(THIS IS WHAT RADIO THEATRE SHOULD BE)

Based on a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before he started writing Sherlock Holmes books, this tale is told in a narrative by the ship's doctor of the whaling vessel Polestar.

Heading north toward the Arctic Circle on a whaling voyage, this story among other things apparently made somewhat famous the island of Spitzbergen (off Norway, I believe), which in the story was visible in the distance. The ship, led by a driven captain who saw a large school of whales, was advancing into a winter storm and was in danger of getting frozen in.

However, that wasn't the greatest of the crew's fears. The captain, a strong leader but quirky and somewhat aloof, was suspected of being out of his mind. Worse still, the crew was becoming increasingly worried due to strange crying and wailing noises that seemed to follow the ship since it left Dundee, Scotland. Crewmen claimed to see dancing lights and strange figures (especially at night, by whatever fortunate crewman was standing watch). The ship's doctor even had nightmares of his captain pleading to a moaning woman in the cabin next door to him.

My favorite line from this: "Blast you for a blind idiot". (Said by the captain to the doctor who couldn't see SOMETHING on a nearby ice floe the captain seemed to see.)

If you've not listened to this, do it tonight if possible. One of the best, IMHO, the RMT ever produced. 