Douglas Mercer
November 24 2024
The reference to the Bermudas being vexed is the first known reference to the idea that there was a force field around the island that could lead to sinking into the sea (the Bermuda Triangle), though in his logs Columbus reported haywire compasses, strange lights, and flames falling into the sea; and sailors who arrived on the island were unnerved by the calls of cahow birds and the sounds of wild pigs from the interior. So in his play Shakespeare immortalized the island’s mystical reputation, though the phrase “Bermuda Triangle” was not coined until 1964, the year of the 400th anniversary of the poet’s birth (Gaddis in Argosy Magazine).
The first thing I did was throw all the clocks overboard. By the time I began I knew exactly how it would look, like some mystery; some ship would crawl up beside the boat and look and see that everything was in order, the rigging, the mizzen sail raised, the arrangement of everything; but the chronometer case would be empty and would perhaps be a clue; and I would set up the tableaux to confound them some more; plenty of food, all of it in good condition, and I would set up a soldering iron on a tin of milk to show that no random stray waves had been there; the man who came on board would say that the ship had been ghosting, simply cruising along in the calm sea at a stately pace; a man could have stayed on that boat forever would be the thought, the weather was so clear and perfect.
Everyone always said that I like to play games, I would show up at their doors roaring in at 3:00 in the morning and say Hullo Folks! And my irrepressible charm and high spirits meant that they could not get angry with me but we all would be up for some coffee before they sent me on my way. Perhaps it is this penchant for larks or games or leg pulls which will make it all at least perplexing to some few; after all they never figured out what happened to the Mary Celeste either but this one will leave them with more options to consider or at least I think. Anyway mysteries are good for people, that’s what I was thinking as I walked the deck before I sat down to begin this; people don’t really want to know what happened, for usually the truth is anti-climactic though from time to time something happens the truth of which make them think twice. But usually not knowing is what makes their lives worth living.
When I began, when I really decided that the game was up, that I would not be going back to England, it was a great relief; to make a decision and really know that you were going to stick by it, it is always a great comfort; there has been so much interest in the race that my plan to end it, and in the way I will, that it will in fact seem anti-climactic to some, tragic to others, though, for a few, it might become an object of endless fascination at least for a while; in the end everything is forgotten. For some reason when I saw the way out and decided to write how I would be perceived in the future still meant something to me though it no longer does, though you will notice my speculation; but that is all it is.
The press like to trumpet things out in neat catch phrases and when they get wind of something eccentric having happened they perhaps will fall in with their “sea drama of the century” or “fatal boat race” or ‘strange death at sea” or something about a man going to a watery grave, the poetic might even mention something rich and strange; but for my money, though it’s a bit out of fashion and will become more out of fashion as time wears on, what they were saying about me as I was getting ready with my boat is what I like best; that I was an everyman, the little guy, the mouse that roared, the man on the street, John Bull, and an extraordinary example and personification of English pluck and self-help: that is it was derring-do or real Boy’s Own Stuff. It's all a bit kitschy of course but that’s the kind of thing that sells papers, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I had some real fun disemboweling the radios; my trip up to then had been so much about transmissions, both getting and receiving, and writing things down in the log book, recording. But when the radio went it was almost as satisfying as when the clocks were tossed; it was a real set piece and a Rubicon crossed, no going back is the best way of all; and don’t take anyone seriously about anything until they begin to talk about burning all the boats. And what better message to send to posterity than no messages at all?
Of course there are still the log books; I must admit that tossing them over appeals to me; but this decision has been so sudden and so irreversible that I just can’t seem to do it; it’s one thing to leave hearth and home and say goodbye to one’s wife and children, that I have come to see as fatal necessity; it’s another to cut all ties. And who knows perhaps what I will write will not be the insane ramblings that I suppose at times; in my head it is all crystal clear but as it spills on to the page there is some distortion, I can even see that. But even so it never hurts to leave some breadcrumbs behind as a cue or a clue; and if it were to help someone take the same path as I have it could not be a bad thing at all.
So, the notebooks: there are three, all will be in great order, I want whoever stumbles across them to understand them to be the picture of meticulousness, so there is no question about mad dashes of strange impulses. One is the book of Deception, the one in which I plotted my ideal course, the one I never took but wanted to make them believe I took; the second is the Real one, much shorter and more brief, and it plots my actual journey and, as such, is rather disappointing and prosaic; then there is this one, the one I am filling up right now which, in lieu of anything better, I call Philosophy. I plan to tell the truth as the first thing I realized is that the only sin, the only thing evil, is concealment. To that I would add a second sin, ignorance, though the two are related. It seems such a simple thing but believe me it’s not; the truth is always the last thing you come by.
