The 8th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories

THE HAUNTED HAVEN A. E. Ellis

Attention all shipping. The Meteorological Office issued the following gale warning at 1600 hours: south-westerly gale, force eight, imminent in sea areas Irish Sea, Lundy, and Fastnet.

In the south-eastern angle of St Bride’s Bay, sheltered from the south-west winds by the projecting tongue of land that ends in Wooltack Point, nestles the little fishing village of Ticklas Haven, which consists of an inn, a compact group of cottages, a stout jetty partly fashioned out of the living rock, and two snug little coves or havens, one on each side of the jetty. In the more northerly of these tiny bays ten or a dozen fishing smacks may usually be seen riding at their moorings, or lying in lopsided idleness at ebb tide. In the other cove, although it appears more sheltered and suitable in every way for use as a harbour, never a boat will be seen, nor any signs of human occupation, such as the lobster-pots, coils of rope, nets and tarpaulins, which litter the foreshore of the north cove.

Four steep roads converge upon the village, two from the landward side and two from the coast to the north and the south-west. About a furlong up the more southerly of the landward roads, a hundred and fifty feet above the cluster of cottages in the haven, stands a ruined house, still known in the village as the Doctor’s House, although now deserted for some thirty years. Little remains of this once imposing and substantial dwelling, a mansion in comparison with the fishermen’s cottages it dominates, save the ivy-grown walls, through which the Atlantic gales shriek and wail, and the heavy wooden gate, which creaks and bangs in the wind like demoniac artillery.

For a quiet and restful summer resort Ticklas Haven is hard to beat, and I congratulated myself on my good fortune in not only discovering so cosy a nook, but in securing comfortable lodging at the inn. The landlord was a kindly and intelligent man, some fifty years of age, and his wife a cheerful and competent housewife and an excellent cook. My days were mostly spent fishing for mackerel in the bay, taking long tramps up and down the rugged coast, or simply lolling amongst the soft lush grass on the cliff-tops, drinking in the glorious panorama of St Bride’s Bay, as it sweeps round in a majestic curve from Ramsey Island in the north to the Isle of Skomer in the south. When the weather was too boisterous for outdoor pursuits, there was the snug bar-parlour of the inn, and the rough but genial society of the fishermen who frequented it. It was there that I was sitting one August evening when the radio in the bar gave utterance to that ominous gale warning.

At the mention of south-westerly gales, I perceived a sudden start amongst the fishermen present, and apprehensive glances were exchanged. Several boats were to be seen fishing in the bay, and one or two of the men walked to the door and peered out anxiously at the distant smacks.

‘Glad I’m not out there now,’ muttered one old salt.

‘Hope my son William’ll get in before dark,’ said another.

This display of alarm was surprising, for the bay is sheltered to a great extent from the south-west wind, and in any case the boats were all near enough in to make harbour before being overtaken by the oncoming gale, of which the sky was already giving ample warning. I remarked as much to the innkeeper, who agreed that the boats were in no real danger, but added that nobody in Ticklas Haven would willingly be out in the bay, or even in the neighbourhood of the harbour, after nightfall, when the wind blew strongly from the south-west: it amounted to a fixed tradition with them. I at once became eager to learn the origin of this strange superstition, and besought the landlord to enlighten me further.

‘Well, it’s a strange story,’ replied the innkeeper, ‘and I can best begin by showing you a picture that a painter who stayed here many years ago gave to my grandfather, when he was landlord of this inn.’

So saying, he led the way into a back parlour and pointed to an oil-painting hanging on the wall in a dark corner. I took it down and carried it to the window, and saw that it represented the harbour at Ticklas Haven as seen from the beach at low tide. Although about eighty years old, the painting might almost have been done yesterday, for everything was depicted much as it is now, with one striking exception. The north haven, where now all the boats are kept, was in the picture practically deserted, except for some children at play on the sand, whilst the south haven presented just such a scene of activity as would be expected in so excellent a harbour. Half a dozen fishing-boats lay high and dry at its entrance, while on the shingle sat a group of fishermen mending sails and nets. Two or three women were carrying baskets of fish up towards the village, and the usual litter of gear was scattered over the foreshore. In fact the two little inlets presented an aspect just the reverse of their present-day appearance.

