The Ghostman

by Maxwell Grantly

known and polished from many previous similar engagements.

  I stepped out from my car, parked amongst many other vehicles in the pub car park and looked around the site. This pub was a favourite of mine and I had visited it many times before, as a customer. It was situated in the northwest corner of the old medieval town, nestled behind the imposing remains of an old flint pinnacle tower that once formed the start of a chain of ancient town defences against an eminent Spanish attack. The attached medieval flint wall had long since been demolished to make way for a short stretch of road, leaving the stout tower standing aloft and detached from the remainder of the town’s historic defences. I always marvelled at the contrast of both old and new, as cars streamed past this commanding ancient monument into the town from the two main arterial routes: the Acle Straight from the west and the Caister Road from the north.

  My first session of the day went as planned and received a generally warm response from the many customers in the pub. Most of these were indeed holidaymakers from the nearby boats and were drawn by the prospect of forgoing the numerous problems associated with the cooking of a hot meal in the confines of a motor cruiser. The time seemed to pass very quickly and soon the numbers in the bar began to dwindle as the clock approached two-thirty. In fact, my last routine of the afternoon was performed very much later, at the bar in front of a small gathering of one of the staff and a group of four elderly regulars. By now, time had drawn on and I had already eaten my lunch and relaxed with a drink. The pub had emptied of all of its customers, except for a small group of regulars, and the time began to draw into the hours of late afternoon. It was quite a relaxed assembly around the bar and I had been asked to join them. The patter followed my usual pattern of some sinister ghostly anecdote and, as I finally finished this, I bid the collection farewell and drew the session to a formal close. One of elderly crowd, an old man dressed in a trilby hat and dated jacket, asked whether I would be interested in listening to a story of his, one that perhaps I could add to my repertoire. I had nothing formal planned except for a jaunty stroll around the town to browse the many shops and so I readily accepted his offer and followed him, as he beckoned towards the doorway of the pub. We stepped out onto the car park facing across the river beyond. Towards our left stood a recent sturdy concrete bridge that spanned the river and a mass of cars swarmed like hurrying rats across this, to make their way in and out of the town from beyond the marshes to the west of the town.

  The elderly gent pointed beyond the bridge towards a second pub called “The Suspension Bridge” and began explaining how he, as a younger man one foggy evening, had witnessed a stagecoach approach from the distance drawing in from the hues of the mist. I must admit that normally I would be entranced by the details of the story and I would begin to etch the very words into my memory but somehow the facts of his account failed to make any impression. I knew that the modern concrete bridge replaced many earlier ones that had once stood upon this site but his account of a stagecoach travelling into the town from across the marshes failed to take account of the fact that the road to which he was now pointing did not tie into his account in one major detail: it was the wrong date. The modern Acle Straight stretched away into the far distance, forming the main A47 artery into the town from the west, like a straight slice across the marshes. Indeed a quick glance at any road atlas will show you that this road cuts an unnaturally straight line across some seven or eight miles of open marshland, with a single kink roughly two-thirds along its length to nudge past a natural bend in the River Bure. However, this road is a modern phenomena and the main ancient route into Great Yarmouth was via a longer, straggling route through the numerous small villages and the town of Caister, to the north of the town. Quite simply, no mail coaches would have ever taken the A47 into Great Yarmouth, as the road plainly did not exist then.

  I knew that the story of the elderly man was well-meaning but I wanted to draw his ramblings to a polite and respectful close so that I could leave, but not offend him in doing so. I glanced at my watch and noted with astonishment that the time was now past five o’clock. I didn’t appreciate how far into the afternoon this had all taken me. By this time, the cars that were once streaming into the town were, by and by, heading in the opposite direction as many of their occupants were bearing away for the start of the weekend. Suddenly, the continual bustle of the car engines was broken by a woman’s scream from further north along the riverside. I broke off from the elderly man and raced along the cruiser moorings towards the yacht station to discover the embarrassed face of a woman, standing on the deck of a moored boat. Alongside the bank stood a small boy of about eight or nine, staring into the swirling currents of the waters.

  Immediately I received a profound apology from the woman, “The river currents jostled the boat about and I dropped my drink – nothing more! Please accept my apologies. I hope that I did not scare you.”

  I glanced down to see nothing in the waters except the remnants of some swirl. There was nothing to be alarmed about nor was there anything that would warrant any interest. The river eddied around the hull of the boat with its usual incessant swirls and I looked into the face of the woman. To this day I can recount every detail of her complexion to the most minute detail, even though my glance at her face lasted no more than a second or so. I could spend a paragraph explaining how she had brushed her long blond hair across her temples and behind her right ear or how exquisite and precise the line of her eyebrows took across the crown of her face but the fact that confuses me to this day is that of the young boy who stood at the bank of the river. I recall that he stood there looking into the waters and of the events of that followed but, of his appearance, I can recount nothing. It is as if my memory of him has been erased completely from my memory like chalk from a slate. I do recall that the boy looked into the town and beckoned me with his finger but I simply fail to recall any detail of his appearance or how he was dressed.

  Normally, I would be reluctant to follow the directions of a simple hand gesture but for some strange reason I felt compelled to follow the direction of his hand as it now pointed into town, along the busy roadway of Fullers Hill, towards the parish church of the town. He uttered no sounds nor engaged my eyes in any direct eye contact. I responded quietly and obediently to his simple outstretched pointed finger and made the short journey into town. It is going to be difficult for me to explain how I felt or what made me take the steps that I did. All that I can write here, to put your possible questions to rest, is that it felt to me as if I were like a leaf tumbling and falling in a soft breeze. The was no strong inclination to take the route that I did, it simply felt right, as if I were controlled by some external force that was nudging and edging me to take those steps. I soon found myself being directed to a gateway off the main road, into the church graveyard. There the influence eased abruptly and I found myself once again being thrust back, out of my trance, into the hustle and bustle of the modern town. I looked around to find myself standing near the entrance to this imposing flint structure. To my left stood the magnificent towering grey flint faced walls of the church and to my right stood a series of low black painted wrought iron railings, behind which stood a number of shoddy, poorly-kept, eroded gravestones. I knelt down and pushed my hands through the railings to ease the grass away from the lower line of the graves. I read the name “George Beloe” under an engraved etching of a broken suspension bridge but I felt confused as to what all of this was about. I had no time to investigate further. The time was drawing on and I did not want to be late for my next engagement, which would begin at six o’clock. I headed back to the riverside pub somewhat confused regarding the afternoon’s events but determined that, later, I would get to the root of the incident.

  Later the following week, I found myself in a position to explore further. I was in Great Yarmouth again and had some time to spare. This time, rather than spend those hours rambling around the town centre, I made my way to the library on the far side of town and started to
research into the archives of the town. After an hour or so, with help from the library staff, I had found what I wanted in the form of an old newspaper cutting dating back to May 1845. Rather than confuse you with the vocabulary and extra details from this period I shall finish my recount of this incident with an abridged version of what I read within those pages and leave you to draw your own conclusions about the events that I experienced:

  On Friday 2nd May 1845, a clown called Nelson was due to sail in a washing tub, drawn by four real geese from Haven Bridge, under the old suspension bridge, to Vauxhall Gardens at 5 o’clock to advertise the erection of a large building in the town. The riverside was packed with crowds of onlookers, many of these being children, but the most advantageous view was deemed to be found from the crown of the bridge itself and this was crowded with about four hundred people. As the clown approached the air rang with the cries of, “Here come the geese!” but very few people noted