THE DEEP ONES: "The Lusitania Waits" by Alfred Noyes

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THE DEEP ONES: "The Lusitania Waits" by Alfred Noyes

2elenchus
Jan 26, 2021, 9:56 pm

Another poet cum Weird story author, I look forward to seeing if his efforts are as memorable as those of CAS.

3AndreasJ
Jan 27, 2021, 6:13 am

The story rather confused me because I was unaware of "waits" in the sense of Christmastime singers. That, and the slightly too obvious patriotic moral, aside, I thought it was a fairly good ghost story.

Acc'd WP, the Lusitania really was transporting munitions, although this was officially denied at the time.

4semdetenebre
Jan 27, 2021, 7:10 am

I liked the seaport atmosphere, including the salty, retired sea cap'ns conversing in the tavern. Sure hope that Jimmy Hunt took precautions to avoid the bends as he "shot up" from 60 fathoms.

5pgmcc
Modifié : Fév 4, 2021, 4:21 am

I have to make time to read this. For some years I worked in a company based in Cobh. Its offices were used as a temporary morgue for the bodies brought ashore from The Lusitania.

Cobh is also the place where The Titanic took on its last passengers before heading across the Atlantic.

6semdetenebre
Jan 27, 2021, 3:19 pm

>5 pgmcc:

Coming or going, that's some pretty distinctive maritime history!

7elenchus
Modifié : Jan 28, 2021, 11:13 pm

'It was Christmas Eve the time they took me down. We could hear 'em singing carols on shore; and the captain didn't like it ...

An innocuous description, or seemingly so when Jimmy Hunts first starts his story of the U-Boot, but after what comes later, not so innocent after all. Generally, subtle touches like this serve Noyes very well. A mis-step, I thought, was the opening description of the three captains. Better to skip the narrative introduction, the conversation between the three is a better and more nuanced introduction.

>4 semdetenebre: Sure hope that Jimmy Hunt took precautions to avoid the bends as he "shot up" from 60 fathoms.

I infer from the account of Jimmy walking as though drunk, and his being deemed "crazy", that in fact he did suffer from the bends, or Decompression Sickness (DCS):
DCS involving the brain can present with dizziness, confusion, decreased awareness, loss of consciousness, loss or limited vision and even difficulty with balance and/or walking.

Not quite up to the Weird-ness or the singular prose of CAS, but I'd read another Noyes tale. Liked his good-natured humour about "poytry", too.

8paradoxosalpha
Jan 28, 2021, 11:19 pm

Ah! A weird war-propaganda tale, like Arthur Machen's "Angels of Mons." I should have guessed it from the title.

I liked the preliminary description of the three captains, and it set up the punch-line of the frame story to know they had been "looking forward to a mellow old age in port and a long succession of evenings at the White Horse."

9RandyStafford
Modifié : Fév 3, 2021, 7:33 pm

Well, I nominated this one and I'm glad I don't have to apologize.

I was somewhat underwhelmed. At it's heart, it's an ok ghost story with a pun in the title.

I too like Noyes poking good fun at poetry and poets.

Having an interest in fantastic fiction's use of World War One, I was interested to see contemporary evidence of an oft repeated insertion: that the war weakened European Christianity.

However, Arthur Machen's use of the Lusitania in "The Happy Children" was more evocative and interesting.

10AndreasJ
Fév 4, 2021, 3:36 am

>9 RandyStafford:

Would the Machen be a good nomination for the next season?

11pgmcc
Fév 4, 2021, 4:33 am

I read this a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it as a rather gentle ghost story. Knowing Cobh, where dead of the Lusitania were brought ashore, I was wondering if it was supposed to be set there, but there is no indication that it was. I suspect I was reading it to see if it made any glaringly incorrect statements about the tragedy or Cobh, but it did not. The location could have been any small English fishing village. I do not think the three seamen would have had this conversation in an Irish coastal town; there would not have been the same worries about letting light spill from the window.

As one or two of the comments state this did have an element of propaganda, but then any story written in war-time is likely to have one slant or another. In relation to the rumours of munitions on the vessel, there were also rumours of gold being transported to pay for munitions.

I must seek out Machen's The Happy Children to see how he deals with the Lusitania.

12Crypto-Willobie
Fév 4, 2021, 9:42 am

Hmm... how do I drag James Branch Cabell into this thread?

OK... Cabell's friend the novelist Justus Miles Forman died on the Lusitania.

13paradoxosalpha
Modifié : Fév 4, 2021, 10:22 am

Aleister Crowley sailed from England to the US on the Lusitania on an earlier voyage, possibly while working for British intelligence. (See Secret Agent 666.)

14housefulofpaper
Mar 25, 2021, 9:23 pm

I finally read this one (I read it online, the first time I looked at the link in >1 semdetenebre: I thought it was a huge long story...it's a whole book of short stories. D'oh!).

On the poet and Weird author subject, I think I expected something closer to Walter de la Mare. What it's closer to is the stories Arthur Machen was writing during WWI - sometimes very crude propaganda ("The Happy Children" is later, and subtler).

It's interesting to read in his Wikipedia entry that Noyes was actually a pacifist, up to a point, but did feel or accept that when "threatened by an aggressive and unreasoning enemy, a nation could not but fight."

I don't think I'd describe a story involving the supernatural killing (I was going to say "murder", but it is war time) of a whole submarine crew as "gentle". I suppose the telling of the tale is rather plain and matter-of-fact, no doubt to add to the impact of the three old skippers giving up their retirements to aid the war effort at the end.