‘Why is it,’ I asked, ‘that the south haven, which seems so clearly the better of the two, has now been abandoned in favour of the other, which was apparently in use in your grandfather’s day?’

‘That is precisely what I am about to tell you,’ replied the landlord.

When I was a lad that south haven was still used, as you see it in that picture, and very few boats put into the north haven, which is, as you observe, less sheltered and convenient.

There lived in the village in those days three brothers, who worked for their uncle, the owner of a fishing-boat and gear. They were tall, strong young fellows, these three brothers, but of a morose disposition, and mixed little with other folk in the village. They were very hardy and fearless and would put to sea in all but the most tempestuous weather, usually accompanied by their uncle, who was a first-rate seaman and could handle a craft in all seas. He was a grasping old ruffian, however, and on the strength of his ownership of the boat he appropriated most of the profits of the fishing and allowed his nephews barely enough to live upon, with the understanding that on his death they would inherit his property. His niggardliness was a source of much discontent amongst the brothers, who bore their uncle no affection and only continued to work for him in the expectation of some day possessing his wealth, which, owing to economy and judicious investment was pretty considerable for a man in his position.

One spring night – I was seventeen at the time – the four put to sea, although it was beginning to blow up a gale from the south-west and the crews of none of the other boats would venture out. We watched them beating out past the Stack Rocks till they were hidden by the rain and darkness, and some of us wondered whether we should ever see them again.

Early next morning the boat returned, with no fish, and without the uncle. The brothers’ story was that he had been carried overboard by a huge wave and had at once disappeared. It was useless to search for him and they were themselves in great peril. They had a very rough time getting back and the boat and gear were badly damaged. The three brothers seemed more upset about the accident than one might have expected, considering the unfriendly relations existing between them and their uncle, by whose death they now became comparatively well off. They were loud in their expressions of grief at their loss and repeatedly cursed their folly in putting to sea on such a night.

Two days later the uncle’s body was washed ashore in the south haven, where it was found by a fisherman in the early morning actually caught on the anchor of his own boat. The body was carried up to the quay, where it was noticed that there was a long, livid bruise across the right temple. The doctor, who lived in that big house, now a ruin, up the hill, examined the corpse, and at the inquest expressed the opinion that the bruise had been inflicted before death and had been caused by a severe blow from some blunt instrument, such as a club – or perhaps a tiller.

The coroner looked up sharply at this, and asked if the bruise might not equally well have been caused by the deceased striking his head against the mast or the gunwale of the boat in falling overboard. The doctor agreed that that might have been the cause of the injury, but added that he could not believe that such a severe blow could have been inflicted in such a manner.

The eldest brother was then re-examined as to what precisely took place, and deposed that his uncle had been knocked overboard by the boom suddenly swinging over and striking him on the head. This fresh testimony was corroborated by the other brothers, although previously they had all repeatedly affirmed that their uncle was simply washed overboard by a wave and had made no mention of the boom. The jury, however, brought in a verdict of ‘death by misadventure’. The coroner was later criticized for not excluding two of the brothers from the court while the first was giving evidence. The deceased was buried next day in the churchyard at Walwyn’s Castle. That was near the end of April.

In the last week of May the youngest of the three brothers slipped on the jetty when landing from the boat one dark night, there being a heavy sea running due to a strong south-west wind, and broke his neck on the rocks in the south haven below.

Towards the end of June the eldest brother, being harbour-bound by a south-westerly gale, was gathering mussels and limpets on the rocks at the far side of the south haven, when a large stone fell from the cliff above and smashed in his skull.

Within a month the surviving brother was overtaken by a sudden squall, coming up from the south-west, while fishing out by Grassholm, and was washed ashore, together with the wreck of his boat, about a week later, at almost the identical spot where his uncle’s body had been found. The boat, so battered as to be no longer seaworthy, was hauled up on the shingle and left there to rot.

The violent deaths of these three brothers, following so regularly one after the other, considered together with the suspicious circumstances attending their uncle’s death, gave cause for much gossip amongst the village folk, and what had at first been but a vague uneasiness developed into a general conviction that there had been foul play.

