Sargasso #2

by Gafford, Sam

  View of Borth Bay (courtesy Julia Kruk)

  The Hodgson family visited Borth often for holidays when Hope was a child, and it was then still a thriving fishing harbor: it is likely that it was here the young Hodgson first heard tales of the sea. The family, with Hodgson’s mother at their head (his father had died in 1892), settled here in 1904, at a house called Glaneifion. This is a four-square structure at the southern tip of the High Street, just where the line of houses ends and the view opens out. The lifeboat station is situated just beyond, and then the further part of the town begins (Upper Borth), where larger houses climb up the cliffside.

  Glaneifion (courtesy of Julie Kruk)

  At the crest of the cliff is the village war memorial, in a commanding and highly visible position: William Hope Hodgson’s name is inscribed upon it. This was damaged by a thunderbolt in March 1983, but re-erected by public subscription. He is also commemorated on a plaque in the lobby of the village Community Hall, which was rebuilt recently when the old hall burned down, and on a tablet in St. Matthew’s Church, which stands farther back from the sea, to the east of the High Street, on a slight knoll above the marshes. Each year at the Remembrance Day Service, Hodgson’s name is read out from the Roll of Honour, with those of the other fallen of the village. On a recent visit to Borth by members of A Ghostly Company, I read out Hodgson’s poem ‘Farewell’ at the cliff top cenotaph.

  Rear of Glaneifion (courtesy of Julie Kruk)

  The house was probably occupied by Hope, his mother, sister Lissie, and at various times by some of his seven other brothers and sisters. Glaneifion looks to have been much updated since Hodgson’s time, with more recent doors and windows, but in essence it is the same house. It is believed that he had a bedroom at the back, overlooking the sea, and stayed in the house throughout the autumn and winter, out of season, when Borth would have been much quieter without its summer visitors: the family was not always there with him, so he would have had time to write and to walk the shore and the cliffs alone. The introduction to The House on the Borderland (published 1908) is dated by Hodgson from “Glaneifon, Borth, Cardiganshire, December 7, 1907.” Though the exact chronology of Hodgson’s other books and writings is difficult to establish, since they were not necessarily written in the order they were published, it seems likely that he also wrote several more of them at Borth, including The Ghost Pirates (1909) and The Night Land (1912).

  In 1911, Hodgson’s mother had a new home built for her and the family in the hamlet of Glanwern, just to the southeast of Borth, and really adjoining the town. This is on a by-road climbing up from the coast and connecting Borth to the main Machynlleth to Aberystwyth road, the A487. The house is about half a mile from Glaneifion. It stands well above the road, on a rocky outcrop, with the railway running below it on the other side and a thin spinney skirting its garden. A track leads steeply up and crosses behind the house and over the railway. The house was originally named Lisswood, after Hodgson’s sister Lissie, but is now called Coedfryn, which translates from Welsh as “wooded hill,” aptly enough.

  The view from the top of the house is panoramic, across to the broad sweep of the bay, over the marshes, and beyond to the hills: a beautiful and far-reaching vista. Alas, the more immediate neighbor, on the opposite side of the road, is now a busy caravan park. From an estate agent’s description, we can see that the house now consists, on the ground floor, of a hall, lounge, master bedroom, study, kitchen, and dining room in a conservatory, and, on the upper floor, of three further bedrooms and a bathroom. Even if there have been additions and alterations since the Hodgsons lived here, it is evident that this would have been one of the larger and grander houses in Borth at the time.

  Lisswood (Courtesy of Julia Kruk)

  In 1986, I wrote to the town clerk of Borth to find out if anyone there still had memories of the Hodgson family. His mother died and was buried there in 1933, and his sister Lissie left not long after, so it was still possible that there might be those who remembered them. I was fortunate enough to be put in touch with Mrs. Eirwen Owen, whose aunt, Miss G. Owen, then aged eighty-four, remembered something of the Hodgson family. Mrs. Owen said her aunt’s family had been neighbors of the Hodgsons for about twenty years, but did not know Hodgson was a writer. I give below the notes Mrs. Owen sent me, which were based on conversations with her aunt. They supply an authentic picture, from a child’s viewpoint, with charming incidental details, of the Hodgson family at that time:

  “Mrs. Hodgson and Lizzie her daughter and Hope moved to Lisswood, Glanwern, Borth in August 1912. They should have moved in July, but there was a problem with getting Lisswood ready. . . . Hope was not living in Borth then, but we know he wrote the book The House on the Borderland at Glaneifion in 1907.

