“‘On 23 September, we took on 130 tons of oxidized ore called Red Death by the locals,’” Summer read. “‘A German scientist named Steiner oversaw the loading and joined the crew for the return voyage.’”
“The first officer later wrote that Steiner stayed holed up in his cabin with a stack of physics books for the rest of the trip,” Dirk said.
“Red Death?” Perlmutter said. “I wonder if it is something like Edgar Allan Poe’s plague of the same name. I’ll have to take a look at that—and this fellow Steiner. Certainly a curious cargo.”
The trio flipped through several weeks of entries describing the submarine’s return across the Indian Ocean. On the ninth of November, the handwriting turned hurried, and the pages showed saltwater stains.
“This is where they got into trouble, while off the coast of South Africa,” Perlmutter said. He read aloud a terse description of the Barbarigo diving to avoid a nighttime air attack. After eluding several bombing runs, the crew believed they had escaped the attack—only to discover that the sub’s propeller had been disabled or blown off entirely.
Dirk and Summer sat silently as Perlmutter read of the resulting tragedy. With no propulsion, the sub remained submerged for twelve hours, fearing that additional aircraft had been called to the scene. Surfacing at midday, they found themselves in an empty sea, drifting to the southeast. Carried past the shipping lanes and without a long-range radio, the officers feared they might drift to their deaths in the Antarctica. Captain De Julio ordered the crew to abandon ship, and they took to the four life rafts stowed beneath the forward deck, saluting their beloved vessel as they left her side. In a mix-up of orders, the last officer off failed to prime the scuttle charges and sealed the main hatch. Rather than sinking before them, the Barbarigo drifted off toward the horizon.
Perlmutter stopped reading and raised his eyebrows like a pair of drawbridges. “My word,” he said quietly. “That is most curious.”
“What happened to the other three boats?” Summer asked.
“The log entries become spottier at this point,” Perlmutter said. “They attempted to reach South Africa and were within sight of land when a storm struck. The boats were dispersed in the rough seas, and Captain De Julio said the men in his boat never again saw the other three. During the ordeal they lost five men, all their food and water, and their sail and oars. The raft was carried east, drifting away from shore with the coastal current. Eventually the weather turned hot and dry. With no fresh water, they lost two more crewmen, leaving only the captain, the first officer, and two engineers.”
“Ravaged by thirst, they eventually spotted land again and were able to paddle closer. High winds and huge swells carried them ashore and tossed them onto the beach,” Perlmutter said. “They found themselves in a hot desert, desperate for water. The last entry states the captain went off alone in search of water, as the others were too weak to walk. The journal ends, ‘God bless the Barbarigo and her crew.’”
“We can attest to the barrenness of the region,” Summer said after a time. “What a tragedy that they nearly made it safely to South Africa and ended up a thousand miles away in Madagascar.”
“They fared slightly better than the crewmen in the other three boats,” Dirk said.
Perlmutter nodded, though he appeared lost in thought. He rose from his seat and padded in
to the living room, then returned a few minutes later with an armful of books and an inquisitive look. “Congratulations, Summer. It would appear as if you have solved two enduring mysteries of the sea.”
“Two?” she asked.
“Yes, the fate of the Barbarigo and the identity of the South Atlantic Wraith.”
“I’ll buy the former,” Dirk said, “but what’s this Wraith?”
Perlmutter opened the first book and flipped through its pages. “From the logbook of the merchant ship Manchester, off the Falkland Islands, February 14, 1946. ‘Light seas, winds out of the southwest three or four. At 1100, the first officer reported an object off our starboard beam. Appeared at first to be a whale carcass, but believe it is a man-made vessel.’”
He closed the book and opened another. “The freighter Southern Star, April 3, 1948, near Santa Cruz, Argentina. ‘Unknown object, possible sailing vessel, spotted adrift two miles distant. Black hull, small superstructure amidships. Appears abandoned.’”
Perlmutter picked up a third book. “Accounts of a South Georgia Whaling Station. In February of 1951, the whaler Paulita arrived with a kill of three mature gray whales. Captain reports spotting a ghost ship, low black hull, small sail amidships, drifting one hundred miles north. Crew called it the South Atlantic Wraith.”
“You think the Barbarigo is this Atlantic Wraith?” Summer asked.
“It’s entirely possible. For a period of twenty-two years, there were sightings of a supposed ghost ship adrift in the South Atlantic. For one reason or another, no one seemed to get a close view, but the descriptions are all similar. It seems to me that a bottled-up submarine could drift about an empty sea for quite a while.”
“At those southerly latitudes, the sub’s conning tower could easily ice over,” Dirk said, “so from a distance it resembled a sail.”
“That might be confirmed in the last recorded sighting.” Perlmutter opened the final book. “It was in 1964. An endurance sailor named Leigh Hunt was making a solo round-the-world voyage when he saw something unusual. Ah, here it is,” he said, and began reading aloud the passage,
“‘While approaching the Magellan Straits, I encountered a horrific storm, brutal even for these waters. For thirty hours, I battled twenty-foot seas and raging winds that tried with all their fury to drive me onto the rocks around Cape Horn. It was in the midst of this duel that I caught glimpse of the South Atlantic Wraith. I thought it a berg at first, for it was encrusted in ice, but I could see the dark, sharp edges of steel beneath. She washed by me quickly, carried with the winds and waves, toward a sure death on the shores of Tierra del Fuego.”
“Wow,” Summer said, “still afloat in 1964.”
“But apparently not for long, if Hunt’s account is accurate,” Perlmutter said.
“Is Hunt still alive?” she asked. “Perhaps we could talk to him.”
“I’m afraid he was lost at sea a few years ago. But his family might still possess his logbooks.”
Dirk finished his glass of wine and looked at his sister.