The Lighthouse Keeper, page 23
I also recalled Milne’s statement that this wasn’t over yet. He had wanted to make me aware of his satisfaction with my performance, now, a full day before we were due to leave the island, and I wondered why. Was it because he was afraid of what the next twenty-four hours might bring?
The moan of the wind grew louder and more intense as I left the sitting room and walked along the corridor to the bedrooms, and I heard the spattering hiss of the rain on the windows, like steam from a straining engine. The faint sound of creaking issued from unseen quarters of the house as the weather pressed insistently upon it, as though trying to push it from the island into the waiting sea.
And then I heard a whispered voice nearby. The voice said, ‘This is the last day.’
I gasped and stopped and stood perfectly still, my breath held fast in my lungs.
‘Who’s there?’ I said. ‘John? Joseph?’
There was no answer. I glanced back along the corridor. It was deserted. Muted sounds from the kitchen told me that Joseph was still there, and Milne would not have left the lightroom.
‘Who is there?’ I repeated, but the only response came from the wind that howled all around. I forced myself to breathe normally. That must be it: my mind must have transformed the sound of the wind into human words.
I continued into my bedroom, with the intention of changing the linen, thinking again of Milne’s words.
This isn’t over yet…
I stripped the bed, folded the used linen and put it in a corner, then turned to the tall wardrobe next to the door with the intention of taking some fresh linen for the bed.
I froze, my heart suddenly racing, and I moaned aloud when I saw what was on the wardrobe door.
Etched in the wood, taking its form, it seemed, from a warping and twisting of the grain, was a human-like figure. It extended for the entire seven-foot height of the wardrobe, and although its lower extremities were indistinct in the grain, its chest, shoulders and head were easily discernible.
How can I describe what it looked like? I am haunted by it still, and I know that my memory will never be free of it. In the dance of flames in a hearth, I see its elongated form; in the scattered clouds of a bright day, I see its stretched, mitred head; in the shifting waters of rivers and lakes, I see its eyes staring at me, wide and alive and ancient beyond words, beyond thought.
Instinctively I recoiled from it and stumbled backwards onto the bed, and it seemed that those eyes turned and looked down at me, and I thought that I would die beneath that alien gaze. I don’t know how long I lay there, paralysed with dread, panting with confusion and inexpressible terror. Time itself seemed to flee from the room in the face of this utter abnormality. My unblinking eyes remained fixed upon it, unable to look away, and I saw the grain in the wood of the wardrobe, the dark striations from which this thing had composed itself, begin to shift in slow, subtle waves, as if it were attempting to free itself, to emerge fully into the world.
Somehow, I knew that if I stayed in that room, it would be the end of me, and so I threw all my effort and resolve, every last fragment of my instinct for survival, into forcing my muscles to move, to get up off the bed and make a stumbling dash for the door.
This I managed to do – though it was like running across the bottom of the ocean, with the weight of all the world’s water pressing down upon me. And then, when I reached the door and threw myself into the corridor outside, I found myself plunged into darkness. Turning in spite of myself – for I did not want to look into the bedroom again – I saw through the window that it was now night: the sky was black and thick with stars. The writhing storm clouds had gone, and with them the wind that had howled so plaintively just a few moments ago.
‘Impossible,’ I whispered, repeating the word to myself over and over again as I moved along the corridor. ‘Impossible! Impossible!’
In that sudden darkness and horrible, unnatural silence, I went in search of Joseph, but when I looked into the sitting room, I found Milne there, indistinct in the darkness, sitting hunched forward in a chair, rocking back and forth like a terrified child trying to comfort himself. He was weeping, the tears rolling freely upon his face, his eyes tightly shut. He was whispering something, and as I drew nearer, I realised that he was praying:
‘Almighty and ever-blessed God… our souls do magnify the Lord, our spirits rejoice in God the Saviour; for he that is mighty hath done great things for his people, and his mercy is on them that fear him. We pray to our Father in behalf of all mankind. May the day-spring from on high arise on those who now sit in darkness… and may grace and mercy and peace from the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost be with us forever.’
‘John,’ I said. ‘John… it’s night. How can it be night? The light…’
The room was in near-total darkness, and I waited for the pulse of illumination outside that would tell me that the light was still in operation. I counted fifteen seconds, but the darkness outside remained unbroken.
‘Oh God, the light,’ I said, as I fumbled upon the mantelpiece for the matches. I struck one and put its tiny flame to the wick of a storm lantern. But although the lantern burned brightly, the room remained in darkness. I held the lantern aloft, but still it failed to illuminate the room: it merely hung above my head like a great star burning alone in an empty universe, while John Milne continued to pray.
‘Bless us, O our Father! Give us thy grace in every season of trial. Give us thy protection in every hour of danger. Prepare us for the dispensation of thy Providence; prepare us for the discharge of duty; prepare us for the inheritance of the just.’
I called out Joseph’s name, but there was no answer. ‘Joseph!’ I cried. ‘Where are you? Get up to the lightroom, now! Get the lamps lit, for God’s sake!’
