Chapter 2 Seamus O'Hara Nelson

First, dancing lights played before their eyes, and next a kind of strong warmth came into the air that was nearly stifling. Then a cold that froze the marrow in the bones infiltrated the corridors where they were walking, following them up the gangways.

Lee explained everything away, while the admiral nodded, I told you so, I told you so. I told you so.

"Different parts of the boat heat up and cool down differently, sir."

"What about the lights, Lee?"

"They're just an aura from what you put inside you tonight, Admiral. I told you to lay off the third lobster claw."

By the time they were in the wardroom, they had been dazed by lights, overheated and frozen. Now as they sat down with their mugs of coffee, the Seaview began to shake around them.

"Turbulence," said Lee, firming up his lips, but not yet ready to take a sip of his wobbly coffee. He really doubted his answer.

The admiral looked at him as if Lee had just admitted to being Jack the Ripper. "There is no such thing as underwater turbulence, Lee."

"Oh, I forgot, what with all of this shaking going on!"

The admiral seemed miffed that Lee had forgotten. "We're not on a plane." Then he paused, cocking one ear up. "What's that?" He took a look at the kitchen alcove. "It's a smoke coming from the stove. Yet the alarm's not going off."

"Maybe it's broken. Batteries have run down."

"Again, Lee, you exasperate me. The alarms don't run on batteries; they're wired into the circuitry room."

"Then the circuitry system's faulty and the ship'll blow up at any minute! You want some cream, Admiral?"

Lee reached for the icy cold, metal cream container, but it took a lot of effort to pick it up, as his hand kept moving off it with the roll of the boat.

"Yes, plenty of it. I can't afford to be awake any longer than I have to, tonight."

Lee looked at him in some disgust. "We wouldn't be up at all if you'd just gone back to bed, sir."

"Oh, I couldn't sleep until I'd had my coffee."

"Sugar?"

"What, Lee?" The admiral's tone was very pointed.

"I asked if you wanted any sugar?"

"No, just cream. Hear that!" the admiral said again. "Sounds like pinging."

"It is pinging, sir. It's sonar." Lee stood up and went over to the wall intercom. "Someone left this turned on." He flicked it off.

"That's not what I heard in the corridor. Or in my cabin. I heard voices, or a voice."

"When men start hearing voices, Admiral, it usually means they're going on a long pilgrimage someplace. When are you leaving?"

The admiral chuckled. "My bags are packed, but I haven't yet decided on Tahiti or Baghdad."

"I'd opt for Tahiti myself. It's pleasanter down there with the hula girls."

"Who'd want to haunt us?" the admiral mused, sipping his coffee. He made a face. "Day-old coffee."

Lee ignored the comment since he had warmed up the perked coffee himself. For flavor, he had also put in a dipperful of instant coffee without putting in any additional water, thus making the old coffee even bitterer. He decided instead to answer the admiral's "Who'd want to haunt us?" question.

"That's a tough-y, sir. I guess all our old enemies, and quite a few we haven't made yet, might want to." Lee dipped a doughnut into his coffee.

"I'm hoping it's not Granddad Seamus. He wanted me to take over his place, and he mine, so he could be a full man again. With the exchange of lives, I'd be relegated to living out a mystical existence underwater."

"A hauntin' we shall go!" Lee threw that in just to be funny, but it fell flat with Nelson who looked at him with a worried eye. "Tell me about your grandpa," Lee asked, wiping cinnamon off his chin.

"He was not my granddad, Lee. Only one of them, from way back in the early 1800's. A captain of a boat, like you. But he traded in men. He dealt—this cuts me to the quick—in slaves."

"Slaves!" Lee was awestruck. "Your great-great-whatever grandpa? How could he?"

"Many a man fell into that trap, Lee. Many a man came to regret it in later life."

"Did Seamus?"

"No, I don't believe he did." Nelson's tone had taken a melancholy turn.

There was laughter in the corridor outside the wardroom just then. Looking oddly at each other and reading each other's mind, Lee and Harry dashed out to the hall to see who might be making sport of them. Sure enough, they saw nobody, but still heard the laughter.

"Wind," Lee said.

Wind, under the sea? The admiral had a snide tone. "Gulf stream breezes or one of the trades?"

"Neither. Corridor wind. It happens on all submarines."

