Fragments

Of
Fear

„All that we see or seem

is but a dream within a dream.‟

Edgar Allan Poe

„That which motivates mankind is fear.‟

Thomas Hobbes
 THE LONER

Harry Betts was a loner. It happens to some people you know; just creeps up on
them. Parents die, indifferent relatives and inherited shyness all contributed to
his loneliness.

He drifted from job to job. From flats to lodgings, to a one-bedroom bedsit

down South someplace where the prices rocketed and neighbours played loud
music all night. Being a sensitive soul he tried poetry, read some philosophy
and came to religion. Not seriously; didn`t attend church but thought a lot. You
know what I mean? We all try it sometime.

His thoughts; the noise from unknown neighbours; losing his job at last drove
him into himself and he decided to take up hiking. Loaded down with
everything imaginable in a large rucksack he plodded for miles and arrived back
in the dingy bedsit in a state of near collapse. The landlady moaned that she
thought he`d taken off because the rent was due. He paid her.

From then on he walked, slowly with a pencil and notebook and a pipe of
tobacco plus matches in one pocket and sandwiches in the other.

He thought he wanted adventure but knew that he wanted escape, freedom to be

himself. None knew or cared who he was or where he went. He was a nonentity
in a city of nonentities.
In a newsagents Harry purchased a map. He just closed his eyes, reached out,
took it down from the shelf and bought it. Back home he gazed at some part of
the East Midlands most of which appeared to be a wilderness. So much space
scared but fascinated him. Harry had never heard of the place but maybe this
was part of some new experience in his life. Opportunity was knocking and he
was wondering whether to hear it or not. He chose to listen.

A bus that had wandered through a maze of unbelievably narrow winding tracks
dropped him at cross roads. Harry watched the noisy vehicle chug out of sight.
Perhaps he should wait around in the hope that a lone bus would come the other
way. Then he could drop this lunatic theory of escape and get back to the reality
of people, even though they never acknowledged him. It was just a fit of nerves
that evaporated as he took in the magnificent views.

The map reading had been easy at the planning stage. Now it was a piece of
coloured paper, a mystery when compared to the countryside. He felt
reasonably certain that this was the cross roads he`d worked out and someplace
opposite, down the cart track, there should be a footpath.

Harry walked down the track and sure enough there was a stile. What a triumph;
what a relief success brought. He was way down the long sloping field when the
path dwindled into crushed grass and vanished away in a thistle-strewn pasture.
He looked back the way he had come. It was a long, long way and uphill. He
would go forward.

He stopped at the edge of a wood that bordered the field. Rusty barbed-wire
blocked his way. He plodded alongside it to a place where a branch had fallen
and held the wire down to the ground. At least in the wood the going was bound
to be easy. Harry soon decided that woods were alright on paintings. It is in
parks that the trees have great gaps between them. But here, brambles tripped
him, twigs whipped his face and the atmosphere smelt of resinous mould.
Maybe if he went further in!

A slope of red earth supporting great trees whose roots twisted like serpents
stopped Harry in his tracks.

"It`s be brave or panic", he thought aloud.

It was panic. He blundered up the slope, slipping and sliding and out into a large
clearing.

To be on the safe side he ran to the centre before nervous exhaustion caused
him to sit down on a tree stump.
That was when he saw Shearsley Church.

A secretive, ancient place, Harry felt, and thought to search for it on his map.
Save that his map wasn`t in his pocket, not in any of his pockets.

"Blast! I must have dropped the thing."

He felt another twinge of fear at so loud a voice in so quiet a place. Well, where
there is a church, there will be roads and people and buses, he thought.

The sky was dark with scudding clouds and splinters of snow occasionally stung
his face.

"But surely there`s time to visit the church? Then find a bus. Better still, be
extravagant and `phone a cab".

Harry trod the path of stone flags to the churchyard wall.

"Brothers we are treading where the saints have trod," he hummed to the worn
surface of the grit stone slabs beneath his feet.

Strangely the path ended in a mass of briars against the churchyard wall. It was
high but he could climb over it. Concerned that someone might see, Harry
began to wander in the field keeping close to the wall. A sudden gust of wind
and a loud screech, like a knife scraping a plate, brought him back to the briars.
Behind them a rusty iron gate swung back and forth until the wind dropped.

Harry reflected, "What a beautiful place. It reminds me of Gray‟s Elegy. See,

how does it go? Far from the madding crowds‟ ignoble strife….."

He struggled through the briars against the wall and pushed the gate open.
Harry paused for a moment on the grass-covered pathway to look at neat ranks
of stones in a cemetery to his left. Then he went through a wide gate-way on his
right and on to a gravel path around the church. Here was another world of old
table tombs with verdigris on their brasses, leaning dark slabs and a tangle of
grass and brambles.

On a notice board in the porch a tattered card, held with rusty drawing pins,
destroyed his intention to explore the church. Harry peered at the faded writing
and whispered as he read:

"No vicar for the past five years…….may obtain the key at……" but the corner
had been nibbled away by something hungry.
He turned the great iron door handle and heard the echoes as the large heavy
latch clacked inside the empty church.

"Oh, well, I tried. Now then, Harry, less of the self-pity and let`s find a road,"
he muttered.

His feet crunched on the gravel as his eyes gazed over the ancient graveyard.

"Hello, then! Now that is interesting."

Almost hidden beneath a great holly bush was a tomb, one long side of which
had eroded away.

"I‟ve always wondered about these table tombs. Did they put the coffin on the
ground and build round it or raise the tomb above a burial vault?"

There was no straight line to this new interest. In the old days people didn`t
dash in straight lines, they wandered, stopped and wondered. So the climb over
a fallen yew, the tugs to free a sock clawed by bramble and the nervous
encounter with a tall thistle took time.

"The side slab had eroded, broken in half and fallen inwards," Harry reflected as
he crouched down and looked into the dark space.

"Yes! There is a hole, lined with stone by the looks of it. Well! That proves they
dug a vault."

"Can`t pass up this chance", he whispered to nothing in particular.

Harry sat on the coarse grass and slid his legs into the gap and then shuffled his
body underneath the massive top stone. There were a few moments of struggle
when his anorak rucked up behind him on the broken stone. Bent double, Harry
managed to get his feet on to the top step of a stair. Having freed the anorak he
pulled his matches from his pocket. Next, he tore a page from his notebook and
carefully folded and lit it to make a tiny torch.

