S.S. Gabrielle
- At August 21, 2017
- By Great Quail
- In Call of Cthulhu
0
Introduction
This document is an extended description of the S.S. Gabrielle as found in Chaosium’s Beyond the Mountains of Madness. The original text is by Charles and Janyce Engan, and forms the basis for this revision, which was written by Allen B. Ruch. It offers Keepers a more “lived-in” version of the steamer, which forms the players’ home before they reach Antarctica. A convenient PDF version may be found here. [Coming Soon]
S.S. Gabrielle—Statistics
This oil-burning steamer, launched in 1913 in Scotland, was built for operations in Arctic waters, and has a hull of Swedish wrought iron an inch-and-a-quarter thick. Owned by McIntosh & Sloan of Glasgow and New York, rental of the Gabrielle is approximately $2000/day, including insurance. This cost is being assumed by J.D. Battles’ Alamo Oil Company.
The Gabrielle makes a top speed of 12 knots, and uses 0.14 ton of fuel per nautical mile at its average speed of 11 knots. The ship is equipped with a line gun, 18 life rings with water lights, flares, and rockets; 4 life rafts; and 4 life boats, each with a 25-person capacity and 6-knot motor. Firefighting capacities include a network of firehoses with seawater pumps, 14 CO2 charged hand extinguishers, and numerous sand buckets.
Dimensions
| Length | 440 feet |
| Beam | 45 feet |
| Depth | 39 feet |
| Draft, light | 10 feet |
| Draft, loaded | 26 feet |
Displacements
| Light | 4550 tons |
| Loaded | 13,350 tons |
| Deadweight | 8800 tons |
| Crew & stores | 40 tons |
| Fuel oil | 1690 tons |
| Fresh water | 160 tons |
| Cargo | 6910 tons |
Crew (48 total)
Master and 4 deck officers
Chief engineer and 4 engineering officers
Ship’s physician, radio operator, carpenter, boatswain, storekeeper
3 quartermasters, 12 seamen
15 engine room crewmen (oilers, firemen, watertenders, wipers, specialists)
1 chief steward and 5 stewards (cook, messboys, laundrymen)
Ship’s Routine
The crew is divided into three “watches,” designated as Red, White, and Blue.
Red Watch
First mate, first assistant engineer, first quartermaster, 4 seamen, 5 engine crewmen
White Watch
Second mate, second assistant engineer, second quartermaster, 4 seamen, 5 engine crewmen
Blue Watch
Third mate, third assistant engineer, third quartermaster, 4 seamen, 5 engine crewmen
The captain, chief engineer, and specialists do not serve watches. The fourth mate relieves the other three mates on rotation. The engineer’s mate relieves the other three engineers as needed.
Every twelve hours, each watch must serve a four-hour period of duty. These periods are also called “watches,” and are marked by bells ringing every half-hour (so eight bells signifies the end of a watch). Sailors are expected to be ready for duty five minutes before their watch. Meals are served at 7:30 am, 11:30 am, and 7:30 pm. (Captain Vredenburgh does not follow the rotating evening “dog” watch schedule popular in the navy.)
During a watch, a mate serves as officer of the watch, the quartermaster steers the ship, one or two seamen serve as lookouts, and the engine crew keeps the ship running.
| Watch | Time | Crew |
| Middle watch | Midnight to 4 am | White Watch |
| Morning watch | 4 am to 8 am | Red Watch |
| Forenoon watch | 8 am to Noon | Blue Watch |
| Afternoon watch | Noon to 4 pm | White Watch |
| Evening watch | 4 pm to 8 pm | Red Watch |
| First watch | 8 pm to Midnight | Blue Watch |
Gabrielle Layout
Decks
The Gabrielle has five decks. From top down, these are the bridge deck, the boat deck, the main deck, the tween deck, and the engine deck, also called the “cargo deck.”
