by Alan Hyder
I shouted and swore at him, kicked, punched, then turned to the covering again.
‘For God’s sake. God! Don’t open it,’ he pleaded. His voice rose to a scream. ‘Don’t undo it. Something’ll come. You’ll let something in.’
‘Get to hell out of the way. You fool. You damned fool. There’s someone out there. Don’t you understand? Somebody out there.’
Then ropes slipped suddenly from fastenings, and unexpectedly my shoulder heaved on unresisting boards. The jerk launched me forward and my feet caught Bingen so that he was knocked down into the cabin to lay on the floor whimpering. Pink light from the moon and the comet poured down on to us. With one quick glance above, I turned to Bingen.
‘Pull yourself together. It’s all right. Stand by to give me a hand if I want one when I get out there. Take hold of yourself, Bingen. It’s all right.’
Came the screams. They rose into the night again and died.
Bingen’s courage broke then. I saw him jerk swiftly to his feet, dive for the bunk, and he no longer stared at the hatchway. I saw him shrink into the black shadow of the bunk, pull mattress and blankets over himself. I think seeing him do that stopped me from losing control of myself.
Sobbing with the effort of pulling myself above the hatchway, I reached the deck, trembling. I must find out who screamed else I would lose restraint, dive for the cabin again. Apprehensively I stared about.
The barge was deserted as when we had come aboard!
And yet those screams had come from no more than a few yards away. Across the water burned hulks showed black, but a few inches from the fiery, shimmering water. There could be no one on them. And the shore was half a mile away. I ran the length of the barge, skirting the piled asbestos, stared overboard around the boat to see nothing clung to the side. It seemed I was alone in the night. My eyes darted, peered, watching. Overhead great stars glittered and the sky was clear. The river ran past calmly as it had done for centuries, but now it slid between banks of night enhanced flames, redly. Abruptly, three heart-stopping screams pierced the muttering silence, and they came but a few feet away from where I stood . . . alone!
‘Bingen! Bingen! Get out of that. Search around. There’s someone down there. It must be down there. There’s not a thing up here,’ my voice trailed off hoarsely, for now I was sick with fright, and Bingen did not answer. Later, he told me defiantly, he had crawled into the bunk and covered his head foolishly with bedclothes like a scared child.
From side to side I ran calling.
‘Who’s there. Where are you. Damn you, where are you.’
I cursed Bingen for a chicken-hearted swine, knowing that I was almost in the same state of panic, and then, as though to restore my failing courage, instead of screams, there came a soft sobbing.
From every part of the deck the sound came apparently to my frantic ears, and I ran here, there, until not a mouse could have been concealed on the deck with me, and remained unseen. Again, I could have sworn the boat held only Bingen and myself, but, with that quiet sobbing pulling me, I went on searching, if indeed, dashing foolishly from side to side, running from stern to bow, could be called searching. But for myself and the piled cargo the deck was empty. I tried to visualize the cabins below. The screams could not have come from there. We had searched so thoroughly for cigarettes and food. In those tiny cabooses it would have been impossible for anyone to hide. A child even. I called again and again.
‘Where are you? Tell me where you are. Answer me.’
It seemed every time I called the sobs grew quieter as though someone was afraid of my voice.
Then I cursed myself vilely for a fool. The cargo! Someone was hidden among those piled asbestos boards. If I had to fling every scrap of it into the river, I’d find them now. I’d unload the whole boat by myself.
Some of the boards were tumbled into a heap, making a kind of lean-to by the stern. I started on them, flinging them aside so that they slid into the river, and before I had moved many came upon a body. A short dark man, with a stubble of beard and a pronounced corpulency, lay twisted tortuously under the cargo. Incongruously, on his near-bald head, was clamped an ancient derby hat. And, despite his stoutness, he had the same shrunken appearance as though every drop of moisture was drained from his veins. The Vampires. He must have been overwhelmed by the things, killed, and then later the boat had swayed and rocked to cover him with tumbling boards. He could not have screamed!
I heaved him to the side and tumbled him overboard. And with the splash those screams burst out again.
