by Paul Finch
The shaman raved incoherently from the boundary of the camp, but aside from this the dig went uninterrupted for three weeks, until envoys arrived from the local warlord, Adula Yakub. He too had now been informed that a temple to Kalengu was being despoiled. Though always keen to curry favour with moneyed whites, Yakub was on this occasion obdurate in the orders he issued: all licenses to dig on the spot had been rescinded; all treasures must be restored to their resting place; the temple was to be closed. Cyrus-Jones was outraged. To have the discovery of the age snatched away from him by someone he considered little more than a bandit was too much. Work on the dig ceased, but the professor had no intention of handing back any of the valuables he’d unearthed. He and his team crated them all, and then left the country in secret, taking a steamboat up the Red Sea towards Cairo.
On returning home to England, the professor’s discoveries, which were given pride of place in the British Museum, became the talk of London. Cyrus-Jones was lauded by all the leading figures of society. Of course, it was around this time that the first incidents involving Spring-Heeled Jack are alleged to have occurred. A man who could leap astonishing distances, even over the roofs of houses, was reported to be frightening and even attacking residents of the capital. Initially, Cyrus-Jones made no connection between this bizarre phenomenon and his recent trip to Abyssinia. However, several months later, a chamber-maid drew his attention to his eldest son, fifteen-year-old George, who was furtively leaving the house each night. That evening, the professor concealed himself on the upper floor of his smart Belgravia home. A short while later, he was amazed to see his son steal out of his bedroom, climb to the attic level and vacate the building through a skylight in the roof.
The following morning the professor confronted the boy. Young George claimed to have no memory of these events, though he did admit to feeling lethargic and weary during the day, as if he’d been indulging in excessive physical exercise. Concerned, the professor searched his son’s bedroom, and was horrified to find, under the bed and in one of the wardrobes, a collection of what appeared to be discarded exoskeletons: greenish, man-sized shells, which resembled something part way between a human and a locust. Only then did the first horrible suspicions creep into the professor’s mind.
He waited the next night, and again saw his son leave via the roof. This time, he stayed where he was until dawn, when the lad returned. The professor watched in disbelief as young George – now a ghastly hybrid, complete with insect-like appendages such as a shell, antennae, claws and long, strong back legs – returned to humanity by shedding his outer carapace, which he kicked out of sight beneath the bed. After this, the boy fell promptly into a deep sleep.
Only after several large brandies was the professor able to assess the predicament. And there was no obvious answer. Though he was a man of science, he’d seen this abomination with his own eyes, and had no doubt that it was the result of a curse or spell, probably passed on him for his transgressions in Abyssinia.
The problem was how to end it.
All normal avenues were closed: to consult medical science would make public the lurid details of the case; to consult a magician or sorcerer would risk the same thing, as well as mockery among the professor’s fellow scholars. For the meantime, Cyrus-Jones confined the boy in a specially-adapted room, which was constructed in an attic of the family home. This strategy proved effective, though occasionally, as George grew to manhood and became stronger and wilier, his night-time incarnation would escape, and Spring-Heeled Jack, who, after his startling early rampages, had apparently vanished into the fog of London folklore, would briefly re-appear again.
Of course, even if the creature was successfully confined, the situation was intolerable. During day-time, George Cyrus-Jones was able to conduct himself normally; he even went into business, and met a young woman whom he fell in love with and married. But always the spectre of his other self lurked close by. His father at last sought an answer overseas. Throughout the 1840s and early 1850s, Abyssinia burned with internecine warfare, but in 1855 one Kassa Haylu, a successful chieftain, was crowned Emperor Theodore II, and a period of comparative peace followed. Professor Cyrus-Jones, hopeful that his former misdeeds might have been forgotten, returned to Abyssinia with his stricken offspring, only to find that there’d been so much change in that once-mysterious land that knowledge of the old ways had largely been lost. He searched for several years, but nowhere could he find a reversal to the enchantment.
At length, in 1858, he and his son returned to England. The ageing archaeologist had realised that his days were numbered and that George would soon be the head of the Cyrus-Jones family, which was of course a potential disaster. In the professor’s mind it had become essential that someone must be on hand at all times who understood and could help manage his son’s condition. In that respect, he brought back to England with him two sturdy henchmen; two Ethiopian warriors raised on the old traditions of their land and experienced in the hunting of dangerous beasts. To blend with London society, they adopted the western names Joseph and Nigel and dressed as gentlemen-servants. During the years that followed, they performed simple domestic chores around the family home, though whenever necessary, if their boisterous charge escaped, they would pursue and recapture him. As such, throughout the 1860s, progressively less was seen of Spring-Heeled Jack, and when Professor Cyrus-Jones finally expired in 1868, the leaping monstrosity had all but vanished from London’s consciousness.
All was not well, however. After his father’s death, George Cyrus-Jones fell into a depression. He feared the last chance for a cure had now eluded him. This depression deepened with the premature death of his wife, Clara, two years later. The tortured man now completely drew into himself, becoming a recluse even during day-time, avoiding contact with anyone, including his children. When he himself finally died in 1879, at the age of fifty-four, it was a mixed blessing. His family mourned, but they were hopeful the curse had died with him.