Structures
There are three main living areas. The forecastle, or fo’c’s’le, is a small cluster of cabins on the main deck in the far forward portion of the ship, just behind the bow. These cramped quarters are home to the quartermasters and seamen. The cabins in the aftercastle take up space on both the main and tween decks at the far sternward portion of the ship, directly above the ship’s propellers. These are reserved for the ship’s engineers and specialists. Directly above the ship’s engines, the superstructure rises three decks above the main deck amidships. At the top is the bridge; the lower two decks are taken up by the officer’s quarters and passenger accommodations.
Cargo Holds
The remainder of the ship is given over to cargo holds. There are five of these, numbered 1 to 5 from the bow to the stern. Holds #1, #2, and #3 are forward the bridge, while #4 and #5 are toward the stern. There is also the reefer, a large refrigerated compartment that sits above the ship’s main fuel tank immediately forward the #4 hold.
Key Locations
The descriptions below are meant to replace those found on pages 68–74 in Chaosium’s Beyond the Mountains of Madness. They are keyed to the same diagrams and illustrations, and retain the original numbering. Much of the following text has been copied or modified from the original, and was written by Charles and Janyce Engan.
The S.S. Gabrielle
1—Heads
Water closets of various sizes and degrees of friendliness. Those in the seamen’s areas are covered with rude graffiti, naughty postcards, and 1933 pin-up calendars. Those closer to officers’ quarters are more refined, with the occasional book rack containing tattered paperbacks, pulp magazines, or the odd work of adventure fiction such as London’s White Fang or Redburn’s Nuka Hiva. The heads in engineering contain plenty of Famous Funnies comic books and science fiction pulps.
2—Showers
Usually one or two stalls. Hot water takes some time to arrive, particularly in the seamen’s stalls.
3—Forecastle Cabins
Each of these cramped, three-person cabins contains a trio of bunks and just enough room for three sea chests. They are inhabited by the quartermasters and seamen, and contain numerous personal items including musical instruments, games, cards, pin-up calendars, books, and so on.
The fo’c’s’le cabins are grouped around a triangular common room containing a graffiti-covered metal table and several battered chairs. The light bulb hanging over the table has been covered by a Chinese paper lantern, which adds a pleasant yellow glow to the room. The forward wall sports a decrepit dartboard hanging over a bookrack stuffed with old magazines and ragged paperbacks. The starboard wall contains a bulletin board for posting official ship’s messages. The port wall sports grimy pin-ups of Greta Garbo, Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, and Fay Wray, each with its share of lewd graffiti. The aft wall separating the head from the fo’c’s’le features a large piece of corkboard where sailors pin up various items that capture their attention: suggestive letters from girlfriends, postcards of distant places, comic sketches, photographs of unfaithful sweethearts, etc.
One of the most anticipated features of this board is “Naughty Gabby,” a weekly comic drawn by Truman Cotter that mercilessly satirizes life onboard the Gabrielle. After a comic appeared that was particularly unflattering to Turlow, the first mate “banished” Naughty Gabby—until soon after, Vredenburgh casually remarked on deck, “I wonder why no one is poking fun at my ugly mug.” A new comic appeared the very next day.
4—Aftercastle Cabins
Slightly larger than the fo’c’s’le cabins, each of these rectangular rooms contains three bunks (one double and a single) and two lockers. The cabins on the main deck are preferable to those below on the tween deck, which are closer to the propeller.
Cabins 4a–d are inhabited by the blue-collar members of the Starkweather-Moore Expedition (SME). Cabins 4e–h are occupied by the stewards, the carpenter, the boatswain, the storekeeper, and two assistant engineers, Mark Folsom and Clyde Abernathy, who have been relocated here from their regular cabins in the superstructure in order to accommodate the ladies of the SME. Two members of the engine crew occupy these bunks as well, while the other 12 members of the engine crew inhabit Cabins 4i–l below in the tween deck.