Some nine months after the death of the last of the brothers, we had a spell of very rough weather, with strong gales from the south-west, and the fishermen were idle for weeks on end. A large amount of driftwood was cast up during these storms and the men employed themselves in gathering and storing this for firewood. There was one old man in particular, now too infirm ever to go out fishing, who was to be seen early and late collecting this wood, and at low tide was always hobbling about the haven like some ungainly sea-bird, leaving off only when it grew too dark to see.

One stormy night the old man failed to return home and a search was made at daybreak. We had not far to look: his body was found wedged among the rocks in the south haven, with a ragged cut across the forehead. On his face was such a look of horror as I pray I may never see again. The doctor said that in his opinion the old man had received a bad fright and had started to run away, but had tripped over a boulder and stunned himself. He had then been drowned by the incoming tide. What on earth could have so terrified him was a mystery.

Some three months later, when the wind was again blowing strongly from the south-west, a girl of fifteen, daughter of one of the fishermen, went over to the rocks beyond the south haven to collect shellfish. She stayed too long and was cut off by the flowing tide, but her parents were not worried, for she was quite safe and had taken some food with her, and would be able to get back when the tide was low again at about ten p.m. The sea was too rough for a boat to approach the rocks, and there was no way up the cliff, so she was just left to wait.

At half-past ten that night the girl suddenly burst into her home, screaming wildly and clearly crazed with terror. She had gone completely out of her mind and howled and raved like a maniac. Her cries soon attracted a crowd to the cottage and someone went and fetched the doctor. He could do nothing to calm the child, however, and had to put her under sedation. After being left under observation for a day or two she was taken away to the asylum, where she died soon afterwards without recovering her reason.

The most extraordinary feature of this sad case was what the poor child kept repeating in her insane ravings. It was all about ‘dead men’: ‘the four dead men,’ she would screech, ‘the dead men in the boat!’, and could utter nothing but incoherent phrases about ‘the dead men’.

This second case of severe fright, following so soon after the death of the old wood-gatherer, and in the same place, namely the south haven, created a considerable stir amongst the villagers, and their fears were further increased by a peculiar occurrence which had been noticed several times and by many witnesses, including myself, namely that on the morning following a south-westerly gale tracks were seen in the sand leading down to the sea from the derelict boat, as if it had been launched and beached again during the night. This was humanly impossible, as the brothers’ boat could not have floated for a single minute, but there the tracks always were at dawn after a high wind from the south-west, provided they had not been obliterated by the flowing tide.

One evening, shortly after the death of the poor demented girl, the doctor came into the bar-parlour here and asked to have a few words with my father in private. They came into this back room and the doctor told my father that he had been all around the village endeavouring to persuade someone to spend a night with him by the wrecked fishing-boat in the south haven when next the south-west wind blew a gale, in order to try and solve the mystery of those tracks in the sand, but not a man would go near the place after dark for love or money. The doctor then asked my father if he would watch with him, for otherwise he would go alone, and it was desirable to have more than one witness of whatever took place. My father, though not at all liking the job, eventually undertook to keep the doctor company.

It was not until the autumn equinoctial gales began that a suitable opportunity for the investigation occurred, but at last the wind blew so strongly from the south-west that the boats were unable to put to sea. At about ten o’clock one cloudy night the doctor called in for my father and the pair of them went down to the south haven. They found a sheltered corner amongst the rocks in full view of the wrecked boat, where they made themselves as comfortable as they could and began their watch. My father afterwards said that he had experienced only one thing in his life more unpleasant than the beginning of that vigil, and that was its end.

The wind, now blowing a whole gale, sent dense masses of black clouds hurtling across the moon, which intermittently shone forth upon as wild a scene as could be imagined. Even in this sheltered corner of the bay the breakers were dashing high up the rocks, while, farther out, the sea seemed to have gone mad and was foaming in tempestuous fury like a living thing in torment. No fishing-boat could have weathered such a storm for a moment.

