The Legend of the Black Monk Page 23

  ‘Where is he?’ Laura scanned the waves, incredulity written on her face. ‘Has he drowned?’

  Drew gauged the distance to shore. He could not make it that far underwater. We would see him. And no-one could hold their breath for long in water this cold.’

  ‘Perhaps Neptune has claimed him,’ murmured Von Krankl.

  ‘He is welcome.’

  * * *

  The black coach stood at the edge of the sea, its team of horses looking straight ahead, eerily motionless. The coachman held the reins, his great cloak wrapped around him, his face not visible. The door of the coach was open.

  Somewhere close by a lone bell was tolling.

  ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee,’ she muttered.

  She walked slowly towards the open carriage door, drawn inexorably forward. A strange, compelling force urged her on. She placed her hand on the door and looked inside. There was only blackness. The moon slipped momentarily behind clouds racing across the cold winter sky. Darkness. Suddenly a hand shoved her hard. She stumbled, falling into the coach. The door slammed behind her before she could turn around. The coach leaped forward throwing her back into a seat. She reached out to open the window but it would not budge. All the windows were blacked out and she could make out nothing in the black interior. She fumbled around feeling velvet seats on both sides and thick drapes over hard wood where there should have been windows.

  Outside the coachman’s whip cracked over the whinnying horses, above the sound of the wheels. And the awful realisation dawned on Rebecca that she was living her waking dream…

  A roar of hooves thundering along the road. The snarl of a coachman, the crack of a whip.

  Magnificent, powerful, terrifying black horses, snorting, eyes wide and flaring, heads jerking, each fighting the reins.

  A black carriage without crest or marking, the driver’s scarf covering all but his eyes, rushing along a windswept beach at the sea’s edge.

  Rebecca found herself screaming. ‘For pity’s sake! For pity’s sake!’ Wracked with terror, she sat back, powerless to do anything other than await the end of this horrifying journey. And when she thought it could not get any worse, came a sound that numbed her to her very marrow. Rushing water.

  Immediately the carriage was buffeted this way and that by crashing waves! Around her feet she felt freezing water seeping in. Terrified, Rebecca grabbed the door handle, shaking it as hard as she could. The water quickly rose to her knees, spreading across the seats.

  She banged on the walls, the roof, yelling for help … but to no avail. Just when escape seemed futile, the doors burst open and she was sucked out, managing to gasp in one deep breath before the water folded in on her.

  Somehow, inexplicably, the coach was below the surface of the water. Above her head she made out glimmering light. Instinct told her to kick up hard towards it, swimming with all the strength she could summon. Finally she burst through the surface and gulped in air.

  Eyes smarting from the salty water, she thought she glimpsed land in front and struck out towards it. Instantly, she felt herself grabbed and lifted bodily out of the water and dumped into a wooden boat. She wiped her eyes and looked up to see who had helped her.

  But she was alone in a small rowing boat. ‘This is just too…’ Gasping, half-crying, she shook her head, unable to comprehend.

  * * *

  Shivering under a blanket she found in the boat, Rebecca looked up. The mighty Horns of Lucifer towered above. She spied another boat in the churning seas ahead, making for the jagged rocks. Two people were in it; the coachman, and a smaller figure cowering in the stern. As she watched, the coachman rowed towards the rocks, fighting the surging waves, completely at their mercy. There seemed no way of avoiding shattering grief on the deadly rocks, until a wave suddenly swept it through a narrow gap and it disappeared.

  With a cry of anguish, Rebecca discovered there were no oars in her boat and she suddenly realised the precariousness of her own situation. She was being swept towards the rocks without the means to steer. A wave caught the small craft and she surged forward, the wall of rock rising up towards her at frightening speed. She would surely be dashed against the rocks and perish! But inexplicably she passed through the narrow gap and found herself in a calm inlet. She recognised it immediately. She had been here with the others. The boat drifted gently up to the rocks and she jumped out.

  The other boat and its occupants were nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ a frightened, angry voice in her head asked. ‘Why am I here? Where on earth is the other boat? They cannot just disappear…’ Rebecca gazed, scared at the dark, spooky cliffs. She sensed something indefinable, otherworldly. The light was wrong, the colours faded.

