The Morgow Rises!

by Peter Tremayne

  “I don’t understand Cornish,” said Claire with a shake of her head.

  “Neither do most Cornish people,” replied Roscarrock dryly.

  “More’s the pity,” replied Pool spiritedly. “It’s a beautiful language with a great cultural heritage.”

  “I’m sure it is,” interposed Neville. “But isn’t it a slight digression from what we are here for?”

  Pool grimaced apologetically.

  “Quite right, Mr Neville. Now, we have all the equipment we need. What I propose is that we climb down the ladder system to the bottom of the shaft. I am presuming that the ladders were kept in good repair by your uncle…?”

  Roscarrock answered for Claire.

  “Henry Penvose was always in and out of the mine so they would be in fairly good order.”

  “Excellent. It will probably take us half an hour or so to get to the bottom of the shaft.”

  “Constable!”

  They turned as a breathless figure came racing up to their group. It was a young girl of about twenty, frecklefaced and red haired, clad in a duffel coat and jeans. Her eyes were wide and made her seem permanently surprised. Roscarrock assumed an expression of one trying to retain their patience under extreme provocation.

  “What are you doing here, Miss Truran?”

  “Come on, Mr Roscarrock,” chided the girl. “I’m after a story.”

  “Miss Truran is a reporter from the Cornish Times,” explained Roscarrock. Then to the girl: “The press will be given a statement later from the press officer at Bodmin.”

  Linda Truran smiled winningly.

  “Is Henry Penvose trapped in Wheal Tom? This is a search party, isn’t it? You can tell me that.”

  “This is Miss Claire Penvose,” Roscarrock said with a degree of emphasis.

  The girl turned and held out a sympathetic hand to Claire.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Penvose. I have a job to do, I’m sure you understand.”

  “You’re right, anyway,” Claire said. “We are going to go down into Wheal Tom in an effort to find my uncle.”

  Linda Truran scribbled in her notebook.

  “How long has your uncle been missing?”

  “I arrived in Bosbradoe yesterday evening. He was not at home then.”

  “That will be all now,” interrupted Roscarrock officiously. “As I told you, you’ll get a statement later from Bodmin.”

  Linda Truran watched as the burly constable ushered them to the main shaft of the mine to begin their descent. Then she turned and raced back to the roadway where she had left her motor-scooter and accelerated away towards The Morvren Arms. Already she was composing an “exclusive” story from Bosbradoe She had worked on the Cornish Times for just six months, ever since leaving Exeter University, and apart from weddings, fetes, flower shows and one inquest, she had never touched anything worthy of being called a story.

  Luckily Bosbradoe was on her “beat” and when news came into the office that morning that the Coastguard were investigating a drowning, Linda had been despatched to pick up the details. Now she had managed to pick up a piece about the near wreck of Jack Treneglos’ ketch and a piece about Henry Penvose being trapped in Wheal Tom. If she could tie all three things together and maybe headline it — “The Cursed Village” or something, she might make the front page. She turned into the car park of The Morvren Arms, leant her scooter against the wall and headed for the inn’s public telephone.

  Mother Polruan sat in a rocking chair before the coal stove in her cottage humming tunelessly to herself. Berlewen Polruan had no idea of how old she really was. She supposed herself to be near seventy but she had forgotten. Her father had been a gamekeeper on the great estate of Sir John Trevithick of Lanyon but her mother had died while bearing her and she had never known her mother’s family. Her father had admitted that she had been one of the travelling people — a true blooded Romany with a gift of second sight. The Romany and Celtic had mixed well for both peoples were aware of the psychic realities and the cosmic terrors to which others seemed oblivious, both saw the realities of the supernatural world as extensions of the natural world. Yet it was her father who had been the great influence in her life. He it was who had named her Berlewen — Morning Star — in the ancient Cornish language. He it was who taught her to read the signs of nature as easily as another might read a book. He it was who brought her into contact with the old religion and philosophies, with the realities of the Celtic Otherworld and the symbolic meanings of the mysterious stone circles with which her native Cornwall was endowed.

