The Grafton Voice

The Mysterious Cheese Ship of the Atlantic
by Mike Schwabe

Aaargh. There we were on the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean. We’d taken some hard knocks in a storm the day before and we were takin’ on water slow but sure. We had a bearing for St Kitts to pull into a shipyard were we’d find someone to caulk the hull, or we’d take another ship by fire and sword. We were still about 2 days out. A welcome sun came out and began to warm our weary, sodden bones, when the bos’n cried out, “Avast! There be a ship off the starboard bow!” said he.
Indeed there was a ship. A pitiable affair that was making it’s final descent into Davey Jones’ locker even as we spied her. Her timbers were scorched as if there’d been a fire, and the whole affair was riddled with holes from musket-shot. Her main mast was shivered and even as we looked the water began to lap at her gunwales. Any identifyin’ marks had long ago been washed from her prow by the sea, and it looked like she’d been adrift for weeks.
Aye there was a ship, and a man upon her. One lone man on a floating wreck on their way together to the Deadly Deep. He looked as if he’d been through Hell and hadn’t quite made it back. He’d taken a musket ball to the midsection, and it looked like it’d pierced his stomach. From the bottles on the deck around him I’d say he’d tried to wash the wound clean with rum from the inside. We hailed ‘im and threw him a line, but he was out cold. So we boarded to see if he could still be saved. As soon as I set foot on deck, I caught scent of the most divine aroma that ever a mortal nose had detected. It smelled like the moon over the ocean, like a fair breeze in the middle of the doldrums, like tea and gold and exotic spice all at once. I must admit that I was instantly enchanted, and I knew that somewhere on this ship was some truly excellent cheese.
The wreck shifted under the weight of my crew, and water began to spill over the gunwales. It began to flood down the hatch and into the hold, and I knew there was no saving the ship. The last remaining member of her crew stirred as the water brushed his battered limbs. Spying me through bleary eyes, he said but one thing before expirin’, “This cheese,” said he, “Be the treasure of an empire. ‘Tis the tastiest cheese that ever was.” Those were the last words that ever passed his lips in this world, and he said no more.
We rushed to the hold and this is what we saw. Case upon well-preserved case of the finest cheese my eyes ever did see. Fine-smellin’, beautiful and delicious, the cheese that filled that hold caught my heart in a grip like iron. We began crying out like madmen, and rushed to save the cheese from the sinking ship. It was a race against time and time always wins. Wave after salty wave filled the hold as we struggled to lift heavy crates of cheese through the hatch onto the deck, slick and treacherous as a Shanghai brothel. I knew it was suicide to stay in that hold, but I couldn’t leave the cheese, not without a fight. Water tugged at my heels as I ran to the hatch burdened with yet another case of the precious cargo. The crew was terrified and on the edge of revolt, but the cheese madness had come over us all. By the time I raised the last case through the hatch, the water in the hold was up to my shoulders, and I knew that we had but seconds before the entire hold be filled, and the ship sink out of sight carrying all aboard. I clambered out of that hold like a fox running from the hunt, and seeing that my lads were passing the last of the cheese onto the deck of our stalwart ship as I did so, I took one last look at the mysterious doomed cheese-ship of the Atlantic. The last of the ship still above water was the roof of the captains cabin and the little bit of fo’castle upon which I stood. The ships sole occupant was given the appearance of life by the movement of the water, but his eyes were already glazed with death, and I knew that it could only be an illusion that his arms seemed to reach for me as the current bore him up and in my direction. He was already a dead man and no mistake. I turned back to my ship and with a mighty leap hurled myself at a line the lads had dangled for my rescue. Catching it fast I began to climb. When I looked back from my precarious hold on the tarred line, the cheese-ship was gone.
What was this cheese-ship, and where did she come from? What had happened to her crew and captain? What battle had she fought, and against whom? And who was the lone injured man who remained with her to the last? The one man who could have answered these questions has taken his secrets with him to a watery grave. Consigned, at last, to the briny deep. Only one thing is sure. That his last meal was of the tastiest cheese that ever was.

This story, “The Mysterious Cheese Ship of the Atlantic” was written and read by Mike Schwabe. This work is Copyrighted in the Creative Commons. You have permission to sample, remix or use this recording or text in their entirety so long as you give credit to the author.