  ‘What is this place?’ she asked out loud.

  Inside the entrance to the cave a light was flickering. Summoning up her courage, she climbed towards it. A strange glow emanated from deeper into the cavern, surreal and silvery, lighting up the rocks. In places, it was almost too bright to look at.

  It was like no light she had ever seen and filled her with unease. ‘Pull yourself together, McOwan,’ she hissed, stooping to enter.

  A few metres in, she stopped in astonishment. Crouched in a huddle just before her was the figure from the other boat. Slowly the head turned and the pale, wraith-like face of a young woman stared at her.

  ‘He knew. When I went to him, he knew. He murdered his own grandchild. Who could do such a thing?’ The woman’s voice was quiet, gentle, ethereal.

  Rebecca knew instantly who this was.

  ‘Emily?’ She sat down facing her, struck by her fragile beauty. It was not difficult to see why Nathan had fallen in love with her. Emily did not appear aware of her.

  ‘By his own hand? Never! But by his order. He cast us out. Bloody Bill abandoned us here for all time. He could not find the kindness to cut short our suffering with his blade.’

  ‘Ebeneezer, you mean?’

  ‘The pastor would not let Nathan bury us. Cast out by the church!’

  ‘And thus doomed never to be at peace,’ said Rebecca slowly.

  ‘Pity! Pity me! Pity is all I have, you see?’

  ‘But you can help.’ Rebecca turned swiftly, startled by a second voice from behind her.

  ‘You shall finish what the sea captain could not.’

  A hood shrouded his face but, unmistakeably, it was the Black Monk.

  Chapter 38

  The Bones of a Story

  In the Hall of Morbed Manor, Bertram Dewhurst-Hobb was smiling at his daughter Rachel who had not let go of her father since he had walked through the door.

  ‘Forgive me? For putting you through all this? I couldn’t see any other way.’

  ‘You gave me a hell of a fright, you old boot!’ Rupert’s mother smiled up at her father.

  ‘I couldn’t let a man like Sky hurt you. I may be an old man now, with my wars behind me, but I won’t let people hurt my family. You mean more to me than anything in the world. Besides, what would your mother say to me when I finally do go through the pearly gates?’

  ‘Oh Dad!’

  * * *

  ‘Well, I can say quite confidently that these bones are human,’ said Guppy Baverstock, looking up from the table in the Library at Morbed Manor, on which all the fragments from the casket had been laid out.

  ‘Human,’ breathed Von Krankl slowly, picking up one of the bones. He looked at the Admiral, his face filled with a mixture of incredulity and fear. ‘Bertie …’

  ‘Werner it may not be him. It could be …’

  ‘What, Gramps? Who do you both think it is?’ Rupert came to stand next to his grandfather at the end of the table.

  ‘Kapitan Kraus!’ guessed Drew, excitedly.

  ‘Well I would doubt if either of them is a ‘him’,’ said Guppy quietly.

  There was a moment of silence when time appeared to stand still as everyone absorbed what he had just said. The Admiral spun round i
n astonishment.

  ‘Them?’ he gasped.

  ‘How many people are there here?’ Drew’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Oh two … and I would hazard a pretty fair guess that they are mother and child.’

  The Admiral sat down suddenly in a chair, unable for a moment to take this in. ‘Let’s get this straight … we find a casket which has been buried at sea, in a U-boat … by Kapitan Kraus, we assumed. It is full of bones but the bones have nothing to do with the U-boat. Instead, they are those of a mother and child …’

  ‘And I think I know which mother and which child.’

  Everyone turned swiftly at a voice from the doorway.

  ‘Becks!’ shouted Laura, rushing forward to embrace her friend, quickly joined by the others. ‘Where have you been? We were starting to get worried.’

  Rebecca smiled, relief seeping into her to be back in the safe, certain warmth of this house, surrounded by familiar faces.

  ‘You would not believe what has happened to me since I last saw you.’

