by Neil Spring
‘Local man Randall Llewellyn Pritchard has warned against the sky watch, believing that the strange sounds and sights in the Havens are dangerous and should be left alone.’ A pause. ‘I must confess, standing on this lonely spot looking out over the sea, I am beginning to wonder myself—’
‘Turn that bloody thing off.’
We sat in silence for most of the journey, the way people do when they have argued and neither quite knows how to begin the conversation again. It was a silence that spanned ten long years. I was thinking about the hotelier’s extraordinary story.
‘You trust Araceli?’ I asked.
‘Why would she lie?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to work out. Her life does seem quite empty,’ I said carefully. ‘Uneventful. Some might say boring. The same is true of the Havens. These sightings bring thrills, excitement.’
Randall was still frowning, but at me now. ‘You think she’s doing it for attention? You believe the giant silver figures she saw were local pranksters, dressed up?’
‘What do you think is affecting Tessa?’
Randall was silent.
He definitely knew more than he was willing to say. ‘How much have you told Araceli about your –’ I paused ‘– interests?’ I asked.
‘You think I’m responsible for her beliefs?’ He sounded offended. ‘You think I’ve led the witness?’
Yes, I wanted to shout. Instead I said, ‘We crave patterns and reasons and answers, no matter how badly they rebel against our logic. Araceli is searching.’ I paused. ‘Perhaps you’ve been feeding her the wrong answers?’
He said nothing. Had I gone too far? Keeping my gaze on the road, I asked another question: ‘How did you do it?’
No answer.
‘How did you predict the sightings?’
No reply.
‘I’m waiting.’
‘Do not talk to me about waiting.’ His tone was bitterly hollow.
Remembering the admiral’s suspicions, I tried again. ‘Some people think the Americans are testing secret aircraft in the area, that the Russians are concerned. Taking action. You know they have spies all over the country, just waiting and—’
He gave me a look so sharp it would cut diamonds. ‘You think I’m a spy?’ He laughed doubtfully. ‘Well, well, I must have gone up in your estimation.’
Maybe he was telling the truth. But I couldn’t afford to rely on him. Partly because by then my neurosis was running on autopilot, but mostly because I hadn’t forgotten about the nuclear weapons under wraps nearby and how much was at stake. Even if I determined what was behind the Happenings there was no guarantee I would avert the international incident the admiral had said was hanging over the Havens like a shadow.
In the distance waves crashed against the cliffs. Above the sky bore down on us, heavy and black. I decided to probe a little further.
‘It’s possible that the lights people have seen are due to ships at sea,’ I said.
‘Possible.’
‘And the weather we’ve been having, these storms? Strange lightning, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps . . .’
‘And as for the school, the headmaster’s a believer. The children are impressionable. He’s clearly feeding them.’
‘Clearly.’ He glared at me to reinforce his sarcasm. He shook his head. ‘Robert, what makes you so determined not to believe?’
I remembered all the crap about giants in the ground that he had poured into my ears when I was a boy. Warnings like that can affect a youngster in the wrong way. They can make you sceptical, make you always demand proof. ‘What makes you so certain?’
He straightened against the passenger seat. ‘I’ve investigated these sightings in all parts of the country and in many parts of the world. Did you know that in France and Spain there are seventy-two caves with drawings from 13,000 BC showing a variety of oval and disc-shaped objects? Granite carvings in a mountain cave in China’s Hunan Province showing helmeted humanoids with large torsos standing upon cylindrical-shaped objects in the sky?’
I didn’t know this. Even if true, I didn’t see what it proved.
‘The only UFOs that people are seeing are secret military aircraft,’ I said with confidence. ‘And I’ll prove it. Tonight.’
We were a short distance inshore now. Up ahead was the turning to the quarry from which the megalithic builders of Stonehenge had taken sandstone blocks to replace the many Carn Alw stones lost during transportation from the Preseli Mountains to Stonehenge.
