Monster on board
Monster on board
My heart pounded in my chest as I sat all night against the oak mast of the Wherry “Oaf “as the beast in the cargo hold screamed and roared causing the 20-ton barge to rock, sending waves across the River Yare. We were in a queue of boats by the Thorpe railway island just outside of Norwich. A trembling fourteen-year-old, I sat on deck with my back against the lowered mast, knife in hand. On the other side was the grey-bearded skipper Smith with his gun.
Let’s say my name was Tom. As a cabin boy, a term used loosely because I started at fourteen, and was a cabin boy until Twenty-one. It was my job to do whatever skipper Smith told me too. Usually helping winch up the heavy black sail, cleaning the decks, and keeping a lookout for the many other craft to avoid a collision.
. Usually, women other than those involved in the male pleasure trade were considered bad luck on the water, But the Oaf had one regular female passenger. I was first introduced to the blonde-haired blue-eyed child Jane Gurney when I began life on the Oaf as a strapping dark-haired pail skinned Fourteen-year-old. She was a strange child who spoke with an upper-class accent yet seemed down to earth.
Every four weeks, we’d take on extra cargo of a few barrels of ale from a brewery in king street on top of the flour already in the hold. Once loaded, the well-spoken polite little blonde curly-haired girl would jump aboard.
Many miles upriver out in the open wilderness of the Marshes between Acle and Great Yarmouth, we’d dock at a small hidden jetty where we’d be met by two men with a horse and cart. The men kept their faces hidden. They would help us unload and then young Jane would join them on the cart, Leaving us on our way to Great Yarmouth with our official load. We’d unload the flour and re-load with coal, before spending the night moored up in Great Yarmouth. The next day we’d collect the girl from the deserted marshland where we left her.
Apart from the beer barrels being empty of course, the main difference would be in young Jane. On the journey to the place where we left her, she was always lively and chatty. She was the most engaging child of her age I’d ever met. She was about Six or Seven but she seemed somehow older, with her perfect blonde curls and deep blue eyes. When she wasn’t reading a book to pass the time she’d take an active interest in the operations of the boat, I’d even let her hold the rudder while I steered and let her think she was helping. She even became a little flirty which was disturbing because she was a child. Though sometimes you could easily forget she was so young with her extensive knowledge of history. She was clearly privately educated. However, as friendly and animated as she was on the outward journey, on the return the masked men would carry her aboard fast asleep in their arms and lay her on my bed in the cabin where she would stay asleep the whole journey back to Norwich and wake up just enough to say hello.
‘What does she do out there?’ I asked Skipper Smith one day as Jane looked back from the cart from a distance waving happily?’
Skipper Smith took a long drag on his pipe and told me, ‘Her farther, a Mr Gurney, pays me well enough not to ask that question.’
My mouth fell open. ‘As in Mr. Gurney the owner of Gurney’s bank?’
He nodded. ’But why would the richest family in East Anglia send their daughter out into the marshes every four weeks?
The old man shrugged his shoulders as we turned to the winch to raise the sail. ’Like I said I’m paid not to ask.
I got to know the child quite well in the first year and one day I plucked up the courage to ask Jane where it was that they went with the beer. She shrugged smiled sweetly and answered. ‘|To the hidden village.’
‘What hidden village?’ I begged to know.
‘I’ve said too much,’ she told me calmly but firmly turning to walk away to the cabin. ‘Don’t ask me again.’ She said it in a soft way that told me she was being nice.
On the following trip in October of 1880 we were delayed on our way to the drop-off point. At a bend in the river between the villages of Thorpe and Whitlingham, some sort of accident occurred, and boats were queueing up in both directions. Shouts from one boat to another like Chinese whispers informed us of the hold up ahead. The rumour was that Skipper Royall was drunk at the helm and crashed causing a pile-up on the bend and some boats had run aground. With no lifting equipment on the riverbanks, it would take hours to unload the boats.
After several hours a flotilla of craft was backing up behind us by the train tracks through Thorpe. I suggested that we went ashore and walked up the bank to help unload the stranded boats so we could be on our way, but skipper Smith forbid the idea for fear the locals would steal our cargo.
Jane, who was usually calm and pleasant, seemed greatly irritated by the hold-up. She paced from one end of the boat to the other twisting her blonde curly hair around her fingers and muttering under her breath. I heard her say something about wishing she could have got on the train. Until suddenly she grabbed my arm and begged me to follow her to where Skipper Smith sat drinking a cup of tea which I made him on the stove in the cabin and smoking his pipe.
