The Watchers

by Neil Spring

  ‘Did you have a tanker down in that field?’ I asked him through the fence.

  ‘Why would we have a tanker down there?’ He laughed and shook his head at the idea.

  No reason. And anyway the children who saw the anomalous object were mostly from farming backgrounds. They would have recognized a tanker, surely?

  ‘I know why you’re asking,’ the workman continued. ‘I saw the news. If you ask me, those kids are having a game.’

  I thanked him and returned to the field, squelching through the glutinous sludge. Even if a tanker had been able to get in there, there was no way it would have got out again.

  I was about to return to the school in the valley below when something caught my eye. I craned my neck for a better look, squinting against the freezing drizzle at the telegraph pole. The metal support beam at the top of the pole was bent, almost as if something had . . .

  Crashed into it.

  The thought had barely occurred to me before another boom, like the crash I had heard the night before, shook the heavens, unleashing pelting rain upon me. I turned. At the doorway to the school the headmaster was standing with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Watching.

  – 16 –

  By the time I had made my way back to Little Haven, the Atlantic mist was spreading hungrily into the village and its huddled maze of pastel cottages.

  I parked on the seafront, where the sea thudded in and sprayed up against the sea wall. The postmistress was crossing the road and she granted me a weak smile, tinged blue. Lips like dead slugs, I thought again. That smile didn’t fool me. Not for a second. Already the strangeness was reverberating around this small community, and the villagers, conservative and God-fearing, could hardly conceal their suspicion of outsiders. I had been gone so long I might as well have been a stranger.

  Did the past whisper to the locals as it whispered to me? Did they share my apprehension about this place? Probably, even if they did choose to make their homes here. Maybe they’d convinced themselves that every coastal village felt like this. And maybe they were right. But I doubted it. There were a great many sinister places around the Havens, abandoned forts and lone caverns, coves flanking the wild and unpredictable sea. Even in summer, when sunlit clouds gleamed and shadows grew long, these villages could feel dangerous.

  For me that danger had been there since the freezing currents had flooded the Havens in December ’63. I’d never forget. Couldn’t forget. A blackness once more fell over me. In my mind I was eleven years old, staring vacantly at the funeral cards on Grandfather’s mantelpiece.

  I flinched as another pulse of swell crashed in and the water sprayed up.

  Hastily I decided to seek refuge in the Ram Inn, partly because I was hoping to find Frobisher, mostly because I wanted to escape the snapping cold. Two elderly men near the fire exchanged sharp glances the instant I closed the door on the chill afternoon air, and as I perched shivering at the bar a muffled silence filled the room.

  ‘Afternoon, gentlemen.’ I attempted a smile around the room.

  They didn’t smile back, just hunched further over their pints.

  The landlord looked flushed and weary as he wiped the polished oak bar. He was a thin man with a wasted face and shiny bald head. Behind him an upside-down horseshoe hung on the wall, flanked by several grainy black-and-white photos of what appeared to be flying saucers.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ the landlord asked.

  I hadn’t ordered my Guinness before a ragged boom shook the building. Bottles rattled and somewhere a glass smashed. I jumped down off my stool.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  It had come from the sky, a startling roar of . . . something. Yet the landlord, to my amazement, seemed quite unconcerned. So did the middle-aged chap sitting a few stools away from me, staring down at a newspaper.

  ‘That was the worst one in a while,’ the man said without looking up. ‘We’re calling it the sky quake.’ He nodded, turned the page of his paper and continued. ‘Some sort of sonic boom, if you ask me. Another in a long list of military experiments they’re not telling us about.’

  Dark hair with just a few grey hairs beginning to show. He was a well built man no older than forty-five. I went and sat next to him. His pint glass was almost empty.

  ‘You want another?’ I asked.

  ‘Sure.’ He looked up and stuck out his hand. ‘Frank Frobisher.’

  Success! ‘From the Western Telegraph?’