It was so thrilling, all this newness, this bravery, this being different, that any
second thoughts or nervousness were smothered.

The sides of the stairway were of huge mortared grit stones. It was quite a
struggle to descend because of the narrow width of the stair but at last he was
down the steps and standing on a stone floor. Frantically he made another torch
to light from the charring fragments now burning his fingers.
"Hmm! Bit disappointing. No Dracula. Go on. Frighten yourself," Harry said to
reassure himself. "This really is wonderful workmanship, arched roof and stone
shelves. But there is no one here. That`s odd!"

Harry made and lit another torch and walked to the far end of the burial vault to
examine the pile of rubbish on a shelf there.

"Goodness! This must be the occupant. It`s sad really. No coffin plate as far as I
can see. Just a few bones full of holes and two coffin handles."

The muffled thump and earth bounding down the steps behind registered in his
mind long before Harry could speak his fear.

"The large top stone has fallen. My shuffling about must have been the last
straw," he guessed.

Harry squeezed up the steps and bowed his back beneath the coarse underside
of the slab.

"Fits perfectly," he gasped as he looked using the smoky flame and felt with his
free hand at the cold stonework.

"Climb as far up as I can. Now, deep breaths and then……heave! Keep calm
Harry Betts. Get your feet close together. Oh! I can almost feel the dark!
Where`s the blasted book? Match! Match! Match! Good. Cursed sweat,
hair……always falling over my face. Have to - get - it - cut."

He choked and strained upwards.

"Just sit for a minute. Get breath back. Take stock. One page and two covers.
The match box itself. Three matches left."

"Now it`s obvious that this is too heavy to shift. Best plan will be to pick out the
mortar from round one of these top side blocks. Lift it out and dig my way out
through the soil. Yes! That`s it! That`s it, Harry my boy. Doesn`t seem so bad
when you can hear the sound of your voice."

Harry gripped the stem of his pipe with both hands and dug at the mortar.

"Oh, no! It`s broken! This stuff is as hard as the rock. Why didn`t I carry a
pocket knife? The light you idiot! Just in time - light a cover. I know, the
handles."

Shielding the tiny flame with his cupped hand Harry hurried back to the end
shelf of the vault and picked up the brass handles.
"Should have done this from the start," he puffed as he chipped away at the top
edge of the stone block. "It`s weaker than the mortar," he laughed. "Please,
please don`t break," he pleaded with the second handle when the first shattered
into fragments in his sticky hands.

"Well! Too much to hope I suppose," Harry moaned dejectedly and sat on the
steps as his last tiny torch went dark red then vanished as it became ashes.

"I can feel the soil. Can just get my hand through the gap” he panted. “ Grief! I
can see light. Thank God at least for that. Maybe I can reach……What`s that?
Someone`s coming! I can hear the gate. Hey! Hey, help! Help!"

Harry rammed his hand and wrist into the gap he had so laboriously made.

"Damnation! Stuck! Help!"

With one tremendous push he thrust his hand, wrist and arm past the
imprisoning grit stone. He waved and waved his lacerated arm above the grass
and felt the cold.

The sound did not carry far. The wind changed direction and the gate stopped
swinging. In agony Harry pulled back his arm and tried to examine it but the
light faded rapidly as snow covered the small hole he had made. The cold
sinking feeling born of the realization that he was absolutely alone against
primitive forces came to Harry Betts. As he screamed out his terror and lonely
despair the wind howled and snow swirled, drifted and piled over the
countryside at the onset of what was to be the worst Winter in living memory.

Colin Pounder, 1970

 …THE CHEST…

Up the hill of cold wet clay the hurricane tore off leaves and sent horse-
chestnuts horizontally across the way.

They cursed when the spined missiles struck their faces and the chest grew
heavier. From time to time they stopped and felt stifled by creosote fumes
blowing from the new barn somewhere in the dark across the fields.

At such a time one went ahead and gazed around like some innocent traveller on
this ancient King`s Road.

The metalled corners of the heavy box cut into hands and blood spread in the
puddles. Rain streamed along faces creased with stress and effort and eyes
strained at the way ahead or up at the streaming skies. Gusts hissed through
leaves like spirits abroad screeching as they rode the storm.

What an accursed night. Haunted by living men out on the road somewhere
ahead, or behind, or trudging in search across the ploughed land on either side.
They reached the old lodge house piled high with brambles. One kicked open
the front door. They dragged the chest inside and set it down on one end, leapt
back as it rocked, then stood as if growing out of the floor.

More out of habit than of value they wrung out wet clothes. Water ran across
chilled skin and squelched in sodden boots. One kicked the door closed and sat
down in the dust. The storm muffled, was angry and whistled in the chimneys,
rattled loose window panes and stalked the rooftop. The smell of mould mixed
with pipe smoke until others cursed the old man for showing a light. Even
above the din of the screaming wind an owl called, or was it a man? They
peered out through grimed window panes but saw nothing.

Rain dripped down the chimney and tapped on the dry twigs of a fallen
jackdaws nest in the grate. With the roar of a great beast a branch tore, twisted
and fell, like a serpent across a corner of the house.

A confusion of shouts pitched against squeals of rats, all terrified, as both

scrabbled about on the floor.

The boy sat in the corner and sobbed quietly. The old man cried inwardly. The
others stood or slouched and wondered.

That common men should be brought to this! Brought by desperation and

suppression to murder the tyrant. In the darkness a salt smell of blood came
from the chest. He still commanded them, drove them down and despised their
lowered status. Dead he might be but the chest stood upright. In death as he had
been in life he stood, cold, arrogant and cruel…

Colin Pounder, 1992

 TAN-JAN-DATU-MAR
(This is an account of an incident during the 1939-1945 World War.)

I`ve heard tales of course but you can spot a yarn when you`ve been to
sea. Do you remember old Brad, surrounded by the apprentices hanging
onto every word, when he told his adventures? And how he`d slip in
that stuff about typhoons and how they had spent two days on one
wave.