A metal stairs connects the two floors of aftercastle cabins together. Unlike the fo’c’s’le cabins, there are little common-room amenities here—a single table on the tween deck floor is used for card games and the occasional gab session. The forward wall sports various decorations courtesy of the engine crew, such comics torn from the funny pages, a sketch of Betty Boop working as an oiler, and irate notices from Charles Drummond regarding missing tools.
SME Cabin assignments are as follows:
Cabin 4a
Gunnar Sorenson, Nils Sorenson, Peter Sykes
Cabin 4b
Hidalgo Cruz, Tomás Lopez, Maurice Cole
Cabin 4c
Patrick Miles, Douglas Halperin, Albert Gilmore
Cabin 4d
Enke Fiskarson, Olav Snåbjorn, Alan “Colt” Huston
5—First Mate’s Cabin
Paul Turlow keeps a neat and orderly cabin, decorated only by nautical maps and a framed picture of his childhood hero, Sir Ernest Shackleton. A wooden desk contains journals, notes, the crew’s pay sheets, and details of the cargo loading arrangements. A bookshelf supports a Bible, several nautical tomes, a Norwegian-English dictionary, and a few works of “real-life adventures of polar survival.” Turlow’s cabin contains a telephone. Due to occasional electrical failures, he’s soldered a 1921 penny into the phone’s hand piece “for good luck.” A porthole on the outer wall lets in a fair degree of natural light.
Turlow does have one small secret. His copy of Frederick Matthew’s American Merchant Ships, 1850-1900 (Series II) has been hollowed out, and contains several vials of morphine sulphate and a syringe. Turlow uses the morphine very infrequently, and only to prevent the onset of his periodic blinding migraines.
6—Chief Engineer’s Cabin
A mirror image of the first mate’s cabin in layout, Charles “Chuck” Drummond’s cabin is also opposite in aesthetics—it’s a cluttered mess. The walls are covered with scrawled notes, schematics, diagrams, blueprints, and photographs of his deceased wife Adeline; the bookshelf is piled with reference materials and out-of-date physics books; and several mobiles dangle from the ceiling, all fashioned by the Scottish engineer from wire, nuts, bolts, and various found oddities.
Drummond’s desk contains a rusty 1911 Colt pistol that no longer functions, several cigar boxes filled with “found objects,” a random selection of old daguerreotypes, and numerous well-thumbed Jules Verne novels. (He is currently reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.) For some inexplicable reason, his telephone has a Brooklyn morgue toe-tag hanging from it with the name “A. Graham Bell” scrawled on it. A fish tank on a shelf contains Edison, his pet tarantula.
Currently, the top of Drummond’s desk is occupied by his latest project—a chess set crafted from shipboard materials. The “white” pieces are made from wood, canvas, and rope, and represent the deck crew. (Captain as king, first mate as queen, mates as bishops, quartermasters as knights, carpenter and boatswain as rooks, and seamen as pawns.) The more abstract “black” pieces are fashioned from metal and machine parts, and represent the engineering crew. (The ship’s boiler as king, the chief engineer as queen, engineers as bishops, oilers as knights, watertenders and firemen as rooks, and wipers and various “machinists” as pawns.) The chessboard board itself a découpage grid of squares clipped from various sailing and engineering manuals.
The chess set is almost complete—Drummond will spend the first week of the voyage carefully painting the white pieces. He plans to unveil it during the Panama Canal crossing, at which time he will announce a ship-wide chess tournament. (Buy-in is $10, the winner takes all.)
7–12—Officers’ Cabins
These rectangular cabins are organized for two occupants. Each contains two bunks with the usual drawers beneath, a narrow writing desk and chair, a bookshelf above the desk, and a cabinet. Cabins are all furnished according to individual taste. Cabin 10, the radio operator’s cabin, contains an alarm bell triggered by the auto-alarm apparatus in the ship’s radio room.
