Uncle John’s Giant 10th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (53 page)

—Elizabeth Taylor,

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

One of the most famous unexplained disappearances ever recorded is the case of the
Mary Celeste.
In 1872 it was found drifting aimlessly in the Atlantic,
in
seaworthy condition and fully provisioned. But the entire crew had vanished without a trace. To this day, no one knows what happened.

B
ACKGROUND

On November 5, 1872, the
Mary Celeste
set off from New York carrying a cargo of 1,701 barrels of commercial alcohol. Her captain was Benjamin Spooner Briggs, a well-known seaman who allowed no drinking on his ship and regularly read the Bible to his men. The crew had been carefully chosen for their character and seamanship, especially because the captain had brought along his wife and two-year-old daughter. He was looking forward to a safe and pleasant voyage.

DISAPPEARANCE

One month later, on December 5, Captain Morehouse of the
Dei Gratia
—another cargo ship bound for Gibraltar—noticed a vessel on the horizon. It looked like it was in trouble, so he changed course to see if he could be of assistance. After calling out to the ship and getting no reply, Morehouse lowered a boat and sent two men to board. It was immediately evident that the ship, which turned out to be the
Mary Celeste,
was deserted. The men looked for underwater damage, but the vessel was not leaking, and was in no danger of sinking. There was evidence that the Mary
Celeste
had encountered bad weather, but on the whole she was in perfectly good condition and should have had no problem continuing her journey.

Stranger yet, there were six months’ worth of provisions aboard and plenty of fresh water. All of the crew’s personal possessions were intact—even the ship’s strongbox. In fact, absolutely nothing was missing except some of the ship’s papers and the ship’s lifeboat. Captain Briggs, his family, and the crew had obviously abandoned the ship in a hurry…but why? What could have frightened them so much that they’d desert a seaworthy vessel for an overcrowded yawl and take their chances in the stormy Atlantic?

INVESTIGATION

Still puzzled by the disappearance of the crew, Captain Morehouse decided to claim the
Mary Celeste
as salvage. He put three men aboard her and proceeded with both ships to Gibraltar.

Officials in Gibraltar were suspicious of Morehouse when he showed up with a “salvage” ship in such good condition, still carrying valuable cargo. They investigated and discovered that:

• The
Mary Celeste’s
hull was perfectly sound, indicating she had not been in a collision. Nor was there any evidence of explosion or fire.

• The cargo of commercial alcohol seemed to be intact and complete.

• A phial of sewing machine oil was standing upright, spare panes of glass were found unbroken, and the furniture in the captain’s cabin was in its proper place—all indications that the ship hadn’t endured particularly rough weather.

• The fact that the crew had left behind all their possessions—even their tobacco—indicated that they had left the ship in a panic, afraid for their lives, but the investigators could see no reason for this.

• The most mysterious item aboard was a sword found under the captain’s bed. It seemed to be smeared with blood, then wiped. Blood was also found on the railing, and both bows of the ship had strange cuts in them which could not be explained.

THE OFFICIAL WORD

Solly Flood, attorney general for Gibraltar, found the bloodstains suspicious and was convinced there had been violence aboard the
Mary Celeste
. However, the Vice Admiralty Court issued a verdict clearing Morehouse and his crew of any suspicion. After the ship’s owners paid Morehouse a reward, the
Mary Celeste
was given a new crew, and went on to Italy, where her cargo was delivered. She continued to sail for 12 years but was known as a “hoodoo ship,” so most seamen refused to set foot on her.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The mysterious disappearance of the
Mary Celeste
’s crew had people all over the world imagining possible scenarios.

• Some believed a mutiny had occurred—the crew murdered the captain and his family, then took the ship. But if that were true, why did they abandon their prize?

• There was the possibility that pirates attacked the ship and killed everyone on it. But that made no sense because nothing was stolen.

• Perhaps an outbreak of disease panicked those left alive. But why would they subject themselves to the close quarters of the smaller boat, where the crowding would
guarantee
that everyone caught the disease?

• The most outrageous explanation offered was that the ship had been attacked by a giant squid several times, until everyone was killed. But a squid wouldn’t have been interested in the ship’s papers. And a squid wouldn’t need the ship’s lifeboat.

Because the story of the Mary
Celeste
got so much publicity, phony survivors started popping up and selling their stories to newspapers and magazines. But they all checked out false—no one who claimed to have been on board had their facts straight.

ONLY ONE EXPLANATION?

The mystery of the Mary
Celeste
has puzzled people for over a century. In all that time, say experts, only one feasible explanation has been proposed. This postulates that four things happened, in succession:

1. The captain died of natural causes while the ship was caught in bad weather.

2. A crew member misread the depth of the water in the hold, and everyone panicked, thinking the ship was going down.

3. They abandoned ship in such a hurry that they took no food or water.

4. Everyone in the lifeboat either starved or drowned.

Is that what happened? No one will ever know.

Film noir—French for “black film”—generally refers to the tough-guy detective movies of the 1940s and 1950s. Peggy Thompson and Saeko Usukawa put together a collection of great noir lines called
Hard Boiled.
Some samples:

“I’ve met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my time, but you—you’re twenty minutes.”

