The Curious Quests of Brigadier Ffellowes (26 page)

             
" 'What do you know of the geology of Europe?' was the somewhat enigmatic answer. It turned out we neither
of us knew anything, so he told us, in a sonorous drone that must have put his students to sleep in buckets in the past
.

             
"We heard all about
varves
, thermoclines, Pleistocene recessions, gneiss, schist, continental shelves, faults, the
Riss
,
Mindel
and
Wurm
Glaciations; the man missed nothing. And yet, somehow, he kept us interested. For one thing, he kept interspersing the most peculiar remarks into his lecture. There would be a longish strip on cave faults or something and then, 'If Hitler knew; seven bombers on the right incline.' Now, then, I began to prick up my ears. I had taken a fair load of spirits, but a confused idiot or an Axis sympathizer?

             
"T
h
e learned rigmarole went on, and so did the baffling interjections. 'If there is a Wakening, what then? Ragnarok?' While I was mulling over this, we were back in cave faults, conterminous flaws in Welsh Sandstone, the unnoticed work of one
Sergius
of the University of Uppsala, some obscure savant of his acquaintance apparently. The whole thing was at one time a conversation, or rather monologue, from a pedantic bore, and then again a refreshing change from the casual chats with distillery officials, procurators fiscal, Gaelic revivalists and other types with whom George had tried to enliven my leave. Yet
... there was something else. I tried to focus upon
it, 'nail it down,' as you chaps say.

             
"Suddenly, as these things came upon one after a few glasses, I found my clue. The man was dreadfully in earnest
.
He was also frightened, and trying to conceal it
.
Underneath all this learned gibberish, was an appeal. In the only way he could, the retired professor was asking somehow for help, for comfort, for succor in some form or other.

             
"George, who had been quite as silent as I for many long minutes, caught it too. He was George, I mean a short, broad Scot, who did not care to discuss his income, or indeed anything, with strangers, save for the iniquities
of the firm conviction that Smith was a Scottish name, rudely captured by the Sassenach invaders. He owned, in fee simple, four fishing villages, had twice refused a peerage. He had three sons in the British army. Two others were dead, one of them a pilot in the Battle of Britain. In a locked drawer was his own
D.S.C
. from the First War. He was, in many ways, a typical
Scot
.
Now he drained his glass and looked fixedly at Hafstad, who had momentarily withdrawn into his tankard. " 'Man,
wha's
amiss with ye? You're black with fear of
somm'at
. Do you need help?'

             
"The clear blue eyes appeared over the tankard and inspected both of us. 'You do not laugh? You do not think here is a crazy old Norwegian who should be shut in a house for the mad?'

             
"I was personally out of this, you understand. I could see that George had got on our strange friend's wavelength, though, and I shut up. The intensity, for want of a better term, that the man projected had touched me, however.

             
"His inspection seemed to ease his mind. Abruptly, he stood up, and he was a big chap, over six foot and broad. When he put on his hat, which had a droopy brim, I thought of Odin and wondered if two ravens were hid on the premises.

             
" 'Come,' he said. 'I have made calculations for over a year now. I will show you the end of the world, the world as you now know it I will show you the Abomination of Desolation as the Israelites knew it, and as my own ancestors knew it even better. This is why I have come tonight to this place.'

             
"We got up, paid our score, collected our hats and coats and went out after him. It was not until I had seen the loch, gleaming in the summer moonlight; no more than a few hundred yards away below us that I realized where we were heading. George was silent, his head bowed, and his hat jammed down on his big head. We simply stumped along,
following our leader down the slope from the inn, across the road and through the heather and gorse on the other side, down, down to the shores of the cold lake itself.

             
"And all the while Hafstad was talking. The talk was still the same, all about geology, the interconnected, underground linkages through Scandinavia and Great Britain, the Irish lakes, the Swedish lakes, the confluence of currents, the intermeshing of tides, the rocks and their characteristics, the underlying faults. But there was more. In between the other stuff kept coming one word.

             
"Appearances. There had been few Appearances in Sweden lately, but many in Scotland. Appearances were down, it seemed in Norway, but the war might have had an effect; reporting might be out
.
Irish Appearances were well up to the mark, however, so far as one could judge, and realizing that the Free State was neutral. This was mixed up with more of the geology lecture, but I found myself nodding my head gravely, wondering when the next Appearance would occur. It seemed important somehow, since the old visionary who was leading us thought it must be so.

             
"No doubt you chaps will think I was naive. Yet I dare swear that until the three of us were standing on a sort of rock shelf at the water's edge, no more, even later, I had no idea what all this was leading up to.

             
"Our guide took up his stand at the very lip of the stone and turned now to face us. He was very impressive in his cape and his droopy hat, especially as he gestured toward the glassy mere behind him.

             
" 'Watch, you two! You will see something others have seen before, and made themselves the scorn of their equals. But you are the first besides myself to
understand
!' "

             
Ffellowes stopped talking, and there was the silence that falls on all of his stories. I did notice the new member, out of the corner of my eye. His mouth was slight
l
y open and an unlit cigarette was in his hand. The night noises of the
winter city, coming through the closed drapes over the windows, sounded far off and in another time.