SME & Crew Cabin assignments are as follows:
Cabin 7
Second Mate Arthur Ballard, Third Mate Lamont Quigley
Cabin 8
Fourth Mate Jack Driscoll, Engineer’s Mate Bert Pacquare
Cabin 9
Dr. Ray Lansing, Chief Steward Judas Whitney
Cabin 10
Radio Operator Robert MacIlvaine, Engineer William Wheeler
Cabin 11
Captain James Starkweather, Prof. William Moore
Cabin 12
Liz MacReady, Prof. Charlene Whitston, Additional Female PC
Although Cabin 11 is shared by Starkweather and Moore, the professor spends most of his time in the makeshift lab. As the journey progresses, Starkweather assumes more control of the cabin, until it becomes something of a private office where Moore just happens to sleep. Aside from copies of his own published books, Starkweather’s only private touch is a trio of photos—three different, but equally lovely, women. He spends much of his free time writing letters to financiers, sponsors, his publisher, and his three “lady admirers.” (Moore privately refers to them as “The Brides of Starkula.”)
13–14—Passenger Cabins (triple-bunk)
Because they are set against the angled backside of the main connecting hallways, this pair of opposing cabins are slightly smaller than the rest of the cabins of the superstructure. They each contain a triple bunk, three lockers, and a porthole.
SME Cabin assignments are as follows:
Cabin 13
Prof. Willard Griffith, Charlie Porter, Michael O’Doul
Cabin 14
Prof. Morehouse Bryce, Timothy Cartier, Louis LaRouche
Within several days of departure, LaRouche will turn Cabin #14 into a cluttered den resembling a college dormitory, adorned with photos of female jazz singers, books of outré literature (illicit copies of Ulysses and Lady Chatterley’s Lover being two favorites), numerous “dirty” jazz record discs, and Louie’s latest purchase—a Columbia De Luxe Portable Gramophone, sheathed in lizard-skin and trimmed in gold. For the most part, Bryce and Cartier allow their roommate to slowly take over the communal space, as they prefer the makeshift lab in the owner’s suite for their studies.
15–18—Passenger Cabins (standard)
Similar to the officer’s cabins, each of these four cabins are outfitted for three passengers. The only difference between them is the substitution of a double bunk for a single bunk against the inner wall.
SME Cabin assignments are as follows:
Cabin 15
Prof. Charles Myers, Avery Giles, Simon Meeker
Cabin 16
Prof. Pierce Albemarle, Douglas Orgelfinger, David Packard
Cabin 17
Dr. Richard Greene, Dr. Gregor Pulaski, Simon Winslow
Cabin 18
Lawrence Longfellow, PC, PC
19—Officers’ Mess
This rectangular room is kept tidy and well-lit, and contains a telephone and a fire extinguisher. It is decorated by photographs of the Gabrielle, as well as one of Drummond’s more elaborate mobiles. It is here that Starkweather, Moore, Vredenburgh, and the Gabrielle officers spend most of their relaxation time. In general, Vredenburgh and Turlow like to keep the officers’ mess a sanctuary of peace and quiet.
20—The Galley
The ship’s galley contains a coal-burning range and numerous kitchen supplies. It is kept very clean by Chief Steward Whitney, who strongly disapproves of anyone but his staff from entering.
21—Crew’s Mess
For most of the SME members, this large, rectangular room is the heart of the ship. As such, it is generally in a state of clutter, with various members using it to eat, play cards, discuss the mission, play instruments, listen to music, and so on. There are six large tables spaced throughout the room, and a bookshelf on the aft wall holds a few dozen volumes ranging from Shakespeare to catalogs for pressure relief valves. Next to the bookshelf is a cabinet sporting a shortwave radio, an H.M.V. Model 109 gramophone, and an apple-crate filled with record discs. The cabinet drawers hold a chessboard with nautically-themed pieces, a mahjongg set, a frayed deck of Rook cards, six decks of playing cards, a tattered game of Snakes & Ladders, and several Parker Brothers’ board games: The Story of the Bible, Klondike, and the Prisoner of Zenda.
