The Elder Keepers

The Trinity House tug taking Stephen Thorn out from the village St Merren’s left a wake of slate coloured smoke. Thorn pulled his woollen sweater over his nose to slow the reek of the fumes. The crew, four squat Cornishmen and a slightly taller captain, were yawning and gazing dully back at the retreating village. The only breeze came from the movement of the tug and the noise of the engines cut into the chilled quiet of the morning. It was just after dawn and a purplish light was stretching slowly along the horizon. This tug been a crabbing boat which after a slap of paint had been pressed into the lighthouse service. They cut a course out into open water and their wake sluiced the weed slicked harbour wall they passed. Thorn watched the rising and falling of the small waves washing at the stones. He thought of someone pulling down their cheek to an inspect an ulcer and then releasing the flesh. Thorn shivered at the thought of the water’s temperature, with his hands in the pockets of his navy peacoat he hunched his shoulders round in front of chest for warmth. He was playing with the question of why he was heading out as a replacement keeper. He had been on the training station at St Merren’s for two weeks and had two to do before he was due for posting. A portentous official envelope had arrived for his principal keeper which had started Thorn’s journey. The principal had been decorated during the war for surviving three separate torpedo attacks. He had shown a talent for clinging onto drifting spars whilst all his shipmates drowned, and this talent had transferred to civilian life as he had hung onto his posting in the far west of Cornwall without promotion or notice for going on ten years. The experience, perhaps forgivably, had left him self-contained and jittery, and profoundly unsuitably for training anybody for anything, let alone for the serious business of keeping lighthouses. On receiving the letter, the principal had tugged at his sideburns and strode sharply up and down the mess, before giving Thorn the attention of one yellowing eye and instructing him gravely “to pack up to ship out immediately.” There had followed a hasty briefing on Monk’s Rock, its history, and complement of equipment. In response to his question on why he was needed early he received a stern lecture on the importance of everyone mucking in and the flexibility required in this most vital of services, and did he know how during the war, and so on and so on in a lecturing tone. There were then hasty celebrations, and the other junior keepers bought him a quart of opaque and stable scented cider which the local fishermen preferred. The evening had had ended with Thorn exhuming his dinner onto the cobbles outside The Anchor, to spiteful cheers and the jaunty accompaniment of an accordion wheezing ponderously from inside. The crew were silent, and their faces lined and puffy in the early cold. His accent and unsure steps while getting into the boat provoked reflexive dislike. The smell of the engine, the volume and monotony of its noise, and the lilting action of the boat worked in concert to make him increasingly nauseous. He held onto a rail and pulled himself lurchingly towards one of the crew. The man was smoking a rolled cigarette and doing something intricate with a coil of rope. The smoker watched his awkward and stumbling motion closely and neither moved nor made any sign of greeting. Thorn shouted over the engine “How long?” The man looked past him back towards the harbour and spoke softly so that had to lean in close to be able to hear, “Tha’ Depends. Two hours.” He looked at Thorn curtly as if challenging him to argue, and then blew slow curls of smoke from his nose, following their path closely as the wind whipped them away. Thorn made to reply and faltered, and the man turned back to his coil without interest. He resigned himself to two hours of a turning stomach and reeking fumes. The Cornishman had a wide head with two jug-like ears, and could only be twenty-five, but early mornings and harsh spray had lined his skin with deep wrinkles. Cold and fatigue brought out a petulant desire in Thorn for the respect that he felt his position merited, despite being only a fag-end replacement for two days. That Thorn was from London, and fresh from his Trinity House exams, had become a matter of public record in a tiny fishing village like St Merren’s. For the crew Thorn was somehow shamming at being a lighthouse keeper. He was available to blame, so they clearly blamed him for dragging them out to sea this September morning when they could have been sleeping off last night’s fumes.
He tried again. “Look no one told me, I’m not due out on the station for another two weeks, why are we going out now?” He felt stupid for having to ask, the principal keeper seemed to maintain wartime security to prevent him having to explain anything. The Cornishman looked at him with irritation, spat his cigarette butt into the sea and shrugged,“Dunno, told we’ve to go and get one of ‘em, sick most like. Distress flag bin’sin over the light, any’ow we’re back to pick you all up in two days” Thorn wondered what injury or disease might be waiting for him on the spit of isolated rock. As he was a replacement, he had only to serve the remaining two days of the posting and then himself and the remaining two keepers would all be hauled back for a month on shore. The whole exercise of getting him out there for such a brief period was demanded by the regulation. A rock lighthouse like this, in a perilous location and situated far out at sea, could not go undermanned for any period. He had decided on the lighthouse service for no stronger reason that the part of London where he spent almost every hour since he was born had begun to disgust him. He had spent ten years working as a clerk in a small factory from the age of eighteen until last year and had begun to feel the bounds of his cramped life like a nearly physical pain. There was in him the panic induced sense of fading youth, and desperate need for something interesting which masqueraded as a desire for adventure. He had enjoyed a childhood diet of pulp novels, which he found repelling and addicting in equal parts. He could mock at the preposterous twists and raise an eyebrow at, and then re-read the blue passages, while never getting past the first twenty pages of more serious books. And so, he now found himself taking a hackneyed bid for freedom like one of their protagonists. He felt vaguely that fresh air and manual work would be a healthy and restoring change, despite never having enjoyed either. His training in the lighthouse service had stocked his mind with semaphore, morse code, the typology and operating methods for numerous motors and lights. But he had no dealings with cold, and damp and work that made you sweat, and after only an hour in the roiling boat he was miserable. After another hour of acute discomfort Monk’s rock came abruptly into view out of the vacancy of the ocean, forming the single feature amongst the twin greys of the sea and sky. It was shaped rather like massive granite altar or anvil. The rock projected roughly fifty meters out of the waves and then formed a flat plateau which ran perhaps half a mile in length. The lighthouse stood on the north-eastern side, away from the westerly Atlantic winds. As they approached the wind which had been stirring for the last half hour began to pick up and a steady rain started to fall. It was a world of grey water and wind. After a freezing half an hour Thorn could