The Lighthouse Keeper, page 8
‘Perhaps,’ said John Milne.
‘There is no “perhaps”, for we must believe it. I hold with Mr Muirhead’s theory, that poor Ducat, Marshall and MacArthur were taken to their deaths by a high roller…’
‘And the voices? And what they said?’
‘There were no voices, John,’ I whispered, my breath coming in quick bursts, as it had outside. ‘There were no voices! And the sound like shimmering metal was just the wind and the sea: it was nature playing a cruel jest on the ears of mournful, frightened men.’
‘I pray you’re right, Alec,’ said Milne.
I stood up from the table. ‘I believe I am,’ I replied, my words carrying a conviction I did not feel.
‘Well, at any rate, supper will be ready soon.’ Milne went back to the stove and stirred the bubbling pot of soup. ‘Yes,’ he said, apparently talking more to himself than to me. ‘Supper will be ready soon. We’ll all feel better with some food inside us. I’ll set the table.’
As he stirred the soup, he looked out through the kitchen window, at the wind-driven raindrops that wrote incomprehensible words upon the glass.
‘Are you a decent cook, Alec?’
I smiled, relieved that he had turned his attention to more prosaic matters. ‘Aye, decent enough. I live alone and can ill afford a housekeeper to keep me fed.’
‘You’re not married?’
‘No.’
He smiled. ‘Strange that we know so little about each other, the three of us being here, alone.’
‘Well, we have four weeks to get acquainted. I’m looking forward to becoming your friend, Mr Milne.’
He nodded, still looking out through the window at the rising storm beyond. ‘Aye…’
I offered him a smile which he could not see and turned to go through the door, into the hallway containing the spiral staircase that led up to the lightroom. It had been my intention to go up and see Joseph, to try to lessen the nervousness Muirhead had told me he was experiencing. But there was no need to go up to the lightroom, for I found Joseph Moore sitting at the foot of the staircase, hands clasped in front of him, head bowed, eyes closed, as if in prayer.
6
The Logbook and the Light
John Milne had been right about the storm. That night, it descended upon the island with a fury that was terrible to behold. The sky became a maelstrom of black, churning clouds, and the gale-force winds came from every direction, as if stirred by the flapping of vast, unseen wings. The rain seethed and thrashed against the island and the lighthouse, so that our ears were doubly assaulted by the wind’s enraged wailing and the terrible clattering of a million icy drops of water.
Within the lighthouse, however, all was in order. The storm lamps cast a warm, steady glow throughout, and the shadows they threw upon walls and floor were comforting in their familiarity and stillness, in their soft counterpoint to the raging chaos outside. On a calm night, I supposed, there would have been a certain homeliness to the place, for it was clean and cosy, and the furnishings, while basic, were comfortable. But that night, it was easy to believe that humanity was gone from the earth and that we three were the last of a race and a civilisation that was no more, cast to oblivion by a storm that covered the entire world with destruction.
Milne was up in the lightroom, keeping watch over the great 100,000-candle-power kerosene lamps that flashed twice every thirty seconds, flinging their handfuls of illumination into the seething night. Visibility in the region was very low, and so periodically he sounded the foghorn, which, in addition to the light, would let passing ships know of their dangerous proximity to the Flannans.
I was in the sitting room with Joseph, who had just made a pot of tea. His hand quivered slightly as he poured the steaming brew into three mugs. He handed one to me, which I accepted gratefully, and without a word took another for Milne and disappeared through the door. He had not mentioned the sounds we had heard earlier that day, and although it had been my intention to try to put his mind at rest, I now felt oddly disinclined to broach the subject with him. Perhaps, I felt, it was better not to bring it up again: perhaps he was trying to forget and would not thank me for reminding him of it.
Presently, Joseph returned from the lightroom and walked across to one of the whitewashed walls and a shelf lined with a large number of books. Reading is a great pastime amongst Lightkeepers, including those who had never thought to do so before taking the job, and during the long, lonely days and nights of lighthouse duty, most take great comfort from losing themselves in the worlds to be found within the pages of a book.
