S3 E13. SEA PART V – More Fun On Boats

Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast

Finishing off the season, and indeed the entirety of Casting Lots (boo hoo!), Carmella and Alix present six quick-fire stories of survival cannibalism at sea.

Did you know Casting Lots now has merch? Find us on Redbubble: https://www.redbubble.com/people/CastingLotsPod/shop

CREDITS

Written, hosted and produced by Alix Penn and Carmella Lowkis.

Theme music by Daniel Wackett. Find him on Twitter @ds_wack and Soundcloud as Daniel Wackett.

Logo by Riley. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @tallestfriend.

Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network. Network sting by Mikaela Moody. Find her on Bandcamp as mikaelamoody1.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Barcia, M. (2016). UCL Americas Seminar: White Cannibalism in the Slave Trade: The Curious Case of the Schooner ‘Arrogante’. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/americas/events/2016/nov/white-cannibalism-slave-trade-curious-case-schooner-arrogante
• Barcia, M. (2017). ‘The real horrors of the transatlantic slave trade behind Taboo and Roots’, The Conversation, 1 March. Available at: https://theconversation.com/the-real-horrors-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade-behind-taboo-and-roots-73568
• Barcia, M. (2021). ‘White Cannibalism in the Illegal Slave Trade’, New West Indian Guide, 22 July. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1163/22134360-bja10002
• DeSpair, C. (2019). ‘Cannibalism At Sea’, Decidedly Grim, 4 July. Available at: http://www.decidedlygrim.net/?p=7331
• Faiella, G. (n.d.) Terrible true tales of life at sea. Available at: https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/terrible-true-tales-of-life-at-sea/
• Faiella, G. (2019). Cannibals and Carnage: Thrilling Tales of the Sea. Vol. 1. Cheltenham: History Press.
• Frost, D. (2020). ‘‘Provisions being scarce and pale death drawing nigh, / They’d try to cast lots to see who should die’: The Justification of Shipwreck Cannibalism in Popular Balladry’, Exchanges, 7(2). Available at: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/article/view/459
• Graham, L. et al. (2020). ‘SV Drot (+1899)’, Wrecksite, 30 September. Available at: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?168851&fbclid=IwAR01zmvkDYkywggoAv2fvXSU5rZsqeSEcXJCq2Z6AnEKM4LxVVvCRhyQYys
• Hepworth Dixon, C. (1981). Seamen And The Law: An Examination Of The Impact Of Legislation On The British Merchant Seaman’s Lot, 1588-1918. Ph. D Thesis. University College London. Available at: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317735/1/282305.pdf
• Jones, S.K. (1982). A Maritime History Of The Port Of Whitby, 1700-1914. Ph. D Thesis. University College London. Available at: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1381923/1/389634.pdf
• Méaulle, F. (1899). Un nouveau radeau de ‘la Méduse’. [Engraving]. Available at: https://www.meisterdrucke.uk/fine-art-prints/Fortun%C3%A9-M%C3%A9aulle/743192/The-new-Raft-of-the-Medusa,-1899.–.html
• Morgan, M. (2021). ‘Adrift in stormy seas, Delaware pilot crew survives on cannibalism: History’, Delmarva Now, 7 March. Available at: https://eu.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2021/03/07/adrift-stormy-seas-delaware-pilot-crew-survives-cannibalism/6876403002/
• Salmons, K. (2011). ‘Cannibalism and the Greely Arctic Expedition: A New Source for “Falk”’, The Conradian, 36(1), pp. 58-69. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20873715
• Salmons, K. (2017). Food in the Novels of Joseph Conrad. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Shortland, S. (2020). ‘’Bites here and there’: Literal and Metaphorical Cannibalism Across Disciplines Conference Review’, Exchanges, 7(2). Available at: https://exchanges.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/exchanges/article/view/550
• Simpson, A.W.B. (1981). ‘Cannibals at Common Law’, The Law School Record, 27, pp. 3-10. Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=crosskey_lectures
• Simpson, A.W.B. (2003). Cannibalism and the Common Law. London: A&C Black.
• Société d’Archéologie et de Mémoire Maritime. (2017). Le Cannibalisme de Survie. Available at: http://www.archeosousmarine.net/cannibale.php
• Zajonc, T. (2014). ‘1899 – The Drot’, Expedition Writer, 18 June. Available at: https://expeditionwriter.com/1899-the-drot/

TRANSCRIPT

Alix: Have you ever been really, really hungry?

Carmella: You’re listening to Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

A: I’m Alix.

C: I’m Carmella.

A: And now let’s tuck into the gruesome history of this ultimate taboo…

[Intro Music – Daniel Wackett]

C: Welcome to Episode 13.

A: Unlucky for some.

C: ‘More Fun On Boats’.

[Intro music continues]

C: Alix, I think it’s time to have some fun on boats.

A: I think there’s nothing more fun than an end-of-season cannibalism–

C: Buffet?

A: Buffet. Like… Tapas?

C: Oh, a cannibalism tapas!

A: Just pick and choose the little bite-size pieces of survival cannibalism tales across time.

C: Very nice. For this episode, we are working in reverse chronological order. Just for the fun of it.

A: We’re flowing backwards through time. Because we want to, and you can’t stop us.

C: We’re the hosts of this podcast, and we can decide what goes into it.