make out the details of the lighthouse. He shuddered in the cold as he took in the tapered white cylinder, which protruded like some antique grave marker from the granite below. At its top was the glass surround and pulsing yellow of the light itself, faint in the dim grey of the clouds. It gave the impression of a subtle gem inlaid at the top of a sceptre. There was a door set into the curving wall of the lighthouse about twenty feet from the base. This was reached by a set of steel steps that curved around white body. The boat was heading for a small cover at the base of the light, a vertical line from the beacon down to the water would have bisected both. The shape of cove had been used to shelter a series of steps leading down from the lighthouse to a natural platform, where an iron crane was bolted to the rock. About ten meters out to sea from this was a buoy, and the boat began to slow with a roar of mechanical complaint as it manoeuvred towards it. On the platform stood waiting three figures. One of these men Thorn would be replacing. The crew lashed the tug to the buoy with slickly practised motions and a rope was thrown to the three waiting men which they fastened in turn to the crane. This line was the only way to get fuel, water and keepers onto the rock. Thorn went over the useless theoretical demonstration from his training on how shimmy up it. He took a hold of the rope with hands crabbed with cold. He looked first at the waves knocking hard against the hull of the boat, and then those butting against the rocks and throwing up lashing spray towards the three waiting keepers. He felt the gaze of the crew and captain settling down to savour his screaming in fear. The wet rope dug into his uncalloused hands and the swaying of the line in the wind seemed certain to shake him off into the waiting sea. One of the crew took hold of his feet, and he forced himself to take a grip on the rope behind his head, leaning back over the water. Once he had positioned his hands the man let go, and he swung his feet up and locked them over the rope. As he bobbed with the motion of the boat, he had dizzying inverted view of the rock and the base of the lighthouse. He began to edge slowly along like an ape. The blood flushing into his head made his face feel swollen and dull against the spray. If he was dislodged, he couldn’t see the crew doing any more than was required to avoid a manslaughter charge. They would try a few times with a line before until he drank down some water with a final scream and sank under the immensity of the sea. Either that, or he'd be thrown up against the rocks, each time redder and more broken, like a dog savaging and releasing a rabbit. These meditations gave him a strong reason to keep moving and after what was probably a very brief traverse, several pairs hand caught onto his oil skins, took him under the arms and hoisted him up onto the rock. He was breathing so hard he had had a coppery metallic taste in his mouth. He bend over with his hands on his thighs to steady himself from the traverse, Thorn shouted his thanks at the keepers. The wind and thick oilskin hoods made it almost impossible to make oneself. “I’m Stephen Thorn, the relief keeper.” He had to lean close and bellow into their ears. One of the men gave him a snide “oh you don’t say” smile. Thorn cringed slightly the obviousness of his statement but was too relieved at safely alighting to care particularly. Ten miles out into the Atlantic was a little far for casual visitors. He noticed that one of the keepers was stood father apart and hadn’t moved to help him onto the rock, his hands hung limply at his sides, while the other two formed a sort of natural pair. As they were well used to the wind no-one bothered to speak back to him. The three were dressed identically in robe like oilskins which they had banded tightly at the wrists to keep out spray, and then heavy sea boots and sou’westers. The sheen of the water on the waterproof fabric give him the image of the shining bellies and gaping mouths on an a fishmonger’s slab. Of the two men who had assisted him one was of average build and weak features, with a neat moustache. He looked about forty. The other was a heavy man with a black beard that ran with rain as it sprouted over his chest. He seemed younger or at least more vigorous. The water and cloud cast a grey look over both. The third man was rather hunched, either to brace against the wind or from the effect of whatever illness had caused him to be recalled. While his companions busied themselves with rigging and working the crane the third man kept turning suddenly about and staring back up at the the lighthouse. Thorn felt, even in the seriousness of the situation and the worsening conditions that there was something unsaid and awkward between the men. As the boxes of provisions and fuel were hauled onto the rock, the pair watched the third carefully whenever they had the chance. Thorn stood about rather uselessly and tried not to get in anyone’s way. After perhaps twenty minutes all the boxes had been deposited on the small shelf of flat rock around the crane which served as the landing bay. The wind had strengthened, numbing any exposed skin and snatching at the breath, while the relief boat was beginning to dip and plunge in the swell. One of the pair made his way over to the isolated third man, clapped him roughly on the back and nudged him forcefully towards the crane. The man coming off the rock stared about him one final time, he had a harried distracted look as if he had forgotten something vital. He looked at the rope as if he had never seen one before until, until the man with the beard clapped him hard on the back and raised one of his hands to take a grip on the rope. Thorn felt certain the man was in no position to make the traverse. The bearded man shouted something into his ear and pointed down at the waves. This seemed to bring him round, he took hold of the rope and moved with considerable deftness down it. There were no efforts at shouted speech or even a smile from the men remaining. Thorn watched the man reach the side of the tug and be hauled over. which began to tack around and pull away, leaving two rough furrows of white water behind.
As the boat departed so did Thorn’s absorption in the danger and activity of the landing. His enclosure on the rock and imminent confinement in the thin body of the lighthouse was no longer a matter of theoretical concern. One of the men, slighter but seemingly in command from the way he surveyed the supplies and then shouted in his companions’ face, gestured towards Thorn to start moving the boxes. They were sharp edged and heavy, and the pointed corners cut harshly into his legs. The three men staggered with them towards the base of lighthouse steps, dumping them out of reach from anything but an enormous swell. The slighter man climbed the steps and opened the gunmetal door which led into the station itself. This complete, he returned, and they muscled the boxes up, one at each end and a step at a time. Thorn missed his grip at once point and caught the corner of a box hard against his shoulder. After half an hour, their breath coming in steaming gusts by the end, they entered the lighthouse and shut and the door bolted, thick rectangular supports were placed diagonally against its surface and then knocked down into position to tighten their hold. The frame was inches thick and made of solid iron, like the entrance to a bunker. Inside voices could now be heard. “Capes, principal keeper” said leading figure said.