Now I traced them, and, with renewed vigour tore, lifted at the covering until my fingers bled and I had to rest. I called again unavailingly to Bingen.
‘Come up and give me a hand. It’s all right up here. Come up and help me, Bingen.’
Studying the piled cargo I saw where one of the sheets, jutting out, would afford me a leverage to tumble a whole heap of boards. Afterwards, I wondered why I had not seen the place before, it was so obvious. For the cargo was piled here, with an untidy haphazardness contrasting strangely with the rest of the orderly stacks.
I took a breath, lifted experimentally on the leverage, and heaved. The boards rose, slanted, fell with a crash to the deck, sliding over into the water, and the screams broke out afresh to stop quickly.
Curled into a cavity between the boards, holding arms tightly about a curly dark head, silent in terror, was the screamer.
V
The Finding of the Screamer
MOTIONLESSLY, timorously, she lay cringing, not hazarding a glance up to see who stared down at her, and I think her very heart ceased beating with sick terror when the boards tumbled apart to expose her.
‘Come, kiddie. There’s no need to worry any more now. Come.’
Reaching down into the cavity, my hands caught her shoulders gently, endeavouring to coax her to her feet, but still she crouched, hiding her head in her arms. Her slim figure shook terribly as she strained away from my grasp, and when I insisted gently, raised her to her feet, she fought in my arms with the boneless, twisting, scratching fury of a terrified cat, forcing me to utilize all my strength to restrain her. Teeth buried in my arm. I have the scar yet.
‘It’s all right! It’s quite all right now. There’s nothing here to hurt you.’ I tried to soothe her. ‘Don’t cry. You’re safe enough now. I’ll see nothing will harm you. Don’t cry.’
As a matter of fact she was not crying, but her breath came in great, dry, gasping sobs, to shake her in my arms, and frighten me as I held her tightly, listening in dismay. The child was scared out of her life. Soon she would get hysterical, or even lose her wits, if I did not manage to calm her. I rocked her gently. How could I calm her?
‘There! There!’ I urged ineffectually.
Still those shaking sobs.
‘Now, kiddy! Come along. Try to stop being frightened. I’ll be getting scared too if you don’t stop. There’s nothing here at all except me, and I couldn’t hurt you. Stop crying and open your eyes to look at me, and you’ll see there’s nothing to be afraid of.’ And then the words came casually, though why on earth I should have said it I don’t know, for the fact had completely escaped me. ‘There’s nothing about me to frighten you. I haven’t got any clothes on just because it was so hot down there in the cabin.’
Realizing, I think I blushed all over in the moonlight. For I remembered! Hurriedly I placed the child on deck, lifted one of the boards to stand behind, but to complete my embarrassment her eyes opened, and she stared at me solemnly while I endeavoured to shrink in size, cowering behind the board. My frightened dash from the cabin, with her screams echoing in my ears, had driven all thoughts of my complete nudity from my mind. No wonder the girl was scared to death when a great thoughtless naked chump appeared unexpectedly before her already terrified eyes.
‘There! There! Don’t look at me any more. You’re all right now, aren’t you? Just stay there like a sport while I nip down for my trousers and get respectable again. Shut
your eyes while I get down to the cabin.’
I stuttered like a fool, and to this day I do not know whether Janet’s eyes smiled at me or not. When her big dark eyes closed, I retreated behind the covering board, flung it aside, and made a wild spring for the cabin. I must get back to her quickly; mustn’t leave her there on deck by herself to get frightened again.
‘Bingen! Bingen, you windy swine,’ I yelled, dropping through the hatchway. ‘Come out of it. There’s a kid up there, scared out of her life, and I’ve frightened her more than ever, dashing out like a blasted idiot, undressed.’
Fumbling cursingly in the darkness, I searched for the clothes I had carelessly cast about before climbing tiredly into the bunk.
‘Where’s my damned trousers? I’m scared to death she’ll jump overboard. For the love of heaven, help me to find my clothes.’
Bingen still hid, ostrich fashion, under blankets in the bunk, and I pulled him to the floor, kicked him savagely with bare toes, and ‘ouched’ with pain, hopping blasphemously on one foot. Into that bedlam there came a small voice, calling timidly down from the deck.
