by Neil Spring
‘And who was that?’
‘Silas Wharton. He was Imber’s blacksmith. His family left a note on the church door. We kept it there, out of respect.’
Price let those last words hang in the air for a few moments before saying, ‘I assume Mr Wharton is dead?’
‘According to our records, the blacksmith disappeared during the eviction. There’s a story that when Wharton heard he had to leave, he was found by his wife, crying like a baby over his anvil. His family believed he went off to die of a broken heart, that before he vanished he had sworn never to abandon the place. Some of my men have heard his hammer in the village, the distinct sound of metal striking metal.’
A withering look from Price. These were the sorts of urban myths he heard all too frequently, hardly subjects deserving of sober, scientific inquiry. Maybe that was why his attention seemed to be drifting again. He was gazing intently once more at the wall, at a photograph of young men in military uniforms, standing rigid, their faces blank.
The commander’s stern tone brought him back: ‘Well, are you still adamant you can explain what’s happening on the range, Mr Price?’
‘It would be more instructive if you would tell us what you believe.’
‘I sure as hell don’t believe in ghosts, Mr Price. The world is sufficiently topsy-turvy without indulging in this sort of thing. No, what scares me most is that my men could be losing their judgement, letting their imaginations run riot. We operate a live firing range in Imber. The physical conditions are designed to test a man’s endurance, physically and emotionally. Perhaps’ – he looked reluctant to admit the possibility – ‘perhaps we’ve pushed some of the men too far.’
Price considered this for a moment. ‘As to the root cause, there is another possibility, commander.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Deception. Orchestrated by someone outside the camp.’
‘Civilians? Impossible. Security on the Imber range is fail-safe.’
Price met his eye. Forced a smile. ‘The problem with fail-safe security, commander, is that sooner or later it always needs upgrading.’
‘You’re suggesting my men are the victims of a hoax?’
‘Difficult to say, but if it is true, whoever is behind it will have a precise motive.’
‘You sound very certain.’
‘I am seldom mistaken,’ Price replied.
Clearly, the months we had spent apart had done nothing to dent Price’s egotism. He was nodding to himself with that trademark resolute confidence. Even so, I couldn’t help but admire his uncompromising scepticism.
‘The motive could be financial, or more likely emotional,’ he went on. ‘The mistreatment of the former villagers at the hands of the army, perhaps? Either way, the motive will emerge over time, yes, I feel sure. And when it does, I will take great satisfaction in bringing it to your attention.’
Just then there came a sharp rap at the door.
‘Enter.’
From our seats, we looked round. It was the white-haired man from earlier. He had the distinct and unsettling air of an undertaker.
‘This is Eric Sidewinder, our senior range warden with responsibility for Imber.’
Sidewinder nodded at Price with a faint contempt. As he advanced into the room, I found myself wondering if he had been listening at the door, and if so, for how long. He caught my eye, and something flickered behind those coin-like spectacles.
Perhaps he does look familiar . . .
‘It’s time,’ Sidewinder announced to the commander, who stood at once.
‘Sickbay are ready for us,’ he said, gesturing for us to stand. ‘Like yourself, Mr Price, I am prepared to discount most of the stories about Imber. But what happened to Sergeant Edwards leaves even me at loss for answers. He is awake now. I will take you to him.’
He ushered us out of the office and led the way along dimly lit concrete corridors. We passed a dormitory crammed with beds on which soldiers slept. Again, I wondered about Father – had he slept here? Had he walked down this very corridor?
A question occurred to me: was my being here some sort of bizarre cosmic anomaly? An enigmatic attempt by the universe to draw me closer to the man who had meant so much to me? Price had a word for that phenomenon, didn’t he – what was it?
‘Sarah?’
I gave a small start at Price’s inquisitive tone.
‘What’s the matter?’
I shook my head, feigning ignorance.
‘You looked very far off there for a moment,’ he said, with a mixture of concern and impatience.