With a Welsh voice the heavier man followed, “Benson, assistant keeper.” Thorn thought it best to adhere to their formula “Thorn, replacement keeper” “Welcome aboard Thorn” and they shook hands in turn in amused awkwardness at the normality of their greeting in so extreme a location and conditions. Benson and Capes removed their oilskins and hung them on pegs by the lighthouse door to dry and Thorn followed suit. The pools of sea water gathered beneath the three sets, like the dripping skins of caught seals. The yellow pall of the gas lamps showed his two companions on Monk’s Rock in greater detail. Capes was a thin rather vulpine looking character, with hair that had ceded almost all his head, and intently blinking eyes. The assistant keeper Benson was constructed in line with his heavy beard, a strongly built man with pregnant belly and a deep Welsh voice. Despite his size he had a nervous manner. He rubbed his hands together vigorously whenever they weren’t active, and Thorn could see they were red from the action. He was always shifting his weight and rocking up onto his toes like a someone waiting to be called into an office. The room which they stood in was clearly used for stores, there were boxes around with labels for flour, oil and mechanical grease. The floor was disordered and littered with broken lamps and boxes of miscellaneous junk. Capes the principal clapped his hands loudly in front of him by way of a full stop to the pleasantries. “Let’s get these supplies properly stowed. Mr Thorn you’ll need to see this storeroom is kept in proper condition; things have grown rather lax lately. Benson will show you the station and your duties.” He had a lecturing and slightly burdened tone, speaking as one who must oversee every detail to stop things inevitably going awry. As they worked, breaking open the tightly sealed boxes of supplies with a chisel and stowing their contents, Thorn inspected his two companions more closely. Capes was a thin rather vulpine looking character. He would pronounce mock military orders in a parade ground voice, “By the right, stow oil” and “company, mount stairs!” After doing so he would smile roundly and play with his moustache to suggest he knew they found this quite amusing. They were all sweating when the final bags of food and tins of fuel were put away, and they sat on the empty cases in the storeroom to catch their breath. Benson said “Well, I think that’s us finished for now, more to do later, always more to do! Never an idle moment that’s the key here Mr Thorn, keep your hands occupied.” Benson had the style of one imparting bleary advice from across the bar. Capes smiled and nodded as if to convey that Benson had for once stumbled on an essential truth. “You’ll find what Mr Benson says is simple but sound Mr Thorn, simple but sound.” Thorn tried to look as if he was weighing carefully their sage words. There was something quite ridiculous about the two men. Their rhythm of phrase and response ran along worn grooves like a married couple used to shared solitude. Finding his Navy Cut inside his jacket Thorn offered them both a cigarette in that readymade gesture of friendship. They lit up from a shared match and puffed away. It was a welcome moment of quiet. Benson teased a shred of tobacco from his moustache with his wide thumbnail and said, “Ah that’s a treat, a real treat, the other fella Thacker was puritanical like, he-” Capes cut him off rather too quickly “You could show Thorn his suite now Benson.” He drew at his cigarette and exhaled with a sigh “then take him through how the light works, or the basics rather, and I’ll be cook for this evening.” Capes nodded at them both and picked his way off up the stairs, with his hands behind his back like an imitation naval officer. It was just passed six o’clock now and the light was beginning to wane. First Benson showed him the two vast tanks holding the drinking water below the storeroom, and the two more keeping the oil. This system of reservoirs and arterial pipes fed the lighthouse and her crew and kept that at their unvarying task. As they explored the station, the constant curvature of the walls caused in Thorn a feeling of growing compression. The unfamiliar contour strained his eyes and made him feel every step was tending towards some point always out of reach, that every movement was part of a spiralling circuit the end of which was unknown. Benson was a little too ready with slaps on the back and weak attempts at humour. Thorn saw that each time they passed one of the portholes Benson would pause and lose the thread of his banal advice or blueish anecdote and stare out at the sea floundering mid-sentence as he gazed. Above the storeroom was the kitchen where Capes was cobbling dinner together from the fresh supplies which had arrived with Thorn. Bacon and eggs were spitting grease, and he had hacked slices from a loaf. He was clearly sightly deaf as he continued to sing a popular song from the radio, crooning hoarsely, “please set me free from your spell, from your spell” softly to himself for a minute while they stood in the doorway and Benson rapped gently on the frame. In a grotesque nod to domesticity Capes wore a dirty white apron over his regulation woollen jumper and navy trousers. Eventually he noticed their presence and spun around, his face admitting no trace of embarrassment, but looking at them with eyebrows raised as if mulling a polite answer to a stupid question. Leaving Capes to his cooking, Thorn was then shown the sleeping chamber for the three men. the bunks were curved against the contour of the wall, so forcing the sleeper to curl, like a child. The thick white paint of the wall and thin white drapes of the beds gave it the aspect of a hospital room with its incumbents just now wheeled out. Above was the service room. Here the man would sit to make sure the light and fog signals ran through the night. In this room was the heaped line of spare equipment in the middle of the room, over which a white dust sheet had been thrown, beside which was a rocking chair for the duty keeper. Under the dust sheet a can protruded at one end, at the other end the back of a chair, causing the unfortunate impression of the head and toe of a corpse laid out with a chair beside it for a mourner to keep watch.
Thorn smiled at Benson “Bit of a sinister shape under the cloth, no? I wouldn’t fancy-” As he spoke the wind came hard through the gantry above them which circled the light, and the force of the gust caused a rising moan to sound from the vibration of the metal. The plaintive sound rang around the lighthouse as the wind was forced in a curving pattern by the shape of wall. Thorn who had paused to listen to the desolate sound, now saw that Benson had a hand up to his face as if to cover his eyes from a sight he could not bear. Benson leapt forward to snatch the cloth away, and desperately patted his hands over the junk underneath, confirming what his eyes were telling him. Thorn had seen real fear in his face and moved forward to touch his shoulder “All, all alright Benson? Just the wind, no?” Benson jumped at the contact and half raised his hands towards Thorn’s throat but caught himself quickly. “Sorry I, sorry I didn’t, just caught me funny like, it looked like… just a load of kit isn’t it, no…” He lost the end of his sentence and straightened up, rubbing his hands together again and making an odd gesture of hugging himself, wrapping both arms over his chest. He dropped Thorn’s gaze with emphasis and moved towards the door and the final staircase. “Well, the light’ sup here like, which won’t come as no surprise!” Benson seemed resolved to forget the whole thing and Thorn was happy to. Benson’s nerves were wound very tight it was clear. Even two days in such close quarters with him would need care. They picked their way up the narrow and nearly vertical stairs to the light room itself. From outside they could hear the loud working of the mechanism. They entered and the grinding and thrumming bloomed to fill the room. The space was formed of a huge section of cylindrical glass, facing out now to the dark of the night. At its centre was a stanchion made of steel arms, perhaps twice Thorn’s height, which held the slowly spinning light. From his position on the floor, he could see the powerful burner head over which sat an incandescent mantle. The already powerful luminescence was immensely magnified by the reflective lens which encased it. This was formed of a complex pattern of panels and ridges, which through repeated reflection concentrated the light into its knifing beam. Its