No, I haven`t seen the Flying Dutchman. The weather off the Cape can
be very bad and I have seen the sea glow. No! I`m not spinning you a
line. It glows a light greenish colour due to the plankton that blooms at
a certain time of the year. I reckon some folks seeing that in a storm
might imagine ships and all sorts of things.

I should be wary if I were you of the tales some folks tell. I`ve always
found them that talks the most has done the least. Then there are men
who are well nigh silent because they have seen such horrors and felt
fear at its worst.

Me? Well, I suppose so in a way. After all, I was in the navy fighting the
Japanese and the both of us against the sea and the weather.

No! No, I won`t tell you of fights and boredom; of men lost at sea; or of
the terrible things' men do to each other because the veneer of
civilisation has peeled off to reveal rotten wood underneath. You are too
young to hear tell of such things.

But there was one incident that stays with me while the others fade
away.

I was on a minesweeper. We escaped from the Sulu Sea through the

Balabac Strait and into the South China Sea. You`ve heard that saying of
`put a bit away for a rainy day`? Well, we hit a monsoon! At least the
Monsoon was on the turn and the weather goes real topsy turvy, so
much so, the great waves drove us against Louisa Reef. It is said that the
tea-clipper Caliph vanished thereabouts and us being made mostly of
wood brought that to mind when we heard cracking and splintering.

The Captain had retired from the sea but been brought back when war
was declared. He always scared me in his ways yet we all trusted the old
man. So when he said it was nothing to worry about, of course, we
believed him. In a way he told us to keep us calm, or as calm as any man
can be with the screaming winds and sea and sky all one mass of flying
water.

At least we weren`t cast on the reef and when the winds dropped we
bounced around on hefty waves with a great gash along the port side
and the fresh water tanks well nigh emptied into the bilges. Then we
sighted a Japanese ship some way off and decided to sail South West
more or less parallel with the coast of Sarawak. He slipped down the
horizon, so either he hadn`t seen us or was too busy with his own
problems.

We were, so I was told, about sixty miles off Tan Datu on the North
coast of Borneo, I reckon somewhere near Natuna Selatan. The Captain
had decided our greatest need in the near future would be fresh water
and, next, to get some repairs done. I had helped inspect the fresh water
tanks. The water left in them looked and smelled as if it would climb out
any minute and go for a walk.

A small island was sighted. There are hundreds of such and each one
likely to have an enemy crew on board. We sailed as near round the
thing and as close as possible. Every man not on other duties watched
but we saw no one.

The Captain ordered boats and fourteen men to go ashore and look the
place out for water and any fruit. Two Petty Officers, with revolvers,
and the rest of us with rifles, took to the boats and we rowed across.
After all the time we had been in action we had a kind of sixth sense and
kept a lookout while the boats were hauled part way onto a wide beach.

It was sand and some shingle, shells of all sorts and in the region of a
hundred feet wide up to a sort of ridge about four feet high topped with
trees and dense vegetation. The officers decided they would each take
two men and head inland at the East and West end and the rest of us
were to barge inwards straight ahead. If anyone found anything they
were to return to the boats and wait. Unless it was the enemy for whom
different arrangements were made.

Unless you`ve been in those parts it`s difficult to even imagine plants so
packed that you have to chop your way forward a few feet at a time. The
air is wet and leeches hang from some of the leaves besides evil little
jiggers that bore under skin and toe nails and lay eggs. The trees were
some two or three feet in diameter but there was no fruit of any kind.

We were meditating on all these things and kept wary, swatting insects
and moaning about rifle slings swinging the gun round to our front,
when, of a sudden, we were in a clearing. The whole area had been
cleared down to thin soil or exposed sand-coloured rock. In the centre
was a shelter.

Now, how can I describe it? A nine-inch diameter bamboo, with it`s
roots still in the ground, had been part snapped five feet up and bent
horizontally. Ten feet or so along it had been part snapped and bent
down and, what had been the top, was in the ground. Other bamboo
and branches and stuff had been leaned against this cross-piece to make
a shelter.

We stood a way off and looked at the place, when a huge dark-skinned
man, over six feet high, came out. He was a huge chap and his teeth
were capped with gold. One of our lads, who knew a few languages,
tried everything but the man spoke in some language we couldn`t
identify. Mind you, there are over a hundred languages in those parts.

He made no move towards us and, when I again think about it, he made
no threats either. But we all felt threatened. There was something
sinister about the whole business. He was a giant compared to every
other person we had met in that part of the world. And where had he
got those gold caps for his teeth? We were all puzzled by the bamboo
bent and shaped like it was. Such work needed strength beyond that of
anyone we had ever met.

We decided to go back to the boat. None would admit to it of course, but

the strange man had an unpleasant effect on our nerves. An officer and
two others joined us after a wait of about an hour. They listened to our
account. They had not seen anyone and none of us found water nor
anything passable as fruit.

The morning passed and we were into the afternoon while we waited
for the others. A message from the Captain ordered us to return and we
were getting into the boats when one of the lads shouted and pointed up
the beach.

Three bodies were near the waterline. The officer put two of us by the
boats, ordered others to keep rifles aimed towards the ridge and the rest
of us tramped to the bodies. Two men were dead and one was
unconscious. Their backs had been broken. Their rifles had disappeared
as had the officer`s revolver. None of them was in the water and there
were no footprints.

I don`t recall if anyone voiced what we all thought; that after their backs
had been broken, they had, somehow, been hurled across the beach. It
was a good hundred feet wide but there were no footprints.

We carried them back to the boat and were for seeking out that giant.
The Captain ordered us back. The unconscious officer died just after we
got him aboard. The old man upped anchor and we left.

How did that man get those gold-capped teeth? And he must have bent
bamboo for his shelter! Datu, with a few inhabitants, was sixty odd
miles away and there was no one else on the island. It must have been
he who broke our men`s backs and threw them across the beach.

Aye! It happened just as I told you. It flies in the face of reason, which is,
perhaps, why it stays in my mind when all else of those days fades
away.
 THE SOJOURNER

"Car broke down?"

"Er, yes. Yes, it has. I don`t know what`s wrong with it."

"Fine things when they are alright but a burden when they aren`t. Come far?"

"Miles. There is some problem on the motorway so I tried to get across country
on the minor roads. Got lost actually and then the stupid engine packed up on
me."

