SLEEP NO MORE

by L. T. C. Rolt

  ‘I had previously selected an anchorage after a study of my large-scale map—a small bay that appeared to promise good shelter from the south and west if the wind rose. The Irish lakes can be devilish uncomfortable in rough weather. Crossing the lake was rather a tricky business, because we were afraid of rocks and the failing light made visibility very limited. However, we kept going slowly ahead and eventually found our way into the bay without incident. From the little we could see of it, it certainly seemed a snug enough berth, so I put her astern while Jack went for’ard and let the anchor go.

  ‘Commanding the entrance to the bay was a small island with a ruined castle on it. The walls seemed to rise almost sheer out of the water, in fact it was impossible in the dusk to tell where rock ended and masonry began, and when we passed it on our way in I might have mistaken it for a natural crag if I hadn’t noticed it previously on the map.

  ‘I went down into the galley and began preparing our supper, while Jack took the dinghy out to lay a night-line. By this time it had fallen quite dark and there was no moon. I was just getting ready to dish up when I heard the creak of oars, and presently the dinghy nudged the side just below the galley port-hole.

  ‘ “Take a look at that ruined castle of yours,” Jack shouted.

  ‘ “Why, what’s the matter with it?” I called back, busy with the frying-pan.

  ‘ “Well,” he answered, “it doesn’t seem to be so ruined after all; there are lights in it. See for yourself.”

  ‘I put down the pan and looked out through the port-hole. He was quite right. Light shone from what appeared to be windows near the base of the keep. I was at once struck by what I can only describe as the peculiar quality of the light. How can I attempt to explain what I mean? It was so unlike anything I had ever seen before that it was impossible to imagine the source of it. Somehow I felt instinctively that it was not produced by any sort of lamp. In colour it more nearly resembled flame, yet it never flickered nor wavered, while in some extraordinary way it conveyed an impression, not of heat, but of coldness. As we watched, I from the port-hole and Jack from the dinghy, a curious thing happened. The light increased in brilliance slowly and absolutely steadily. This may not sound very odd in the telling, but I despair of conveying to you how strange and unnatural was the effect of this steadily increasing radiance. As it waxed, the source of light appeared to rise slowly, floating up, it would seem, from floor to floor. First-floor windows appeared, at first dimly, then brilliantly as the light below waned, the process being repeated on the second storey. Then it descended again, all the while gathering to itself more brilliance until, when it reached the ground once more, it had grown almost uncomfortably dazzling. But only for a time. Another odd feature struck me. Instead of casting a normal line of reflection over the water, the light appeared to irradiate the lake all about the island so that it seemed that the castle lay surrounded by a luminous moat. As we watched, first this strange glow upon the water, and then the light itself became veiled as though with mist, growing fainter and redder in hue until both disappeared in a darkness that was absolute.

  ‘Jack made the dinghy fast and clambered aboard.

  ‘ “Well,” he asked, “what did you make of that performance?”

  ‘ “I think it was very odd, indeed,” I replied, “but I don’t propose to row about the lake in the pitch darkness looking for mysterious lights. I intend to eat my supper while it’s hot, and then turn in. The castle can wait till daylight; probably it won’t look so odd then.”

  ‘When we awoke next morning a westerly breeze was ruffling the water, the sunlight was brilliant and the air as fresh and clear as crystal. The lake seemed to have lost its mystery. The wooded islands now appeared prosaic and substantial enough. So did the castle. It certainly looked as though it might be inhabited, for it presented to us three storeys of casement windows which were obviously of much more recent date than the fabric of the keep. Yet we could see no sign of life; if there were chimneys they were invisible to us, and we could detect no smoke.

  ‘When we had disposed of breakfast we decided to row over to the castle and satisfy our curiosity. We were only half-way to the island when we made our first singular discovery.

  ‘I was rowing, and Jack, sitting in the stern, suddenly said, “Look!” and nodded towards the castle.