‘All these years,’ Randall said, his voice low, ‘I thought I might have heard something. I waited. When your graduation came, I thought I might have received an invitation, or . . . something. Perhaps a letter . . .’
I found these words surprising from a man I had thought incapable of emotion. Except towards animals of course. Jasper’s mutilation was the only time I had ever seen him cry. Is that why he had become a recluse? To avoid having to show concern for people?
‘Did you hear what I said, Robert?’
I evaded his question by pulling over. ‘I need to check which way we’re going.’
‘But you already know the way!’
‘Just let me check the map, all right?’
I had lost my temper. Randall looked bemused. He lowered his voice. ‘Robert, the base doesn’t appear on any maps.’
I cut the engine. For a moment there was no sound. Then from above came the squall of a seagull.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
I closed my eyes. ‘I used to come here with Mum,’ I said distantly, feeling Randall watching me. ‘Do you ever think about them?’
A long pause. ‘There isn’t a day when I don’t think about your mother.’
‘What about Dad? Didn’t he matter?’
Randall seemed not to hear me; he just said, ‘Your mother didn’t deserve what happened the night of the flood. Neither did you.’
‘It wasn’t Dad’s fault.’
‘Oh, you think so?’
A ghost memory of my parents surfaced, the two of them arguing on the morning my mother went to the protests at Croughton, my father shouting at her not to go. You’re putting me in an impossible situation! Dad had yelled.
Two weeks later – the night of the Great Flood – they were dead.
‘Listen, if you know something, then why don’t you just tell me,’ I said. ‘What were they doing at the farm that night? On the coastal path?’
His face grew serious again. ‘Your mother made him take her out.’
‘But why?’
‘She’d grown sick of his lies.’
‘What lies? Jesus! What are you talking about?’
No answer.
‘This is important, Goddamn it. This is who I am!’
‘And who is that exactly, boy? Obsessive and paranoid, these are weaknesses that leave you vulnerable.’
‘Vulnerable to what?’
‘You must trust me. You must put on the whole armour of God to stand against the devil. There are certain things about your past and yourself it is better not to know.’
‘Like my parents and how they died?’
‘Yes.’
My fear turned to anger. ‘You’re a sad little man,’ I said. ‘Does your superior knowledge make you feel significant, powerful? You’ve made yourself an expert, preaching warnings to a paranoid village.’
‘Because I knew what would happen.’
‘If you knew, why didn’t you stop it?’
‘I tried!’
‘Then explain it to me!’
He bit his lip. ‘Wait, you think I’m doing this?’ he said suddenly, studying my face.
‘You do seem to know a lot about them!’ I spat back.
Randall looked at me for a long moment. There was something powerful in that silence.
Gripping. Eventually, he said, ‘Let’s go. Do what you came to do.’
The turning to the base was on a high coastal road that led away from the village of Brawdy, and a high metal fence with a sign stating that photography was prohibited signalled that we had arrived at our destination.
The car headlights picked out another sign:
WARNING
THIS IS A RESTRICTED MILITARY INSTALLATION
NO TRESPASSING
USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED
I killed the ignition, slammed the car door and headed into the darkness.
– 23 –
RAF Brawdy, St Davids, Pembrokeshire
Five minutes later I was on the single-track dirt road that led to Brawdy’s main gate. Alone. Randall had refused to leave the car. The sky was the deepest shade of purple and the stars were sparkling. Suns far distant, light years away, but they had never looked so close as they did to me at that moment out in west Wales.
I focused on the brightest point of light and visualized my mother’s face. I’d forgotten about Ravenstone Farm and its mysteries and spent three exhausting years in Parliament fighting her war. Why? It wasn’t as if I was obligated. Yet I felt obligated. I felt guilty. Why should I feel guilty? Why?
Unless, I reasoned, there really is more to all this that I don’t remember. The morning of the day they died Mum and Dad hadn’t just argued about his military work. They had argued about me.
