The Scream of Angels

by David Haynes

  Walter Bishop took her wrist, “You will not touch him. You gave up that right years ago.”

  Bishop looked to this woman and back to his father. How was it they were acquainted? What hellish theatre was happening before him?

  “Who are you?” Bishop stammered.

  “Mother?” Metier called again. His voice betraying confusion. He was helping Eve bring Victor, who had regained consciousness, once more to his feet.

  Bishop felt the strength leave his legs immediately. A vision of a lady with fair hair and smiling lips bending over and kissing his fevered brow flashed before his eyes. His legs buckled and a great wave of nausea threatened to consume him. He fell against his father.

  “You come here now?” he heard his father’s voice quiver. “You bring us both to our knees, here and now in front of that man. Rose, how could you do this to us?”

  “She has done nothing, Walter. I asked her to come,” Victor’s voice was barely more controlled than Walter’s.

  “You will not address me,” he snarled, “I will throttle you where you stand, Cresswell!” The anger resurfaced in an instant.

  “Then you should do as your heart tells you,” Victor replied, “for I can no longer continue this way. Now release your hold on Rose and finish me off.”

  Bishop looked at Metier, who stood beside Victor. His face was white save for a smear of blood across his cheek. Eve stood behind them both. She had removed her veil and stared unblinking at the other woman.

  His father released the hold on Rose, but she did not walk toward Metier and Victor, and looked only at Bishop.

  “It may be that you two will kill each other but before you do I will address my sons.”

  “So this is his bastard?” Walter pointed at Metier.

  “Enough, Walter. Please, enough.” Rose raised her voice to compete with Walter’s

  “And why should I listen to you, to either of you? It will all be worthless lies!” his father responded.

  “The words are not meant for us, Walter. They are meant for our sons.” Victor stepped forward.

  Rose turned to Metier, “Alexander, my love,” and then to Bishop, “Robert, my poor sweet child. You must know by now you are half brothers. I am not proud of my actions but I am proud of you both. This meeting, here and now, was not what I wanted. It is not what any of us desired and yet here we all are and the matter is before us. It appears it was destined to be so.”

  Bishop did not know which way to turn. His instinct was to throw himself inside the nearest tomb and lock the gate behind him, but he could not stand to take his eyes away from his mother.

  “Your fathers were like brothers once. They loved each other, the way only men who have fought together can. It runs deep and…”

  “You both betrayed me.” Walter interrupted in almost a whisper.

  Victor stepped forward until he was within reach of Walter’s fists again, “I saved your life at Isandlwana, many times over. You and Blair were my brothers; you always will be. I implore you, put this matter aside and find it in your heart to forgive me. To forgive us both.”

  Bishop watched as his father slumped forward and fell to the floor. Victor swiftly followed him and fell to his knees. Each man stared into the others eyes. What they saw there was the horror of battle, the bloody torsos of their mutilated comrades and their hands painted in blood. They saw in each other what they always had. Death.

  He peered over the stone carved feathers on the angel’s wings and felt the cold stone tears on his cheek. The tombs and monuments were lavish and decadent but they were mere props in the theatre of a death.

  He saw the blood on Victor’s brow and the look of anguish on Walter’s face. It was a triumph already for their pain was replete. Almost, but not quite, for he still had plans for them all. And now they were all together and their unique voices prepared, he could enjoy himself a little more.

  Le Grand Guignol had seen some glorious acts in its time but not akin to what he had planned. How many tears had the oak angels shed over the horrors of the show beneath them? How many wails of despair had their angel ears heard? Well they would cry no more. Instead they would scream.

  Laudanum

  Cunningham’s Surgery

  London

  1880

  Cunningham collapsed to his knees. He no longer bothered to tease the few remaining strands of hair over his his naked scalp. It left his hair free to fall in oily strands against his cheeks. The skin on his scalp was pocked and scarred where he had picked at imaginary loose flaps of skin. Dried blood fell in blackened flakes from old wounds.

  “Have you heard enough, Cunningham?” the first voice asked.

  “Has it all sunk in? Has it been absorbed?” came the second voice.

  “I fear we have made the doctor quite unwell,” the third voice carried a trace of mirth.

  The three men, tall and strong, looked down on the human wreck they had wrought and laughed.

  “Please, I can hear no more. I have already fallen too deep.”

  “As we were deep in the blood of our comrades.” The tallest of the men knelt beside Cunningham, “You had Chelmsford’s ear at Isandlwana did you not? Did you not condemn us to be butchered like animals for your pleasure? You told him to leave us. You told him we were already dead.”

  Cunningham looked into the eyes of the man and saw only death.

  “Well,” he continued, “We now have your ear and you shall hear it all again,” the man gritted his teeth in an ugly snarl. “Every single detail of every single murderous death. Every single soldier’s scream as their skin was ripped from their bones shall live on in here,” he tapped Cunningham’s temple.