"Be alright here. Ken the Landlord will put you up until the car is mended."

"Oh, yes. He`s showed me a nice little room for me tonight."

"A good lad is Ken. Miles you say?"

"Yes. I`m a salesman. We`re a co-operative little company selling plastics for
small firms. Not double glazing or anything like that. Bloody car! It stopped on
the verge of that steep hill out there. I let it free-wheel, came round the corner,
saw the road branched, managed to brake and stopped in the pub yard."

"Exciting!"

"I`ll say! Is there a `phone hereabouts? The landlord, Ken, doesn`t seem to have
one in the pub."

"There was talk some while back but nowt ever came of it. You`ll be alright
here. Does want to come over with us or just sit awhile?"
"I think I`ll just sit and have a rest if you don`t mind. It`s been a rotten day and
that ride down the hill didn`t do my nerves any good."

"Aye. Well, Ken will no doubt bring you something over."

The leather squeaked. The fan hummed stale smoke, sweat and beer into the
snow outside. They`d locked the door and closed the curtains.

Into his drowsy mind came, `And in some corner of the hubbub coucht…`

"There`ll be no police around tonight. The track over Wetton will be well under
snow by now."

Geneva to the brim, cold as ice, hot as fire in the throat. The salt of nuts and
crisps. The strands of turkey in old teeth.

The clock ticked as time stood still.

A sting of old tobacco burned the throat, washed away with the sweet flow of
rum. Scorching down, outlining innards like an x-ray, lighting up the stomach
like a lantern in the graveyard.

A deep drawn, filling breath, eyes closed, a sigh and contentment that fills the
soul with peace. The strong spirit drinks and generous food helped him relax
and doze. He half listened to the conversation from the long table where the
locals were sitting.

Old Norman, who had popped in for a ginger beer for his wife, here five hours
now. Laughter and plans for going a milking at two in the morning.

A smell of ripe Stilton. A bite with the teeth, a bite on the tongue. Cream filling
the mouth. A fire of cold Geneva and the smooth blend of cream and spirits.

A flame to tobacco and the air still; tick-tock of a long case clock a sense of
silence which roused one-legged Frank.

"The angels are passing over!"

Twenty minutes past each hour, silence under them, directed by Metatron as the
earth sleeps and dreamers dream.

They sat with the flavours on their tongues and in the air as the snow fell and
they became a memory while the world slept.
"`Bout this time last year as you chopped off your left hand wi` your billhook,
weren`t it Zachariah?"

"Aye, but it`s grown again nicely thank you."

"Looks better than the old one."

`Crack!` of a log in the fire and the tang of wood smoke injected into the room.

"Zilman has finished building that tower of his at last, I hear."

"Ohh, nigh on a couple of months back. He built it into the ground to disguise it
as a well."

"Clever man he is, thou knows. Never know whose poking about these days."

He felt they were looking at him. He drew in a deep, warm, comforting breath,
blinked and wondered what had been dream and what real. They were seated
around the long oak table butted up to the bar. Blue pipe smoke floated in
orderly plumes to become chaotic swirls before joining the haze under the
beams, amongst fox masks, old muzzle loaders and swords.

"How`s young Margaret?"

"Never goes out. Not set a foot over the step since she made faces of the clouds
and one spoke to her."

A stab of fear went through him. He closed his eyes and listened.

"Here`s one for you, Zachariah. How many legs does an insect have?"

"Ho-ho! Asking that of a man what has spent over a century afield!"

"Insects have six legs…"

"Get on with the knitting young un."

"Ahhh!…"

"Wait on! Wait on! Insects have six legs except the Chrysoant, which has
seven."

"Ohhh! Might a known."

"What reckons happened to Charlie Griffin then?"

"Drownded."

"Daft beggar. Of course he drowned. Go back to knitting your spider-webs.

Zachariah, what happened to him?"

"I reckon he met his namesake. Times many everyone has been warned to keep
away from Foulevil Pond. But not him, Oh, no! Not him. There were footprints
of some creature with great lion-like claws. And Martelby Stevenson heard the
sound of wings like some great bird in the night when Griffin was found next
morning. I reckon he met his namesake by Foulevil Pond, tried to avert his gaze
and fell in."

"But we`ll never know."

"I told you, go back to your knitting. They`ll be coming for that and it`ll not be
finished. Then what, eh? Then what!?"

"Ohh, well we might know! Knowing isn`t everything. Fact is, knowing can be
dangerous. Look at old Cecilia White. Only one other knows what she saw by
the Standing Stones that turned her hair grey and struck her dumb and that is
John Staniforth."

"Aye, and he`s a grey-haired mute!"

His mouth had dried long ago. A crumb of Stilton slid from betwixt his teeth
and tainted his tongue. Through the lashes of his half-closed eyes he watched
them. The pipe smoke wavered, rose only a little way now to add to the hazy
cloud untouched by the fan, swirled only by an arm raising a glass or the lean of
a torso to the table to move the pieces in a game.

"A red star shines down Peacock Pit Shaft on a certain night."

"Knit!"

"He`s right though, and guess what night? Oh, of course you all knows - I
weren`t thinking."

"The young un didna know, dids`t tha?"

"I`ve got to knit."

"He`s upset now. It does shine, lad, you`re right and it`s tonight that it does so.
That is why the pit was sunk in the first place. That`s why the knitting has to be
finished."
"Yes! And by the youngest."

"That`s right. We all had to do it."

"I know. I know. And I know what happens if I don`t get it finished…"

"Ken reckoned there is a frost."

"Zachariah?"

"Aye, why not? Why not take the lad away from knitting, we can give him a
hand to finish it before they come. You know, lad, if you stand by the long
abandoned shafts of Pilsberry Old Pit on a frosty night you can hear the
hydraulic engine pumping water down Peelsmouth Sough."

"We`ll take you to listen."

A scraping of wooden chairs on the floor, a swallow and the thump as a glass
was replaced on the table. The door was opened and a draught of cold air chilled
legs and ankles.

"Do`st know that in the Engine Room of the long lost Golconda Mine there is a
heap of gold?"

"`Tis known that in the secret laboratories of Aureate they can turn gold into
lead, which makes gold even more valuable."