You see I came to this pass all out of ideas; there seemed to be no good options. Go back and face sure disgrace or end my life by my own hand; but I had the good luck to land on a becalmed sea on a set of glorious days. No more of the high winds and waves, no more the icy indifference that makes man see who he is. Those thrilling yet terrifying days made me what I am but were not enough; what I needed was time to understand. The days here the sun shone on the heavenly bodies but always it would shine as bright. And it is only in a deep sunny calm that you can recollect all that is required; fog and mist are fine for exploring but blue skies are best for thinking. They say that in several weeks a man will land on the moon; and it’s an important step. The earth is not man’s home and the sooner we realize this the better off we will be. That was the first thing I really learned.
But as for me I will leave them all with a real mystery. Certainly some among my friends will say that this is just another example of Hullo Folks! Or Goodbye Folks! I suppose. They will at least half believe that I was just playing another of my funny games though what exactly the game is they will not be able to say. But I’m not. It’s not a game. I thought it was a great discovery when I first announced that life was game and I certainly played it that way for a long time but mere cleverness palls in the end.
A man can play act anything but acting will be all he has be doing. No, life is not a game. And though they half think to themselves that one day I’ll show up on their doorstop I won’t. And the search teams won’t find a thing except for a well-ordered ghost ship, just ghosting along, and a soldering iron resting on a tin of milk; anyone with half a brain will let out a low whistle at the perfect picture and say to himself that it’s real Boy’s Own Stuff, but they won’t. The will only speak of tragedy and drag the boat to some dry dock where it will rot away forever and be forgotten. That’s the way I see it anyways and in the mood I’m in I don’t think I could ever be wrong.
***
My recollection has become vast, indeed that has been the problem these last days, so many memories are flooding me that I have to stop them. Whoever said that when you die your life flashes in front of you had it right I think, more right than he knew. But when I think of my childhood and even my adulthood only a few facts are pertinent, and it is only these that the reader of these notes might need to make sense of the rest.
I was born in India to a petty railway official and a mother who was very religious; when I was very young I heard the voice of God but I remember when I was eight the voice stopped. I had a small toy which was a sailing boat and I became fascinated by the idea of the sea; I owned a book called Heroes All and there was a tale in it which I particularly liked: the moral of this story was adventure means risking something and it is only when we are doing that that we know how really splendid thing life is; that a man that does not dare never does; that the man that never risks never wins. When I list that itinerary I marvel at how eerily it foreshadows the rest, as if what I said about the truth “computing” was more real than even I could have imagined.
I have been told by those who were near me at the time that I was a child of ferocious determination; I was self-assertive and courageous; I would race up the water towers which rattled in the high winds which came off the desert and trip the catwalks at the top and laugh at the terror this caused my companions; they say that I could be violent as well, once I was hunting birds and came face to face with an Indian--aiming my air gun at him he backed off telling me to carry on shooting.
I remember all that my parents taught me; about being good and honest and true; about what it meant to be English, especially in a dark land; we ended up leaving India for England and a sporting goods store my father owned in Pakistan burned down in the Partition Riots; always being good with my hands and able to fix things I became interested in electronics and I spent may long hours studying the intricacies of this subject; my time in the Navy and the Army were both something I am ashamed of; I ran with a fast crowd and loved to show off by racing my car; I always had to be the wildest and the bravest in any group and I was a compulsive risk taker and a great defier of authority. My mind moved much more swiftly and decisively than the others in my group and I always prided myself on making intellectual knock out arguments.
I say none of these things with pride but with a sense of pity that I should have prized such qualities. This teeming brain of mine and my irresponsible actions led me to be forced to resign from both branches; and it was sometime amidst these activities that I came up with the theory which held me in good stead until only a few days ago really: that life was best looked on as a game and that God (if God existed, which I doubted then) had created this tortuous game; that is we all find ourselves trapped in a material world the end of which ostensibly is nothing, and so we struggle and twist and fear; but that clues or puzzles are scattered within the game that if one can solve them one can be released from the prison; it’s only that the more you know the steeper the learning curve is so only a game master can conquer it all; which is why I called the game torture, which despite my serenity right now I know it is.
I began to think that cleverness was the most important virtue that one could possess. I came to believe that the mind existed independently of the body and that within some centuries life would exist without any bodies at all. Naturally these outlandish opinions of mine were stated in a certain and brash manner whenever I held court with my friends or admirers, which was very often. I see now though that I did more than entertain these ideas; in some sense I was play acting as a man might try on hats in the mirror to see how they looked; but I know that one should pay close attention to the actual words one says and the thoughts one thinks, for even if they are just expressions of exuberance, one often says more than one knows.
