The Great Ghost Rescue

Ten

Two days later, Rick found himself walking through the door of Number Ten Downing Street which is perhaps the most famous house in England because it is where the Prime Minister lives. Beside him walked Mr Wilks and gliding quietly above him, though Mr Wilks didn’t know it, were the Craggy-ford ghosts — the Hag and the Gliding Kilt, Winifred, George, and of course Humphrey the Horrible. Rick knew better by now than to try and go anywhere without Humphrey.

The Prime Minister was in his study. He had grey hair and glasses and looked very tired. In front of him on his desk were lots of papers which he was shuffling through as they came in.

‘Ah, Mr Wilks,’ he said rather sadly, and Rick got the idea that perhaps he didn’t like Mr Wilks all that much. ‘Let me introduce my secretary. And this is Lord Bullhaven who has called to see me on… a personal matter.’

Rick didn’t mind the secretary who was just an ordinary young man, but he thought Lord Bullhaven looked horrid. He had a sharp, white nose, small sludge-coloured eyes and black hair slicked down like sticks of liquorice.

‘Now then, this is the boy with the extraordinary story,’ said the Prime Minister, turning to Rick.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Rick.

‘Something about a ghost sanctuary?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Rick again. ‘The ghosts of Britain — the ghosts of the whole world are in a very bad way. Everywhere they’re being driven out of their old haunts and nobody seems to care. People build motorways over them and tunnels under them and poison their rivers.’ And he began to tell the Prime Minister about his own meeting with the ghosts and the adventures they had had. The Prime Minister listened very quietly and sensibly though you could see he was surprised. But Lord Bullhaven fidgeted and twitched and sniffed in a rude and unpleasant manner.

‘It’s true, sir,’ said Mr Wilks, when Rick had finished. ‘I’ve seen some of them myself.’

‘Would you like to meet just one family?’ said Rick eagerly.

‘Well, I would but—’

Rick clapped his hands. The next second the Craggyford ghosts had made themselves visible and stood respectfully in front of the Prime Minister’s desk.

‘Cursed be your name,’ said the Gliding Kilt politely.

‘Doom and Disease pursue you all your days,’ said the Hag, curtseying. She was using one of her best smells, Rick noticed — crushed pig’s bladder mixed with unbrushed teeth, and she was holding George’s jawbones tightly between her crooked hands because she didn’t think he ought to scream in Downing Street. Winifred just wailed shyly but of course Humphrey immediately came up to the Prime Minister, laid his skeletal fingers on his knee and said: ‘You are going to find us somewhere to live, aren’t you?’

‘Well,’ said the Prime Minister. He was definitely looking shaken but he wasn’t making a fuss like Mr Wilks’ dinner guests had done. Compared to the horrible things that happen to you when you are governing Britain, seeing a few ghosts is nothing. ‘Well, I shall certainly have to see what I can do. But I really don’t know where—’

‘Might I make a suggestion?’

It was Lord Bullhaven who had spoken. His sludgy eyes had narrowed and a muscle was twitching in his cheek. ‘I have… an old estate on the North West Coast of Scotland. It’s called Insleyfarne. The army used it as a rocket site during the war and it’s been derelict since then.’

‘Insleyfarne?’ said the Prime Minister. ‘Yes, I think I’ve heard of it. I’m afraid the army was a bit trigger-happy. I seem to remember the castle’s in ruins?’

‘That’s right,’ said Lord Bullhaven grimly. ‘Completely bashed up. The trees are all scarred — there’s not a building left with a roof on. Still, it’s a very bleak place anyway — a promontory jutting out to sea. There’s always a wind blowing and the land’s too boggy to be any use. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have it for your ghosts.’

‘Oh,’ said the Hag, the whiskers on her nose twitching with joy, ‘doesn’t it sound just absolutely lovely, darlings!’

And Rick, as he thanked Lord Bullhaven over and over again, felt very ashamed. He’d thought he looked such a horrid, creepy man with his sleety eyes and liquorice hair and yet it was he who had brought their search to such a happy and successful end.

‘Well, that’s settled then,’ said the Prime Minister, turning back to the pile of papers on his desk. ‘My secretary will help you to work out the transport.’

