another lost tale -The Sucking Pool

[nachtjaeger]

Author's note: This was a submission to the Halloween story contest on DS where the goal was to fool your fellow authors and forum members by using a pseudonym and changing up your writing style so that it wouldn't be recognized. I was going for William Hope Hodgson's style, but Conan Doyle seems to have crept in also. Not hard, as they were countrymen and contemporaries, and Hodgson's best known character was Thomas Carnacki, "detective of the occult". As an aside, Lovecraft himself said of Hodgson's novel The House on the Borderland "but for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality [it] would be a classic of the first water". Anyway, I discovered that what I thought was one QS story was actually a .wpd with the cargo I managed to salvage when DS' late night forum went down.

The Sucking Pool

2008 by Ward Cleaver

“Scuto circumdabit te veritas eius non timebis a timore nocturne.” -Psalmus 90 (91)

Summer held it's sway into Autumn in that year in the twilight of Victoria's reign. But in due course rain and wind swept in from the Irish Sea, bringing with it the chill and damp that England is so well known for. And yet, a stormy October night, with dry leaves blowing about the streets and lamplight glowing dimly through the fog, was the perfect time for a dinner invitation to Hope House. Smithwick and I arrived in the same hansom, just behind Johnstone. A touch of the bell, and we were promptly admitted to the smoky, cluttered, book-strewn bachelor warren that was Hodgson's abode. Our host was in an especially fine humor, with the slightest self-satisfied upturn to the corner of his lip that would have gone unnoticed by any but a longtime companion. Dinner was served promptly, Cook having foregone her usual exotic offerings for solid English fare. Yet, the sausage-and-potato casserole was exceptional, the roast loin of pork done to a turn, and we were presented with "armoured turnips," careful parboiling followed by broiling with grated cheese and herbs transforming that maligned vegetable into a delicacy. Following a dessert of rum-and-treacle tarts and coffee, we retired to Hodgson's cavernous den for the highlight of the evening. The long, high room was filled with yet more bookshelves, trophies and curios from our host's travels, the tools of one who dabbles at once in chemistry, medicine and engineering, and overall looked more like the sanctum of a wizard out of some fabulist's novel than the home of a proper English gentleman. The cigars and liquor were a surprising cut above our host's usual means, and we were even offered a maize based whisky from Kentucky in America, which I wisely declined. Then we three married men, most content in that bachelor paradise, drew our wing chairs closer to the fire as our host began his much anticipated tale.
"Well, boys, it's been an interesting autumn. I've spent the last three weeks on Dartmoor. It was a month or so ago that I received a letter wishing to engage my services to help solve a drainage problem, of all things. Well, I was puzzled at first. I am neither a hydrologist nor an agronomist, but as I am not so rich as to turn down the generous fee offered, I accepted the commission. So, as soon as I could arrange, it was a first class compartment from Paddington to Ivybridge via Exeter, a stagecoach from the railway to the most impossible village you could imagine, to be met by the dog-cart of my employer. The coachman seemed genuinely glad to see me. "'Tis a guid thing ye've come, sorr," he said in a broad Westlands accent. "There's summat the matter hereabouts, and oi've 'eard tell you're the man to set it right." Now I was interested. This sounded much more like a case to suit my particular talents than merely plotting the fall of endless yards of drainage ditch and tile. "So what seems to be the problem?" I asked. "Nowt my place t' say, sorr. Best let 'er ladyship tell 'ee." The sun was just sinking behind the hills as we rattled along the ancient track at a good clip behind a dapple-grey Andalusian. As the track- here raised above the surrounding fens- passed close by an unwholesome looking wood, I was alerted by the simple fact of the hair standing straight up on the back of my neck. I extended all six of my poor senses as far as I was able, and got the impression that something was amiss with the wood itself. My professional curiosity began to get the better of my common sense. "Stop the cart, please." I asked the driver. Without warning, he struck me with his right arm, tumbling me into the back of the cart, and at once lashed the horse into a gallop. Understandably angry, I was about to climb back into the seat when I was met by the muzzle of a revolver. After a second's thought, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and sank back upon the baggage and provisions. A few minutes later, once we were clear of the forest and back on the treeless moor, the driver reined the lathered horse to a stop. And then he, to my utter amazement, reversed the revolver and handed it to me grip first. "Turrible sorry I am, sorr, but 'twas fer yer own guid. 'Tis as much as a man's life is worth 't set foot in that there forest alone, night or day." I was now beginning to get a feel for the whole business, or at least glimpses of it. I returned the revolver to the coachman, looked him straight in the eye, and said simply "Thank you." He nodded once in acknowledgement, and urged the exhausted horse to a slow walk. Not long after, we arrived at our destination. The house was much as I had imagined it. It was a huge pile of stone with half-timbered gables, sitting on a slight rise of land that overlooked the treeless expanse of the moors in front and was surrounded by farmland and forest behind. 'Dunmire Hall' the coachman said simply.
