Black Tom, the Captain’s Imp: A 19th Century Seafaring Cat
(Imperial War Museum.)
For a brief time at the end of the 19th century, Her Majesty’s gunboat “Tickler” was the home of a mysterious cat by the name of Black Tom. According to the ship’s doctor, Gordon Stables, many on board suspected that Tom was a demon or an imp. No one knew where he had come from, how he had managed to get on board, or who had brought him there. He simply appeared one windy, treacherous evening when the sea was rough as the Tickler was crossing the Bay of Biscay. At eleven at night, while smoking on the quarter-deck, Stables saw something as “black as Erebus” whisk past his legs. When he inquired of the old sailor at the wheel what the dark shadow could possibly have been, the sailor replied with the utmost solemnity:
“That’s the devil, sir.”