As they turned to go, Rick shook Lord Bullhaven’s hand again and again, and the Hag, though she usually kissed no one but her husband, kindly pecked him on his chalk-white cheek. Unfortunately, Rick could not read people’s minds. If he had been able to, he would not have left the Prime Minister’s house whistling so loudly and so happily that people turned to look at him in the street, and smiled.

They travelled to Insleyfarne by train. Once the Prime Minister made up his mind to do something he did it quickly. Rick had a First Class ticket and a sleeper so that he could get into his bed somewhere round Peterborough and not wake up again till they were over the Scottish border. What’s more, he went to the restaurant car all by himself and ordered a huge meal: soup, and steak with fried onions and chips and grilled tomatoes, and fruit salad and cream, and ate it while the fields and hedges and cows flashed past the window. There is nothing nicer than eating on a train and Rick enjoyed himself very much. He didn’t even feel guilty about eating the steak because Sucking Susie had said he needed meat to make new blood for Rose.

And while he ate he thought of what the Prime Minister had said to him just before he left.

‘I’d like all this kept secret,’ he said. ‘If it ever came out that I’d provided a sanctuary for ghosts the whole country would think I’d gone mad. And then I wouldn’t get re-elected.’

Rick didn’t see it like that.

‘Wouldn’t people think you and Lord Bullhaven were very good and kind to give the ghosts somewhere to live, and vote for you all the more?’

‘I promise you, Rick,’ said the Prime Minister, ‘if it got out that I believed in ghosts—’

‘But you’ve seen them.’

‘No one would care whether I’d seen them or not. They’d just think I was mad. If the papers got hold of it—’ He shuddered.

So Rick had promised to get his ghosts to Insleyfarne without anybody noticing and they had all sworn to stay quietly in the luggage van being invisible till they got there. Even Humphrey. Both the Hag and the Gliding Kilt had given up hope that Humphrey’s left elbow ever would vanish properly. It was like having a child with cauliflower ears or a stutter. One just had to make the best of it. On the other hand one didn’t want any of the passengers noticing a pink, cobwebby thing hanging in the luggage rack now they were so near to home.

They changed trains at Inverness and the country got wilder and wilder and more and more beautiful, and then they got out at a tiny station and there was a big khaki lorry with the letters H.M.S. on the side, waiting to take them to Insleyfarne. The driver thought it very strange, taking just one boy in a huge lorry but he had his orders to say nothing and he said nothing, even when the lorry began to fill with the smell of rotting sores, even when a huge puddle appeared from absolutely nowhere….

They drove steadily north. It got colder; rain began to slide in from the sea. On either side Rick saw brown peat bogs swirling with mist; granite boulders glistening with damp; trees gnarled and bent against the wind.

The road narrowed and ran along the side of a deep, black loch. And then it became a rutted track taking them across the neck of shingle and sand that joined Insleyfarne to the mainland — and there they were.

The ghosts just couldn’t believe it! As soon as the driver had gone, promising to return for Rick in a few hours, they appeared one by one, clapping their hands and laughing with happiness.

‘And what’s more, we can stay visible for ever and ever,’ shouted Humphrey. ‘Can’t we!’

Rick said, yes they could, and then they did a tour of their new home.

It had everything. A castle with dungeons, a derelict chapel, a ruined village with tumble-down houses…. Up on the hill was a burial mound and the old rocket site with some rusty Nissen huts. Every tree, every blade of grass was bent and twisted by the wind. And surrounding them on three sides, roaring and pounding and sighing as much as any ghost could wish for, was the cold, grey Atlantic Ocean.

When they had looked at everything all the ghosts went off to choose where they would like to live. The Hag and the Gliding Kilt decided on the castle.

‘Oh, darlings, what a lovely, lovely home,’ said the Hag, scrabbling about happily among the owl pellets and mouldy feathers that littered the old guard room.

Rick was glad she thought so. Insleyfarne Castle was a hulking black ruin. The windows — just slits, really, that people had used for pouring boiling oil through — were stuck up with the droppings of thousands of sea birds, weird fungi grew up the damp walls; evil-looking steps led downwards into dark dungeons or upwards into nowhere.

