Captain Van der Decken put a sailor ashore for being late.
The man had been busy casting off the ship.
“Then he should have started earlier,” said the captain.
He had a time for everything. Eating. Sleeping. Setting sail. Praying was allowed if no work was left undone afterwards. Only for doubt had he set aside no time, so that on board it never officially occurred.
In the tales connected with Terneuzen, this stubborn captain sets sail when he would have done better to stay. Our story begins on one such morning.
The water stood high against the quay. The other ships were moored fast. The wind whistled in the masts as if it were warning the crew personally.
The mate looked at the sky.
Van der Decken looked at the mate.
“What are you looking for up there?”
“Better weather.”
“Then you’ll be looking for a long time.”
He gave the order to depart.
At sea he was proved right. The mate could indeed look for a long time.
No better weather came.
The waves broke over the deck. The men hauled on wet ropes with hands they could barely feel any more. In the galley, a pan flew from left to right without cooking anything.
The captain stayed at the helm. Every time the wind pushed him back, he thrust his jaw further forward. In the end it stuck out almost as far as the bow.
They saw land. Then they no longer saw it. Then they saw it again, but in a place where it was not supposed to be.
“We have to turn back,” said the mate.
The captain turned round so slowly that the man had time to regret his words.
“Turn back?”
A silence fell between two claps of thunder.
“I will get there,” cried Van der Decken, “even if I have to sail until the last day!”
The wind dropped.
Only for a moment.
It was long enough to hear someone laughing somewhere.
Then the storm began again.
At first the captain thought nothing had changed. The ship sailed. The men worked. The destination still lay ahead of them.
But the days began to do strange things.
The sun rose without warmth. The moon appeared without anyone remembering that it had gone away. A torn sail stayed torn but never ripped off entirely. A mast that should have broken went on creaking.
A sailor dropped his mug. He caught it before it hit the deck.
Then he dropped it again.
The mug never actually came down. It just kept falling in that one, stretched-out second.
The man walked away from it.
Nobody asked why.
Van der Decken kept his log. He wrote down the course. He wrote down the weather. He wanted to write down the date and discovered that his last page was full of the same day.
He tore it out.
The next page began with it.
After a long time, another ship appeared.
There were living men on deck. Their clothes were different. Their faces moved in a way the mate had almost forgotten.
He had a letter for home. He had tucked it back into his coat again and again, until its edges had grown soft as old linen.
“Take it with you!” he shouted.
The strange ship came no closer.
The captain took the letter from him and stretched his hand out over the bulwark. For once, he wanted to accept something from another person that was not obedience.
“A letter!” he called. “For home.”
A man on the other ship saw the vessel without a shadow. He saw the sails that did not match the wind. He crossed himself and ducked out of sight.
The ships drifted apart.
The mate held his letter close again.
“My son will be grown up,” he said.
Van der Decken did not answer.
It was suddenly no longer clear to him how much time growing up took.
Ever since, the sailors say, the ghost ship has sailed on. The captain remains standing at his helm.
Sometimes he sees a harbour. Lights are burning. A dog barks. He smells bread.
But as soon as he tries to put in, the wind picks up again.
His hands have grown thin. His coat hangs looser. Only his voice has lost nothing of the certainty with which he once dismissed a man for casting off the ship.
The mate no longer asks when they will arrive.
Still, now and then, Van der Decken gives an answer.
“On time.”
It is the only lie he still fully believes.
Provenance · Freely retold
A free adaptation of the Flying Dutchman, the ghost ship legend that is also linked to Terneuzen. Cohen tells a version with redemption; here the endless voyage was chosen. The timetable and the standstill of time are our own additions.
The Flying Dutchman · The Terneuzen tradition
The dialogue and comic scenes are newly written. AI illustrations depict the tale.