Jago (2 page)

As the sun dipped below the horizon, he consulted the halfhunter his father had presented to him upon his graduation from Lampeter College. ‘Make something of yourself,’ he had exhorted. He snapped the watch shut and pocketed it. From this moment onwards, he would have no more use for his father’s gift, but he did not think to toss it to the fire.

The almanac entry for the day—Tuesday 8th November 1887—had been proven correct. The sun had gone down at precisely eighteen minutes to five o’clock. The book was in the fire now, never to be right again. By its reckoning, the sun would rise again at fourteen minutes to seven tomorrow morning. In this, Bannerman knew the almanac to be wrong, for tonight was the Last Night of the World.

* * *

Throughout his short career in the Church, Timothy Bannerman had thought of himself as a ‘modern’. Given a choice between the account of the Creation set out in the Book of Genesis and that which might be inferred from
The Origin of Species,
he was apt to agree with the bishop who remarked that the one was dictated to Moses by the Lord God, while the other was the work of a far less distinguished gentleman. However, he was willing, more willing indeed than the majority of his parishioners, to concede that a literal interpretation of the Bible led to arguments more troublesome than those into which he cared to enter. And he was of the decided opinion that miracles, visions and angelic visitations were the province of the Roman rather than the Anglican Church. Bleeding statues, portents in the skies and nuns speaking in tongues he believed the province of sensational romances of an earlier century, not of current religious thinking.

Therefore, when Jas Starkey—hardly the most devout of his flock—wakened half the village with hysterical tales about a burning man in the woods, Bannerman had not instantly deduced that his parish was regularly playing host to the Angel Raphael. Indeed, his next sermon had been a largely humorous warning against the evils of strong drink, in which Starkey’s fable was instanced as an unfortunate result of inordinate fondness for the rough cider brewed in the locality. Those who had spent a fine summer night dashing up and down the hillside paths with pails of water, drenching perfectly good trousers, had laughed appreciatively. It still seemed singular that the Angel should choose to reveal himself first to a tosspot who would greet the Apocalypse with a head befuddled by scrumpy from the bed of a woman not his wife.

And yet, that was precisely what had happened.

The village stopped laughing at Starkey when others began to see the burning man, and to give more detailed descriptions of the apparition. It was not easy to discount the testimony of Thomas Pym, lifelong abstainer and church warden, or Geoffrey Combs, farmer and respected local sage. Nor could they deny the account of Louisa Gilpin, a girl whose eagerness to talk about the Angel that had come to her exceeded her reluctance to explain the nature of her nocturnal excursion into the woods with Jem Gosmore’s second eldest. Finally, no one could doubt the word of the Reverend Mr Bannerman, vicar of the parish and
soi-disant
‘modern’.

Bannerman had been with the first party deliberately to enter the woods by night in the hope of seeking out the apparition. It had seemed larkish, accompanying superstitious locals to chase the resident ghost. With others more credulous, he thought, than himself, Bannerman waited in the clearing where the figure had most often been seen. He examined the burned patches that bore witness to the spectre’s late presence, and personally put them down to careless handling of night lanterns. His own light burned low, needless under the unclouded, new-shilling-bright half-moon. He took the odd nip from Dr Skilton’s hip flask.

Dr Skilton of Yeovil, Bannerman’s frequent dinner guest and conversational companion, was the sole outsider on the expedition. The medical man had lately returned from the interior of China, and was full of amusing accounts of the superstitions he had met there. Tom Pym viewed Skilton with open suspicion, especially when the brandy was in view, but the rest of the company were by no means against a brief suckle at the little silver bottle. The best of the village was there, Bannerman supposed: Pym, Granver Shepherd, Combs, Winthrop of the Manor House, and two or three of the ‘newer’ landowners, whose families had farmed their acres for less than three generations. Although still September, the night was cold. Skilton was joshing Bannerman with facetious comments about looking up the rites of exorcism when…

…when the burning Angel appeared.

