by steve higgs
The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet still and there were puddles for the dogs to avoid. I looked around for Gina's men. Thankfully they were not waiting for me across the street. On the beach though was Gina, fiddling with the array of gadgets she had there. She appeared to be alone, so I led the dogs to the ramp and let them off their leads. They scampered off across the pebbles to dig in the sand. They had spent most of the evening being shared between our laps and being given crisps as treats. They needed a little exercise.
‘Hi, Tempest.’ said Gina as I approached. She turned her head to me as she said it then went back to whatever she was doing. ‘I’m just checking everything still works. The rain always seems to mess with the equipment.’
‘Still hoping to photograph that ghost?’ I made sure my voice did not carry any sarcasm or amusement.
‘As always.’
‘Where are your team?’ I wanted to know.
‘I don’t know actually. I gave them the night off. I think they were going to the pub, but I haven’t heard from them since. Did you see them in there?’
‘Yes. I saw them.’
‘Well, I hope they were behaving. They can be idiots when they want to be. Like most men. Oh! Sorry, no offense intended.’
‘None taken.’ I wondered if stories of their exploits tonight would find their way back to Gina’s ears.
The dogs reappeared at my feet when I called them, and it felt like a good time to get to bed. I bid Gina goodnight and headed back into the warmth of the pub.
Things That Go Bump in the Night Part 2. Tuesday, 1st November 2323hrs.
The fold-out bed was not comfortable, nor was it so uncomfortable that I felt a need to get up and try to improve it. I had fallen into bed with the two dogs cuddled in next to me. I could have placed them back on the floor, but they would have just returned as soon as I started snoring.
Sleep came easily, the fatigue of the day catching up with me, but I awoke at the sound of my parents coming to bed. They were moving around quietly, whispering to each other with only a single table lamp on to illuminate the room. They bumped into a few things but were getting into bed just a few minutes after entering the room. I had not moved, and I expected to fall asleep again in no time.
The light went out and I relaxed back into the pillow. The whispering from the bed continued though. My eyes were shut but my ears were working.
‘Do you think he is asleep?’ I heard my Mother ask.
‘I can’t tell, Love. Why?’ answered my Dad.
‘Would you like to play ride the wild pony?’
I’M AWAKE!
I was out of bed and grabbing my clothes. The dogs looked a little bewildered as I scooped them from the bed, then thought better of it and put them back inside the warm covers.
About eight seconds elapsed and I was outside in the corridor wearing only my pants, holding my bundled clothes and hoping that I had everything I needed.
Phone!
I opened the door a crack and reached in with my arm. The phone was on top of the cabinet next to the door, my hand finally finding it after scrabbling around unseeing for a few seconds. In the cool air of the corridor, I hurriedly dressed. My parents had not called after me, so were probably glad I was gone. Play ride the wild pony was going to stick with me for years.
Suddenly without a place to sleep, I figured it was the perfect time to wander up to the headland where the students and probably others were watching for the ghost ship to appear.
There were boats beyond the harbour, visible because of their pilot lights and probably out there for no reason other than to try to see the ghost ship if it appeared. It struck me as strange that people were willing to believe in such guff, but stranger still that having convinced themselves there were killer ghosts around they then go looking for them. What happens if they were right and they met with the killer ghosts? Or had they not thought it through that far?
The climb up the path to the headland was demanding even though I had to go slow in deference to the dark. I could hear the voices of the persons already gathered on the headland before I could see them, the noise travelling far further at night than it would in the day. I crested the top of the path, bringing into view the people that went with the voices. The headland itself was a piece of land high above the village where signs had been erected warning of the cliff ahead. It was a picnic spot despite the danger and there were places to pull off the road and park a car. There were three cars parked on the grass, all older models. Just on the safe side of the warning signs were the two chaps I had met in the bar on the first night. I wracked my brains to remember their names, finally coming up with Tarquin and something. The other chap’s name would come to me probably. They were accompanied by another couple of chaps, both of whom were much older and had beards. I estimated their age at somewhere close to fifty. Also present were three girls about the same age as Tarquin and his friend. All of them were looking out to sea and had clustered around several expensive looking cameras mounted on tripods. They were cold, that much I could tell instantly from their body language, but had I needed more clues about how they felt, I did not have to wait long.
‘It’s bloody cold, Maxine. I’m going back to the car.’ One of the girls broke off from the pack and trudged away, swiftly followed by another one of the young ladies. Whether it was Maxine that had followed her or if the pair had left Maxine behind I could not tell.
‘Evening, chaps.’ I hallooed as I got within a few metres and had not been noticed.
‘Arrrrrh!’ Squealed Tarquin, jumping out of his skin as my voice unexpectedly pierced the silence of the night air a few feet from his head.
Geoffrey – I remembered his name finally, laughed at his friend’s reaction. The others then laughed along as well.
‘Welcome aboard.’ Said one of the older men jovially, but his attention was not focused on me for long. He went straight back to staring out to sea. The other mature chap next to him was using binoculars to get a better view.
