Chris Rodger was a psychiatrist, quite junior. He'd wanted that speciality since his brother committed suicide. He grew up in a South London, working-class household and shared a bedroom with his brother, Anthony. They had separate bedrooms but when their sister, Lisa, came along they had to share, the council being short of 4-bedroom houses.
Anthony was powerfully built, and protected his little brother, Chris, through school and beyond. Chris was more intellectual, Tony being given over to use his fists. Chris had been a skinny stripling, which didn't bode well at the comprehensive they attended. As well as intellectual pursuits, he'd been a good runner, which was something the staff appreciated. He was the first person in their family to attend university, and when he graduated in biology, he put himself down for medical school. Tony committed suicide with an old pistol, where he'd got it from, no one knew.
There was the funeral, which his poverty-stricken parents had to pay for. All the family attended, save Tony's wife, Marie, her still being bitter, after her battering. Also there were some of the other bedsit's inhabitants, those that had managed to get the time off work.
After medical school, Chris worked for a while as a junior doctor in a teaching hospital. He got used to the lack of sleep, as much as he could, and longed to specialise. When Tony committed suicide, he chose psychiatry. He had to go back to medical school, where he read assiduously, a bit beyond the requirements of his course. He ploughed through volumes of Freud, Jung, Reich, Laing, Lacan, Saussure, and even Foucault and Derrida. Having re-taken his doctorate, he got a job as a junior in a military hospital, Sandys, that was excluded from the map. If anyone called the Ministry of the Environment about Sandys, they'd get passed around from telephone to telephone until they gave up. If anyone called the Ministry of Defence, they'd get a curt refusal that it ever existed and a team from MI5 would call on them.
Chris was summoned to the Director's office. He walked over to the Director's desk, like everything in this office made of old, dark wood. The Director, Dr. Pickering, smiled warmly; he was an amiable man, rather portly with dark, curly hair and jowls that almost descended to his permanent Fair Isle sweater. Pickering wore his sweaters most of the year round, except during the height of summer when the building, being listed, got too hot. Pickering was a good sort, although they had had their differences; when Rodger was first appointed, Pickering insisted on calling him 'Rodgers'. This was a stickling point until Rodger burst out,
“Can't you understand, my name's Rodger, singular not plural.”
Dr. Pickering held out his hand, which Dr. Rodger shook.
“Have you met Dr. Marian Sedgeley during your five months with us?”
Sedgeley had the reputation as something of an 'ice maiden'.
Rodger turned to her, “Yes, we have met.”
“She's would like to hand over one of her existing cases to you. She's bogged down with far too much work”
“It's a former Royal Navy diver. He's a former self-harmer.”
“Former, he's cured?”
“Yes, he hasn't done so for three weeks. ”
Pickering said, “I'll leave you two to it”, effectively dismissing them.
They left his office across the inch-thick, beige carpet. Rodger was glad to leave his office, which was depressingly dark, despite having a huge window which took almost the entire west wall of his office. The office was full of dark wood, the building was an old mansion house infested with it. Only broken up with regularly-polished brass fittings. It was made of old brick, faced with cotswold stone.
The big house, Sandys, was formerly owned by the Amesbury family. Their ancestor, who had had it built, earned his money by youthful share investment in West Indies' plantations. He hadn't owned any such company and, as such, benefited from wealthy obscurity. Unfortunately, having built his mansion and inhabited it, staffing it to an excess, he then blew his fortune on drinking, gambling and debauchery. He was rumoured to be a founder of the local branch of the Hellfire Club. This left very little for subsequent generations. His family survived in it until the First World War, when they had given it over as an asylum for gentleman officers who were incapacitated by 'nervous ailments'. As their families were embarrassed by their state, the mansion house was removed from the maps of that time; in fact, it was not reappeared to this day. Many a motorist has been perplexed by a big house that didn't appear on their Ordnance Survey maps, surrounded by coils of razor wire, and politely directed back to the main road by N.C.O.'s, whose white insignia caused puzzlement to military enthusiasts who happened to encounter them. Being listed and yet not appearing on any map, the building was in a sort of bureaucratic limbo, both recognised and not.
“Who's this self-harmer, then?”, Rodger asked Sedgeley as soon as they were out of the director's office.
Dr Marian Sedgeley was tall, only a couple of inches shorter than Rodger, who clocked in at six feet and half an inch. She was in her fifties, with brown shoulder-length hair, greying at the roots. Clad as in all the medical staff in a white coat, she wore a tweed skirt and flat shoes, so as Rodger's theorised not to make her stand out as freakishly tall. She was bespectacled, as was Rodger.