‘No, no, I’m quite all right,’ I said, attempting a smile, but as I did so, the word I had been reaching for came back to me. Synchronicity. Meaningful coincidence.
The idea had a certain mystical appeal, especially the more I pictured my father pacing these stark corridors, but before I could ponder the matter a second longer, the commander brought me back to the more immediate mystery: the traumatising events that had befallen Sergeant Gregory Edwards.
‘Edwards was on a map-reading exercise in the Imber woods last October when he was involved in an . . . accident. Since then, he has kept almost permanent counsel with the Reverend Paul Davies, who visits him daily here at the camp. You should prepare yourselves. Edwards doesn’t look or behave as he once did. He can be unpredictable. I advise you not to get too close.’
That sounded serious to me, but as we hastened along the corridor, Price merely smiled. ‘I wonder what wild stories your man will tell us, commander. Screams in the woods? Female shades – grey ladies and the like – waiting in the trees to lure men to their death perhaps?’ He chuckled and said dismissively, ‘Superstitions, of course. Just stories.’
Warden Sidewinder, who was walking along with us, had been silent until now, but he came to an abrupt halt and said with cold authority, ‘Mr Price, you should know better than anyone that superstitions are not just stories.’
‘Oh, then what are they?’
Sidewinder’s mouth tightened. ‘Warnings, Mr Price. Superstitions are warnings.’
– 11 –
THE HAUNTING OF SERGEANT GREGORY EDWARDS
When the heavy door slammed shut behind us, the hunched, bull-necked man kneeling with his back to us didn’t even flinch. I took in our surroundings. We had been told that this cramped and featureless concrete room, with its narrow iron bed, was the sergeant’s ‘private rehabilitation room’, but it looked more like a cell to me, somewhere convenient to hide an embarrassing secret.
‘Edwards,’ the commander said, ‘we have some visitors who wish to speak to you.’
The sergeant kept his back to us, his head lowered as he whispered a private prayer to a miniature figurine of Saint Anthony carrying a cross and the infant Jesus.
‘Edwards?’ No reply. The commander turned to me then and said quietly, ‘Remember, miss, keep your distance.’
My stomach tightened. Why was Sidewinder, standing apart from us, staring so curiously at me? Was he trying to make me feel unwelcome? Intimidated?
I never forget a face . . .
‘Edwards?’ the commander said again.
This time the whispered prayer fell silent. Slowly, Edwards stirred; murmuring something, he lifted his head. I flinched, because I saw now that the light brown hair on his scalp was terribly thin, frayed and wispy. Missing in swirling, ragged patches.
‘We promise not to take much of your time . . .’ Price began, stepping around Edwards and looking down, but then he froze.
What is it? What’s wrong?
Price glared at the commander. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us about this?’
And now I was able to see, as Edwards turned and blinked up into the light.
I gasped and said, behind the hand that had flown to my mouth, ‘Oh my Lord.’ I tried not to stare at the poor m
an’s face, or at least what was left of it. An accident? Edwards had been severely burned. The flames hadn’t just taken his ears and his nose, they had swollen his lips to a crust and burned what skin remained a fierce, raw red.
‘Who are you?’ Edwards asked, in a low, cracked voice. Just speaking those three words seemed a painful effort for him.
‘I have been asked to help,’ Price said. ‘I’m a scientist.’
The sergeant’s pitted eyes targeted the commander. ‘Ah, finally you do something,’ he said accusingly. He made a sound – it may have been a mocking laugh, it may have been a sob. ‘No one can help,’ he said. ‘It’s too late for me. Too late for Imber.’
Price had recovered from his shock much faster than I. ‘How?’ he asked in a level tone.
The sergeant bowed his head into shadow, as if he were too ashamed to explain. Or perhaps too frightened.
‘He sustained these injuries roughly one year ago,’ said the commander. His tone was matter-of-fact, but not without sympathy. ‘During a map-reading training exercise late in the day, Sergeant Edwards here became separated from the rest of the men. We found him the next morning, unconscious. It was a wonder he survived.’