‘Anything out there?’ I asked, the question aimed at anyone that wanted to answer it.
It was Geoffrey that replied, ‘Not yet.’
I joined them all in looking out to sea. On the exposed edge of the land, there was no hiding from the cool breeze coming ashore. It was only a light breeze and had it been stronger I would have wanted far more clothing than I had on. Even with that observation, I knew I would not stay out for very long. I intended to kill a couple of hours before returning to find my parents asleep. It was that, or sleep in the car – not a proposition I considered practical given the two tiny bucket seats it contained.
I have never previously had reason to watch the sea for the possible emergence of a ghostly pirate ship, but I can honestly report now that it is boring. An hour passed slowly, I checked my watch only when the girl that had not headed back to the car finally caved, admitting that she was too cold to stay out any longer. I got the impression she was there because she fancied Geoffrey and the boys had sold the girls the idea that this would be a fun thing to do. With her departing due to the cold, I decided I could start my walk back to the pub. The climb up here had made me nice and warm, the return trip might do the same.
As I turned to leave though, I heard a suppressed squeal of excitement from one of the older chaps. Then the camera shutters were going like mad as they tried to capture as many pictures as possible of the ghost ship that was rising from the water in front of the headland.
I stood open mouthed and watched as an ethereal image of a centuries-old wooden sail ship emerged from the inky black waves prow first to settle on the surface. It was shining with a ghostly light of its own making. The sails were tattered but were blowing about in the breeze. It was too distant to pick out fine details but acknowledging that I could not see it very well, I also accepted that I was looking at a ghost ship.
I am looking at a ghost ship.
I did not know how else to classify it. No wonder everyone else that had seen it ha
d said the same thing. It was utterly convincing. It was sailing west towards Cawsand itself. There were a handful of other ships in the water, visible only by the lights on them, which were all now converging on the line it was taking. Before any of them could reach it though, the nose dipped once more, and it vanished back beneath the waves, leaving nothing to show it had ever been there.
Next to me, there were whoops and cheers from the very excited spook sleuths and the bearded gentlemen. They were all high fiving and checking the camera gear to see what they had captured.
‘We are going to be fucking famous!’ Geoffrey shouted.
I worried that he might be right, then shook myself, a physical act to shift the foolishness. Whatever it was that I had seen, it was not a ghost ship being sailed by dead pirates. I had to find out what it was. I started back towards the village. The path down from the headland was not exactly treacherous, but it was not even either and it was steep in places. I wanted to run but prudently I kept my pace to a hastened walk. As the path descended, I still had a view out over the bay in front of Cawsand, so I saw the ship rise again no more than a few hundred metres from the shore. I kept going, losing sight of the ship a few seconds later as the path descended further, and bushes obscured my view.
Two minutes later, I was getting close to the village when a scream pierced the air.
Dead Pirates. Wednesday, November 2nd 0112hrs
It was a man's voice, no doubt about it. If my knowledge of screams was to be believed, the man was in pain and the scream had been cut off all too suddenly for my liking. I started running.
I was still on the path, hemmed in on both sides by thick gorse bushes and in almost total darkness. The clear sky provided a view of the top of the bushes, but no light was penetrating to where my feet were going. Inevitably I tripped on something. It might have been a root or a rock, but I stumbled, arms cartwheeling and fell heavily to the dirt.
I propelled myself back up, barely allowing the fall to arrest my forward motion and moments later burst from the bushes back at the spot between two houses where it started. Now there was streetlight and I could run with confidence.
I did not have far to go, running downhill and turning left or right through the winding narrow streets until I emerged on the seafront. I stopped to listen, unsure which way I needed to turn. The scream had been loud and had come from the shore so far as I could tell, but the village was quiet again, making me worry that no one else had heard it.
I held my breath so that the sound of my laboured breathing would not rob me of the chance to pinpoint where the person was, but there was no sound to hear. I exhaled and guessed, turning right and heading back towards the pub rather than turning left towards the jetty.
Jogging swiftly along the road that bordered the shore, I questioned who would be out at this time. The pub was long shut, there were no other businesses open and it was too late for anyone to be out walking a dog.
Then it hit me.
Gina’s men.
There was always one of them with the equipment. Earlier it had been Gina, was it still her and I was mistaken about the scream coming from a man? Or had the next chap on rotation replaced her. I pressed on, coming around the last turn to bring the pub into view. It was on my right, fifty yards ahead, the beach to my left already.
In the dark, I could only just about make out the weird electronic gear sited there. I grabbed the railing and vaulted over it to drop almost three yards to the dark ground below. The pebbles of the beach crunched beneath my feet as I hit them, the invisible ground shocking my legs despite knowing it was down there somewhere.
There was no sign of the person I expected to be monitoring/guarding the equipment. I stopped once more to listen.
Nothing.
