The Man in the Moss

From Dawber's Book of Bridelow:

NATURAL HISTORY

Bridelow Moss is believed to be over four thousand years old, but there has been considerable erosion over the past two centuries and the bog appears to have been affected by pollution from industry twenty or more miles away, with much of the vegetation being destroyed and the surface becoming even darker due to soot-deposits.

Erosion is gradually exposing the hills and valleys submerged under the blanket bog, and many fragments of long-dead trees, commonly known as 'bog oak', have been discovered.

Because of the preservative qualities of peat, wood recovered from the Moss is usually immensely strong and was once considered virtually indestructible ...

CHAPTER IX

There was frost on the morning of the day Matt Castle was to be buried, and the heaped soil beside the prepared grave looked like rock.

The grave was in the highest corner of the churchyard, and the Rector could see it from the window of his study. A shovel was set in the soil, a stiff, scarecrow shape against the white morning.

Hans turned back to the room and to the kind of problem he didn't need, today of all days.

'I didn't know who else to come to,' the young farmer said, the empty teacup like a thimble in his massive hands. 'I've got kids.'

'Have you told the police?'

'What's the point?' The fanner wore black jeans and a tan leather jacket. He wasn't a churchgoer but Hans had christened his second child.

'If you've been losing stock ...'

'Aye, one ram. But that were months ago. I told t'coppers about that. What could they do? Couldn't stake out the whole moor, could they? Anyway, like they said, it's not a crime any more, witchcraft.'

'Devil worship,' Hans said gently. 'There's a difference. Usually.'

'All bloody same to me. With respect. Like I say, it's not summat they warn you about at agricultural college, Vicar. Sheep scab's one thing, Satanism's summat else.'

'Yes.' Hans didn't know what to do about this. The man wasn't interested in counselling, sympathy, platitudes; he wanted practical help.

'So I've come to you, like.' His name was Sam Davis. This was his first farm. A challenge - seventy acres, and more than half of it basically unfarmable moorland, with marsh and heather, great stone outcrops ... and the remains of two prehistoric stone circles half a mile apart.

'Cause it's your job, really, int it?' said Sam Davis, thrusting out his ample jaw. A lad with responsibilities. Two kids, a nervy wife and no neighbours. 'T'Devil. An' all his works, like.'

And there he really had put his finger on it, this lad. If this was not a minister's job, what was? Hans tried to straighten his leg. Some minister he was, took him half an hour to climb into the pulpit.

'Tell me again,' he said. "There was the remains of a fire. In the centre of the circle. Now ... on the previous occasion, you actually found blood. And, er, the ram's head, of course. On the stone.'

'Just like they wanted me to find it,' Sam Davis said. 'Only it weren't me as found it, it were t'little girl.' He set his cup down in the hearth, as if afraid he was going to crush it in his anger.

'Yes. Obviously very distressing. For all of you. But you know ... It's easy for me to say this, obviously, I'm not living in quite such an exposed ...'

'Hang on now, Vicar, I'm not ...'

'I know ... you're a big lad and well capable of taking care of your family. The actual point I was trying to make is that it's easy to get this kind of thing out of proportion. Quite often it's youngsters. They read books and see films about Satanism, they hear of these ritual places, the stone circles ... not in Transylvania or somewhere but right here within twenty miles of Manchester and Sheffield ...'

'So you think it's youngsters, then.'

'I don't know. All I'm saying is it's often kids. The kind, if you saw them, you could probably tuck a couple under each arm.'

'Aye, well, like I say, it's not me ... so much as the wife. I wanted to wait up there, maybe surprise 'em, like, give 'em a bloody good hiding, but ...'

'I think your wife was right,' Hans said. 'Don't get into a vendetta situation if you can help it. It's probably a phase, a fad. They'll go off and find another circle in a week or two, or perhaps they'll simply grow out of it. You've told the police, and apart from the, er, the ram ...'

'I've not told coppers about last night. Only you. There's nowt to see. Only ashes. No blood. No bits.'

'How far is the nearest circle from where you live?'

'Half a mile ... three-quarters. But it's a tricky climb at night, can't do it wi'out a light, and wi' a light they'd see me comin'. Jeep's no bloody use either, on that ground.'

'So you saw the fire ...'

'Bit of a red glow, that were all.'

'And your wife heard ...'

'She thought she heard. Like I say, could've bin a sheep ... fox ... owl ... rabbit.'

'But she thought it was ...'

'Aye,' said Sam Davis. 'A babby.'

'There's a dragon,' the boy said, and his bottom lip was trembling. 'There is ...!'

'Gerroff,' said Willie Wagstaff.

He'd been for his morning paper and didn't plan to bugger about on a day as cold as this, wanted to get home and put a match to his fire.

'You go an' look, Uncle Willie.'

This was Benjie, nearly eight, Willie's youngest sister Sally's lad. Tough little bugger as a rule. He had The Chief with him, an Alsatian, Benjie's minder.

