New Title 1

by Campbell, J R

  “St Michael’s Hosp. Immediately. Time against us. G.E.C.” Terse to the point of abruptness. Had it come from anyone else I may have taken offence. I pressed Austin for information but he, already a man of few words, had clearly been instructed to say nothing. Frustrated, I could not help but speculate. Challenger was hardly a young man yet subjected himself to such physical extremes and flew into such wild rages at the slightest provocation that I wondered how long even his stout heart could prevail.

  My only hope was that his condition did not worsen before we arrived at Saint Michael’s. So picture my surprise when, on entering that impressive redbrick edifice off the Bayswater Road, it was to be met by the Professor himself, his bullish figure bounding across the entrance hall to greet me.

  “Malone, my boy!” cried he, grasping my hand in so tight a grip I could swear I felt the knuckles creak.

  “You’re well?” I said, shock reducing me to stating the obvious. His massive forehead creased into a frown. “Of course I’m well. Why should I not be? We have ourselves a new mystery. Come!”

  With that he slung an arm around my shoulder and steered me along the corridor, shushing my attempts to insist on an explanation. We arrived at a door at the farthest end of the corridor, through which the Professor propelled me. For a moment I could see nothing, the room lit only by a candle on the bedside table. Once my eyes had adjusted to the gloom I discerned a single bed in one corner, a small figure I assumed to be a child unmoving beneath the sheet. Then I saw it was in fact an old woman, apparently asleep, her thin haggard face and a fan of grey wispy hair on the pillow all that could be seen of her.

  At the foot of the bed was a cot lined with blankets, an infant boy asleep in their woven embrace. And seated in a chair by the small window, curtains pulled against the autumn chill, was a pretty young nurse who stood with a small gasp of surprise as we entered.

  “ Sit down, my dear,” Challenger said, and for once his voice was muted, barely rising above a whisper. The nurse settled back on the chair and looked at me with open curiosity. Perhaps she had heard of my exploits in Brazil, I thought somewhat hopefully. I was still looking for someone to replace Gladys in my affections.

  “Good evening, Professor,” she said with a soft Highland accent.

  “Has she said anything?” Challenger asked, sotto voce.

  The nurse shook her head.

  “Are you certain? Nothing further about the bones, or the sea serpent or anything at all about what happened that night?” Another shake of the head. “She sleeps, mostly. She is malnourished but refuses to eat. Occasionally she asks to see the little one but she will not hold the child. Perhaps she fears dropping him in her weakened state.”

  Challenger stood at the bedside, reached down and lifted up a pale, bony wrist. He held it for several moments, then placed it gently down on the sheet. “Her pulse is faint. I fear she is not long for this world.”

  “Professor,” I hissed, appalled. “She may hear you.”

  “Who, her?” he responded, gesturing rudely towards the sleeping figure. “Did I not mention she’s as deaf as a post?”

  “Then why are you whispering?” “ Whispering?” He glared at me for a moment before bellowing, “Because I did not want to start that wretched infant crying again!”

  As though on cue, two tiny eyes opened and in the moment it took for a look of almost comical horror to cross the Professor’s face, the infant began a lusty howling. The nurse hurried over to the crib and picked up the boy, while the Professor bundled me out of the room.

  “Come on,” he said. “We have a train to catch.”

  “What? You never said anything about a train.”

  “Didn’t you read my message?” he demanded.

  “Your message made no mention of a train. Just some cryptic reference to time not being on your side.” “Time isn’t on our side,” he roared. “The night train to Scotland departs within the hour and we have to get across London first.”

  I broke free of his grasp. “All this talk about bones and sea snakes.”

  “Sea serpents.” “ Very well, all this talk of bones and sea serpents. What was that all about? Also, what makes you think I can just up sticks and run off to Scotland? Will you furnish me with a reference when Mr McArdle terminates my employment on the grounds of unauthorised absence?”

  “Don’t be foolish.” Challenger grinned wolfishly. “That news editor of yours was delighted when I asked for you to accompany me to St Machar. The Gazette’s supplement on our first expedition sold exceedingly well.”