constant rotation meant that ships at sea saw a series of bunched flashes at ten second intervals. Thorn had found the study of lamps and their intricate assembly the most engaging part of his training. He found the action of the lamp mesmeric, as it worked at its solitary purpose. This was the crucial object of the rock. A perfectly engineered beacon of relief to all at sea. The appearance of the lens and the central position of the lamp recalled that of an immense and incalculably precious jewel, of such value that it had to be kept out in the remoteness of the sea in this solitary tower. A jewel, or some ancient helmet with the power to turn any blade, which had armed the grave of a king. Or more than these, thought Thorn as watched the Benson run a gentle hand over the surface of the light, it was the crowning relic of a remote hermitage, housing the salted bones of an itinerant saint, an object of devotion tended to by three sea faring priests, with the power to grant a sailor’s prayers. “Well, this is the business we are in boy” said Benson, stopping the romance of Thorn’s thoughts, “tending the light ‘ere, when you’re on shift you check it on the hour, you check the pumps and make sure the oil is running, the mechanism is turning, and in a storm that we are battened down like and spray hasn’t put her out!” “Spray? we must be over 150 feet” Benson took the chance to correct him with the pleasure of a man who knows only a few facts and means to use them “161 feet, in an ‘eavy sea the gantry round the light has been carried off before, the main door below been stove in and them metal supports bent double. So, you make bloody sure those windows is all bolted tight if a gale picks up.” There was the relish of the prefect scaring the new boy. The welshman moved around the light with his hands behind his back, craning an ear to check all was running smoothly, and said “The weather is looking foul like, very bad indeed, so you make sure, you make bloody sure.” “Understood Mr Benson, absolutely understood.” “Good that’s good, I’ll show you the gantry like, though you haven’t much cause to be out here.” Benson manoeuvred the heavy metal supports away from the door and shouldered it open. The wind, although by no means a gale, burst past as soon as he did so and coursed and teamed around the confined room. The air filled with the reek of salt. Benson hooked the doors against the walls to keep them from slamming and they went out into the black. It was like dropping a thick sack over your head. The dark was so thick and muffling you could shovel it. Not a sound or light existed at sea other than the whinging of the generator and the passing beam. This went out into the night desperately like a shout into a cave which echoes a while and then is lost. From ambit of the beam the area of Monk’s Rock was visible in sections as the light passed over. The diminished rays of the beam passing sixty meters above the rock on each pass. On the southwestern side of the rock, facing out into the Atlantic, Thorn could only just make the outlines of an elevated square. He leant forward from the parapet and the glacial wind bit at his cheeks. When the beam had swung round and if he strained his eyes, he could make out very short collapsed walls, with some stone blocks scattered around them. The structure was sunk into a shallow declivity. “What’s that down there Benson? Are those walls?” “Supposed to be some bloody old building or something out there, built by monk’s I think, give the name to the rock like.” “Medieval? How on earth did they row anything out here?” Benson shrugged and spat into the wind. The beam swung ponderously, like a slingshot that never reached velocity. Thorn could make out a gap in one of the walls that seemed a likely place for a door. If he could get away from his duties and if the weather laid off for a few hours he would make a trip down there and do some sketching, yes…Benson disturbed his plans by barking at him “It’s bloody freezing man and that wind can put the burner out if the doors open too long, get inside or I’ll leave you out there.” “Sorry! Sorry!” Thorn moved quickly back inside. The light revolving in its glass carapace was like the seeking pupil of a great eye on the top of its stone stalk. They clumped down the precipitous stairs in their sea boots. There was the smell of frying bacon and jaunty whistling from the kitchen. When they ducked to enter through the low door, Capes removed his apron in a series of movements as if he was sloping arms and then saluted. “All present and correct gentlemen three regulation dinners.” He set three giant plates of bacon, eggs and intermittently charred bread on the small deal table. All components of the meal had been fried to an identical consistency. “Starving I am Mr Capes, shifting those boxes all afternoon and up and down the light with this one.” Benson performed an enthusiastic rub of the hands and applied himself to his food as if he was being timed, punctuating mouthfuls with long drafts of weak tea. This was the colour of clay run-off and Thorn found it both scalding hot and tasteless. “You’ve had the grand tour then Mr Thorn, we take eight-hour shifts in a rotation, you tend to the light, see that its fuelled and you make sure the mechanism is in working order and keeps it turning. It’s all down in the manual.” This was a haggard looking volume on the table entitled “Instructions for lighthouse keepers” which bore the distant date of 1909. Capes applied himself to a mouthful of egg, chewed wetly and addressed a nauseating handkerchief to a drop of yolk leaking through his stubble. He leant forward and dragged his chair across the tiles with a shriek, and looked him seriously in the eyes “Mr Thorn, the essence of the thing, is that the light must never go out! Not for a second! We protect the shipping that is this nation’s lifeline” Capes nodded slowly “its lifeline yes, you remember to that, and you can’t go far wrong.” He thinks the war’s still on, and we are out in some Artic convey watching for periscopes thought Thorn. Thorn replied with too much sincerity “Thank you Mr Benson, I’ll benefit from your instruction greatly, I’m sure.” Even Capes looked like he could detect an undertone here, but settled for “Well, you discharge your duties as in the manual and we’ll get along fine, just fine.” He spoke with the deflating tone of an adult reminding a child of their many undone tasks. “I meant to ask; I noticed from the gantry that there looks to be some sort of structure out on the rock” Benson and Capes both seemed to bend a little closer to their dinners as he said this and did not reply. Benson scraped at his plate with his fork Rather weakly Thorn continued “is it left over from when the light was built? Mr Benson thought it was medieval…” Capes looked at him then pushed his chair back from the table and laced his hands sententiously over his belly. He was settling in for a speech clearly. “Mr Thorn, the subject seems unavoidable, so I must tell you that we had a deal of trouble with your predecessor, Thacker, whom you saw earlier of course.” Of course-fucking-of course thought Thorn who else would be- “At the bottom of the matter, Thacker was unsuitable for the service I think, utterly unsuitable. He was here for solitude to allow him to pursue his artistic inclinations” Capes pronounced artistic with enunciated sibilance, as if it was some socially dangerous sexual proclivity. “Several times, yes several times, I found him asleep at his watch, had to reprimand him, unpleasant, most unpleasant.” It didn’t sound like Capes had found the process entirely unpleasant. Capes paused to show he was selecting his words with utmost care and inhaled his tea noisily in punctuation. “The structure you mention. As you rightly say it’s medieval, left by some monks, Benedictine I believe, the white monks.” Thorn savoured a chance to correct him “Ah the black monks I think Mr Capes, Cistercians wear the white cowls.” Capes eyed him briefly. Thorn applied himself awkwardly to his tea. After a moment too long Capes conceded “Ah yes of course my mistake, my mistake. In any case Mr Thorn, Thacker became rather obsessed with that building and the monks that had lived there. He was I think not quite well, not quite well.” Capes’ spoke as if this was a delicate shame, as if discussing family member with ruinous appetite for horses or drink. “In the hardest gales and despite the heavy swell which you’ll find sluices the whole rock, Thacker would spend his night watches making notes on the place, and then during the day he would set up out