Manuscript Found On The Coast Of
Yucatan
On August 20, 1917, I, Karl Heinrich, Graf von
Altberg-Ehrenstein, Lieutenant-Commander in the Imperial German Navy and in
charge of the submarine U-29, deposit this bottle and record in the Atlantic
Ocean at a point to me unknown but probably about N. Latitude 20 degrees, W.
Longitude 35 degrees, where my ship lies disabled on the ocean floor. I do so
because of my desire to set certain unusual facts before the public; a thing I
shall not in all probability survive to accomplish in person, since the circumstances
surrounding me are as menacing as they are extraordinary, and involve not only
the hopeless crippling of the U-29, but the impairment of my iron German will
in a manner most disastrous.
On the afternoon
of June 18, as reported by wireless to the U-61, bound for Kiel, we torpedoed
the British freighter Victory, New York to Liverpool, in N. Latitude 45 degrees
16 minutes, W. Longitude 28 degrees 34 minutes; permitting the crew to leave in
boats in order to obtain a good cinema view for the admiralty records. The ship
sank quite picturesquely, bow first, the stem rising high out of the water
whilst the hull shot down perpendicularly to the bottom of the sea. Our camera
missed nothing, and I regret that so fine a reel of film should never reach
Berlin. After that we sank the lifeboats with our guns and submerged.
When we rose to
the surface about sunset, a seaman's body was found on the deck, hands gripping
the railing in curious fashion. The poor fellow was young, rather dark, and
very handsome; probably an Italian or Greek, and undoubtedly of the Victory's
crew. He had evidently sought refuge on the very ship which had been forced to
destroy his own—one more victim of the unjust war of aggression which the
English pig-dogs are waging upon the Fatherland. Our men searched him for
souvenirs, and found in his coat pocket a very odd bit of ivory carved to
represent a youth's head crowned with laurel. My fellow-officer, Lieutenant
Kienze, believed that the thing was of great age and artistic value, so took it
from the men for himself. How it had ever come into the possession of a common
sailor neither he nor I could imagine.
As the dead man
was thrown overboard there occurred two incidents which created much
disturbance amongst the crew. The fellow's eyes had been closed; but in the
dragging of his body to the rail they were jarred open, and many seemed to
entertain a queer delusion that they gazed steadily and mockingly at Schmidt
and Zimmer, who were bent over the corpse. The Boatswain Muller, an elderly man
who would have known better had he not been a superstitious Alsatian swine,
became so excited by this impression that he watched the body in the water; and
swore that after it sank a little it drew its limbs into a swimming position
and sped away to the south under the waves. Kienze and I did not like these
displays of peasant ignorance, and severely reprimanded the men, particularly
Muller.
The next day a
very troublesome situation was created by the indisposition of some of the
crew. They were evidently suffering from the nervous strain of our long voyage,
and had had bad dreams. Several seemed quite dazed and stupid; and after
satisfying myself that they were not feigning their weakness, I excused them
from their duties. The sea was rather rough, so we descended to a depth where
the waves were less troublesome. Here we were comparatively calm, despite a
somewhat puzzling southward current which we could not identify from our
oceanographic charts. The moans of the sick men were decidedly annoying; but since
they did not appear to demoralize the rest of the crew, we did not resort to
extreme measures. It was our plan to remain where we were and intercept the
liner Dacia, mentioned in information from agents in New York.
In the early
evening we rose to the surface, and found the sea less heavy. The smoke of a
battleship was on the northern horizon, but our distance and ability to
submerge made us safe. What worried us more was the talk of Boatswain Muller,
which grew wilder as night came on. He was in a detestably childish state, and
babbled of some illusion of dead bodies drifting past the undersea portholes;
bodies which looked at him intensely, and which he recognized in spite of
bloating as having seen dying during some of our victorious German exploits.
And he said that the young man we had found and tossed overboard was their
leader. This was very gruesome and abnormal, so we confined Muller in irons and
had him soundly whipped. The men were not pleased at his punishment, but
discipline was necessary. We also denied the request of a delegation headed by
Seaman Zimmer, that the curious carved ivory head be cast into the sea.