  ‘I shipped my oars, looked over my shoulder and saw at once what he meant. The windows we had seen were not, in fact, windows at all, but white, wooden shutters having upon them the painted semblance of frames and sash bars. We looked at each other, then, for a moment, saying nothing, and somehow, in spite of the bright sunlight, the castle no longer seemed quite so prosaic. Then I rowed on.

  ‘We circled the island until we found a ruined stone quay where we were able to run the dinghy in and step ashore. Have you got a feeling for places? I mean, do you find that some places are friendly while others are quite the reverse? Well, I have; and the moment I stepped out of the boat I knew that this island was the most unfriendly spot I had ever been in. Jack was insensitive to impressions of this sort and noticed nothing, but we both remarked the complete lack of life of any sort on the island. It was simply a mass of naked rock and masonry standing up out of the water. There was no grass; there did not even appear to be any moss upon the stones which looked as though they had been blackened by fire. No jackdaws wheeled away as we walked through the arched doorway into the shell of the building; except for the wind and ourselves nothing stirred. I say “shell” because the place had obviously been burnt out. It had no roof, but consisted simply of four stark walls with their sightless window apertures. The destruction had been singularly complete for, with the exception of the window shutters which had obviously been fitted subsequently, there was not a scrap of woodwork left. Only square holes in the masonry remained to reveal the position of the floor joists.

  ‘I am not usually a nervous man, but I must confess that my immediate, instinctive and almost overmastering impulse was to get back to the boat as quickly as possible and push off from the beastly place. Not so Jack. While I waited in growing uneasiness he carried out a methodical and exhaustive examination until he was finally forced to admit that his curiosity was, not satisfied, but completely baffled.

  ‘It was a wonder I did not break the thole pins when I rowed away from the jetty, and it was not until there was a hundred yards of water between us and the island that I began to feel better.

  ‘ “Well?” I asked.

  ‘ “Must have been an optical illusion,” said Jack. “Most likely a fire somewhere on the mainland directly behind the castle. I don’t expect we shall see anything tonight.”

  ‘I hoped he was right, because I knew that if the light did appear I should have the greatest difficulty in dissuading him from going over to investigate it. Yet his explanation did not convince me, and I don’t believe it convinced him either. I knew that if he persisted in going back to the island I could not let him go alone, and the prospect filled me with a feeling of foreboding that was quite without rational cause. I suggested that afternoon that we might up anchor and move to another part of the lake where the fishing was better, for we had caught nothing on the night-line. Would to God that we had gone! But Jack would have none of it.

  ‘ “Why should we?” he asked. “Fishing isn’t everything, and we’ve got a snug berth here. Besides, I want to see whether that light appears again.”

  ‘Poor devil, what a price he was to pay for his curiosity!

  ‘When the sun touched the ridge of the mountains I felt my heart sinking with it. The wind had dropped completely and the lake looked indescribably beautiful in the evening light, yet I found myself hating the place, dreading the purple shadows that were thickening under the trees, and wishing myself anywhere but there. As soon as it grew dark, Jack kept peering through the port-hole in the direction of the castle. No light had appeared by the time we had finished our supper. My spirits rose a little and I began to assure myself that I’d been a fool, w
hen Jack looked out once more and this time motioned me to join him. There was still no light in the castle itself, but the water round about the island appeared to have become very faintly luminous.

  ‘ “Looks as if that must be the first part of the performance which we missed last night,” he said. “Come on, let’s go over; we should just have time before the real fun starts.”

  ‘I did everything I could to dissuade him, but to no purpose. You couldn’t find a more obstinate fellow than Jack when once he’d made up his mind. So we set off together, he filled with eager curiosity and I with nameless fears. Jack rowed this time, while I sat in the stern, and as the dark shape of the keep rose higher and higher as we drew nearer so my spirits fell. At length we reached the perimeter of the luminous water, and as I looked down, little points of light appeared to be moving beneath the surface. Jack momentarily stopped rowing to look down, too.

  ‘ “Phosphorescence,” he said briefly.

  ‘But I had seen that phenomenon in the tropics, and this did not look the same. The moving lights looked to me—absurd though this must seem to you—more like little tongues of flame. I had chosen Irish poetry for my reading on that trip, and almost before I was aware of it I found myself repeating in my mind a stanza from that queer poem by Yeats called “Byzantium”. Know it?

