The Palatine

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:06] I'm Ben. And welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences. [00:00:14] Whether you're a new or returning one, I'm glad you're here. [00:00:18] Tonight we'll hear a story submitted by a camper named Preston, an older camper who went ghost hunting along the coast of Rhode Island. [00:00:27] Now, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story? [00:00:33] I don't know why I waited so long to come here. I've spent my entire life with my nose buried in maritime history books. Dusty journals, brittle maps, ship logs that smelled like brine, even after three centuries. [00:00:47] My children call it an obsession. [00:00:51] My wife, before she passed, called it the sickness. [00:00:54] But I always said the sea is the last true graveyard of history. [00:01:00] You can bury a man in the ground, you can burn a building to ash. [00:01:05] But if something sinks beneath the waves, it lingers. [00:01:09] The ocean never forgets. [00:01:11] And Block island, well, Block island is different. [00:01:17] I'd read all about it when I was a boy. [00:01:20] The tale of the Palatine, a Dutch ship stranded in 1738. [00:01:26] Passengers starving and freezing. [00:01:29] Some records claim that the passengers were beaten, robbed, abandoned even. That the boat was set ablaze while they were all still aboard. [00:01:39] The Block islanders at the time, watching as she drifted back out to sea, aflame. [00:01:46] Today, many Block Islanders swear that in the winter, the Palatine returns. [00:01:52] A phantom inferno rising on the horizon. [00:01:55] It's often called the palatine light. [00:01:59] For 70 years I studied other wrecks, other ghosts. [00:02:03] And yet this one story, this one ship, has always gnawed at me. [00:02:09] It got into my blood like salt water. [00:02:13] So here I was at 73 years old, finally stepping foot off the ferry with my bag, thermos and a head full of questions. [00:02:24] Block island in the winter doesn't look like the postcards. [00:02:28] The shops are all shuttered, boards nailed across their doors. [00:02:32] No sunburnt tourists on the beach. [00:02:35] Just the constant groan of the Atlantic, restless and gray. [00:02:41] I stayed at a quaint little inn near the harbor. [00:02:45] Shingles, weathered silver. The kind of place where you expect the pipes to clank all night. [00:02:51] When I signed in at the ledger, the innkeeper, a middle aged woman, her hair tied back, watched me a little too closely, as if trying to weigh out what sort of man I was. [00:03:04] That afternoon I walked around the island. My bones weren't quite what they used to be, but I pushed myself across the dune, past the brambles of stiff frost. [00:03:14] The wind cut through my coat like a knife. [00:03:17] I stopped up at the northern cliffs, looked out at the stale black water, thought of the passengers, children clinging to their mother, their breath steaming in the cold. [00:03:28] The did the victims of the Palatine cry for rescue? [00:03:32] Or did they know that they were too far gone? [00:03:34] Did they know that? It's said that the islanders of Block island lured them there on purpose to crash. [00:03:41] When I got home from my walk that night, I asked the innkeeper about the Palatine. [00:03:46] It's just folklore, she said. [00:03:49] Old islanders used to swear by it. But nobody sees her now. [00:03:54] I pressed further. [00:03:56] No fishermen. No one. Even in passing. [00:03:59] Her eyes flicked at the window, the curtains stirring in a draft. [00:04:04] She began to speak carefully. [00:04:07] Sometimes, but it's better to let the past stay buried. [00:04:11] I should have let it end there, but I've never been a man who listens to warnings. [00:04:16] My wife used to tell me I was stubborn enough to follow a ghost to its grave just to ask it a question. [00:04:22] I don't think she was wrong. [00:04:24] I poured myself a little bit of coffee into my battered thermos, pulled on some old gloves, and walked back to the cliff. [00:04:32] My walk was silent. [00:04:35] The moon hid behind clouds, and the sea churned with the sound of constant cannon fire. [00:04:42] I found a bench overlooking the horizon, and I sat waiting. [00:04:47] The hours crept by. The coffee went cold. [00:04:50] My fingers even began to ache. [00:04:53] I thought