there to sketch. On one utterly stupid occasion we had to drag back in the middle of the night as he’d made his way out there with a lantern.” Capes was growing angry as he spoke and spitting his words with precision. Benson put in “Fool, bloody fool, nearly got us killed didn’t he Mr Capes” “It was indeed very dangerous, very dangerous indeed.” The tick of doubling phrases is well suited to one who gives a such weight to his own pronouncements thought Thorn. “I must say we were not sorry to see him leave, Mr Thorn, not sorry at all. Thacker was a danger to the operation of this station, and danger to us and a danger to himself. He had become obsessed, he developed in the final weeks he was, here a disorder of the brain, no doubt from some hereditary defect- “The parents, it’ll be the parents, comes out in the wash.” Benson cut in venomously. Capes eyed him with the indulgent disapproval of one who hears what they are really thinking put into stronger words than they might use themselves. “As I say some hereditary defect no doubt, worsened I should think by lack of proper sleep as he spent his nights down by the rocks. I have written a long report for my superiors which I shall delivery on my return, and I recommend immediate dismissal on the ground medical unfitness for the service.” Capes paused to carefully aling the handle of his tea mug with its coaster. He resumed “He had allowed himself delusions about the monks who had built that early station, that’s what it appears to have been, an early form of beacon which lent its name to rock. Thacker had begun to prepare a volume “The Benedictine Cell of Monk’s Rock.” “Always scribbling and sketching, workshy was Thacker” was Benson’s damning remark. “Indeed Mr Benson, yes indeed. I fear Mr Thorn, and not to indulge in frivolities, that the monks were not a historical presence for Thacker” As Benson spoke, he gazed vaguely into the corner of the room and very lightly tapped the end of his fork against the table over and over. He suddenly grasped it very hard and then dropped it loudly onto the plate. He redirected himself at Thorn, “Mr Thorn, several times we came upon him in the attitude of prayer, gibbering I would say the word is, up above in the service room, on his knees and gazing out to sea. Repeating some Latin words, part of the mass I assume” “Popish” said Benson with great gravity, as if passing a sentence of death. The Welshman then coughed in derision and shook his head. He lunged with some venom towards the stove and began stuffing more wood into the dying embers. “Indeed, yes Mr Benson, certainly Catholic. Although, and we both have found this hard to comprehend, Mr Thacker boastfully professed his non-belief to Mr Benson in his early weeks on this station and laughed openly at our singing of hymns on a Sunday.” Capes smiled archly at Thorn as if he was reaching the grisliest part of a horrible tale, but he could see that his leg was jogging very rapidly under the table, it had been throughout his speech. Despite Capes’ affections and Benson’s hammer-like sensibility, both men were clearly unnerved thought Thorn, it sounded like a case of burgeoning insanity had preceded his arrival. “You will understand then Mr Thorn if we would rather avoid any discussion of the dwelling of those former keepers out on the rock, we have had enough of it. Can we come to that agreement?” “Yes of course Mr Capes, certainly! It only struck me as a curious thing and… “Excellent thank you Mr Thorn” interrupted Capes in a way that suggested the matter was closed, archived and wiped from the memories. “If we all attend to our duties, we will get on swimmingly, although no swimming will be required, I hope!” Benson gave a forced laugh which only made the growing sense of strangeness more acute “Very good Mr Capes! Always ready with a joke aren’t you. No swimming no, bloody cold it would be! Bloody cold, makes me shiver jus’ thinking about it.” With that Benson performed his usual enthusiastic hand rubbing, like a portly blue bottle cleaning its appendage, and then stood up and made a great show of whistling while noisily tidying up the dinner things. Capes began to very carefully roll a cigarette from a packet of tobacco previously unadvertised, wiping stray shreds of tobacco back into his pouch with a jaundiced finger. The nail, noticed Thorn, had been bitten haggardly down to the quick. They spent their evening in drinking strong tea and playing cards. Benson swore and slammed his lump like fists on the table when he lost, and Capes grinned and boasted softly before he slid down his winning tricks. Thorn had the first watch and left them at around nine o’clock, taking the manual with him at Capes’ rather officious suggestion. Benson was to come and replace him at six o’clock the following morning. His silent watch in the service room passed without event. Thorn wrote a journal of his arrival on the rock and the disturbed atmosphere that he had entered. Once, and laughing out loud as he did so to mask a ridiculous and titillating anticipation as to the result, he lifted the sheet at the base of the equipment pile. The wind picked up throughout the night and coursed and whistled through the metal steps at the base of light and the gantry above, in a constant shrill thrum. This noise combined with the stolid mass of the walls and the utter confinement of their location generated a creeping sense of pressure and weight. Thorn had the feeling that he was trapped in some sealed ancient tomb that stood unvisited in the middle of the sea. Once during the night, he got the stairs to make himself some tea, and he felt his neck chill at the unseen space behind him, and he had to fight the child’s urge to whirl about and confront the darkness. In the deserted silence of the kitchen, he tiptoed and winced as cupboards creaked and mugs clinked. Back in the service room the gulls seemed to be unaffected entirely by the wind, they shrieked and keened all around the gantry. Towards dawn Benson came in quietly through the door as if hoping to catch him asleep and so confirm his suspicions. He nodded with reluctant approval at Thorn who was making a good show of diligently reading the manual. He made it down to the sleeping quarters and eventually settled himself in his curved bed. Sleep came on instantly despite the chorus of the wind and the oily chug of the generator which echoed throughout the station. He awoke in the treacly confusion of deep sleep, unsure where he was and for what purpose. The miles of sea between him and shore, the exiled separation of the Monk’s Rock, congealed into his bleary consciousness. He dug his fingers through the roots of hair and sat on the edge of the bed to regain himself. He focused on the contents of the room. Benson and Capes had few personal possessions on the curved shelves above their beds, just a few photographs and their shaving kits. As Thorn lay back and stretched his hands over his head in a yawn, the fingers of his right hand brushed against a texture which was neither wall nor duvet. A piece of paper had been folded into four quarters and placed down the side of the bed against the wall, the bedclothes had concealed it until now. It was lined and with torn edges as if ripped from a diary or notebook. The top half of the page bore two portions of text. The first was written in an intricate hand. “We tend the light and feed it, and conduct the offices and oblations, for truly it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living god.” Thorn read it several times and felt slightly unnerved by the strangeness of the words. And then below, in a more regular script but with similarly curlicued fs and ls, as if the first hand had bled faintly through to the second, Thorn read these obscure words: “For the third day I have seen the light burning and the brothers dancing, and they have laid the oil and that which was as wine on my brows. I am blessed with the second cowl, so that I have eyes to sea” and undesigned “John Thacker, keeper of the light.” The bottom half of the page was taken up by a drawing sketched in black charcoal vivid against the paper. It showed a tiny cove formed of jagged rock with a path leading down to a portion of pebbled beach which reached the sea. A man knelt by the shore, wearing a keeper’s oilskins, but with an inverted hood under his sou’wester so that the material covered his face. He had his hands in front of him clasped in prayer, but as Thorn looked more closely, he saw that this gesture had been inverted, the backs of the hands were pressed together with the palms facing outwards. The