by Ted Bell
“But what?”
“A bit old for me, I’d say, Mr. Smith. Unless you were very, very rich of course. But you’re only a poor schoolteacher. Or so you say, anyway.”
“Would you like to row out there to Mutton Island? It’s not that far.”
“I told you I would. Going with a big strong fella such as you, aren’t I? It’s a haunt, y’know, that island is. Sure it is. Beasties. Goblins and banshees. When I was a wee one, I heard stories of people going out there. And never coming back.”
“I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”
“It’s what you promised. Show me the ruins, you said. The old Norman watchtower and the abandoned schoolhouse. And the graveyard.”
“Of course. I’ll get the wine, you button yourself up and wrap this blanket round, it’s getting quite cold. Storm front coming. My boat is the pretty little blue one down there on the beach.”
“Are you sure it isn’t too rough, the water? I can’t swim a stroke.”
“It’s only half a kilometer across the strait. I think I can handle it. Let’s go.”
MUTTON ISLAND ROSE FROM THE SEA to a height of 110 feet. It was covered in wind-whipped grasslands and surmounted by the ruins of an ancient settlement that still stood at the western end. It had been periodically inhabited since prehistory, and the legendary “Children of Lir” had spent their last three hundred years on the island. They were now spending eternity in the island’s ancient graveyard.
Myths about the place were common, most generated by the presence of a Pagan tombstone, six feet high, with hieroglyphic inscriptions. It stood in the center of the graveyard in absolutely pristine condition, despite countless centuries of horrific Atlantic weather conditions.
Pulling hard against the fierce rip of the narrow strait, Smith recalled the first day he’d seen this desolate, uninhabited place. He’d been drawn to it for any number of reasons. Not the least of which were many outings like this one, a beautiful fair-skinned lass seated in the bow of his rowboat, looking for adventure with the handsome stranger.
He timed and caught a wave that carried them high up onto the smooth rocky beach. He shipped oars and waited for the wave to recede, leaving them high and dry, so to speak. Once they’d climbed out, he fastened the long painter round a large boulder. Then he took her hand and led her across the slippery rocks to a pathway he often used. It led to the graveyard. Climbing it, he began to perspire.
They reached the top.
“It’s lovely out here. Makes you wonder why no one ever comes. Lived here all me life and never been.”
“Mind your step,” he said. The weather-worn stone tablets of ancient graves had been heaved up topsy-turvy, as if the soil itself was rejecting them. Thick tendrils of fog had wreathed themselves into the ruins, and the graveyard had suddenly become an altogether more haunting place. She was shivering. She hadn’t dressed for the cold sea wind.
“Who is buried here? So many graves.”
“Children. Centuries ago.”
“Sad.”
“Yes. Death comes and we go.”
“And what might that be?” she asked, pointing at the six-foot obelisk and wrapping his worn woolen blanket more tightly about her. “The grave of some great laird, I wonder?”
“A Pagan tombstone, certainly. The grave of an infidel. A kafir.”
“What’s a kafir?”
“Someone who doesn’t believe in God.”
“Who doesn’t believe in God?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“There’s writing on it.”
“The hieroglyphs are proving much harder to decipher than I first imagined. But I’m working on it.”
“You’re some kind of…archaeologist…then, are you?”
“Yes, something like that,” he said, walking toward the old stone building. “I make a study of graves.”
“And that building there? It seems to be the only one still standing, if you can call it that.”
“I call it the schoolhouse. It was probably a church since it’s adjacent to the cemetery. But I like to think of it as the place where I do my work. Teaching. And learning, of course. Oh, the things I do learn.”
“Oh. You seem to know an awful lot about this frightful place for someone who ain’t local.”
Thunder rumbled overhead and there was a searing crack of nearby lightning. The air was suddenly charged with electricity. Fat drops of cold rain began to spatter on the upended stone markers of death. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees in the last fifteen minutes.
