Copyright Oggbashan June 2017/January 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
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"Remember to expect unexpected guests whenever the visibility is bad. If there is thick mist, people get lost. If there is thick mist unexpectedly in spring or summer, or any time of the year, you'll need to be prepared for almost anything, or anyone. The usual arrivals like that have come from a life-threatening situation and will need help. When the mist goes, so will they -- suddenly and without warning."
My grandfather repeated those words to me often. He even included them as a note attached to his will that left me the remote house on the moor. The house on the moor and the surrounding land was the only bequest directly to me. The bulk of his estate was left to his children but I was the only one of his children or grandchildren who had really liked that house. He had told me that the last time he had an unexpected arrival it was a group of Spanish fishermen whose boat had struck uncharted rocks and was sinking. When they vanished from the farm they found themselves back but standing on a nearby beach about two hundred yards from the wreck of their boat which only had the mast showing.
The house had been part of a sheep farm on the moor belonging to my great-grandfather. It had been requisitioned by the Army during the Boer War to train Horse Artillery. After the First World War the farm had been given back to my grandfather. The Army had built a fort with a stable block, demolished the farmhouse, which was no loss since it was ramshackle, and had built an officers' mess with basic barrack accommodation for the batmen and training staff.
During the 1920s my great-grandfather, helped by his son, had tried and failed to run it as a sheep farm again. What had saved their finances was the barracks. They had made it into a basic Youth Hostel which brought in useful cash. My grandfather had studied accountancy, qualified, and worked in the City of London. During World War 2 the Army had requisitioned the farm again. My great-grandfather was killed while an over-age Air Raid Warden in Plymouth. During World War 2 grandfather had originally been a Pay Corps officer in the Army in North Africa and Italy, returning unscathed despite becoming an infantry officer at the time of Monte Cassino. When he retired the moorland farm was no more than the family's weekend and holiday retreat. Our home was a modern villa near Sevenoaks in Kent. His sons and daughters married and set up homes for themselves with grandfather's financial help. By the time he died all of them owned substantial unencumbered properties. None of the family members were seriously rich but all were comfortably off.
I had started work as a teacher before I had established myself as an author of school text books with a profitable sideline in Science Fiction. I married but my wife Anne contracted breast cancer and died before we had started a family. I missed Anne. She had been my best friend as well as my wife. Her income as another teacher had helped support us for the first couple of years when I became a full time author. Anne's expensive life insurance payout had made me financially independent. That was no real comfort when I had lost her. Twenty years later the ache of her loss was beginning to be bearable. Then my grandfather died too.
Once grandfather's probate had been settled I sold my house and moved to the moorland house. I had a couple of years of resident builders before I had all the facilities I needed to work there. I was pleased that now I didn't have to drive twenty miles to get phone reception, nor to use the local pub's Wi-Fi to submit my work to my publishers.
The house was built in a square around a central courtyard. One side of the square had been the stables, another side had been the barracks, later the Youth Hostel, the third side contained the living rooms, dining rooms, a cloakroom and kitchen, and the fourth side a dozen bedrooms, now all equipped with ensuite bathrooms. The builders had installed a diesel generator in one of the stables, converted another stable into my study with a small kitchen and cloakroom, a third into the communications hub with a massive satellite dish for fast broadband and telephones and CCTV covering all the approaches to the house.
The oil fuel tanks were in another of the former stables. All the buildings had blank outside walls and were entered under an archway. For some unexplained reason the doors to the courtyard were armoured and the all of the walls were built three or four times the thickness necessary. Perhaps they were afraid the trainee gunners might hit the house by mistake?
If I had unexpected guests who were unwelcome, perhaps dangerous, I could retreat into the former stables and be protected from anything short of a modern tank or heavy artillery. I could even have withstood a siege with basic supplies, running water and communications to the outside world. But that was nonsense. Anyone who came that far across the moor was usually friendly.