A: And if I want to spend longer in the 19th century, we’ll spend longer in the 19th century – even if we have to reverse time to do it.

C: I’m afraid we are starting in the 20th century.

A: Boring!

C: In fact, October 1900.

A: It’s on the cusp; I’ll allow it.

C: 12 October.

A: Sorry, do we have the exact time as well?

C: [Pause] No.

[Alix laughs]

C: We’re aboard the Nova Scotian three-mast barque, Angola.

A: [Intrigued by technical boat words] Ooh.

C: She’s sailing from Cavite, near Manila in the Philippines, and is bound for Singapore. There’s a crew of 19, including officers, under Captain Croker.

A: [Enjoying the name] Captain Croker.

C: They’ve been carrying coal around. They’ve got rid of their coal. Now they’re going to Singapore to receive further orders, which are probably just ‘go home to Newcastle’. But they don’t know that; they have to be told that, you know, formally.

A: They’re not allowed to just decide these things for themselves.

C: Precisely. Instead of making it to Singapore, she will disappear for several months.

A: [Still intrigued] Oooh.

C: [Makes an eerie music noise] This is because six days after setting out, she strikes a reef.

A: Oops.

C: Two sailors drown in the accident immediately and, four days later, the remaining 17 men decide to abandon the wreck on two rafts.

A: You’ve gotta love it when a raft gets involved. It will never go well.

C: This story has a lot of echoes of the Raft of the Medusa, and I think you’ll enjoy it. They’re worried about the lack of food, so they’re gonna build some rafts and make it to safety, right?

A: They’ll build some rafts and go further away from the one place that has some provisions on board, to go out into the empty, open ocean.

C: They create two rafts, a larger and a smaller.

A: Oh, here we go.

C: On the larger one are either 13 or 15 men, and on the smaller are either two or five. There’s some disagreement in the reporting on those numbers. The following day, the rafts become separated.

A: What a surprise.

C: And the smaller one is never seen or heard of again.

A: Bye!

C: The other men drift around the South China Sea, provisions getting shorter and shorter.

A: Just aimlessly floating, counting the minutes until it’s socially acceptable to start eating each other.

C: They do have some food. They’ve got their boots. They’ve got barnacles scraped off the bottom of the raft.

A: Solid.

C: They’ve got any seaweed that’s floating by.

A: Salad.

[Carmella laughs]

A: A balanced meal.

C: All of which is, of course, covered in salt, which is making them real thirsty.

A: You need seasoning.

C: I think that there’s a point where you can over-salt your food.

A: Imagine if the sea was peppery.

C: [Imagining it] Hmm, that would be nice.

A: Not to swim in.

C: By day 25, they’ve lost two men, who’ve jumped into the sea and drowned. And then, according to the Los Angeles Herald of 15 May 1901, on the 25th day, “A Frenchman went mad and attacked the captain with an ax.”

A: [Laughs] Why do they always have axes?!

C: When the mate tries to intervene, the Frenchman kills him, drinks his blood and eats his brains!

[Alix laughs]

C: Sensationalised reporting there from the Los Angeles Herald, but brilliant. If we instead have a listen to the account of one of the survivors, H. Jatmar Johannsen, it’s a little bit milder. The French sailor does, indeed, seize an axe and chop through the skull of the first mate (in this version) and kills him instantly. He then tries to eat the body, and the others manage to get it away from him and throw it overboard. Which seems stupid to me, but anyway…

A: Well, if it wasn’t their idea, they can’t be seen to go along with it.

C: That’s true. Like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have killed him, but now there is a body we might as well.’ He is obviously upset by this, takes up the axe again – which they haven’t removed from his possession–

A: Yeah, I’d have got rid of the axe rather than the body. Or the Frenchman.

C: Yeah, throw him overboard! Well, before he can do anything else, the second mate takes another axe–

[Alix snorts]

C: And hits him and kills him.

A: Why do they have so many axes?

C: It’s just a raft full of axes! Johannsen’s then pretty coy about what happens after that. He does admit that he did eat some of the flesh of the Frenchman, and as they go longer and longer without food, more of them die. The captain lasts three days after that initial attack.

A: Which is really impressive if it was as the Los Angeles Herald reported.

C: [Laughs] Yeah, his brains got eaten, but he did spend three days alive. They don’t admit to eating any more of the bodies, but–

A: They probably did. Once you’ve eaten your first body…

C: Yeah.

A: I know that sounds like the jingle for Pringles, but, seriously, I know for our fun on boats episodes we tend to be slightly more light-hearted, however, once you’ve crossed that moral threshold of ‘can I eat another human being?’ and found that answer to be ‘yes’, you’re probably going to keep going.

C: Yeah, the taboo’s already been broken.

A: And you’ve done it as an entity. So yes, I think they probably ate more people.

C: The numbers of survivors dwindle, and finally there are only two left: both able seamen. The Swedish man Johannsen, and a Spanish man named Miguel Marticorna. Their raft reaches Soubi, a small island between Borneo and the Philippines. They are in a terrible state, understandably: they’re covered in sores, they’re starving, they’re unable to stand up properly.

A: Gums are probably receding. Sunburnt. [Shudders]

C: All the classics. They are helped by some locals, and after medical attention and some food, they manage to obtain passage to Singapore on a Chinese junk. The Marine Court of Inquiry into the wreck of the Angola concluded, “The Court did not consider that it would serve any good purpose to inquire too closely into what happened on the raft during the thirty-eight days it was drifting about.”