of my children telling me that I was wasting what little time I had left chasing phantoms, fairy tales. [00:05:00] And for a while I started to give in to that thought. [00:05:04] Maybe it really was just a story. [00:05:06] Maybe the Palatine burned once and has been gone forever, no more real than the Flying Dutchman or Davy Jones. [00:05:15] But then there was a flicker, far off on the horizon. [00:05:19] And then it began to grow. It brightened orange and red, a glow swelling against the horizon. [00:05:26] There was a ship inside this, a vessel of flame, a fire climbing the masts of the ship, spreading to its sails. [00:05:36] Timbers cracked and snapped as the hull seemed to buckle. [00:05:40] Yet the ship moved silently, gliding against the winds. [00:05:44] The shadow of fire painted across the sea. [00:05:48] My throat began to close, maybe because of the cold, or maybe because of what I was seeing after all these years, I'd found her. The Palatine. [00:06:00] But the longer I stared, the less joy I had, because the air wasn't silent anymore. [00:06:07] Beneath the crash of the waves came another sound. [00:06:11] Screams, thin and piercing at first, but swelling into this chorus. Men bellowing, women shrieking. [00:06:21] The sound clawed at me and wormed its way under my skin. [00:06:26] And just when I thought it was going away, the ship turned, slowly but deliberately, aiming right at the shore where I was. [00:06:37] My breath hitched little. [00:06:39] The flames weren't like real fire. They didn't waver or dim. They burned steady, unnatural, as though fueled by an endless wind. [00:06:51] The cries rose louder until I could almost pick out the words. [00:06:57] My heel cut a stone as I stepped back from the edge of the cliff and I nearly tumbled. [00:07:02] Now, at my age, I can't really run, but I did my best. [00:07:06] Behind me, the screams followed. The fire followed. [00:07:10] I could feel it pressing closer and closer. The air itself seemed to begin to glow. [00:07:15] I swore if I'd turn around, I'd see the Palatine bearing down on me in the sky. [00:07:21] By the time the inn got to my sight, my lungs hurt, my knees barely keeping up. [00:07:28] By the time I got to the door, I was power walking. But I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, just listening. [00:07:36] But there was nothing. [00:07:37] Only silence. [00:07:39] Just as it was when I left. [00:07:42] I moved a blind and peeked out the window. There was no more glow, no more ship. [00:07:48] Just the same black, cold, endless water as before. [00:07:52] The next morning, checking out, the innkeeper gave me this long, acknowledged look, never asking me what I saw, but acknowledging that she knew and shared with me some sort of pity. [00:08:08] I had come to Block island, chasing history, chasing a ghost. [00:08:12] And while I can confidently say I found it, it's not what I thought it would be, the Palatine burns. Still, it's not just folklore. It's not a trick of the light. [00:08:24] That ship sails in an endless state of suffering. [00:08:29] There's a deep scar there, and every winter when the nights are long and the wind howls, she's there, waiting for you. [00:08:37] For someone like me who is foolish enough to watch. [00:08:41] Thank you, Preston, for allowing me to share your story. [00:08:45] I must say I haven't ever heard of this. I've heard of Block island and a few of the ghost stories there, but I've never heard of this one specifically to go off. One of the points you made in your story. Everything I can find about the Palatine seems to suggest that it was deliberately lured to the island, possibly by pirates or former pirates who inhabited the island at the time. [00:09:08] It seems that your theory about a deep scar, if that truly was the motives behind the wreck of the Palatine and the subsequent burning of it, I could see why those souls have never found peace. [00:09:25] And with that, I have no show announcements, but if you'd like a shout out at the end of an episode, head over to patreon.com do you want to hear ghost story? [00:09:34] As always, though, I'm just glad to have you all as campers on this journey. Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories or someone you're just trying to scare. If you're enjoying the show, please leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Until next time.