artist had shown considerable skill so that one could discern that the material of the hood was drawn in towards the mouth, suggesting that the figure was breathing deeply in excitement or distress. The most arresting point of the work was not on land but some distance out to sea beyond the breakers. The moon was shrouded with cloud and its light failed away from the shore, but Thorn could make out that the surface sea was disturbed. There was a swelling, pressing up from the water like a huge boil perhaps ten feet across. Above this, very dark strokes sketched out what seemed to be two horns curled like twisted pillars. Strands of weed or detritus hang lankly from them in rotten pennants. Behind the figure there was a wake of light shading, suggesting some trail of liquid or luminescence. Throne shuddered in the morning cold. Clearly Thacker had undergone a form of obsessive collapse. Even after a day on the rock Thorn could understand this. The concentrated isolation of the lighthouse meant that the three men were in effect trapped on one spiral staircase, constantly passing and repassing each other as they carried out their duties. The pressurised feeling that this caused was then reflected and magnified by the bleak surroundings of grey sea and sky and constant refrain of the wind and rain. Deliberate effort was required to behave like these were normal circumstances. In an unsuitable temperament left here for any time, something would yield. His second day on Monk’s Rock Capes was on duty in the service room, keeping a lookout and minding the generator in the safer hours of daylight. Thorn stoked the stove and cooked and ate a breakfast of anonymous but heavily salted tinned meat accompanied by toast and tea. He brought Capes a plateful and found he had removed the sheet from the dump of equipment and arranged it against the wall. Capes was writing in his journal when Thorn entered the room. Noticing his arrival he immediately snapped it shut and placed beneath his chair. Both Capes and Benson both looked aged and raw, as if they had not enjoyed the healthiest sleep. The main object of Thorn’s thoughts was the structure out on the rock. The strange pall which Thacker seemed to have cast, the hysterics of Benson in the service room, and the already growing need for distraction from his companions made the tumbled stones of the first light fascinating. One of the duties set out in the manual was that when the weather was calm the junior keeper should make a survey of the coves and rough beaches of the rock. They were to gather any detritus that might suggest a shipwrecked or in difficulty, and record and any identifying features in the station’s log. There were only three places to check on the rock, the landing point attached to the lighthouse at the northeast, a small cove nearly at due east, and then on the other side of the rock the beach near to the remains of the elder light, to the south-west. Benson was the easier target, so Thorn waited until the Welshman was dozing in his chair and then leant close to his ear to nearly shout “Mr Benson I’m off to see to Paragraph 49 in the manual!” to which he got an abrupt snort followed by some startled nods and an “ah yes Para 49 of course see you do and leave it where you found it afterwards” before the snoring swiftly resumed. Once he was through the lighthouse door the wind robbed him for his all his warmth. It dug in at the gap at his neck and stung at his eyes. It jostled at him hard; movement was like struggling through a whipped-up crowd. The air stank of salt the way some hovel full of drying fish might, it was crystalline, reeking. It roughed and reddened all exposed skin like a scouring fabric. It was a physical, confronting presence which opposed every action with the weight of its gusts. The lighthouse door could be bolted from the outside, and Thorn slotted the heavy bolt into position, which left his hand flecked with dead paint and rufous metal. The rock around the base of the lighthouse was a colony for the gulls. They flecked the rock white with their presence, like lichen, colouring it with both their bodies and droppings both. The steps rang with his sea boots like the slow sound of a bell. At this the gulls hawked out their rusty sounded calls rose in a loose body, like a mass of flies disturbed, wings plunging at the wind. The sound of the steps meant a keeper was chucking out scraps and they circled and shrieked in complaint, landing to onto the handrails with their gobbling beaks open in demand, cocking their heads at Thorn with their pinpoint eyes. He pulled his sou’wester down against them and nearly ran down the steps. They stared and screeched until resettling to form another white patch further off. At the bottom of the Thorn stood and took in the sea; he was the still point in a world of seething waves. He could feel physically the massed presence of the water directed towards the rock. From each compass point the same horizon returned a blank stare. The rock and lighthouse station were as foreign and distinct to their blank surroundings as a baroque cathedral would be on a mountaintop. They were the only solidity, the only substance, and against this the weather protested. Wherever sea met rock its action sapped and mined, while the wind coursed over all like a trawler’s net. Thorn felt a heady nausea at the absurd isolation and hostility of the scene. His hands had a weak early morning feeling as he tried to clench them. He sat down on the base of the steps and rubbed fast at his temples. The three of them were of as much consequence amongst all this water and wind as three specks of grit in the lees of a swirling vat. His mind was full of storms and waves. He caught himself rocking forward in an imitation of Benson, which was ridiculous enough to bring him round. Some clear thinking was needed. He had only been here a day, and he would be relieved in another. Getting down to inspect Thacker’s building would distract him at the least. He could make some quick drawings and notes and then write them when he got back to the shore. A newspaper might take them. The wind hummed above him through the metal the grating, a sound almost like pan pipes which rose and fell with the gusts. He would first check the landing area and went down the mirror smooth and spray slicked stairs cut into the granite. He descended in the mode his grandmother had used in her senescence, moving sideways with a hand pressed against the wall, and then placing one foot onto a step before the other joined it. The spray from the waves crashing at the bottom lashed up at him as he descended At the bottom there was nothing but water, nearly black against the shallow rocks and lilting and sucking with the action of the sea, like an enormous tongue against a rotting tooth. Back at the top of the steps he could take in the surface of the rock properly. It was carpeted in a fragmented gravel which was varied only by boulders. These were teetering jagged things which stood stubbornly like standing stones. Several had been shattered by frost or storm and showed their strata like wounds, layered and stippled with white streaks and red cut-throughs. The dual assault of the rain-soaked wind and the spray thrown up from the shore slicked everything with a thin sheen. Driven in at intervals over the plateau, were thick iron rods, put in place by former keepers. At the top of these there were eyelets one could thread a rope through, to trace a path in fog or storm. The pattern of the rods formed a Y shape. They went out a straight line perhaps halfway into the rock, and then branched off in two at 45-degree angles, one towards the small cover and one towards the elder light and the beach. In case of fog, he scrounged a coil of rope from the mess of the storeroom and tied it awkwardly around the first rod, struggling to remember the sequence of a binding knot. The wind made him walk at an angle and he had strain to drive his legs forwards. The wind probed under his sou’wester and slapped at his oilskins. It took him nearly twenty minutes to cover the two hundred feet to the first branch of the Y. Thorn could feel his undershirt coating his skin as he began to sweat with the effort. The final iron rod was driven into the rock close to the edge, and he knelt beside it and hooked an elbow tightly around it as insurance from the wind. From there he worked his way through thirty meter of sloping fissured granite, which slanted down towards the waves. At the end of this was the cove, which dropped down in a sheer arc to the waves below. Thorn went over with derision