[Alix laughs]

C: It’s like, ‘Let’s just not ask the question!’

A: Like, ‘We don’t need to know.’

C: [Laughs] Yeah, look the other way.

A: See, this is the problem when we’re trying to get hold of sources. I’m like, you might not want to know, but we do!

C: We would love to know, please. The Los Angeles Herald would love to know.

[Both laugh]

A: To be honest, the Los Angeles Herald doesn’t need to know; they already have their story and they’re going with it, facts or no facts.

C: ‘Frenchman eats brains of captain!’

A: Ha! Why so many axes?

C: So that’s the Angola. What’s next on our tapas board?

A: The next tapas is actually similarly flavoured.

C: [Interested] Ooh!

A: This is the case of the Drot. It’s not just us at Casting Lots who like to make comparisons between survival cannibalism cases.

C: It’s a niche hobby, but it’s not just our hobby.

A: There are maybe four or five of us across time. The fate of the Norwegian barque Drot led to (a) some really tasteless art – I will link it in the show notes, it is so bad it’s actually hilarious.

C: Please do.

A: But also some more painfully accurate comparisons to Medusa.

C: Yay!

A: The Drot: ‘A new raft of the Medusa’.

C: Oh ho!

A: For the Drot, we’re sailing in the Florida straits between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, in the lumber trade, in the August of 1899.

C: Very close.

A: She has a crew of 17 men; a number that is rapidly reduced following a hurricane that wrecked the ship on 10 August. The captain and eight sailors die during the sinking, but the other eight men scramble aboard a raft made out of the wreckage of the poop deck and the deckhouse.

C: Maybe we should have called this episode ‘Fun On Rafts’.

A: This raft, to be fair, is not their finest work.

C: Oh, well, you know, it’s easy enough to criticise other people’s craftsmanship, Alix, but…

A: Okay, I’ll rephrase that. They intended to have one raft, and then, very suddenly and unexpectedly, they had two.

C: [Laughs] Okay.

A: Two men are on one half, and six men are on the other. Eleven days after the sinking, the German steamship the Catania rescued Oscar Niklason. Niklason and the first mate had been without food and water for five days before rescue, and allegedly the first mate had intentionally gone overboard.

C: [Disbelieving] Yeah, yeah. ‘I’ll never let go, Jack’.

A: [Snorts] But we’re not looking at this half of the raft. We’re heading back out to sea, because the real story is out there. All of the supplies that had been on the raft were on the smaller half.

C: Hmm!

A: Back to the other side of the raft… They do have a fishing line.

C: Good.

A: And, for once, they make an attempt. This sounds like I’m slagging them off – I’m not. Just survivors in general.

C: [Laughs] God, I hate survivors!

A: Try and fish. At first, this attempt is successful. Quote: “the fishing line thrown out from the raft brought back good returns, and the raw fish wriggling in life, were devoured viciously by the starving demons”.

C: Mm, it’s very Gollum in Lord of the Rings, eating the raw fish. That’s what I’m picturing.

A: I think that’s quite fair. However, the good times were not to last. And soon, as reported in the Northern Territory Times and Gazette, quote, “the owner of the fishing line lost his mind and jumped into the ocean–”

C: Oh.

A: “Crying out that he was saved.”

C: [Laughs] By what?

A: I’m not sure. Unfortunately for everyone else, he did that still holding the fishing line.

C: No more fish.

A: No more fish. There’s now no means of fishing or gathering freshwater, so the inevitable: the men are starting to die. But I will say, they were at least proactive from the start.

C: Ah, they get into the cannibalism good and early?

A: Exactly. As soon as the first man grew cold, quote: “with life ebbing slowly but surely away the knife was plunged into his heart and the blood trickled out to be drunk by the half-famished, thirsty mortals to his side.”

C: Well done, guys.

A: Not wasting any time. Two men would die naturally and then be cannibalised aboard the half-raft of the Drot.

C: Say that three times quickly.

A: I can’t say it once slowly!

[Carmella laughs]

A: This, quote, “fearful feast”, sustained the three survivors. However, after the third death, it now gets a bit hyperbolic and unlikely in the reporting, as allegedly, “they refused the dead flesh […] in the wild desire for more and warmer blood, they cast lots for a victim.”

C: Could it be literally blood? As in, they’re thirsty and need the non-congealed blood? That seems more likely than just, like, ‘I want it to be warm now’. Or perhaps they just ate all of the bodies first.

A: Exactly. It’s like yes they probably did need liquid, but I doubt that they’d have gone, ‘Hmm, meat. No, I don’t want that.’ Whether or not that actually happens, we don’t know. But come on, it’s a bit much.

C: I think we know.

A: But it does appear that lots were cast.

C: Name drop!

A: Or at least that’s the official narrative. Of the three left on the raft, there are two young Scandinavians, Mauritz Andersen (23) and Goodmund Thomassen (17), and there’s also 35-year-old Max Hoffman, who was Austrian. The outsider just happens to be the one to pull the short straw.

C: [Not surprised] No! Surely not exo-cannibalism?

A: Hoffman goes to his death willingly.

C: [Disbelieving] Hmm.

