In a few weeks?
I have just returned from this unfortunate voyage.
On our voyage from Buenos Aires to Grytviken, things began to go wrong with the ships equipment. The alcohol in the ships compass in the wheel house disappeared, the compass was useless. A young Ernie Norris Green who was one of the helmsmen said it was OK when he was relieved at midnight. The next man on the wheel was a Michael Aspin, another strange fellow. He was always cohorting with the one eyed steward, one Jeffery Glasse. Some thing was not quite right, I had a memory of my father`s journals which were written as a continuing story from his father`s day and so on.
I retrieved the journals from my sea chest and started to read, with much trepadition.
Reoccurring names were repeated through each generation of my family going back to the days of 1646. The names of Glasse and Aspin.
It started in 1626 when an illigitemate son of Baron de Aspin, was born to a Miss Lilac
Michael de Aspin was only a half member of the de Aspin family. He was born on the other side of the blanket after a dalliance by Baron de Aspin and a serving wench known as Miss Lilac in that house of ill repute, Ye Olde Man and Scythe, in the square in ye township of Bolton.
Later when he was twenty years old, Michael de Aspin wanted money off his father, the Baron de Aspin who had found he was an embarrassment to the family name. The Baron hired a one eyed cretin by the name of Jeffery de Glasse, to despatch Michael, paying him half now and the other half after the deed was done.
Jeffery de Glasse returned from London informing the Baron that Michael was now at the bottom of the Thames, buried in the mud and so no further claims would be made on the de Aspin Estate. The Baron hated this grovelling cretin and dismissed him with out payment. When Jeffery de Glasse complained, the Baron reported him to the authorities, the Puritans found him guilty of sedition and had him burned at the stake high on a hill overlooking the lands of the Baron. As the flames engulfed his body, de Glasse screamed a curse at the Baron and all his decendents.
Just afterwards the Baron`s ancestral home, Aspin Hall was burned to the ground by Cromwell`s men.
And so the curse has followed each generation and each time there was a Glasse involved and a Michael Aspin.
The curse could only be stopped by burning Glasse in the Fires Of Hell.
I read all these stories that my father had written and it filled me with great dread, I had two members of my crew named Glasse and Aspin. I went ice cold with fear and the hairs on my neck stood on end. What was I to do.?
I challenged Aspin about the compass, he denied all knowledge of the missing alcohol it was OK when he left the wheel at 2am.
Steering a course was very difficult with the compass needle sticking repeatedly, .being an old ship we had no other compass to steer by.
The seas were heavy now, we were in the roaring forties, I also challenged Glasse as to why he was staggering like a man who was drunk, he said it was the roll of the ship that made him like that. I could not prove it was him who had drank the alcohol
The Mate and I had to try and watch these two men continuously.
One night an iron bar was jammed into the piston of our triple expansion engine and it snapped a piston, which smashed the cylinder, steam was blasting all over the engine room and the poor second engineer, a Mr Kevin Harrison, was scalded to death.. The ship was stopped while the body of Mr Kevin was retrieved. When all hands were called to assist in the engine room it was discovered that Glasse, Aspin and Ernest Norris Green had disappeared with one of the ship`s lifeboats.
We were approximately forty miles off the coast of South Georgia, but we were powerless and drifting with the current and a northerly wind to the South towards the Antarctic.
We had the sad task of sewing up the body of Kevin and sliding his body into those cold dark waters of the Scotia Sea.
Two weeks later we were nearing the coast of Elephant Island, we were surrounded by large icebergs. We had struggled with the engine repairs and finally removed the smashed piston and cylinder. The firemen got up steam again and the engines were started slowly, it was off balance and so we had to steam at slow speed making around three knots, but that was better than drifting ashore on that wild and desolate island with no means of escape.
Meanwhile, we learned later, Glasse and Aspin had taken Ernest hostage to help with the rowing and sailing of the boat to South Georgia, They knew there were many whalers and sealers operating out of there and so they could easily escape.
They had landed in King Edward Sound and made their way to Grytviken with a tale of shipwreck, they were the only survivors. A Norwegian Whaler arrived and Ernest being a Seaman and bigger than the other two, found a job onboard and shipped out. No one wanted a one eyed steward and a whinging sailor. They were stranded for the duration.
Twelve days after repairing the engine we arrived in Grytviken four weeks after the disaster caused by the Glasse and Aspin.
The Harbour Authorities arrived on board and were amazed when we told them of our dreadful voyage. He informed us that the evil Glasse and Aspin were still on the island and steps would be taken to arrest them.
They were confined in an empty whale oil tank, there being no police or prison on the island, and held until we were ready for sailing after loading the whale oil into our tanks in the holds. Also there was no facility on South Georgia to repair the piston and cylinder so we would have to make for Cape Town as the nearest port on our way back to Garston. The 3800 mile voyage would take us around seven weeks at three knots. We loaded coal bunkers, stores and fresh water, then Glasse and Aspin were dragged onboard in chains and taken down the fore peak and chained to the bulkhead there. A watch was posted at the entrance to the focsle and they were fed and watered when the crew were fed.
We cast off the wooden jetty in Grytviken to the cheers of the Flensers and the crews of the Sealers that were moored there. Sailing around King Edward Point we then headed in a NE direction through the iceberg covered Scotia Sea towards the South Atlantic. We now had a new compass purchased from the chandlers in Grytviken.
After 24 days at sea we were running short of stores and fresh water, we had enough coal loaded for the journey to Cape Town.