The heat was tremendous. All present were browned as if from the summer sun for days afterwards. Bannerman covered his eyes, then forced himself to look…

…at the beautiful form of the man in the halo of fire. White vestments hung from perfect limbs. His hair was a smooth sheet of flame. His outstretched arms were tipped with blazing balls in which fingers could barely be discerned. Bannerman knew at once this was an Angel.

The apparition opened his mouth, and a tongue of fire flickered. His eyes, too, were ablaze. And the Angel spoke, ‘Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils…’

The Angel continued, but Bannerman knew the words anyway. The words of Chapter 18, Verse 2, of the Revelation of St John the Divine.

‘…and the hold of every foul Spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’

Skilton went forward to touch the Angel, and, in an instant, burned the flesh from his hand.

Bannerman did not hear the doctor scream or smell the cooking of his meat. The clergyman was on his knees in worship, in wonderment. This was the moment he had been awaiting in ignorance all his twenty-seven years. His mind stretched like a balloon, expanding with the revelation that had been granted to him.

To
him
! Not St John the Divine, but Timothy Charles Bannerman of the parish of Alder in the county of Somerset!

As one entranced, he saw it then. He knew without doubt that the Day of the End was at hand, its very date burned into him by the glance of the Angel. He felt it raise in fire on his forehead, then sink into his brain. The 8th of November. Had he lived, it would have been his father’s sixtieth birthday.

Day of Judgement. Day of Atonement. Day of Armageddon. Day of Apocalypse.

When the Angel was gone, his image danced before Bannerman’s eyes, burned into his sight as if his retinae were photographic plates.

Bannerman knew his Bible and his history well enough to gather that being the Chosen People could be uncomfortable, and he acted accordingly. Knowledge of the privileges due to his parish was to be kept within its bounds. He preached no sermons on the Angel’s announcement, and did not alert his bishop to the divine manifestation. He believed the revelation to be for the benefit of his parish only. Or else, why grant a foretaste of it to Jas Starkey who had nothing, apart from his theoretical membership of the Alder congregation, to recommend him?

Bannerman abandoned the scheduled services. He did not need to spread the word. Within days, everybody in the village knew. Others saw the Angel in the clearing, others received the news. He had no trouble convincing his flock when the burning Raphael could be seen every other night in the shimmering flesh. Only Skilton, his useless right hand baked through, disbelieved the divinity of the apparition, and he retreated to London in search of a doctor who might give him back his fingers. The doctor was not disposed to spread the news.

In Bridgwater and Taunton, there were distorted tales of an Alder ghost and a parson gone mad, but when they reached Bath and Bristol they seemed to blend in with other, similar stories. There was no need for another Spirit presence or another crazed cleric in a half-century already overstocked with both commodities. Bannerman’s bishop wondered if he should do anything about whatever was going on in Alder, but decided to wait until after Christmas on the assumption that it would blow over long before that. A few—very few—people vanished from their homes and went to stay indefinitely with relatives in Alder. Others with kin in the village were either not offered, or refused, the chance of salvation.

The flock were at first bewildered, then frightened, then delighted, then bewildered again by the knowledge that the End of the World was due directly, and that they alone of humanity had been vouchsafed a definite absolution for any and all sins and selected to sit at the right hand of God. But they respected their young vicar, who had never before misled them, and most followed him. Some who had not hitherto been overly dedicated became sudden converts. The more devout put aside their daily toils and spent their time in and around the church, singing, praying, contemplating.

Louisa gave up whatever functions she performed on her parents’ farm and transformed into Bannerman’s unofficial maid-of-all-work. Wherever he was, she could be found a respectful fifteen yards behind, hunchbacked by the huge family Bible she carried everywhere in a shawl slung around her shoulders. As she prepared the parson’s occasional meals or desperately sought to see some pattern in the letters that made up the words of the Book, several young and not so young men of the village felt cause to regret her current distraction. Bannerman was amused and moved by the girl who thought she had been given a free pass to Heaven, and was trying to scrape together in good works enough coin to pay her way above board.

The idea of the bonfire came from nowhere. Perhaps it had started as the usual Guy Fawkes’ celebration but been taken over by the more significant event. In any case. Bannerman approved, and what Bannerman approved was as close as spit to the will of the Angel Raphael.

