He glanced at his chronometer.
“D-Dog flight. Go! Go!”
He watched the three planes speed down. D-Dog flight leader kept his r/t open. Fleming could hear him guiding his men in.
“D-Dog leader, careful. Those brutes can rear up quite a distance! You’re too low, Geoff. Too low. Get some height. Geoff…for Christ’s sake watch out for that brute…”
There was a sudden crackle of static over the r/t.
Fleming, looking down from five thousand, could see a small black shape suddenly spinning away from the burning area.
“Out of control…” came a desperate voice.
There was a sudden explosion. Fleming could see it.
There was a short silence as two Harriers sped back to rejoin the squadron.
“D-Dog leader,” the voice was expressionless. “We’ve lost Geoff.”
“Blue leader…I know,” Fleming’s voice was harsh. “B-Bertie flight. Go! Go!”
Within a few minutes the aircraft were back.
Fleming side-slipped his aircraft down towards the area which was now one big pyre. Bronbucca was a mass of flame. He hovered at one hundred feet around the hill, gazing bitterly through the billowing smoke. He could see the mangled remains of an aircraft embedded in the rubble of some old building. Close by was one long black object twisting convulsively in the heat. He moved closer, close enough to see the burning napalm jelly sticking to the creature’s back. The creature’s skin was bubbling furiously as it twisted and writhed. Fleming felt sick.
Reaching forward, Fleming switched on his firing button from “safety” to “ready” and swung the nose of his Harrier round, depressing the button. A long burst from his forward machine-guns sewed a pattern along the creature’s back. It arched, writhed and arched again but was not dead when Fleming swung away. Biting his lip, Fleming pushed the switch back to “safety”, realising it was futile to try to kill the creature with such a weapon.
He climbed slowly away, flicking his r/t switch.
“Blue leader to blue angels. Same pattern as before, Three waves. High explosive in prescribed pattern across area eight-oh-nine. I think we may have done for them.”
Linda Truran handed Adam Taylor a cup of coffee.
Taylor took it and glanced at the two soldiers watching him, their rifles slung casually across their backs.
“Thanks,” he said shortly.
“They’ll let you go as soon as it’s all over,” Linda assured him.
Far away across the moors they could hear the noise of muffled explosions and saw the great clouds of black smoke rising over Bosbradoe. In the blue sky above they could just make out the darting black specks of the air force jets.
“Yeah,” Taylor said, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. “When it’s all over.”
He screwed up his eyes.
“The best story of the century and I can’t broadcast it because of Colonel Blimp over there.”
He nodded towards the groups of officers.
“General Blimp,” corrected Linda Truran lightly. “And that’s the Minister of Defence with him.”
Taylor stared.
“You’re right! Well, I’ll…”
A soldier suddenly stepped out of a radio van and hurried across to the stocky faced man with General’s tabs who was talking to the minister.
The man reported something and the little group burst into a cheer.
Taylor shook his head.
“I suppose the RAF have blasted the damn things to pieces. I wonder if we can broadcast the story now?”
A few yards away Claire and Bill Neville were sitting in Neville’s car watching the smoke rise across the moor with curious feelings.
“Do you think they have destroyed Bosbradoe?” asked the girl.
Neville squeezed her hand.
“Not unless those things swarmed all over the village. The RAF are supposed to be pretty good at what they call precision bombing. You can resign yourself to the fact that Wheal Tom and Tybronbucca have been totally destroyed.”
“And Tymur Cottage,” pointed out Claire. “Where are you going to live now?”
Neville forced a smile.
“I suppose I’ll get some money out of the insurance, or would they class this mess as an act of God or something? Well, maybe I was getting a little fed up with country life. How do you fancy a place in north London, somewhere near Hampstead Heath? At least you won’t have to worry about serpents there, not unless they have some lurking in the ponds on the heath.”
Claire smiled contentedly.
“You know,” she said, after a long pause, “I can’t help feeling sorry for them…whatever they were.”
Neville glanced at her in amusement.
“Sorry for those things?”
“Yes,” declared Claire. “They were creatures, like any other species. It was we who started to disturb them in the first place, going down the mine, invading their homes. It was natural that they should try to defend themselves. And another thing…we had a special responsibility for them.”
“How do you make that out, Claire?” asked Neville. “Wasn’t it we who created them? Wasn’t it the radiation stored down the mine which leaked and affected the cells of some ordinary harmless creatures and created those monsters in their stead?”
Neville nodded slightly.
“That was Lambert’s theory. Poor beggar. I guess we shall never know. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Government tries to hush the whole thing up.”