Nightingale Island came up on our Port bow, which was, unfortunately uninhabited. A few hours later Tristan da Cunha came in sight on our Starboard bow, a look at the charts showed there was a settlement there so we made for the anchorage by the settlement named Edinburgh.
As we anchored a few small fishing boats came out to us and we invited them on board. They were a very pleasant and cheerful crowd.
They informed us that we could purchase sheep and fresh vegetables for our stores.
Now at this time Glasse and Aspin were on deck for their exercise period and Glasse heard that one of the senior men on the island was a Mr Glass. He claimed to be a member of the family. I saw a chance here of getting rid of the evil little man, if he was stranded here on Tristan he would never return to England, no ships passed this way, it was the most isolated island on earth.
Mr Glass, a kindly man, took Glasse ashore with him while he questioned his family connections. I thought it would be an ideal thing to do, separate Glasse and Aspin , I would then take Aspin to Cape Town to be dealt with by the authorities there.
Mr Glass called me to his home, he told me that this Glasse had tried to tell him he was from the Somerset side of the Glass family. He could not possibly be.
The original Glass family had arrived here from Holland in 1814 with William Glass as head of the family and had never had any English side. He had Glasse taken outside of the settlement to a shack that was some times used as a shelter for the men working in the fields. He was locked up there while we decided what to do with him. I didn?t want him on my ship and Mr Glass didn?t want him on the island.
Then fate took a hand, there was a tremble and the earth moved sideways and back, a rumbling sound was heard, Mr Glass said ?Quickly, we must get into the boats, it is the volcano.? Tristan was just a volcano with enough space on it for the settlement.
We and all the 200 residents ran down to the jetty and the boats took us all out to our ship.
We watched as the volcano fired flames, smoke and sparks up into the sky, then a sliver of orange lava poured down the mountain side and it was heading for the shack that held Glasse.
We could hear his screams echoing from the side of the mountain as the lava advanced upon him. Then it hit the shack and then a cloud of steam appeared as his body was consumed in the `Fires From Hell`. He was gone, covered in a thick layer of molten rock, a fitting end to an evil man and hopefully an end to the curse of de Glasse in the 17th century.
The volcano stopped the eruption and all was quiet again. it was as if it had to be to rid the earth of this evil. The volcano stayed quiet until 1961 when the whole settlement had to be evacuated to England.
We went back ashore with the families and all seemed to normal again. We stayed for four days while the good islanders rounded up the sheep and found us the vegetables that we required.
We bade farewell to our new friends and headed for Cape Town 2000 miles distant..
After an uneventful voyage of 28 days we arrived in the shadow of Table Mountain. The British Consul arrived on board and I notified him of the events of the voyage and also we needed repairs to our engine.
The Police came down to the ship and Aspin was taken ashore and charges laid against him, Mutiny and assisting in the manslaughter of Mr Kevin Harrison, our late Second Engineer.
The Notsrag was towed around to the repair berth and Globe Engineering Co. Ltd. Stripped out our engine and did all the necessary repairs and soon had the pistons moving up and down smoothly.
Meanwhile I attended the Crown Court on Adderley Street for the trial of Aspin. He was found guilty of the charges and was sentenced to Hard Labour for life on Robben Island, working in the Limestone Quarry. At last we had got rid of this evil duo.
We made ready for sailing, loaded fresh stores, water and coal bunkers then proceeded to sea for a pleasant voyage back to Garston with a brief call at St. Vincent in the Cape Verde Islands for bunkers.
When we arrived in Garston much was made of the voyage in the Newspapers and of the events that had happened to us.
March 2009.
I have just read my Grandfather`s journal of 1925/6. I decided to do a re run of that voyage but this time on a nice cruise ship. After that fateful voyage he changed the family name again to Kong instead of King, a changed name a changed fortune. he said.
We went to Buenos Aires and walked around the streets such as Viente Cinco de Mayo where my forefathers drank and danced the tango with so many Senoritas. I went to the Pink Palace, one time home of the famous Evita and to the Recolletta, where she is buried. We sailed to that dreadful place, Elephant Island, through the mists and snows, through the Scotia Sea surrounded by icebergs to Grytviken in South Georgia. A pretty place in the late Autumn sun light. The Whaling Station has long gone, just a few rusting tanks and derelect buildings, two Sealers and a whale catcher hauled up onto the beach rusting a little more each year. A small grave yard containing around twenty graves of whalers and also of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the great explorer. A sad and lonely place.
From there we sailed 1800 miles to Tristan da Cunha, the loneliest Island on earth.
Going ashore there to the settlement of Edinburgh, we met up with Mr Glass, one of the senior seven families of the island. We went to where the lava flowed down from the volcano and stood on the very spot where that evil Glasse had met his end in the `Fires of Hell`, a strange feeling, being over the man who had caused so much misery. I picked up a lump of pumice, the size of an orange, from the lava and placed it in my pocket.
I bade farewell to the islanders and returned to my ship.
We arrived in Cape Town five days later and stayed there for a few days before flying home.
I took a trip on the ferry to Robben Island, a place made famous by one Nelson Mandela.
I was given permission to examine the records of the inmates. The whole place is now a tourist venue and the guides are ex prisoners from there. Looking through the files I found the name Michael Aspin, he was killed in the limestone quarry by a falling rock that crushed his skull. Then I froze, the date of his death was the date of my birth, 21 June 1935.
I have been much troubled by this revelation since I arrived home.
In my office as I write this journal the lump of lava from Tristan da Cunha seems to be alive, it sort of glows in the dark and sometimes a little sound comes from it, could it be from the screams of Glasse when he was consumed in that fiery lava so far away.??.............................
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Originally Posted by Jeff Glasser
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