“You’ll catch your death out here,” he said. “Come inside the schoolhouse. Quickly. I want you to see something. In fact, I want to teach you a lesson. About life and—”
“Teach me a lesson, eh? Cor, the way you do go on!”
“It’s my sense of humor. I simply can’t help myself.”
She looked at him quizzically but went through the low opening, peering into the gloom.
He followed her into the one-room stone structure. The floor was covered with small white pebbles. There were no windows and only the single heavy wooden door. Faith thought it odd that the door looked so new, and had a bolt, but said nothing. She was staring at the strong shaft of light that came through a crack in the roof.
There was a rough-hewn stone table directly in the center of a jagged beam of sunlight slanting between the rain clouds. Beneath the table she saw a large wooden hatch, as if it covered a set of stairs leading below to…what? A cellar?”
“Look at the lovely light in here,” she said, turning to smile at him over her shoulder. He had his back to her, fussing with something about the door. He turned to her and smiled. An odd smile, rather queer, nothing like the easy smiles on the cliff overlooking the sea. It made her uneasy, like a small cold ache in the pit of her stomach.
“Why did you close the door?” she said as he approached her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it all. The cot. The books scattered on the floor. The rotting food and empty wine bottles on the ancient stone floor. Lightning struck close by, filling the room with white light.
This was where he lived.
Horror began to steal its way into her mind, hot blood racing upward, flooding her skull.
He smiled. “If you were granted one wish, Faith McGuire, what would you wish for?”
She tried for a laugh. “To stop drinking with strangers.”
“I promise you, Faith, today will be the day you stop drinking with strangers.”
She edged toward the door, blindly reaching out for the handle.
“Don’t bother, Faith. I locked it.”
“Locked it! Why on earth would you lock this door?”
“So you can’t get out. Not until you’ve answered every last one of my questions about your brother’s regiment. I need this information, you see. It’s my trade. I’m rather a spy. I trade information for favors. Simple, isn’t it.”
“Ah, yer full of it, ain’t you? Trying to scare a poor young girl like that? I know your kind. Open that door and I’ll give you a kiss, but only one. You don’t scare me a lick.”
“You should be scared, my dear girl,” he said, moving toward her. He pulled something from his jacket pocket and held it up into the light.
“Oh, my God.”
“If you have a god, my dear, now would be a good time to have a quick word.”
“What is it? What are you going to do? Have your way with me? It ain’t necessary, mister. I’m no virgin. I like it, y’see, can’t get enough. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll do as I say. But now it’s time for the Q & A, my darling.”
He pressed the tip of the carving knife against her cheek.
She screamed once, found herself backing away and hit the edge of the table, hit it hard with her hip. She put a hand down on the table to steady herself. It was covered with a crusty dried substance that flaked off onto her hand. In some dim recess of her brain s
he knew instantly that it was old blood.
“It’s covered with—”
“A sacrificial altar,” he said quietly. “A Pagan ritual. Centuries old.”
“Please. Don’t hurt me. I know how to make men happy. I’ll do it for you. Anything. I swear it! On my knees, I’ll swear it, only don’t—”
“Oh, don’t worry about all that nasty business. I’m not that kind of man. I find all that rubbish rather messy and disgusting, to be honest.”
He moved closer. She opened her mouth to scream as he raised the knife.
He jammed his fingers into her mouth, hooking his left thumb under her jaw, and pushed her back onto the table. Her large breasts were heaving beneath the low-cut white cotton peasant’s blouse, and he yanked it down at the neckline, ripping the cloth away from her shoulders with his knife hand.
“Will you talk now, Faith? Will you tell me everything I need to know?”
He missed the hand coming for his eyes. She screamed as she went for them, intent on gouging, and he’d time enough to turn the other cheek, as they say, and all she managed was to rake three shallow wounds down the side of his face.
He slashed her with the knife. She was moving frantically now and the wound was only superficial.