  He nodded, smiling as if pleased to be recognized. ‘You must be Robert Wilding. We spoke on the phone. So you couldn’t keep away, eh? And where’s our MP? Not interested in what’s been going on down here, eh? In “the Happenings”.’ He nodded at the blurry photographs on the wall behind the bar. I thought they looked like hubcaps. By the grin on Frobisher’s face I’m pretty sure he thought the same, but his tone implied criticism of my former boss that I suspected was widespread in the constituency.

  ‘I suppose you could say I’m here on Bestford’s behalf,’ I lied.

  Frobisher was instantly alert. ‘So there’s official interest now?’

  I hesitated, mind racing, and decided to backtrack before I said something I regretted. I gave the journalist what I hoped was my most sincere expression. ‘No, no. Nothing that grand. I take a . . . personal interest. I grew up here.’

  Admitting this to Frobisher made me feel nauseous. I had hoped to tell as few people as possible about my connections with the area. I felt as if just talking about them might bring the bad wolf of memory to my door.

  He looked at me for a moment with a curious expression, then nodded and lifted his pint. ‘So, you coming to the public meeting tomorrow?’

  Just try to keep me away. I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘Perhaps. Where is it?’

  ‘School hall,’ Frobisher said, still looking at me. ‘You should come. Just don’t stay here too long. This place –’ he shook his head – ‘it’s the bloody graveyard of ambition.’

  ‘You ever think about leaving?’

  ‘Me?’ He shifted on his stool, his eyebrows lifting. ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘I don’t know – Cardiff, Bristol, London?’

  ‘Nah.’ He dipped his head. ‘Too late for me. You need a bloody degree these days to be anyone on Fleet Street. What have I got? Twenty-four years on the local paper. Twenty-four years of town meetings, funerals, weddings and fetes.’ He smiled with a hint of sadness. ‘I’ve enjoyed it – big fish in a small pond and all that – but what about you? Enjoy London?’

  I thought about that. What was enjoyable about never having enough time to finish my work, always fighting with tourists for space on the Tube, never having enough money to keep up with the other researchers? ‘Sure, it’s fine.’ I paused. ‘When the place isn’t on high security alert.’

  He understood immediately. ‘Hell of a thing. Could have been a lot worse too. Were you in Parliament when it happened?’

  I blinked and the memories leaped up onto the black screen of my closed eyes. ‘Yeah, I was there.’

  ‘You reckon they’ll catch who did it?’

  ‘They will,’ I said, although after my discussion with the admiral I privately felt it was unlikely. If my long-time mentor’s assessment of the attack on Parliament was correct – if the Americans were responsible – that was a line of inquiry that would lead nowhere. The NSA, the CIA. Don’t think they’re not capable of it. But I still wasn’t convinced. Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence.

  Suddenly, the reason why I was there – why I had sought out Frank Frobisher – came back to me in a rush. ‘Mr Frobisher,’ I began, choosing my words carefully, ‘Lieutenant Colonel Corso was a witness at the recent parliamentary inquiry. You were trying to reach him recently at his hotel in London. Can I ask why?

  ‘Sure. With everything that’s been going on around
here, I wanted to know why American soldiers were meeting the staff of our local MP.’

  ‘You mean Selina Searle?’

  He nodded. ‘They met in this very pub.’

  ‘What’s odd about that?’ I asked. ‘The Americans are a vital part of the local economy. You’d expect them to talk to the local MP’s staff, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘But Colonel Corso wasn’t based here in Wales. He was based at Croughton. That’s over two hundred miles away. So what was he doing down here?’

  I had asked myself the very same thing. I kept my mouth shut.

  Frobisher smiled. ‘It’s always worth asking questions, that’s my opinion. And anyway there’s a lot of suspicion about the American facility – about the work they’re doing up there . . .’ He allowed the words to hang between us.