But it was not just any book that Joseph plucked from the shelf: it was the lighthouse logbook, which Milne had recently updated with the meteorological information that had been chalked upon the slate on the kitchen wall.
‘I heard what you said to Mr Milne, Alec,’ Joseph said as he leafed through the logbook, his voice almost lost to the howling and clattering of the storm.
‘I thought as much. And so, what do you think, Joseph?’ I asked as he found the page he was looking for and handed the book to me.
He didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, ‘You haven’t read what Marshall wrote in the log, before…’ His voice trailed off into silence as he sat down across from me, his unblinking gaze making me suddenly profoundly uncomfortable.
I looked down at the pages, and read the last entries made by Thomas Marshall.
December 12: Gale, north by northwest. Sea lashed to fury. Stormbound. 9 p.m. Never seen such a storm. Waves very high. Tearing at lighthouse. Everything shipshape. Ducat irritable.
I glanced at Joseph, who nodded at my confused expression. ‘That’s right, Alec. Lewis is only twenty miles away, and yet no storm was reported there on the 12th of December.’
‘That is strange,’ I conceded, ‘as is the reference to Ducat’s temper. I wouldn’t have thought he was the kind of man to be easily angered.’
‘Especially since he was an experienced Lightkeeper,’ Joseph added. ‘But read on.’
The next entry was just before midnight on the same day.
Storm still raging. Wind steady. Stormbound. Cannot go out. Ship passing sounding foghorn. Could see lights of cabins. Ducat quiet. MacArthur crying.
Again I looked at Joseph. ‘Crying? Why would MacArthur be crying?’
Joseph’s gaze had fallen away from me. He was now looking at the floor, his eyes glassy and unfocused, as if lost in a mournful contemplation of things that passed his understanding. ‘He was a man of the sea; he knew it well. And he was a hard man, too, Alec. I’ve seen him in more than one brawl on land, and he always came out best, believe me.’ Joseph’s eyes found mine again. ‘What could have happened to make such a man weep?’
I read the entry for the next day.
December 13: Storm continued through night. Wind shifted west by north. Ducat quiet. MacArthur praying.
‘On the 12th, MacArthur was crying,’ I whispered. ‘On the 13th, he was praying.’
Joseph’s voice had also dropped to a whisper. ‘Read on,’ he repeated.
12 Noon. Grey daylight. Me, Ducat and MacArthur prayed.
‘They all prayed together,’ I said. ‘Perhaps they were giving thanks for coming safely through the storm?’
Joseph caught the hint of desperation in my voice and offered me a slight, grim smile. ‘I knew these men well, Alec. They prayed in church, of course, but I’ve never seen them pray outside. They were all experienced men, with long service to the Lighthouse Board. They lived through many storms.’ He shook his head. ‘Fear of a storm wouldn’t have made such men fall to prayer, either during or after, I’m sure of it.’
I said nothing, but read the last of Thomas Marshall’s entries in the logbook.
December 15: 1 p.m. Storm ended. Sea calm. God is over all.
I read the last sentence aloud. ‘God is over all. What does that mean?’
Joseph said nothing, and I glanced again at the log entries, aware of another mystery. ‘And why did Marshall write such things at all? Such observations have no place in a logbook. This is for noting facts: dates, times, weather conditions.’ I shook my head, perplexed. ‘Why would Marshall make note of his personal feelings and the moods and actions of the others? No Lightkeeper would do that…’
Joseph was about to reply but was interrupted by the cacophonous blast of the foghorn. He waited patiently for the numbing sound to die away, then opened his mouth to speak. But the horn sounded again, immediately, before the echoes of the previous sounding had had time to die away.
Our eyes flew to the ceiling.
Joseph jumped to his feet and rushed from the sitting room. ‘There must be a ship nearby, coming too close!’ he called over his shoulder.
I followed him out into the hall and up the spiral staircase leading to the lightroom at the top of the tower. We found Milne with his back to us, facing the all-but-invisible ocean to the west of the island, his hands pressed against the lattice of triangular window panes. Behind him, at the centre of the cramped room, the large lens assembly rotated around the lamps, its clockwork mechanism muttering with the click of mechanical escapement.
