For Writers
By Writers
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For Writers
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By Writers
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From Ghosts to Private Detectives and BBC Weather Girls to Old Men - a very mixed selection of 10 short stories of around 23400 words in all. Sounds good to us!
It had been a long walk. I had enjoyed the day. It was a cool autumn evening now and the rooks cawed and flapped their way through a misty pink dusk low down in the western haze and towards their noisy roosts. I admit that I was tired and the failing light cast gloomy shadows into the depths of the trees, but lit the bark for a long, still moment as the last of the sun brushed a brief warm colour. The road wove, snake-like ahead of me, an asphalt cobra slithering through its home forest and the shade crept up the sides of the valley. I noticed the first star through the shivering brown-dried leaves, but then it winked and vanished. As night fell the overcast was returning as if to damp down the earth; to keep its secrets, its dark, unbodied truths.
My car was parked in the main drive of the old Hall and I paused for a moment before I crossed the bridge. Soon I would be following the black snake, headlights showing me the way towards the city, towards home. It was an old stone arched bridge; classically rustic. The parapet swept up, over and down again in a steep, steady curve; the limestone moulded to the earth like an ancient, grey eyebrow. Beneath it, the dark, unfathomable eye rustled with unseen life; the water, the hiss of air through shaded grasses.
I sighed as I felt a patter of light rain, but I was reluctant to make my way into that unknowable socket. It had a path on my side. I had seen it earlier, but in the dark? A breath of air stirred around me, lifting a few leaves and shuffling them aimlessly. A moment later a sharp gust hammered into me, spinning yet more leaves skyward and chilling me to the bone. I had just made the decision to continue on to my car despite the drizzle when the heavens opened. The century's turn has brought apocalyptic weather to this decaying land, even to these windswept Pennine hills. Abruptly, I was left without a choice and I dived headlong for the shelter under the bridge.
Someone was already there. I could not see him clearly in the gloom, but his breathing was almost a pant, as though he too had run. He gazed blankly down at the river. His dark silhouette suggested that he was, perhaps, a fisherman. His knee length boots were distinguishable, as was a long coat, which just clipped their tops. Long hair rested on his shoulders and I wondered if he could be the owner of the motorbike I had seen parked further down the lane. Outside, water hammered down in dark curtains. Instantly, I realised that this stranger might offer a way out.
"Are you a local?" I said.
As he turned, I could barely see his face in the dark, but he seemed terrified, as though a panicked anguish consumed him.
"Sir, you are more observant than most." He pointed and both the outstretched hand and his voice quivered. "The Hall is my home."
I was too polite to make any comment and so we sat together to wait out the storm. Clearly the bike was not his. He had been Lord of the Manor for some twenty years, he explained, leading the Hunt and letting out his land to the common people. Like me he did not have an umbrella and so we were going nowhere.
"Which is why you took shelter here," I suggested.
"I wish I had not," he said.
And so he began to tell me his tale, like a man who rarely talked, but suddenly, now, had found someone to listen. People are strange like that. They say nothing to their families, but open their hearts to a total stranger under a bridge, I realised.
"Have you heard of the Battle of Dunbar, my young friend?" he said. "News of it reached us here in autumn. Most people simply accepted the fact, though some were genuinely happy." He glanced at me. "Are you Catholic?"
"I have no beliefs," I said, puzzled. I could no connection between a man's beliefs and a battle. What was he talking about? Could there have been a gang fight?
"Hmm." He stood and walked over to look out at the rain. "Most of the truly noble families were Catholics then, though of course the General preferred those of his own faith. I have never been able to decide if he was sincere or not, but then, having never met him.. " He laughed.
"I believe he was a megalomaniac, like the ones we have today."
"A what?" he said.
My eyes were becoming more accustomed to the gloom and I realised that, when I glanced his way he was already watching me. It was as though I was being studied.
"A madman. Power mad," I said.
He shook his head.
"No," he observed quietly. "I don't think so. There was the Drogheda massacre in Ireland, but well.." He smiled at me. "What is a little massacre between enemies?" He shook his head. "I have thought about it for many years. I have had time. He was not mad.
