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the Alkimos continued to reach out and touch the lives of all who came in contact with it. The pregnant wife of one caretaker slipped and fell on board and lost her baby. Two business partners, John Franetovich and Bob Hugal, bought the wreck for scrap but bad luck dogged them from that day: a tanker they owned collided with another ship and had to be scuttled; and Hugal, who until then had enjoyed perfect health, suddenly became seriously ill. Swimmers near the wreck were caught in currents that had not been there moments before, visitors to the wreck suffered injuries and motor vessels sailing near the wreck experienced engine troubles. Jack Sue became seriously ill soon after spending the night on the Alkimos and his wife died, tragically, in a car accident. One of the divers died suddenly and the fiancée of another was killed in a plane crash. The skull of a long-distance swimmer who had gone missing while trying to swim from the mainland to Rottnest Island was found in the hull of the Alkimos and identified by dental records.
    One morning observers noticed smoke coming from the funnel of the hulk. It looked, they said, as though the old ship was preparing to sail away under its own power. Two newspaper reporters went on board to investigate and found that drums of tar stored in the ship had mysteriously ignited. This was just one of six unexplained fires on board.
    Another party determined to lay the stories of the ghost set out to spend a weekend on the wreck. Their Land Rover broke down, the motor on their boat would not start and, when they finally put to sea, a single, huge wave that seemed to come from nowhere swamped their boat and soaked their expensive photographic equipment. Despite calm waters around the wreck the party’s boat would not stay alongside. A line was tied securely to the Alkimos but mysteriously came undone. When they finally scrambled aboard in darkness none of their torches would work. They tried to set up camp on the solid bow area of the ship but their spirit stove blew up and, despite predictions of fine weather, heavy rain began to fall at around 2 am. As they huddled together in the rain, wishing they had never embarked on the expedition, they heard the incongruous sound of a dog yapping. The sound seemed to come from the stern of the ship but no dog could be seen. Despite being stressed out by their recent experiences, concern that an animal might be trapped or injured on the wreck set them searching, but each time they approached the source of the sound it retreated. No dog — or any other animal — was found, but the yapping continued through most of the night. (Strangely, the captain’s logbook recorded the mysterious yapping of a dog in the engine room and other parts of the ship when the Alkimos was en route across the Atlantic during World War Two, a quarter of a century before.)
    In an effort to find the truth, Jack Sue was persuaded to return to the ship with technicians from a television station, who set up cameras and recording equipment in the hope of catching ‘Henry’ on film or tape. Jack dossed down on an old steel bunk in one of the disused cabins, but was awakened during the night by strange noises. As his ears tuned to the sounds, he recognised heartrending groans (the sound one might expect from a person in agony), which seemed to be coming from the bunk next to his. Jack reached for his torch and snapped it on. The bright beam revealed that the bunk beside his was empty and when he shone the torch around the cabin there was nothing to be seen. Everything was in place and apparently undisturbed — but the terrible groans continued for several minutes more.
    Jack admitted to being deeply affected by the sounds and not a little frightened on both his expeditions to the Alkimos ; and as anyone who had the privilege of knowing Jack Sue would testify, he was not a man to imagine or exaggerate anything. And, after his wartime experiences, it took