Very shortly afterwards, this hope would be rudely dashed …
“Well this is a fascinating story, but there’s one thing I don’t understand,” Colonel Thorpe interrupted. He occupied a wing-backed, fireside chair in the parlour, and in his own inimitable fashion, had made himself quite at home. He had a brandy in one hand and his pipe in the other. “These Ethiopian chaps,” he continued, addressing Charles and Annabelle, who sat hand-in-hand on the facing sofa. “This Joseph and Nigel. Why should they return here to assist? That makes no sense to me, Miss Annabelle. Your grandfather looted the tombs of their ancestors. Why should they dedicate their lives to containing the horror they presumably believed he’d brought on himself?”
“In the first instance they were paid to come here,” Annabelle replied. “But there was something else. Abyssinia is a land that has gone though great upheavals, spiritually as well as politically. Much like our own country, colonel, its native beliefs were gradually subsumed by imported religions – Christianity, Islam, even Hinduism. Beings once revered as deities were re-rationalised into demons, evil spirits.”
“And if Nigel and Joseph are representative of their people,” Charles added, “it seems there’s a growing belief that what torments the Cyrus-Jones family is not some malediction invoked by a priest of Kalengu, but Kalengu himself.” The young soldier remained entirely straight-faced as he said this. “I’ve spoken to both men on the subject, and they’re quite firm. As long as Kalengu, or this manifestation of him, is allowed to run amok in England, then he can’t run amok in Abyssinia.”
“Which as far as they’re concerned is a good thing,” Annabelle added, “because when he runs amok in Abyssinia, his children, the locusts, run amok with him.”
There was a short silence.
“So they’re jailers?” the colonel said. “Nigel and Joseph?”
“Of a sort,” she agreed. “They mean to keep Kalengu in England at all costs.”
“How considerate of them.”
“They’re not unreasonabl
e men, colonel,” Charles said. “They know that in this climate the locust can never fly, so in Britain the worst we have to put up with is the mischievous imp himself.”
“No consolation to your family, Miss Annabelle.”
“Oh, they do assist us,” she said. “As I say, both men live in this house as footmen. They have done ever since my grandfather brought them here. We’d already dismissed the other servants out of necessity.”
“And do they help with the main problem?” the colonel wondered.
“Absolutely. Whenever my father – though now it’s my brother of course; forgive me, I can hardly get used to the idea. Whenever he escapes, and it happens more and more frequently as he matures, they hunt him until he’s retaken. They don’t always manage it – Sebastian is young and strong, and Joseph and Nigel are both now middle-aged. But they try very hard and are often successful.”
Colonel Thorpe switched his leonine gaze to Charles. “But you, captain – you presumably don’t intend them to perform this service indefinitely, or else you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to interest me?”
“I think the whole thing’s gone far enough,” Charles said.
At which Annabelle inclined her head. She extricated her hand from her fiance’s and placed it in her lap. “Charles wishes to present my brother to science,” she said.
Charles stood up, his face taut. He paced the room, fingers tucked into his waistcoat pockets. “I feel we’ve lingered in the superstitious shadows over this for too long,” he finally said. “For all we know, this could be some hereditary biological fault, which may be correctable. There’s a fellow in a circus that’s been touring. They call him ‘the Elephant Man’. He’s hideous, a monster … but I’ve read that it’s a medical condition and that it might even be treatable. You’re a man of the world, Colonel Thorpe, wouldn’t you agree?”
The colonel gave it some thought, before harrumphing. “My personal experience is irrelevant to this issue. But at heart I’m a realist, and it’s quite plain to me that, whatever the cause, and if for no other reason than your family’s collective sanity, Miss Annabelle, this matter must be closed.”
She made no objection.
Colonel Thorpe turned to Charles. “You mean to trap the fellow, I presume?”
“Once he’s transformed. Whoever we take him to, they must see him as he really is.”
“I agree.” The colonel rubbed his chin. “It won’t be a simple thing. But you’ve come to the right chap, which of course you knew all along.”
Charles nodded.
“Just out of interest, where are our Ethiopian friends now?”
“They’re searching for Sebastian as we speak,” Annabelle said.
“And do we anticipate their resistance to our scheme?”
“They won’t be happy,” Charles replied. “They think that if we put Sebastian before a doctor, he may be cured, and as Kalengu is not some disease but a living entity, it will be dispelled back to its land of origin. And the locust storms will recommence.”
“So we can’t count on their support?”
“I fear not,” Annabelle said.
“In which case we must act quickly.” The colonel checked his pocket-watch. “It’s half past nine. Do you expect these men to bring your brother home any time soon?”
“Ordinarily it would be dawn, or the early hours,” she replied.
“Then we’ll work on the basis they’ll recapture him by midnight. Any extra time after that is a bonus.” The colonel stood up. “Captain Brabinger, you will stay here and protect Miss Annabelle. I shall return to my house in Bloomsbury, where I must collect several key items. I’ll be back inside the hour.”