The forward wall is dominated by a large map of Antarctica. It is riddled with push-pins and scrawled notes detailing the expeditions of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, and of course the Dyer-Lake Expedition. (Within several days of leaving New York, one of the Norwegian expedition members fashions a small flag from a magazine photo of Roald Amundsen, and pins it directly on the South Pole.)
The other notable feature of the room is its permanent inhabitant—“Chippy McNeish,” the carpenter’s parrot, who occupies a cage in one corner. Chippy is a fairly cheerful and well-behaved bird, and may often be found on the off-duty shoulder of Mr. Bertoli.
The Crew’s Mess also provides the SME the greatest opportunity for fraternizing with the Gabrielle’s crew, who still use it for dining at the appropriate hours.
22—Engine Room Skylight
This is the top of the open space leading down into the engine room. It’s a five-story climb down to the engine room floor, through platforms, pipes, machinery, generators, pumps, and ladders. It is always hot and noisy when the engine is running. At the engineer’s position, the engine telegraph, regular and sound-powered telephones, and a voice tube from the bridge ensure reliable communications with the bridge. Two hand fire extinguishers are fixed to the port and starboard bulkheads. Jonesy, the ship’s cat, is frequently found down here; as is Tesla, the chief engineer’s pet iguana, who is usually warming himself on a piece of hot machinery.
23—Bosun’s Stores
A heavy padlock secures this dim, poorly-ventilated compartment. It contains the bosun’s stores: cluster lights, extension cords, ropes, tubs of line, blocks, canvas, tools, extra fire extinguishers, lumber, etc. A large locker inside bears an additional padlock. Here is where expedition firearms are kept, as well as a locked wooden box containing blasting caps and time fuse. Two small hatches on the floor reveal ladders down to another, lower compartment, filled with rarely-used stores and broken equipment.
24—Peak Tank Valve
A small compartment, which can only be reached through a bolted access plate in the fo’c’s’le, with only some valve piping for the peak tank.
25—Steerage
There steering engine fills much this oddly-shaped compartment. The rudder stock enters this room from below, and is rotated by a six-foot-radius geared quadrant. The quadrant itself is turned by a two cylinder steam engine, about ten feet wide and three feet deep fore-and-aft; this engine has no boiler, but is instead connected to a heavily insulated four-inch diameter steam pipe from the main engine room. A steering wheel allows the engine to be controlled directly from this compartment in emergencies; a voice pipe, and regular and sound-powered telephones ate present, allowing the bridge to communicate with the man at the wheel in almost any circumstance.
Also in this room is the jury steering equipment, a pair of heavy blocks with ropes and wires to pull the stock from side to side with a large winch. The winch used would preferably be one of the steam mooring winches on deck, but if no steam pressure is available from the ship’s boilers, four sailors can steer the vessel by turning a hand winch.
26—Refrigeration Equipment
This compartment smells heavily of ammonia, and is filled with tanks, ductwork, dials, gauges, steam lines from the engine room, sea water pipes, and air vents to the deck above. It is bare of any ornamentation except a few picture postcards of Canada, placed there by Wylie Loden, the engineer with the most refrigeration experience.
27—Captain’s Cabin
A regular and a sound-powered telephone are fitted in this cabin, which is spare of all luxuries save Irish lace curtains over the portholes and a well-made comforter on Vredenburgh’s bunk. A small cabinet contains the captain’s collection of record discs, which reveals a surprisingly refined collection of Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, and jazz from the 1920s. A signed photograph of Frida Leider, dressed as Venus from Tannhäuser, is the only other adornment in this Spartan room.
28—Captain’s Office
Captain Vredenburgh has simple but well-defined tastes, and keeps his office tidy and organized. Several shelves hold books and papers on navigation, maritime law, polar conditions, history, and his three pet interests—Caribbean piracy, opera, and German submarines. His desk is adorned with three framed photos: a portrait of his Irish mother and Dutch father honeymooning at the Cliffs of Moher, a Naval photo of the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, and a photo of the young Vredenburgh on the deck of U-152, surrounded by his German captors. (Vredenburgh was taken prisoner by the Germans after the sinking of the Ticonderoga.) His desk also features a crystal decanter of fine Irish whiskey, and a pair of Waterford tumblers are kept ready in his top drawer.
