The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

“I tell you, there was nothing else . . . nothing of importance. If there had been I’d have remembered it, or one of the boys would.” He rose to his feet and stifled a soul-deep yawn. “We’re going to beat it . . . we’re all-in. See me to-morrow if you must go on yapping!” And he headed for the door towards which, after an instant’s hesitation, his crew began to follow him.

My last chance was going. By to-morrow, maybe, sleep would have cleaned the slate of his mind from every trace of the incident I sought. Would a change of subject release his brain from the worn channels of fatigue?

“O.K.,” said I. “I reckon you had some beer on board!”

He stopped dead, his brow creasing irritably as he sought some connection between my idiotic remark and our previous conversation.

“Beer?” he said. “What the hell are you suggesting?”

“Beer!” I said. “With a Gremlin in it, to make you talk like that!” And the trick was done.

His tired mind was jerked backward to the previous night, to the warm fireside, to the chaffing of his friends, to that comradeship which linked even my plodding duties with his valiant adventure. The strain was relaxed and I ceased to be a pestilential official who sat safely on his bottom while better men went a-flying. I became, instead, to his refreshed outlook, a cog – small but vital – in the pattern of service of the R.A.F. A bloke, in short, who was trying to do his job.

Moaner raised a smile . . . wan and weary . . . but still a smile. “Sorry, old boy,” he said, “but there really isn’t anything else . . . not a thing! You don’t mind if we push off? We’ve had quite a party out there!”

“I’m sure you have,” I answered, “and thanks for being so patient – all of you. Good night!”

But, even as the sergeants chorused “Good night, sir,” the shutter clicked in Moaner’s brain.

“Gosh!” he cried. “There was something. . . .Ginger! Bradley! Jones! Didn’t any of you chaps spot it, too? I yelled out on the intercom . . . and a moment later that flak burst turned us bottom up’ards. Damn nearly slipped my memory . . .”

And out it came.

It was flashed to Group, to Command, to the Air Ministry, Admiralty and War Office. A mere scrap of “gen”, photographed on to Moaner’s mind in that perilous instant while he fought for control of his machine over the enemy ships. Yet it fitted, like a lost piece of a jig-saw, into a picture which “Intelligence” had been struggling to complete for months. A night’s intervening sleep might have lost it for ever.

At the first opportunity I stood Moaner a pint of beer – Gremlin or no Gremlin. And he winked over the tankard’s edge as he said “Cheers” in the accepted style.

Money for Jam

Sir Alec Guinness

Location:  Vis island, Yugoslavia.

Time:  December, 1943.

Eyewitness Description:  “I woke up with a start, the sweat pouring off me. I trembled. The cabin was filled with an evil presence and it was concentrated twelve to eighteen inches from my left ear. Fully awake, I heard with my ear, so it seemed to me, the word, ‘TOMORROW’ . . .”

Author:  Sir Alec Guinness (1914–2000), like Derek Barnes, began his working life as an advertising copywriter before he discovered his real metier as an actor and made his stage debut in 1934. After several years at the Old Vic, he joined the Royal Navy in 1941 as an ordinary seaman and the following year was commissioned, experiencing action off Malta, Sicily and Yugoslavia. Returned to his profession, Guinness broke into films and became an international star as Fagin in Oliver Twist in 1948. Other great character roles ensured his reputation, while his autobiography, Blessings in Disguise (1985), also revealed a striking literary talent. Sir Alec never forget a ghostly experience he had in 1943 while commanding a Landing Craft off Yugoslavia under orders to evacuate 400 women and children in advance of an anticipated German invasion. The day proved to be one filled with surprises and shocks: the boat was hit by a hurricane, lit up by the weird St Elmo’s fire and a sinister voice whispered a warning to him. Afterwards he wrote a chilling ghost story around the events for John Lehmann’s New Writing (1945), which is now reprinted here for the first time in over 60 years.