Moments later, the two men stood in the open front door. The colonel was now hatted and coated again. “You knew I would follow when you came to see me,” he said.
“It was an impertinence,” Charles replied, “and I apologise for it.”
“I’m more intrigued than annoyed. I understand why you expected me to be interested in the hunting aspect. But in the club this evening, I made it quite clear to you that I considered this whole business a fantasy. How did you know I would still come?”
“A man like you, sir, would have no option.”
“Indeed?”
“In your very wide experience, which earlier you erroneously described as ‘irrelevant’, you can’t have failed to witness the most extraordinary things, even if you’d rather not admit to them in the prosaic confines of The Union Jack Club.”
“You seem very sure.”
“Colonel Thorpe,” Charles said, “I was left for dead on the field at Isandlwana. I wasn’t just wounded in the face with an assegai, I was struck across the back of the head with a knobkerrie. My skull cracked, it bled out profusely. I lay in a delirious state for a considerable time. Only by a miracle, did the Zulu priests not turn me over and disembowel me as they did with all the others.”
“That barbarism is called hlomula,” the colonel replied. “Its purpose is to free the angry soul of a slain warrior before it contaminates the slayer.”
Charles nodded soberly. “A sensible precaution, I now realise.” He paused, before adding: “Colonel Thorpe, throughout those terrible, sun-baked hours as I lay on the verge of death, I saw red-coated figures moving back and forth amongst the dead, wringing their hands, howling like children. I thought Lord Chelmsford and his men had returned. Only later did I realise that I’d been quite alone – just me and the vultures. The figures I saw were those very agonised souls that the Zulu priests had released. They were lamenting their slaughtered state.” He paused and ran a nervous hand through his hair.
“And despite that spiritual experience,” the colonel said, “you feel science may provide an answer to this other problem?”
Charles made a weary gesture. “The truth is I’m too confused. Did I really see those phantoms, or was it simply that I’d suffered a head injury? Is Sebastian cursed, or is it a medical matter? Either way, it has to be dealt with.”
“That is undoubtedly true.”
The young officer. “Perhaps I was already receptive to the uncanny when I first went to Africa. My prior involvement with the Cyrus-Jones family might have prepared the ground for that. But Colonel Thorpe, I was only stationed over there for five years and yet in that brief time I was exposed to much that was inexplicable. You have traversed the globe from one end to the other. In a lifetime of hunting and exploration, you’ve delved into its most remote and sinister corners. I felt certain that if any man would know for a fact that strangeness and horror exist in this world, it would be you. And that you of all men would best know how to confront it.”
A short silence passed. The colonel was grave-faced when he finally placed a hand on Charles’s shoulder. “As I told you before, you’ve come to the right fellow. Now, is there a gun in this house?”
“There are several.”
“Arm yourself with one. I’ll return shortly.” And he left into the fog.
*
When the colonel returned, he had a plan. It was ingenious but also quite simple.
“I’ve used this method to capture larger species of ape,” he said, as they re-ascended to the attic room. “Orangutan in Borneo, chimps in the Congo Basin. No matter how large the blighters, this was always their undoing.” The main implement of his plan was a square net, perhaps twelve foot by twelve and woven from a very fine but strong twine. “I designed this myself,” the colonel said, draping it over the inside of the broken window, having first unscrewed and removed the steel grille.
Charles nodded, though he tried to curb any show of enthusiasm. He was well aware of Annabelle watching unhappily from the doorway.
“Its border’s made from cured snakeskin,” the colonel added. “It can neither be stretched nor broken easily, so once the trap is sprung it allows the net to keep its basic shape, which I assure you is quite important.” He indicated four brass-ringed eyelets, each one located at a different corner of the net.
“These are equally important,” he said. He turned and rummaged in his kit-bag, taking out two coils of thin, grey rope. “As are these. Each one is eighty feet in length. That should be more than enough for our purposes.”
He climbed up on a stool and threaded the first rope through the upper left-hand corner of the net, and then through the bottom left-hand corner, knotting the end of the rope at the bottom so that it was secure. The remainder of the rope he flung through the window into the house’s rear garden. He repeated the process with the second rope, this time using the right-hand corners of the net. Once this was done, he clicked a two-holed iron bracket into place, clamping both excess lengths together.
He turned back to Charles. “You understand what’s happening here?”
Charles nodded. “I think so.”
“It’s quite simple. As soon as our friend comes in through the window, he tangles himself in this net. But he won’t be tangled for long if we don’t quickly take up the slack down below.” The colonel pointed into the garden. “We do that, and all four corners will instantly be pulled together.”
“But Sebastian will be dragged outside!” Annabelle protested. “Think how far he’ll fall.”
The colonel eyed her. “Your brother hasn’t had much trouble with heights so far.”
“But he’ll be wrapped in that net. He’ll be killed.”
“Which is why I intend to take this extra precaution. Twenty paces from the house there’s an old willow, yes?”
Charles nodded. The willow sat close to this end of the rear lawn, on the bank of an ornamental pond.
