Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

“Very good too,” he said, with a smile. “Now I must be away. Your food will be delivered some time in the next hour or so—we tried to get everything on your list, but we might have had to mix and match in some cases. The Cotterhams, the family sharing the facilities with you this week, have already arrived and are unpacking in the Officer’s Quarters.”

He put his finger to his forehead as if to help himself remember some important piece of information. “Two more things before I go. There is a Union Jack, neatly folded in the recreation room. It’s purely optional, but we invite our guests to hoist it on the flagpole to announce the fort is occupied—you’ll find it on top of the Upper Magazine, it’s on the map. There’s a bugle too, if you fancy blasting out reveille or taps. Now, the other issue is the Outpost. It’s no longer used because it’s inaccessible. Well, what I mean is that you can get to where there used to be a walkway across to it, but that’s all collapsed into the sea now. We have a danger sign and some metal fencing in place, but the determined will find a way around it. I’d respectfully ask that you steer clear of it, and do what you can to ensure young Ralph—he’s about twelve or so—steers clear of it too. I know it’s his parents’ responsibility, but you know what happens. They might oversleep, as parents of older children are wont to do, and he might nip off on his own. We’ve got a chap coming in to completely seal off the archway with bricks and mortar, but for this week, I ask that you keep a sea-faring eye open for potential mishaps.”

I told him he could rely on me while I was here and that was that. I closed the door behind him and, turning, took a deep breath of the salty, crisp air before heading down to the German Casement, which was to be my home for the next six nights.

II

THE COTTERHAMS • THE FISHERMAN • THE OUTPOST (I)

What a queer place this was! I was in a room with two beds, and racks on the wall showing where the original bunks had been positioned for the German soldiers of the Third Reich—imagine it!—to lay their weary, English-hating heads. I knew Alderney’s citizens had been given the option to evacuate at the start of the war, when the British government decided they held no military significance and would not be defended.

After the German occupation in 1940, four concentration camps built on the island—the only camps of their kind to exist on British soil—housed around 6,000 slave labourers helping to build fortifications, shelters and gun emplacements. What a desolate, lonely island this must have been for those stationed or imprisoned here.

The view from my window was staggering. The ocean and the surrounding rocks—including Les Etacs, an island turned white by the thousands of northern gannets that had colonised it—and miles of thunderous sky. Once more my eye was drawn to the churning sea, and the compulsion that something was swimming within it, against its currents, creating a wake as it moved just beneath the surface.

I kept my eye on it, praying to see the tail of a whale, or the joyous leap of a dolphin, but it remained submerged and, after a few seconds, the wake receded, as whatever it was finned to depths that were only imaginable.

It was slightly on the chilly side in the room, despite the presence of a cast-iron Duchess radiator, and there was a faint smell of oil, as if the grease from the Germans’ guns, or the oil from their lamps, had left indelible traces of itself behind.

I unpacked, hanging my clothes in one of the pair of handsome oak wardrobes, then I took a brief, refreshing shower and dressed for dinner. I reached the kitchen just as the last of the supplies were being delivered. A box on the long dining table had my name pinned to it. A woman was putting the last of the groceries away from her own three boxes. She was the kind of woman who wears a faint smile no matter how laborious the task being undertaken, and went about her work briskly, no-nonsense. She’d have been the kind of woman depicted on those old DIG FOR VICTORY posters that were produced during the war.

“Mrs. Cotterham?” I said, and she looked up, startled.

“Oh my!” she said. “You did surprise me. I think we took that earlier flight together.”

“You’re right,” I said, recognising her now that the colour was back in her cheeks. Her hair was tied neatly back from her face too. “I do hope you feel better?”

“Much better, thank you, Mr.…” she eyed my grocery crate, “Stafford?”

“Adrian, please,” I said.

“You’re alone?”

“I’m afraid so. This is meant to be a convalescence of sorts. I’m recovering from illness.”

“Oh dear, I’m sorry to hear it,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind that we’re here too.”

“I wasn’t expecting to be here by myself,” I said. “And, truth be told, I’m glad there is someone else. I imagine this place would be a little alarming for the lone visitor.”

“You’re right there,” she said. “Especially if this weather carries on.”