  Even when she was very young and relatively beautiful people had come to her for herbal remedies, for natural cures, for she had the ability to diagnose illnesses and prescribe nature’s cures for them. She knew the secret of how to harness nature’s powers and to utilise them for the good of her fellow beings. The locals were superstitious of course. She became known as a witch. She smiled as she thought about it. As if “witch” was a stigma. In the tongue of the Sawsneky the English from east of the Tamar, it described her function perfectly. She was a wise woman. Even before she had grown out of her teenage she was known as “Mother” Polruan as a token of respect for her knowledge.

  Indeed, only one person had ever called her Berlewen, other than her father who had died on her eighteenth birthday. Young George Polruan, a distant cousin. Her eyes prickled and watered at the memory of his laughing face as it swam through the mists of time before her. He had been a fisherman, second mate of a trawler which hunted the silver shoals of herring out of St Ives. He had been born with the gift of laughter and the philosophy that the whole world was mad and created for his entertainment. He had been the only man who had captured her heart, accepted her for what she was, instead of shunning her company like many a young man who was scared of what they did not understand. They had been married on St Piran’s Day, the day of the patron saint of Cornwall. It was exactly a year later, on March $, when it happened. It was a dark, wild night, as she lay in child labour in their cottage on the cliffs. Outside the tempest whipped the rain and sea spray across the stones while the wind howled down the chimney causing the sparks to fly across the room.

  At the moment the labour pains began to grow frequent, Berlewen Polruan had sat up and screamed, ignoring the comforting tones of the old midwife. George Polruan had been out fishing that day and in that very moment Berlewen Polruan had known that his boat had foundered and gone to the bottom. She felt a strange choking sensation in her throat and knew that her husband had been drowned. She fell back moaning in agony and, not long afterwards, a boy child had been born dead.

  She had been right. George Polruan did not come back from the sea. Since that day she had worn black. Since that day she had become almost a recluse living in her cottage on the lonely cliffs above Bosbradoe. They still called her Mother Polruan. They still came to her for herbal cures. Now and again people with tape recorders and cameras came to see her, to question her on her knowledge of folklore, of the ancient Cornish tongue and herbalism. And, less frequently, a local woman, or even one of the menfolk, would ask her, in embarrassed fashion, for a love charm.

  Mother Polruan lived her life with resignation; she had known a brief year of happiness and perhaps that was more than most people were allowed.

  She reached forward and poked at the fire with a piece of wood.

  A shiver suddenly went through her frail body and she drew her shawl more tightly across her shoulders and peered round.

  She stood up and went across to her kitchen table on which was spread a large chart covered with astrological signs and equations. She examined it carefully, picked up a pencil and started to jot down a series of figures. Then she carefully added them up and compared them with some equations on the chart.

  “It is coming,” she whispered softly. “The figures do not lie. It is coming.”

  She turned and picked up an old leather-bound book from a shelf. It was extremely old and printed in the ancient language of Cornwall. She turne
d to a marked passage and mumbled the lines.

  “Yes, the prophecy is true. It is coming. It is man’s curse to ever create the engines of his own destruction; to seek to dominate nature. Always nature will prevail. The thing that has been created by man as a means of domination will surely destroy him. It is written.”

  The old woman closed the ancient book and set it down. She shuffled back to her rocking chair and sat before the stove. Slowly, mechanically, she began to rock back and forth, back and forth, and from her thin, bloodless lips, the old tune came again. Once she broke off to nod to herself and mumble: “It is coming. The prophecy is true.” Then she resumed her tuneless humming.

  At the bottom of Wheal Tom’s main shaft, Henry Pool stood and waited for the others to join him. The light from the headlamps caused giant shadows to leap erratically across the granite walls of the main cavern of the mine where once hundreds of men with horses had laboured to bring tin to the industries of the empire. Pool was kneeling down, a map spread across a boulder which acted as a table.