I'll skip some details, or we'll be here all night. My employer was none other than Lady Dunmire, better known before her marriage as Irene Altamont, the American adventuress. She met the late Lord Dunmire in a railway tavern in India. Short version, he made his opinions plain about women who wore divided skirts and smoked cigars, which led to a legendary argument that ended in a duel with sabers. She gave him a scar on his cheek that he carried to his grave, and stole his heart. When heatstroke and fever took him in the Punjab, she inherited title and hall, and between her fortune and his could afford to keep it. So the next morning this remarkable Lady and I were looking over an ordinance map of the estate, and she was describing to me why I had been engaged in the matter. 'Here,' she said, pointing to a patch of trees that I thought I recognized. 'It's this damned wood. With the fall in prices, I need to work every acre I can. Yet here are twenty acres that yield nothing but trouble. I want to clear it for timber, though those twisted trunks are worthless for much but firewood. Then once I drain the patch of bog in the middle it will make good pastureland.' ‘It seems simple enough,’ I said confidently. I was about to ask why this simple task had not been accomplished when she handed me a very curious list. It consisted of names and ages of people, interspersed with animals. 'Daphne Rider, age 8 yrs. Cart horse belonging to Dunmire. Cow belonging to V. Clark. Andrew Higgins, age 21 yrs. Colette Jones, age 43 yrs.' It was quite a long list. I looked at her, and again found no need to ask the question. 'This list, Doctor Hodgson, is a list of the souls and beasts lost in the bog in that cursed forest.' This, then, was the crux of the matter. All the inhabitants of that county knew of the Sucking Pool, and its victims, and would not set foot even in the forest around it for love nor money. And yet, year after year, it claimed victims. It was my job to see that it would never claim another.
The next day, I accompanied the Lady, along with her huntsman and gamekeeper, to the forest. It was fenced all round, a low stone wall backed by post and rail, to make a fence the Lady called ‘horse high, hog tight and bull strong.’ I felt none of the odd attraction to the wood of the day before, merely a vague foreboding, and I dismissed it as some trace of the victims’ fear imprinted on the place- a mere residual haunting. As we reached the gate, the Lady suddenly uttered such oaths as would make a soldier blush. The stout wooden gate stood ajar, the pad-lock and chain lying on the ground. Without a word the gamekeeper put his hound to work, but neither he nor the dog could find any trace of human agency. I examined the padlock, which bore the patina of weather but none of the marks a picklock might have left. We double tied the horses, closed the gate behind us, and headed into the heart of the forest. We passed along a narrow, overgrown path through a tangle of ancient oaks whose twisted trunks seemed almost sinister. Here and there, acorns lay among the fallen leaves. I did not mark this at first, but then realized that in any normal forest squirrel and deer would have feasted on those same acorns. Here they lay undisturbed. Not even the call of a bird disturbed the silence. Soon we came to a large clearing in the center of the forest, and in the center of this were the sedges and low hummocks that warned the wary of what lay beneath. In the very center was a patch of fluid black soil the size of a tennis court. This was the much-feared Sucking Pool, then. We approached as close as we dared. ‘The devil of it is,’ said the gamekeeper, ‘a man- or woman, or beast- should float like a cork in a bog, as your engineer’s figures should tell you. Yet I’ve seen two horses and one man, young Andy Higgins, drawn straight down into it and to death.” It was then I contrived an experiment with a weighted barrel and a spring-scale to test this. We filled a barrel with water until it approximated the weight and buoyancy of a body, roped it carefully, and cast it into the bog. As predicted, it did not vanish from sight, and the force to drag it free again was not more than twice its weight. By this time, it had grown dark as black clouds rolled in from the West, and we abandoned our enterprise until the next day. After a fine dinner and being regaled with tales of my host’s travels as both a fine contralto vocalist and an amateur archaeologist, I retired to the featherbed and down coverlet in the best guest bedroom.
It seemed that my head had scarcely hit the pillow when I was awakened by one of the servants, who bid me dress and come at once. I found my host and her servants at the gun cabinet, arming themselves. ‘I regret that you've come under false pretenses, Doctor’ said my employer as she locked two cartridges into a sixteen bore over-and-under. ‘But it seems that merely some human deviltry is at foot. I have just seen a lantern in the forest, and I mean to see that whoever is carrying it pays dearly for leaving that gate open.’ I availed myself of a single twelve, and we were away like a troop of cavalry. We rode as fast as we dared in the darkness until we came to the forest gate, which stood open despite the chain having been bolted as well as padlocked. The Lady’s horse balked at entering the wood, but heel and crop prevailed and we rode in single file. As we reached the edge of the clearing, we could see a light bobbing about, as if carried by a human hand. ‘Stand fast’ the Lady ordered, drawing a bead on the unseen intruder. But the light kept on moving around near the edge of the bog. She slid down from her horse, the gun’s muzzles never wavering from their target. ‘Stand fast, or by Jehosephat, I’ll shoot you down!’ A few heartbeats later, she let go first one barrel, then the other. The light continued to move, and as the gamekeeper and I moved up with our lanterns, we found that the ‘lantern’ was in fact an animate globe of light, with no human agency apparent. ‘What the devil?’ the Lady asked, and walked forward towards the light. All four of us, it seemed, were mesmerized by the bobbing globe for a moment. Then my brain awakened, luck or some guardian spirit pushing the words Ignis Fatuus into my consciousness. ‘No! Stay back!’ I warned her, but she was walking slowly towards the floating globe as it drifted out over the bog. I knew now what the light was. Jack o’ the Lantern, Will o’ the wisp, Hinky-punk, fool’s fire- the spirit that lures unwary travelers into bogs or over precipices and to their deaths. I had nearly reached her side when she stepped off the gray-green turf and into the black earth just beyond. In seconds the sucking pool had claimed her to the top of her thigh boots. It must have been the chill of the mud that snapped her out of her reverie, because she shook her head, tossed her gun to solid ground, and then with what seemed practiced skill flung herself backwards, trying to spread her weight. She twisted around to face us, but the mire had claimed her to her waist. I remembered that the rope and barrel still lay in the clearing, and shouted for the gamekeeper and coachman to bring it, but they were already untying the barrel. I flung the rope to her, she caught it, and we pulled. She didn’t budge, and the rope started to slip through even her strong fingers. ‘Tie it round you!’ I shouted. She did so, but this cost her precious seconds, by which time she had sunk to her shapely chest. The three of us pulled again, the rope tied beneath her arms and held tightly. Again, she did not move, even with three strong men tugging at her life-line. I was desperately trying to think of a solution- otherwise I would watch a particularly strong and intelligent woman perish before my eyes. She stifled a cry of pain- not fear- and we eased off the rope to rest our aching muscles. Slowly before our eyes, she was being pulled steadily downward as if by some unseen hand. The obscene thing claimed her to her armpits, and was even swallowing her hastily-tied red hair. She looked me in the eye, and I saw her fear. Not the shadow-fear of a child, nor yet the rabbit-fear of a coward, but the fear that only a gifted mind can feel, with a touch of resignation, and the more terrible for it. I shall never forget that look she gave me. As we began the deadly tug-of-war again, I remembered my old teacher’s words- ‘Only silver will pierce the Heart of Darkness.’ Silver. . . silver. . . Oh, what an idiot I was! I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a silver shilling. I muttered a brief prayer and flung it into the bog. It hissed when it struck the foul blackness, and a wisp of smoke rose up. I laughed in triumph. ‘Silver, lads!’ I flung shillings into the ooze, and it recoiled, the lady sliding up a few inches. I dropped the rope and hurled every shilling on my person at the Lady’s torso, watching the sucking ooze recoil at every strike. Each time, she slid free a few more inches. She was now only hip-deep. I retrieved the last silver coin from my trousers- a half-crown. I recited the line from the psalm that reads ‘a negotio perambulante in tenebris’, marked the coin with a rude cross, and hurled it with all my strength and all my will into the hungry slime. The foul thing screamed, though it seemed to ring in our brains and not our ears, and released the Lady at last. She practically flew out of the bog, landing prostrate on the solid turf at our feet. She arose quickly, and to my shock threw herself into my arms. I can only imagine the look the servants saw on my face, as I found myself in the embrace of a rich, beautiful, widow- one who was sodden and besmirched.”
Our host refilled his glass, and we did likewise. He added a few coals to the dwindling fire and continued. “Not much more to tell, really. It was a bit of trouble getting low-grade silver ore delivered to the railhead and drayed to the manor, but it was done. As each cartload was dumped into the maw of the shrinking bog, the workers- Rosicrucian monks, if you can believe that- scooped the vile muck into crucibles surrounded by chalk-marked wards. The dust left behind was mixed into Portland stone (made with silver ore, of course) and used to pave over the clearing. The Lady was most grateful and most generous, as you probably suspect, though I shudder at the cost of eradicating that monster.” Our host rose, and we took that as our cue to depart. “Safe journey home in the fog, lads. If Fortune continues to smile on me, our next meeting may be in the library at Dunmire Hall. Oh, and you may want to know this. The spring-scale was still attached to the barrel rope when we rescued the Lady. I swear, though she does not weigh as much as nine stone, the scale- which locks with a ratchet to record weight- was locked at the end of its scale. Boys, that scale read all the way to thirty stone.”

[Lomax]

Ah yes, I remember this one - very good it is, too.

When it was first uploaded anonymously, I was accused (in a good way) (and in despite of the evidence) of being the author.

[PM2K]

Very cool!