             
"Professor Hafstad reached into his inside pocket and produced a large old-fashioned watch, which he inspected and restored to its recess," the brigadier continued, his even voice leaving every clipped syllable flawless and perfectly clear. "George and I stood, immobile, while he turned and waved at the placid water behind him, whose tiny wavelets lapped almost at his feet. All was still under the moon, and the wisps of cold fog rising off the dark surface did not hide, but rather revealed the far expanse of the loch, though hiding the distant shore.

             
"We watched and suddenly there was indeed an Appearance. Without warning, the loch was in motion. Something arose, grew in size and moved. It was not far offshore. What did it resemble? At first blush, something very thick and rather flexible, not unlike hose, garden hose. It waved. There was a thin part, near the tip, then a broadening at the tip itself. It grew larger or perhaps longer, as it extended itself.

             
" There! Now you see the peril! Now you at least understand!' It was our new leader and his voice was far louder and more ringing than it had been in the inn. A trifle too loud, I fancy.

             
"I have said the Appearance was not far offshore. In fact, it was very close. Too close. In one fluid motion, it bent, like the trunk of some quadruple-magnified and quite improbable elephant. One moment had the professor with us. The next did not
.
I had a close look, a rather closer look than I needed, at something rippling down upon us.

             
"I next saw the loch rippling under the moon and the swirls of mist rising again. The small waves were now much larger and swirled up almost to my boots.

             
"George, who like myself had stood in silence during this visitation now looked up, and I saw his face in the
moonlight. He was nodding his head gravely. 'Ah, Nessie,' he said. '
Ye're
a bad, bad
gurrl
. Why for did ye do that?'

             
"I must have made some sort of strangled noise at this point, for he turned and looked calmly at me. 'Donald, man, he called it and it
tuk
him. Now we'd best
awa
', you and me. The procurator fiscal in this parish is a devil for asking questions. We'll go the
noo
, and avoid all the trouble.'

             
"Since I was totally blank, had no understanding of what had happened and was in fact stunned, I suffered myself to be led away. We climbed the gentle slope again, found our battere
d M
orris van in front of the inn, which was now dark by the bye, and drove off. We had gone some miles on our way home across the quiet moorland before George took one hand off the wheel and patted my shoulder in a rough way.

             
" 'Dinna
fash
yourself, Sassenach. He was a nice man, but Nessie
doesna
' ken these fine distinctions. It happens now and again. Saint Columba was the last man to argue
wi
' her, and he was a very holy man.
Puir
mortals like us can hardly make the pace.' He resumed driving, and the next morning, when I tried to raise the subject, stared me into silence."

             
Ffellowes put down his empty glass and stretched. Then he looked at us. "Having seen that, you will understand why I find drinking a bumper to the dear old Scottish pet rather hard to do."

             
The new member stuck his neck out "Excuse me, Sir, but I don't quite get it
.
Why, other than the obvious,
were
you so appalled?"

             
The brigadier stared past him at the unlit fireplace, as if he were thinking, or perhaps remembering.

             
"My dear man. Possibly you suffer from deafness. Perhaps, though I doubt it, I may have been obscure. When the thing, or Appearance, swung down, I saw certain vast circular marks, cicatrices, or what have you, on its surface.
Disks
, if that makes it plainer. In other words, chum, a
single, colossal tentacle
. I do not personally care to speculate on its point of origin."

             
No one said anything. The new member stared at the empty fireplace. When I looked up, the brigadier had gone.

-

             
It was a windy and wild March evening in lower Manhattan. As I went along the canyons of what was once a familiar Greenwich village area, or its western fringe, I looked despairingly for any sign of a vacant taxi. The few that passed were always full and their lights were smudged by the wind-blown dirt and water. I had come from a meeting of major shareholders near 12th St and had tried then to walk to Fifth Ave. It grew very dark quickly and began both to rain and blow together as it did. It was not a part of New York I'd been in for years, and though I had a hat and light rainco
a
t, I soon became half-lost and thoroughly miserable. It was not really cold, being in the mid-forties Fahrenheit, but it was the classic English term for a Winter's day, or "short, dark and dirty."

             
As I groped futilely along the sloshy streets, I cursed my own stupidity for not having arranged some kind of a car pick-up. There were few people about and that made me feel a little safer, since this was a known haunt of drug addicts and the nastier lunatic fringe of the once-famous Art World of the old Greenwich Village. I kept well out toward the curb and the running gutters anyway, and avoided the dark alley mouths which gaped like black funnel vents between the dirty and narrow house fronts. I glanced at my wrist watch and saw that it was after 6:30 already. While the dirty rain blew in my face, I wondered if I ought to try one of the local bars, if I could find one, and risk being mugged or poisoned, just to get out of this blowing murk and trying to find out exactly where I was, as well as how to leave it as quickly as possible.