  “I suggest,” he began, “that we search systematically. I also suggest that we keep together.”

  “Won’t that make our task longer?” demanded Neville. “There are four of us. It would make sense if we split into two groups.”

  Pool shook his head.

  “These are old workings and, if they have been under pressure from the sea, then it can get dangerous. Even at this point we are many hundreds of feet below sea level. And, begging your pardon Miss Penvose, this mine may have claimed one man’s life already. You are not an expert at conditions down here. Mr Neville, while you have some knowledge, I can’t allow you to wander off on your own.”

  “You’re the boss,” conceded Neville.

  “What’s the plan?” asked Roscarrock.

  “We will start with the galleries nearest the main shaft and explore in sequence.”

  He tapped the map and then pointed to the start of a tunnel.

  “We’ll try this one first. Let’s go.”

  “How about it?” Linda Truran was saying to her editor. “The Cursed Village…it’s a natural. And if I hadn’t bumped into that little boy I’d never have heard about the sea serpent angle. Four strange occurrences in the same village in two days. It’s worth a by-line.”

  The severe voice of her editor crackled down the telephone.

  “We are not that sort of newspaper, Miss, ahem, Truran. The sort of story you are suggesting is more worthy of the more lurid popular press. We are a community newspaper. We serve the community.”

  “But it’s the biggest story around these parts in decades!” wailed Linda Truran. “Surely you can’t mean that you are going to ignore it?”

  “Not at all. I shall want four separate paragraphs, no more. One on each item and try not to “jazz” them up, absolutely no sensationalism. Do you understand?”

  “Four paragraphs?” gasped the girl in disbelief.

  There was a click which signified that her editor had rung off.

  “Damned old fuddy-duddy!” muttered Linda Truran as she replaced the receiver. “Wouldn’t know a story if it was printed in seventy-two-point type!”

  She walked up to the bar and sprawled on a stool. Noall was polishing glasses as usual. He gazed at her angry face: “Anything wrong, miss?”

  She pouted.

  “Just people, that’s all.”

  Noall grinned broadly.

  “That’s all that’s ever wrong with the world, miss. People.”

  Linda Truran reached in her handbag and took out her purse.

  “Give me another one of these,” she said, pushing forward her empty glass. “It was gin and french.”

  Noall did so and swept up the coins which she laid on the bar top.

  “You’ve come to write about the goings-on in Bosbradoe, haven’t you, miss?” he asked.

  She nodded morosely.

  “I thought I had. Trouble is, I have an editor who has just stepped out of the ark and doesn’t know what modern journalism is.”

  She suddenly stared at Noall and snapped her fingers.

  “Got it!”

  Noall glanced at her bemused.

  “Have you, miss?”

  The girl slipped from the bar stool and went back to the telephone and dialled the operator.

  “Can you give me the Sunday Independent in Plymouth?”

  A few moments later a voice answered.

  “Newsroom, please. I want to speak to Andy Shaw.”

  A few seconds elapsed before a voice said: “Andy Shaw speaking.”

  “Andy, this is Linda Truran. We were on a journalism course together at Exeter.”

  At the other end of the line Andy Shaw brightened. He certainly remembered Linda Truran. He had vainly tried to date her on several occasions. Andy, at the age of twenty-two, was the archetype male chauvinist; still of the age when he placed women in three categories — no good, bed worthy and very bed worthy. Linda Truran was definitely in the third category.

  “Of course I remember you, Linda,” he put all the warmth he could into his voice. “How are you? What can I do for you?”

  Breathlessly, she told him.

  “Well, I’ll have to have a word with my editor but I don’t see any problem,” he said some moments later. “I could be down there in a couple of hours. Can you fix me up with a room there?”

  Linda returned to her bar stool with a smug smile.