“I take it you've signed the Official Secrets Act with all the appendices?”
“I had to sign it to even work here”
“With all the appendices pertaining to this case?”
“Yes. I know that if I mention anything about this case to anyone outside these walls, I'll be banged up for the rest of my days”
“Correct, that's because he worked at Finshaw, an island so secret that even prime ministers Heath, Wilson and Callaghan didn't even know about it.”
“Finshaw? What's Finshaw?”
“An island about forty miles off the north-east coast of Scotland. A settlement was founded there by the Vikings. The weather's so terrible around there, they used it as a secret base from which they launched raids on Britain. Apparently the Vikings didn't find it so bad. They were used to a lot worse”. At which point she gave a little smile, the first Rodger had seen her permit herself.
“There's a point to your Viking story?”
“Just its remoteness and bad weather. During the second world war, the British government removed it from naval charts – it no longer existed, rather like this place. They began creating plutonium there. They wanted it as far from civilisation as possible in case anything went wrong.”
“Plutonium?”
“Yes, they'd figured out an atomic bomb was possible despite all the experts gainsaying it. They actually began their atomic bomb project years before the Manhattan project. They started it in 1942, kept it secret from everyone, including the Yanks.”
“Wasn't it dangerous, removing it from the maps?”
“Extremely. Finshaw's a pile of basalt that sticks out from the sea. Very sharp rocks. So they had to build a lighthouse and run a submarine cable from the north shore of Scotland for power. While everyone was going hungry, the Ministry Of War was cash rich, could do anything. Eventually they put a reactor on it to breed plutonium. The excess heat they had to think of harnessing, so they made a little power station, that produced so much electricity they ran it back through the submarine cable to power much of northern Scotland.
“Whatever. Anyway, he's from a navy family that goes back a lot of generations. His ancestor, Adam Gough, was the first to join the navy. He was in a succession of successful Edinburgh vintners. He couldn't stand the business of buying and selling wine, so he ran off to join the navy. There's an alternative story that he was press-ganged. Anyway, whichever of the stories you prefer, he ended up as a teenage deckhand. Eventually he made captain, covering all the roles available on his way up. He served as a captain under Nelson, including at the Battle of Trafalgar. He never got any higher up, he was a competent navigator and disciplinarian but lacked Nelson's ability for strategy. ”
“That's no disgrace, many were fine sea captains but Nelson left them in the shadows”
“Quite. There is a portrait of him that Gough's family own, he was a strange looking character, rather beaky with an abnormally thin head.”
“Is the subject also strange-looking?”
“No. Success causes attractiveness and many beauties over the centuries married into the family. The subject, Jack Gough, is ruggedly handsome. Speaks with a public school accent, very R.P., but throws in a few Sahf Lunnun terms, which he thinks everyone finds amusing”
“Sounds like you find him attractive?”
“No, he's a patient and as such my feelings don't enter into it”, she replied icily, “He's not my sort, anyway, I prefer men who are more intellectual.”
Rodger blushed and was hooked into the blushing/self-awareness paradox.
“The case was educated at a minor public school and excelled at one subject only, Rugby Union. His family were Royal Navy through and through. His uncle, Randolph, made Commodore, the highest position anyone in his family achieved. The case left school then had several minor clerical jobs. He lived in South London in a bedsit, and this enabled him to play for a few amateur Rugby clubs. As a boy, Gough was entranced by stories of sailing ships, gunpowder and derring-do. You know, that sort of thing. He didn't want to join the modern Navy, with its diesel-driven ships and computerised artillery. Ultimately he found his existence dreary, and so said uncle had a word with him about joining the Navy. Being from such an illustrious family, he got into officer's college, Dartmouth. He advanced along fairly quickly until he found himself being trained for Signals and Intelligence.”
“Found himself?”
“He suspected, along with everyone else, his family was pulling strings, getting him into a secure, well-paid office job. He couldn't stand that and required a bit of action, so he applied for diver training; his uncle explained that as a diver, he wouldn't get past the rank of Lieutenant.