He opened his eyes further and saw the door closing, the smoke cloud diluted to
a blue veil over the lights and the fire to angry red cinders in the black grate. On
the table an old stained wooden box with a poker worked domino in the lid and,
in the far corner, a neat row of tiny knitted garments, some catching the light
like silver mesh, and a pair of needles with a part-finished coat.

"Sir! Are you ready to go up the wooden hill to blanket fair?

“Blanket fair? Wooden Hill?”

“It‟s a saying hereabouts for up the stairs to bed. I‟ll just turn down these lamps.
You be on your way up. I`ve put a towel on the bed. And oil in the lamp. I`ll
just gather up these glasses and then start bottling up before they get back the
noisy crew that they are.”
 …O`SHAUGHNESSY…

O`Shaughnessy lay in the dark of the place. It was what he always longed for
but had a fear of its coming for it meant the old man had died. He had grown to
hate and had moved away, far away, but blood was blood and he was a part of
that which bore his hatred. The craft of wickedness of control and crippling he
had inflicted on his son. The unceasing rain of sarcasm and condemnation,
“Kathleen‟s not for the likes of you...”

He paused in his thoughts as far away a vixen screamed and rain pattered on
the small window panes. The floor boards creaked as he moved across the
narrow bed and reached out with his right hand. Finger ends struck hard wood;
reflex withdrew his arm. He reached again, moving his fingers as in a reluctant
wave. Fingers felt a carved edge and climbed up on to smooth wood. There was
a softness of thick dust; a touch at something small that rocked gently.

He extended his reach until, again, the object moved. A deep breath and he
grasped it and drew it to him.

"Well! Ye don`t struggle, that`s for sure. And you sit in my hand like you was
made for it. So cold, rounded and smooth. Why! You're a boulder, so you are.
But what`s this? A stalk? Sort of ridges down one side. Yet you`re not sharp are
you? And you taper to this small knobbly end. Bless me! This is metal. Must
be! It`s warming in my hand. If I could but get the wicked old fool out of my
mind. `As long as a man`s name is spoken, he lives`, he`d say at a graveside.
What a craft he had to weave himself into a child`s mind. No escape from him
though he has been gone these long years. All this time to arrange my affairs,
break free of daily toil and come here. Trek to this lonely house at night and,
exhausted, lie on this old cot knowing neither place nor thing in this darkness.
Surely, surely there is at least a candle stump and a match."

He reached out with his left hand, an antenna that probed the dark. There was
cold but no substance. The dead man`s voice spoke in his mind, "In the dark he
reached for a match and the matches were placed in his hand."

Damn him! To blight me so and ruin my inheritance.

But how would a piece of smooth metal be growing out of a boulder? You don`t
smell of anything. No! And if I give you a shake, make no sound either. These
two little bumps side by side here?"

Surely it doesn`t grow out of the stone. I can feel……A tail! Aye! A tail so it is.
Why, bless me, you`re a fish. A metal fish fastened to a boulder so you are. Ha,
ha, a fish on a boulder…"

The old man dozed, sank deeper but startled awake by some roar of the gale, a
tile blown off the roof or the clatter of an old bucket blown across the yard. A
grasp of the strange object reassured him and he dozed again.

Until the sky streaked with greens and gold and the dawn came, lighting the
room a little. He lifted his hands and opened them to gaze on the tiny figure of a
mermaid seated on a boulder and the name Kobenhavn.

"Kathleen`s present! Oh, God! Oh God! All the years that have gone! Oh that
she were with me now…”

Colin Pounder.
 APPRENTICE
Some look on the Victorians as if they lived in the Golden Age. Not me! I have
worked in their dismal factories, down their miserable coal-pits and, like most
others, suffer what remains of their hypocrisy and humbug.

When somebody declared their ambition was to get back to Victorian values I
shuddered. Mind you, I will grant, they achieved their ambition for, now, we
have mentally ill people thrown on the streets to join the homeless, millions out
of work, while greed prospers and selfishness prevails. If it were not for central
heating they would, no doubt, have kids sweeping soot from inside chimneys.

There are still some Victorian factories around here. All built of dark brick, with
several wooden floors supported by cast-iron columns, and a dark, cylindrical
tower housing a spiral stone staircase. The basements are windowless and vast,
with a boiler and the junk of ages stored out of sight and out of mind.

I left school with no certificates; secondary modern kids did not take exams, the
truth being, those in authority had written us off and did not feel they should
waste money. I left school on the Friday and began work the following Monday,
with a firm who made and repaired lifts.

I was an apprentice. Do you know what an apprentice is? I should ask - was -
now we have Victorian values back. No! His parents did not hand over a sum of
cash to some master craftsman so that their son might pass the next seven years
getting clued up on how to produce the best of whatever it was the master was
crafty at. In my day an apprentice was taken on because his wages did not
amount to much. He could do the fetching and carrying and be generally ill-
used and have his time wasted. Any skills he acquired he most likely had
already latent within him and, to these, he could add - dodging the foreman and
learning how to steal the firm's property.

So it was I could carry the heavy tool bag while my `master` wandered on ahead
smoking a fag and telling me to catch up as he apparently had not got all day.

A call came to go out and inspect a lift and a hoist, both in a lace factory. The
place was off any bus route so we were allowed to borrow a small van.

The `master` parked the van in the cobbled yard and told me to stay put while
he found out what was needed. In due time he came back and pointed to, what
appeared to be, a board suspended flat in space against the wall of the sixth
storey.
He set off and I followed after with the tool bag. I could not help noticing that
the arched wooden door at the bottom of the brick tower had a key as huge as
that of any old church. The stone steps were hollowed where feet had trudged
up and down for nigh on two centuries.

At last we went through an archway and stood in a vast empty room lit through
small panes of glass in arched cast-iron windows. In places floorboards were
missing. In the wall opposite to the stairway were large double-doors, painted
green, under which light streamed where the wood had rotted away. The expert
turned a wooden beam that held the doors closed and pulled and tugged at them,
but nothing happened. He then gave them a push and several things seemed to
happen at once. The doors opened outwards. His impetus took him with them
and he found himself standing on the horizontal board, from each corner of
which a rusty chain was fastened. The chains came to an apex at a large hook,
with a heavier chain over a pulley and which came inside through a slot cut in a
stone block in the wall.

