The Blood Dimmed Tide

by Anthony Quinn

  19

  Seven of Cups

  I HAD discovered, as part of my induction into the Golden Dawn, that Yeats was fascinated by mechanical contraptions and outlandish inventions, which might be used like Marconi’s radio to tune into the invisible world of spirits. In the past year, he had carried out experiments on all manner of devices from adding machines to gramophones and radios powered by glowing crystals. However, his poetic genius was amply matched by a complete lack of scientific understanding, and even his most rigorous investigations and autopsies on the machines failed to reveal any genuine secrets.

  On the beach at Blind Sound, I watched him remove from the box a long golden trumpet with copper wands and buttons running along its sides. Inscribed along the horn of the instrument were the words ‘The Soul of the World’.

  ‘Another talking trumpet,’ I remarked.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Yeats. ‘But this one has been tuned to pick up a sound that never stops. One that constantly rings out from mountain tops and cities, from the upper realms of the sky to the depths of the sea. The spirit of the world as it changes from moment to moment.’

  I took a step back. Yeats’ occult claims no longer dazzled me but this one was blinding. ‘The spirit of the world will speak through this piece of metal?’

  ‘You can smile with incredulity but I’ve seen it used for that very purpose.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In an attic overlooking one of the busiest thoroughfares in London.’

  ‘How does it work?’

  ‘The details are shrouded in absolute secrecy.’

  ‘There’s a surprise.’

  ‘A secret to which the trumpet maker has made me privy.’

  Yeats began adjusting the controls of the instrument, and explained to me what he had been told. Assuming that I understood metallurgy, he spoke some gibberish about the alloys of rare metals used in the moulding of the trumpet, and a ground-breaking Teutonic theory on pistons and communicating chambers, which the instrument used to amplify vibrations beyond the range of human hearing. He held the trumpet aloft as though he were the champion of a new technology that would revolutionise the world of spiritualism. Then he lowered the instrument, and dropped his voice. ‘Of course, there is a risk of embarrassment and failure. The creator might be a fraud after all. Which is why I have elected to trial it on this far western shore.’

  He readjusted the copper wands and tapped at a glass dial positioned next to the instrument’s mouth. The grey light of the waves illuminated his face as he laid the trumpet on a makeshift altar of stones. Mumbling in Latin, he traced a pentagram around the structure.

  My patience snapped. ‘What is the point of all this?’ I shouted above the wind. ‘Why is there a need for such gadgetry and dramatics? Why so much spectacle and ritual? Why all of this just to hear a ghost speak. Isn’t it enough that we just listen? Shouldn’t the mode of contact with miraculous beings be simpler and less artificial?’

  Yeats did not reply.

  ‘I no longer wish to be part of this pointless spectacle,’ I announced. ‘I shall climb the cliffs and observe your folly from a distance.’

  ‘Quiet,’ ordered Yeats. ‘I want spectators not critics. Your ticket of admission is your silence. When the show is over, you will have your opportunity to applaud or boo.’

  If there had been a door to slam on that empty beach, I would have done so. Instead, I walked briskly to where the sand gave out to rocks and the debris of landslides. The cliff looked unassailable but I felt strangely braced after my outburst. I took a final glance back at Yeats, who stood motionless, arms raised before the churning sea. A flock of seagulls materialised out of the spray and then disappeared. If Blind Sound was his temple then the cries of the gulls were the ringing of its discordant bells.

  I found a precipitous path, worn smooth by the passage of nailed boots, and clambered my way upwards. The path was virtually invisible from the beach, but it cut an unmistakable route along the south-facing cliff. Small boulders had been assembled to help one negotiate gullies, and treads cut into the rock where the path fell away, just wide enough to hold a man-sized boot and allow one to sidle across, face pressed to the wet stone. On a small promontory, I rested for a moment. Gulls and cormorants swooped feet away, against a churning backdrop of waves and grey oblivion. The sound of hungry chicks in their nests echoed from higher up the cliff. I felt a piece of wire dig into my back, and turning to the cliff face, found a crude handle, suspended above a small crevice. I pulled the handle and uncovered a string of tin cans filled with turf ash and reeking of something that smelt like paraffin. It was a makeshift string of lights, I realised. I sat down and contemplated my discovery.