‘Where did this happen?’ Price asked. ‘I mean, where exactly?’
‘In the woodlands flanking Imber, at the very edge of the range.’
‘Near the old mill,’ Sergeant Edwards added, without looking up.
‘Talk us through it,’ I said gently. ‘We can’t take away your suffering, sir, but we may be able to prevent what happened to you from happening to anyone else.’
No reply.
I wanted to reassure the sergeant. Foolishly forgetting the commander’s warning, I reached down to put a comforting hand on Edwards’ shoulder. What happened then occurred so quickly it was a blur. What I remember most is the commander’s panicked shout: ‘Miss Grey, no!’
‘Sarah!’
Sergeant Edwards pounced at me, lashing out with clawed fingers. I felt his fingernails – sharp – digging into my neck as the room tilted back. Then my head hit the concrete floor with a crack.
And in a white flash of memory, I glimpsed a house.
An Edwardian mansion with a grand oak staircase.
And then I was back in the concrete room again. The sergeant’s weight on top of me, pinning me down, his breath hot on my face, his gleaming eyes so close, and the look in them: fear, the sort of ferocious, overpowering fear that can drive a man to do just about anything. His hands clamped around my throat, and tightened.
‘Get OFF her this instant!’ came Price’s stentorian voice from somewhere above.
The sergeant jerked and cried out at a vicious kick in the ribs, and dropped down beside me. Quickly, the commander and Sidewinder seized him and hauled him to his feet, twisting his arms behind his back.
‘What the hell were you thinking, man?’ the commander demanded of Sidewinder. ‘I bloody told you! We should have sedated him!’
Warily, I turned my head to the side and looked for Edwards. His gaze was still riveted on me, even as the other men dragged him to the far corner of the room, as though I represented some appalling and terrifying threat.
‘Sarah?’
Price had dropped to my side. He slid an arm under me and helped me up. That was when I felt the sting in my neck. I reached a hand up and felt the thin scratches of blood the sergeant’s fingernails had left around my throat. Price plucked a handkerchief from his pocket and starting to dab at the wounds. I snatched it off him and waved him away.
All at once, the room began to swim before my eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised; I had hit my head, hard. For one awful giddy moment, I thought darkness was about to swallow me totally, but then I steadied myself.
Price stepped forward with parental concern and clutched at my arm.
‘Don’t fuss. I’m all right. Really, Harry, I’m fine.’
Price hesitated, eyes searching mine, and then his shoulders straightened. He turned to Williams and Sidewinder, who were holding Edwards between them.
‘These outbursts have happened before?’ he demanded.
Sidewinder nodded, scowling at the commander, who replied defensively, ‘Yes, but not since the accident on the range.’
‘What happened to me was not an accident!’ Edwards shouted hoarsely.
I thought to myself, then, that whatever had happened must have burned itself into his memory, into his soul, as well as his face.
‘Let him go,’ I said to the commander. ‘This man is clearly unwell.’
‘Unhinged more like!’ Price glowered. ‘Should be bloody well locked up.’
He is locked up, I thought, looking around the stark and claustrophobic room. Even though he had assaulted me, scared me half to death, at that moment it was impossible not to feel some compassion for this obviously traumatised young man. Perhaps that was foolish, but it was the way I felt. ‘I said release him, please.’
Price looked back at me, frowning, but the commander and Sidewinder complied.
Once the sergeant had been released, he shook his head slowly, like a man waking from a drowsy sleep. I confess I was relieved to see he looked appalled with himself, his disfigured features contorting with shame. ‘Oh, miss,’ he said, staring at the shallow gouges on my throat. ‘Forgive me, please. Oh . . .’
Carefully, cautiously, I nodded.
‘Why did you attack Miss Grey?’ Price demanded, his tone and expression indignant.
But I was remembering the curious way the man had stared at me before and during his attack. Almost as if . . .
