Story: "The Last Tall Ship"

Drowning is a terrible death. In my few short years as a port-town doctor I have seen many drowned souls, man, woman, and child. Every face bore a rictus of pain unlike any other I can recall. The few survivors say it is akin to your own body strangling you.

And yet, after three days adrift in a lifeboat, I began to find drowning somewhat appealing. Had I not been certain Aunt Mathilde drowned, I should have cursed her name with a great deal of rancour.

Story: Eight Bells For Jonah

Was the Manx-man what gave the order, but we all done the deed. I was a foremast hand on a clipper out o' Baltimore, bound for the opium routes. She'd been built the same year, special, for Jonas Hart, son o' the magnate Thomas Hart. His first command. A maiden captain for a maiden ship. We the crew more'n balanced that out. Mate Thurston was nearing forty, overdue and overlooked for his own command, and none o' us common swabs had under five voyages to boast. Myself, I shipped first when I was fifteen—I'm twenty-two now an' getting hungry for land-life again. Been saving pay for a farm an' a wife.

The ship herself was fine enough, trim an' well-provisioned an' spankin' new. Couldn't say the same for her name. Never did fancy bringing no albatross into things without cause. Not that I'm superstitious. Just believe in caution, is all. But Captain Jonas, he named her, so we were the Albatross's crew.