On June 20,
Seaman Bohin and Schmidt, who had been ill the day before, became violently
insane. I regretted that no physician was included in our complement of
officers, since German lives are precious; but the constant ravings of the two
concerning a terrible curse were most subversive of discipline, so drastic
steps were taken. The crew accepted the event in a sullen fashion, but it
seemed to quiet Muller; who thereafter gave us no trouble. In the evening we
released him, and he went about his duties silently.
In the week that
followed we were all very nervous, watching for the Dacia. The tension was
aggravated by the disappearance of Muller and Zimmer, who undoubtedly committed
suicide as a result of the fears which had seemed to harass them, though they
were not observed in the act of jumping overboard. I was rather glad to be rid
of Muller, for even his silence had unfavorably affected the crew. Everyone
seemed inclined to be silent now, as though holding a secret fear. Many were
ill, but none made a disturbance. Lieutenant Kienze chafed under the strain,
and was annoyed by the merest trifle—such as the school of dolphins which gathered
about the U-29 in increasing numbers, and the growing intensity of that
southward current which was not on our chart.
It at length
became apparent that we had missed the Dacia altogether. Such failures are not
uncommon, and we were more pleased than disappointed, since our return to
Wilhelmshaven was now in order. At noon June 28 we turned northeastward, and
despite some rather comical entanglements with the unusual masses of dolphins,
were soon under way.
The explosion in
the engine room at 2 A.M. was wholly a surprise. No defect in the machinery or
carelessness in the men had been noticed, yet without warning the ship was
racked from end to end with a colossal shock. Lieutenant Kienze hurried to the
engine room, finding the fuel-tank and most of the mechanism shattered, and
Engineers Raabe and Schneider instantly killed. Our situation had suddenly
become grave indeed; for though the chemical air regenerators were intact, and
though we could use the devices for raising and submerging the ship and opening
the hatches as long as compressed air and storage batteries might hold out, we
were powerless to propel or guide the submarine. To seek rescue in the
life-boats would be to deliver ourselves into the hands of enemies unreasonably
embittered against our great German nation, and our wireless had failed ever
since the Victory affair to put us in touch with a fellow U-boat of the
Imperial Navy.
From the hour of
the accident till July 2 we drifted constantly to the south, almost without
plans and encountering no vessel. Dolphins still encircled the U-29, a somewhat
remarkable circumstance considering the distance we had covered. On the morning
of July 2 we sighted a warship flying American colors, and the men became very
restless in their desire to surrender. Finally Lieutenant Menze had to shoot a
seaman named Traube, who urged this un-German act with especial violence. This
quieted the crew for the time, and we submerged unseen.
The next
afternoon a dense flock of sea-birds appeared from the south, and the ocean
began to heave ominously. Closing our hatches, we awaited developments until we
realized that we must either submerge or be swamped in the mounting waves. Our
air pressure and electricity were diminishing, and we wished to avoid all
unnecessary use of our slender mechanical resources; but in this case there was
no choice. We did not descend far, and when after several hours the sea was
calmer, we decided to return to the surface. Here, however, a new trouble
developed; for the ship failed to respond to our direction in spite of all that
the mechanics could do. As the men grew more frightened at this undersea
imprisonment, some of them began to mutter again about Lieutenant Kienze's
ivory image, but the sight of an automatic pistol calmed them. We kept the poor
devils as busy as we could, tinkering at the machinery even when we knew it was
useless.
Kienze and I
usually slept at different times; and it was during my sleep, about 5 A.M.,
July 4, that the general mutiny broke loose. The six remaining pigs of seamen,
suspecting that we were lost, had suddenly burst into a mad fury at our refusal
to surrender to the Yankee battleship two days before, and were in a delirium
of cursing and destruction. They roared like the animals they were, and broke
instruments and furniture indiscriminately; screaming about such nonsense as
the curse of the ivory image and the dark dead youth who looked at them and
swam away. Lieutenant Kienze seemed paralyzed and inefficient, as one might
expect of a soft, womanish Rhinelander. I shot all six men, for it was
necessary, and made sure that none remained alive.
We expelled the
bodies through the double hatches and were alone in the U-29. Kienze seemed
very nervous, and drank heavily. It was decided that we remain alive as long as
possible, using the large stock of provisions and chemical supply of oxygen,
none of which had suffered from the crazy antics of those swine-hound seamen.