‘He thought I was someone else,’ I said, speaking the thought out loud. ‘Is that right, Gregory?’
He muttered something, shaking his head, and then said hoarsely, ‘Not someone else, miss. Something else.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I suffer . . . visions. Nightmarish visions. Sometimes they take control of me. It’s been that way since what happened. In Imber.’
The commander and Price frowned with sceptical disdain, but not Sidewinder, I noticed; he tilted his head and regarded Edwards with a fascination so intense it was almost troubling.
‘I’m plagued by what happened to me,’ said the sergeant, slumping onto the narrow bed and sinking his head into his hands. ‘I’ll never be able to put it from my mind.’
‘I am afraid this man is delusional,’ Price said dismissively.
‘Not necessarily, Harry.’ There was conviction in my voice. I was thinking of the Edwardian mansion that had flashed into my mind just seconds earlier, when my head hit the floor. Struck by its solitary grandeur, I fancied I could still see that majestic house if I closed my eyes. I felt most strongly that the vision, although brief, was important in a way I could not yet understand. So how could I dismiss Edwards’ visions? Why should his possess any less legitimacy than mine?
‘Harry,’ I said. ‘Please let us hear what he has to say.’
I pulled up a chair and sat near Edwards. He looked up at me uncertainly, and I smiled. I think he returned it with the charred slit that had once been his mouth. I tried to see the person in that face, but with so much of it missing, that was hard to do.
‘You’re safe now, Gregory,’ I said, ‘so trust me, all right? Tell us what happened to you.’
As if seeking permission to reply, Edwards glanced over at Warden Sidewinder, who duly nodded. Then he looked back at me, and slowly began:
‘We were on a night training exercise, in the Imber woods. Those woods are like nowhere else. Bitterly cold, thickly dark. Suddenly, all the other men were gone. I mean, they disappeared. I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find them. It was as if God Himself had stolen everyone in a rapture.’
‘How many soldiers were involved in the exercise?’ Price asked.
‘About fifteen of us.’
‘The other men can account for their whereabouts?’
The commander shook his head. ‘They all claim to have no memory of that night.’
Price looked curious, then doubtful. ‘All right, Edwards. What then?’
‘I was deep in the woods when I began to hear noises. Voices. Women’s voices.’
While Price and I looked at one another, then at Edwards, then at one another again, the commander shook his head and said, ‘Impossible. We would have known if civilians had accessed the range.’
‘I didn’t say they were civilians,’ Edwards shot back.
‘What were these voices saying?’ Price asked.
‘The voices – more like whispers, actually – they were telling me to go to Imber Mill. Ramshackle place at the edge of the woods.’
‘What’s special about the mill?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Sidewinder. ‘It’s dilapidated. Boarded up.’
‘But there were sounds coming from inside it,’ the sergeant said. ‘Music, I thought. Singing. Voices and lights, and a strange smell, like something burning.’
‘Did you enter the mill?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ His face contorted and he gave a sudden little shiver. ‘I remember there was smoke. And people. No, not people – outlines of people, vague shapes swirling in the darkness. A flickering light. Such a foul odour, toxic. And then’ – he closed his eyes – ‘there was just him.’
‘Him?’
‘A little boy.’
I drew in a shaky breath.
Don’t leap to conclusions, Sarah. It’s not the same child. You’re hungry, you’re exhausted, and you’re on edge. This man’s psychological trauma makes him very far from reliable. So don’t—
‘Anyone who saw the boy would know there was something wrong. He was disfigured and sick.’
‘Had you ever seen him before?’ I asked, aware that Price was staring at me, intrigued by the earnestness that had crept into my voice.
Edwards was shaking his head, but something about the emotion in his tone when he spoke next told me he might not be telling the truth.
‘He was half-naked, not a clue where he was. Terrified. He stood next to me and I touched his hand. It was a dead hand. Cold as a tomb. But I felt a connection with him. A deep, deep bond.’