‘What is it, John?’ asked Joseph as we joined him at the windows. ‘A ship?’
Beyond the triangular panes, all was darkness, a brutal void of gale-driven rain that battered the tower with unutterable violence and fury. The odour of kerosene hung strangely upon the air, as if the great lamps were living, breathing things exhaling in watchful silence.
‘Yes, I believe it’s a ship. Look.’ Milne pointed out into the darkness, through the wildly flying rain that flashed to quicksilver stars in the lamps’ bright illumination.
Off in the distance, a light hung and flickered in the feral maelstrom.
‘How close is it?’ I asked, my mind clouded with horrible visions of sailors dashed to pieces upon the storm-thrashed islands.
‘Hard to say,’ Milne replied. ‘Perhaps half a mile.’
‘That puts them close to Roaireim,’ said Joseph. ‘Good God, the sea is high! Look at it!’
‘I’m looking, Joseph,’ said Milne quietly. ‘Too high… too high.’
I understood what he meant, for as I peered into the storm, I could see how high the light from the ship was hanging… and it was too high. ‘If you’re right, John, and it is half a mile or so away….’
‘It shouldn’t be in that position,’ Milne completed. ‘Aye… it shouldn’t be.’
‘Could it be further out?’ I asked, glancing from one Keeper to the other.
Milne shook his head, and I saw that he was frowning in confusion. ‘It doesn’t look that way. I would swear that it’s…’
‘For God’s sake, John,’ Joseph cried suddenly. ‘Why don’t you say what you’re thinking? It isn’t on the sea… it’s above it!’
Milne cast him a furious glanc, and sounded the foghorn again. ‘I’ll not listen to talk like that, Joseph,’ he said. ‘It’s a ship, out on the ocean – nothing more, nothing less, and if the storm is playing tricks on our eyes, then that’s no more than we’ve seen before in these parts. Am I not telling the truth, laddie?’
Joseph lowered his eyes, unwilling to meet Milne’s fierce stare. ‘Aye, John, you’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Do you think they can see us in this?’ I asked. I knew it was a stupid question, but it was born of the fear and helplessness I felt at that moment, and Milne did me the service of offering a reasonable answer.
‘Aye, they can see us, Alec, have no doubt of that. And hear us too. But it may be too late to do them any good.’
I moved closer to the window panes, as if an extra couple of feet could afford me a clearer view. At that moment, I felt like what I was: an Occasional, not a true Lightkeeper. I felt small and useless in the face of the immensity outside. I thought again of the night James Ducat had saved my life, drawing me out of the sea, defying its rage and hunger to carry me back to the world of men. And as I gazed helplessly into the churning darkness beyond the windows, I thought of the poor sailors on that ship who would have no such salvation, and no witnesses to their fate, save three powerless men watching from afar.
‘What can we do?’ asked Joseph Moore, his voice small and drowned in sadness. ‘What can we do?’
I glanced at John Milne and saw an expression of bewilderment on his face; his frowning eyes were unblinking, and he shook his head, slowly, from side to side.
He whispered something I couldn’t catch.
‘What? What are you saying, John?’
He spoke a little louder, and his voice trembled in a way I did not like. ‘Why is it so still?’
I looked back through the windows and saw that he was right. In the mournful extremity of the last moments, I had not realised, had not registered the truth that was now so plain to see.
The light was not moving.
I stepped back from the windows.
‘A ship,’ said Milne, ‘out on that ocean… shouldn’t be so still.’
I glanced from Milne to Joseph Moore and saw something in his face that made me turn quickly away. In desperation I searched for an answer; even one that made no sense would do for me, then. ‘The light from a house, on another island west of here. That’s what it is. It isn’t a ship. It isn’t in the sea.’
Milne shook his head. ‘There are no inhabited islands out here, Alec. No houses, no people. It can only be a ship.’
‘A ship on the stormy sea,’ said Joseph. ‘But a ship that doesn’t move.’