I walked steadily, straining into the winter darkness and keeping to the edge of the road. Glancing at my watch, I saw it was almost ten o’clock. Only half an hour before Frobisher said things usually got interesting out here.
I was chilled to the marrow as I approached the base perimeter fence. I cursed myself for not buying a warmer jacket, then remembered with dismay that I couldn’t really afford one now anyway. Through the fence, across the flat and barren land, I could see the shapes of the base – huts, hangars and towers arranged in rows around the enormous runway.
The base was sleeping. But I could remember it from childhood: the way the ground rumbled under the roar of the jets coming into land, the airmen swarming onto the runway. And Mum, tight-lipped, increasingly unhappy, pleading with Dad. Not pleading. Begging.
I groped for my torch, then thought better of it.
I looked up into the inky Welsh sky. No sign of any aircraft activity. I remembered Frobisher’s warning: The airspace above Brawdy has been completely restricted since the Americans moved in. No one’s allowed near.
A figure in uniform emerged from the guardhouse.
I dived for the ground and lay face down in a ditch by the roadside, twigs and stones scratching my face. After what seemed like an eternity, I dared to raise my head. The soldier was back in the guardhouse.
I had to get past. I got to my feet and, staying close to the perimeter fence, walked quickly to the end of the road, so that I was now to the left of the guardhouse and outside its direct line of sight. Straight ahead was a narrow road, and at the end of that another security post, which guarded the entrance to the US facility. Crouching in the shadows, I scanned the contours of the facility: the huge lookout tower rising from the ground, a two-storey building crowned with rotating radar dishes. I was close enough now. I waited, tense but excited. Far away, on the opposite side of the fence, I heard men’s voices. The sound of something heavy rolling back.
The control tower blinked, and the runway lights flashed on. They were too bright for me to see anything through the glare, but soon, I was sure, would come the sound of thrumming engines or beating propellers.
Nothing.
Then the runway lights blinked out and I was left in near-total darkness. Frobisher had been telling me the truth; something was amiss here, something probably connected with the nuclear warheads hidden on base.
I turned to find a better vantage point. And froze. There was a humming in the air. The same sensation I had encountered on the road into Broad Haven when it had rained black fish. I saw a light. Brilliant orange, rising slowly from the ground. Higher and higher it went. Then stopped. And hung there in the sky over the base, like a bulb suspended from an invisible cord.
No sound of any engines, just a low vibration.
It’s just not possible.
It then accelerated so fast that within a second it had travelled right across the sky and was hanging over St Brides Bay.
Behind me I heard voices just as another light appeared, this one not from below but above. It swooped down out of the clouds like a fiery falcon – circled, rose and dived. The other light, emitting sparkles like rays from a diamond, joined it, and together they revolved swiftly in an aerial waltz, turning sharply, skimming and darting, reversing course. A dazzling display. No aircraft could perform such manoeuvres – no known aircraft. The G forces must have been astonishing, and even if these were state-of-the-art secret aircraft, I struggled to see how any human pilot could survive them.
Suddenly the lights pulled apart and plunged so rapidly I braced myself for an explosion.
But they vanished.
I caught my breath, too stunned to move. Did I actually see that?
‘Hey, you!’
I spun round. Two men were running at me. Soldiers.
– 24 –
I ran. Tripped and stumbled and splashed through ditches.
Suddenly, about two yards to my left, an arm appeared from out of the fence and beckoned urgently. ‘Come with me,’ a voice said. ‘Quickly!’
The arm disappeared back through the fence and I realized there was an opening here. I scraped through, feeling the soggy ground beneath my feet on the opposite side, and allowed the stranger to help me. He took my arm and guided me through the darkness onto firmer territory.
‘Now for God’s sake, run!’ he said. ‘This way.’
