The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  I tried to distance myself from these thoughts, but it was useless. Nagging doubts kept my gaze riveted on the door handle as cold uncertainty crept in. Some things I couldn’t doubt, like the lights I had witnessed cartwheeling in the sky over Brawdy. They were real, and everything about that aerial display was unnatural: the impossible speeds, the sharp turns, the breathtaking acceleration no human pilot would ever survive.

  I started to shake. Paranoia was affecting my judgement, and I had responsibilities – to Araceli and her daughter, who were vulnerable, to Selina, and to the admiral, who had sent me here to solve this mystery. Didn’t they deserve someone who was equal to the task?

  My thoughts returned to Frobisher’s tale about the glowing object that had crashed into the sea centuries ago; to the Jacksons, who had died while walking on the cliffs; to the mutilated animals; to the silver-suited figures stalking the countryside. And to the Black-Suited Men with skin like wax and eyes like fire and ice.

  From The Mind Possessed: A Personal Investigation into the Broad Haven Triangle

  by Dr R. Caxton (Clementine Press, 1980), p.50

  That winter the Havens slept beneath glaring stars. In farmhouses and hotels, on the sea and in the fields and on deserted country roads the darkest imaginings were coming true. By the weekend that preceded the sky watch, the twice-daily buses from Haverfordwest had emptied; the fishermen from Milford Haven who for decades had come to St Brides Bay for their catch kept instead to their own patch. Even the Saturday afternoon excursion from the home for the elderly in Pembroke Dock turned its back on Broad Haven’s finest fish and chip shop. Something had gone wrong in this part of Pembrokeshire. Outsiders couldn’t tell you what, exactly, or why – only that they believed with conviction that the Havens had turned bad.

  – 29 –

  Saturday 12 February 1977, four days until the sky watch . . .

  By half past eight the sun had passed the horizon and was glimmering weakly on St Brides Bay. Over breakfast at the window table in the Nest Bistro I watched the cockle women in their shawls heading for the sands. When I had finished and stepped outside, a grizzly fisherman unmooring his bobbing vessel raised a courteous but wary hand in my direction, and I played my part, waving back confidently.

  I didn’t trust him. After the previous night’s confrontation with the landlord I wasn’t sure who to trust. Except perhaps Araceli and Frobisher. And the admiral? An hour or two earlier I had written him a short note telling him about the sinister people in the village – my suspicions that they might be connected, somehow, with the unusual sightings. I wrote too about the incredible light display above RAF Brawdy and Selina’s notes referencing a secret report associated with someone called Jack Parsons.

  The gulls were shrieking overhead. The wind gusted. I felt so lonely here, so cut off.

  As I passed the post office, I saw Ethel Dunwoody’s bloated distrustful face peering out at me from the window. I remembered how the ROTARY pin she had been wearing had caught my eye, and that made me wonder who else was a member.

  If there was one thing I had learned from my committee work in Parliament, it was that small groups of people with influence have a funny way of pursuing the agendas that matter most to them. Idly I wondered what had mattered most to the members of the Havens Rotary Club, and to Araceli’s late mother. Someone would know, but I would have to ask around and hope I got lucky; people in the Havens weren’t exactly forthcoming.

  ‘The Rotary Club?’ My informant was a middle-aged man coming out of the Nest Bistro. He looked around as if to check no one was listening then dropped his voice to a confidential tone. ‘To be honest, they’re a bit odd. I reckon they think they’re like the Masons or something. Self-important bunch the lot of ’em, but I suppose they have some influence.’

  ‘Know much about their charitable work?’

  ‘Well I think they raised some money for the lifeboat.’

  I was beginning to think I would get nowhere until a young woman stretching after her run along the beach suggested it might help me to check out the information board outside the village hall.