  * * *

  The fire in the drawing room crackled heartily, as the clouds banking up over the sea outside began to turn the sky dark. Rebecca, Drew, Laura, Rupert, the Admiral and Von Krankl had been joined by Gaston, Guinevere and Rachel, seated on sofas around a low table on which were spread sandwiches, cakes and all manner of good things to eat.

  Rachel sat very close to Rebecca, concern etched into her face. Guppy Baverstock and James Hendricks, who had arrived with Rebecca, stood by the mantelpiece.

  ‘Well then, Rebecca,’ smiled the Admiral, ‘so what have you been up to and whose are the bones in our casket?’

  Rebecca stood and walked over to the fire. She turned, and smiled uncertainly.

  ‘You aren’t going to believe some of this, I warn you,’ she said tentatively, looking at Drew for reassurance.

  He smiled back. ‘We’re used to your tall tales by now!’

  ‘I believe the bones of the mother are those of a woman called Emily, who died in 1642.’

  There was a collective murmur.

  ‘The child is her baby, the Grandson of Ebeneezer Trevelyan of this house and son of Nathan Trevelyan … also of this house but better known as the Black Monk.’

  The murmur was renewed, tinged this time with astonishment. Guppy Baverstock though was nodding his head slowly. ‘I will have to check in the lab but … the age is not impossible from what I discern … not impossible at all. Air-locked casket, you see? Amazingly well preserved.’

  ‘What I think happened is this. In the 1640’s, Nathan Trevelyan fell in love with a servant, Emily. His father was furious when he found out, banishing him abroad. Nathan left without being allowed to see Emily, not knowing that she was carrying their child.

  Emily threw herself on the mercy of the squire but when he refused her any help, she fled, afraid of what might happen. She had the baby in secret.

  Ebeneezer was worried. I discovered from the records supplied by Mr Baverstock that in fact Nathan and Emily had married secretly. This meant that Emily’s child would be heir to the Trevelyan estate.

  Ebeneezer would have been adamant this could not happen, so he had his coachman, Bloody Bill, hunt them down. Eventually and inevitably, he found them, seized them and abandoned them on the Horns of Lucifer, where Emily and her baby died. Nathan returned a few years later. When he discovered what had happened, he set about ruining his father, and became the Black Monk of Morwenna. He went to the Horns of Lucifer, where he found their bones and brought them home. He wanted to bury them at the Smugglers’ Chapel, but the pastor was Ebeneezer’s man and would not allow it. When he tried to do it himself at night, he was disturbed by three men. He killed them all – but this only set in train the tragic sequence of events that led to him killing his father, for which he was tried and executed.’

  The room was silent, everyone hanging on Rebecca’s words.

  ‘We then fast forward three hundred years to 1945 and the submarine battle off the Horns. Thanks to the Admiral’s tape, we discovered that the Nazi gold was left in the caves by General Himmel, who intended to return later. Today I discovered that the cavern the gold was left in was the same one that Emily and her baby died in. Because they were never buried, their souls were never laid to rest and I believe – and this is where you may find this tricky to believe – their essence, their spirits still existed.’ She stopped, looking uncertainly at the faces in front of her.

  Laura gave her a strange look ‘Ghosts?’

  The Admiral spoke slowly and softly. ‘You are saying … the legend of the Black Monk is true?’

  ‘I can find no rational explanation for what has happened. I think that when Kapitan Kraus returned after the war to retrieve the treasure, he met the Black Monk and found the casket … and he learned what I learned.’

  ‘What did you learn?’ asked Drew.

  ‘Those of a nervous disposition please sit down,’ said Rebecca, smiling because she was so nervous herself. ‘Earlier today, I saw you all boarding the sub. I tried to get down to the boathouse to join up with you but when I reached the beach, something else was there … something quite different.’ She broke off for a moment, nervously aware that everyone was hanging on her words.

  ‘Since I came here, I have been having strange dreams involving a carriage with a coachman dressed in black and a woman trapped inside, pleading to be let out … I now think this dream was about Emily being driven off by Bloody Bill. When I got to the beach … there was the coach from my dream. I could not help it. Something compelled me to go and look. And somebody shoved me from behind into the coach and locked the doors.