  I rushed to fill the silence.‘You think that’s what people have been seeing in the sky? American aircraft?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You know the airspace above Brawdy has been completely restricted since the Americans moved in?’ I didn’t know that. ‘No one’s allowed near,’ he added. ‘Which is why I’ve tried. Many times.’

  ‘Seen anything strange?’

  ‘The runway lights flash on, an aircraft leaves the ground. Seconds later the base is in darkness again. Complete blackout. You don’t see much – just flickers of activity at night, if you’re lucky. I’ve been out to the base three times now. Twice I’ve seen something, almost as though they’ve been expecting me. Tuesday and Friday nights. Around ten thirty.’

  This was a lot of information for a stranger to offer me; so much that I had to wonder if he was trying to influence me. I’d met too many journalists not to be wise to their crafty ways.

  ‘Did you ask Selina about her meeting with Corso?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I asked, but like everyone else she didn’t want to talk. Listen.’ He cast a furtive glance towards the men by the fire. ‘What do you think is really going on down here?’

  I smiled. I liked Frobisher, but I sure as hell wasn’t ready to tip off a journalist that nuclear weapons were stored nearby. Not until I had the facts.

  ‘I’m interested in something you said on the phone – the single mother you interviewed, the woman who runs the Haven Hotel.’

  ‘Araceli Romero?’

  I nodded. ‘You told me on the phone that she was threatened by someone.’

  He nodded, pulling a frown. ‘She told me about a globe of light that had chased her car – terrified her and her little one half to death – then, when I phoned her a few days later to follow up, she clammed up. She’s a strange one,’ he added flatly. ‘Bit of a recluse, like her mother.’

  ‘What happened to her mother?’

  ‘Died some years back. Left Araceli with a shitload of debt.’

  ‘What about her father?’

  ‘Dunno, some aristocrat. Not been seen in decades.’

  ‘So she’s all alone up there?’

  ‘She and her little girl.’

  I hesitated, remembering the overgrown driveway that led up to the rambling Haven Hotel.

  Frobisher looked me straight in the eye. ‘Shit, you’re not thinking of staying there?’

  ‘I was hoping I might.’

  His eyes widened. ‘Why the hell would you want to stay there? Bad atmosphere. You know they say it was built on ley lines? They say it’s haunted.’

  ‘“They say”.’ I smiled.

  Behind the bar the landlord – eavesdropping – caught my eye then returned his attention to the pint glass he was wiping. He was making me feel uneasy.

  ‘When I was young people used to gossip about Araceli’s mother. Do you know what they used to say?’

  ‘Yeah. She lived up there for thirty years and rarely came down into the village. The stories about that woman used to scare me,’ I added. ‘My parents would drive me to this pub every Friday, after my father has finished work on base, and I’d hear people gossiping about the mad woman on the hill. We’d sit just over there.’ I nodded towards the fire, where I could see the ghosts of my parents in memory. ‘Just stories . . .’

  ‘They still live around here, your parents?’

  I told him then of their mystifying deaths.

  ‘God, I’m sorry,’ Frobisher said. I saw that he meant it. ‘Too many died that night. But what were they doing up the cliffs?’

  ‘Wish I knew.’

  ‘And what did you do afterwards?’

  ‘Went to live with my grandfather.’ I drained my pint and leaned forward. My moment had come. ‘Mr Frobisher, is it true that you and Randall Llewellyn Pritchard were the first to visit the landing site at the school?’

  Understanding broke over Frobisher’s pleasant face. ‘Wait, Randall is your grandfather?’

  I nodded.

  ‘OK. Now I see why you’re interested in all this. Sorry. I should have made the connection. I knew Randall had a grandson who worked for Bestford. Sure, I went with him to the school. He was pretty insistent, said there was no way the children were making it up, thought if we were lucky we’d find evidence of what had been there. Nothing. It’s as if whatever it was had never been there.’

  ‘I understand my grandfather told you that he had predicted this wave of recent sightings. How is that possible?’