  The noticeboard was covered with coloured leaflets promoting the sort of occasions you’d expect in a remote community like the Havens: parish council meetings, book clubs, after-school private tuition and dog-walking services. There was still one leaflet promoting the eventful public meeting at the school. Someone had defaced it with a crude drawing of an extraterrestrial. It looked exactly as you would expect – right out of the movies, with a tiny slit for a mouth, almond-shaped eyes and a large pear-shaped head. An alien face.

  Funny, I thought. Except it wasn’t. Because none of the menacing humanoids seen in the area looked anything like this picture. Those figures had no faces. Those figures were broad and seven feet tall, with silver clothing that rustled when they walked and shimmered in the moonlight. Those figures could vanish in an instant, walk through fences and traumatize a young man’s mind.

  This thought was troubling enough but it wasn’t what made the shiver run up my back. That came a few moments later when I spotted what was I looking for, hidden away in the bottom right corner of the noticeboard. A single card. Tiny writing. ‘The Havens Rotary Club thanks you for your support. This year we will continue to support the lifeboat appeal, as well as new equipment for the school. Work continues on the Stack Rocks Fort renovation project to create a visitors’ centre but remains in its very early stages. We would like to remind anyone thinking of visiting the rocks that landing there is difficult and that the fort is in an extremely dilapidated, dangerous condition. All donations gratefully received. Our next meeting is on 2 April at . . .’

  Stack Rocks again. This was what it was really like, knowing that your worst suspicions weren’t paranoid imaginings – however much one hoped they were – but real. Stack Rocks Fort was connected to the Happenings – somehow – and so were the individuals who called themselves the Havens Rotary Club. I knew that as certainly as I now knew who controlled access to the fort. I knew something else too. Araceli would tell me more. I’d make certain of it.

  I decided to go into the post office for a newspaper, and when I pushed open the door and entered the dusty interior found a few of the village women mid-gossip.

  ‘Mary Dee had a strange phone call the other night. No one there, she said, just heavy breathing. When I got a call I reported it to the telephone company. Our number’s unlisted, so it must have been a fault on the line.’

  Another woman chipped in, ‘Well, we had a man call at the house asking questions for the council – so he said. Tanned, looked foreign to me. Wanted to know about Isaac and what he saw at the school.’

  My ears pricked up. That didn’t sound like the council to me.

  ‘Isaac’s not feeling too well today, are you, dear?’ I heard his mother say. ‘Good job the school is closed.’

  Isaac was a rotund eleven-year-old. At least nine stone. He was standing next to his mother at the counter as I laid down my morning paper for payment.

  Hey, weren’t you interested in all that?’ the postmistress said, turning to me. Ethel Dunwoody’s voice was unmistakably hostile, so much so that I decided immediately it would be unwise to tell her too much or to ask about her involvement with the Rotary Club. ‘You find what you were looking for?’ she added.

  ‘I think so,’ I muttered, trying not to look at her lapel pin.

  Isaac’s mother stood staring at me. ‘You were at the town meeting.’

  I nodded, smiled. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing you just now. Can I ask what’s wrong with your son?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ she asked with sudden hostility.

  It wasn’t the response I was hoping for.

  ‘Well, I’ve met others who have seen these strange craft in the air and close to the ground. I’m interested to know whether there are any physical effects.’ I glanced down at Isaac. Not
a handsome child: his dark hair was too long, his skin a sun-starved white. And his stillness was unsettling. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even blinked. ‘What I mean is, have you noticed any changes in Isaac’s behaviour? It’s natural for a youngster to be unnerved seeing something so out of the ordinary.’

  She seemed to read the insinuation in my question, but with Isaac standing right next to her said nothing. The kid’s eyes had a glassy sheen I didn’t care for at all.

  ‘You some sort of expert?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I paused, then turned to the boy. ‘Isaac?’ I asked lightly.

  He turned to look at me wordlessly. I took a step back. It wasn’t just that he looked ill; he was changed. His face was . . . older, his skin almost grey.

  ‘Oh goodness,’ the postmistress remarked, ‘the poor love really doesn’t look well.’ She almost sounded pleased.