  I could follow the line of the path below me by the shine on the rocks upon which countless boots had sought footholds. Who had used the crooked path? I wondered. Who had left behind the fine web of their repeated journeys? A short-cut for fishermen to a favourite perch, perhaps. But why the string of lights? Something to do with the night. Smugglers signalling from a vantage point to boats out in the bay? Perhaps, but I lacked the evidence to prove my supposition.

  The sound of Yeats’ incantations disturbed my thoughts. His shouts, carried in snatches by the wind, sounded childlike in their glee and enthusiasm. I made out the names of several mythological deities and familiar invocations in Hebrew and Latin. The wind rose and his chant merged with the tumult of the waves into a single pulsing voice, as though the black cliffs themselves were speaking in a restless tongue.

  I checked for any sign of Captain Oates on the beach, but the only figure was Yeats. I pushed off again, following the rest of the oblique track until it petered out in a lichen-covered cleft. I was about to turn back when out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow swinging erratically against the cliff. I crouched as a horrible clacking sound filled the air. I glanced up in time to see a cormorant swoop, its beak opened in attack. I ducked as it flapped its wings, beating the air about my head. Waving my arms in self-defence, I shuffled along the narrow ledge, but the bird’s violent movements knocked me off my balance. I grabbed at empty air and fell into a roaring wind, which drowned my bellow of alarm. The air was sucked from my lungs, and I fell more than twenty feet. My last vision was of an upended beach with a dark figure running sideways towards me, dimming to a hazy sea-green and then deep blackness.

  I must have slipped into some sort of dreamland, for the next thing I knew the ghost of my friend Issac was lifting me to my feet on a beach by an alien sea, a floating bazaar of mysteriously crested waves and changing shapes rising and falling in the wind-whipped foam.

  ‘Look how the waves are in constant motion, ebbing and flowing with the tides,’ said the ghost. ‘You still don’t understand the force that drives them. It is the key to understanding the mysteries that beset you.’

  He pointed with a bony finger, and I saw the black-haired head of a young woman bob above the waves, and then another. Soon the sea was full of girls, faces pale and skeletal, rising out of the water, their breasts covered in seaweed, their pale legs riding the swell of the waves. A cry sprang into the air, a rallying call, and then the charging women began to chant and whoop. The sound of their howling overwhelmed the roar of the sea. It came from everywhere, filling the air, demanding vengeance for some unmentionable crime. I cowered on the sand, unable to move, as the white wall of their bodies tumbled around me. I braced myself for the impact but their agitated forms passed right through me and dissolved into the sand.

  When I came to, I could sense the presence of someone close by, gazing at me intently, speaking a strange language. I tried to understand the figure through its eyes but it was like trying to search for a way out of a maze.

  ‘Are you still in one piece?’ asked the voice.

  My eyes fluttered fully awake. To my relief I found myself lying a safe distance from the breaking waves. Yeats stood over me with an anxiou
s face. ‘I turned and saw you fall,’ he said.

  I struggled to my feet, but a wave of lightness kept me on my knees. My fingers clawed at the wet sand.

  Yeats stared up at the ledge from which I had fallen. ‘What happened, Charles? What made you forget that your body is subject to the draconian law of gravity?’

  ‘A cormorant knocked me off my feet.’

  ‘These cliffs are heavily populated with their colonies. Many’s the fine feather pillow has been plucked from their nests.’

  I told him of the strange vision I had experienced while unconscious.

  ‘What else did you see?’

  ‘That was it.’

  ‘Let me hypnotise you.’ His gaze was greedy, penetrating.

  ‘Hypnotise me?’ I replied in alarm.

  ‘I want you to return to your unconscious and reveal the symbols hidden there.’