‘A very nice little place indeed,’ said the Gliding Kilt approvingly, shooing two large rats out of the old armoury. ‘This’ll do nicely for my study.’

‘Can I have this room for my own, Mother?’ asked Winifred, pointing to a round pit into which prisoners had once been thrown so as to starve to death. ‘It’s so pretty.’

‘I’m going to sleep here,’ screamed George from the top of the East Tower.

Rick left them to it and went to find Humphrey who was helping Aunt Hortensia to stable her horses.

‘Very satisfactory, most delightful place, such lovely air,’ she said, pushing her horses into the roofless stable through which the rain was beating down. ‘I’ve seen the place for me — a nice little burial mound under those blasted oak trees. Nothing like dead Scotsmen for making the earth soft and comfortable. Here, give! Good dog!’ And the Shuk dropped her head which she tucked under her arm and then she wandered off through the icy rain towards her tomb.

‘I wanted that tomb,’ said Humphrey, and his jawbones began to tremble. ‘At Craggyford I always slept in a tomb.’

‘Oh, tombs are crummy,’ said Rick. ‘We’ll find somewhere much better for you.’

And they did. An old, dark, deep well which had gone dry and had a lovely soft bottom of mouldering leaves and slime. No one could see Humphrey when he was curled up at the bottom and he absolutely loved it.

‘I’m Humphrey the Horrible, the Ghost of the Well,’ he shrieked, gliding up and down and making his voice echo.

All the other ghosts were just as happy. The vampire bats had found a marvellous cave on the side of a cliff. It was full of seagull droppings and broken eggshells and bones from animals which had been trapped in it and died there. And it had an excellent view of the sea.

‘And I’ve solved the food problem, my dears, simply solved it,’ said Susie excitedly to Rick.

‘How?’

‘Seals, don’t you see. Seals! The place is full of them. And they’re warm-blooded animals. Mammals. Not cold and acid to the stomach like fish.’ She pointed with her terrible fangs out to sea and there, sure enough, were about twenty sleek bobbing heads.

‘Won’t they mind—’ began Rick.

‘Now Rick,’ said Susie reproachfully. ‘How many times have I told you that we vampires know our job. And believe me the seals will like to have us around.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if a place is known to be haunted by vampire bats no human beings will go near it. And you know what humans have done to seals in the past.’

Rick hung his head. He remembered seeing rows of sealskin coats in the window of the furrier near his home. Even his grandmother, though she was a very nice woman, owned one.

‘Will Rose be able to manage? Aren’t seals rather tough?’

‘Thanks to you she will,’ said Susie, and her evil, bloodsucking face was soft with gratitude. ‘She’s so much stronger. I shall never be able to thank you enough. And I want you to know that if ever you need help, the boys and I can be with you in no time. We’re usually very careful feeders as I’ve told you but if you do want anyone killed or slowly torn to death or anything, just say the word.’

‘Thank you,’ said Rick. He was really very touched. For a moment he thought of asking them to call on Mrs Crawler one night, but then he decided against it and just put out a hand to stroke the top of Rose’s downy head where it poked out of her mother’s pouch. He was going to miss her horribly.

The Mad Monk was as happy as the rest of them. He had found a small, ruined chapel — nothing more than four walls open to the sky with a mound of stones where the altar had been but it suited him beautifully. ‘Oh, the quiet, oh, the peace,’ he mumbled. ‘I shall be able to pull myself together here. Look at my ectoplasm! It’s looking healthier already, don’t you think?’ And he wandered off to show his muscles (which certainly looked less like cold porridge than they had done) to Aunt Hortensia.

Only Walter the Wet had been a bit doubtful. ‘It’s with it being sea water, you see. Salty like. I’m not used to salt water. What if I curdle?’

So they all came down to the shore to watch and very, very carefully Walter the Wet put his left big toe into the water and took it out again. Then they all crowded round and poked it and held it against the light and it seemed to be all right. So he put his whole foot into the water and when that was all right too he gave a sudden whoop and plunged into the sea.

‘Smashing,’ he said, surfacing. ‘But tingly-like. But bracing. I feel years younger. What I reckon is,’ said Walter the Wet, ‘water’s water when all’s said and done. That’s what it is. Water.’ And he disappeared again beneath the waves.