  “It will not be with our fists or feet that we kill you, Cunningham. It will be with our voices,”

  The three men laughed. The last three surviving officers of the slaughter at Isandlwana, Victor Cresswell, Walter Bishop and Douglas Blair stood together again.

  “Who shall begin?” asked Cresswell.

  “I should like to start. I will enjoy talking to Cunningham about the taste of Zulu blood as it washed over my face. Are you ready, Cunningham?”

  The doctor groaned and fell to his side drawing his knees up to his chest. He tried to cover his ears but they picked him up and bound his wrists to the chair with the leather restraints.

  “But I cured your son,” he mumbled.

  “My son?” started Bishop. “He is not cured, Cunningham. As you said to me, the madness may be in the family line. He cannot be cured. I am afraid your days of suggestive medicine are gone.”

  “We saw you on that hill, Cunningham. On your horse beside Cheltenham looking down on us. We waited for you to ride down to us. To bring the army to our aid. Yet you sat there and watched as we were slaughtered; as our guts were dragged from our still living bodies and paraded on the end of a spear. What pleasure did you get?”

  Cunningham smiled as if recalling the scene, “Such beauty. Such magnificent and arousing beauty. You cannot tell me your blood did not flow faster that day, gentlemen. You cannot tell me you did not enjoy the…”

  “Enough!” Cresswell struck Cunningham across the mouth sending a bloody mural onto the cold white tiles. “It is your turn to listen now,” he turned to Blair, “Please, Albert, let us silence this fool once and for all.”

  *

  There was a chaotic silence between them as they left the brutal tranquillity of Pere Lachaise. None of them could speak for their thoughts were deep and all encompassing. Victor and Walter chose to remain beside Blair’s tomb. Or rather their lack of movement was taken as instruction that they should be left alone. Although they were no longer locked in some barbarous battle, it was still possible one would kill the other in a tempestuous loss of control. After observing his father’s vicious strength, he did not think it would be him who perished.

  The director and his pallbearers had not wanted to leave. Their familiarity with the dead and their peaceful slumber had left them unprepared for the d
isplay of violence they had just witnessed. It had left them agitated, nervous but excited that they might witness some more.

  Alexander had ushered them out from under the chestnut tree and before long the unlikely group were on their way back to the theatre. Eve had protested and begged to be allowed to return on her own but Bishop pushed her into the carriage where she sat in tearful silence. It was impossible for any of them to speak for what could they say?

  Bishop looked at the woman seated opposite. He had long forgotten her appearance and now he gazed upon a stranger. There were questions he needed to ask, questions that slipped through his mind like eels in the river. He could not grasp any of them for they were many and too fleeting to hold.

  He looked to Metier who stared straight back at him. They had been friends before this and now they were brothers. Could anything be the same? A flicker of a smile passed over Metier’s lips and was gone as quickly as it had appeared. There could be no malice between them. Why should there be? They had both been denied a parent; Metier a father and he, a mother. What fault was it of theirs?

  He looked back to his mother. Was she the one to blame? She had walked out on them and not looked back. She had taken another man and given him a son.

  But as he looked upon this woman, this woman with the soft smile and the kind eyes, it was forgotten in an instant. She was his mother and the questions, the anger and the self examination would come later. For now, she was here and she was sitting beside him. He felt a shudder in his heart and it sent a delicious tremble through his soul. He reached across and took her hand in his.

  “Mother, you must come and see where your sons work,” he turned to Metier, “shouldn’t she, Alexander?”

  Metier took her other hand, “I should like that very much.”

  Beside him, Bishop felt the shudder of Eve’s tearful heave.

  Once back at Le Grand Guignol, Eve went directly to her dressing room. She had not spoken at all since Pere Lachaise. She seemed to be falling deeper and deeper into despair. The sound of her strained retching echoed along the dark corridors but she would not be comforted and forbade the calling of a doctor.

  “Why is this lady so morose?” Rose asked.

  “She has been unwell for some time, mother. She will feel better soon, I am positive. Now, would you like to see our office?” Metier changed the subject quickly. No good could possibly come from telling her Eve was heartbroken over Victor.

  Both Metier and Bishop sat behind their respective desks proudly.

  “The shows have been a resounding success. Robert and I have taken the city by storm. You must watch it tonight, you simply must!” Metier announced. He seemed completely unconcerned that his mother had given birth to another before him.

  “I am not sure there will be a show tonight, Alexander,” Bishop started, “Our leading lady is ill and your father has just buried his friend. Then there is the matter of…” he didn’t know how to finish the sentence. The small matter of his mother and father was in the forefront of his thoughts.

  “There is much to discuss, between all of us, yet this needn’t destroy all the great work we have done,” Metier paused and looked to his mother, “I shall leave you alone with Robert. I suspect there is much that needs to be said and it is best said without my presence.”