So fiercely magnificent was the view across the bay that the two watchers became absorbed in contemplating it and forgot about the boat on which they were supposed to be keeping an eye. Suddenly my father’s gaze was diverted by a movement on the sand below and he grasped the doctor’s arm and pointed. There, half way between its normal resting place and the edge of the surf, was the wreck of the fishing-smack, while four men, two on each side, were hauling it down the beach!

The doctor gave a shout and began to clamber down from his perch on the rocks, but the men at the boat seemed not to hear the cry; they rapidly dragged the derelict down to the sea, launched it, and climbed aboard. Two of the men put out oars and started to row, one took the helm, while the fourth stationed himself in the bows. Then the old tub, with great rents in her sides and a hole in the bottom that a man could have crawled through, put out to sea and was quickly lost to view.

My father and the doctor stood by the edge of the sea like men thunderstruck until the incoming tide wet their legs and recalled them to themselves. They then went up the beach to make sure that it was the wreck that had thus been miraculously launched, and found that it was indeed gone. There could be no shadow of doubt that four men had put to sea in a near hurricane with a boat which would not normally have floated for ten seconds. There was nothing for it but to await the possible return of these uncanny mariners, so the two men returned to their former position on the rocks and kept a tireless watch upon the stormy sea.

Shortly after two o’clock in the morning their vigilance was rewarded by the sight of a boat approaching from the direction of the Stack Rocks. It drew rapidly inshore, and proved to be the old fishing-boat with her mysterious crew, who appeared quite unaffected by the mountainous seas and beached the boat as easily as if it had been a dead calm. The four men then dragged the boat up to its habitual place on the shingle and moved off in single file towards the village.

The doctor immediately jumped down and ran across the beach so as to intercept them, followed by my father. These two reached the foot of the quay where they waited for the four men to come up. On they came, walking stiffly in line, until they were abreast of the watchers, when the clouds covering the moon blew away and there was revealed a spectacle that sent my father tearing blindly across the beach and turned the doctor sick and faint where he stood.

Those four men were the long dead and buried brothers and their uncle!

The doctor, rallying from the first shock, continued to gaze in horror as they passed. In front, marching with no movement beyond a mechanical swinging of the legs, was the old man, a great, livid weal across the side of his forehead. Behind him, with the same mechanical gait, stalked his three nephews, the first with his head all crushed and bloody, the next swollen and bloated and covered with a tangle of seaweed, and the third with his head hanging on one side at a horrible angle. So the four dead men walked up from the sea, and the doctor, overcome with dreadful nausea, collapsed in a dead faint.

The spray blowing over the jetty brought the doctor round from his fainting fit and he tottered to his feet. The ghastly procession had vanished, so he went in search of my father, whom he found lying insensible on the shingle in the north haven, having fallen and struck his head on the prow of a boat. Help was summoned and my father was carried home, but it was many days before he was sufficiently recovered to attend to business and he never altogether got over the shock he received on that awful night. Meanwhile the doctor resolved to have the old fishing-boat destroyed, in the hope of putting a stop to these supernatural proceedings. Not a soul in the place would now go near it, so the doctor, single-handed, built up a pile of brushwood around the wreck and set it alight. The whole thing was soon consumed and the ashes were cast into the sea so that not a trace remained.

At eleven o’clock that very night, as I was shutting up the inn, four men passed up the street walking stiffly in single file. I hastily closed and locked the door and ran up to my bedroom, the window of which overlooked the street. It was too dark to see much, but something about the figures filled me with dread, and the rearmost carried his head at an unnatural angle. I watched them until they turned up the hill leading to the doctor’s house, and then went to bed. A little later I fancied I heard a scream coming from the hill, but it was not repeated and may merely have been a seagull crying.

Next day the woman who used to ‘do’ for the doctor came back to the village in great distress, saying that she had found the door open and the doctor gone. Search was made along the shore and all over the neighbourhood, but without success. A few days later the doctor’s body was washed ashore by a high tide in the south haven and was deposited on the very spot where he had burnt the boat.

So now you can understand why we at Ticklas Haven avoid that south haven and fear the south-west wind.

‘But do the dead men still haunt the haven when the sou’wester blows?’ I asked.

‘Nobody ever goes there to see,’ replied the innkeeper.