  I asked, ‘Isaac, when you and the other children saw that object, did any of your teachers see it too? Maybe when you and your friends ran in to get the headmaster?’

  He shook his head, and I saw that the glassy sheen in his eyes had vanished. Then he said, ‘If sir hadn’t let us out of class early, we probably wouldn’t have seen it at all.’

  That got my attention. Howell Cooper had never mentioned anything about letting the children out early.

  ‘And why did he do that?’ I asked.

  ‘Because the priest came,’ the child said innocently.

  ‘Father O’Riorden?’

  Isaac nodded. ‘Sir said they had to talk in private.’

  His mother gave me a questioning look.

  ‘What else did Mr Cooper say, Isaac? After you saw the silver object?’ I was trying to sound unconcerned.

  ‘Sir said we should rest and that we should keep our minds open because that’s when we hear them best.’

  ‘Hear who, Isaac ?’

  ‘The voices. The voices from the sky.’

  ‘Do you hear them, Isaac? What do they say?’

  ‘That we must be ready. That we must watch the skies.’

  ‘Oh, not this again!’ his mother said curtly, sounding more nervous than exasperated.

  ‘Daddy’s heard the voices too,’ the child cut in. ‘Daddy’s not well.’

  The postmistress brushed her hands down her apron. ‘Well, must get on. Lots to do!’

  My spotlight of suspicion dropped on Father O’Riorden. Why was the priest at the school at the same time as the sighting?

  ‘Father O’Riorden, what can you tell me about him?’ I asked Ethel Dunwoody.

  But the postmistress just shook her head.

  ‘Right, well. Take Isaac straight home,’ I said, turning to his mother, who was leading the boy towards the post office door. ‘Watch him carefully, OK? He’s had a terrible shock.’

  She nodded.

  A terrible shock. Just like Martin Marshall and little Tessa. And, like them, Isaac’s behaviour, even his appearance, was changing in subtle ways. Perhaps that’s what happens when you observe these UFOs up close. Perhaps they change you. Not for the better.

  ‘We did try taking advice from Mr Pritchard,’ Isaac’s mother disclosed. ‘He wasn’t much help.’ She didn’t just look worried now; she looked distressed. ‘You don’t think it’s anything . . . sinister, do you?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s not,’ I replied, offering a smile.

  But as the shop bell jangled and the door shut behind them, I had to pretend I hadn’t seen the missing patch of hair on the back of Isaac’s head.

  – 30 –

  Broad Haven Church, Marine Road

  Father O’Riorden hadn’t seen me.

  I watched him from behind the churchyard gate. He was alone in the cemetery, a dominating figure with his domed pate and white hair, watching over the village as though it were a sleeping child. I tracked his gaze over the maze of pastel cottages below. Little Haven didn’t feel awake that morning – even as the clock tower struck eleven – as though it was hesitating to accept the day had begun. I thought I saw the same hesitation in the priest’s sagging face, a sort of weariness.

  I had looked into O’Riorden’s background and now had questions. I wanted to know what he had been doing at the school the day of the sighting, why he was so unpopular in the Havens and more about his association with the headmaster.

  Although Mr Daley at the Ram Inn hadn’t much wanted to discuss the priest, I encountered no such problem with Frank Frobisher when I caught him in the bar enjoying his morning coffee. Not only did I show him Martin Marshall’s drawing of the giant figure, but I questioned him about Father O’Riorden. After hearing what the journalist had to say about the priest’s interests, his politics and his writings, I’d come straight to the churchyard.

  I unlatched the gate and Father O’Riorden looked up sharply.

  ‘What do you know about Howell Cooper?’

  O’Riorden smiled warmly and in his rich voice said, ‘Not even a hello?’

  I pushed on. ‘The day of the sighting he let the kids out into the playground early. Why?’

  Father O’Riorden gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘Oh well, I suppose he wanted a break. It wasn’t a normal school day. All the other children were on an excursion.’

  ‘Why were you there? You never mentioned that before.’