A small shelf mounted near the door holds a few of the Captain’s personal books, which include William Butler Yeats’ Selected Poems, Siegfried Sassoon’s Counter-Attack and Other Poems, several volumes of Wilfred Owen’s Hydra, and Robert Graves’ bitter memoir, Good-Bye to All That. A newspaper clipping about the sinking of the Ticonderoga is framed on the wall next to the bookshelf, along with several photos of submarines. A smaller, second shelf supports a detailed replica of the Ticonderoga, commissioned by Vredenburgh from a model-maker in Philadelphia.
A locked medicine cabinet on the inner bulkhead contains a chest and smaller doctor’s bag with medical, surgical, and first aid equipment sufficient to treat a dozen major injuries. On this long voyage, however, the venture’s insurers have provided that treatment be by a physician, rather than the captain—the reason that Dr. Lansing has signed onboard. The ship’s safe is located below this cabinet. It contains important papers (such as the previous volumes of the log), $3000 in cash (mostly in 10- and 20-dollar greenbacks, but also 500 silver dollars), a bottle containing 120 tablets of morphine sulphate, a small bottle of laudanum, two .38 special revolvers, a 50 round box of .38 ammunition, and twelve bottles of Irish whiskey. Only the Captain and First Mate have the combination. It requires two halved Locksmith rolls in succession to open the safe; any critical failure results in signs of visible tampering.
Next to the medicine cabinet is the Captain’s prized possession—an H.M.V. Model 163 Upright Grand Acoustic Gramophone. Made of polished mahogany, this gramophone was purchased brand new in 1928, and Vredenburgh allows no one but himself to operate it. He keeps his record discs in his cabin. For most of the trip to Antarctica, Vredenburgh will be—perhaps ominously?—obsessed with Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer.
The Captain’s Office features a private head and shower, as well as regular and sound-powered telephones.
29—Radio Room
Long and shortwave radio equipment is located here, along with the telephone master switches and a red telephone. Several lead-acid batteries in a sturdy chest can provide several hours of emergency transmitting power. The radio room is fitted with an auto-alarm system which sounds alarm bells in the radio operator’s cabin, on the bridge, and in this compartment if the radio equipment detects the Morse signal “a” repeatedly (dot-dash). This automatic device is prone to failure. It sometimes activates for no reason at all, and it might well not detect a legitimate distress call. The radio direction finding-loop is operated from here. MacIlvaine virtually lives here, and keeps the room spotless.
30—Owner’s Suite (SME Laboratory)
Rarely used in normal service, the owner’s suite has been converted into a lab for the expedition’s use. Valuable stores and delicate equipment are kept here during the voyage to Antarctica. The room is fitted with a regular telephone, its walls are plastered with maps, and the bookshelves are crammed with scientific texts. The lab is one of Professor Moore’s favorite locations, and he is often found here, listening to his charmingly obsolete Edison P-2 portable phonograph and working happily at a metal desk.
A small owner’s safe is installed in the closet. It contains Starkweather’s private expedition notes as well as his .455 Webley revolver and ammunition. The safe will also be made available to secure SME items by request, but only Vredenburgh, Starkweather, and Moore have the combination. It requires two halved Locksmith rolls in succession to open the safe; any critical failure results in signs of visible tampering.
31—The Bridge
Regular and sound-powered telephones, the engine telegraph, and voice pipes allow the officers of the watch to control the ship. The ship’s foghorn, whistle, and navigation lights are operated from here, the compass binnacle and ship’s wheel dominate the middle of the compartment. A log indicator shows the ship’s speed, and an indicator dial shows the angle of the rudder relative to the keel of the ship. Racks and cupboards on the wall contain signal flags, national flags, three sets of semaphore flags, two flare pistols and flares, nine large pyrotechnic signal rockets (three each of red, white, and green), hand leads for measuring depth, three pairs of binoculars, two hand signal lamps, six flashlights, two hand fire extinguishers, and other small items of equipment.
