- Dr. Gordon Stables spent some time as a medic on the H.M.S. Tickler, a British gunboat, in the late 19th Century.
- One night, at about 11 o'clock, a pitch black "shadow" sprinted past his legs and scared the hell out of him. Gordon, having not seen this cat before, asked an old sailor what the shadowy creature was, and the sailor replied:
- Gordon laughed this off. The sailor assured him that this cat WAS an evil entity, and that he had appeared on the ship in a flash of light during a recent storm. The doctor ignored this and went to bed.
- The next day, the captain, a very aggressive Scotsman, also wanted to know what this little FREAK was doing on his ship.
- When no one admitted to owning the cat or having brought him on board, the captain said "Okay. Fuck it. Let's just throw this guy overboard."
- And the cat IMMEDIATELY lost his mind. Stables described the cat's hissing and vocalizations as "highly mutinous and insubordinate." The cat dove below deck, and the entire crew followed, unable to catch him. The cat then climbed up the rigging, sailors desperately trying to match his speed. Stables wrote:
The chase now became general and most exciting; and with a cheer all hands joined, — evidently more for the fun of the thing, than with any intention of harming the cat.
- The crew eventually became exhausted, and summoned the nerve to ask the captain, "Sir, this is literally just a creature. Can we... can we stop doing this?" To which the captain responded "No, fuck that, bring me my gun."
- The cat dodged all of the bullets fired from the gun, and after meowing at the captain one more time, the captain decided "Aww, I guess the little guy's not so bad" and just... let him stay on the ship. They added him to the ship's log books and everything. He was their little guy now.
- The captain almost immediately fell in love with the cat, now named Black Tom, in the manner of a suburban dad who has insisted that he will not like a family's new pet cat.
- Everyone else was justifiably kind of freaked out by Tom. He was a spooky little guy, and when he ran from the ship when it docked into a port, many sailors breathed a sigh of relief.
- Until Tom returned several hours later, having beaten the shit out of a small dog for no reason.
- Tom just loved violence in general. Every Tuesday, when the captain flogged men who had broken orders, Tom would be his terrible little gremlin hype man. He would cuddle with the captain after the floggings were over.
- This reinforced belief among over half of the crew that Tom was an evil spirit or the Devil. They summarily gave him treats and morsels to win his dark favor, causing him to become a Plump, Powerful Beast with a hankering for rum poured into oatmeal. He was also great at snatching leaping fish out of the air, apparently.
- One day, the Tickler was chasing another ship, and the captain gave the order to fire the turret gun. The sailors refused.
“What’s the delay?” cried the captain.
“Cat in possession of gun, sir,” was the reply.
- Tom was sleeping in the gun. He was having #me time. Any attempts to remove him caused him to "spit and sputter, and make use of bad language." Finally, when they decided to light the fuse, Tom leapt out of the gun and onto the safety of the rigging, fluffed up and freaked out.
- The captain later tenderly caressed the animal, despite the trouble he had caused. Tom repaid him by getting into constant fights with another crewmate's pet monkey (which he won).
- Tom fell overboard one night. The captain, who saw the accident first, sent out a life-buoy for him immediately, but he was lost in the storm. The captain drank heavily. He tore out his hair. He wept.
- The next day, the life-buoy appeared. Tom, that bedraggled and wretched beast, was back on deck.
- The captain cared for him as a beloved pet until Tom actually disappeared one day near the journey's end. Gordon, ever-pragmatic, assumed that the cat had stumbled overboard and paddled into the distance, his feline fate unknown.
- I, personally, choose to believe the testimony of sailor Davis. He claims that Tom, his time with the mortal world done, vanished in a sheet of blue flame.
Thus ends the tale of Black Tom, the cat who might have been the devil (or just a devious little rascal who won a captain's heart).
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