A: Allegedly. Baring his chest, before being stabbed in the heart, and then having his heart cut out. Quote: “his blood was drank” – yes, it says ‘drank’ – “as it gushed from the wound. They also cut strips of flesh from his body and devoured them.” Now, some sources say that Hoffman was stunned first before being stabbed in the heart. Others, well, don’t.

C: So who can say?

A: Not Hoffman.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Three weeks after the sinking, and 216 miles south of Charleston, the British steamer Woodruff, which–

C: [Enjoying the name] Woodruff!

A: Woodruff. I just love. Came across, quote, the “terrible spectacle” aboard the raft. Sources differ as to exactly which man was in better shape aboard the raft, but allegedly one was, quote, “throwing bits of human flesh to the sharks”, while the other had wounds on his face and chest, having been bitten by his companion while still alive.

C: Do we not think that maybe the sharks thing was a method of fishing, rather than just wasteful?

A: The implication from how this was reported is that this is a raft of madness, and the flesh is being used to taunt the sharks, and one has gone so crazy with his bloodlust for human flesh that he’s tried to consume his companion while still alive. And there are still flesh-stripped bodies aboard the raft.

C: [Laughing] Were the bite marks on the other guy actually shark teeth?

A: [Cackles] Would make a lot more sense!

C: Right, like, what would make sense to me is that they’ve been holding out pieces of flesh to try and catch the sharks, and one of them’s got bitten. Right? That seems like the logical assumption there, but perhaps not – I wasn’t there, maybe they were very obviously human toothmarks.

A: When the two men were rescued by the Woodruff, the sharks were “making great lunges” to reach the feast left behind. Allegedly, lots were set to be drawn again that very day, had the Woodruff not just in time rescued them.

C: I really feel like, as much as I love casting lots – obviously – I feel like when you’re down to two of you, it’s not really necessary, is it? It’s just who gets there first.

A: [Laughs] Who’s got the axe.

C: Yeah.

A: Despite the fact that the spectacle of the raft had been, ironically, “too horrible for words”–

[Carmella laughs]

A: And that the two men, to quote the Department of Justice, were clearly “guilty of cannibalism, [and] should be ordered to be sent home”–

C: [Laughs] ‘Right! You’ve done a cannibalism; you’d better go home.’

A: [Chuckles] They weren’t prosecuted, it being decided that “these unfortunate sailors have suffered enough.” Which–

C: Yeah.

A: Fair. So that’s the Drot, and we’re going to pause very quickly because I have to show Carmella the painting of the Drot. We’ll be back before you know it.

[Pause]

A: We’re back. Did you go and look at the Drot? Carmella, what did you think of that beautiful painting of ‘The New Raft of the Medusa’?

C: [Laughs] Not only is it hyperbolic, offensive, stupid… It’s just also really ugly.

A: That’s a review of Casting Lots.

[Both laugh]

A: Oh dear. So there we go. Two down, where are we going to next? What fun will we continue to have on boats in the 19th century?

C: 1884.

A: Nice, solid date.

C: Off the Delaware Cape.

A: Oooh.

C: It’s a freezing, blustery day in November.

A: I wish it was a freezing, blustery day. We’re recording in the unexpected fifth heatwave of the British summer.

C: Now when I say day, I actually mean pre-dawn. About 4:45am.

A: Precisely.

C: About.

A: Ish.

C: The small pilot boat, the Turley, puts out a skiff to take a pilot to board the steamship Philadelphia. The skiff’s about 18 feet long and five or six feet wide.

A: Now, pilot ships generally don’t have very far to go. The idea is that they’re taking someone from one place to another.

C: Yes, that is the idea.

A: I’m wondering where the cannibalism is going to come in.

C: Now, do remember in their defence: it’s dark, and that it’s very windy and rainy. Visibility’s not great.

A: Bit of fog, maybe?

C: Exactly. They do get to the Philadelphia, and one pilot and a cook are left aboard. So the other men start rowing back to the Turley, and these men on the skiff are Alfred Swanson – who’s a Swedish man – , Andreas Hansen – who’s a Danish boy, 16 years old –, and another pilot, Marshall Bertrand, who is 25-years-old.

A: A young crew.

C: Just some lads. Now, the wind blows up even more, proves too much for them to row against. They can see the Turley flashing a light in the distance to draw them home.

A: Like a moth.

C: But unlike a moth, they can’t get to it–

A: That’s just like a moth. I hate moths, I don’t let them in.

C: Just like a moth, they can’t get to it.

A: And just bashing against the glass, uselessly.

C: They also can’t get to any other nearby safety that they know of. They do make an attempt, when they realise they can’t get to the Turley, to get back to some of the other ships in the area, but they’re blown further out to sea.

A: Like a seed being dashed against the rocks. So small. Tiny little pilot boat.

C: Moth, a seed.

A: A metaphor.

C: [Laughs] When dawn finally breaks, they can still see the Turley looking for them, but the waves are too big for their skiff to be visible.

A: Aww.

C: Other pilot boats are called in to join the search, but none of them can spot the skiff. The men on board are starting to feel hungry and exhausted after a night of rowing. They haven’t eaten since the night before, and there’s no food or water aboard with them.

A: Drinkable water.

C: Well, yes, drinkable water. There’s probably a lot of water.

A: The fact that the skiff of a pilot boat and the ship they were delivering to… That’s such a tiny distance. Like, why would you go and fuck with the sea? Look what the sea can do to you!