At that moment he was not very interested in the set-up, only that it swung
wildly outwards and back until it, finally, thudded to a stop against the wall. It
was the first time I realised he could be frightened. His face was very pale. His
knuckles were white as he gripped the two chains nearest the opening. When he
put out his foot to step back into the building the board tilted and moved in the
opposite direction and away from the wall. At that moment I saw the look in his
eyes and actually felt sorry and ready to forgive all his coarse language,
bragging and bullying.

I went to the edge of the arched opening. The stone sill was worn into a convex
curve after much loading and unloading. I leaned against the wall and, with my
left arm fully extended behind me, grasped at the brickwork of the inside wall.
With my right hand I reached out for him to grasp and pull himself inside. He
was gasping for breath in short, hurried, shallow breaths. Each movement
caused the board platform to rattle and move away from the wall.

He dare not let go of the chains to reach my hand.

I stood while my eyes adjusted to the dim light and noticed that the heavy chain
that came in through the wall went around a large pulley. Various, heavy
gearwheels, obviously, powered it from the most ancient electric motor I have
ever seen. On the floor near the motor was a wooden pole with a large hook at
one end.

When I picked up the pole I saw it was polished, by much use, to a light,
varnished mahogany colour. While I was trying to work out the best means of
rescuing the man he was spluttering at me and nodding his head up and down
and his eyes were signalling `down there` - `look down there`. I looked down
and in the edge of the platform nearest the door was a kind of keyhole plate. All
was clear to me. I crouched on the floor and put the hook into the hole in the
plate and held the platform hard against the wall. I swear to this day that he flew
into the room. He sat down gasping thanks, and, stuffing a cigarette into his
mouth, lit it. His face took on that radiance of relief and release only a smoker
knows.

Over an hour passed and several cigarettes and mutterings of genuine thanks to
me for his salvation.

We examined the motor and gears before stepping back from it and pulling
down a heavy, unshielded, knife switch. A few sparks came from the switch
blades and loud humming sounds from the motor. After `umpteen tries the
motor did not start and the hoist stayed put.

A closer examination of the motor found the carbon brushes had completely
worn away and the commutator was black with years of carbon. He decided a
pair of too large brushes we had in the tool bag could be filed down on emery
paper. He would do that job as it meant sitting on the floor and rubbing the
brushes up and down on the rough paper until they were of a size to fit the
motor. I would trudge down the stairs in the tower and go in search of a can of
petrol and a brush to use on cleaning the copper strips of the commutator.

Out into sunshine I looked up at the hoist platform and then walked across the
cobbled yard and began to climb the stone spiral staircase in a second tower. On
the fourth floor I found a man who looked as I imagine Rumpelstiltskin must
have looked. The tiny wizened man in overalls, patched and worn, grinned
when I asked for petrol. I realise now that he had other designs for it…
Anyway, he took me into his workshop that was magnificent. Nothing was ever
put away. Boxes of washers lay on a bench where they had been placed long
ago by hands now dead and gone. Drawers went up as high as the ceiling and
held screws, nuts and bolts, woodruff keys (large), woodruff keys (small),
woodruff keys. Tools were scattered everywhere. An old office stool, with
horsehair stuffing hanging out, was pushed up to a rickety table with a mug half
full and growing a small garden of mould. He, meanwhile, was unscrewing caps
off cans and taking a deep sniff at each.

He held a can towards me, which would grace any museum, and told me it was
pet.

After the long climb back to where we were working I put the can on the floor.
Now, whether it was the increasing heat of the day or my swinging the can as I
travelled, but when the top was unscrewed most of the contents sprayed out and
all over us. We took turns to liberally apply petrol to the commutator and felt
some satisfaction as it looked quite new and undamaged.

He knelt, leaned forward over the motor and ordered me to switch on. I pushed
the knife switch downwards and the motor roared into life. The gears gave off a
shrill unoiled racket as the board disappeared from sight and rattled down the
side of the factory wall. But the thing that really mattered was a ring of brilliant
white fire around the commutator and which suddenly ran across the motor,
then the gears, until the whole thing was bathed in a sort of mystic flame. With
the draught from the whirling machinery, flames touched on to liquid on the
floor and approached us. I switched off and we skipped our way over missing
sections of floor until we were out of reach.

The flames withdrew across the floor, getting smaller and smaller until, with a
final puff of defiance, went out on the motor casing. We then noticed the
dreadful smell. The can had not held petrol at all but white spirit. We were
covered in the stuff!

My `master` had had enough, so he said. We would check out the lift and then
away we would go.

I had to fetch Rumpelstiltskin from his tower to show us where the lift was. A
latticed steel gate, once painted grey, had a length of string fastened to it at one
end and a piece of lace roller at the other. The little wrinkled man took up the
wooden roller and hammered on the lattice gate. A few minutes went by and
then, with a rattle and many loud squeaks and rumbles, the lift trundled into
view, complete with an attendant in a faded maroon uniform.

I bit my lower lip when it was explained that the lift should travel from the
basement to the manager`s office but that it did not reach the top floor.

Some hours later the motor and winding gear had been checked and greased.
The `master` pushed the buttons and the lift travelled to the top floor. He told
me to stay where I was and he would go into the basement to make certain that
the lift went down there. Before I could ask why did he not go down to the
basement in the lift he had gone out of the door to clamber down the stone steps
at the bottom of the tower. In due course the lift lurched into life and
disappeared. After a long time it began to rattle its way upwards again.

It was the hoist platform all over again! His face was pale. He was panting
short, shallow breaths and his knuckles were white as he grasped the lattice gate
of the lift.

I must have said that it couldn`t be height or moving platforms…

"Never again, never again," he gasped. "I went down the steps. Of course, the
one and only light bulb down there is out of action. I could hear the boiler
humming away and made my way amongst great bales of dust-covered fabric
and packing cases which reached from floor to roof. I could just make out the
lift-shaft from the dim light coming down it. I got there; checked the buttons;
gave them a polish with my sleeve. I got this awful feeling of something or
someone watching me. It got worse and worse. I was turning to look if I could
get back to the steps quickly. Never thought of hopping into the lift! Right next
to my face, as I turned, was this face with wild ginger hair all over it and
popping out eyes and broken dirty teeth. It spoke to me. It said, "Have you got a
fag mate?""