When everyone was settled in they had a party. It was a celebration party because they’d found their sanctuary but also a farewell party for Rick who was going back to school in a few hours so that happiness and sadness were a bit mixed up. The Hag hadn’t had much time to get things ready but she’d done wonders all the same. The old Banqueting Hall was decorated with cobwebs and the crossed thighbones of dead rats which made a delightful pattern on the slime-covered walls. Everyone had a roast toad wrapped in henbane leaves and the Hag had made an excellent drink by mixing the scum of an old water barrel with crushed Mugwort. (Rick had to do with sardine sandwiches and chocolate biscuits which the lorry driver had given him, but he didn’t mind.)

Then the Gliding Kilt made a beautiful speech about Rick, calling him all sorts of things like ‘brave’ and ‘resourceful’ and ‘clever’ and said he thought the sanctuary should be called the Henderson Sanctuary because Henderson was Rick’s second name. And he said that ghosts all over the world would come to know Rick’s name and be grateful to him for the rest of eternity.

‘To Richard Henderson,’ said the Gliding Kilt, raising his glass of scum, and all the ghosts stood up and said: ‘To Richard Henderson.’

After this everyone felt quite het up with emotion so they played games. They had Vanishing Races to see who could vanish quickest and Aunt Hortensia won which put her in an excellent mood. Then they played something called Curse as Curse Can to see who could make up the best curses and the Gliding Kilt won that. though Rick had second prize with one which began ‘Cursed be the Creepy Crawlers, Cursed be their Son…’ After that they played Hunt the Slipper only instead of a slipper they used Aunt Hortensia’s Head. It was great fun but after a bit her head got so giggly that you could hear it even when it was hidden.

And then at last it was time to say good-bye to Rick. It was a bad moment for all of them but for Humphrey it was almost unbearable.

‘Humphrey,’ said the Hag sternly as they all clustered round Rick to see him off. ‘Ghosts groan. Ghosts wail. Ghosts moan and scream and gibber. But ghosts never, never cry.’

It was the sort of stupid remark that even the nicest grownups make sometimes because Humphrey quite obviously and plainly wasn’t just crying, he was practically floating away on his tears. ‘I’ll come back often and often,’ promised Rick, who wasn’t feeling too dry-eyed himself.

The last few moments after the lorry driver hooted down on the causeway, were just a flurry of handshakes, hugs, curses and thumps from the Shuk’s three tails. Then, with a last pat of Baby Rose’s head and a whiff of rotten sheep’s intestines which the Hag had been keeping specially for the occasion. Rick, squeezing Humphrey’s skeletal little fingers for the last time, was gone.

For the first few miles of the drive through the bleak Scottish countryside Rick’s eyes were too misted up for him to see anything at all. Then, as they drove over an old stone bridge and came in sight of a small copse of hazel trees, something caught his attention.

‘Would you mind stopping for a moment?’

He got out and walked over to the wood. It was as he’d thought. A wavering bit of ectoplasm which, as he spoke to it, became fully visible…

‘Cursed be your name,’ said Rick politely. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Cursed be yours,’ said the ghost, pleased to be addressed correctly. He was a knight in armour and looked fagged to death. ‘I was wondering — you don’t know anything about a new sanctuary in these parts? A ghost sanctuary? I’ve had a dreadful time — my place has been turned into a hotel and—’

‘You’re on the right road,’ said Rick. ‘Just keep gliding till you come to a causeway across a strip of beach and then there you are.’

‘Thank you. I’m most grateful. It’s a good place they tell me?’

‘Not bad,’ said Rick carelessly, and then he turned and went back towards the waiting lorry.

He had only gone a few steps, however, when the spook glided after him and tapped with his withered hand on Rick’s shoulder.

‘I’ve just realized who you are,’ he said, raising his visor. ‘You must forgive me. What a pleasure! What an honour!’

‘Who am I?’ said Rick. surprised.

‘Why the boy who has saved the ghosts of Britain. Don’t tell me I’m wrong? Surely you must be Rick the Rescuer?’

‘Goodness,’ said Rick, waving to the driver to show that he was coming, ‘Rick the Rescuer! Well,’ he said, blushing and feeling much less gloomy, ‘I suppose I am!’