"None that I've ever sailed aboard," said Nelson, firmly. "And in case you want to argue, don't forget I outrank you."

"Then it must be your grandpa's ghost."

"It better not be. I read him the riot act once before and made him get off the ship."

"He might be back …" said Lee, thoughtfully. "Why didn't you tell me about him then?"

"How could I explain what he was, even to you?"

"Just say here's my grandpa, the ghost. I'd understand."

"You still don't believe he was ever here on board the Seaview, do you, Lee?"

"Frankly, Admiral, you've had your share of weird dreams. You usually tell me about them at breakfast the next day. I'm inclined to believe you dreamt your great-great-great-great grandfather Seamus."

The rattling as of sheets of sail in a fierce gust sounded suddenly and the two Seaview men whirled around, looking up and listening.

"That's some 'corridor wind,'" the admiral said, dropping his eyes upon Lee again. "It sounded almost like a hurricane's blowing through. Maybe we ought to batten down the hatches."

"Admiral, don't be facetious. There has to be some perfectly rational and easy to understand explanation for what we've been hearing and seeing tonight."

"There is," said the ghost. His wailing seemed to come from all directions. "It's me, Seamus O'Hara Nelson come back to haunt the pair of ye! My own grandson, once or twice removed, would not grant me a poor favor, in return for his own immortality."

"You mean, Seamus, my never dying! There's a difference, you know. Or else, you wouldn't have tried to make me give up my life. You wanted me to wander about for all eternity like you do for your sins against humanity."

Lee looked at the admiral and then glanced all around again. "Where's that voice coming from, Admiral? Is it your granddad?"

"Once or twice removed, Lee. Remember that. We've come a long way since old Seamus ruled the seas as a slaver."

"What does he want?"

"Why ask me, Lee?" the admiral said. "Ask him!"

"I will save him the trouble, my good boyo," said the ghost.

Seamus appeared before Lee in long coat and ruffled shirt. The admiral saw that he was wearing his old captain's costume—or one like it. Quite a dashing figure, in a way. Seamus had the admiral's eyes, though at the same time his eyes were colder and graver, most distant. He had never been a warm man, and made a 'cold' ghost. Lee stood closer to the living Nelson as they hearkened to the wild Irishman's terms.

"Admiral Nelson, I want free passage for as long as you're aboard the Seaview. If you're in port, I'll stay away. But if you sail with her, I want to go along for the ride." He twisted the word 'ride.'

"And what would you do?" cried the admiral, who was nearly speechless. "Haunt my crew and drive all the men crazy?"

Seamus made an unpleasant face, and Lee could have sworn it was the same face the admiral had made earlier over the coffee Lee had prepared for their late night talk.

"That's harsh, grandson of mine. Harsh. No, I'll stay out of the way and not make a murmur. I just want to sail the seven seas again, even if it's below the water."

"I'll shall have to give it some thought," said the live Nelson. "Though if you really wanted to haunt this ship, with or without me on board, I don't see how I could stop you. Just your being here now proves that."

"I had been a captain, grandson, for many years before I—er—passed on, so I know a bit about giving orders. Not only giving, but also following. Just say the word and I'll never haunt this ship again, nor you."

"How can I believe you, Seamus? Your word doesn't exactly inspire one with the greatest confidence." The admiral turned to Lee next, saying, "I'm betting he doesn't keep his word."

"But I will keep it. If you wish me gone, I'll go."

"Then be gone, or go, or whatever." Nelson made a gesture of dismissal with his hand.

"Just like that? You'd send off your poor, ailing granddad into the nether world, which is mighty cold, without any more address than just 'go'?

"I just got through making a bet with Lee you wouldn't keep your word, and you haven't. At least not yet."

"How would you like to take a small side trip, Harriman Nelson, into the 7-mile deep Mariana Trench? I could arrange it."

"You're just a puff of wind, of smoke." The admiral straightened his shoulders. "I'd love to stay and chat with you some more, granddad, but we have other company on board right now. Inspectors. Tomorrow they'll be inspecting Seaview and I need to get some shut-eye."

"Inspectors, eh?" said Seamus, and with that, his image—which was more than an image, anyone could see that—disappeared. Lee blinked, rubbed his eyes, and wondered if the muddy coffee had made him see things.