Our compasses, depth gauges, and other delicate instruments were ruined; so
that henceforth our only reckoning would be guess work, based on our watches,
the calendar, and our apparent drift as judged by any objects we might spy
through the portholes or from the conning tower. Fortunately we had storage
batteries still capable of long use, both for interior lighting and for the
searchlight. We often cast a beam around the ship, but saw only dolphins,
swimming parallel to our own drifting course. I was scientifically interested
in those dolphins; for though the ordinary Delphinus delphis is a cetacean
mammal, unable to subsist without air, I watched one of the swimmers closely
for two hours, and did not see him alter his submerged condition.
With the passage
of time Kienze and I decided that we were still drifting south, meanwhile
sinking deeper and deeper. We noted the marine fauna and flora, and read much
on the subject in the books I had carried with me for spare moments. I could
not help observing, however, the inferior scientific knowledge of my companion.
His mind was not Prussian, but given to imaginings and speculations which have
no value. The fact of our coming death affected him curiously, and he would
frequently pray in remorse over the men, women, and children we had sent to the
bottom; forgetting that all things are noble which serve the German state.
After a time he became noticeably unbalanced, gazing for hours at his ivory
image and weaving fanciful stories of the lost and forgotten things under the
sea. Sometimes, as a psychological experiment, I would lead him on in the
wanderings, and listen to his endless poetical quotations and tales of sunken
ships. I was very sorry for him, for I dislike to see a German suffer; but he
was not a good man to die with. For myself I was proud, knowing how the
Fatherland would revere my memory and how my sons would be taught to be men
like me.
On August 9, we
espied the ocean floor, and sent a powerful beam from the searchlight over it.
It was a vast undulating plain, mostly covered with seaweed, and strewn with
the shells of small mollusks. Here and there were slimy objects of puzzling
contour, draped with weeds and encrusted with barnacles, which Kienze declared
must be ancient ships lying in their graves. He was puzzled by one thing, a
peak of solid matter, protruding above the oceanbed nearly four feet at its
apex; about two feet thick, with flat sides and smooth upper surfaces which met
at a very obtuse angle. I called the peak a bit of outcropping rock, but Kienze
thought he saw carvings on it. After a while he began to shudder, and turned
away from the scene as if frightened; yet could give no explanation save that
he was overcome with the vastness, darkness, remoteness, antiquity, and mystery
of the oceanic abysses. His mind was tired, but I am always a German, and was
quick to notice two things: that the U-29 was standing the deep-sea pressure
splendidly, and that the peculiar dolphins were still about us, even at a depth
where the existence of high organisms is considered impossible by most
naturalists. That I had previously overestimated our depth, I was sure; but
none the less we must still have been deep enough to make these phenomena
remarkable. Our southward speed, as gauged by the ocean floor, was about as I
had estimated from the organisms passed at higher levels.
It was at 3:15
PM., August 12, that poor Kienze went wholly mad. He had been in the conning
tower using the searchlight when I saw him bound into the library compartment
where I sat reading, and his face at once betrayed him. I will repeat here what
he said, underlining the words he emphasized: "He is calling! He is
calling! I hear him! We must go!" As he spoke he took his ivory image from
the table, pocketed it, and seized my arm in an effort to drag me up the
companionway to the deck. In a moment I understood that he meant to open the
hatch and plunge with me into the water outside, a vagary of suicidal and
homicidal mania for which I was scarcely prepared. As I hung back and attempted
to soothe him he grew more violent, saying: "Come now—do not wait until
later; it is better to repent and be forgiven than to defy and be
condemned." Then I tried the opposite of the soothing plan, and told him
he was mad—pitifully demented. But he was unmoved, and cried: "If I am
mad, it is mercy. May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain
sane to the hideous end! Come and be mad whilst he still calls with
mercy!"
This outburst
seemed to relieve a pressure in his brain; for as he finished he grew much
milder, asking me to let him depart alone if I would not accompany him. My
course at once became clear. He was a German, but only a Rhinelander and a
commoner; and he was now a potentially dangerous madman. By complying with his
suicidal request I could immediately free myself from one who was no longer a
companion but a menace. I asked him to give me the ivory image before he went,
but this request brought from him such uncanny laughter that I did not repeat
it. Then I asked him if he wished to leave any keepsake or lock of hair for his
family in Germany in case I should be rescued, but again he gave me that
strange laugh. So as he climbed the ladder I went to the levers and, allowing proper
time-intervals, operated the machinery which sent him to his death. After I saw
that he was no longer in the boat I threw the searchlight around the water in
an effort to obtain a last glimpse of him since I wished to ascertain whether
the water-pressure would flatten him as it theoretically should, or whether the
body would be unaffected, like those extraordinary dolphins. I did not,
however, succeed in finding my late companion, for the dolphins were massed
thickly and obscuringly about the conning tower.
