The Strange Doctor Weird.
Good evening. Come in, won't you?
Why, what's the matter? Your hand is shaking.
Surely you're not afraid of me?
Oh, perhaps it would be a good idea to have a drink.
A little story that was just told to me.
The story of a strange ship that sails the seven seas
with no crew save death and no passengers except the dead.
I call the story The Ghost Ship.
My story The Ghost Ship begins in a badly battered lifeboat
pitching and tossing on the surface of the South Atlantic.
Three men wearily bail out the water which the breaking waves
constantly pour into the boat.
A fourth man, burly and broad-shouldered, is at the tiller.
All right, bailer, man, bailer.
The water's gaining on us.
What's the use of bailing? We'll never make land.
Why don't we admit we're done for and get it over with?
Stop that, Bowson. We may sight a ship any minute.
You've been saying that every day for a week, man.
Captain, captain!
Yeah, what is it, Kirk?
Hey, Tank, it's a ship. You snow each year. They're too cold.
All right, look sharp, man.
I don't see anything. Just another false alarm.
No, no, it's not. Captain Arce, you're...
It's a small steamer heading this way.
Yeah, yeah, I can make her out now.
She's heading straight for us.
It's a ship, all right, but she looks mighty funny.
Look how low she is in the water. See the way she steers.
She does kind of stagger back and forth.
Maybe her steering gear broke.
There's no smoke from her funnels either.
If you ask me, she's a derelict.
Hell, maybe she is.
Even a derelict is better than this lifeboat.
The wind's carrying across our cords.
And we're going to board her.
We're going to board her.
Half an hour later, the lifeboat rubbed against the side of the strange ship.
The four hungry weary men clambered aboard her
and found themselves greeted
only by the uncanny silence of a deserted ship.
See? What about I tell you?
This thing is a derelict, a blooming derelict.
Yeah, she's a derelict, all right.
Look at her ironwork, covered with rust.
I'd say she's been drifting about for a good many months.
Suppose there may no girl for water aboard her.
That's what worries me.
Now, that's what we're going to find out right now.
Cook and I will search the starboard side of the ship.
You other two search the port side.
Look lively now.
We'll meet in the chart room in 30 minutes.
All right, Bowson, what did you find?
We didn't find nothing.
Not a single solitary thing.
That's all right, Captain.
Of course, we're so low in the water
that all the holes in the cabins below deck are half flooded.
But we searched everything else, and we didn't find a thing.
Well, Cook and I had better luck.
We found the galley dry and plenty of canned grub in it.
I left Cook rustling up some chow.
He'll be bringing us a hot meal any minute now.
Hot food, dog gone. That's what I was wanting to hear.
What I want to know is why was this freighter abandoned?
That's it.
What?
This is the mermaid girl.
What?
There's a name on the log book. She's a ghost ship.
Do you hear me? We come aboard a ghost ship.
We've got to get off her or we'll die.
Bowson, get hold of yourself, will you?
Well, it's true. This is the mermaid girl.
And every seaman in the world knows about it.
Well, sir, I don't.
Captain, what is this here mermaid girl business about?
Well, the story of the mermaid girl is a curious one.
Two years ago she had her hell stove in and a hurricane,
but she's loaded with lumber and cork,
which is why she never sunk.
Well, the first night out after the storm,
one of the crew disappeared.
The next night two more men went, and two more the night after.
I'm telling this, Bowson.
It's true. Every word of it.
It's true. The men disappeared.
The rest of the crew, mutant, eaten, abandoned ship.
Only one lifeboat with five men in it ever made port.
They're the ones who spread this story.
And ever since then, the mermaid girl's been drifting.
A ghost ship with death at the helm.
I tell you, we've got to get off or we'll die too.
Captain! Captain!
That's a cook.
Quick, outside. Something's happened to him.
Captain, look.
There on the deck a tray.
Dishes and food.
Cook was bringing us grub.
And now he's... he's vanished.
Say, doctor, do you know you've been on the air for 25 weeks now?
Evidently, people like your radio show.
That makes me very happy.
And I thank them from the bottom of my cold-blooded heart.
Coming from you, doctor, that's really warm sentiment.
And while we're about it, the makers of Adam Hats would like to thank the many men
who have recognized the superiority of Adam Hats this season.
Gentlemen, you've been keeping our thousands of stores and authorized dealers mighty busy.
And no wonder why varieties in 100% correct styles,
combined with finest quality materials and craftsmanship,
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The well-dressed man particularly appreciates the wide choice of shapes and shades
available at their Adam Hat store.
Tomorrow, step into the Adam Hat store nearest you and ask to see the new line of Adam Hats,
priced sensibly from $3.45 to $10.
Now, Dr. Weird, on with the show.