“After he worked for the Royal Navy for a few years and getting qualified as a senior diver, he dropped out to go private and worked for the Saudis for a few years in the Red Sea. Then when it all kicked off with Iran, it started to get dangerous. He had an accident which gave him a broken ankle. While in hospital, he met some nurse, a Hungarian woman, called Zsuzsanna. She regarded him as a perfect English gentleman, which means he didn't try to grope her as soon as he was able. The other men at the base regarded her as fair game, not having so much as seen a woman in several months, she was also quite buxom. She'd learnt English at a Soviet-run school in Budapest, and she'd qualified with top grades. She didn't understand what 'Bowling along the Old Kent Road' meant except he thought it was important and amusing. He got engaged (with great difficulty, still officially being in the Royal Navy and she a subject of the Warsaw Pact: he had to seek Home Office permission, the permission stalled in government inaction, he eventually got the help of his uncle, which expedited it) and this made him seek a safe job back in the UK. Ironically, this put him in more danger. He went back to the company, Contraplan Ltd, which had got him the posting in the Red Sea, their boss, an upper-class twerp who went by the name of Rodney Bennett. My researchers found he doesn't really exist, I suspect it's a cover story for an Intelligence placing.”
The military hospital held a huge staff, of only some were medical personnel.
“Bennett came up with a job in Finshaw, which promised him a three-month contract, after which, he'd never need to work again. I'm telling you all this, but you can find it in the folder of case notes. Rather atypical, self-harmers tend to be teenagers, he's in his thirties.”
They turned a corner and were met with an iron barred gate, painted white. Beyond sat a guard, wearing the same military uniform, pressed khaki with a cream cap band as all the others. He was tall, lean with very compressed chin with a major, angry scar on the left side. Rodger thought in any other life, he should grow a beard but the army regiment probably didn't allow it. The soldier sat at small, square, baize-covered table, the sort used by card players. In fact, it probably was a card table, having been repurposed.
“Your pass, please”, demanded the soldier.
Sedgeley said, “You've seen it every day for the past month”.
“New security regulations”, said the soldier.
Rodger then noticed the large revolver on the soldier's right hip, held by a white holster, in turn held up with a white belt.
Sedgeley passed her security pass, on a lanyard round her neck, through the bars, letting out an unnecessarily loud sigh as she did so. Rodger thought her display of boredom denoted petulance.
The soldier noted the pass on a clipboard on the table.
“Yours, sir?”, demanded the soldier.
Rodger passed his pass through the bars and the soldier ticked the clipboard, then unlocked the gate with a large bunch of keys taken from his left hip.
The soldier stood in Rodger's way. He produced a piece of paper from the table.
“You'll have to sign it, it's additional paperwork to stop you from revealing anything about this case.”
Please come in, doctors”, he said, “I'll show you to the treatment room.”
He looked through a judas hole, then unlocked the cell door.
The cell was spacious and padded with some mid-grey material that looked comfortable and cosy. There was nothing in the cell apart from a military cot with only a mattress on it.
Gough said, almost apologetically, “They don't allow sheets as I'm deemed a suicide risk.”
He was clad in a naval blue t-shirt and white shorts, his arms and legs were bandaged.
Sedgeley said, “This is Dr. Rodger, he'll be taking over your case from now”.
Gough said, “And I thought we were making such progress”
Sedgeley retorted with “We were, but I am being reassigned. This is Dr. Rodger, he's just as competent.”
“Not as good looking, though”, Gough said with a cheeky smile.
Sedgeley blushed a little at this.
The guard left, then locked the door behind him.
“Just bang on the door when you're through.”
“I know you, don't I?”, said Gough to Rodger.
“I don't think so”
Gough searched his memory, “Weren't you at a funeral at some big cemetery?”
Rodger was puzzled by this.
“Streatham Cemetery. Yeah, some guy that lived in a bedsit in Tooting?”
“My brother”, said Rodger.
“Committed suicide, by some antique firearm. I sort of found him.”
“I ought to decline your case, knowing you. However, we didn't know each other, we only met at a funeral. I want to thank you and the other inhabitants of that house for attending.
“Lieutenant Gough, it says here you're a former self-harmer. I don't think I could say it more diplomatically.”
Gough held his arms up, and gave an embarrassed smile.
“That's in my past; I no longer have such illusions.”
“When you were brought here, you suffered from massive anxiety, according to your notes you were given a course of tranquillisers”
“Yeah, worked.”, said Gough.
“I'll leave you two to it”, said Sedgeley and knocked on the cell door. Eventually, the guard let her out.
“Lieutenant Gough, mind telling me all about it. I've got it in the case notes but I'd rather hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.”