‘There’s a lamp down there, mister. Behind the table on the wall. There’s matches there too, under the lamp.’
‘Thanks, kid. You’re a heroine.’ I gasped with relief that she was safe, not frightened, and called up to her. ‘Don’t come too close to the hatchway until I tell you. Won’t be a minute.’
Finding my clothes, I dressed in a second, to kick Bingen again, and this time the shoe on my foot stopped any pain on my account. Pulling him to his feet I whispered fiercely at him:
‘Get hold of yourself before that kid comes down here. She’s scared enough now without seeing you frightened. Get dressed, and I’ll bring her down.’
With the cabin aglow with yellow light, and Bingen sheepishly lacing his shoes, I called to the child, standing under the hatchway with arms upheld apart for her to jump down into.
‘You fasten the boards over again, Bingen, and I’ll look after the kid.’ I carried her to a chair and asked, ‘There’s no one else with you, is there?’
‘Dad’s here somewhere,’ she whispered. ‘Mother was ashore shopping. I don’t know where Dad got to after . . .’
She stopped, and fearing another outburst of hysteria, I sat by her chair and placed an arm about her, smoothing the curls from her damp forehead.
‘What became of Dad? Oh, I wonder where he went to.’
‘Your dad got away, I expect.’
‘He did not,’ she flamed up unexpectedly to startle me. ‘He wouldn’t have gone away without me. I know that.’
‘But he’ll be safe,’ I tried to reassure her, and remembered the bowler-hatted, stout man whom I had thrown overboard. I was glad the girl had not seen him, and wished I had shown more consideration disposing of him. He would have been her father. My arm tightened about her sympathetically. ‘Later on, we’ll see if we can find your mother and father. They’ll be about somewhere, and you’ll be safe here with us. Won’t she, Bingen?’
Bingen had recovered most of his composure now, and was eyeing the girl curiously. He did not answer.
‘Here, kid, come and lay down in this bunk. Then we’ll get you a cup of tea, shall we?’
The girl half sat, half lay in the bunk where I lifted her, staring at us with great dark eyes which were far too large for her white face. Bingen, stooping with his hands on his knees, grinned ingratiatingly at her until I booted him surreptitiously.
‘Don’t stand there like Father Christmas. Search around and get some tea or coffee or something.’
‘You’ll find tea in the cupboard there, mister, but mother was going to get the milk and sugar,’ the girl informed us, and then volunteered bravely, ‘Shall I make it for you?’
‘No. Indeed you won’t,’ I told her indignantly. ‘You’re just to lay there and rest, and have us two great big men wait on you.’
I feel sheepish, remembering some of the things I said to her, for at that time I was under the impression, if I gave it a thought at all, that she would be a child of perhaps thirteen or fourteen. She certainly looked no more, sitting there in a rumpled, dirty blue jersey and kilted skirts reaching barely to her knees, staring gravely at me with eyes from which I was glad to see the terror gradually disappearing.
She was thin, skinny almost, with a supple grace which made her seem shorter than she really was. Actually she is five feet five, but she has always been tiny to me. Dark hair, black with glints of sepia, curled from a low broad forehead to her slim, square shoulders in what, I believe, used to be termed a ‘long bob’. Her eyes were black now, but later, I found them dark brown with burnt umber lights. They were sunk in purple shadows. Her lips, now so vivid, were pallid, but with them she tried hard to smile bravely as I looked at her until they quivered. I went to her, sat on the edge of the bunk, and held her in my arms, rocking her gently as though she were a baby.
‘There! There!’
For a while she leant towards me, held me tightly, and then, somewhat to my surprise, pushed me from her as though offended, wiped her eyes, wriggled from my arms, and sat bolt upright, smoothing down her skirts.
‘Better now? Bingen, he’s that other ugly-looking bloke, will be ready with the tea soon. That’ll buck you up, won’t it? Then, when you’ve had it, you can tell me what happened. Or would you like to leave that until later on? D’you live on this boat?’