  If Andy Shaw played fair with her, she’d soon have a job with the Sunday Independent and she could say goodbye to the stuffy old Cornish Times. Well, she thought defensively as the question of ethics pricked her conscience, she had her career to think about and such an opportunity as this would hardly occur again.

  Henry Pool cast a glance at his watch and signalled a halt.

  “We’ve been down here for five hours,” he said with a sigh. “I’m afraid that I must call a halt. If we attempt to carry on we’ll overtire ourselves.”

  “But my uncle might be lying injured and not far away,” Claire protested.

  “I know that, Miss Penvose,” replied the mining surveyor. “On the other hand he might not even be down Wheal Tom at all. We have to do things in an ordered method. We’ve searched all the main galleries and found nothing. I think we should rest and come back tomorrow to start on the minor galleries.”

  “You mean those that stretch out under the sea?” asked Roscarrock.

  Pool inclined his head in agreement.

  “I would have thought that was the place we should have tried first,” observed Claire, a little bitterly. “It stands to reason that if you suspect the sea water has flooded the mine then it would be in that area that my uncle would have met with an accident and not in main, dry shafts and tunnels.”

  “There is a method in doing things, Miss Penvose. Even your uncle would tell you that. Anyway, having been down here I simply can’t go along with the flooding theory. As you have seen, the galleries we have been in are dry and, may I remind you, we are under sea level. If the sea water flooded the mine to the extent the constable believed then we should have seen some sign.”

  Roscarrock looked uncomfortable.

  “Is there no way flooding could have occurred and not reach this area?”

  “Minor flooding perhaps, localised and minor. Certainly not the major flood which would have produced a whirlpool in the sea above.”

  “Are you sure?” pressed Roscarrock.

  “Absolutely.”

  Pool coughed. “And now, we are far too tired to continue this evening. We need food, drink and sleep. So let’s get back to the surface. It’s going to take us an hour or so to get back to the main shaft and to the surface as it is.”

  They glanced at Claire.

  “Very well,” she said.

  They turned and commenced to proceed towards the main shaft. Something caused them to com. to an abrupt halt and stand listening. It was some sort of sound, coming as if from a long way off; a strange, sucking sort of sound
. It continued for several minutes and then died away.

  “What was that?” shivered Claire.

  Pool smiled.

  “We are fairly near the undersea galleries here. I think it was probably the noise of the sea above us distorted by the layers of rock in between.”

  CHAPTER XI

  It was dark when Claire and Bill Neville drove into the long narrow main street of Tintagel and halted before the Wharncliffe Arms. Neville had insisted that Claire should join him for dinner away from the sympathetic curiosity of the locals of Bosbradoe. Tintagel lay only a few miles drive along the north Cornwall coast. Claire, her mind still concerned for her Uncle Henry, had been reluctant but Neville had persuaded her that moping in Bosbradoe would achieve nothing. Ever since leaving Bosbradoe he had kept up a light-hearted monologue on the most ridiculous subjects and while Claire’s fears were not assuaged she was grateful for his attempts to distract her.

  Neville guided her into the cathedral-like dining room of the Wharncliffe Arms.

  “Would you mind letting me order?” he asked. “They do a superb line in traditional Cornish food here.”

  An elderly waitress hovered near by and Claire let Neville take over. He hardly looked at the proferred menu.

  “We’ll start with Kiddly broth. Then we’ll have the Muggerty Pie and a bottle of your Gilliflower wine.”

  Claire giggled as the woman went off.

  “I don’t believe it,” she hissed at Neville.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “What don’t you believe?”

  “That there are such things as — what was it? — Maggoty Pie?”

  “Muggerty Pie,” corrected Neville with mock severity. “It’s quite a well-known dish but there are three different recipes, one for lamb, one for beef and one for ham. The one they serve here is lamb pie and it is really very good.”

  Claire shook her head wonderingly.