—Jan Sterling,

The Big Carnival
(1951)

Charles McGraw:
“You make me sick to my stomach!”

Marie Windsor:
“Yeah? Well use your own sink.”

—The Narrow Margin
(1952)

“What do you want, Joe, my life history? Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results.”

—Barbara Stanwyck,

Clash by Night
(1952)

“I treated her like a pair of gloves. When I was cold, I called her up.”

—Cornel Wilde,

The Big Combo
(1955)

Psycho crook
(Lee Marvin): “Hey, that’s a nice perfume.”

Moll
(Gloria Grahame): “Something new. Attracts mosquitoes and repels men.”

—The Big Heat (
1953)

“She was giving me the kind of look I could feel in my hip pocket.”

—Robert Mitchum

Farewell, My Lovely
(1975)

Reporter
(Audrey Totter): “I don’t like your manner.”

Detective
(Robert Montgomery): “I’m not selling it.”

—Lady in the Lake
(1947)

“I felt pretty good—like an amputated leg.”

–Dick Powell,

Murder, My Sweet
(1944)

“I don’t pray. Kneeling bags my nylons.”

—Jan Sterling,

Ace
in the Hole
(1951)

“What kind of a dish was she? The sixty-cent special—cheap, flashy, strictly poison under the gravy.”

—Charles McGraw,

The Narrow Margin
(1952)

“Personally, I’m convinced that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young.”

—Eve Arden,

Mildred Pierce
(1945)

Fight manager
(William Conrad): “Everybody dies. Ben, Shorty, even you.”

Boxer
(John Garfield): “What’s the point?”

Manager:
“No point—that’s life.”

—Body and Soul
(1947)

She’s one of the most famous queens in history…but how much do you really know about her?

F
or centuries, people have been enthralled by stories of Cleopatra. She was a tragic heroine in Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra;
a scheming vamp in
Cleopatra
, Theda Bara’s classic 1917 silent film; a buxom babe in Elizabeth Taylor’s 1963 film flop. But most people know very little about the real Queen of the Nile. And much of what they
think
they know is false.

Belief:
There was only one Cleopatra.

Truth:
There were seven Queen Cleopatras in the Egyptian dynasty that began with King Ptolemy I in 323 B.C.; Cleopatra, who reigned from 30 B.C.-15 B.C. was the seventh and last. Her eldest sister was Queen Cleopatra VI, and her daughter (who never became queen) was also named Cleopatra.

Belief:
She was Egyptian.

Truth:
She was considered Greek. Cleopatra was one of King Ptolemy I’s direct descendants;
he
had been a Greek staff officer of Alexander the Great before becoming king of Egypt following Alexander’s death. Like the Egyptian pharaohs before them, the Ptolemaic dynasty adopted incestuous brother-sister marriage as a way to keep their bloodline “pure”; historians believe it’s unlikely Cleopatra had any Egyptian blood at all. For that matter, she was the first Ptolemaic ruler who could even
speak
Egyptian.

Belief:
She was one of the most beautiful women in the world.

Truth:
At best, she had ordinary features; at worst, she was decidedly unattractive. “Her coins,” Lucy Huges-Hallett writes in
Cleopatra: History, Dreams and Distortions
, “minted on her orders and therefore more likely to flatter than otherwise, show a strong, bony face with a hooked nose and a jutting chin, pretty neither by the standards of Cleopatra’s day nor by those of ours.” The ancient Roman historian Plutarch describes her as being not particularly good-looking, although her intellect, beautiful voice, and strong character made her desirable and enjoyable company.

Belief:
She was a great seductress.

Truth:
This is based on her well-known affairs with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. But in the days of ancient Rome, affairs between rulers were a common means of cementing alliances. Caesar is known to have had liaisons with several other queens and at least one king (one of his contemporaries described him as “every woman’s man and every man’s woman”); Mark Antony was also a notorious womanizer. Cleopatra, on the other hand, was completely celibate for more than half her adult life and is believed to have had only two lovers: Caesar and Marc Antony.

Belief:
Caesar and Marc Antony were madly in love with her.

Truth:
It
is
possible Caesar fell in love with Cleopatra (no one knows); but he really stayed in Egypt to get his hands on her fortune. And historians say he made her queen of Egypt because he didn’t want to appoint a Roman who might become his rival.

Cleopatra’s relationship with Marc Antony was also based on politics. At their first meeting, when they supposedly fell in love, they made a deal: Antony agreed to kill Cleopatra’s sister so she’d have no challenge to her authority; Cleopatra became a loyal ally. Then he went back to Rome and his wife. When his wife died, he didn’t marry Cleopatra—he hooked up with the sister of a political rival. Years later, he finally visited Cleopatra and the twins he’d fathered with her. Coincidentally, he also needed her treasure and her navy at the time.

Antony did commit suicide and die in Cleopatra’s arms, but it wasn’t for love; he was despondent because they’d been defeated in battle. Cleopatra committed suicide, too. For love? No. The Romans told her she was going to be paraded in disgrace through Rome in chains, and she couldn’t take that.

Belief:
She committed suicide by getting herself bitten by an asp.