The Flying Bridge
Above the bridge is the flying bridge, with wings extending out to the sides; a canvas awning can be placed on a frame to protect the crew from the sun. In good weather, the ship will be steered from this location, which has a stand with a compass, engine telegraph, telephones, voice tubes, and a cord to the steam whistle. The ship’s large signal lamp is mounted here, and a pelorus (which is used to determine visual bearing angles) on each bridge wing. The ship’s signal flags are flown from here. A signal flag chest is attached to the rail.
The ship’s 1-inch line gun (also known as a Lyle gun) is mounted here. Resembling a small Civil War mortar, the gun is used to throw line projectiles. A locked heavy steel waterproof chest, lined with cork, contains six half-pound bags of black powder—cartridges used to fire the line projectile. Another locked chest contains a box of 25 percussion primers to fire the gun, six projectiles, the breeches buoy, and various auxiliary equipment. Four 1700-foot long light lines are kept coiled in sealed tubs nearby, to be fired by the gun; two more tubs are below in the Bosun’s stores. Another line, 1-inch thick and 1500 feet long, is on the heavy hand-winch nearby, to support the breeches buoy.
The ship’s supply of 18 life rings with water lights are kept in two racks on this level. These life rings contain a small copper tube-flare, which self-ignites 30 seconds after being thrown in the water, and burns for 45 minutes.
32—Chart Room
The current ship’s log is kept here; a telephone is also installed. The depth-sounding machine controlled from here can measure down to 100 fathoms (600 feet) while the ship is under way, using a wire and weight unspooled automatically from the ship’s keel. A brass plaque hangs on the wall with the following inscription: “The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. —Sir Edward Gibbon.”
Located at the back end of the room is a rack of six unloaded Mauser bolt-action rifles—Gewehr 98s, adapted to hold “wildcat” 8mm-06 rounds (.30-06 cartridges fitted with .32 caliber bullets). The Mausers are padlocked to the rack by a chain running through their trigger guards. A locked combination safe next to the rack holds twelve 25-round boxes of wildcat ammunition. Only the Captain and the First Officer have the keys to the padlock and the combination to the safe. A Locksmith roll will pick the padlock, a halved Locksmith roll will open the safe.
The Cargo Holds
The holds have no hatches in their bulkheads. To get from one hold to the next, one must go up on deck, and descend into the next hold. Down to the tween deck, this is accomplished on a vertical ladder; from the tween deck to each lower hold a single ladder, encased in a battered 40” diameter metal tube, descends. During the voyage, all hatches are in place—to the tween deck and further down to the lower hold. The cargo hatches are constructed of heavy beams, lumber, and tarpaulins, and are nearly as sturdy as the deck surrounding them.
Empty, each tween deck is essentially a compartment separate from the main hold below; the sturdy wood of the floor hatch acts as a solid load-bearing floor and can’t be moved without the cargo winches on deck. Each tween deck hold is 50’ long by 35’ wide. The height from floor to ceiling is 12’6”.
There are no permanent lights in the holds; instead, cluster lights on long extension cords are used. A cluster light is an 18” diameter reflector, covered by a sturdy grill on the front, and containing four 200-watt electric lamps. Hooks on the back of the lights allow them to be hung from the overhead in the holds. Sixteen cluster lights are available.
The “reefer” is a refrigerated hold and has no deck hatch. It is loaded and unloaded through a 12-foot-wide hatch set in the bulkhead leading to the #4 tween deck.
After being loaded for the voyage to Antarctica, the Gabrielle’s holds are still mostly empty. They contain as follows:
#1 Tween Deck
The foremost tween deck hold contains the heavy equipment of the expedition: two Ford snow tractors, three 300-watt generators, two windmill generators, the ice-melting apparatus, and the two modified Pabodie drills.