“It all began when I transferred to Finshaw. I left my E-type in Jeddah airport car park, I should think it's still there though, probably there'll be an enormous charge on it by now. I got on a flight to Edinburgh, then a bus to Thurso. My destination was a little town on the north coast of Scotland, called Cuilty. I had no idea how to pronounce it; I tried at the Thurso ticket office without success, then, after several attempts, the booking clerk said:
“Ah, you want a ticket to 'Keelty'”
I paid a wad of Scots notes and demanded a receipt, Bennet had said I could claim it on expenses. The bus took about six hours. My arse went numb after the first hour and when we got to Cuilty, I could barely walk. Edinburgh and Thurso had been cold after the Red Sea, but Cuilty was in another league entirely.
From the bus station at Cuilty, it was short walk to the harbour, where I got a ferry to Finshaw. There were only a few other passengers on the ferry, most struck me as deformed, all were bald, not just the hair on their heads but also their eyebrows, like cancer patients on chemotherapy. Several of them had only one eye. Some were lacking hands, just having flippers. A deckhand said,
'You're seeing some of Finshaw's finest. Most mainlanders avoid the place.'
I enquired why, and he replied it was cursed, they have avoided it for centuries. The inhabitants are inbred.
I can now see why the authorities chose it and probably spread the curse rumour.
When the ferry got out the harbour, the rough seas began. I, and the deckhands, were immune. Everyone else was throwing up. I'd got my sea legs in the Royal Navy, and I'd been through a lot worse, in the Bay of Biscay.
After a couple of hours, the ferry reached the main harbour on Westfisk, the only town on Finshaw. All the passengers got off and I walked through the town, shivering all the while, my destination was the Homeleaven Hotel, I had a handwritten note that I'd made from the instructions sent to me.
I was to wait for a soldier called Sergeant Phillips. The same deformed sorts I'd seen on the ferry, inhabited the bar. Closer to them I could see very few teeth. The bartender, probably the manager, was a big, thick-set sort of guy with curly, white hair and mutton-chop sideboards and a long, flowing beard.
'Whit'll ye have?', he enquired and I said a scotch and soda. My demand for a receipt caused sour looks. He produced a thimble-full of scotch - I was used to much larger measures given in the illegal drinking dens in Saudi – and a soda syphon. I paid but the receipt never came.
I had hardly started on my drink when Phillips arrived. He was wearing a crisp, ironed uniform with a red face and short, ginger hair. From his red beret in his epaulette, I could see he was Military Police.
'You Gough?', he asked.
'Lieutenant Gough', I replied.
'I'm to escort you to the base, sir'.
I had a black, leather holdall which he took.
'Is that all, sir?'
'Yeah, I travel light. Most of my stuff's still in Saudi.'
When I got set up in England, I regarded this as only a temporary placement, I'd have to send for it.
We left the Hotel and he took me to his jeep, it was a WWII model.
'It's been overhauled many times, the chassis, the engine and the panels have been replaced many times over. The sea air and roads here is rough on cars', he said, 'Most of the technical staff leave their cars on the mainland, not wanting to risk them here.'
We clattered through Westfisk, over cobbled roads. There was an air decay in the town, and the Hotel was the only large building there. Presently we went through scrubby countryside and we arrived at the base after ten minutes or so. If Westfisk was bleak and run-down, the base echoed it. It was surrounded by rows of rusty barbed wire. In amidst the wire was a steel sign, saying 'Attention! Mines!', the sign was pock-marked with rust.
He pulled up at a barrier. 'Excuse me, sir, you have to do some paperwork'. He led me to a guard hut where a couple of soldiers lolled with their feet on the table. When we went in, they snapped to attention.
'You have to sign the Official Secrets Act'
'I signed it years ago, look at your records'
'Well this has some extra clauses. If you ever mention a thing about this base, you'll be in the Scrubs in solitary for a life sentence, if you're lucky'
'What if I'm unlucky?'
He grinned, 'They'll hang you'
I signed, what else was I to do? Out of the window I could see a bedraggled expanse of portakabins, Nissen huts and pockmarked concrete buildings. The ground was level here on the base, unlike the jagged rocks of the rest of the island, probably why they had selected it.
He led me out of the guardhouse down the only road. Shortly, we arrived at a portakabin with a sign that said 'Base Commander'. He led me into the building, it was subdivided into offices. There was a desk where a middle-aged woman sat behind a large, antiquated typewriter. The nameplate read 'Margot McGrath, secretary', I said to her, “I'm Lieutenant Gough'.