‘Anyone here?' I called out. Then I cursed my stupidity, pulled my phone from my pocket and turned the torch on. The bright white light illuminated all around me in whatever direction I shone it. Finding the body took me less than a second.
It was ten feet away, by a piece of equipment Gina had told me the name of but which I could not now remember. I swung the light around three hundred and sixty degrees to make sure I was alone as I crossed the distance.
I saw immediately that it was the douchebag that kept picking fights with me. His head was a mess, there was a large gouge starting just before his hairline on the left side of his head which extended back over the crown of his skull. It must have been ten inches long and looked like he been hacked at with a machete. I could see the bone of his skull where the skin had peeled back from it. He was breathing though, so he was alive despite the blood loss. Head wounds always bleed profusely and often look worse than they are, but I believed the man needed urgent care.
He needed to get to a hospital, that was for sure. There was little I could do for him, I didn’t even want to roll him into the recovery position for fear he might have other injuries. He was unconscious but that did not worry me, he was better off like that for now and were he to encounter breathing difficulty I was here to react should I need to.
I called an ambulance, though I realised after disconnecting that I had not asked for an ETA and had no idea how long it would take them to get to this remote point or where they were coming from.
‘Pirates.' He mumbled, still not really conscious. He would go on to say it several more times before the ambulance finally found us thirty minutes later.
I was getting pretty damned cold by then as I had stripped off my coat and fleece liner to wrap around him. I was able to move about to fight against hypothermia, he was not, and he was laying on the cold sand and pebbles of the beach.
The flashing lights of the Ambulance attracted the attention of local residents that were either light sleepers or were already awake for some reason. Faces appeared at windows, then a few emerged from their houses, curiosity drawing them into the cold night air.
The paramedics had asked me what had happened. If they were sceptical about my involvement, they did not offer an opinion on the matter. Instead, they accepted that I had found him in his current condition and got on with treating him. His pulse was steady, but I knew that already from my own ministrations. It was also weak though which indicated that he had lost a decent percentage of his blood. I suspected that he was in no real danger now that they were treating him, an IV line was connected minutes after they arrived to replenish his system and they found no other injuries save for the one to his head. He was going to have quite the scar.
I checked my watch: 0159hrs. I expected to see one of the douchbag's colleagues at any moment. Typical night-time shift rotation would have the team switching over every couple of hours. There was no way one could stave off the cold or the boredom for much longer than that. As if on cue one of them appeared.
‘Son of a bitch!' He yelled as he saw me still kneeling close to his bloodied teammate. He thought I was to blame and was coming for me.
FFS!
It was the same chap that had accompanied the fallen man when he left the pasty shop to attack me yesterday. He had looked quite uncertain about his intentions then but did not now. He came running at me, his fists up and ready to fight.
‘Stop.’ Commanded Roberta. She was coming down the ramp that led onto the beach. It was where the ambulance was parked, its back doors open and light flooding out to illuminate her. She was wearing whatever clothes she had found to throw on, a pair of jeans that needed ironing and a Northface jacket. Bereft of make-up she was still cute.
The man ignored her instruction and launched himself at me. I moved back to meet his leap, timing his attack so I could catch him around the torso. I converted his motion by spinning off my back foot so that he landed on his back with me on top of him.
It gave Roberta time to close the remaining distance and shove her Police ID in his face. The fight left him instantly.
‘I didn’t do it.’ I said, now that I thought he might listen. He looked sceptical. Just a few feet away the paramedics were getting ready
to move him. He was strapped to a gurney and his head was bandaged, the white gauze going around and around his skull and over his face to cover much of it. He was still unconscious but looked to be coming around.
‘Pirates.’ He murmured, his eyes coming open for a second.
Roberta went to him, flashing her badge at the medics as they were about to lift him.
‘We need to get him to hospital.’ One said. ‘He has lost a lot of blood.’
‘One question.’ She insisted.
She took his hand, her tiny digits lost in his meaty paw and leaned down so that she was directly above his face. Opening her mouth to speak she paused and swung her head back in my direction. It was not me she wanted though but his colleague. ‘His name?'
‘Err, Matthew Todd.’ He replied.
‘Matthew.' Roberta called softly. ‘Matthew.' Again. His eyes opened, one of which half covered by bandages. ‘What happened?' Who did this?' she demanded.
‘Pirates.’ He stammered, fear in his voice at the memory. ‘Their skin was hanging off. I could see their bones.’
His voice had carried to the onlookers, the stillness of the night allowing it to reach their ears clearly.
‘We saw the ghost ship.’ Announced Tarquin. I looked up to see both he and Geoffrey leaning over the railings. Perhaps the lights of the ambulance had drawn them down the path from the headland to investigate. Or perhaps they had their photographs now and wanted to show people.
Murmurs were spreading through the crowd.
‘Dead pirates.' Matthew the douchbag said again, more subdued this time like it was a terrible memory he could not escape.
‘We need to go.' the paramedic said and with that, the pair of them grabbed either side of the gurney again and were loading him into the ambulance two seconds later.