#1 Lower Hold
The lower hold is almost empty, and contains only the 80 oxygen tanks, carefully stowed and covered with dunnage.
#2 Tween Deck
The tween deck contains the Enderby, one of the expedition’s three Boeing aircraft. Its wings are removed beyond the engine nacelles, and the nose removed forward the cockpit. The Enderby is securely lashed to the deck, with the top of its rudder just brushing the 12-foot high overhead. The two wing crates are each 29 feet long and 15 feet wide, and are lying flat on the deck, one on each side of the plane. The propellers and engines have also been removed, and are stowed in large crates secured along the bulkheads, along with the nose and two spare crated engines and propellers. The #2 tween deck also contains 20 one-gallon cans of kerosene.
#2 Lower Hold
The lower holds is stacked with three layers of 55-gallon metal drums, each layer separated by 1” x 6” dunnage boards. The inventory contains 400 drums of gasoline, 10 drums of lubricants, 2 drums of solvent, and one drum of industrial alcohol.
The expedition’s Fairchild monoplane, the R.F. Scott, is perched on the top layer of gasoline drums, with its wings folded back, and held down by heavy cables, hooks, chains, and ropes.
#3 Tween Deck
The tween deck holds the expedition’s tools, camping equipment, and sledding supplies. Sleds, tents, shovels, axes, lamps, stoves, rope, radios, and other such equipment are strapped onto pallets or lashed out of the way. Although the hatch covering the lower hold is in place, nothing has been placed upon it, so the expedition’s equipment clutters a square perimeter along the tween deck’s bulkheads.
#3 Lower Hold
This hold contains one item—the heavy, pre-fabricated ramp to be used in unloading the ship alongside the Ross Ice Shelf.
#4 Tween Deck
The tween deck contains the Shackleton, stowed in the exact same fashion as the Enderby. Against the aft port wall of the tween deck, a small but very sturdy wooden room eight feet square has been built; it is surrounded by bags of cement. A heavy padlock secures the door; the First Mate has the only key. Within, on a bed of sand, rests a box of dynamite.
#4 Lower Hold
The lower hold contains the Weddell, stowed in the exact same fashion as the other two Boeings.
#5 Tween Deck
This tween deck has been turned into a kennel. The expedition’s 36 dogs are kept in cages, which have been fit into metal racks on the floor for stability. Leather leashes can tether the dogs to the cages, so they may be opened, allowing the dogs a limited degree of freedom.
#5 Lower Hold
This hold contains the expedition’s supply of wood, to be used in the construction of the base camp. This includes all measures of lumber, insulted panels, bamboo poles, telegraph poles, and prefabricated huts. The aft bulkhead also contains a stack of twelve metal cargo canisters—these are empty “cans,” remnants of a previous voyage. All are kept sealed by simple padlocks. (One of them bears the stenciled warning, “Sumatran Rat-Monkey—Beware the bite!”)
Reefer
This refrigerated hold contains the food to be used by the expedition once in Antarctica, as well as the “ordinary” food for both the ship’s crews and SME onboard the Gabrielle. The reefer is divided into a freezer and a large cooler. It is kept padlocked. (Halved Locksmith roll required to pick.)
Notes and Sources
Chaosium’s Beyond the Mountains of Madness was written by Charles and Janyce Engan. Published in 1999, it remains a masterpiece in the realm of role-playing scenarios. Epic in scope, meticulously researched, and brilliantly detailed, the game truly embraces Lovecraft’s vision of cosmic horror. The S.S. Gabrielle is the Engan’s creation. They did all the hard research; I simply fleshed out the vessel with additional details; adding some color and personality to the player characters’ home on the frigid sea. The banner image borrows a painting entitled Tramp Steamer by Harry Hudson Rodmell (1896–1984).
Author: Charles & Janyce Engan, Allen B. Ruch
Last Modified: 24 September 2017
Email: quail(at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: S.S. Gabrielle