Love ghost stories? Especially about ghosts on board ships? Read on... There is something about a ghost ship that piques most people's interest. Add to that the mix of British Merchant Naval men's super-sensitivity towards things of that nature, and the broad spectrum of personalities in the close confines of a ship, and you have the great bones of a ripping good yarn. 'The Nutcracker' was an American-built T2 oil tanker. It could be said that the crew and even the ship, inanimate object as she was, were all mad, or to put it more gently 'odd'. Sometimes, a grouping of like-minded people from all over the world will arrive at the same location and that in itself is of no consequence but, if they are at odds with what's accepted as 'normal' then of course unusual incidents can, and do occur. T2 Tankers were monstrosities of steel, defilers of ascetic value, but on reflection however, the Nutcracker (real name Fort Freedom) was the happiest ship the author had ever sailed on, giving him a wealth of incredible memories. From the Ship's Master down to the ship's cat they all seemed oblivious to standard shipboard behavior, but during the late 1950's The Nutcracker's typical shipboard behavior was destined to enforce an atmosphere that was deemed to be far from normal. The MV Fort Freedom sailed over the last horizon of a bygone era a long time ago leaving the rest of the crew, the handful of men who sailed on her with memories they are, these days, sometimes not too sure of. However, the author says, that if some of them are woken up in the wee small hours in their old age nursing home by an eerie 'presence' and if it's not the night nurse, then they will laugh and shout, "Pipe-down Hughie you old bastard!" Hughie you see, was the Nutcracker's ghost and a pretty darn strange ghost as ghosts go. In addition, at a glance it was evident that Captain Potts of the Nutcracker was odd; that he took bets on sea-horses and dated mermaids was a given, as
