THANKS FOR THE INVITATION, YA JERK!
so the next day finds our narrator awkward and bored, as a man always is when another is actively doing his duty, so he takes his gun and goes off in search of those ducks. he fortuitously happens upon a duck punt and uses it to try to get some birds, but they are too clever and evasive, and he gets zero ducks but ends up drifting near an abandoned hulk, which is not an angry green baby dropped off at a firehouse, but a boat. i told you there would be boaty words.
now, the text does not explicitly state this, but knowing what we know of birds and their evil ways, i would not think it exaggeration to use the word “lured” here. those birds lured him to this abandoned boat, which, while he is exploring its decks (<—another boatword!) his duck punt floats away leaving him trapped. bet he wants to punt them ducks NOW, amiright? again, i’m not entirely sure the ducks didn’t help shove that punt back into the water with their wicked little wings.
ANYWAY, to make a long story short
this guy spends his christmas eve trapped on a boat in the cold in the middle of nowhere all because he thought he’d be a good pal. this being an olde timey family friendly ghost story, nothing much… happens. he’s trapped on a boat, he hears things and smells things and vaguely glimpses things that cannot be explained ooooOOOOoooo and then he lives to write about it.
i mean, it’s more ghosty in his words than mine, but that’s pretty much what it boils down to, and i’m saving the details of it for you to discover because, while i won’t be tricked into coming to your dead-end town and killing birds for fun, i am still a pretty goodhearted person. don’t listen to me, read your own damn books!
AND THAT IS ALL THERE IS FOR NOW! hopefully they will publish a few more next year so i can keep this spooooky christmas spirit going! thanks for all of it, seth/biblioasis!
mission statement copied from my review for One Who Saw:
this holiday season, i am going to read through ‘seth’s christmas ghost stories’ line on biblioasis, and i encourage you to do the same. the books are so cute and tiny, you can stuff someone’s stocking or dreidel with ’em! the cover art and interior illustrations are by seth, and they are seasonally spoooooky, blending the spirit of halloween with christmas cheer the way nature, and jack skellington, intended.