  So St Machar, one of the remotest inhabited British islands, was to be our destination. Challenger expected me to travel there with no advance warning and no time to prepare. The nerve of the man! He might at least have had the courtesy to ask me first. However, he was correct in saying the Gazette’s supplement had been a sales triumph. McArdle would perform somersaults for even the sniff of a chance of an encore.

  “But I haven’t packed,” I protested half-heartedly.

  “Taken care of. I have arranged for supplies for us all to be delivered to our ship in Aberdeen.”

  The reference to ‘us all’ passed me by, for I had been left reeling by the speed with which the night’s events had unfolded.

  I could still hear the baby crying when we hurried from the hospital.

  *** We lay on our stomachs and slid forward until we could see over the cliff edge. Turbulent water, grey edged with white, crashed against and swirled around the rocks a long way below. A momentary giddiness overcame me and I must have made some noise of despair loud enough to be heard for Lord Roxton laughed and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

  “ Easy, young fellah my lad,” he exclaimed, blue eyes twinkling with what I considered to be inappropriate good humour. “Unless the Earth suddenly tilts there’s not a chance of you tumbling over the edge.”

  I grunted something unintelligible by way of response. I did not share my companion’s phlegmatic approach to danger.

  “What do you see?” he asked. Though I did not much care to look, I squinted down the expanse of cliff falling away from us. “Nothing,” I said. “What should I be seeing?”

  “ Seabirds. Too early for the winter migration. Place like this should be teeming with the things. Yet there’s neither feather nor beak to be seen. Doesn’t that remind you of anything?”

  We knew the islanders had kept sheep, both for the meat and for the wool the women wove into tweed. But we had found no sheep and now were confronted by this unnatural absence of birds. Whatever had wiped out the village had frightened off the wildlife too.

  *** I will spare you the tiresome details of our train journey, for one is much the same as any other, though ours took considerably longer than most. I whiled away the time reading, writing notes or sleeping, for Challenger still refused to elaborate.“All in good time,” he would say with maddening superciliousness. When finally we arrived at Aberdeen it was to be greeted by much colder, wetter and windier weather than we had left behind in London.

  That was not unexpected, but I was taken aback by the two familiar faces waiting for us when our taxicab deposited us at the quayside.

  “ Summerlee,” Challenger said somewhat coolly, with the slightest nod of his head. Then, with noticeably more warmth, “Lord Roxton. A pleasure.”

  “ What the Devil have you got us mixed up in now, eh?” Roxton demanded with characteristic levity. Professor Summerlee merely scowled, the action emphasising the gauntness of his face.

  “Some cock and bull story about a giant serpent,” Roxton continued, gesturing vaguely towards the turbulent grey sea. Now Summerlee piped up. “Really, Challenger?” he spluttered. “Is this how it is to be? Someone makes a wild and unfounded claim about impossible creatures and off exploring you go, recklessly charging ahead, dragging us with you like some kind of royal court?”

  “ Nothing of the sort, dear chap,” Challenger said, a smug air about him. “We have a witness. Ask our young friend. He met
her in London.”

  “ Oh you did, did you, young fellah my lad!” cried Roxton, his sparkling gaze turning to me. “You going to tell us all about it or keep us in suspense like our hirsute friend here?”

  “ Explanations can wait.” Challenger nodded towards a large fishing vessel tied up close to where we stood. “We must catch the tide. Let’s get ourselves aboard and out of this wretched Northern weather.”

  I regarded the boat, a trawler named the Rose of Scotland, somewhat dubiously. While it appeared sturdy enough I could not envisage any captain being brave or foolhardy enough to set out in such conditions. Indeed, the trawler was moving up and down and to and fro with such violence I feared it would be torn free of its moorings.

  “Surely not,” I whispered. Roxton must have heard me for he grinned widely and rubbed his hands together with theatrical relish. “Here we go again Mr Malone. Only this time hunting monster snakes instead of dinosaurs!”