  Frobisher frowned again. ‘More likely he made an educated guess. There have always been strange goings-on in the Havens. I’m not saying your grandfather is right . . . ’ His eyes fell to the newspaper once more and he said quietly, ‘But I do believe this whole area – Little Haven, Broad Haven, St Brides Bay – is . . . haunted. You see, we’ve had everything – UFOs, ghosts, strange weather – you name it. There’s a tale that in 1884 some labourers near Ravenstone Farm were rounding up cattle when they heard a terrific whirring noise from above and looked up to see a blazing object plummeting into the sea near Stack Rocks. They say the water glowed for days afterwards, that the men went blind. And mad. I know we were talking about the Americans, the aircraft, but surely that can’t explain everything that’s going on.’

  ‘It’s just local superstition.’

  Frobisher shrugged. ‘If you’d asked me twenty years ago, I’d have sounded as sceptical as you. But recently?’ He narrowed his eyes.

  My gaze drifted to the window and across the horizon beyond. ‘Listen. Coastguards, harbour police, tanker crews—’

  ‘What of them?’

  ‘When I was a child only trawlers and lobster boats disturbed these waters.’

  ‘So?’

  I turned to face him, ‘Well think about it. There are just so many more people about these days – all trained observers. It’s their duty to report anything they see, especially if it’s unusual. An odd craft, an erratic light . . . ’ I was remembering the newspaper stories about dancing lights. ‘There would be more official reports.’

  He furrowed his brow. ‘The liaison officer at RAF Brawdy asked our editor to keep a lid on them.’

  ‘You think that will hold?’ I was surprised. Such instructions to the press were usually made with extreme restraint, though more common since the Cold War had heated up.

  ‘With the public meeting tomorrow?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t see how it can. There’ll be busloads of sky watchers here within days. And the history of disappearances and so on will only add more fuel to the fire.’

  ‘Disappearances?’ I leaned forward.

  ‘Yes, not just the Jacksons. Years back some fella went out watching for birds on Stack Rocks.’ He shook his head hopelessly. ‘Never found.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Before my time. Way, way back. It’s an eerie place, Stack Rocks Island, with that creepy old fort. Who does it belong to, do you know?’

  I processed the question in silence. It had stirred something within me, a latent fear
. Of something just beneath the surface of my memory. Whatever it was, I couldn’t reach it. So instead I told him what I thought about the local sightings.

  ‘We’re witnessing the anxieties of the Cold War manifesting in different ways,’ I said, my theory forming as I spoke. I gestured at the photographs behind the bar. ‘Threats from the sky? Flying saucers fit very nicely with that.’

  But Frobisher wasn’t interested. ‘Some think the whole area is cursed,’ he said distantly. ‘That is was used for rituals, ceremonies. That sort of thing.’

  I gave him a polite but disbelieving smile.

  ‘And then there’s the Jacksons, last summer. Look what happened to them.’

  ‘Everybody keeps mentioning them. Exactly what did happen to them?’

  Frobisher dropped his eyes. Then he told me.

  *

  Frobisher spoke to the landlord of the Ram Inn and ensured that the room allocated to me that evening was not only comfortable but came with a sea view – and a discount! That suited me just fine; with no job I’d be broke soon enough. I couldn’t carry on questioning the people of the Havens for ever.

  As I showered and shaved I told myself that I wouldn’t be staying long, that as soon as I got back to London I would start looking for a new job. Not politics. Journalism, maybe. Still, even with that positive thought in my head, I knew sleep would be slow coming. But I needed rest. I needed to be on best form for the public meeting the next day. So involved was Randall in the sightings, he was bound to make an appearance and advance wild theories. I felt my heart racing at the thought and with an effort turned my mind to other things.

  Picking up the phone next to the bed, I decided to try another, more direct route of inquiry to what was going on. I dialled the operator.

  ‘RAF Brawdy, please.’

  ‘One moment, sir.’