  “Miss Lewis, No 2 Terrace, Borth, owned the land at Lisswood and built the house specially for the Hodgsons. The builder was Dic Owen from Aberystwyth. Lisswood is built on the edge of a rock and the builder was worried about this, but it remains to this day (solid), a beautiful house now known as Coedfryn.

  Lisswood (courtesy of Peter Bell)

  “Mrs. Hodgson was an invalid; she had a wheelchair. Mother and daughter were very independent people, and the people that were allowed to visit there often were my aunt and two younger sisters, Eirian and Ceinwen Owen, of Felinwern, across the road from Lisswood.

  “Mrs. Hodgson had her bed by the window facing the road and Felinwern, and when Lissie went out shopping, etc., if Mrs Hodgson wanted anything while Lissie was out, she would drop notes through the window onto the road for the Owen girls.

  “When Ceinwen Owen was a little girl Mrs. Hodgson crocheted a bag for her and put two new pennies in it. She used to sew etc. a lot and used to buy most of her material from Harrods, London, by post.

  “Lissie used to wear big bonnets with bows which her mother used to make.

  “The vicar would call once a month to give them communion. The vicar was E. P. Davies.

  “Hope only lived at Lisswood during his leave when at war. His wife was at Lisswood and they had a flat at the top part of the house. His wife was tall with blond hair.

  “When Hope was on leave he would go down to Felinwern to chat to the father, John Owen. One night when Hope was home on leave and the Owen girls were home on their own, some drunken gypsies had gone up to the stable loft at Felinwern, and Hope went up to chase them away.

  “After Hope was killed in the war his wife left Lisswood.

  “Mrs. Hodgson died April 1935 [sic; other sources say 1933] and was buried on the 24th [sic; but if, as sources say, she died on the 24th, the funeral must have been a few days later]. Her coffin was taken to church on the step of a car. She was buried at Borth cemetery by J. Bowen Thomas (vicar). Two other sisters of Felinwern, Gwladys and Maggie, were asked by Miss Lissie to go over to Brynllys Farm for a bunch of Crab Apple blossom to put on the coffin.

  “After Mrs. Hodgson died, Miss Lissie sold the furniture and effects and moved to Devon. She wrote to the girls for a few years but in the end lost touch (for what reason we don’t know).

  “Borth Carnival has always been a big event and one year Mrs. Hodgson and Lissie dressed Eirion Owen up in vegetables: two bracelets of peas, necklace of peas, belt of broad beans, cabbage for hat, shoes decorated with gooseberries. She won first prize.

  “In June 1932, my aunt’s brother Hadyn died at the age of thirty-six. Mrs Hodgson and Lissie sent a bunch of white rhododendrons down to the house. The day after he was buried a young girl was buried at Blaen Pennal, Tregaron, and the flowers were forwarded then to that funeral.

  “Miss Lissie had one [particular] friend in the village, Miss Sproule, at Teify, now known as Gwynfa, but she was living then at 12 Cambrian Terrace, Borth.”

  In answer to specific questions from me, Mrs. Owen confirmed that William Hope Hodgson was known to her aunt and others in Borth as “Hope” (not William): this was also the name his family used. Her aunt could not remember Hope being particularly interested in pho
tography at that time (as he had been while at sea) and did not hear anything of his time in Ireland (the family were there from 1887 to 1890). I also asked if Hope had a pet dog (thinking of the faithful dogs in some of his fiction), but the aunt said he did not have a dog at Lisswood, though this was during the war when he was often away at the front.