Still there was no response, and so, taking the all-but-useless lantern, I stumbled blindly from the sitting room and made my fumbling way up the spiral staircase leading to the lightroom. Several times I tripped on the stairs, for still the bright lantern offered no illumination. How that could be, I had no idea: it was as if the very air itself were made of darkness that refused to admit the passage of light.
When I reached the lightroom, I found the lamps extinguished and the lens assembly stopped. I also saw both Joseph Moore and John Milne standing at the windows, looking out to the west.
‘John!’ I cried in disbelief. ‘You’re… how can you…?’
Joseph turned his head slightly, without taking his eyes from what they were both looking at, and said, ‘Alec, come and see.’
‘John, I don’t understand,’ I said, still standing at the head of the stairs. ‘I’ve just left you in the sitting room… weeping and praying… what in God’s name is happening?’
‘Come and see, Alec,’ said Milne quietly.
‘The two of you be damned!’ I shouted, and instead of joining them, I set about checking the lens mechanism, the oil fountains and the wicks, with the intention of re-lighting the lamps.
‘We don’t need the light, Alec,’ said Milne. ‘Not now… not here.’
Something in his voice made me stop and turn to look at them. They were still standing at the windows, still gazing off into the distance. Their arms hung limp at their sides, and their eyes were wide, their faces expressionless. It was then that I became aware of a strange quality to the atmosphere outside, which seemed to be the opposite of the impenetrable darkness inside the house. It was still pitch dark, but the sliver of ocean I could see from my vantage point seemed to be luminous, as if lit from underneath. I could not prevent myself from leaving the light and joining Milne and Moore at the windows. In spite of the darkness, I could see everything outside with absolute crystal clarity. And what I saw was not the world I knew to exist in the region of the Flannan Isles.
The islands were gone, and all around there was a perfectly flat plain of shimmering quicksilver light. Whether it was water or something beyond the knowledge of man, I couldn’t say, but it extended from horizon to horizon, just as the ocean once had. Overhead, the stars ranged in an overwhelming, unbelievable profusion, and I realised that this must be the reason for the strange quality of the atmosphere, which was steeped in night and yet bright as daylight. And as I looked, I saw that one star amongst all that multitude was moving, falling slowly towards the earth.
‘The world is gone,’ said Joseph.
‘And in its place… what?’ I replied.
Milne pointed through the window. ‘Look there… what is that?’
We looked out over the western part of the island, where the body of Eilean Mòr sloped down towards the sea, or what once had been the sea. Where the island ended, something else began – something that had not been there before.
‘It looks like a causeway,’ I said.
‘I think you’re right, Alec,’ said Milne. ‘It looks artificial.’ His voice was flat and quiet, and I realised that Milne must be experiencing the same numbness of mind that I felt. Numbness… yes, that’s what I felt. This new phenomenon was too much to accept, and it seemed to me that my mind was like a muscle that has been tested beyond endurance, so that all its strength leaves it, and it becomes limp and useless.
‘The world is not gone, Joseph,’ I said. ‘We are gone from the world.’
The causeway – if that is what it was – extended out in a straight line from the edge of the island for perhaps half a mile, before curving away towards the northwest horizon. It was about fifty yards wide, and was pale grey in colour, its surface quite flat. The horizon upon which it seemed to terminate, however, was not flat, but was curiously irregular, with minute serrations and irregularities. I picked up the telescope from the table and put it to my eye.
‘What do you see?’ asked Milne.
‘I’m not certain… it looks to me like a city,’ I replied, and handed him the instrument. ‘See for yourself.’
He scanned the horizon for a long time. ‘I can see buildings… towers, bridges… great grey cubes and pyramids… all at different angles…’
‘Let me see,’ said Joseph, and Milne handed him the telescope.
‘Is that where they come from?’ I wondered.
‘It looks like a horrible place,’ said Milne.
‘What’s that?’ said Joseph suddenly, handing the telescope back to Milne. ‘Look!’
Milne raised the instrument again.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Something is coming along the causeway.’
I seized the telescope from him and looked through it towards the ‘city’ on the horizon, and I saw tiny objects moving out from it, along the ribbon of grey that connected it to the island upon which we stood.
‘They are coming,’ Joseph whispered. ‘What can we do?’
‘Nothing,’ Milne replied. ‘There is nothing we can do.’
‘I don’t want to go with them,’ Joseph said. ‘I don’t want to go to that place.’
I looked again through the telescope and saw the shapes approaching, slowly and steadily along the causeway, while Joseph’s panting breath sounded in my ears.
‘I don’t want to go,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t want to go.’
The shapes were now more than halfway along the causeway, in spite of their slow movement. I didn’t understand how that could be, until I realised that ‘movement’ itself must have obeyed different laws in this unknown region. They were now close enough that we could see them clearly without the aid of the telescope.
And Joseph started to weep, and whispered, ‘No, no, no…’ over and over again.
I glanced at Milne and saw that his eyes were shut and he was praying, his lips moving soundlessly.
‘I’ll throw myself into the sea before I go with them,’ said Joseph through his tears.
‘But there is no more sea, Joseph,’ I replied.