She replied with a broad Scots accent, 'Yes, Mr Kilcline's expecting you'. She buzzed on the intercom, 'Lieutenant Gough's here'.
As soon as she'd done that, a very tall, pudgy guy with thinning, curly,ginger hair came out of the other office, he was wearing a crisp, white shirt with a silk tie. He had what he thought was a military moustache that failed to win him any plaudits. He had damp patches under his armpits, obviously a heavy sweater. My eyes were drawn to the damp patches. He noticed it and became self-aware, blushing slightly.
'Hi, I'm d-d-d-David Kilcline, b-b-base commander. Lieutenant Gough?'
It was obvious I was: a fatuous question. 'Yes'.
'I've been going through y-y-y-your CV; I see you didn't g-g-go to uni?'
'No, Dartmouth College'
He made a slight tutting sound. I went to Newnham'
My blank expression led him to add, “c-c-c-Cambridge, and read greats. You must be wondering why you're here?'
'I had been wondering.'
'This base was designed by p-p-p-Prosper Jeavons, some sort of physics-chemistry b-b-boffin. He went to p-p-p-Peterhouse, where they specialise in that sort of s-s-stuff. Thanks to Jeavons, who designed and implemented a purely k-k-k-chemical method. It was to manufacture p-p-plutonium: we had the bomb shortly after the Americans.'
'It isn't now?'
'There's plenty of plutonium around, we created the Magnox reactors just after the war. The whole place is a bit redundant now. There's a pool where we used to dump low-level waste. Before that we dumped it out at sea, then the locals who were a bit funny to begin with, started to experience birth defects. Your job is to clear the pool out. Don't worry, there's a diving suit completely proof against radiation. Oh, and I should warn you, there's some sort of creature in the pool.'
'The creature's giving you grief?'
Kilcline winced as he said the word, 'grief'.
'Not really, we just ignore it, hoping it'll go away. Ultimately, we want to turn it into an asset, helping to propel the UK to the 'top table'. That's where you come in.'
He went to the intercom on McGrath's desk.
'Miss Downs, would you c-c-come in, please? I have the diver here, you are to show him around'.
Miss Downs entered. She was slender with long,blonde hair and with thick NHS-style glasses. She tottered around on high heels. I guessed she seldom wore them.
'That's Dr Downs, if you don't mind'
'Yes, I k-k-k-keep forgetting.'
As soon as they left the portakabin, Dr Downs said to him,
'He does it to provoke me.'
I guessed the omitting the doctor title.
'He's of a generation that couldn't see women as scientists, just housewives and floozies. Plus I graduated and got my doctorate from Southampton. He only regards universities as one of a select few – Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Durham.'
'He struck me as educated beyond his ability.'
'Oh, he's not so bad, just boorishly opinionated.'
I could see by her expression, she was masking a lot of anger.
I personally didn't feel any animosity, just that he was part of the boorish 'Old Guard', a part of that which had dragged this country down by inactivity and passivity, ripe for elbowing out of the way.
'Dr Downs, I can see Kilcline wasn't entirely forthcoming with me. He mentioned some sort of creature'
'Julia, please.'
'My name's Jack'.
'The thing in the pool is a big, terrifying monster. I don't men to put you off but it dragged my fiance into the pool.'
'How?'
'He was an engineer and technologist. One day, the thing reached out one of its tentacles and dragged him into the pool. We had no idea it was in there. Our guess it was a jellyfish larva that pursued an entirely different line of evolution. Having no predators in the pool and its genes warped by the radiation. We have no idea, really. It's just guesswork, there are no biologists here.'
They stopped outside a Nissen hut.
'This is your accommodation.'
She knocked and a redcap came out.
'This is Corporal Matt Houchen, will you please show Lieutenant Gough to his bed?'
'Of course', said Houchen. Once he had closed the door, he said, 'Bit of all right, isn't she? Doubt she wants a bit of rough like me. You're an officer. You might be alright, there.'
I made some murmur of approval.
He led me to a door where my name was on it, typed on a white card.
'Your room's here. If you ever get an urge for a little entertainment, there's the NAAFI with subsidised drinks. Otherwise there's the Hotel in Westfisk.'
It was small, well appointed, with a standard military cot.
'Reveille's at 6:00, breakfast at 8:30, dinner at 13:00 and supper at 17:00. Enjoy.'
'What have I got to do?'
'There's a practice dive tomorrow morning, with the main dive a couple of days away. Otherwise, your time's your own.'
