And I need to have answers.
Oct 5th 1949
Jensen has returned from the cave some 24 hours late and just as I was about to lead a second team to check nothing untoward had occurred. I am glad of his return for this dashed gammy knee of mine would have made clambering about in the hills a tricky business indeed.
The delay was due, so Jensen has told me, to the fact that the specimens proved to be difficult to extract from the rock, as if they had become fused there over time and necessitating a degree of brute force in their removal. There has also been some trouble with the small group of villagers, shepherds of the caribou herds that roam those high plateaus in some numbers. Apparently, there was a skirmish that led to shots being fired by our men.
Jensen assures me that no one was badly hurt although relations with the people of the high valley will henceforth be strained should we need to retrieve anything more from the cave site. But it was worth it, for Jensen succeeded in his quest for samples that will allow our work to proceed from this point onward.
The specimens, while still straining my credulity somewhat given that on initial sighting they look merely like chunks of rock, are most impressive when under close inspection. They certainly give me pause for thought about my earlier skepticism regarding the tales told of the cave and the Scot’s fisherman’s adventures therein. Jensen assures me that he has more than enough material and that even if that were not the case, more of the same remains are embedded in the rock in the cave and can be retrieved should it be required. And while I am loath to cause any harm to come to the caribou herdsmen in the mountains, I will have no qualms in sending another team into the hills if necessary.
The huts on the shoreline are all up and functional, the laboratory gear is unpacked, and the test subjects will arrive by supply boat on the morrow. So begins the part of this show that I might have moral disagreement with should I give myself enough time to think on the matter, for I fear what the poor men will have in store for them.
But they have been told, as loudly and as often as I have been told myself, that it is for the common good. Having seen the samples collected in the cave, I cannot in all conscience deny that I am as eager as Jensen to see the experiment get underway. The sooner we get things moving, the sooner I can see my way back to the warmth of my office back home in Edinburgh and a decent cup of tea.
“Coffee and a dram, Cap?” Wiggins said, breaking Banks’ concentration. He closed the journal with a sigh and took it with him over to the fireplace. The temptation was to toss it into the flames and pretend he’d never read it. But duty was stronger than that and he knew the colonel was adept at spotting any lies. No, he’d read it now and what had been seen couldn’t be unseen.
Now that he knew that part of the work here had involved the cave in the hills, he only had one option left to him. He let the men enjoy their coffee, smokes, and liquor here in the warmth. For in the morning, weather permitting, he knew they’d be moving out, not back to the supply boat but into the hills, up to the high valley in search of a cave and something that remained.
- 4 -
The wind continued to howl outside and wet snow spattered on the windows and rattled the old frames. They all sat up till eleven o’clock playing cards, smoking, drinking coffee and booze, and listening, mainly to Wiggins regaling Davies and Wilkins, the newest recruits to the squad, with details of their adventures and misadventures in previous missions.
“And then there was the time,” he was saying, “when our captain here was bollock naked climbing the walls of a temple in the Amazon in the middle of the night, three hundred feet up with his arse hanging in the wind.”
Banks laughed.
“Aye and if I hadn’t, you’d still be there yet rotting in a cell and wondering when a big fucker of a snake was going to have you for breakfast. And just for reminding me of that, Wiggo, you get first watch. Wake the sarge at one, I’ll take three to five and the younger lads can see us through ‘til breakfast. Let’s get our heads down, lads. We’ve got work to do in the morning.”
He hadn’t told them what he’d found in the journal — the morning would be soon enough for that. He had the book on the floor beside his sleeping bag, intending to read more when his turn for watch came around, but he already knew more than enough to know that this mission wasn’t going to be quite as simple as the colonel had intimated back at the start.
Hynd woke him with a mug of coffee at three o’ clock.
“Nowt to report, Cap,” the sergeant said. “Although I think it’s stopped snowing and the wind’s dropped a tad.”
He waited until Hynd was settled and snoring in his sleeping bag before taking his coffee, the journal, and a smoke over to sit under the oil lamp again. He took up the narrative immediately where he’d left off.
October 12th 1949
I had a long chat with the privates, McCallum and Boyd, today, two chaps from Leuchars who answered the call. They have assured me that they have indeed volunteered for these procedures in return for their families being well looked after should things go bad for them. Why a man would subject himself to such unknown medical terrors is beyond my comprehension even given that they have been told it is for King and Country. I saw enough in France in ‘44 to know that King and Country don’t give two hoots about the men they put in harm’s way. I have resolved to do all that I can to ensure that these two chaps are treated with all the respect and dignity that their bravery deserves — it is the least I can do for them.
We cannot, however, start immediately. Jensen tells me that the process of taking shavings from the specimens collected in the cave will be the most laborious part of the process and may on its own take several months given the density of the material and the need for delicate extraction. At least it will give our volunteers a period of grace before the impregnation begins; indeed, they may well find this waiting time to be a cushy number given that the rest of their regiment is even now on the way to Malaya to quell the insurgency there. To further ease their wait, I have placed an order with Whitehall for several crates of liquor. If we are all to spend the winter here, we may as well get some enjoyment out of it.
As for the specimens themselves, I find myself strangely drawn to the laboratory where they lie on the long reinforced trestles and I have spent many an hour merely standing there looking at them. And I am not the only one so afflicted; several of the men can be found alongside me at any given point, all of us lost in wonder. The very idea that such things ever existed to walk these frozen lands boggles the mind and it is easy to see how the legends grew, for even having been encased in rock for God knows how long, they still hold this terrible fascination and, yes, terror.
The Aberdonian fisherman’s talk of bogles in that expedition to the cave so long ago no longer seems so farfetched and unbelievable. Not content with taking hold of my attention by day, they have begun to haunt my dreams.
Dec 25th 1949
A Merry Christmas to my family back in Blighty who I am missing sorely on this bleak, cold, miserable day, my only solace being a bottle of scotch I managed to purloin from the mess. I intend to sit here in the office, wallow in self-pity and drink myself senseless in an attempt to forget the last few days. I doubt it will be that simple.