C: Sea’s dangerous. Don’t go there, lads.

A: Respect the sea. And she will not respect you, and might kill you anyway.

C: Just as a sidenote, the timeline on this one is a real muddle because none of the surviving guys can quite remember, like, which day things happened on, so… I will go through what I think the timeline appears to be, but it’s not exact.

A: I mean, we can’t talk, we’re going through this episode backwards.

C: [Laughs] Very true. Maybe they, too, just felt like it. The same morning, the rowlocks break and they have to smash up their steering paddle to replace them.

A: That seems like solving one problem by creating another one.

C: They can move but they can’t direct themselves.

A: I’d have gone with being able to direct yourself, because of things like wind and current.

C: They make another makeshift steering paddle, but it doesn’t last very long.

A: Because they made it out of seaweed? There’s nothing on this!

C: Yeah, I’m not sure what they made it out of.

A: Their own shirts.

C: In the night, Swanson – who has been drinking seawater, by the way, classic – is found sharpening his knife on an oar. He allegedly tells Bertrand that intends to kill him and drink his blood.

A: Muahaha!

C: Bertrand sensibly takes the knives away from both Swanson and Hansen, just to be on the safe side.

A: The problem is, we’ve gone through enough of these stories that that is genuinely an impressive act of common sense. ‘I’m going to kill you.’ ‘Okay, give me your weapons.’

C: The following evening (maybe), they’re drifting 35 miles off Cape Henlopen in Delaware.

A: Nice name.

C: They’ve gone 36 hours now without food or water, and they make out a square-rigged vessel sailing in their direction.

A: It’s the Flying Dutchman.

C: One of the survivors explains: “She hove right down on us and we hailed her. The Captain and crew were on deck and looking at us.” They call out for a line or for some food. The captain waves at them and sails right past.

A: Oh! See, I was gonna say ‘left on read’, but guys…

C: That’s left on thumbs up emoji.

A: [Laughs] That’s rough.

C: Later that night, they spot another ship, but it gets dark before they can get close enough to hail her down.

A: Well it worked so well last time, didn’t it?

C: By this point, Swanson is “raving of his mother and sisters in Sweden and still drinking sea water”.

A: Methinks he is not long for this world.

C: And his knife’s been taken away! In the early hours of the morning, Swanson, who is lying in the bottom of the boat and freezing to death… dies.

A: [Laughs] Fair. That was where I was expecting that to go.

C: That was the end of the sentence as you expected it to be. When Hansen wakes, he cuts Swanon’s body open to cut the blood, but there’s very little to drink. Presumably because he’s left it until post-mortem, which we all know is not the optimum time for drinking blood.

A: Get in there early, or you’ll have to chew it.

C: Ugh! After chewing some blood–

A: Ew.

C: He cuts three pounds of flesh from Swanson’s thigh to eat. He offers some to Bertrand, whose “stomach revolted against it” and refused to eat it.

A: Oh, you’re not better than him.

C: According to Bertrand. Interestingly, Hansen claims that Bertrand did eat some of the flesh. Hmm.

A: I also think, in both ways this can be taken, if someone else is doing it, you’re more likely to do it as well. Either because that taboo has already been broken, or you’re feeling pressured.

C: Yeah. It’s just embarrassing to be– You know, peer pressure.

[Alix snorts]

C: It’s hard to ‘just say no’. I would like to question this, though, because Bertrand is saying that Hansen cuts the flesh off the body, but he did confiscate Hansen’s knife earlier, so I’m a little confused on that front.

A: Good point.

C: Either Hansen has reacquired the knife, or perhaps someone’s telling some porky pies there.

A: Or Hansen did it with his teeth.

C: [Laughs] After having his meal, Hansen falls asleep. You know, you get nappy after you’ve had a snack.

A: After you’ve had a nice meal, you just wanna have a little nap. A little doze. Like a bear.

C: And then – and I don’t about the first aid principles behind this – Bertrand “took his head between my legs and beat his face to keep it from freezing as it was blue with cold”.

[Alix laughs]

C: Just seems like a really weird way of stopping someone from freezing to death. Like, you’re not gonna huddle for warmth, or…?

A: Share body heat.

C: You’re just gonna slap him in the face.

A: Sorry, can I have that quote again?

C: “I took his head between my legs and beat his face to keep it from freezing as it was blue with cold.” Yeah, I’m really not sure about whether he’s standing or whether it’s in his lap. [Laughs]

A: If any doctors or paramedics are listening, please let us know if this is still a commonly-encouraged practice.

C: I– The only thing I can think is that if you slap someone, then the blood does come to the surface of the face. So if someone was getting frostbite from the blood receding, then maybe it would… Kind of like the Ancient Romans and stinging nettles.

A: And let’s take the weirdness of that quote away for a minute. Let’s imagine, okay so he’s– The skiff probably has some form of seating, so basic benches, I presume.

C: Presumably.

A: If one person is lying on that, someone else could sit behind them, straddle, their thighs either side of their head, to keep them warm, while you then punch him in the face.

C: It’s becoming a sort of Kama Sutra.

[Both laugh]

A: Oh, now this is an X-rated Bills & Boon.

C: [Laughs] In any case, it works, because Hansen does survive through the night, so… It rains in the night, and the men are able to collect rainwater to drink the following day. It dawns clearer, and they make out a three-masted schooner in the distance, which they do manage to hail.