  ‘You think the dream contained a message from the otherworld?’

  ‘Without doubt.’

  I thought of Clarissa, and it struck me that the vision might have more to do with my repressed fears and desires concerning the Daughters of Erin.

  ‘My role is that of an investigator. I have no wish to become a channel or a medium.’

  Yeats looked hurt. His thoughtful expression became grave and vaguely threatening.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but I have been infected with curiosity over what happened to Rosemary O’Grady. Not curiosity over whether her spirit has returned but a desire to discover how she was killed and who her killer was. And that is not possible if you insist on turning me into a vessel like Georgie.’

  ‘Then I’m tempted to knock you unconscious again. For the good of this investigation.’

  ‘For the good of the investigation or your own good?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not the one seeking answers from spirits about my personal life. Nor am I gnawed by self-doubt and fears of madness. That is why you ferret out every half-sighting of a ghost, every shilling séance, every new contraption to communicate with the dead, because you are unable to make up your own mind, because you are haunted by ghosts of your own making.’

  Yeats stared away deep in thought.

  ‘I fear you will interpret what I have said as the harshest of criticism,’ I said, ‘but I speak from the heart. Out of friendship.’

  ‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘I may be wracked by indecision from time to time. But is that not the case with the male of the species in general? We’d rather have our gods make our decisions for us.’

  Or our wives, I thought to myself.

  The wind dropped and a jagged whining sound rose above the crash of the waves. I tried to pinpoint its source, as it echoed against the cliffs in a broken rhythm, coming and going like a strange wail. Yeats stared at the trumpet with a triumphant gleam in his eyes as though the sound was emanating from its golden mouth.

  ‘What is that?’ I yelled.

  Yeats held his breath, afraid to make a sound. The wail grew louder, fulsome as a chorus, and then faded altogether.

  ‘What on earth?’ I said.

  ‘Wonderful,’ breathed Yeats. ‘Here is evidence at last that the trumpet works.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  Whatever it was, it sounded the very opposite of an angelic choir. It started up again, with greater rage and intensity, the harsh, grating sound of something trapped in the cogs of a machine. I wandered off, leaving Yeats holding the trumpet, muttering incantations under his breath.

  The sound grew louder as I approached the caves. The dark cliff chambers magnified the noise, drawing out its twisted melody. I clambered along a wet terrace of rock to find a wooden barrel thrashing in the waves, its metal bands grinding rhythmically against the rocks. On its sides, the words ‘The End is Nigh’ had been daubed in white paint.

  A voice from behind spoke with a panting breath. ‘That piece of contraband is now the property of His Majesty’s Crown forces.’ I turned and saw Inspector Grimes’ cold blue eyes as he climbed over the rocks, a battalion of his policemen in tow, while, beyond them, Yeats hurried in our direction, the wind flapping the dark wings of his coat.

  ‘We thought we’d follow you to see what little games you’re up to,’ said Grimes. As usual, there was something gloating about his sweating face. He spoke as though his arrival on the beach had been a triumph of police detection. ‘This is a dangerous coast, Mr Adams, the haunt of smugglers and rebels. That barrel might be full of brandy or gunpowder.’

  His men surrounded the barrel and rolled it onto the beach. They sat it upright, and began working on prising open the lid with knives. They were eager to discover what bounty the sea had delivered. However, the wooden lid had expanded in the water and sat clamped tightly in place. Grimes pushed his way through, grabbed one of the knives and applied the pressure of his substantial frame to the makeshift lever. With a final ferocious heave, the lid gave way. Immediately he staggered backwards.

  I peered into the barrel and saw the roughly curled head of Captain Oates floating in a dark pool of water. His shoulders were slumped, his hands tied behind his back, his knees tucked up, like a crippled puppet spinning slowly from its few remaining strings.

