A sailor named Swift is on a ship called the Minerva in 1799. There are bad storms, and there is a leak on the ship. Swift goes onto the jollyboat with another sailor named Decurrs and a watch-boy to repair the leak. The watch-boy points out to the water and yells that a haunt is following them, but Swift refuses to look, even though he sees a flicker of white in the corner of his eye. Back on the ship, the captain asks Swift about it, but he said there was nothing there. Swift tries not to think about a ship he previously sailed on called the Zong. The storm continues. One of the sailors yells and points at something in the ocean, then falls from the mast onto the deck and dies. Another sailor says the man saw a ghost on the water. In the forecastle, some of the sailors discuss the rumors of a haunt. They talk about slave ships that had supposedly become haunts, and a few of the men get quiet because they worked on slave ships. They change the subject, asking Swift if his patch on the shift will hold. For the next few days, they constantly pump the ship so that it does not fill with water. One day, they see a small flame hovering on the deck, which they call St. Elme's fire. Over the side of the deck, they see hundreds more, which is a bad omen because the light either guides a haunt to the ship or predicts how many people will drown. The sailors discuss what the haunt could want, and one says he had a dream that showed him the name of who is being targeted, but he cannot read so he does not know who it is. A few days later of the continued storm, the water inside the ship has reached the lower deck. A sail comes loose on the main mast, so the captain orders the sailors to quickly cut the mast. They do not cut the rigging properly, so the mast does not come fully off, it just tilts the ship and allows water to come in. People scramble to climb away from the water, while others drown. Dozens of people cling to the mast and rigging, since the deck is full of water. The ship cannot sail, but it will not sink either. The passengers and sailors resort to squeezing salt water out of jackets to drink. One night they see a sail in the distance, and start yelling at it for help, until Decurrs yells not to hail the ship. Everyone listens except for one man, who yells until he is pushed into the ocean by another sailor. Over the next few days, a few men drown when they try to go onto the deck. People have resorted to trying to eat leather, canvas, and lead. The ghost ship comes, and it takes corpses and the live captain from the ship with white tendrils, then leaves. Decurrs tells Swift that the haunt smelled like a slave ship, and reveals that he sailed on one, as did Swift to save his daughter from jail and debts. The sailors speak about the atrocities on the slave-ships, and Decurrs and another sailor Glosse share horrible things they did. Swift does not speak. Decurrs thinks he has cursed the ship, so he jumps into the ocean. A few of the sailors manage to make a raft. Some sailors leave, including Glosse, but they will not take women or children because they are too weak. Swift decides to stay, as does the watch-boy. A few nights later, they hear screaming across the water; it was the sailors on the raft. Everyone is close to death, and living and dead lay side by side on the ropes. The watch-boy lies in water on the deck, too weak to climb up. Swift recalls what had happened on the Zong. The ship had been running out of water, so the Governor wanted to jettison the sick and dying slaves. They took a vote, and the Governor said that whoever said yes would get a cup of water. Swift voted yes. Swift recalls dragging struggling slaves out to the deck. They took the healthy along with the sick, because the Governor could not read the list. More than 140 slaves were jettisoned, and the first day when Swift looked off the deck he saw a pregnant woman giving birth in the water. Swift tells the now-dead watch-boy that he did not tell anyone what happened on the ship for fear of someone coming after him, but someone else did. Still, he was never asked to come to trial so he did not get to learn if he was a good or bad man. The haunt comes back, and takes everyone except for Swift, although he screams for it to come back. He sees a sail days later, and realizes that it is a real ship. His voice is gone, but he bites his arm to scream, and the ship hears him and the angle of its sails change. Swift is almost dead, floating on the water of the deck, but he will not die because he needs to tell the world what happened on the Zong.