I met my wife in 1957 and I think at first I surprised her; I had fallen in with a group of Bohemians. When I first laid eyes on her I came up to her and demanded that I read her fortune and declared: you are going to marry an impossible man. I also told her I would never leave her side and, until now, I have been as good as my word. After meeting her I came round to take her out every day; we went boating at Oxford and I showed her the hotel where we would spend our honeymoon; with all of the impulsive things I told her during our courtship, however amazing or crazy they might have seemed, I had the ingenuity to make them all come true.
It was around the time my first son was born that I began to take sailing seriously. I also got a job at an electronics firm and it seemed to be an exciting way for me to conduct original research; but in this hope I was sorely disappointed. It turned out that I was to be a commercial traveler explaining the intricacies of other men’s inventions to customers. Once again my aggressive nature came into play and I crashed a car belonging to the company; when I was reprimanded instead of accepting it I quit.
I then became a Chief Designing Engineer but my heart was not in it and it became only a way of passing time; I spent my free time creating new and strange devices; I would get away from people in a solitary room and tinker with my machines and prototypes and blue prints on my work bench; many a time I would be up so late that my wife would have to come to call me to bed; but wires, transistors and gadgets were my life; some of my friends said I was a boffin, which as I understand is an elfin puckish, and esoteric creature who is given to play; I would emerge from my lonely existence with a smile on my face, scarcely aware that there was a non-electronic life. Usually even after I was back in it for a while I wondered if there really was.
It was then that I bought the Pot Of Gold. I had heard many things about the sea but what stuck most was its utter indifference, and of how a man is never more alone than when he is at sea; and that it is in this trial that one finds out who one really is. I would often scuttle impulsively off to sea—and it was my solace. It was also at this time that I created a device of navigation—it was not terribly original (indeed any radio can do the trick in a pinch) but it was well designed and practical. It came in a plastic case and one could aim it like a pistol.
During this time in our picturesque (perhaps overly so) community there were constant workshop sessions, much sailing, and impulsive walks and rambles up into the Hills. We also began to socialize with some of the more bohemian neighbors and I began to participate in amateur theatricals; I love play acting and was quite the ham, histrionic and melodramatic, always needing to be the center of attention; it was said of me at the time that I was very open minded; I suppose that this was because I would talk about anything anywhere and at any time to anybody and no matter how odd or offbeat or outlandish something was I would take it seriously, at least ostensibly, and I would say let’s suppose that is true and try to take that game to its logical conclusion; you can learn a lot by indulging in conversations that most consider a waste of time.
It was at this time that I honed my idea of life as a game; that one day the mind would exist without being tied to a mortal body; and that truth was something that computed, as if the mind more than anything was a computer that had its own internal logic, if one could see it. It was at this time, that in an honest moment, that someone said I thought myself to be God. Being opened minded I entertained it and said yes; but that anyone could be God once one developed that free searching mind that was required. Another said that I was the most real and vivid person he had ever met and, really, in that he was just saying the same thing
I bought a Jaguar and soon crashed it—nasty head wound—and after my wife said she detected a subtle (or not so subtle!) change in my personality. More moody and sulky and I would spend long days alone staring at the ceiling. I think it was then that I figured that I had lost my way a bit, lost the plot as is said, so many dreams and so little to show for it. I did some strange things then I will admit, like conducting séances and table tapping, and some experiments in telepathy and Tarot; and I took a woman I knew up to the Mound—and told her I believed in black magic, cut my arm and smeared it on her wrist and announced that she was my blood sister.
Where this all could have headed the gods know; but as always has happened to me fate made a fatal turn—Pye Radio gave me some 9000 pounds in investment in my Navigating Device but this quickly ran out. Then came in to my life Mr. Best—I am sure that when this plays out more than a few will look at his practices with me suspiciously—but this could not be farther from the truth. Far from being a Mephistopheles figure Mr. Best was an angel sent to me and, through a series of convoluted passages led me to this brink of this passage—if there is a hero of this story it is him.
He and formed a semi-partnership regarding my device and when the business side of it went sour he told me he considered me brilliant but that I was on the move all the time and never appreciated what was really happening and my precocious and infectious nature hid that of a fanatic. He told me I had an over-imaginative mind and that I was always trying to dream reality into the state I wanted it to be. So I was at loose ends yet again. And into this rather desultory state of affairs came the race and the boat—and, as always, the future. For though Mr. Best had been burned once, so to speak, he stuck his hand my flame again, something which may seem inexplicable, but only to those who have not me.
It is amazing how calm it is out here. That thing about the sea being so indifferent and that’s how you find out who you really are---a few calm days and you realize how true that is. Spend some days at the end of your rope perfectly still and you'll see.
Continued at Crow (Part Two)