So it was that the Righteous gathered on the hillside, sure of a good view of the devastation of the rest of the world. They could see at least as far as Glastonbury Tor from the clearing, and the spectacle was bound to be magnificent. Word had spread of the desolations to be visited upon the unrighteous, and opinion was divided as to whether the sinners of blighted Bridgwater—whose lights could be seen on the horizon—would be burned up by a rain of fire and brimstone or swallowed down by the opening of the earth. Either calamity would be no more than the harlots, swindlers, gin dogs and municipal thieves of that notorious town deserved.

So it was that the End was near.

* * *

The fire swept upwards, fifty feet or more. Embers funnelled towards Heaven like mad stars. None could endure the heat within ten feet of the blazing pile. Bannerman’s underclothes were sweated through. His face was grimed, and his heavy ulster had a fine dusting of ash. Withal, he was jubilant.

The hour of the Angel was approaching. All the hosts of Heaven and Hell were soon to be let loose in this place.

He stripped his cape and twirled it from his hand. It sailed on the hot wind of the fire, an albatross taking wing. In the flames, it writhed like a man afire and was gone in seconds.

Bannerman was giddy.

The flock followed his example, and ventured nearer the fire, pulling off winter coats and woollen shawls that would never again be needed. It was warm enough. Hands helped Bannerman with his frock coat. He was comfortable in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, able to feel again the not quite dispelled bite of November night. He wiped his face with his hands, and wiped his hands on his trousers.

Some of the men were stripped to the waist, dark streaks of soot on white skins. The Misses Pym wore only cotton shifts and stockings. They were without sin. The whole flock was without sin.

Someone was quoting, ‘Naked you came into this world, and naked you shall pass into the Kingdom of Heaven.’

Bannerman clutched his throat, and twisted away his white collar. He felt freer without it, better able to breathe.

On the other side of the flames, Louisa Gilpin danced. She was naked as a newborn child. ‘See, oh Lord, how we have put aside the things of this world,’ she shouted.

Somehow, Bannerman was still shocked. He understood, and tried to purge himself of feelings he knew to be a part of the world well lost. He had never seen a woman naked, and Louisa was not like his imaginings. The phantoms of his night thoughts were cleaner, more like classical statues than this substantial, galumphing girl. He wondered whether he should take steps to curb the faithful lest joy give way to licentiousness.

But there was no sin.

‘It don’t matter any more, do it?’ asked Jerrold. He was naked himself, his body like sourdough hung in lumps on a skeleton. ‘We’re saved?’

Bannerman hesitated, but the Spirit of the Lord was within him and guided his words.

‘We’re saved, Jerrold! We of all are Chosen! We are without sin!’

‘Without sin,’ echoed the sexton. The cry was taken up, and became a sing-song chant. ‘Without
sin!
Without
sin!
Without
sin
!’

Clothes flew to the fire and were consumed. Shirts danced in the updraught and flamed like crepe paper. The chanting went on, and there was dancing. It might have been a festival of the South Sea Isles, but Bannerman knew true Christianity when he saw it. Flesh glowed in the firelight.

Bannerman backed away from the dancers, but the Misses Pym came to him, breasts bobbing, and tugged at his remaining clothes. He helped the Pym girls, plucking buttons, shrugging out of his waistcoat, kicking his boots away. Finally, he stood naked as Alice and Grace, close to them. Beneath the warmth of the fire, he could feel—even without touching—the warmth of their bodies.

They had kisses for him. He touched the secret places of their bodies, and felt their flesh pressed close against him. First one, then the other. Alice, then Grace. Then he could no longer tell which was which. Inside his head, he heard the Angel Raphael whispering. More familiar words. ‘Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth, for thy Love is better than wine…’

His knees buckled, and he sank to the ground, the Pym girls with him. A sister—which one?—rolled apart, and the other was beneath him. They joined with strange ease. By the red light on her face, Bannerman saw it was Grace. Prettier Grace. His head close to hers, he could hear her whispering a disjointed, distracted prayer.