  ‘We had business to discuss. School assemblies, the Easter concert, some charitable work.’

  I wasn’t convinced. ‘Howell, is he a religious man?’

  The priest looked at me uneasily. ‘Well, he writes local history, comes in once in a while to look over the church records: births, deaths, baptisms. Why are you asking?’

  Still suspicious, I told him about my conversation in the post office and that I’d tried to find Cooper, first at the school, then at home in Marine Close, without success.

  A small smile surfaced on the priest’s face, one that said, You are as paranoid as your grandfather, and then his expression subsided into puzzlement again. ‘You mean the sky watch business? Howell is conscientious, that’s all. The kids are his first priority. He never forgets a name, never gets them mixed up. Maybe he is a bit superstitious for his own good, but he means well.’

  I wasn’t quite convinced. I felt there was something he wasn’t telling me. ‘Father, you saw the way the children behaved at the public meeting.’

  ‘Yes. I saw the way everyone behaved,’ the priest answered, throwing a glance at the sky. His gaze dropped to the sea. ‘It’s sad,’ he added in a flat voice, ‘but when it comes to self-delusion there are no age limits. Forgive me, but I find all of this rather too far-fetched.’

  I didn’t want to follow him into the church. It was only my determination to find the truth and my concern for the children that led me into the cool, dark gloom. The instant I saw the altar and an image of Christ bleeding on the cross I felt uncomfortable. Unwelcome. I couldn’t explain why, but I hadn’t really felt at ease in religious buildings since I had gone to live with Randall.

  ‘Father, I’m determined to get to the bottom of this.’

  Then something against the north wall of the church caught my attention, an ancient-looking document with faded writing, protected by an expensive-looking glass cabinet. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Our own piece of local history,’ he said, following me to the cabinet. ‘Discovered back in the seventeenth century. The Rotary Club had it translated, I believe, by the British Museum.’

  But it wasn’t the text that had caught my attention.

  ₮ｻ∑∆иςⅰ∑и₮◊и∑ㄅ∆Я∑ς◊ⅰи

  ‘What are these symbols?’

  Father O Riorden shrugged. ‘Their meaning has never been ascertained. But the text itself is rather clearer. See for yourself.’

  I leaned closer to read it:

  Gha D’rcest Cthasska, Gha D’rcest Cthassiss.

  I
n the name of the Father, Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen X X X and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ I will delive Elizabeth Loyd from all witchcraft and from all evil spirites and from all evil men or women or wizardes or hardness of heart Amen X X X

  Witchcraft and evil. Two words I hadn’t expected to read on the wall of a church. I glanced across at Father O Riorden. ‘An incantation from the seventeenth century purported to have been used to exorcize a young woman.’

  Exorcize. That word made me flinch. I remembered St John the Baptist looking down at me from the wall, his finger pointing skyward.

  ‘What about these words?’ I pointed. Gha D’rcest Cthasska, Gha D’rcest Cthassiss.

  ‘It’s gibberish,’ Father O’Riorden said dismissively. ‘More superstition.’

  ‘Even so, would you mind if I copied this down?’

  He didn’t look pleased at the idea but he didn’t stop me either. One day soon I would be very, very glad of that.

  I tried to make sense of the unsettling déjà vu that was coming over me, strange enough for me to want to read the rest of the incantation. It went on in a mixture of Roman Catholic Latin and cabbalistic words of power like Tetragrammaton, the name of God. At the bottom were two rows of planetary symbols. The sun, the moon and Venus were obvious.

  I will trust in the Lord Jesus Christ my Redeemer and Saviour from all evil spirites and from all other assaltes of the Devil and that he will delive Elizabeth Loyd from all witchcraft and from all evil spirites by the same power as he did cause the blind to see, the lame to walke and that thou findest with unclean spirites to be in thire one mindes amen X X X as weeth Jehovah Amen. The witches compassed her abought but in the name of the lord i will destroy them Amen

  ‘Strikes me as a very odd thing to find in a Christian Church,’ I declared.