From time to time the former Youth Hostel was used by groups such as Boy Scouts or Girl Guides. It was self-contained. The groups could use it without any involvement from me. If I was away, the landlord of the nearest pub had a spare key to the Hostel. Even when people used it in an emergency when weather-bound, all of them left it neat and tidy. People who would walk twenty miles across a moor tend to respect those who help them.
I had an older LandRover that I used to go shopping and to bring in supplies. Usually I rode an old Ariel Trials motorcycle to go to the local Post Office or Bank, and to collect my post left at the public house.
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That winter had continued unusually warm after a hot dry summer the year before. Some of the local streams had dried up and there hadn't been enough winter rainfall to replenish them. My water supply from a deep well was secure and I had rainwater in tanks under the yard. An old fashioned cast iron pump could draw the water up for gardening or washing the LandRover but I also had a small stationary engine driving another pump if necessary. I sometimes used that for pressure washing. My electricity supply depended on the available diesel to top up the solar panels. The pump produced enough water pressure without using the electricity. The stationery engine would run on almost any liquid fuel.
The only action I had taken as a result of my grandfather's words had been to install orange rotating lights, like those used on contractors' vehicles, on all four corners of the building and on the small tower below the satellite dish. If it was misty I would turn them on. It had helped two or three walking groups to orientate themselves. Once they had identified my location on their maps they could get off the moor following the track. Only once had a school party arrived out of the mist as a result of my lights. They had incompetent leaders. I had to lead them off the moor myself. I received a few letters of thanks after that, one from their head teacher, several from the pupils, and a couple from their parents.
But I had never had the unexpected guests my grandfather mentioned.
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A cold front swept across the moor after what had been a bright and sunny late December morning. Suddenly the mist descended. It could have been a low cloud. I was busy writing a sequel in my series of successful Science Fiction novels when the daylight suddenly darkened. I saved the document, closed some of the open windows, and remembered to turn on the orange lights. A rapid change of weather like that could catch people out.
It started to rain heavily. I thought that would clear the mist. It didn't. I shut down my document and walked around checking that windows and doors were shut. The tower was the last place I checked. I could barely see ten yards beyond my walls. A window was slightly open. As I reached to shut it I heard a voice shouting in the mist. I peered out, seeing nothing but the mist. I hurriedly shut the window and ran down to the main door, grabbing my torch.
"Hello!" I shouted, waving the torch around.
I heard a faint sound in the distance. I walked towards it. The mist wouldn't bother me. I know every inch of the moor for miles around.
Suddenly I saw a group of people wearing very bulky clothing. I know the moor can be awkward by they were overdressed even for our worst winter. I walked towards them. They seemed to be staggering as if from extreme exhaustion. I wasn't surprised. The three of them were dragging a heavy sledge. In England in the rain!
"Who are you?" a woman asked indistinctly, as if very tired.
"That doesn't matter," I said, "let's get you inside out of the rain."
That was easier said than done. They wouldn't leave the sledge. The fourth person was on it, unable to walk. I helped them to drag it through the gate before pushing and shoving them into the old Youth Hostel block. I had to carry the fourth. I sat them down on the old settees and started stripping off their heavy outer clothing. There were layers and layers of it. They were so exhausted they were little help.
I found out that they were four young women only after I had removed a couple of outer layers from each of them. As far as I could see they were fit but desperately exhausted. I stopped stripping them to make gallons of thick vegetable soup in the youth hostel kitchen. Three of them grabbed the first mugs as if they were lifesaving. I could see that their hands were shaking so I only part filled each mug. I had to feed the woman who had been on the sledge.
Their skin was incredibly cold, far colder than temporary inclement weather in December justified. All their clothing crackled as if the material was frozen. It was!
How was that possible? I didn't know but I tried to deal with them as if they had hypothermia. I kept topping up their mugs of soup. I lit the fire already laid. I would have started the central heating but I wasn't sure it would work just in this room, or that the controls would turn it on with the fire burning I could and did turn on the electric heating in the drying room.