the images he had formed in training for his first posting. Deeply lit scenes of sublime drama, of noble lighthouses and the harsh beauty of the elements. There was nothing beautiful here. Everything was hostile, everything drowned or cut or froze. The station had only been built here has the rocks and tides had gutted so many ships. It was inimical to human life. Human life was alien here, he felt utterly the invasiveness and presumption of his species. Leaning forward while keeping firmly hooked to the metal post, he could see the white water at the cliff’s base. Of course, there was no wreckage or junk floating on the tide. As he looked at the sea, he had the impression that he could feel the immense weight and profundity somewhere inside. Water pressed in towards him from everywhere, eating at the rock and moving ever closer to the slow beat of elemental time. The wind sought him like a pack of angry spirits. He felt this pressure and erosion was being worked on his brain. It made Thorn want to shout or thrash or run. He was like one walking through a vast forest who begins to cower in the presence of the trees. To disrupt the feeling, he kicked out at a pebble and sent it spinning over the side. As he followed its arc, he had a glimpse of something staring intently back then sliding quickly down into the waves. Below the surface was a black mass, like a pall of weeds, which seemed to coil and swirl and then bolt off at great speed out towards the deeper water, where it blended into the dark unity of the sea. It had to have been a seal, although a rather large one. Thorn had the impression of a loose coagulation around it, as if it was clothed in some kind of fabric. And the face, if he had been asked to give an account, he would have said was rather hollow. Twenty minutes of sweat and effort later he had made it back to the centre line of iron markers. Unused to the exercise his thighs were cramping painfully, and he could feel a tear blossoming at the base his right calf. From this ridge the granite then sloped down into a flattish hollow which contained the elder lighthouse. The structure was about halfway between the central ridge and the shore. There were shallow foundations dug into the rock then several courses of rough stone and mortar remaining. The uppermost course of stones had been worn smooth like shore glass. The outline of the structure was cruciform, perhaps ten meters in length. About two feet of the wall remained all the way around apart from the eastern end which had entirely given way. Thorn was sure this had been some kind of monastic church. He dimly remembered reading of something similar in a fantastically dull Trinity House history of early lighthouses, where monastic communities had set beacons in the church towers and used the bells as fog lights. It was a desolate, utterly bleak place, facing out towards the westerly Atlantic gales. Rowing materials and men out here must often have been lethal, and weather could have held the builders out there for weeks without shelter. Thorn found some longer curved stones which looked like they may have formed part of a window, set into the tower to show the beacon. He stepped over the wall at the western end into the interior of the church. To the east and just past the transept, in the chancel, there was a rough stone altar. Compared to the smooth surface of the walls it was almost untouched by the elements; it had retained all its sharpness of line and bore all the crisp angles of unworked rock. It was a glassy black like jet or obsidian and had a glassy patina. It looked old, and he thought rather wicked, like a leering red mask in the British Museum which had terrified him as a child. He spasmed slightly in the cold and then stepped forward towards the altar. Thorn was aware of the saliva in his mouth and the marching thud of his heart. There were two black gulls laid on the ground behind the black stone, their beaks resting against its base and their feet pointing slackly towards the space left by the collapsed eastern wall. Their heads had been wrapped tightly with pieces of grey cloth to cover their eyes and their throats had been messily cut. Around them were lavish splashes of blood and gusts of feathers. There was a new shine to scarlet pools like wet paint. Thorn weakly ran through any conceivable scenarios which could have led to this. There were of course none. He looked ridiculously out to sea, in hope of seeing some vessel that could have supplied the culprit. He was adrift in the grey mass of water, on this savage rock, with someone capable of this. Thorn was quietly sick. The acid cut at the back of his throat, and he wiped his mouth. The thought of going back to confront Capes and Benson repelled him. What had the three men been up to out here before he had arrived? What did they have planned for him? He sat on down on the wall and ground his clenched fists into his eyes. The sensation absorbed some of the panic, and when the resulting blur cleared, he looked back towards the lighthouse. Capes and Benson stood on the gantry both looking out towards him. Capes had his arms thrust above his head. In a gesture of, what? Perhaps of warning or to summon him back to the light. But the first impression Thorn formed was that the man was in the act of worship, of adulation. Thorn waved back at them. Both now waved exaggeratedly, and pointed repeatedly towards their heads, the danger sign indicated clearly that he should return. The reason for his summons became clear. A huge bank of fog was blowing steadily onto the station. He could see its unrolling bulk spread almost across the horizon in unvarying blankness to supplement that of the sea. It would overtake the lighthouse soon and he would have only the line of rods to take him back. There was almost no time to deliberate so he retraced the rope which led him up from the church and onto the main body of the rock, and the line of iron rods leading back to the light. He spooled the rope tightly around his arm as he went. The rain had become more serious and rung like falling gravel on his oilskins. As he picked and stumbled his way back, he started at a deep sonorous note sounding close by his ear. It rose in scale and weight with a great force until its head was filled with its dark sound. Thorn felt his body shake and then he wept in little jerks, the tears denied by the rain. He looked up at the gantry for the source of the noise but both men had gone inside. Perhaps they had dropped a piece of spare equipment or kicked against the rungs of the stairs leading down from the light. Neither explanation quite seemed to do. The sound was the sombre ringing of a church bell. The regulations stipulated that all keepers be awake and active in a period of fog and the foghorn had to been sounded at minute intervals and tended to until full visibility had returned. He moved mechanically like a log behind hauled along by rope, but there was no option but the warmth inside the lighthouse and scheduled relief boat. The wind and shifted to blow in towards him, bringing the fog and batting at his oilskins. He used the rope to steady and pull himself along, the rock surface was shining with rain now and he gashed his knee badly when he fell against the sharp lip of a stone. By the time he had made it to the base of the lighthouse steps the fog had come down like a blindfold. He could hear the ringing of the metal under his feet as he curled around the body of the light but could not even see the rungs; everything was a weak milky white. Even voice of the waves was muted under the fog. Tracing his way up to the door he tried it, it had been bolted from the inside. He felt a fresh bloom of panic and nausea and swore desperately into the air. Thorn beat against the door twice and on the third beat Capes screamed out in response “Who’s there?? For god’s sake is it you Thorn!!” The pitch of Cape’s voice had risen with strain. He had the craven shriek of one beyond their limit of panic and pressure. Thorn heard Capes fumbling at the bolt and then beating at the simple mechanism in frustration. “Calm down Mr Capes! Just lift the bolt up gently and it’ll open!” The unbridled panic of the other man forced Thorn to calm down and he managed to speak as if he was addressing a particularly slow child. He heard the clack as the bolt lifted, and a slice of Capes’ face appeared. He was horribly white, and he had the rolling eye of a panicked beast. He gazed at Thorn in myopic terror, making sure it was only him outside while throwing desperate glances past him and out into the world of fog.
