The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos (10 page)

With that, he got to his feet and left without another word.

For a moment, I expected his companion to do likewise, but he remained seated.

Seeing his glass was empty, I signalled to the bartender to bring him another. I knew it might be pointless to press him with further questions but I decided to try.

At first he seemed as disinclined to talk as his friend but after another couple of drinks he waxed a little more talkative.

“Old Ben Trevelyan doesn’t like to speak of these things,” he said in a low, reedy voice. “Besides, it all happened a long time ago and he’s been a changed man ever since.”

“What exactly did happen?”

“It were more’n twenty years ago. Ben had a boat, the biggest and best vessel in the village. Used to go out fishing every day. Made a good living from it. His boat is still there, moored at the jetty.”

He took a swallow of his beer. “He married late in life. Pretty young thing she was, much younger than him. Shirley, her name was. Shirley Quaid. Came from Truro, I believe.

“Nobody thought they’d make a go of it, but they did. Leastways for a time. But, after town life, she found Corvellan pretty dull and Ben spent much of his life at sea.”

“So she left him?”

“Reckon it would have been better if she had. But after a time, things got better and she even took to going out with him on his fishing trips. What happened exactly, no one but Ben knows. It were on the night of the big storm, round about this time o’ the year. There’d been no hint of anything brewing so Ben took it into his head to go out at night.

“Shirley said she’d go with him. She always was a wild, young thing, headstrong and afraid of nothing. They set off shortly after sundown.”

“Those are dangerous rocks out there just beyond the harbour,” interrupted the bartender. “And wicked currents.”

“Aye, that’s true,” agreed my companion. “But Ben knew every twist and turn o’ currents and every passage through those rocks. But then, around midnight, this storm blew up out o’ the south-west without any warning. We all knew Ben had gone out with his wife and most o’ the villagers were gathered at the harbour watching for them.

“But a little after two in the morning, when we’d given them up for lost, we sighted the
Shirley
coming in. She’d taken one hell of a battering and there was only Ben on board and he was barely conscious when we got to him. Some reckon he’d been struck on the head by a beam, though how he managed to bring her past those rocks in his condition, no one knows.”

By now, the old man’s speech was only just intelligible and he was on the verge of falling asleep.

“I don’t think he’ll be telling you much more tonight.” The bartender came over and took the old man by the arm. “Better be on your way home now, Hedley,” he said, helping him to his feet and guiding him unsteadily to the door.

Locking it behind him, he returned to the bar.

“Do you think there’s anything in that yarn he just spun me?” I asked.

“I couldn’t really say, sir. I’ve known Hedley Rohan for some time, he’s one of our regulars. I doubt if he would have made any of it up.”

Going up to my room half an hour later, I sat by the window, looking out into the night. There was now a full moon riding high in the sky, throwing a net of silver over the water and there, just discernable, I made out the ugly black teeth of the rocks jutting from the water perhaps a quarter of a mile out to sea.

It was easy for me to imagine what it would be like attempting to bring a boat into shelter through the teeth of a raging storm with lightning flashes all around, the thunder rolling overhead, and the angry waves battering the wooden sides.

In spite of my natural scepticism, I had been deeply intrigued by the old man’s tale, yet I knew only half of the story. What could have happened out there on that boat more than twenty years earlier during that terrible storm?

Had Shirley Trevelyan been somehow washed overboard and drowned at sea? Or had something far more sinister occurred out there where there were no witnesses?

The next morning, the weather had changed completely. The sun shone from a cloudless blue sky and there was the promise of heat later in the day. After eating a hearty breakfast, I wandered down to the harbour where a long stone jetty thrust out like a tongue into the sea. The tide was now in and there were a number of boats tied up alongside, bobbing up and down in the swell.

A handful of fishermen were seated on the warm stone, repairing their nets. Scanning the length of the jetty, I looked in vain for Ben Trevelyan. Some distance away, however, I spotted the unmistakable figure of my companion of the previous evening.

He glanced up as I approached and I saw his face harden. Sitting down beside him, making sure we were far enough from the others so as not to be overheard, I said: “Would you like to finish that story you were telling me last night?”

“I don’t remember much about last night,” he mumbled. “If I did say anything, you’d best forget it.”

He made to rise but I caught his arm and pulled him down. After what he had told me, I wasn’t going to let him get away as easily as that. “You were telling me about Ben Trevelyan and how his wife went out with him on the night of the big storm. How only he came back from that trip. So what did happen?”

He stared at me, his wrinkled face twisted into a scowl of indecision and was silent for so long that I thought he had no intention of answering me. Then, lowering his voice to little more than a hoarse, wheezing whisper, he muttered, “Nobody knows what happened. At the inquest, they said it was accidental death, that she’d been washed overboard in the storm.”

“And you believe that?”

“Doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“But you think that Shirley’s ghost still comes back to haunt him? Is that what you’re hinting at?”

Rohan shook his head slowly. “There’s more to it than that,” he said enigmatically.

“More?”

“Ben was a changed man after that night. He weren’t just like a man who’d lost his wife. It were more’n that. He never went out fishing again.”

“That must have been hard for him.”

“It were. That’s his craft yonder.” He pointed towards the end of the jetty.

The vessel he indicated was quite large. To my layman’s eye, it looked more like a yacht, twin-masted, unlike all of the others, which were engine-powered, it clearly relied on the wind. The wheel was in the bow, open to the elements and, judging by its size, I wondered how a single man could have handled it, even in calm seas.

“A strange craft,” I said.

“Aye. But Ben could make her do anything he wanted.”