My heart was slamming as I struggled through the field and came to another fence. Barbed wire. He pulled up a section and crawled under. I stood peering at him as he glanced wildly about. He was wearing jeans, clumpy trainers and an ill-fitting black leather jacket that had known better days. I saw now he was young, much younger than me.
I looked back and thought I could see the distant lights of the runway, deep inside the base. Some secret aircraft preparing to take off, maybe? And then I heard the soldiers’ voices.
‘Is that yours?’ said my rescuer, but I was busy squeezing under the fence, and only when I was standing at the edge of the road, catching my breath, did I see what the lad was looking at, some twenty yards away.
‘Yes, my car.’
The passenger-side door was opening, and a hunched form in a long coat was climbing out. Randall.
‘Let’s go!’ I shouted and pushed him back inside.
Minutes later the three of us were speeding away along the coastal road.
‘You saw them, didn’t you?’ I was glaring into the rear-view mirror at the teenager in the back seat. ‘Tell me you saw them.’
He grinned. ‘Sure. Why else do you think I was out there?’
‘Saw what?’ Randall wanted to know.
‘You’re kidding me!’ I said, exasperated. ‘How could you not have seen them?’
‘Robert, who the hell is this?’
‘Martin Marshall,’ came the response. ‘Keep driving!’
I was feeling light-headed, would rather have pulled over, but I accelerated harder, my heart still beating furiously at the thought of us being pursued. Maybe arrested.
‘Do you live in the Havens, boy?’
‘No,’ Martin answered, still catching his breath. ‘But my uncle does.’ He grinned at me, looking relieved now. ‘I thought you were a bloody soldier. You should have seen your face.’ He laughed.
He actually thought this was funny!
‘What were you doing out there? At the base?’
‘You been drinking,
boy?’ Grandfather interrupted.
Martin shook his head.
‘Liar! I can smell it on you.’
‘One pint,’ he admitted. ‘All right, two. But that doesn’t change what we saw.’ The lightness in his voice faltered.
I glanced across at Randall and in a strained voice said, ‘Probably . . . some sort of . . . state-of-the-art aircraft. Unmanned. It had to be . . .’
‘Welcome to the Holy Grail for conspiracy theorists,’ Martin said from the back. ‘They’ve been flying spy planes in and out of here for eight years. But that’s not what we saw.’
Randall didn’t wait to hear the rest. ‘Pull over!’
As I did, my memory was replaying the scene: the soldiers’ voices, the sound of something rolling back, the runway lights flashing on, the globe of light swooping and dancing with its partner, the speed, the way they had vanished . . . It had been an incredible sight. Otherworldly. Could I really have seen a . . .
‘UFO,’ Randall said grittily as we got out of the car. ‘It was flying and you couldn’t identify it.’
‘That doesn’t make it an alien spacecraft.’
‘I didn’t say it did,’ he replied irritably. ‘Evasive motion ability, indicating the possibility of being manually operated, or by electronic or remote control; extreme manoeuvrability and ability to hover; the ability to disappear at high speed or through complete disintegration. All features referenced in the CIA’s Air Intelligence Guide for Flying Saucer Aircraft.’
‘How the hell do you know all this?’ I asked, just as he averted his gaze.
An odd dark look had fallen onto Randall’s face that made me almost as curious as it did nervous. My grandfather was beginning to sound like an expert or obsessed or both.
I wondered exactly how much he did know. Which was an unsettling question.
Martin Marshall, who had gone to relieve himself behind a nearby wall, emerged and came to join us. I had parked the car and it occurred to me then that I hadn’t been here since I was a child. It was a dramatic location on the eastern cliffs of St Brides Bay, with sand dunes on all sides that eventually merged with the beach. In the distance, behind the castle, were woods. They made me think of the woods behind the Haven Hotel. Something bad had happened in those woods once. The wind through the trees made wheezing noises that hinted at it, but I could only remember snatches of a conversation with my father; it had involved something to do with a lighthouse.