Sitting down next to the skipper she gave me a gentle tug as if telling me to sit beside her. She took out a large handkerchief and mopped the sweat, which was forming in droplets on her brow, then examined her silver pocket watch and frowned. It was a cold night why was she sweating?
‘Nearly five o clock.’ She muttered under her breath addressing us both but primarily the skipper, ‘Mr Smith, it’s time to stop pretending you don’t know my secret.’
Skipper Smith took a suck on his pipe and his eyes widened in sudden fear as though he’d realised something.
‘Tom’ she said turning to me. ‘You know the legend of Black Shuck the dog of the devil who runs around Norfolk murdering innocent souls?’
I shrugged, ‘That’s just a story made up by smugglers to warn off the public.’
‘Okay if that’s what’s you think.’ She replied with an uneasy smile. ‘And have you heard of the myth of the ageless child?’
I shook my head as a steam engine chugged by on the line which ran along the river causing a deafening rattle as it crossed the bridge to Thorpe island. Jane stood up taking an empty cup, she jogged down towards the cabin returning with Skipper Smiths hammer. He did not tell her off for taking it.
‘Strange isn’t it’ she questioned, ‘That you never question why the daughter of a rich banker takes barrels of beer out into the wilderness.’ ‘Well I assumed you and your weird friends had a pub out there?’ I joked, honestly unsure what she was getting at.
‘Do you believe in vampires?’ The creepy child asked calmly with red liquid dripping down her face. I shook my head in disbelief at what she was asking. She continued, ‘Did you ever wonder what happens to the blood from people who get executed, or our loved one’s recently deceased? What about the prisoners that die in jail? Chemicals are added to keep it alive, and no innocent people die.’
‘You’re a ….. v a va…’ ‘No she is not’ Skipper Smith interrupted, ‘She something else but she takes the blood to the vampires so they don’t have to come near the city.’
’You what? But I stammered, shivering with sweat now running down my own face.
Skipper Smith continued, ‘She goes out there to the marshes where there’s no folk out at night, she can’t harm them.’
‘You guessed then?’ She asked aiming her question at Skipper Smith.
‘I couldn’t believe it even when I was seeing it and I was paid not to tell’ The old man grunted, trembling as I’d never seen him before.
‘But how can you ignore it when someone you met fifty years ago does not age. Did you think I didn’t work out that every time I dropped you off it was the full moon?’
There were now tears running down her face mixing with the blood on her lips as she cried, ’I don’t want to hurt anyone I’m not a killer I can’t help what I am. I can’t get out of here before the moon comes out people are going to die.
I didn’t know how to take this in. Skipper Smith just sat smoking his pipe and the light was already starting to fade. ‘Remind me again who the blood is for?’
‘It’s for my vampire friends who live on the marshes. It gives them the strength to restrain me if I run too far.’
‘Just an idea.’ I thought out loud still not wanting to believe her. ‘Is there some way we can restrain you?’
She paused for a moment and then glaring at me as the last rays of sun began to dip beyond the trees. She stood up and began removing the cover to the cargo hold and begged us to help her remove the bags of flour. Soon enough we’d made a hole big enough to bury one of the large barrels in among the tons of flour. The barrels were wooden on the outside, but inside they were tough steel. Still not sure this was real or if it was going to work I helped Jane inside the barrel and place not only her silver watch but Skipper Smith’s around her neck to weaken her strength. We covered her in bags of flour leaving just enough of a gap for air to get to her. Then lowered mast and sail weighing four tons leaving it on top of her.
All night the boat shook with her screams and roars causing the occupants of the other boats to abandon ship. The skipper and I stayed awake all night with pale faces. She was clawing her way slowly through metal and wood.
The big white moon was almost gone from sight when a giant paw bigger than a lion’s, broke the cover and ripped the sale. Soon the beast was free and the drooling wolf towered above us howling with a breath that made the river shake. Skipper Smith pulled his rifle and he shot at her, before falling back into the dark depths of the river. I tried to dive in, but in one fell swoop she had me in her fangs.
A searing pain shot into my side as blood poured out of me and something else poured in. In the light of the oil lamp, I saw hairs on my arms and claws bursting out of my fingernails. Then just like that it stopped, and I was me again. The round moon was gone from the sky. Jane sat on the deck of the sinking wherry crying.
‘I’m sorry Tom I’m so sorry.’
The sinking of the Wherry Oaf was put down a to collision for which she was ensured. Skipper Smith took retirement and passed away in 1900 aged 85.
Unlike some werewolves it seems Jane was cursed to live forever and now so was I. One hundred and forty years on from that night I’m still here. Every month I join Jane and other wolves on the marshland where we run free by moonlight.