  “Thank you Alexander. You have always been a sensitive boy.”

  Metier walked from the office. For him, the knowledge that his mother had lived a life before his birth seemed unremarkable. It was almost as if he had been expecting it.

  “Would you care to sit?” Bishop asked. He felt awkward and shy.

  “Thank you.” She sat behind Metier’s desk and removed her white gloves. “You must think me a harlot, or worse,” she began.

  Bishop opened his mouth to protest but Rose held her hand up to stop him.

  “What I tell you next, I do not tell to absolve myself or deflect my guilt. I tell you because you deserve to know,” she sighed deeply then continued. “When your father returned from Africa, he was not Walter Bishop. He was a lifeless husk who had lost, or was on his way to losing, his mind. What happenned over there, I have since learned from Victor, sickened him, sickened them all and turned their souls black. The violence you witnessed today would have been unthinkable and wholly unpalatable to him prior to Africa. Yet it is now as much a part of him as you are,” she paused and stared into space.

  Her manner was calm and assured. It appeared she had practised the speech before.

  “You may remember the silence. The long cold, winter silence in our home. Your father did not speak, he could not, and the only sounds he made were in the dead of night when you both wailed in a hideous chorus of terror. And when he woke from his nightmares he would come to you and weep on the bed beside you. Do you remember that?”

  Bishop shook his head. He recalled kind words and a hand on his brow but that was but a vague recollection; a gossamer touch.

  “He believed he had poisoned you with his mind and that your nightmares had somehow come from him. That you were seeing what he saw. You too were seeing the mangled bodies of defiled men. The twisted corpses and the fly ridden guts of his comrades. But worst of all, you were witnessing what he had done to those who would see him dead.”

  “And he sent me to Cunningham to drive those dreams away. I could never tell him Cunningham failed. The dreams remained; the torture endured.”

  “He never sent you there to obtain a cure, Robert. He sent you to help destroy the man.”

  “What?” Bishop was shocked, “Why would he do such a thing? Are you trying to poison my mind against him?” Bishop rose from behind the desk although he had no intention of leaving. “I will not listen.”

  “I am not trying to poison you against him and I do not wish you to think ill of your father. In his sickened mind, Cunningham was the reason for all his ills. Cunningham caused the defeat and ignominy of the regiment. Cunningham’s hands were soaked in the blood of the dead and your father would not rest until he had destroyed the man and turned his mind into nothing more than grains of sand.”

  “And how was I supposed to destroy him? I was just a boy.”

  “You were the key, that is all. The key to his soul, for once they knew his mind they could use their own to bring him to his knees.”

  “Them?” Bishop took a step toward his mother.

  “Yes. Your father, Victor and their friend Blair. They tortured Cunningham for months and months. They toyed with him as if they were cats mauling an injured sparrow, waiting to rip its throat out.”

  “They killed him?” Bishop asked. This was not what he had expected from this long awaited conversation.

  “No, nothing like that. They simply sent him mad. He rotted in Bethlem I believe.” She replied dismissively.

  “Whatever you think of the methods, their justification was sound if they were betrayed as you say they were.” The revelation about his father’s thirst for revenge was not as shocking as his mother supposed. At least not now he had seen the brutality of the man at Pere Lachaise.

  “And you? What has this to do with you abandoning us?” He regretted using the word immediately. He had not wanted the conversation to become accusatory.

  Rose winced, “I would not use that word but you are right, I did abandon you and your father. But it was not his actions alone which led me to leave.”

  “Mother, too long has passed. I no longer seek the answers.”

  “But you must know that I never once forgot you. Have you yet been in love, Robert?”

  Bishop shook his head.

  “Victor and I knew each other long before Walter and I were introduced. We were sweethearts in childhood and in our adolescence vowed to be together forever. A foolish notion no doubt, but one I still hold dear. I left your father for Victor because I loved him, and in my naïve ardour believed Walter would allow me to take you with me. I followed you to Lyme; did you know that? After I left you went there to be with his cousins. Yes, I watched you f
rom the cliff top as you gathered shells and fossils with your father. By then, we were locked in such a battle that he forbade me from seeing you. He turned away my gifts and letters and he vowed to kill Victor. Who could blame him?” She paused and picked at her nails. “I do not seek forgiveness but I lay the facts down before you. I do not seek pity but my life has been a miserable purgatory since I left. Victor could never be the man I wanted and I have lived my life in the shadow of shame. Yet my heart is now filled with happiness to see my two sons as friends, as brothers. As your fathers once were.”

  There were still questions and matters requiring resolution, yet Bishop found it no longer mattered. There was time now, so much time for it all to become clear. His life now had purpose and he felt happy to be alive. Tears rolled freely down his cheeks and he embraced his mother.