The Sea Raiders

"The Sea Raiders"
Author H. G. Wells
Country United Kingdom
Genre(s) Science fiction
Published in The Weekly Sun Literary Supplement
Publication type Periodical
Media type Print
Publication date 6 December 1896

"The Sea Raiders" is a short story by H. G. Wells, first published in 1896 in The Weekly Sun Literary Supplement. It was included in The Plattner Story and Others, a collection of short stories by Wells published by Methuen & Co. in 1897. It was included in The Country of the Blind and Other Stories, a collection of short stories by Wells published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in 1911.[1]

The story describes encounters with a previously unknown sort of giant squid, which attacks humans; in particular, an encounter on the seashore of Devon, England.

Background

A giant squid that washed ashore in Newfoundland in 1877.

Legendary sea monsters include Scylla and Charybdis of Greek mythology, and the kraken of medieval times which is thought to have been a giant squid.

Previous fictional encounters with giant squids are described in chapter 59 of Hermann Melville's Moby-Dick of 1851, and in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea of 1870.

Story summary

The narrator describes a recent period when a new sort of giant squid, with the (fictitious) species name Haploteuthis ferox, became known. (The genus name is similar to the real name Architeuthis of the giant squid.) As a part of the survey of the period, including early encounters near Land's End and Terceira Island, he describes the adventure of Fison (whom he has met), the first person to see one and survive:

Fison, a retired tea-dealer on holiday in Sidmouth (in Devon, England), walking along the a cliff path, sees some birds interested in something on the rocky shoreline. He goes to investigate, and finds octopus-like sea creatures, and a partially eaten human body. He realizes that the creatures are approaching him and that he is in danger; he is chased to the foot of the cliffs.

He returns in a boat, with the boatman and two local workmen, to the same area, where the tide is now coming in, and he shows them where he encountered the creatures. They see them below in the shallow water. Their tentacles start to reach for the occupants of the boat, and there is a prolonged struggle, the oars and a boat hook are used as weapons, which are gripped by the creatures. During all this, a larger boat is seen: the occupants, which include three women and a child, seem unaware of the danger and Fison tries to warn them.

The arm of the boatman in Fison's boat becomes covered with tentacles: "the eyes of one of the brutes that had hold of him, glaring straight and resolute, showed momentarily above the surface." He is pulled underwater.

The incoming tide carries the boat onto the rocky shore; Fison and the two workmen, in terror, leave the boat and run from the sea. Fison realizes he is no longer being pursued, and then remembers that there was another boat. "He looked back again, and there were now two boats floating, and the one farthest out at sea pitched clumsily, bottom upward."

After describing a few later incidents, the narrator suggests theories for the presence of the creatures: that hunger forced them to move away from their usual habitat in the deep sea; or that a shoal of them, after a foundering ship happened to sink amongst them, took a liking to human flesh and followed Atlantic traffic to the coast. It seems the incidents have ceased and that the squids have returned to deeper waters for good, but this is not certain.

See also

References

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  1. ↑ The Sea Raiders title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, accessed 18 July 2015.
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