  Borth Beach (courtesy of Peter Bell)

  Looking beyond Borth itself, it is possible that the wider landscape around may have had an influence on Hodgson’s fiction, and there may be traces of its features and terrain still to be traced in his work. The nearest larger settlement to Borth, seven miles to the south along the coast, is the university town of Aberystwyth, which would have been well-known to Hodgson. Among its features, on the northern sea front, is what was in Hodgson’s time a well-known pleasure park; and its cliff railway, climbing up to a height above the town, is still in operation today. At the top is Britain’s largest camera obscura, a device for seeing, reproduced on a table top, scenes from below. Could this have influenced, as Gwilym Games suggests, the Tower of Observation in The Night Land?

  Some twelve miles inland from Aberystwyth, among romantic hills and valleys, is another noted feature, Devil’s Bridge. Here, three bridges have been built on top of one another over a dark and dramatic narrow chasm, where a waterfall tumbles and froths in a great torrent below. John Eggeling has speculated that this might have inspired some of the similar scenery of The House on the Borderland. In the first chapter, “The Finding of the Manuscript,” Hodgson’s characters look down upon “a boil of spray at a monster cataract of frothing water that burst, spouting, from the side of a chasm, nearly a hundred feet below.” Though of course this scene is magnified by Hodgson’s creative imagination, those of us who visited Devil’s Bridge recently found John’s idea convincing.

  Whether Hodgson transmuted many local scenes in his imagination in his books or not, we can at least maintain with some certainty that Borth was, in all his life, his one real home, his refuge, a place that answered the needs of his spirit as he walked the town’s sea-torn borderland and lived also in the borderlands of his imagination.

  Upper Borth (courtesy of Julia Kruk)

  The Flames of the Drakkar

  By John B. Ford

  I’ve heard many tales of strange incidents taking place at sea, but perhaps none compares with the experience I knew of in my youth. It happened when I was serving the last year of my apprenticeship aboard the Spirit Moon, an old three-masted windjammer. We were becalmed down in the tropics at the time, and all the sea was as still and silent as some long-forgotten churchyard. The area had a bad reputation attached to it, with many unexplained sightings of mysterious lights and images in years gone by.

  Well, for most of the day we had gone about the maintenance and cleaning tasks that Captain Gregson had set for us; and with the sun constantly blazing down from a clear blue sky, the heat made our chores very uncomfortable, as you will imagine. Yet as we entered into the last period of the afternoon, it came to me that a strange chill was pervading the air at odd whiles, and this was so noticeable that it was mentioned by some of the older A.B.s. But all those commenting on this spoke only in hushed tones, for some reason making sure that the captain and mates wouldn’t hear their words. In a little while more, the first mate ordered me to sweep the inside of the wheelhouse, and with this I gave the sudden changes of temperature and whispered gossip no further thought.

  After I had completed my tasks, I joined with the other apprentices in the fo’cas’le, just making to rest for some while. I had been told by the mate that I would be included in the first watch of night, and so knew I needed to remain alert.

  It was about thirty minutes later when I took to the decks. I noticed that the sun had already set with that peculiar swiftness unique to the tropics, and now the eventide darkness was descending with much rapidity. The shrewd eyes of Captain Gregson looked me over as I reported to him and made to commence my “timekeeping.”

  “Jenson, lad, you accompany Bridges in lighting the deck lanterns, then stroll over and take up a position of your own on larboard. I know it’s as quiet as a tomb, but make sure you keep your eyes open for any sudden changes in the weather and for ought unusual.”

  “Yes, sir,” I replied, looking over to where Bridges already awaited me.

  Bridges was an old-timer, probably one of the most experienced shellbacks there was when it came to matters of the sea. We began to walk down the companionway steps towards the first set of lanterns, but straightway came another draught of chill air that seemed to penetrate right into my bones.

  “Did you notice that?” I asked. “One minute the air is so hot it’s almost unbearable, but the next it feels cold enough to freeze the blood in your veins.”

  Bridges looked at me as he went about putting the burning taper to the first lantern. Perhaps he now realised my youthful years and freshness of mind had allowed me the access of some dark knowledge that the older crew members already had.