  I couldn’t get out. Then the coach hurtled off. I couldn’t see where we were going. I was trapped inside. It was just like the dream, as if that had been a premonition … The coach went under water. It flooded inside … it was really scary. Somehow, I don’t know how, I got out. I swam up to the surface and found myself in the sea just off the Horns of Lucifer.

  Somebody grabbed me and pulled me into a small rowing boat. But when I turned round there was nobody there. And yes, I know I was pulled. Something guided my boat into a small cove, the same one we all went to that day in the boat.’

  ‘You took them to the Horns?’ Gaston broke in, not quite but almost glaring at Rupert.

  ‘You know how treacherous those waters are!’

  ‘We had an excellent boatman, Uncle,’ pleaded Rupert, indicating Drew. ‘Drew is seriously good in boats.’

  ‘Leave him be, dear,’ Guinevere put a restraining hand on his arm. That really isn’t the point right now. Please carry on, Rebecca.’

  ‘I went into the caves and there I … I found Emily. I know it sounds impossible but I swear to you she was there, as real as you are sat here now … She was so beautiful. She was talking about Ebeneezer … and then the Black Monk appeared.’

  ‘Were you scared?’ asked Laura, her eyes as round as saucers.

  ‘Terrified! But somehow unthreatened. He said Kapitan Kraus had come to the cave years before. He made Kraus promise to take the bones and bury Emily and the baby in the chapel graveyard. But as Kraus left he was waylaid by General Himmel and, for some reason I haven’t worked out, the casket ended up at the bottom of the sea.’

  ‘This is a bit hard to … well, take in, Rebecca!’ said Rupert.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe it myself now, standing here.’

  ‘I believe it, Rebecca,’ said Rachel, unexpectedly. Everyone turned to look at her.

  ‘And … look!’ She pointed to the window which was open. On the ledge sat the beautiful Peregrine Falcon, eyes as ever unblinking.

  ‘The Black Monk’s Falcon!’ gasped Laura.

  They all stopped to stare at the bird of prey just a few yards from them. The bird was motionless, observing them. Its gimlet eye stared straight at Rebecca. And then, with a high-pitched mewing cry, it opened its wings and was gone.

  ‘Wow!’ said Drew.

  There was a knock at the
door and in walked the RAF officer from the helicopter.

  Gaston immediately went over to shake his hand and introduced him to the others.

  ‘The man at the other end of the telephone.’ Gaston smiled at Rebecca.

  ‘Flight Lieutenant Harry Stanley, again,’ interjected the Admiral, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘I didn’t have time to ask before but how is my old comrade your father?’

  ‘Well, sir. He sends his very best.’

  ‘So what have you to tell us? Did you catch them all?’

  They made space for the officer on the sofa, everyone gathering round so as not to miss anything he said.

  ‘All as you saw except Daedalus. We have a couple of locals who were in on it too. Rockford Baverstock’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Guppy at the mention of his brother. ‘Let’s see the rotten git snivel his way out of this one.’

  Rebecca and Drew exchanged smiles, remembering how dismissive Guppy had been of his brother when they had first met him.

  ‘How much did you and Mr Von Krankl know, Grandpa?’ asked Rupert.

  The Admiral smiled and took a sip of tea from the cup he was holding. ‘I was very aware that when the statute of limitations ran out on the Top Secret file on the Horns of Lucifer incident, people would be searching for the gold. I had a pretty shrewd idea of whom as well. Werner and I have remained in touch with the Navy and authorities, knowing this day would come. When Daedalus and his cronies appeared, I knew it meant trouble. John Sky arrived too and I have to admit that at first we didn’t realise who he was. But by then, he had inveigled his way into our family. We all trusted him, not just Rachel … anyway, he had been slipping stuff into my food that made me ill. Pretty seriously ill. It was all part of their plan. The ambulance that came for me was not a real one.’

  ‘I knew it!’ said Rebecca. ‘It just never rang quite true. From what Rupert said, it was here too quickly.’