  The crossing to St Machar took three days and was as ghastly as I had feared. I spent the first day laid low with an attack of malde-mer. To my chagrin the others were unaffected, which struck me as most unfair. By the second day I had found my sea-legs and even managed to keep down some toast and tea. While I was incapacitated, my companions had claimed the ship’s cramped mess as a makeshift lounge and that was where Challenger finally related the story that had brought us together.

  “ The island has been inhabited since prehistoric times,” he began. “It’s a bleak place, mostly rock with little arable land. A hard life by our standards, cosseted as we are in a rich modern society. Yet they made do, just about.”

  He paused, running a hand through his dense, spade-shaped beard. “Every spring the men risked their lives clambering down the cliffs to harvest gannets, auks and the like. Puffins were a staple food too. You all right, Malone? Look a little green around the gills. Very well then. Meat aside, the birds provided oil for fuel, and feathers for pillows and mattresses.”

  “A hard life indeed,” observed Roxton.“I imagine they must have toiled from dawn until dusk merely to survive.” Challenger, who detested interruptions, nodded brusquely. “Quite so. My point is that life followed the same course as always. People were born, grew up, married, had children and died, generation after generation. Nothing untoward ever happened. Until one night two months ago when every single person on that island died inexplicably…with two notable exceptions.”

  “The old woman and the baby,” I said. “ Yes, yes, obviously,” Challenger snapped, giving an impatient wave of his hand.“I wish you’d listen, Mr Malone. You might learn something. As I said, life was hard indeed for the people of St Machar but the last two years were particularly grim. The winters were harsh even by Scottish standards and a form of sickness devastated the seabird population.

  “ It reached the point where the despairing islanders were considering the unthinkable; to abandon their ancestral home and seek a new life on the mainland. Which brings us to the night in question. From the old woman’s admittedly limited account of the matter, every single man, woman and child simply rose from their beds and went out, leaving the doors open behind them. It was the wind blowing in that awoke her, for she is quite deaf.

  “ When she went to the doorway she saw, in her words, a serpent five times as wide as a man is tall, slithering across the island. As she described it, the serpent was as black as the night it immediately vanished into. And in its wake were left the remains of more than a hundred people.”

  Challenger had barely finished speaking when Summerlee, who had been silent throughout, slapped a hand hard on the table. “ Stuff and nonsense,” he cried, plucking his briar from his mouth and thrusting his head forward so that his little goat beard quivered on his chin. “There is no evidence to support the existence of giant serpents.”

  “I recall there was a similar dispute over dinosaurs,” Roxton said drily. “ That was an entirely different situation, as well you know,” the old professor retorted. “Dinosaurs were regarded as extinct, not mythical. This giant sea serpent is but a folk tale. We might as well be stalking unicorns.”

  “ And yet here you are,” Challenger said. “If you were so certain it is no more than a myth, why did you agree to accompany us? I seem to recall you mentioning cancelling a trip to Vienna to be here.”

  Summerlee chewed on his pipe. “I concede there are intriguing aspects of this case, not least the sudden demise of so many people in a single night. Assuming, of course, the old woman upon whose shaky evidence you are entirely reliant was not deluded about that too.”

  “ She was not deluded and I do not solely rely on her account,” Challenger replied with the quiet intensity that usually preceded one of the more physical manifestations of his wrath. On this occasion, fortunately, his tone and expression prompted Summerlee to lapse into silent contemplation, quite possibly saving him from actual bodily harm.

  Having silenced his critic, Challenger continued. “A ship called at St Machar every few months, to deliver medicines and other essential supplies and to collect the tweed that paid for their provisions. On August 5th the captain and crew went ashore and found the bodies.

  “ Searching further they found the woman in her cottage, clutching the infant boy. When the captain tried to question her she became hysterical. Unsure what to do, for the best he had them taken aboard and a local doctor was summoned once they reached their home port.”

  This doctor, perplexed by the captain’s story, consulted an old friend, a famed surgeon in Edinburgh by the name of Ross. This gentleman had known Challenger during their student days and made contact with him.