“Mr Capes if you’ll move away from the door, just move back sir.” He spoke coaxingly and was able to edge the door open and move into the storeroom. Capes threw his weight against the now open door to close it, and Thorn had to help him get the bolt closed again. Capes was shaking like a hopeless drunk halfway through drying out. He juddered and spasmed continuously, he was clearly in a state of severe shock. “Where’s Benson? What’s happened?” Thorn managed to get him to sit in the casement of the window. Capes wept savagely, childishly and choked on his tears between words. “Gone! Run out to the waves to meet them! Gone to keep the elder light!” He was almost unable to speak. “Gone? How can he have gone? What’s been happening Capes? Cape’s could barely speak, but after several slow demands he told his tale. As he spoke, Capes would whirl about to cringe and supplicate vague figures, to gibber and plead, to shout and then reason, nodding and shrugging as if arriving at terms with unseen authorities. From what Thorn could glean from Capes’ account, Benson had entered a period of deep and silent prayer. Suddenly rousing himself, he had sung psalms and given a sermon, even stood on a chair in the corner of the light room, shouting over the roar of the engine and cursing and admonishing a flock that argued and mocked in his mind. One passage which Capes repeated over and over like a chant, recalled the endless Sunday school preaching of Thorn’s childhood. He had a vague impression it was from the book of Job: He maketh the deep to boil like a pot. He makes the sea like a pot of ointment. He leaves a shining wake behind him; One would think the deep had white hair.”

Capes repeated the “he leaves a shining wake behind him” over and over, the phrase sounding in Thorn’s mind like the foghorn, and Capes’ face now scarred with joy as he repeated the words. As he spoke, Capes made a gesture with the index fingers of both hands, moving them slowly towards his face. As if horned thing came towards him through the sea. Capes’ rambling delusion had brought Thorn undistracted purpose that a crisis brings. But now as he watched the figure of this man chanting like a broken priest, he felt the weight of his situation. He sat down on a case on the in the middle of the room. His legs ached from his journey out on the rocks, he felt suddenly very cold. Benson was somewhere in the featureless expanse of fog, a step away from death or injury on the rocks, if not there already. Capes was deranged and needed medical treatment or confinement. One of them had been mad enough to butcher and arrange two gulls. Thorn’s watch told 6 o’clock, at some point on the following day the relief boat would arrive if the weather allowed, but he was nearing the point of disintegration. Horrible to his ear, the constant noise of the engines rotating the light was punctuated with a series of snapping bangs, then a loud grinding, then silence. The gas lamps lighting the walls flickered, shone brightly once more, and died out. The mechanical organs of the station were still, the pulse had stopped.

Capes stood and raised both his hands in the same contorted gesture Thorn had seen in the drawing, the backs placed together and the palms outwards. His face was lit by the pale gloam of the fog coming through the porthole, the whites of the eyes burning, “The elder keepers! The elder keepers have lit their beacon! It is a terrible thing, a wonderful thing to behold!

Ranting like a firebrand preacher, he dashed towards the door and had lifted the bolt and thrown himself outside before Thorn had a chance to take a step. He heard the clanging of sea boots down the lighthouse steps and muffled shouting, but when he reached the door there was only the blank immensity of the fog. Thorn stood breathing deeply and trembling, feeling billows of vapour curling past the door. The thick salt smell filling the room. Thorn groped desperately around the floor testing the contents of each crate by touch until eventually found an emergency packet of candles. He lit one with his matches and held the sinuous flame in front of him. Each coil of rope and hanging oilskin menaced and morphed in the guttering light. He moved through the station as slowly and silently as if leading a hearse. As he reached the stair before the light room itself, he heard a sound that nearly brought him to the point of fainting. Plainsong came from the room. Dry voices like the sound of winter wind over dead leaves.

semita alba leviathan, semita alba leviathan.

Thorn screamed in the darkness. As his scream rose, a screeching laugh like the sound of a gull rose to meet it and there came a horribly fast clacking over the tiles of the light room, the noise of bare bones. Thin arms caught him as he turned to run, the dank smell of rotten cloth left long in the ground filled his nostrils. From out at sea, the light on oMnk’s rock roared up into the blackness of the sky.

The relief boat bobbed off the shore for an hour, huddled on the water like a sea bird. No shout or waving arms came to beckon them into the bay. Growing alarmed the captain took her towards the landing, made her fast and sent the went ashore with two men. They found Capes and Benson on the far side of the rock, by a small structure which the captain described his is evidence as a “decayed and desolate spot. The stench of rot caused one of the seamen to vomit before they had come within sight of it. Both men had their throats raggedly cut. They had been laid out on the ground so that their mouths touched the two rear corners of the altar, and their torsos and feet pointed away at angles. Thorn, they found in the light room itself. He had been placed in the kneeling attitude of a supplicant. Throughout the room there was a sickly rich smell of incense and around him silver chalices, as used for the eucharist, and full. The captain reported that his skin had the puckered grey tone of flesh left long in water. And from all over his body small round pieces of skin had been excised, about the size of a communion wafer.