THE CURSED ISLES OF SHOALS

A gale ripped the Spanish brig's two headsails and the spanker. The helmsman tried desperately to keep his ship on course, but knew his efforts were futile. The sky was the color of pewter. As the clouds lowered, a blizzard lashed the ship. On that January day in 1813, every sailor aboard the ship some believe to be the Sagunto knew he was doomed.

The ship was blown toward Smutty Nose, a treeless, rocky island ten miles off Portsmouth, yet no hysteria erupted on shipboard. In the tradition of those who lived by the sea, each crewman performed his accustomed duties with a silent resignation to his fate.

After the brig broke apart on the rock-strewn shore it was every man for himself. Those who were uninjured scrambled over the boulders and headed toward a light ahead of them. It would be a lantern in the window of a settler's cabin. They'd be safe. But as the men struggled against the biting wind and the blinding snow, yehy seemed to be no closer to the beacon.

In the morning, Samuel Haley, the island's permanent resident, found the bodies of fourteen sailors who had succumbed while crawling toward the lighted cabin. The bodies of two more seamen were found hung over the stone wall fronting Haley's home. Their ebbing strength had not allowed them to climb over the barricade. Their mouths were frozen in a final, frenzied cry for help.

Planks of cedar and mahogany stuck haphazardly from the crevices in the rocks, wedged there by the force of the collision. Crates of foodstufs were scattered along the shore.

Haley and his family had slept through the storm. Now they stood striken by the horrible scene before them. They buried the unknown sailors side by side on the island, and placed unadorned stones at the head of each grave.

But the Spanish seafarers did not rest in peace. For years afterward their ghosts walked the shores of Smuuty Nose, signaling passing vessels to beg passage back to Spain.

Although some historians believe that the Sagunto, after a stormy voyage, put safely into a port, there is general agreement that a craft of uncertain identity did flounder on Smutty Nose Island on January 14, 1813, and that all hands were lost.

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