  Challenger arranged for the two survivors to be brought to London, paying not only for their transport and care but also the services of a Gaelic-speaking nurse who accompanied them to St Michael’s. Her role included making note of anything the old woman said about that fateful night.

  “Which brings us to where we are now,” Challenger concluded.

  “This the ship that brought them from the island?” Roxton asked. Challenger shook his head. “The captain who found the bodies swore never to step foot on St Machar again. And he’s not alone. Had the Devil of a job finding anyone willing to take us, seafarers being a superstitious bunch at the best of times. The skipper of the Rose of Scotland only agreed after some considerable persuasion on my part. And, I may add, a great deal of money.”

  ***

  When Challenger suggested the four of us shared a cottage there was no argument from anyone, not even Professor Summerlee.

  The villagers had abandoned their homes as abruptly as the old woman had claimed. In every kitchen we searched we found mildew-speckled bread and shrivelled black potatoes. After we had located four mattresses and bedding and carried them into the tiny living room of the cottage we had chosen, there was barely room to move. At least, I thought as I got a fire going in the hearth, we would be warm, for the air had a wintry edge this far North.

  I was in no mood to mention the awful sight that greeted us when we came ashore. Evidently my friends were of the same mind for we spoke of other things as we ate our supper. Whatever opinion each man held regarding the existence or otherwise of a great serpent, there was no denying the presence of death. The evidence was literally on our doorstep.

  We lit candles and banked the fire as the light faded and the wind picked up outside. None of us was superstitious, yet the atmosphere became almost palpably tense. Challenger ran his hand repeatedly through his beard as he stared sightlessly into the flames. Summerlee sucked on his briar with twice the usual intensity, while anxiety had made a hollow nest in my stomach. Roxton, for all his outward appearance of calmness, kept a rifle within easy reach of his mattress.

  At length we turned in. That was when Challenger handed each of us a pair of wooden earplugs.

  “What the deuce are these for?” Roxton asked, amused. “Worried Mr Malone will keep us awake with his snoring?” “ Did it not occur to you to wonder how the old woman an
d baby survived whatever dreadful calamity occurred here?” Challenger asked. “Think about it. One could not hear, the other could not walk.”

  Summerlee snorted loudly with derision. “Are you seriously suggesting something lured those people outside?” “ I am not suggesting anything,” said Challenger. “I merely consider it advisable to take any and all precautions available until such time as we discover the truth. If that is deemed unscientific, so be it.”

  I heard little of the ensuing conversation for, despite the mattress being so thin that I could feel the stone floor through it, I was soon fast asleep, earplugs firmly in place.

  *** From a distance the bodies looked like pale rocks scattered across the land, as though a Creator mapping out a river had used them to mark its course. I have not the words to adequately describe the sheer horror that overcame me when, having left the beach behind and walked a short way inland, we drew near enough to see them for what they were.

  Nothing was left of the villagers but bones. Not a scrap of flesh remained. It was as though the dead had lain undisturbed not for weeks but for decades, centuries perhaps, while time picked the bones clean of every last shred of meat, sinew and skin.

  “Dear God,” I heard Challenger say, as though from a distance. We proceeded inland, along a wide expanse of grass almost entirely encircled by the steep rugged hills that protected St Machar from the worst Atlantic storms. We stayed close together as we stepped past the bodies. Occasionally, Challenger and Summerlee would pause and stoop to inspect one of the skeletons, without touching it, talking softly to one another, while Roxton stood by, rifle in hand. For myself, I gazed across the wide arc of the shoreline to the sea, averting my eyes from the scattered dead, wishing I was still aboard the Rose of Scotland, heading home. At that moment a cloud passed over the sun, casting a long, thin shadow that appeared to skim the surface of the water, and I shuddered.

  We walked several hundred yards more before reaching the end of that ghastly river of bones. There we paused with heads bowed as though in prayer or silent contemplation. Eventually Challenger said, “We have seen enough.” The great man appeared shaken, his boisterous nature temporarily subdued. “Find somewhere to make camp, away from…”