That evening I
regretted that I had not taken the ivory image surreptitiously from poor
Kienze's pocket as he left, for the memory of it fascinated me. I could not
forget the youthful, beautiful head with its leafy crown, though I am not by
nature an artist. I was also sorry that I had no one with whom to converse.
Kienze, though not my mental equal, was much better than no one. I did not
sleep well that night, and wondered exactly when the end would come. Surely, I
had little enough chance of rescue.
The next day I
ascended to the conning tower and commenced the customary searchlight
explorations. Northward the view was much the same as it had been all the four
days since we had sighted the bottom, but I perceived that the drifting of the
U-29 was less rapid. As I swung the beam around to the south, I noticed that
the ocean floor ahead fell away in a marked declivity, and bore curiously
regular blocks of stone in certain places, disposed as if in accordance with
definite patterns. The boat did not at once descend to match the greater ocean
depth, so I was soon forced to adjust the searchlight to cast a sharply
downward beam. Owing to the abruptness of the change a wire was disconnected,
which necessitated a delay of many minutes for repairs; but at length the light
streamed on again, flooding the marine valley below me.
I am not given to
emotion of any kind, but my amazement was very great when I saw what lay
revealed in that electrical glow. And yet as one reared in the best Kultur of
Prussia, I should not have been amazed, for geology and tradition alike tell us
of great transpositions in oceanic and continental areas. What I saw was an
extended and elaborate array of ruined edifices; all of magnificent though
unclassified architecture, and in various stages of preservation. Most appeared
to be of marble, gleaming whitely in the rays of the searchlight, and the
general plan was of a large city at the bottom of a narrow valley, with
numerous isolated temples and villas on the steep slopes above. Roofs were
fallen and columns were broken, but there still remained an air of immemorially
ancient splendor which nothing could efface.
Confronted at
last with the Atlantis I had formerly deemed largely a myth, I was the most
eager of explorers. At the bottom of that valley a river once had flowed; for
as I examined the scene more closely I beheld the remains of stone and marble
bridges and sea-walls, and terraces and embankments once verdant and beautiful.
In my enthusiasm I became nearly as idiotic and sentimental as poor Kienze, and
was very tardy in noticing that the southward current had ceased at last,
allowing the U-29 to settle slowly down upon the sunken city as an airplane
settles upon a town of the upper earth. I was slow, too, in realizing that the school
of unusual dolphins had vanished.
In about two
hours the boat rested in a paved plaza close to the rocky wall of the valley.
On one side I could view the entire city as it sloped from the plaza down to
the old river-bank; on the other side, in startling proximity, I was confronted
by the richly ornate and perfectly preserved facade of a great building,
evidently a temple, hollowed from the solid rock. Of the original workmanship
of this titanic thing I can only make conjectures. The facade, of immense
magnitude, apparently covers a continuous hollow recess; for its windows are
many and widely distributed. In the center yawns a great open door, reached by
an impressive flight of steps, and surrounded by exquisite carvings like the
figures of Bacchanals in relief. Foremost of all are the great columns and
frieze, both decorated with sculptures of inexpressible beauty; obviously
portraying idealized pastoral scenes and processions of priests and priestesses
bearing strange ceremonial devices in adoration of a radiant god. The art is of
the most phenomenal perfection, largely Hellenic in idea, yet strangely
individual. It imparts an impression of terrible antiquity, as though it were
the remotest rather than the immediate ancestor of Greek art. Nor can I doubt
that every detail of this massive product was fashioned from the virgin
hillside rock of our planet. It is palpably a part of the valley wall, though
how the vast interior was ever excavated I cannot imagine. Perhaps a cavern or
series of caverns furnished the nucleus. Neither age nor submersion has
corroded the pristine grandeur of this awful fane—for fane indeed it must
be—and today after thousands of years it rests untarnished and inviolate in the
endless night and silence of an ocean-chasm.