  “Aye, there is something queer happening, laddie, and you’re quick to notice it. It’s not only the sudden changes in the air temperature either . . .” He faltered, not certain whether to finish what he had started telling me.

  “What else is happening?” I asked.

  He looked up and down the companionway to make sure no one else was within earshot, then continued to talk to me in hushed tones.

  “In the last watch before daybreak we heard a voice aboard ship. It was a dreadful voice, sounding so sinister in all the silence and dark that we thought its tones could only be those of the Devil itself. It seems that something evil has taken a fancy to us, lad!”

  “It could have just been one of the crew playing some foolish jest on you,” I said, knowing the wicked sense of humor that many aboard our vessel have.

  “No, boy, you don’t understand. No human vocal cords could ever produce a voice like that, and never would a sane man utter the dreadful things it said. You see, whatever unholy Thing has boarded this ship has promised to burn it to cinders, and each and every one of us along with it!”

  Despite myself, a sudden chill of fear swept through my body. I looked into Bridges’ ageing eyes, searching for a glint of humour to indicate that he was jesting with me, but his countenance appeared deadly serious. Then I looked out to sea and saw the darkness falling rapidly about us.

  “Why didn’t you tell the ‘Old Man’ or one of the mates about it?” I asked.

  “What good would it ever do? I’ve served enough years to know they would either think it the figment of an old shellback’s mind, or they would keep it completely to themselves in order not to spread panic. But I’m tellin’ you, laddie, I reckon Captain Gregson’s already got an idea that all’s not well aboard this ship. He’s a good captain, and any good captain can tell when things aren’t as they should be.”

  We were walking beside the starboard rails as we were talking, but just as Bridges finished this last sentence there came a wave of icy air upon our bodies. It contrasted shockingly against the heated air that clung all about us and caused our skin to run with sweat, but I must make it plainly clear that it was not a freak draught of cool air.

  It was completely unnatural, as though some deathly presence had actually passed through our solid bodies. In Bridges’ right hand was a bull’s-eye lantern, and in his left was the taper that he was using to spread the flame. The taper was unprotected, and so of course it would not be entirely beyond the bounds of possibility for it to suddenly extinguish in the manner it did. But the same cannot be said of the bull’s-eye lantern, for its flame was efficiently guarded by glass. Nevertheless, the terrifying fact is that we became instantly plunged into darkness as both sources of light were suddenly snuffed out.

  My whole body was swiftly taken by a weird mixture of intense heat and icy coldness, the pain being so great that I cried out in agony and fell to the deck. But still I was able to look up to where Bridges stood, and the sight I then looked upon will haunt
my dreams for the rest of my life. Standing beside him was a figure that was outlined by a thin strip of fire, and yet all the skin of its face and body appeared horribly black and charred. Though Bridges himself was quite a tall man, the unholy form standing next to him was easily a good two feet taller in height. In the following seconds it reached out its fiery hands and clasped Bridges tightly about the neck.

  Seeing this, I knew a sudden surge of anger, and this feeling was so great that it overrode some of the intense pain I felt. In an instant I reached for my sheath knife and hurled it accurately at that dread form which meant to claim Bridges’ life. And truly, I think this action of mine may then have been enough to cause the diversion needed to save him; for there came a horrid thud of sound as the blade of my knife entered into the blackened flesh of the figure’s chest, and then I saw two eyes of fiery hatred move to focus on me.

  It was at this time when I thanked God for the arrival of the captain and two more men from the watch; for at the sound of their shouted voices and running feet, the horrific form before me faded into nothingness. Captain Gregson appeared at the top of the companionway steps with a lantern held in his hand, and was just in time to see Bridges fall to the floor; following this, my sheath knife appeared to materialise out of thin air by his side.

  “What’s going on, Jenson? Have the two of you been feuding or something? I’ll have none of this foolishness aboard ship while I’m in command!”

  “No, sir, the lantern went out and then we were attacked by something in the dark. I tried to help Bridges but I think he’s been hurt quite bad.”