"What did you do?"

"Gave him my packet of fags and escaped like a bat out of hell. He was solid
enough - you know - when I handed over the fags. The box didn‟t drop through
his hands like through smoke or spirit or something."

I jumped when the maroon uniform brushed against me and the lift attendant
whispered, "It`s old Joe. He`s a tramp. We let him live down there against the
boiler. You won`t tell on us, will you?"
 The hardest work under heaven

A coal face a quarter of a mile long, two feet in height and a safe width of seven feet under roof
supports. Add to the seven feet ten, twelve maybe twenty feet under unsupported roof. This waste
area from which coal has been removed is called the Gob from the Old German Saxon –waste or
empty space. The roof of the Gob will fall without warning at any time and so the face advances into
the coal with the waste filling the empty places behind the advancing face.

There are two gates, from Saxon Gaete – a way – hence street, one to each end of the face. One is
the Mother gate which bears the won coal from the face to the Main gate, which may be a mile
away, and from thence out of the mine via a shaft to the surface. The Mother gate may have
conveyors along its length, pipes taking water from pumps and electrical cables, the two wire
signalling system and the way for men and materials both to and from the coal face. The other is
the Left Hand gate the main purposes of which are as a branch of the ventilation circuit for air and as
an escape route. It can of course serve as a way for men nearer to it to leave the face at the end of a
shift. The condition of roof and floor is poor , difficult and dangerous.

Water and gas are the two deadly dangers in mines. Pumping keeps down the water and the Deputy
with his Clanny lamp constantly tests for gas by watching the flame in his lamp for any changes
either in colour or length of flame. Sometimes water and gas combine their powers to deadly
effect.

This dialect can only be set down in a phonetic manner. It is largely Anglo-Saxon with Mediaeval
additions. It is the regional dialect which has variations within it and from which the Queen’s English
emerged in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. It is difficult to read.

Shall we join the four men and the boy a thousand feet underground :-
“Left hand gate`s come in”.

“Anybody ot?”

“Lord only knows. Thiz so much dust it`s hard to see owt. Sam! Sam! Oh
theer thart. Art a alrate?”

“Ahm alrate Mester Beardsley. Wor appened?”

“Left hand gate`s com in.”

“Wat`s us to do Mester Beardsley?”

“Stop askin daft questions for one thing lad.”

“Ow ah can say thou`s alrate Harry. Now leave the lad alone. Ay`s scared.
Like as not as thou art.”

“Ah tha`s rate enough. Wat`s to do then Ike?”

“Fost thing is to say whose alrate. Then ger us all together and mek us minds
up.”

“Ah`ll lowk for George. Ay were just under th`lip wen this lot com down. Yo sit
here lad an dunna shift. Stay wi im Ike an may an Chalkie ull lowk for owd
George.”

“So then thiz just us five then. Harry Stanley, Chalkie White, Sam Pounder, our
George an meesen.”

++++++++++

“George kayp that lamp safe and kayp checking. Now I say way start to ger
across th`face into th` Mother gate an owt that way.”

“Owd on Ike, tha knows th pump is in th Left hand. If it`s gone off then twenty
thrays is full floor to roof in fiftane minutes.”

“Flooded!”
“Canst never think afore opening thee mouth Harry? Canst say th lads
fraytened enough as it is?”

“Sorry Sam – worn`t thinking – it`ll bay alrate yole say. `sides thou`ll be across
twenty thrays face like a whippet.”

“Rate then way try across th`face. George gus fost. Chalkie then Sam an Harry
an I`ll follow behind thee all”.

“Owd George fost! Way`ll bay ere gone Chrismus at his pace.”

“Shurrup Harry. Once an for all shurrup. If tha must know, then George has
the Clanny lamp. Mine brok. George gus slowest an way all follus im. That
way no body gets left miles back. Com on lets` gerra move on.”

+++++++++

“Watter!”

“Ow much George?”

“Fair amount. Up tuh me elbows.”

“Wain not a thod ud way across yet Ike.”

“Wat dust reckon George?”

“Get thi backs rate up against roof. Suh long as way can keep our noses above
watter way might get theer”.

“Didst ear that young Sam?”

“Aye I heard.”

“Ay`ll float ay will. Not tha Sam?”

“A might at that Mester Stanley.”

+++++++++
“Bloody ell fire”.

“Wat`s up George?”

“Ah canna get. Gob as fell in. Rate across tuth face. Am gunna lose this lamp
anall if way anna careful.”

“Wayn still gor us lamps. Well thray anyroads.”

“Not to test way yo anna.”

“Wats to do Ike?”

“Back. Wayd berra ger on back. Then goo up Left hand gate as far as its fell in
an ay a think.”

+++++++++

“Sod that fuhr a game a sojers. Lowk at may ahm all wet.”

“Ah lowk at Chalkie ays all wet.”

“So`s all on us yuh soft bogger. Ow far back dust think this gus then?”

“May room fuhr a little un Henry. Ah canna say up at th top. Ger up ere Sam
an ah`ll lift thee.

Canst see owt?”

“It`s all loose stuff. Thiz sum gaps bur ah canna fale any air”.

“Check up George.”

“Clear as a bell Ike.”

“An ower theer near that lip.”

“Nowt theer.”
“Rate then as ah says it. Ayther way sit an wait –cos way dunna know ow far
that fall gus – or way can may a start up nearth rowf. Wat`s say?”

“Ahm all fur ayin a goo. Better than jus sittin ere broodin. Ah tay fost stint.”

“Rayt then, Harry fost, May an then Chalkie.”

“Ah will anall Mester Beardsley.”

“Nay lad thy job will bay to move some uh the bind way chuck down. Wat tha
can start doin is take sum o them pieces a boarding. Odd uns to layve
support. Wayll nayd to board th roof as way goo. An yo George kape an eye
out wi that lamp.”

+++++++++

“Ow far way got Henry?”

“A good twelve foot ah reckons. Mah bloody ears as started poppin.”

“Ay an mine wats to do Ike? George?”

“It manes as what air there is, is trapped. It`s none gerrin out throw that theer
fall an its gerrin compressed bi th watter risin across th face.”

“Dunna bay suh cheerful Ike.”

“Ays rate Henry. At layst this flame is stayin clear.”