Again I pressed close to the windows, my face reflected in the glass, an ugly apparition peering back at me from out of the storm. For many moments I gazed out into the tumult, at the light that hung perfectly still while the black sea rose and fell and beat and thrashed.
‘I think Joseph is right,’ I said at last. ‘I’m sorry, John, but I think he is right. It isn’t on the ocean, it can’t be. It is above it – though how in God’s name it can be…’
‘Yes,’ said Milne, and there was resignation in his voice. ‘Yes, it’s above the ocean.’
For how long we three looked out at that impossible light, I don’t know. But presently, without warning, it went out, leaving only the darkness and the frenzy of the storm.
Milne walked unsteadily to a chair and sat down. He put his head in his hands but said nothing. I looked at Joseph, who was still standing at the windows, his face suddenly blank and impassive.
‘God is over all,’ he said, more to himself, I thought, than to us. ‘God is over all… but which God?’
‘That’s enough, Joseph,’ said Milne. He stood up and went to the windows.
‘John…’ I said.
‘It’s late,’ he said, interrupting me. ‘You’ll be wanting your beds.’
Without another word, Joseph shuffled towards the staircase that led down into the house. Just as I turned to leave, I caught sight of Milne’s reflection in the windows. His eyes were fixed on me, and I waited a moment to see if he wanted to say anything more. He didn’t, but he instead turned and looked at me, and his face held an expression I could not at first interpret. I thought again of his behaviour on the Hesperus, that strange, artificial smile he had given me, when he could bring himself to look at me at all. In his eyes I now saw something that might have been fear or mistrust, and suddenly I had the overwhelming feeling that the fear and mistrust were of me.
7
An Unwelcome Truth; a Strange Speculation
The sun rose upon Eilean Mòr, but we did not see it, for the sky was covered with thick clouds that transformed its golden light into a dull grey pall. I have always been early to rise, ready to greet each new day with a hopeful heart, but that morning was different, and I confess that I felt a strange, dreary lassitude creep over me as I looked out across the slow steady heave of the grey ocean stretching to the horizon.
John Milne had manned the light for the remainder of the night, and I supposed that he was now in his room, trying to get some sleep. But if my own night offered any indication, he would find it difficult to rest.
I shaved, dressed and went along the corridor to the kitchen. As I approached the door, which was standing a little ajar, I heard voices: it seemed that Milne had not yet taken to his bed. I was about to enter when Milne said something that made me stop and listen.
‘He’s a good man, Joseph, I can tell. I won’t believe that of him.’
‘I’ve no doubt that he’s a good man,’ Joseph’s voice replied. ‘But I can’t get the thought from my mind.’
‘Superstition, laddie… nothing but silly superstition.’
‘You know why MacArthur was here with Ducat and Marshall.’
‘Aye.’
‘He was an Occasional, doing duty for William Ross, who is on sick leave…’
‘I said I know why MacArthur was here!’
‘Shh! Please keep your voice down, John, otherwise he’ll hear. MacArthur was an Occasional, doing duty for a man on sick leave. Dalemore is an Occasional… doing duty for Daniel McBride, who has broken his leg and is on sick leave!’
‘Superstition,’ Milne repeated.
‘This is tempting Providence, John. Ducat, Marshall, and MacArthur the Occasional. Milne, Moore, and Dalemore the Occasional. MacArthur and Dalemore covering the duty of a sick man. I tell you, it’s not a good sign.’
Neither of them spoke for several moments, and then John Milne said, ‘No… it’s not a good sign.’
I left the kitchen door and walked quietly back along the corridor to my room, where I sat on the edge of the bed and looked out through the window.
So that was it: the reason for the strange looks I had received from the crew of the Hesperus, and even from Superintendent Muirhead himself. My presence on the island was a bad omen; I was a potential bringer of ill fortune, perhaps even of another catastrophe. It was nonsense, of course, for how could any such similarities as Joseph had described have any bearing on what was to happen over the next month? Did he and Milne seriously think that my presence could influence the elements and bring the sea crashing upon us, washing us away to oblivion?