"He was here, wasn't he, Admiral? We didn't dream him up?"

"No, Lee. I'm afraid it's true. We're haunted."

Tomorrow turned out to be the fiasco that the admiral and Lee Crane had anticipated. First, a book in the admiral's cabin flew off the shelf under the TV set and struck Hauptmeyer in the head. When he stooped to pick it up, he saw that its title read, "Hard Times." In the air, a voice called out, "Hard head!"

"Admiral, what did you say?" asked Hauptmeyer, growing suspicious that he was not among 'friends' here. "Did you hit me with this book?"

Startled, too, Nelson shook his head and murmured, "No."

"Books don't fly, Harry."

"Of course they do," shouted the ghost, as loud as he could. The wind, again.

"What was that!" cried Hauptmeyer, spinning on his heel.

"A corridor wind," said the admiral, lamely, rubbing his hands together.

"What! Right here? In your cabin?" The old Prussians were now in full force.

"It comes under the door."

"Admiral, enough of this nonsense. Let's go and join Davits, if we can find him. He said he would inspect the missile room first and then crews quarters."

"Right," said the admiral, now at a loss for words. He didn't know what to say because he didn't know what would happen next.

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"It's freezing cold aboard this craft, Admiral Nelson. Can't you do anything with the thermostat?" asked Dr. Davits, who was visibly shivering. Davits was wearing a heavy, fleece-lined coat and gloves. The admiral's party had gathered in the control room, where the crew was visibly shivering and had also sprouted gloves and jackets.

Maria Olekaiuna had all of her warmest clothes on too, including a scarf thrown around the whitest of necks, the admiral noted, what he could see of it. A neck as white and smooth as a rolled up canvas sail. Most men would have said as a swan's neck. But not the admiral. He was a seafarer, through and through, not given to romantic allusions, just the facts. Swans, like albatrosses, didn't belong on ships of the main.

"We are working on the problem, Dr. Davits," said Nelson. "Right now, the temperature is only 40 degrees Fahrenheit. A half-hour ago, it was below freezing. That's an improvement, don't you think?"

"Admiral," said Hauptmeyer in a querulous way, stopping Nelson in mid-stride as they were walking down Corridor B aft towards the Circuitry Room. "If you think I'm going to write more money into the budget for an overhaul of your air revitalization system, you're mistaken. Stop playing with the air!"

The admiral 'heated' up. "We can do quite nicely without government funds in this matter, General Hauptmeyer."

"It looks like it!" shouted Hauptmeyer, his teeth knocking against one another. "It wasn't this cold on the Titanic the night it sank!"

"No, I don't suppose it was," said the admiral with the same ferocity.

"Hello-oooooooooooooo!"

"What in blue blazes was that, Nelson?" cried Hauptmeyer, throwing a sharp glance skyward.

"Yes, Admiral," said Maria, trembling from head to foot—and not just from the cold, either. Her Hawaiian eyes darted around looking for what could only be described as the 'ghost of Seaview.' "It sounded like a voice in the corridor," she said, "but there is no one here but us."

Hair like seaweed, white, shark-like teeth, and a pale, sail-like neck. Maria didn't know how lucky she was to have looks like that, Nelson reflected.

"It's a ghost!" said Davits. "I don't believe in them, anymore, haven't done—not since I was ten or eleven, but it's a ghost."

"Right you ar-rrrrrrrrrrrre," said the ghost in the walls.

"Perhaps he hit me with the book earlier?" suggested Hauptmeyer.

"Perhaps," said the admiral, his thinking distracted by the urge to get his hands around his ancestor's throat and squeeze tightly.

"If you want me to believe your submarine is haunted, Nelson, it won't net you any more money. We don't pay for exorcists in the federal government!"

"Don't need any," said Nelson. "This ghost I can handle myself." He spoke to the walls, raising his voice as well as his eyes. "All right, if you want to travel with us when no one's around, you can, Seamus. Just stop scaring these folks. Go back to the sea for now, and come back when our company's gone."

"Company!" exclaimed Seamus. Nelson whirled toward the wall, expecting to spot his long-dead relative in the air vent. "These poor beggars need a lesson in manners.

"I don't," said Maria Olekaiuna. "I'm well-behaved. Right, Dr. Davits?"