A: Stick their thumbs out like a cab.

C: When the schooner gets nearer, Bertrand quickly throws Swanson’s body overboard. He says, “I didn’t want the Captain to see it… The boat was all bloody. I had kept Swanson’s body up to that time because I meant to eat it in the night if it was necessary.” And then Hansen agrees, “The body was so badly cut up that we didn’t want any one to see it.” Just like, ‘This is so embarrassing, throw him overboard real quick. And the fact that there’s blood everywhere, they won’t– They won’t know what happened.’ They’re also in sight of–

[Both laugh]

C: You’re sailing towards this boat, who waved you down, and you see them chucking someone overboard real quick.

A: And also, ‘I never ate the body, but I did keep the body to eat it later.’

C: Just in case. [Laughs] Despite this little bit of oddity, the schooner does rescue them, and gives them food and water and takes them back to safety. Did Bertrand eat the body? Well, the New York Times of 29 November 1884, suggests, “Bertrand’s honest face and sincere manner precludes the idea of any serious wrongdoing on his part.” So, he just looks too polite to eat a body.

[Both laugh]

A: But in the arguments of Casting Lots, eating a body is not a wrongdoing, so therefore he has the face of a man who has eaten a body.

C: [Impressed by the immaculate reasoning] Hmm!

A: Or rather, who would eat a body, rather– We’re not necessarily saying–

[Carmella laughs]

A: That everyone trustworthy is a cannibal.

C: I would say that the fact that they’re both, like, coated in blood, would probably give it away more. Although the cannibalism is widely reported, there are no legal repercussions, which is fair. Bertrand eventually returns to work as a pilot, a job that he holds for 40 years. It’s nice to have some job security.

A: It is. Although, you would potentially question the man that couldn’t get from the ship to the pilot boat, and then ate a man.

C: [Laughs] No, he didn’t do that! He was too polite.

A: Surely being polite, he would say ‘No, you first’? It’s like, there’s just one left, and it’s like ‘No, I couldn’t possibly’.

C: You both leave it there for a few days, like, ‘No, no, I can’t.’

A: ‘You have it, you have it.’

[Carmella laughs]

A: And now, we’re going to turn slightly–

C: Turley slightly.

A: Turley slightly. Turley away to… a ghost story.

C: [Intrigued] Oooh!

A: This is the Earl Moira [pronounced like Moria]. Which I will call the Earl ‘Moira’ [pronounced like the woman’s name] at some point. I’m going to say that now, so I don’t have to edit out all the times I accidentally say Earl ‘Moira’. In 1838, a horrific sight floats in North Atlantic waters.

[Carmella gasps dramatically]

A: We’ve discussed timber ships before, and how they’re so buoyant and secure that often, if de-masted, they’re condemned to float listlessly until someone comes across them.

C: Indeed.

A: Meaning that, following disaster, rescue is a matter not of when, but if.

C: Dun dun dun.

A: And ships in the timber trade often sail in waters not frequented by other vessels.

C: [Concerned] Hmm.

A: So if something happens to you, you’re on your own.

C: In the sea, no one can hear you scream.

A: Especially not underwater, ‘cause it’s just bubbles. In 1838, the Earl Moira is in such dire straits. She has become waterlogged, so waterlogged in fact that, while she’s still afloat, only her masts are emerging from the water.

C: Oh wow, that is pretty waterlogged.

A: A bit damp. The desperate survivors had, quote, “taken up refuge in the main top”.

C: Well, they don’t have many options.

A: Fair. Earl Moira was a timber ship from Whitby, and was sailing the North Atlantic route between Miramichi to Penzance, however, more detail on how she became waterlogged and the ultimate fate that befell her is unknown.

C: Oh!

A: Because, while ships sailed close enough to almost touch, none were able to rescue her or her unfortunate crew.

C: ‘Able’? Or willing?

A: The closest came in the November of 1838, where the Sarah sailed close by to the hulk. Due to the devastating weather conditions, Sarah was not able to rescue any of the eight survivors, although her presence inspired two – most likely one of them was the captain – to try and swim out to reach her.

C: Hmm.

A: They both drowned in the attempt.

C: I’m not surprised.

A: But it was not just survivors hanging in the rigging of the waterlogged ship.

C: [Delighted] Oh! I see where this is going!

A: “There were eight persons alive in the maintop; but the most horrible sight was one swinging and hung by the neck evidently as food for the rest. He had black whiskers, and his intestines had been taken out, and a piece of the shoulder was cut off.”

C: Woo, that’s grisly.

A: The six survivors of the Earl Moira [mispronouncing it]. Of the Earl Moira [getting it right], could only have watched as the Sarah inevitably sailed away. But a month later, another ship – the barque Ranger – would come across a ghost ship, still kept afloat, and still with the bodies of the dead strung up in the rigging. As published in the Nautical Magazine in 1839: “I am sorry to have to report a most melancholy spectacle I witnessed on board the Earl Moira of Whitby, timber laden; we fell in with this vessel […] although there was a considerable sea at the time, we managed to get a boat alongside of her, and on-going on board of her, found four men quite dead in a sail which they had hung up under the main-top to shelter themselves from the weather. Besides these, there was part of another cut up in pieces, and hung up just like meat in a butcher’s stall. No doubt these poor fellows must have undergone the extremity of hunger before they were reduced to a necessity so revolting as to devour a fellow creature…”

[Carmella shudders]

A: And so for months, the ghostly ship of Earl Moira floated with her dead crew still hanging from the rigging.