When I had unpacked into the wardrobe, officers got that much, enlisted men had to use the barracks, I wandered around, finding my way. On the way back, I got lost, the nissen huts all looked the same.
That night, I had the evening meal at the NAAFI and then stayed there for a few drinks. There was the usual military crowd, and another crowd of technologists. I guess they kept themselves separate.
There was little to do, having exhausted the usual military banter.
I left at 10pm, preferring to get some sleep.
Next morning I went to the pool, one of the buildings made out of weather-beaten concrete. There were warning signs to the reactor, 'DO NOT GO PAST THIS POINT UNLESS WEARING PROTECTIVE CLOTHING'.
The building was well signposted, and I found the pool. There were a couple of technicians hovering around.
'Lieutenant Gough, sir?'
'That's me', I said and they led me to an ante-chamber with space and coatracks for a hundred men.
I undressed at their bidding and they produced some woollen underwear and a thick, rubber diving suit.
'It may be a little itchy, sir', one of them said.
'Don't worry, I'm used to it, I've worn it under dry suits loads of times'.
'You won't be used to this, sir', manhandling me into the diving suit. It was much heavier than I'd previously worn.
ƒ'It's interwoven with lead, sir, to protect you from the radiation.'
Before doing the suit up they attached a little dosimeter, a blue plastic tag with a photographic plate inside.
'You're only down for three dives, sir. Beyond that, there'll be a radiation hazard.'”
“Were you scared?”
“Absolutely terrified. Going into a radioactive pool with a monster in it, I couldn't be otherwise. Royal Navy training, you can't show your fear in front of lower ranks. They topped it off with some sort of rubber helmet, heavier than the suit, to which they attached a heavy, rubber air line. They handed me a torch.
'It's pretty murky in there, sir. This torch has a beam that'd make the darkest night seem like daylight.'
'Oh, great', I quipped.
They fitted lead boots on my feet, they weighed a ton. Next they fitted a harness over the suit, and handed me a line.
'Just pull on this if you need to come up, sir. Otherwise, we'll limit your dive to fifteen minutes'
The harness was attached to a winch and they hoisted me over the edge of the pool. The water in it was grey like the sea but cloudier. I dreaded the entry to the water, but I reasoned, 'You;ve done it loads of times, Jack'. Over the water, I felt the intense weight of the boots and dreaded the contact with the water.
In the water, I felt weightless and eventually touched the bottom. I'd read somewhere it was sixteen feet deep. I was glad they'd given me the torch: the water was like pea soup and the torch beam cut through it. I took a few tentative steps, the weight of the boots made it otherwise impossible. After a few such steps, I saw a body dressed in a lab coat, I took it to be the remains of Julia Downs' fiance. I grabbed the corpse under the armpits and tugged on the signal line. After a few seconds, during which I felt the most intense fear I'd done on this dive, the winch began lifting me from the pool.
The corpse was light, I guess because most of the flesh had dissolved off it, leaving bones held apart by skin and its clothes.
When I arrived at the poolside, the attendants were dressed in radiation suits. I could see through the clear plastic faceplates, they wore expressions of disgust. We left the corpse by the poolside. Out in the antechamber, they undressed me carefully to avoid any of the water. Eventually I was naked apart from a large, soft bathrobe they supplied.
'You were only in there five minutes, sir', one of them said. I thought it had felt like hours. One them pressed an alarm bell, a klaxon sounded, and a team of radiation suit-clad engineers retrieved the corpse from the poolside.
One of the attendants said, 'We'll have to do an autopsy. There's a a couple of guys appointed by the RAMC, they run the sick bay. It's probably Tim Peake.'
'Tim Peake?', I asked.
'Yeah, he was going out with Julia Downs'
'They were engaged, weren't they?', chimed in the other.
'Guess that means the wedding is off', said the first.
I made the second dive the next day. It was uneventful. The monster didn't exist, I was confident. It must have been over-excited minds in a place so boring. I wasn't a psychiatrist so I didn't know.
On the day I made the third dive, I'd been walking around with great difficulty when suddenly I was seized by huge white, semi-transparent tentacles. The signal line was ripped out of my hand, and I'd fortunately clipped the torch to my harness so I could still see. When I could see the thing that had grabbed me, it appeared to be eight tentacles around a central, puckered hole, that quivered as if breathing. There were eight black dots that I took for eyes at the base of each tentacle.
'Surface creature', said the thing. I had no idea how but it sounded in my head: a deep, booming voice, 'You have invaded my habitat.'