Davits murmured something under his breath. The ghost spoke up in a suave voice. "And a fine-looking lassie, too," he said in his best Irish brogue. Admiral Nelson's ancestor hailed from the Emerald Isle.

Finally at his breaking point, Harriman Nelson yelled, "Will you stop haunting this ship—right now!"

"Lad, your wish is my command," said Seamus. No one knew where the voice hailed from, exactly, but anyone hearing it might have thought that Seamus bowed his head. "I have only one request. When you set sail without these fine folk, whistle for me and let me know. I believe my first trip on your vessel should be to Ireland, so I can visit with the old folks."

Nelson at last blew his cork. "We're not going to Ireland! Ireland doesn't lie anywhere near where we're going. We're in the middle of studying the way manta rays mate! If you go along, Seamus, then you go where we go, and that's my final word."

"Oh, is it, me fine laddie? Since when do you tell your elders what they can do? For that presumption, be assured that the cold on aboard your boat will continue."

"Seamus," said the worried admiral. "We'll talk about this in my cabin, okay? Right now, though, this pretty 'lassie' needs to warm up a bit. She's turning blue, like a blue sea anemone. I think we all are."

"Then tell 'er to add another sweater, Admiral. Until you promise me a trip to Ireland, it's not going to be any warmer aboard the Seaview. Coffee will turn to ice. Scotch will freeze in the windpipe."

"What did I ever do to deserve an ancestor like you, Seamus?" The admiral sighed and shook his head. "Alright, even if we had orders from Washington to investigate the moon's blowing up, we'll head out to Ireland, first chance we get."

"To hell or to Connaught!" shouted the ghost sea captain, quoting Oliver Cromwell, who reputedly said something like that—cruel man that he was—when he drove the destitute Irish cottagers into the sea—and towards America—in the mid-seventeenth century.

"I think I'd take the former right about now," muttered Nelson, "over shipping out with you aboard."

"What, lad? What's that you said about where you'd like to go?"

The Seaview warmed up and Maria Olekaiuna stopped turning blue. Dr. Davit's teeth arrested their up and down movement, and Hauptmeyer, thinking of that slim novel that hit him in the head in Nelson's cabin, didn't have to cringe every time he saw a systems manual. Inspections over, the Inspectors headed off, and Seaview headed out.

Ireland was beautiful at that time of year, spring. So was Tipperary, where the Nelson clan hailed from, and Seamus O'Hara Nelson enjoyed his visit with the 'old folks' very much. Admiral Nelson went along 'for the ride' and met some of the family he hadn't even known existed. None of them appeared as old as they were, though none of them was alive, either.

During a subsequent pub-crawl in Cork, and in Limerick, Galway, and Dublin, led by none other than Seamus himself, the ghost captain heartily, and repeatedly, toasted the admiral's health. Drink, like snuff, was one of Seamus's few pleasures since becoming a spirit himself. Also along for the ride, and for the thrill of having something of a male Irish banshee whisk him magically about the green island, Lee Crane pronounced the pale ale very good.

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Postscript.

In case you're wondering, Seamus O'Hara Nelson did not for ever and aye travel with the Seaview. About a month later, being bored with the way manta rays mate, and much other scientific inquiry that seemed to fascinate and beguile the younger Nelson, Seamus made his apologies. He had to take his hat in hand and go in search of further adventure. His search though was of the briefest kind. Finding an Italian grotto haunted by an enchanting dryad, or wood nymph, he settled down there for a century or two.

In the weeks and months to come, the admiral and Lee continued their talks aboard Seaview, sometimes about Seamus, and sometimes about more mundane items. Topics might include when to expect the next world war, the devastation of the earth in an all-out nuclear strike, the threat of the Russian space program, or who was then winning the World Series pennant. The coffee flowed.

It was late again. The specter and the inspectors were long gone. In the wardroom sipping on another cup of the dark poison the two men often enjoyed in their talks together, Seaview's skipper smiled. The admiral had warmed it up just to Lee's liking.

Though not much of a coffee drinker when he and the admiral first met, Crane had caved in soon after his first Seaview adventure—the polar ice cap one—and followed Nelson's example. He wanted to keep the 'old man'—Navy slang for boss—happy, and sharing a cup seemed to do it.

The End.