“Faith. Your brother’s unit is charged with the protection of Lord Mountbatten. I want to know how many men are assigned to his unit, and I want to know what their rotation schedule is!”
“No!”
He slashed again and the blade struck bone, a rib, but the blood was spurting and he gripped her jaw harder, slamming her head against the table with a hollow thud.
She quieted down a bit, dazed.
“Now talk,” he said, but he was convinced he wasn’t going to get anything out of this one.
He took a moment to compose himself and regarded her calmly. She was still wriggling too much for his taste, and he cracked her skull once more against his altar.
“Do you or do you not intend to answer my questions about your brother’s regiment?”
“Yes! Yes I do! Just stop. Don’t—”
The bloodlust was up now. He’d never get anything but lies out of this simple girl. And he certainly could not allow her to go free, not now.
Pity.
He raised the knife above his head, bringing it down in a wide ripping arc. The vicious blow tore away most of her throat.
He took a step back to avoid that awful spouting gout of blood and said, “I’m sorry, Faith. That was mean. You should never have trusted me. No one ever should. They all learn that lesson too late, I’m afraid.”
She was silent now.
He went over to his miserable cot and lay down, sick to his stomach over what he had just done, swallowing the vomit. The rage blooming inside him, the hot red need to kill finally extinguished, he lay there, disgusted, panting, hating himself, drenched in the hot blood of Faith McGuire. He seemed to have a half-empty wine bottle in his hand and he drank it down in a single draught.
In the morning, Faith would join all the others down in the catacombs. But for now, at last, he could get some sleep. He stared at the old magazine cover of Mountbatten taped to his wall. Scrawled across his face were Roman numerals, scribbled there every night as Smith marked off the remaining days until he struck. A grease pencil hung by a string, and he used it to mark off one more day, one more week.
Now, to sleep.
Perchance, if he was lucky, to dream of his unsuspecting nemesis.
SEVENTEEN
NORTHOLT AIRFIELD, ENGLAND, 1947
LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN STOOD on the glistening tarmac in the dewy light of dawn. He was gazing up with nostalgia at the silver fuselage of the familiar Lancaster heavy bomber. This particular aircraft, a York MW-102, with its four Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engines, had flown Mountbatten on countless missions during his days as Supreme Commander, Southeast Asia. Early in the war, he’d converted the Lancaster to his own specifications. Mountbatten had just refitted her yet again with bunks for a relief crew to shorten the flight time required for his upcoming journey.
Lord Mountbatten was a man on a mission, an extremely vital mission, and he literally had not a moment to spare. Millions of lives were literally hanging in the balance and he’d been chosen by his King and the prime minister to be the reluctant savior of these teeming masses.
The Hero of Burma had no burning desire to be remembered by history as a savior. He was a lifelong warrior, moreover, a victor, not some bloody diplomat or politico. One need only look at the legions of decorations now festooned so proudly upon his chest to know him for what he was. His idea of negotiation was a fight to the death. Far more importantly, did he want his name forever engraved in the history books as the man who’d begun this lamentable unraveling of the British Empire? Churchill thought the whole idea of giving up empire was blasphemy. For once, Mountbatten was completely in agreement with his bullheaded nemesis.
If this was not the end of empire, then certainly it was the beginning of the end. He had argued tirelessly with the monarch over his decision to send him to India. He neither wanted the Crown to give up this bastion of empire, nor did he have any wish to preside over this debacle. A religious struggle between two warring religions, Hinduism and Islam, for which there was clearly no solution.
But such was his fate.
His valet had already stowed Lord and Lady Mountbatten’s personal luggage on board, all sixty-six pieces of it, so complete it included a set of silver ashtrays that bore the family crest. Also on board, in an old cardboard shoebox stowed in an overhead bin, was a family heirloom. It was the diamond-studded tiara Edwina would wear when her husband was proclaimed the new Viceroy of India.