I was sweating, partly from the warmth of the water but also out of fear.
I thought, 'My apologies, sir'. It seemed best to appease the thing.
'I desire contact with you surface creatures', it boomed, 'A long time ago I grabbed a surface creature such as yourself. It didn't survive. I think it was unable to breathe underwater. You don't seem to have that fault'.
I didn't want to admit my air line kept me alive, in case it thought to experiment. I tried to keep that thought from my mind.
'You survive by your air line – good, I won't try removing it. I have a use for you. You are to act as an embassy to the other surface creatures, and I wish to pursue some other purpose'.
At that point I felt a stinging sensation in my limbs where it had enveloped me with tentacles.
'You will represent me to the other surface creatures?'
I said, well thought, I would. No word of a lie.
'I will let you return, so you can act as my embassy'
At that point it released me, and I walked through the sludgy water to a rusty ladder I'd seen when making my first dive. I only hoped it would support my weight. Because I doubted it, I took off my lead boots, a very slow operation. The suit had some sort of foot covering so I hoped that would protect me from the radiation.
I climbed up it to the surface where my attendants helped me from the pool. I staggered to the dressing room where they took off my diving suit. I got dressed while they went to decontaminate themselves. I marched up the corridor and over the ground to the portakabin where the base director had his office.
I said, 'I want to see Kilcline immediately', I was infuriated by my experience and instantly regretted my curt tone with McGrath. Just then, he came out of his office, brandishing a clipboard.
'I want to see you, now'
'A bit a-a-agitated, are we?', which made me angrier.
We went into his office.
'Please, sit down'
I sat in the chair provided, he sat in a leather chair, purposely made to make him look grander.
'I've met the creature in the pool.'
'Have you now?', his condescension irritated me further. My body was full of adrenaline having had the shock of my life and his attempts to appease me.
'What was it like?', he enquired.
'Big, bulbous and made out of some sort of protoplasm, like a jellyfish. It had eight tentacles and eight eyes at the base of them.'
'Well, I propose we refer to it as the octamorph. It's Greek, see 'octo' meaning eight and 'morph' meaning shape'.
His supercilious tone infuriated me further but I realised I was powerless.
'Listen, that thing's intelligent and dangerous. I just had a conversation with it'
'How did you do that? Considering you were behind an air mask.;
'It read my thoughts and implanted its thoughts into me'.
I had no idea why I said that.
'Oh, a sort of telepathy, is it?. I'm impressed, can we get it to work for Britain. It would make us great again, having such an ally?'
'I doubt it knows or even cares of Britain.'
'Well, considering it's a danger, it's already killed one of our technicians. That news leaves me with little choice to abandon the base. Not that this base has any further worth. Abandoning it means I can get posted back in Whitehall and go and live with ny family again in Surrey.'
I realised I'd played into his hands, he wanted the base to be abandoned to get a posting back to
Blighty.
'Abandoning the base means it will have to be destroyed, leaving it around will only let Her Majesty's Government leach secrets.'
'How do you propose to do that?'
'There are a few bombs stored here, we'll let one off. It's made with plutonium produced here so that will be ironic. I'll have to get the inhabitants moved to the mainland. They won't mind: it's a shithole'
That was the only time I heard him use such language,
“Miss McGrath, come in please', he spoke into the intercom, 'I have momentous orders'
To me, he said, 'You can go, now'”
“Did you go?”
“I got the ferry back to the mainland. I found lodgings in Cuilty with place with the money I'd made on my stay on Finshaw.”
“That's Mrs McRae's , isn't it?
“Yes, she's an old widow, who made her living by letting out a couple of rooms. I enjoyed big, cooked meals there, to the point I was bursting.”
“After a couple of weeks, during which they moved all the inhabitants of Finshaw to cities in Scotland and northern England: the former inhabitants were most troubled by their sending to northern England's housing estates, where they were bullied incessantly, the detonation was due on Finshaw. The authorities recommended only viewing the explosion through sunglasses, even though it was some forty miles away. At exactly 4p.m., on the appointed day, I watched the horizon in the vague direction of Finshaw. There was a slight glow on the horizon and very little sound, more a rumbling that everyone felt in their bodies: a great anticlimax. The explosion did register on international seismic recorders, the MoD explained it as an earthquake, the USA supported this explanation so there was no enquiry, though other countries suspected an atomic blast.