  “At midnight on the Emperor’s pavement flit

  Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,

  Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,

  Where blood-begotten spirits come

  And all complexities of fury leave,

  Dying into a dance,

  An agony of trance,

  An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.”

  I still think that it was apt.

  ‘The first disaster happened as we came ashore. We put in to the old quay as before. Jack shipped his oars and held on to the stonework while I got out; then he passed me the painter and followed. I was holding the painter with one hand and groping with the other for an old iron ring which I had found that morning, when it was suddenly jerked out of my hand. For an instant I thought it was Jack playing the fool; then I heard a swirl of water and turned just in time to see the faint white shape of the dinghy disappear into the darkness as though borne away on some swift current.

  ‘ “My God!” I cried. “The dinghy’s gone.”

  ‘Jack came back through the darkness to stand at my side.

  ‘ “What on earth happened?” he asked.

  ‘I told him, but it was plain that he thought it was merely clumsiness on my part. He was so sure of it that he almost convinced me, and yet with no wind, why should the boat have swung away so fiercely? Lakes don’t have currents as a rule.

  ‘ “Oh, well,” said Jack resignedly, when he had finished twitting me for my carelessness, “we shall just have to make a night of it now, that’s all. She may drift back; otherwise one or both or us’ll just have to swim for it when the light comes. It’s not very far to the shore.”

  ‘This was not very reassuring. The island in daylight had been bad enough, but in this darkness the sense of imminent menace was infinitely worse. It would be five hours before the dawn came, and meanwhile there was the possibility of the appearance of another and less friendly light. We did not have long to wait.

  ‘We had been so absorbed by the loss of the dinghy that we had failed to observe the fact that the “phosphorescence” had disappeared from the water, but now we realised that we stood in total darkness. We were groping our way along the quay when Jack suddenly gripped me by the elbow.

  ‘ “It’s here again,” he whispered in tense excitement. “Look there!”

  ‘I saw it as soon as he did. We were approaching the doorway into the keep at an oblique angle, but we were near enough to see that there shone from it that steady, flame-like light which we had seen the night before. Looking up—and this will seem to you fantastic—we saw that the windows were also luminous. We stopped. The light was dim, but as we watched it grew, and as it grew we became aware of a sound. I think I can best describe it as a sort of hissing, bubbling noise like that of a great cauldron boiling, though that won’t give you any idea how horrible it was. At the same time I felt, though this may have been imagination, as though the solid rock was vibrating, ever so slightly, beneath my feet. Quite frankly, I was terrified, and I think even Jack was scared, judging from the way he continued to grip my arm. Both sight and sound suggested heat, yet it was deathly cold and seemed to grow colder as the light and the hissing noise increased. The whole island seemed to have become the power-house of some monstrous sort of energy. People argue that fear of the supernatural is simply fear of the unknown; that as soon as it becomes known and therefore “natural”, fear will disappear. I disagree. I believe that there are certain things we cannot or should not know, and I think that the source of this unholy light was one of them. Normally, I have an enquiring, sceptical mind, but my prayer at this moment was that I should not see it. Jack, apparently, thought otherwise.

  ‘The light had followed the same course as before, it had risen to the top storey and was now descending, becoming very brilliant. I think I must have shut my eyes when I realised that Jack was no longer holding my arm. It all happened in a moment. I opened my eyes to see him striding towards the doorway. I shouted to him to come back, but it was too late. He had wheeled into the doorway and stopped abruptly, just as though a door had been slammed in his face. I could see him all too clearly in that hellish glare. I heard him give a most awful, whinnying cry, much more like an animal than a human being, and then his head jerked back in an unnatural, mechanical sort of way and he began pushing the air before him with his hands as though fending something off. After what seemed an age, but was probably only a matter of seconds, he turned, came stumbling back, and collapsed at my feet. My one idea was to get as far away from that doorway as I could. Sheer panic gave me strength, and in next to no time I had dragged him down to the end of the quay. Yet even here, things were little better. The rocks below the water flickered with light that I can only call “cold flame”, and the water itself seethed and bubbled, hissing on the margin, while a mist—I cannot call it steam, for it was ice cold—rose from it, to swirl and thicken about me.