I cannot reckon
the number of hours I spent in gazing at the sunken city with its buildings,
arches, statues, and bridges, and the colossal temple with its beauty and
mystery. Though I knew that death was near, my curiosity was consuming; and I
threw the searchlight beam about in eager quest. The shaft of light permitted
me to learn many details, but refused to show anything within the gaping door
of the rock-hewn temple; and after a time I turned off the current, conscious
of the need of conserving power. The rays were now perceptibly dimmer than they
had been during the weeks of drifting. And as if sharpened by the coming
deprivation of light, my desire to explore the watery secrets grew. I, a
German, should be the first to tread those eon-forgotten ways!
I produced and
examined a deep-sea diving suit of jointed metal, and experimented with the
portable light and air regenerator. Though I should have trouble in managing
the double hatches alone, I believed I could overcome all obstacles with my
scientific skill and actually walk about the dead city in person.
On August 16 I
effected an exit from the U-29, and laboriously made my way through the ruined
and mud-choked streets to the ancient river. I found no skeletons or other
human remains, but gleaned a wealth of archeological lore from sculptures and
coins. Of this I cannot now speak save to utter my awe at a culture in the full
noon of glory when cave-dwellers roamed Europe and the Nile flowed unwatched to
the sea. Others, guided by this manuscript if it shall ever be found, must
unfold the mysteries at which I can only hint. I returned to the boat as my
electric batteries grew feeble, resolved to explore the rock temple on the
following day.
On the 17th, as
my impulse to search out the mystery of the temple waxed still more insistent,
a great disappointment befell me; for I found that the materials needed to
replenish the portable light had perished in the mutiny of those pigs in July.
My rage was unbounded, yet my German sense forbade me to venture unprepared into
an utterly black interior which might prove the lair of some indescribable
marine monster or a labyrinth of passages from whose windings I could never
extricate myself. All I could do was to turn on the waning searchlight of the
U-29, and with its aid walk up the temple steps and study the exterior
carvings. The shaft of light entered the door at an upward angle, and I peered
in to see if I could glimpse anything, but all in vain. Not even the roof was
visible; and though I took a step or two inside after testing the floor with a
staff, I dared not go farther. Moreover, for the first time in my life I
experienced the emotion of dread. I began to realize how some of poor Kienze's
moods had arisen, for as the temple drew me more and more, I feared its aqueous
abysses with a blind and mounting terror. Returning to the submarine, I turned
off the lights and sat thinking in the dark. Electricity must now be saved for
emergencies.
Saturday the 18th
I spent in total darkness, tormented by thoughts and memories that threatened
to overcome my German will. Kienze had gone mad and perished before reaching
this sinster remnant of a past unwholesomely remote, and had advised me to go
with him. Was, indeed, Fate preserving my reason only to draw me irresistibly
to an end more horrible and unthinkable than any man has dreamed of? Clearly,
my nerves were sorely taxed, and I must cast off these impressions of weaker
men.
I could not sleep
Saturday night, and turned on the lights regardless of the future. It was
annoying that the electricity should not last out the air and provisions. I
revived my thoughts of euthanasia, and examined my automatic pistol. Toward
morning I must have dropped asleep with the lights on, for I awoke in darkness
yesterday afternoon to find the batteries dead. I struck several matches in
succession, and desperately regretted the improvidence which had caused us long
ago to use up the few candles we carried.
After the fading
of the last match I dared to waste, I sat very quietly without a light. As I
considered the inevitable end my mind ran over preceding events, and developed
a hitherto dormant impression which would have caused a weaker and more
superstitious man to shudder. The head of the radiant god in the sculptures on
the rock temple is the same as that carven bit of ivory which the dead sailor
brought from the sea and which poor Kienze carried back into the sea.
I was a little
dazed by this coincidence, but did not become terrified. It is only the
inferior thinker who hastens to explain the singular and the complex by the
primitive shortcut of supernaturalism. The coincidence was strange, but I was
too sound a reasoner to connect circumstances which admit of no logical
connection, or to associate in any uncanny fashion the disastrous events which
had led from the Victory affair to my present plight. Feeling the need of more
rest, I took a sedative and secured some more sleep. My nervous condition was
reflected in my dreams, for I seemed to hear the cries of drowning persons, and
to see dead faces pressing against the portholes of the boat. And among the
dead faces was the living, mocking face of the youth with the ivory image.