‘It isn’t a boat. It’s a barge,’ she corrected me smilingly, and then her eyes grew darker again. She shivered. ‘Oh. What became of Mum and Dad. They got Dad. Oh! I’m sure they got Dad.’
‘You’re not to think about anything like that now. You’re to try not to worry. All you’ve got to think is that you’re safe.’ I hoped to God as I said it, that she was safe, but my eyes lifted involuntarily towards the hatchway as though out there waited the Vampires. And I saw that she caught the glance I shot upwards, for she leant against me with a trusting movement which made me feel I was capable of defending her against even Vampires. But even as she smiled, the smile died from her eyes and she started to cry, softly. I held her tightly. Shook her gently.
‘Listen. You must listen to me.’ I tried to make my voice stern, for she must be shaken from this hopelessness or she would be hysterical, beyond control, ill. ‘You mustn’t give way like this. You’ll be ill, and then what would happen? Two old soldiers like us wouldn’t know what to do with a little girl like you.’
Bingen started forward as though in protest at the harshness of my voice, but I waved him back. All very well for him to want to take her over now, but the swab hadn’t come to give me a hand to find her.
‘You keep out of this, Bingen, and carry on getting the tea. I’ll try to manage her.’ I turned again to the girl in my arms. ‘If you don’t stop crying, we’ll have to leave you behind when we go out to search for your mother and father.’
‘But sure,’ Bingen interposed. ‘The mother and father will be . . .’
‘Don’t be a damned fool. Pour the tea out and keep quiet.’
He scowled at me, but brought the cup of tea to kneel by the bunk and offer it to her.
‘There, now dry your eyes and sip this. It will cheer you. What’s your name?’
‘Janet Jameson.’ She dried her eyes and loosened my grip to sit erect. ‘Everyone calls me Jack, though.’
‘Well, we’re not going to call you Jack, my dear,’ Bingen said. ‘Too much like a boy’s name to suit you. You’re too nice a little girl to have a boy’s name. Come on, drink the tea, and don’t worry. We’ll look after you.’
‘Hum! You will? Anyway, she doesn’t want looking after now, because she’s perfectly all right. Aren’t you, Janet?’
‘I’m better now. I’m sorry I was a nuisance to you. I’ll try and be brave in future.’ She replaced the cup, after drinking the tea, and smiled up at me. ‘I’m better.’
‘D’you think you could manage to tell us all about things now?’
‘I think s
o. But there isn’t much that I know. I don’t know what happened, or what they were.’
‘We don’t either,’ I told her. ‘But supposing you try and tell us just what happened to you from the start.’
‘We were sitting on deck, Dad and I,’ Janet began, and her voice came so softly between quivering lips we could hardly hear, but as she spoke it grew stronger, continued more firmly. ‘Mother had gone ashore. She took Bert, he’s the boy, to carry back the shopping. Dad was smoking and I was knitting, socks they were, for him. That was in the evening. Well, mother was visiting after she had finished shopping, and would be very late. We were going to wait up for her. That was on Saturday. What day is it now?’
‘What day is it, Bingen? I’m hanged if I know.’
‘Three days we were in the tunnel. That makes it Wednesday.’
‘I’ve been hidden under the cargo for three days?’ Janet asked incredulously. ‘Oh, I couldn’t have been.’
‘You must have,’ I said. ‘Today’s Wednesday all right. But carry on, and tell us what happened.’
‘Well, I’m not very sure about the time, because I was asleep in the chair,’ she continued, knitting her brows thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know what woke me up, but something did. Dad was staring up at the sky to the east. He lit his pipe and said there wasn’t anything the matter; but there was, because suddenly, all the ships started sounding their whistles and sirens. I couldn’t understand what for, until Dad pointed out a tremendous black cloud coming down to the water. It didn’t drip round us, but I was looking towards the Wanderer and the Daisy Bell, and I thought a lot of black pigeons had settled on them. I only know the Daisy Bell and the Wanderer, but all the other boats were the same. Covered with those black things.’
‘Didn’t they settle on this boat?’ Bingen queried.