  ‘I shall never know how I managed to endure the rest of that night, nor shall I ever forget a detail of it. For the most part, Jack lay still, but every now and again he would recommence that desolate inarticulate crying, all the while pushing, pushing something away from him that only he could see. The mist became dense, and it seemed to my distraught mind that it was peopled with shapes, formless, yet somehow purposive and evil, advancing towards the castle and glowing like flame in the reflected glare. I thought, then, as I still do, that the thing in the castle must be an Elemental—whatever that may mean—and the possibility that it might advance upon me, through that doorway whose outline I could still see through the mist, filled me with an emotion for which terror is much too mild a word. I remembered reading somewhere that if you do not look at an elemental you are safe, so I closed my eyes. But it took every shred of will-power that was left to me to keep them shut. For it was as though some malignant force was bent upon undermining my will and so inducing me to open them. It peopled my mind with obscene creatures which crawled out of the water and pressed close about me so that I had to cover my face with my hands and press my fingers to my closed eyelids.

  ‘But at last I felt the horrors leave me, and the air grow warmer. I opened my eyes slowly and fearfully to find that the blessed sun had already cleared the woods on the farther shore. The lightest of breezes was blowing on to the quay, and only a few yards away our dinghy was nuzzling her nose between two boulders. I retrieved her and tied her up at the quay. Then I shook Jack and pointed to the boat. He stared straight through me as though he were looking into a great distance and grunted. I shook him again and shouted his name, but he still stared blankly into space. Finally, I dragged him to his feet and armed him down the qu
ay. He tripped over a loose stone and I had a job to hold him. It was then that I realised that he was not only deaf and dumb but blind also.’

  He paused, and there seemed to be the shadow of remembered fear in his eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ he concluded, ‘if you gave me an atomic bomb I should know what to destroy. If you can believe me, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Hawley Bank Foundry

  MR GEORGE FRIMLEY is a successful Birmingham businessman. He is the Managing Director of Herbert Frimley and Company, Ironfounders, of Brookend, and he lives in a desirable detached residence situated conveniently near to the golf-course at Sutton Coldfield. His success is manifested to the world in the shape of an expensive car and an even more expensive wife whose blonde hair is of doubtful authenticity, and whose thirst for gin equals that of her husband for whisky. Their other hobbies are golf and bridge. In short, Mr Frimley exhibits to the world a front of prosperous complacency unshaken by any troublesome doubts that a spark of imagination might have bequeathed to him. His philosophy, if it can be so called, is free-trading liberalism. He inherited this, along with his business, from his father. Both were founded in the nineteenth century. Though still in his early forties, he is already ‘Old George’ to his friends at the Clubhouse, and to the business cronies with whom he may be seen lunching at the Queen’s Hotel. To them, his tall, broad-shouldered figure, with heavy jowled red face and sleek, grey hair, has become an institution, imperturbable as the statues in Victoria Square, reassuring as a healthy bank balance. I think that he is jealous of this reputation, and I believe this to be the reason why he is so reticent about his unsuccessful venture in Shropshire in 1941.

  Men of George Frimley’s calibre build their own secure little worlds around them like a wall, shutting out perplexity, doubt and the fear of the unknown which lurk without. George Frimley built his wall well. When the planes of the Luftwaffe droned over Birmingham, when the sky glowed red with fire and the ground shook with the detonation of high explosive he drove his car back from the office as usual, or donned his warden’s helmet and patrolled the street with scarcely a qualm. Even when he drove down to Hillend one windy March morning in 1941 and found that the works of Herbert Frimley and Company had been reduced to a heap of rubble and twisted steel he remained, to all outward appearances, undismayed. Yet when the Hawley Bank project was abandoned five months later, ‘Old George’ spent a further three months recuperating at Bournemouth before he finally returned to Birmingham, and even so his friends were heard to remark that he was not looking quite his old self.