C: Ugh, that’s… Quite Pirates of the Caribbean-y, actually.

A: It is quite. It’s quite a, erm–

C: It’s a good, grisly sea story.

A: It’s a grisly sea story, I think that’s the one there. So yes, we don’t know exactly what befell her, we don’t know anything about if lots were cast, because there are no survivors.

C: Thank you. Hated that. Want to hear more about something you’ll hate?

A: Go on, hit me. Let’s have something truly dismal and depressing.

C: The Arrogante.

[Alix, recognising the story, groans]

C: This one’s quite dark, everyone, apologies.

A: Darker than my ghost story?

C: Yeah.

A: Listeners, you were warned.

C: 23 November 1837, the break of day. British cruiser HMS Snake, under Captain Alexander Milne, is sailing just off the Cape of San Antonio in Cuba.

A: HMS Snake?

C: Yes, like the animal.

A: Love it.

C: They spot a suspicious brig.

A: [Intrigued] Ooh!

C: Not sure what’s suspicious about the brig, but they decide to go and investigate. The brig initially tries to outrun them.

A: Well, that’s suspicious.

C: That is suspicious. But the Snake is faster, and slithers up to catch her…

A: That was terrible.

C: Yeah.

A: Sea snake.

C: Sea snake, yeah.

A: There we go.

C: They do have to fire a few shots to bring her to a halt. And once on board, as they suspected, the Brits discover the brig was a Portuguese slave trader, the Arrogante, who had been travelling from Guinea to Cuba.

A: Of course, by this point in the history of the Royal Navy and British history, Britain has decided that the slave trade is something bad and it is their duty to stop.

C: They’re not going to free all of the enslaved people, but, you know.

A: They’ll stop any Spanish or Portuguese ships that they come across.

C: Precisely. By this point, I believe that Britain have made slavery illegal in all of their colonies, with the notable exception of India. In Portugal as well, it’s partially abolished, but not in all of the colonies, et cetera. In any case, the current legal situation means that the Brits are entitled to stop this illegal trader and board it. Which, again you really wish that they just– That would have been the case always, but anyway. Along with the crew of 35 Portuguese men, they find 406 enslaved African men, women and children, of an original 470 that had been brought aboard 40 days ago. These people were, quote, “actual skeletons with death in their countenances”, and Milne observed “dead children lying about the deck”, with others crying out for food and water.

A: I’m seeing what you are saying with this one being even more dark and depressing than normal.

C: Yeah. ‘Cause it’s not just a victims of circumstance kind of thing, it’s a victims of slave traders.

A: It’s not got the fun hubris element.

C: Yeah. Milne instructs one of his lieutenants to take control of the Arrogante and take her back to Jamaica, where the African captives will be returned to land… and presumably freed, it didn’t actually specify in the sources, but slavery is illegal in Jamaica at this point, so one hopes… but I do not know. 74 more die in the time it takes to get back, because of the poor conditions they’d been living in before – they just can’t recover.

In Jamaica, various of the survivors start to come forwards with reports of the brutalities committed against them by the Portuguese sailors. Along with the usual depravation, violence and sexual violence, multiple witnesses – all of them adolescents or children – tell another tale, which is a bit more unique.

A few days before the British cruiser had found them, a mixed race adult man named Mina was seized by the Portuguese sailors. They forced him to drink alcohol and then took him behind a sail that they had put up across the deck to stop everyone else from seeing what was happening. Mina’s half-sister then heard him cry out to her: “Sadea, they are killing me”, which multiple witnesses also heard. The Portuguese men cut Mina’s throat with a long knife. Possibly threw the hands, feet and head overboard.

A: And we know what that tends to mean.

C: Yeah. A girl named Nango recalled how she saw “drops of blood coming through one place in the deck, one by one, into the hold”. In the days that followed, red meat was served to the enslaved Africans by their captors.

A: Fuuuck.

C: It tasted a bit like horse meat, had no bones and had hair on it. There had been a pig aboard, but the pig appeared to still have been alive when the ship was captured by the Brits.

A: Ughh.

C: Some girls who had been placed near the ship’s kitchen also testified that they had seen a body being cut into small cubes and boiled in a pot. The African captives were hungry enough to eat it. And besides, those who refused were beaten until they did. There were also some allegations that the Portuguese kept the heart and liver to eat for themselves, but those are less substantiated. So like I said, a very dark one, and… Survival cannibalism, but also artificially-created survival cannibalism.

A: I don’t think we’ve come across non-consensual survival cannibalism before.

C: No.

A: For the eaters, rather than the eatee, obviously.

C: Yeah.

A: Yeah, that is– [Lost for words]

C: I also can’t find any sources on the motivation of it. Whether it’s ‘we’re running out of food and we don’t care enough and this is our solution’, or whether it’s just pure psychological torture. I think it really could be either of those, couldn’t it?

A: Or even a combination of both.

C: Yeah.

A: Yeah, that is a very dark one.

C: Would you like to round off the episode with something a bit less dark?

A: And it’s now up to me to try and not only round out the episode, but round out the season, with something more cheerful.