“Kape an eye George. Surely be now somebody is diggin from t`other side.
Wat`s think?”

“Ah`m none for geein up. Sides young Sam is playin in goal tomorrer.”

“Could bay it`s tomorrer already tha knows.”

“Ah or th dee after.”

 +++++++++

“Look,look its watter comin underth lip!”

“That’s face flooded frum floor to rowf then”.

“Alrate young un. Tell thee what. Pile up bind across ere. Pile it up underth
lip . Like a dam – say. Kayp us frum gerrin us fate wet.”

“Ay up Ike thou`ll get stuck if way both try to get fother on.”

“Ah ahll gerron down an gie th lad a hand at layst us is mekin progress”

“Kape chattin Henry fuh the lad`s sake.”

“Yo reckon way’re fast enough though Ike?”

“I dun know what Henry but that watter is comin in at a fair rate. Canst hear
owt from up ahead?”

“Narry a thing. I wer wonderin. Way ay to get thro afore the air gets does. If
not that`ll rush out ahed on us and watter will come after it afore way can all
get through.”

+++++++++

“Bloody ell me lamps out. Wayn only got this other an George`s Clanny.”

“Way canna use th Clanny fuh late. Wat dust think George? George? George
– wat`s up?”

“It`s bonnin wi a blue flame Ike. Sithee.”

“Wat does that mayn Mester Beardsley?”

“It manes Gas lad. It manes gas”.

“Wayn done for…”

Of your charity. Pray for those who toiled in the pits.

PARKINSON`S PREDICAMENT

Parkinson was uncertain; he was very unsettled; in truth he was terrified.

Despite catching an earlier bus than he needed he was still late. He hurried
across the main road and into the cul-de-sac of magnificent Georgian houses.
Each house had a shiny brass plate on the wall at the top of several steps and
each flight of steps had a black wrought iron handrail.

He glanced at each plate. Some were worn after much polishing and others were
new and proclaimed enthusiasts entering upon professional life's journey. Some
were solicitors, barristers, medical consultants but not one for the person who
had advertised in the evening paper.

A demand for his presence at the building society had arrived just as he was due
to leave home. A threatening note from the electricity company had come the
day before and there were three days to the cut-off of his telephone. He must get
this job but where was the place?

At the very end of the narrow street a house, detached from the terrace, stood
amidst trees. A stone wall, topped with ugly cast-iron railings half buried in an
uncut beech hedge, had a half open iron gate. The gravel of the driveway was
slowly sinking into grass and weeds. Parkinson swallowed as instinct warned
him to turn back but the greater urge to survive screamed the message to his
brain to get the position.

He climbed the steps, slipped, grabbed the rail to his left, rubbed the rust from it
down his coat and left a red streak. The brass plate was dull and the letters had
been polished away over long years. The huge dark door, with its black
knocker, had varnish peeling off like slivers of skin from an over baked
sunshine addict.

Parkinson tapped the knocker and heard the faint sound die before any ears
received the message that the man for the job was on the doorstep right now.

He glanced, nervously, at his watch. He was late, too late, perhaps?

By now a queue of applicants had probably been interviewed, short-listed, and

ready to take up the post. Without really thinking he lifted the knocker again
and hammered it against the door just as it opened slightly until stopped by a
heavy chain.

He recognised the face immediately. She had sent him, in terror, into his
mother`s skirts. He did not need the evil cackle as she screeched about the shed
dropped on her sister by Dorothy.

After forty years Parkinson was face to face with the Wicked Witch of the
West.

"Yes?!"

"Pardon?" he muttered.

"What do you want?"

"Ohh….Yes. I was…er…thinking…the…er…job. In the other night`s
paper…An appointment was arranged..."

"You are late, young man", she stated as she closed the door, took off the chain
and opened it for him to go in. "Very late, in fact."

"Yes! I`m sorry about that. The shed… that is, the bus was late."

He followed her along the corridor lined with indistinct oil painting, a hallstand,
and several blue and white porcelain vases on stands that rocked as he walked
by them. At an open door she pointed into the room.

"Wait here. Do not touch anything. Though you may read a magazine if you so
wish. You are very late."

He thought she really did look like the Wicked Witch or maybe like the horrible
teacher in his infants' school who had always screamed at him. He felt very
much as if his childhood had returned as he sat on the long leather seat and
moved only his eyes to look around.

Prints of hunting scenes hung on the panelled walls. In the black fireplace a
screen, embroidered with a hunting scene, and large brass fire-irons leaned on a
deep green Aspidistra plant in a dull brown pot.

He crossed his legs and the seat creaked, so he slowly uncrossed them and
folded his arms. He leaned forwards to look at the covers of the ancient
magazines on the low table. Again the seat creaked and he feared a loud,
"Shush! Will you sit still Parkinson".

The sun had moved round to shine dully through the window to his right. Dust
floated gently in the rays of light. "As thick as motes in the sun beam", he
nearly quoted aloud but thought it instead.

Cramp slowly creased his right foot until it felt as if it was folded like a book.
The pain crept into his ankle and up into his calf and he slowly stretched out
both legs and breathed out quietly. The action eased his aching back and his
head rested more comfortably on the soft worn leather.

"I must have been here for hours", Parkinson thought, completely forgetting to
look at his watch. "No sound of anyone about. Still, I suppose these walls must
be pretty thick."

The sun warmed the room. No door banged; no fly buzzed. No clock ticked him
into a gentle deep sleep.
Sleep slipped away and gradually Parkinson began to be awake again. He lay
with his eyes closed and heard the hum of a fluorescent light, a strange thud,
thud sound, and somewhere, in a room above his head, discordant music.

He opened his eyes and narrowed them to slits in the bright light. He was lying
flat on a long Derby sofa. To his left was a stone fireplace with a gas fire.
Above which was rough brickwork brightened by a large, gold-coloured
crucifix. A television flickered soundlessly in the corner and in front of that, in a
blue plastic bed, a small brown dog snored. He turned his head slightly and saw
a young woman sitting on a settee. She was embroidering a picture and each
pass of the needle and tightening of the thread made a thud.

"Where…where am I?"

"Why, you are here, Mister Parkinson", the woman answered and returned to
her needlework.”

Colin Pounder, 1992