  Yeats appeared and looked with confusion at our grim faces. A foaming wave washed against our feet and the sides of the barrel, sloshing the water within. The corpse moved gently, not living human movement, more like that of a huge dying fish, floundering within the creaking barrel. The head sank beneath the water. Under Grimes’ instructions, the policemen pulled the collars of the corpse’s uniform, so that the face was clear again, chin tilted upwards, standing drunkenly to attention, froth bubbling from the gaping mouth, the defeated, wide-open eyes looking too small for the bloated face.

  Grimes inspected the floating body, squinting as if he might see some lingering essence, some spirit escaping from the captain’s remains. He straightened up again, and his face went dark with suspicion.

  ‘Captain Oates has been murdered,’ he announced.

  Not just killed or drowned, like Rosemary O’Grady, I thought.

  ‘He was a good man, a loyal servant to the Crown,’ fumed the Inspector. He stared at the sea, his eyes blazing with anger.

  Yeats said nothing. His eyes widened at the sight of the barrel being emptied, and Oates’ body, loose-limbed, heaving onto the sand, the uniform bloated like an air bladder. Yeats’ body sagged, his knees crumpled and he fell sideways.

  ‘Someone get a doctor,’ I said urgently as I rushed to the poet’s aid. ‘He was suffering from concussion earlier.’

  An hour later, a doctor arrived with a hearse pulled by a pair of horses for the body of Captain Oates. Yeats was just stirring back to consciousness, and promptly fainted again at the sight of his transport. The doctor checked his vital signs and organised a stretcher to lift him into the hearse along with the corpse. It was just as well that Yeats remained unconscious as they set off on the journey back to Sligo.

  ‘The coward has gone, and now I am left with the fool,’ said Grimes approaching me with an air of menace. ‘I want you to accompany me to Sligo Barracks, Mr Adams, while Ireland’s poet laureate recovers from his fainting fit.’ He smiled thinly at my reluctant reaction. ‘Don’t be alarmed, it’s just an informal visit. You’re not under arrest.’

  ‘If I’m not under arrest then why should I go there?’

  He shrugged. ‘I thought you might be interested in meeting the ghost of Miss O’Grady.’

  20

  Ten of Pentacles

  SLIGO Barracks and gaol were less a building and more a sprawling block of darkness contained within high walls protected by a barrier of rotating spikes. Opaque leaded windows, no larger than household bibles, ensured that little light penetrated the depths within. A group of women were holding
a protest with placards at the gates when the Inspector and I pulled up. They had travelled from evening Mass to shout out the names of loved ones beneath the greasy railings. As we passed, they made the sign of the cross.

  ‘Be gone, ye unbaptised heathens,’ roared Grimes.

  He led me through a series of iron doors which slammed behind us with a heavy clang. We passed a row of cell doors that must have opened into spaces no larger than coffins. The place reminded me of a dingy public bathhouse. A poster on the walls illustrated the difference between a dozen different types of human parasite. A fire hose lay coiled in the corner, and water gleamed in the cracks of the stone floor. I tried to affect the attitude of a welfare committee member inspecting the prison conditions.

  ‘It must be difficult running a prison during a time of great unrest,’ I said, in a foolish attempt to fill the cold void of the corridor.

  ‘Influenza helps,’ he replied gruffly. ‘Last winter’s epidemic cleared out more than half the cells. Of course, we filled them again within a month.’

  A guard checked me for concealed weapons and removed my notebook and pen. He stopped just short of inspecting my head for lice. Grimes fiddled with some keys hanging from a chain, barely suppressing a cruel smile.

  ‘Are you prepared to make contact with the dead, Mr Adams?’ he asked. He appeared to enjoy the look of uncertainty that flashed across my features. ‘You’ll soon see that our newest prisoner is a little different from the usual thugs and hooligans we apprehend.’

  A tray containing an untouched bowl of congealed porridge and a mug of thin tea sat by the door. ‘She is refusing to eat. I believe the tactic is called a hunger strike. But then starving oneself shouldn’t be too difficult for someone who is supposed to be dead.’ He swung back the grille with a heavy clunk. ‘Let me introduce you to the ghost of Rosemary O’Grady.’