C: Just a more cheerful type of cannibalism. No pressure, Alix.

A: No pressure, but this is the last taste of survival cannibalism, the last taste of the buffet. Okay. I have something.

C: Okay, good! Is it a story about cannibalism?

A: Well, it is a story about cannibalism. Let’s end on some musical theatre.

C: Yes please!

A: Because what could be a more fitting theme for a nice sing-song than a case of survival cannibalism at sea?

C: Well, I can’t think of one.

A: Exactly. It’s ideal. I mean, I can’t talk, I unironically like Titanic: The Musical.

[Carmella laughs]

A: But survival cannibalism has inspired songs and ballads for years.

C: And did Dickens himself not write a Franklin play. Without cannibalism, because Dickens was racist.

A: He also didn’t write it as a musical, but if Dickens had written a Franklin musical…!

C: Ahh, if only.

A: That’s the dream. But ours are not the only strange tastes. Pun not intended, but by this point you know what you’re getting into with us. In 1822, the brig George was – and here I quote the impeccable Cannibalism and the Common Law – she was “beaten into a derelict hulk”.

[Carmella laughs]

A: Which is what 2020 did for me.

[Both laugh]

A: But for the George, she ended up that way due to a storm in the Atlantic.

C: It’s more likely than you think.

A: The Atlantic: don’t do it, kids. She was en route between Quebec and Greenock, Scotland, and after the storm, her survivors – accounts vary between there being 38 or 59 of them.

C: Okay, that’s a range.

A: This is what happens when the main source for what happens is a song.

C: Yeah, it’s just whatever rhymes.

A: Well… The indeterminate number of survivors clung to the hull. But it is following the death of Joyce Rae that the George really starts to liven up. A real end of Act 1 number.

C: Ooh!

A: I will sing a little bit of this, and then read it as a poem, because no one deserves to suffer that badly.

[Carmella laughs]

A: [Deep breath, launching into song] “At last we drank the female’s blood,

To quench our raging thirst.

Her wretched husband was compel’d

Her precious blood to taste.

And for the whole ship’s company

The same did not long last.

Her body then they did dissect,

Most dreadful for to view.”

C: [Laughs] Wow! Those– That’s no attempt to rhyme anything.

A: [Now reading] “And serv’d it out in pieces

Amongst the whole ship’s crew.

Eleven days more we did survive

Upon this horrid food,

With nothing to supply our wants

Save flesh and human blood.”

I would like to point out that in all of these songs and ballads and poems, food and blood do not rhyme.

[Carmella laughs]

A: The death of Joyce Rae, which according to the ballad appears to have been natural, was then followed by the death and consumption of five more sailors. “Full twenty one days longer, our perils did survive, / eating our dead companions, we kept ourselves alive.”

C: Very true.

A: That’s quite a good one. Now, it’s not without some dark humour and twisted irony, that on November 14 of 1822, Captain Hudson of the Salton “kindly lent a hand / but quickly we were wreck’d again / off the coast of Cumberland”.

[Carmella laughs]

A: So the survivors of the George were picked up and rescued by the Salton, and then–

C: Immediately wrecked again afterwards.

A: And of this second shipwreck on 17 December, only two men – the captain and a single sailor – survived.

C: Oh dear.

A: So I’m not gonna call it a successful voyage. I’m not even going to call it a very successful survival cannibalism case. But it does make for a fun musical number.

C: [Laughs] That was magnificently performed Alix, and thank you, I think that’s the perfect tone on which to end this season.

[Outro Music – Daniel Wackett]

A: I think that wraps up Season 3 of Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast.

C: Although this is our last season–

A: Boo!

C: Sorry. Keep your ear out in future for a special extra helping in your feed.

A: And of course, you’ll never be able to forget us. Not only can you re-listen to these episodes endlessly, but you’re soon going to be the proud owner of our new Casting Lots merch. Check for a link in the show notes, on our social media, when we approach you in the street and try and sell you badges. We’ll do anything really.

C: Goodbye and thank you for listening. It has genuinely been a pleasure.

A: Thank you!

[Outro music continues]

A: Casting Lots Podcast can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr as @CastingLotsPod, and on Facebook as Casting Lots Podcast.

C: If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, don’t forget to subscribe to us on iTunes, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review and share to bring more people to the table.

A: Casting Lots: A Survival Cannibalism Podcast, is researched, written and recorded by Alix and Carmella, with post-production and editing also by Carmella and Alix. Art and logo design by Riley – @Tallestfriend on Twitter and Instagram – with audio and music by Daniel Wackett – Daniel Wackett on SoundCloud and @ds_wack on Twitter. Casting Lots is part of the Morbid Audio Podcast Network – search #MorbidAudio on Twitter – and the network’s music is provided by Mikaela Moody – mikaelamoody1 on Bandcamp.

[Morbid Audio Sting – Mikaela Moody]

A: Let me get the lyrics up, we can round it off.

Both: [Singing badly and out of time]

“At length we drank the female’s blood,

To quench our raging thirst.

Her wretched husband was compel’d

Her precious blood to taste.

And for the whole ship’s company

The same did not long last.

Her body then they did dissect,

Most dreadful for to view,

And serv’d it out in pieces

Amongst the whole ship’s crew.

Eleven days more we did survive

Upon this horrid food,

With nothing to supply our wants

Save flesh and human blood.”

[Laughter and applause]