“Yes, it would suit the Government if we believed in old Mother Polruan’s tales about a Morgow.”
“And who is to say that the Morgow does not exist?” mused Neville. “Man creates Morgow, Morgow destroys man. That’s the legend, isn’t it? There’s a certain philosophical logic to it, isn’t there?”
Claire sighed.
“Do you think we’ll be allowed to drive up to London now, this very instant? I think I want to forget all about Bosbradoe.”
“I’ll go and see if we can get permission,” said Neville, climbing out of the car. He paused and turned back to the girl. “But you can’t forget Bosbradoe, none of us can. We have to accept it and learn from it.”
CHAPTER XXIV
The trawler Jenny Wren out of Perranporth was standing out towards the Bawden Rocks, north of St Agnes Head. Skipper Jeb Trelissick was smoking his old briar pipe and thinking about nothing in particular as he pushed the bows of his boat towards the distant horizon. It was a bright, crisp, early winter’s morning, with the pale sun giving a harsh white light that carried no warmth at all. Its reflection on the gently dancing waters caused a myriad lights to sparkle and flicker across the breadth of the ocean.
Up in the bows of the trawler Trelissick could see his teenage son, his mate, stowing tackle in preparation for the day’s fishing. He could hear the boy’s tenor voice echoing back to him on the wind singing some old Cornish song of the tragedies of fisherfolk.
“A candle burned bright
On a dark winter’s night
In a window that looked out to sea
And as the dawn broke
A girl child was born
In the cottage of Skipper Penleigh.
Still wild raged the storm
As the grey light came in
Not a boat could be seen on the sea
And the fishwives kept vigil
All through the long day
As they waited on Mount Misery.
Storm battered and torn
The boats came to shore
As twilight crept over the sea
But one boat there was
That never came back
‘Twas the boat of big Skipper Penleigh.”
Trelissick was proud of his son’s voice. The lad had always been in the local chapel choir and had recently been accepted to sing in the St Austell Male Voice Choir which meant travelling round the country — even to Europe — to sing in all the great choir festivals and competitions. Yes, Jeb Trelissick was p
roud of his son.
He glanced down to the compass and eased his helm a few points to swing well clear of the Bawden Rocks.
It was then he caught sight of the dark shape in the sea about three hundred yards to his starboard. He frowned. At first he thought it was a seal or a shoal of seals, for they were quite common in these waters. Then he saw that the object was too big to be a seal. It was many feet long and swam in an undulating motion with what must have been its head dipping under the waves every now and again.
He called to his son and pointed.
The boy came racing aft to the wheelhouse.
“Where’s the glasses, Dad?” he demanded.
Trelissick jerked his head towards a corner where the boy found them and focused on the black shape.
“What the devil is it, Dad?” whispered the boy.
Trelissick motioned to him to hold the wheel while he took his turn peering through the glasses. For a few seconds he had the creature in view. It reminded him of a gigantic eel. Then, abruptly, it was gone. There was nothing on the choppy surface of the waters to mark the spot where it had been.
“What was it, Dad?” the boy repeated.
Trelissick shook his head.
“Nothing I ever saw before, that’s for sure.”
“A serpent?”
Trelissick did not smile.
“Who knows?”
“Maybe it was the Morgow?”
The old man stared at the boy.
“Where did you learn about that?”
“Oh, in some old book about ancient Cornwall.”
Trelissick swung the helm further away from the spot where the black creature had gone down.
“We’ve work to do, son,” he muttered.
The boy looked at his father in surprise.
“Shouldn’t we report it? It would be in all the newspapers.”
“No, son. We’re not reporting it. And I’d advise you not to say a word about it. Do you want people to think we are superstitious fools or liars?”
“Why would they think that, Dad?”
Trelissick smiled grimly.
“Have you ever believed a man who comes up to you and says he has just seen a sea serpent, or flying saucers and the like? No, son, we don’t say a word. We don’t want to be held up to ridicule.”
The boy nodded reluctantly.
He paused in the doorway of the wheelhouse, a frown on his face.
“I wonder if it was the Morgow?”
Trelissick shook his head.
“Best not to think of such things when there’s work to be done.”
Trelissick watched the boy go back to his work and cast a suspicious glance at the choppy but empty waters of the sea. He found himself shivering.
The lines of the old saying came suddenly into his mind. He did not know where they came from or where he had heard them.
Beware when the Morgow rises;
Lament for the living.
Lament for the unborn.
All things end!
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The Morgow Rises! Page 19