"He was heading south towards Worcester. Yet another battle was to be fought no doubt. The army was to come past east of here." He nodded towards the road. "We were to send victuals for his men. It was always a problem. A General needs to fill his guns, his men and his horse. Oh yes, he had defeated the King at Dunbar and the country was the safer for it, but the war was not over. I often wonder how it ended."
At last he looked away from me, once more staring gloomily down at the water.
"There was a feast up at the Hall, which was not unusual," he continued. "There was torchlight, horses in the stables and food in the galleries. Ha, we were well known for our entertainments.
"Our stable hands had settled down with our mounts. We did not expect to receive any other guests; otherwise, of course I would have ordered the horse taken up into the coppice and the stalls swept clean. The efforts we made to protect our stables seem so pointless now, as I tell this tale. As you may know the countryside is full of thieves and brigands. A gentleman takes his troop with him wherever he goes. Perhaps I should have given more thought to defending our own persons, but then I never considered that they would attack us in our own hall.
"The first I knew was that the shutters were being broken in and, as we armed ourselves, thinking that the King's men were amongst us, some of us brought the villains to the point. Then one of them pulled the bolt on the main door and another group joined the fray against us. For a moment I thought that we might lose the battle there and then, when one or two of my troopers managed to loose off lead shot. They had loaded their pistols whilst the rest of us held the vagabonds at bay. It was difficult for bandits to keep their powder dry living in the forest, as they did. It is also difficult to steal the stuff in time of war, so they were less well armed than we. More of us began to fire into their group. I had to stop rodding my pistol twice to kill one of them." He grinned. "The first was when he lunged at me and the second was because he had started to move again.
"Anyway, they broke and fled and we chased them. There was no time to gather our horse; I shouted to the troop that we could catch them before they reached their mounts and we did."
He paused and turned to look back up at me. I cannot say how I felt at that moment, because my mind was empty, stunned. The only thought I had was that I could not think and I could not understand why I could not think.
"We caught them here, on this bridge," he continued. "Their horses and watchmen were just on the other side, on the track. I had not thought about their watchmen. They came straight for us and, whilst one or two of us still had shot in our pistols most of us set too with sword and knife.
"Ha, we outmatched them man for man. They had no chance.. "
Again, he looked away, down towards the cold shadow of the water. He sighed, deeply.
"But, that they outnumbered us."
Silently he stood and walked to the far end, looking out towards the night. His boots trod the gravel path making no sound, though our voices echoed slightly against the stonework.
"Champagnye, a Frenchman in my service, jumped from the parapet and landed, just there, on the path. I saw his aim, to put the bridge at our backs and hold out until more men came down from the Hall, so I followed him down. We were slaughtered."
"Who are you?" I said.
"I have wanted to tell this tale from that day on. I wake up here, under the bridge and look out. It is always autumn, though I have no means of telling whether it is the exact day, or not. I wish I could change the orders I gave on that day. Stop myself from leading my men down here, into this death trap, but, of course we make our choices and there is no way back. I cannot undo their deaths, any more than I can undo my own. Sometimes I have heard footsteps, or voices, but no one has ever walked under here and found me.
"At first, each time I awoke, I would call out, but then I realised that no one could hear me. Then I saw that it was not days that were passing, but years. I saw the fields change in their outline; the pattern of hedges, the trees disappear from the skyline. I have seen a tree grow to full height, up there, on the knoll, and then awoken to find it gone, and I cannot walk out from under here to see if there is even a stump left. I have seen strange things, which I cannot tell you about, for you would not believe them. I do not, and I have seen them; in the air, on the track.
"I wonder whether Cromwell finally defeated the King, but I have been here so long; perhaps you do not know. I do know that I do not wish to be here any longer. I realise now that I followed the wrong faith, or I would not have been put here. I had hopes to reach heaven, but now I realise that there cannot even be oblivion for one such as I."
Abruptly, he fell silent. I opened my mouth to speak, but I was alone. Outside, the rain continued to hammer down, dancing in the water, but I never hesitated, not for a moment. I ran along that path, over the bridge and all the way to my car, as though the very hounds of hell were after me.
"You asked me why. Well, that is the reason."