In the reddish glow of the cockpit, the pilot and copilot of the York MW-102 went through their final preflight checks. Mountbatten and two of his old wartime comrades completed one final walk around the aircraft. With him were Colonel Ronald Brockman, head of his personal staff, and Lieutenant Commander Peter Howes, his senior aide-de-camp. How many trips had they taken on the old girl, Lord Louis was thinking, good Lord, how many, from the frontline posts in the jungles of Burma to every great conference of the war.
His two friends noticed that the normally ebullient Mountbatten seemed gloomy and introspective, his mood matching the weather perfectly. It was not at all, they privately thought, remotely like him. A bit full of himself, but normally a cheery sort.
The copilot leaned out of the cockpit window and announced loudly that the flight was ready for takeoff.
“Well,” Mountbatten said to his friends with a shrug and a sigh, “we’re off to India. The world’s largest powder keg. I don’t want to go. They don’t want me out there. We’ll all probably come home with bloody bullets in our backs.”
THE VICEROY’S HOUSE IN NEW DELHI was a palace of such gargantuan dimensions that it could only be rivaled by Versailles or the Peterhof Palace of the tsars. Behind the endless parade of grand white marble columns lining the exterior façade were floors and walls of white, yellow, green, and black marble quarried from the same veins that furnished the astonishing mosaics inside the Taj Mahal.
So long were the palace corridors that, in the basement, servants rode from one end of the building to the other on bicycles. On this particularly historic morning, five thousand of those servants were giving one last polish to the marble, glass, woodwork, and brass of its thirty-seven grand salons and its three hundred and forty rooms. Gold and scarlet turbans flaring atop their heads, armies of servants whose white tunics had already been embroidered with the new Viceroy’s coat of arms scurried down corridors on some final errand.
Outside, in the manicured Mogul gardens, more than four hundred gardeners toiled in the sun, perfecting the intricate maze of grass squares, rectangular flower beds, and splashing vaulted waterways. Fifty of those gardeners were mere boys whose sole job it was to shoo away unwanted birds.
And over in the stables, the five hundred horsemen of the Viceroy’s personal mounted bod
yguard adjusted their scarlet and gold tunics before mounting their superb black horses. The entire household was a frenzy of activity. And all of them—horsemen, chamberlains, cooks, stewards, and gardeners—were preparing for the enthronement of one of that select company of men for whom this splendid palace had been erected, the man who now approached this very moment—the last Viceroy of India.
THE STUNNING BLACK HORSES of the Viceregal Bodyguard suddenly hove into the view of countless thousands jamming the streets of Delhi, colors flying, drums beating, buglers trumpeting. The new viscount turned to his wife, Edwina, and managed a smile. Here we are at last, darling, the smile said.
Home, God help us.
He looked, people later said, like some brilliant film star in his immaculate white naval uniform. Serene, smiling, his adoring wife beside him, Louis Mountbatten rode up to the foot of the grand palace steps to lay his claim to Viceroy’s House. He arrived in a gilded landau built half a century earlier for the royal progress through Delhi of his cousin George V.
As the landau pulled to a stop, the bagpipes of the Royal Scots Fusiliers began a plaintive welcome. Stepping down from the carriage, Mountbatten turned and held out his hand for the beauteous Lady Mountbatten. The roar of the crowd was literally deafening. Here was the man who had come to preserve the peace and to preserve this sad, lost country. To somehow prevent the outbreak of an unimaginable religious war that would soak the ground of India with the blood of countless millions.
FIVE LONG MONTHS PASSED, and Mountbatten had grown weary of the struggle. The endless meetings with Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah. While they argued and schemed, the political situation grew worse almost daily. The death toll among warring Moslems, Hindus, and Sikhs was mounting. Provocations on both sides abounded. A sacred cow, wandering inside a tiny Moslem village in the Punjab, was slaughtered, its bloody carcass delivered in a cart to the Hindu village across the valley. The resulting violence of that blasphemy left hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead.
India was now a powder keg with a very short fuse.