Willie folded up his paper, stuck it under his arm. 'What you on about at all?'

'...'s a dragon, Uncle Willie ...'s 'orrible ...'

He was about to cry. Pale too. Cheeks ought to be glowing on a morning like this. Especially with having the day off school, to go to Matt's funeral.

Then again, could be that was at the bottom of this. Death, funerals, everybody talking hushed, a big hole being dug in the churchyard for the feller he called Uncle Matt. And Benjie trying to understand it all, seeing this great big dragon.

'All right,' Willie said, pretending he hadn't noticed the lad was upset. 'I'll buy it. Where's this dragon?'

'On t'Moss.'

'Oh, aye. And what were you doin' on t'Moss on your own then, eh?'

'I weren't on me own, Uncle Willie. T'Chief were wi' me. An' 'e dint like it neither.'

The big dog flopped his mouth open, stuck his tongue out and looked inscrutable.

'Gerroff,' said Willie. 'That dog's scared of nowt. All right, lead the way. But if you're havin' me on, you little Arab, I'll ...'

When the farmer had gone, Catherine came in with a mid-morning mug of tea for Hans, and he asked her, 'You hear any of that?'

'Bits.' His daughter sat on the piano stool. She was wearing a plain black jumper and baggy, striped trousers with turn-ups. 'Got the gist. What are you going to do about it, Pop?'

'Well,' said Hans, 'I don't really know. Obviously I don't like the sound of this baby business. And I'm not one to generalize about hysterical women. But still, I think if a child had gone missing virtually anywhere in the country we'd have heard about it, don't you?'

Cathy looked serious, as she often did these days, as if she'd suddenly decided it was time to shoulder the full responsibility of being an adult, as distinct from a student.

'No,' she said. 'Not necessarily.'

'What do you ... ?' Hans looked puzzled. Then he said, 'Oh. That.'

'It's been exaggerated a lot, of course, but that doesn't mean it doesn't go on, Pop.'

'You're beginning to sound like Joel Beard.'

'Oh, I don't think so.'

'Well,' said Hans, 'if there really is a possibility of something of that nature, then he should tell the police, shouldn't he? But where's his evidence? His wife thought she heard a baby crying. As he said, it could have been any one of a dozen animals, or the wind or ...'

Cathy said, 'A friend of mine at college did a study of so-called ritual child abuse. What it amounts to, in most of the cases which have been proved, is that the ritual bits - the devil masks and the candles and so on - are there to support the abuse clement. Simply to scare the children into submission. So in most cases we're not talking about actual Devil worship ...'

'Just extreme evil,' Hans said. 'Where's the difference exactly?'

'I'm not an expert,' Cathy said, 'but I rather think there is a difference.' She grinned slyly. 'I think it's something Ma Wagstaff could explain to you if you caught her in the right mood.'

Cheeky little madam. Hans smiled. 'I'm the accredited holy man in these parts, in case you'd forgotten. Anyway, why didn't young Sam go to Ma Wagstaff for advice?'

'Because he hasn't lived around here very long. He doesn't know the way things operate yet.'

How they changed. There'd been a time, not so long ago, when Cathy had been dismissive, to say the least, of Ma Wagstaff and all she stood for.

'And you do, do you?' Hans said. 'You know how things operate.'

'I'm getting an inkling.'

'Perhaps we should discuss this sometime.'

'I don't think so,' Cathy said.

Hans frowned.

'I don't think words can really pin it down,' she said. Or that we should try to.'

She looked at him blandly. All open-faced and pain-free. Twenty-three years old, a light-haired, plain-faced girl - even Hans had to admit she was no great beauty. However, there was a knowingness about her that he hadn't been aware of before.

He felt old. Suddenly she was starting to look wiser than he felt. How they changed. Every time they came home from University they'd grown stronger and more alien. Catherine studying archaeology at Oxford and Barney, her twin (who he'd rather imagined would follow him into the Church) at the London School of Economics and now researching for a prominent Conservative MP - Barney, the one-time Young Socialist.

'Have you got a boyfriend, Cathy?' he asked suddenly.

'Why do you ask?'

'Because I'm your only surviving parent.'

Her nose twitched mischievously. 'And you'd got around to wondering if I was gay, I suppose.'

He felt his eyes widening. Was this indeed what he'd been wondering? One of those forbidding, shapeless lumps that lay in the mental silt.

Cathy swivelled suddenly on the piano stool, lifted up the wooden lid to expose the keys, and began to beat out the opening bars of 'Jerusalem'.

'I don't think I'm queer,' she said, addressing the keys. 'But some people find me a bit strange.'

The frosted peat was quite firm where he walked. Didn't even need his wellies today.

Fifty yards out, Willie stopped.

Bog oak, he told himself, that's all. Probably passed it hundreds of times, but they get turned around by the wind, bits break off.