And now to continue my story, the Ghost Ship.
It is night, and in the inky darkness half submerged,
the derelict steamship Mermaid Girl drifts onward across the wavetoss surface of the South Atlantic.
Huddled in the chart room with two flickering lanterns for light,
the three shipwreck survivors discuss the strange disappearance of the cook,
the fourth member of their group.
I tell you the spook got him,
for the devil or whatever it is that's put a curse on this ship.
It takes more than a spook to make a grown man vanish while I trace most of the seas different from the land.
There's devils that haunt the ocean no land lover can know about.
You've heard of the flying Dutchman haven't you, Tex?
Uh-huh, reckon I have. What about her?
For a hundred years or more.
Manned by phantoms she's been sailing the seven seas,
full rigged and always running with the storm dead astern.
The devils of the sea put a curse on her,
and so the flying Dutchman will sail on forever.
The flying Dutchman is just a sailor's superstition, Bowson. You know it.
And I suppose this ship we're on now is just a superstition too.
And the fact that she's been drifting for two years with no end to her helm,
I tell you we've got to get off her or else we'll die.
We can't get off her. I like boats swamp when we came aboard.
So stow that kind of talk, Bowson.
That's what I say too. I don't believe in spooks or devils.
Fact is I got me an ocean to go down to the galley right now and rustle up some grub.
You want the same thing to them and to the cook to happen to you?
Oh, nothing happened to me.
Kevin, you got an extra revolver in your pocket?
Yeah.
Well now just you let me take it an out-face Santa thing to get me some grub.
Well it's three days since we had food and I'm too hungry to wait for morning.
All right, here's the extra gun. It has three shells in it.
And take this lantern, but look sharp.
I'll do that, Captain. And I'll bring back whatever I can carry.
Good.
And if I meet any spooks, I'll bring them back too.
You shouldn't have let him go, Captain.
He'll be all right with a light and a gun. We don't need food.
You'll see, Captain, this ship's a ghost ship.
Come on, we got to go to his house.
No, Captain. It's too late.
It's gotting whatever it is that's on in this ship.
And if we got out there now, it'll get us too.
All night the two men huddled in the charter room.
The doors bolted.
The memory of Texas screams ringing in their ears.
In the morning, with a fog covering the sea,
they cautiously emerged and searched the ship.
The captain keeping his revolver always ready.
And they found...
Nothing. That's what we found, Captain.
Nothing but a smashed lantern and the empty gun line on the deck
where Texas dropped them.
Well, frankly, I think Tex and the cook went out of their heads
and jumped overboard.
There's absolutely nothing on this ship that could have harmed them.
But there is.
Only it's something you can't see unless it wants you to see it.
Oh, that's ridiculous.
Bo, so listen to me. I tell you...
Captain, wait. What is it? Listen.
What is it, Sharp?
It's a foghorn.
It's a steam ship someplace in the fog off the starboard of us.
It's set in this way.
But you'll never see us.
Look how fast the fog's thickening.
Yeah, yeah, we gotta work fast.
There's a hand-operated foghorn up in the bow of this vessel.
Get up forward and start sounding it.
I'll hunt for distress rockets.
We've got to attract attention before that ship gets too far away.
Aye, aye, sir.
I'll signal an SOS with the arms.
Good man.
Oh, she's passing the stern of us.
Blast this fog.
If it hadn't thickened up so fast, we'd have been sighted.
Captain! Captain!
Yeah, what is it, Bolson?
Captain, it's on me!
It's dragging me to the hole! Captain, help! Help!
I'm coming, Bolson.
Bolson! Bolson, where are you?
Captain! Captain!
It's down here.
In the hole! Help me!
In the hole?
Bolson, what's happened?
Captain, it's an octopus!
What?
A giant octopus!
It's got me down here in the hole!
A tentacle caught me!
You know what?
You know what pulled me in?
An octopus! So that's it!
That's the devil that's been haunting this ship.
I can see it, Bolson.
Just under the water.
I'm gonna try and shoot it.
Hurry! Hurry!
All right, devil, take that!
Hold on!
It's pulling me up there!
It's...
My gun's empty.
I've got a...
A tentacle...
A tentacle's around my legs.
I can't get loose.
It's pulling me down into the hole too.
If I can only...
I can't...
Help!
No wonder the shipwreck sailors who boarded the mermaid girl
could find nothing.
The devil who haunted her was an underwater devil
whose presence they couldn't guess.
And so the mermaid girl still drifts on across the seven seas
with death in the shape of a giant octopus,
her captain, and dead men, her only crew.
Perhaps some day...
Oh, you have to go now.
I do hope you'll drop in again soon.
Just look for the house on the other side of the cemetery,
the house of Dr. Weird.