I must be careful
how I record my awakening today, for I am unstrung, and much hallucination is
necessarily mixed with fact. Psychologically my case is most interesting, and I
regret that it cannot be observed scientifically by a competent German
authority. Upon opening my eyes my first sensation was an overmastering desire
to visit the rock temple; a desire which grew every instant, yet which I
automatically sought to resist through some emotion of fear which operated in
the reverse direction. Next there came to me the impression of light amidst the
darkness of dead batteries, and I seemed to see a sort of phosphorescent glow
in the water through the porthole which opened toward the temple. This aroused
my curiosity, for I knew of no deep-sea organism capable of emitting such
luminosity.
But before I
could investigate there came a third impression which because of its
irrationality caused me to doubt the objectivity of anything my senses might
record. It was an aural delusion; a sensation of rhythmic, melodic sound as of
some wild yet beautiful chant or choral hymn, coming from the outside through
the absolutely sound-proof hull of the U-29. Convinced of my psychological and
nervous abnormallty, I lighted some matches and poured a stiff dose of sodium
bromide solution, which seemed to calm me to the extent of dispelling the
illusion of sound. But the phosphorescence remained, and I had difficulty in
repressing a childish impulse to go to the porthole and seek its source. It was
horribly realistic, and I could soon distinguish by its aid the familiar
objects around me, as well as the empty sodium bromide glass of which I had had
no former visual impression in its present location. This last circumstance
made me ponder, and I crossed the room and touched the glass. It was indeed in
the place where I had seemed to see it. Now I knew that the light was either
real or part of an hallucination so fixed and consistent that I could not hope
to dispel it, so abandoning all resistance I ascended to the conning tower to
look for the luminous agency. Might it not actually be another U-boat, offering
possibilities of rescue?
It is well that
the reader accept nothing which follows as objective truth, for since the
events transcend natural law, they are necessily the subjective and unreal
creations of my overtaxed mind. When I attained the conning tower I found the
sea in general far less luminous than I had expected. There was no animal or
vegetable phosphorescence about, and the city that sloped down to the river was
invisible in blackness. What I did see was not spectacular, not grotesque or
terrifying, yet it removed my last vestige of trust in my consciousness. For
the door and windows of the undersea temple hewn from the rocky hill were
vividly aglow with a flickering radiance, as from a mighty altar-flame far
within.
Later incidents
are chaotic. As I stared at the uncannily lighted door and windows, I became
subject to the most extravagant visions—visions so extravagant that I cannot
even relate them. I fancied that I discerned objects in the temple; objects
both stationary and moving; and seemed to hear again the unreal chant that had
floated to me when first I awaked. And over all rose thoughts and fears which
centered in the youth from the sea and the ivory image whose carving was
duplicated on the frieze and columns of the temple before me. I thought of poor
Kienze, and wondered where his body rested with the image he had carried back
into the sea. He had warned me of something, and I had not heeded—but he was a
soft-headed Rhinelander who went mad at troubles a Prussian could bear with
ease.
The rest is very
simple. My impulse to visit and enter the temple has now become an inexplicable
and imperious command which ultimately cannot be denied. My own German will no
longer controls my acts, and volition is henceforward possible only in minor
matters. Such madness it was which drove Kienze to his death, bare-headed and
unprotected in the ocean; but I am a Prussian and a man of sense, and will use
to the last what little will I have. When first I saw that I must go, I
prepared my diving suit, helmet, and air regenerator for instant donning, and
immediately commenced to write this hurried chronicle in the hope that it may
some day reach the world. I shall seal the manuscript in a bottle and entrust
it to the sea as I leave the U-29 for ever.
I have no fear,
not even from the prophecies of the madman Kienze. What I have seen cannot be
true, and I know that this madness of my own will at most lead only to
suffocation when my air is gone. The light in the temple is a sheer delusion,
and I shall die calmly like a German, in the black and forgotten depths. This
demoniac laughter which I hear as I write comes only from my own weakening
brain. So I will carefully don my suit and walk boldly up the steps into the
primal shrine, that silent secret of unfathomed waters and uncounted years.
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