The Moss looked like a dark sea sometimes. You came down from the village, across the road, and it was like chambering over the rocks to get to the bay. That was on a misty day, when the Moss stretched quickly to the horizon. But on a bright morning, like now, you could see how the bog actually sloped gently upwards, then more steeply towards the mountains, Kinder Scout in the distance.

On a beach there was driftwood. In a moss, bog oak, great chunks of blackened wood coughed up by the peat. Made good, strong furniture.

Benjie wouldn't cross the road to the Moss, but The Chief had followed Willie, reluctantly, big paws stepping delicately over the black pools at the edge, where it nearly met the tarmac.

Now fifty yards into the Moss, The Chief stopped too and made a noise at the back of his throat that was half-growl and half-whine...

'Bog oak,' Willie said to the dog. 'You never seen bog oak before?

Point was, though, he personally had never seen owt like this before. The size of it. The fact that it had suddenly appeared in a place where there were no trees, save a few tatty corpses.

He walked up by the side of it, and its shape began to change, but it still didn't make you think of anything scarier than half an oak tree with its branches all crushed up and twisted.

But when he got around it, looking back through the branches towards the village, this was when his breath got jammed up in his throat, when he felt like he was swallowing half a brick.

Willie backed off to where the dog was crouching and snarling, his black lips curled back over his teeth. 'All right, Chief,' Willie said hoarsely.

He looked back to where Benjie stood, forlorn in his red tracksuit.

'You're going t'ave to explain this,' Willie told himself, his right hand building up a rhythm on his hip pocket where there was a bunch of keys. 'Lad's countin' on you. Better come up wi' summat a bit quick.'

He straightened up.

'Bog oak.'

He'd stick to his story. The fact that he'd never seen bog oak like this before was his problem. Just had to make it sound convincing for the lad.

Willie marched boldly up to the thing, grabbed hold of the end of one of its branches to snap it off, about nine inches of it. 'Strewth!' It was like trying to snap a crowbar. It came off though, all at once. 'Go on,' he said to The Chief. 'Fetch it.'

And he threw it as hard as he could, glad to get it out of his hand if truth were told. It felt cold and hard, just like iron or stone. But it was wood all right, nowt fossilized about it, too light - he'd hurled it into the wind and it landed barely ten feet away.

'Well, go on then!' Bloody hell, he'd thrown dozens of sticks for this dog over the years.

The Chief didn't move; the thick fur on the back of his neck was flattened, his eyes were dull and wary, his tail between his legs.

'You soft bugger,' Willie said.

What this was, the dog was close to Benjie, they'd grown up side by side. Only natural he'd picked up on the kid's fear. Aye, Willie thought, and it'd've put the shits up me too, at his age.

Then he thought, admitting it to himself, What do you mean, at his age... ?

He tried to look at the thing dispassionately. It was amazing, like a work of art, like bloody sculpture.

But it didn't make him think of a dragon. Dragons were from fairy tales. More than that, dragons were animals. All right, they had wings and long scaly tails, but they were animals and there was nowt scary about animals.

Willie wanted to back off further, until he couldn't make out the details. He wanted to crouch down at a safe distance and growl at it like The Chief.

Basically he didn't want to see it any more, wished he'd never seen it at all because it was the kind of shape that came up in your dreams. This was stupid, but there was no getting round it.

The tangle of branches wrapped round, woven into each other like pipes and tubes, like a human being wearing its intestines on the outside.

And out of all this, the head rearing up on a twisted, scabby neck, and the head was as black as, as ... as peat. It had holes for eyes, with the daylight shining through, and a jagged, widely grinning mouth, and on either side of the head were large knobbly horns.

And where one of the horns went into a knob, there was even the beginnings of another face, like one of them gargoyles on the guttering at St Bride's.

But what was worse than all this was the way the thing thrust out of the peat, twelve feet or more, two big branches sticking out either side of the neck-piece, like hunched shoulders, and then smaller branches like dangling arms and hands and misshapen fingers, like they had arthritis in them, like the Rector's fingers.

And when a gust of wind snatched at it, the whole thing would be shivering and shaking, its wooden arms waving about and rattling.

Dancing about.

Willie remembered something that used to scare the life out of him when he was little. The teacher, Ernie Dawber's uncle, telling them about Gibbet Hill where hanged men's skeletons used to dangle in chains, rattling in the wind.

'Oh, come on... !' Willie said scornfully. He was shivering himself now - cold morning, coldest this year, not expecting it, that's all there is to it, nowt else.

'Come on.'

Walked away from it across the Moss, towards the little lad and the village, wanting to run, imagining Benjie screaming, Run, Uncle Willie, run! It's come out of t'bog and it's after

you ... !Run!

He kept on walking steadily, but the fingers of both hands were drumming away, going hard and steady at his thighs.

'Bog oak,' Willie made himself shout. 'Bog oak!'