Uncommon Castaway

by Nelson S. Bond

Nelson Bond, who made his start in the regular pulp magazines, rapidly graduated from that class to star his fine fantasies in the pages of the better popular magazines. Gifted with an easy, smooth narration, his themes may vary from trick inventions to hypothetical reconstructions of the beginning and end of man. In “Uncommon Castaway” he spins an anecdote of the recent war—an odd little adventure which might explain in modern terms one of the older mysteries of recorded lore.

HEED ye! 'Ware and repent, I cry, and woe to him who will not hear my warning! For verily I say unto you that the Day of Judgment neareth, when for your sins and your iniquities shall be visited upon you the fire and the sword of Those whose fury maketh the earth to tremble; yea, the very seas to burn!

They shooed us out of Alexandria when Rommel pressed past Mersa Matruh and down the long sandy highway that leads to Cairo. Shooed us, but fast. The Admiralty said there was nothing we could do but hide out in safe harbors until events disclosed whether Montgomery's plan for a last-ditch stand at a dot on the map called El Alamein was sound strategy or—as almost everyone feared—pure desperation.

The Old Man hated like blazes to run. When I handed him the order, he grunted and his teeth met through his pipe-stem. He didn't even swear. Which just proves how deeply he was moved, because the skipper is an educated man. He cusses fluently in six languages. At trifles.

But this was too big. He just shook his head and said, “Very good. Sparks. Carry on!” And turned and walked forward, very fast.

So the Grampus, under cover of a jet Egyptian night, slipped out to sea and safety. It was a strange leave-taking. The West Harbor was like a coalpit; even the lighthouse on Raset-Tin was blacked out. But the darkness was alive with sounds. The incessant wash of Mediterranean waters against the crags of Pharos … the high, flat notes of a bosun's key, piping-thin against the sigh of a westering breeze … the mute ripple of voices from ships that glided dimly past, cheerless as drifting wraiths. Gray sounds, angry sounds. The petulant farewell of vessels evacuating a harbor that had