For a couple of days I waited in Cuilty, meaning to move back to south London and get a menial job and rejoin my Rugby club.
I felt a great itching where the tentacles had enveloped my limbs and eventually saw tiny, violet 'flowers' appearing on my skin. I bought am open razor and some bandages, with the aim of cutting them off. That night I went to the bathroom and stripped down to my underpants. I cut the flowers off my skin and with the aim of bandaging the skin up. I hadn't realised how much pain would be involved. I screamed and ran downstairs, covered in blood. Mrs McRae screamed in turn and went running out into the street, telling anyone who'd listen that I'd gone mad. A half a dozen neighbours then came in and tried to give me first aid. I can't remember how effective they were, I just remembered the pain and the blood which ws all over the carpet, and a couple of minutes later an ambulance came and the attendants bandaged me up and pressed a hypodermic syringe into my neck. I passed out and came round here.”
“You were taken to Cuilty General Hospital and from there, they couldn't cope with such a serious case, to Dunbar Hospital in Thurso. They patched you up and contacted the Ministry of Defence to want to know what to do. The MoD told them a private car would take you away. It was a Rolls-Royce”
“Pity I was unconscious, I'd never been in a Roller before.”
“They brought you here, it's a secure mental hospital where you'll be safe. It's owned by the MoD. We gave you intravenous sedatives, to calm you down. We assumed you were in a state of high anxiety”
“Thankyou, I was. Have the little violet flowers gone now?”
“We couldn't find any trace of them at all.”
“Are you saying I was just seeing things?”
“You may have hallucinated them, they may have been there but you removed them.”
“Did you, they, examine the skin I cut off?”
“Yes, and not finding them doesn't mean they weren't there. They may have shrunk when the blood supply was removed.”
He choked, “I'm afraid I've been the most unbelievable bother.”
“No, no, you haven't. It's what we're here for.”
When Dr Rodger saw him the next day, Gough said, “You think I'm mad and the octamorph, or whatever it was, was a figment of my imagination.”
“We don't use the word, 'mad', here. You're certainly suffering from stress, with all you've been through, it's not surprising. And we have the report from Kilcline, who recommended an atomic explosion to remove the creature.”
“Certainly, it's not the way a Navy officer is supposed to behave.”
“You can relax, you're safe in this hospital.”
Early the next morning, a klaxon went off. Dr. Rodger dressed in a track suit and T-shirt, all his family got up. He went to the officer in charge of the emergency, “Captain Gynn, what's happening?”
“Apparently, one of the patient's committed suicide”
“Which?”, there were some fifty patients housed there.
Gynn checked his clipboard, “Lieutenant Gough”.
Dr Rodger had a sinking feeling.
He went to Dr Pickering's office.
“Did you hear, Lieutenant Gough's committed suicide?”
“Yes, I know”, said Pickering, “Seems he secreted a leather belt, with which he used to hang himself from the light fitting.”
“How? He was on suicide watch, wasn't he?”
“Seems the guard went off for a break. He is allowed to do that, you know. When he got back and looked through the judas hole, he saw Gough hanging. He pressed the alarm immediately. When they entered the cell, Gough was already dead.”
Dr Sedgeley entered the office. Dr Rodger asked her, “Have you heard what's happened?”
“Yeah, sounds very fishy to me”
“How do you mean?”
“How on earth did he manage to smuggle a belt in, especially when he was a suicide risk? I suspect he was murdered to keep everything quiet. We've never had a suicide before here.”
“Is this true?”, Rodger asked Dr Pickering.
“Yes, 100% record until now. I think Dr Sedgeley's right.”
They waited on the autopsy, which took a few days to arrange. The autopsy report found tiny, violet 'flowers' on. They waited on a DNA chromatography report. It took a couple of weeks. It was an extremely difficult and time-consuming process, the MoD authorised it because they thought there might be interesting findings.
“I'm no expert,”, said Dr Rodger to Dr Sedgeley, “but it looks like Gough was right. Somehow the octamorph infected him”.
“Every living thing tries to reproduce itself, looks like the creature impregnated him”.
Dr Rodger said, “He committed suicide to avoid giving birth. Er, I imagine trying to avoid the creature's offspring coming to maturity.”
“If, indeed, it was suicide”
“What are you saying?”
“Don't you think it was convenient on the part of the authorities? They'd got a loose cannon”
Eventually there was a secret commission to look into it. All the evidence was delivered in camera.
The conclusion was it was suicide. In Rodger's terms, they kicked it into long grass.