“Then why doesn’t he sell it if he no longer goes out to sea?”

“Ah, I didn’t say he never goes out to sea, just that he no longer does any fishing. He’s been known to take her out at night and only when there’s a storm brewing. You see, there’s only one thing he wants now. To die out there in the middle of a storm, just as she died twenty odd years ago.
But she won’t let him die!
”

I swallowed hard, trying to understand the implications of his words. “What do you mean—she won’t let him die?”

“Just that. He wants to join her, out there in the sea. But no matter how hard he tries, she waits for him and always brings that boat back safely to shore.” His mouth parodied a faint grin at my bewildered amazement.

“You’re saying that his wife’s ghost brings him back to harbour every time he sails out there in the middle of a storm?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I reckon that’s her revenge, to make sure he stays alive with that guilt on his soul. There are folk in the village who’ve seen that boat coming in with the lightning flashing all around it and Shirley standing at the wheel, guiding it through them rocks yonder, hair flying in the wind and the face of a demon.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“Once,” he muttered after a long pause. “Only once. And I never want to see it again.”

Somehow, I had the feeling he was telling the truth, that he had seen something. Whether it was a ghost, or simply something conjured up by a vivid imagination, I couldn’t be sure.

Before I could question him further, he rose unsteadily to his feet, mumbled something under his breath which sounded like “I reckon I’ve said too much,” and walked off.

By now, this strange tale had intrigued me to the point where I knew I had to find some answers. A woman who had vanished at sea in mysterious, and possibly sinister, circumstances; stories of a ghost guiding a boat through the storm; and a man filled with guilt who wanted to die but couldn’t because of some restless, vengeful spirit which refused to allow him to do so.

I walked down to the end of the jetty to where Trevelyan’s boat was moored. The name
SHIRLEY
was just visible on the bow in large black letters. In places they were almost totally obliterated and it was evident that few repairs had been carried out on the craft for many years. I could see where a couple of deck planks were missing and others split. Much of the metalwork was pitted and rusted.

It certainly didn’t appear seaworthy to my untrained eye—and this was the vessel Ben Trevelyan reputedly took out beyond those gaping rocks whenever there was the possibility of a storm. It would be a miracle if she remained afloat by the time the boat was more than a hundred yards from the harbour.

The more I examined it, the more convinced I became that this weird tale was nothing more than superstitious bunkum made up deliberately for my benefit. No doubt Rohan and Trevelyan were secretly laughing between themselves at how easily they had duped this stranger who had come to the village.

Yet back in my room at the hotel, I had the odd feeling that, despite the picturesque tranquility of Corvellan, some dreadful secret from the past still lingered there.

I went to bed early that night, feeling more tired than usual. I could not rid my thoughts of the notion that my probing into this bizarre affair had, in some way, awakened more than just memories in Corvellan. Staring up at the ceiling, I tried to relax. But it proved impossible to sleep. The small room was hot and stuffy and shortly before retiring, I had stepped outside the front door to smoke a cigarette, looking westward to where the sun had just set.

It had been then that I’d noticed the long banks of dark cloud gathered along the horizon and guessed that the hot, sultry day was about to break with thunder. A taut sensation of impending disaster took a firm hold on me.

After an hour of vainly trying to sleep, I got up and went to the window, opening it with difficulty. Outside, the still air was warmer than inside the room. My earlier suspicions were also confirmed when a deep-throated roll of thunder echoed in the distance across the bay.

A wind had got up but it brought no welcome coolness. There was a pale wash of yellow moonlight lying across the cottage roofs but I knew it would soon be extinguished once the storm broke in earnest. Already, ominous black clouds were piling up towards the zenith.

I lit a cigarette and smoked it nervously. The entire village was utterly silent as if holding its breath, waiting for something to happen. I could just make out the white splashes of foam where the sea was beginning to lash against the stone finger of the jetty.

The clock in the tiny church chimed midnight, the final echoes being completely drowned out by a thunderous roar as a vivid bolt of lightning seared across my sight. Jerking back involuntarily, I stood with my hand pressed tightly against the wall, then leaned forward again, oblivious to everything but the sudden, unexpected movement, just visible on the far side of the street.

For a moment, I was sure I had been mistaken. But then I caught a second fragmentary glimpse of the dark figure and I instantly recognized the man who was undoubtedly making his way down to the harbour.

Ben Trevelyan!

But where on earth was he going at that ungodly hour? Then I recalled what Hedley Rohan had told me, something I had not really believed at that time.

Did the stupid fool really intend to go out in that leaking old vessel in the teeth of this storm?

The shape disappeared into the dark shadows near the end of the street and I found myself tensing nervously as I shifted my gaze to where the length of the jetty was just visible.

I could clearly make out the shape of the
Shirley
moored at the far end, the masts swaying from side to side as the tide caught her side-on. When the dark, indistinct figure came into view alongside the boat, I was almost expecting it. There was something oddly frightening about the slow, purposeful way the figure moved, stepping awkwardly onto the deck of the pitching vessel.

A sudden lightning glare lit the scene in brilliant monochrome. I saw Trevelyan hoist the sails and then the darkness came rushing in again with only a vivid green haze dancing in front of my straining vision.

When I could see clearly again, the
Shirley
had been cast off and was away from the harbour, moving slowly towards the narrow gap in the encircling rocks, heading out to sea.

By the time I let myself out of the hotel, the rain was coming down in torrents. With my way lit by vicious lightning flashes, with the thunder roaring like a demon in my ears, with the howling gale tearing at my sodden clothing, I made my way down to the jetty.