And then I decided to join Milne in prayer and looked up to the sky, to the infinite, motionless stars… and the single star that continued to descend towards the earth. As I watched, I realised that there was something familiar about that star’s appearance. Again I took the telescope and this time I trained it upwards.
And then I realised that it wasn’t a star.
It was a flare.
‘The Hesperus,’ I said. ‘The Hesperus is here!’
Milne and Moore looked at me, and I pointed up into the sky. ‘Do you see that? They’ve fired a rocket. The tender has arrived!’
‘Then let us be gone,’ said Milne. ‘Perhaps we can get away from here… and if not, then we will meet our fate alongside our fellow men.’
Joseph pointed through the window. ‘They’ve reached the island. They’re coming onto the island!’
‘Then hurry!’ Milne shouted as he ran to the stairs.
We followed him down into the house, and together we dashed from the building, out into the strange, bright air. We left out oilskins on their pegs and took nothing with us but the clothes on our backs.
‘Which landing?’ asked Joseph. ‘East or west? There’s no time to check both!’
Milne looked up at the flare which was still continuing its sparkling descent. ‘East,’ he said, and began to run in that direction. From the corner of my eye, I saw the shapes emerging onto the western side of the island, and I silently thanked God that the lighthouse tender had come to the East Landing, for if it had been at the West Landing, we would not have been able to reach it before the shapes were upon us.
We fled across the uppermost shoulder of the island, towards the cliffs that looked out upon that strange, silent, unmoving sea. We should have been able to see the neighbouring island of Eiean Tighe from there: it should have loomed large in the foreground – but it did not. There was no sign of it, or any of the Flannan Isles.
We threw ourselves down the steps cut raggedly into the rock, towards the East Landing, where the Hesperus waited for us, held fast upon the silent sea. I did not dare to think of the possibility that the tender was as trapped and helpless as we were; did not dare to suppose that it would never be able to pull away from Eilean Mòr through the ocean that seemed as solid as a sheet of glass. In that moment, I refused to see it as anything other than our means of escape, of salvation.
When we reached the East Landing, I stopped and looked again at the ship. It was perfectly still, its lights were burning, but I couldn’t see anyone on board. Milne and Moore stopped also and looked at me.
‘What are you waiting for, Alec?’ Milne cried. ‘Come on!’
Everything was silent, strangely, horribly silent. The island, the air, the unmoving sea, the ship. I turned and looked back up the stairway and caught movement at its head…
‘They’ll be upon us in a moment!’ shouted Milne.
‘The tender’s deserted,’ I said. ‘We’re already lost… we were lost the moment we set foot here.’
Milne grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘We’ll make our stand on the Hesperus if we have to. But we won’t stay here. Understood?’
I realised that Milne was right: I would rather meet my fate on this tiny fragment of the world of men, than on that strange and terrible island that had been invaded by the unknown and incomprehensible. I nodded and turned back to the edge of the Landing. The lighthouse tender’s larboard gunwale was just three feet or so away.
‘Jump,’ said Milne. ‘Jump now!’
We leaped as one from the island to the ship, and at the very moment when my feet made contact with the deck of the Hesperus, I was consumed by noise and movement. The deck suddenly heaved up, slamming into me and knocking me onto my back, while sea spray drenched me, and the cacophonous noise of wind and rain assaulted my ears.
I felt hands upon me, pulling me to my feet and dragging me towards the hatch leading belowdecks, and I heard shouted voices, including Milne’s. He was screaming, ‘Get us away from here! Get us away!’
The deck heaved again, and I fell and felt a tremendous blow upon my head, and the world of sudden noise and movement went away from me into darkness.
*
This, then, is how we left Eilean Mòr, how we escaped, how we were carried back to the world from that other place which had enfolded the island in its unfathomable embrace.
I can write no more, for I have no more to tell, save that I still wonder at the alteration that occurred at the instant our feet struck the deck of the Hesperus, transforming it from perfect stillness and desertion upon an unmoving plain, to a fully manned ship in the grip of a violently roiling ocean.
I will never be able to answer that question, nor the question of what happened to James Ducat, Thomas Marshall and Donald MacArthur.
And yet… and yet I wonder still whether they live on in that other world, of which we caught a glimpse that final night, and from which, by the grace of God and the presence of our fellow men, we managed to escape.
This, then, is my story. My testament from the edge of the Universe from a place that forced us to question our sanity; that showed us things that passed our understanding and even imagination. And now that I have completed my story, in the hope that in so doing I may effect my own escape from the strange dreams and nightmares that afflict me still, I must address the question of what to do now. I do not mean professionally, for I have already refused the offer of a permanent post with the Northern Lighthouse Board, nor will I ever act as an Occasional Keeper again. John Milne and Joseph Moore have likewise expressed their intention to seek other employment.
The question I now ask myself is this: what should I do with this testament? Should I accept it for what it truly is – a warning to all the Light Keepers who will do duty on Eilean Mòr in all the years to come? And if so, how should I transmit that warning to hardened men of the sea, who may well feel themselves justified in scorning its bizarre contents? I hesitate to set down the answer here, for it chills my blood to think of it, and yet, it is the only possible answer, the only feasible course of action open to me.
