A Ghost Story by HM Stevens
(A true story based on actual events although the place of the actual occurrence has been embellished)
It was my first tour of night duty after a pleasant and restful spell of five days off, rest days that I had accumulated from working over the Christmas Holidays. Although having been on duty Christmas Day, my beat being a rural one, nothing much had happened and I had spent most of the day at home with my family. Of course I had been in full uniform along with associated accoutrements or tools of the trade necessary for carrying out the duties as a rural police constable. Outside my police Landrover had been parked in the drive way and my ear tuned in to my personal radio handset, listening to the force radio net, ready to swing into action! Apart from which I’d made the occasional quick tour of my beat calling in at the local care home and the odd isolated farm where I was always extended a warm welcome with a cup of tea and this time of the year, the obligatory seasonal mince pie; this working from home being the accepted practice for drawing the short straw working Christmas Day. Tonight the night was cold and crisp with the sky full of stars sparkling like diamonds displayed on a black cloth of velvet, as I left by the front door and the comfortable confines of our small cosy country house and walked over to my private vehicle parked in the drive.
Earlier the weather forecaster on the T.V. had predicted heavy snow before the night was out. I said farewell to my wife and our two dogs as they scurried around my feet. The larger of the two a German shepherd pushed more than scurried, only earlier in the afternoon when I had been walking them both in the local wood she’d made a playful charge at me, knocking me clean off my feet! Sometimes when I knew in advance I would be alone on night duty she came along as an unofficial partner. I don’t know what my supervision Inspector would say but then being on such a remote Yorkshire beat I very rarely saw any night supervisors. It being considered by the ‘Powers to Be’ too far to travel on a regular basis from the main HQ 30 miles away. In these days of ‘Bean Counters’ it was said to be not cost effective for a Supervising Inspector to drive the 60 miles round trip just to say ‘Hello’ and sign my pocket book, money was what drove policing today. Office bound ‘whallahs’ had lost sight of the fact that it was another police car on the road at night and available for any rural emergency that could occur. Not that this absence of a seeing a night supervisor bothered me at all, fortunately my superiors consider me to be a thoroughly competent copper and therefore left me to my own devices. Being on such a lonely beat though did have its down side, that being, if I did get into trouble then help was a long way off, so it was comforting to have my lovely German Shepherd along with me but not tonight as she was on heat and the trail she would inevitable leave on the back seat would be difficult to explain away to my bosses! Anyway tonight for the first part of my shift I had been allocated one of the Divisional Police Cadets to patrol with me and I didn’t want his over enthusiasm dropping me in the proverbial bio-degradable by gossiping in the police canteen that I brought along my dog on night shift.
Pausing as I opened the car door, looking up at the cold black night, my breath freezing into a cloud of fog. The glorious night sky was covered with millions of stars that made the Milky Way look as if it stars had just been thrown casually across the expanse of the universe by the hand of God. I could see the North Star shining bright, just like it did on Christmas Eve, although the Bible claimed it was a star in the East! Then there was Orion the Hunter, the Plough and the Great Bear. It was certainly a wonderful night to keep the star gazers and astronomers happy but not for me, I had a beat for patrolling. Sliding into the driver’s seat I quickly closed the door to shut out the freezing night, shivering as I inserted the ignition key to fire up the engine in eager anticipation of the heater coming to life.
Looking through the windscreen as I cleared away the condensation I could see our little front bedroom, the windows blushing with the warming glow of red coming from the bedside night lights where our two children lay, one of each, snug in their warm bunk beds. Oh, how I envied them as I felt the cold atmosphere penetrate my clothing waiting for the car heater to kick in. Yes, I would be glad of my ex naval thermal underwear tonight, one of the few items of Admiralty property I had been allowed to keep after leaving the navy. These having last been worn during what had been dubbed a spot of bother down south that exploded into the Falklands War, but then that was another story. I gave a final wave to my wife standing in the warmth behind the doubled glazed glass front door of our little cottage, the only relatively newish part of our ageing property that looked out of place, against its traditional roses around the door chocolate box look. With my final wave she blew me a kiss as I set off from our tiny village and drove the few miles to the little rural town and the small police station where I would book on duty and collect my police Landover. This was a journey I did by bike during the summer months and sometimes even in the winter but, thankfully not tonight, having decided to mollycoddle myself in the warmth of my car rather than face the elements exposed on my bike. The country lane from my home to the police station would take me across three miles of exposed moorland where the cold northerly wind straight from the arctic would come screaming down from the Wolds penetrating my clothing like a knife, freezing me to the bone.
My beat was a rural one and covered a broad band of picturesque rolling Yorkshire countryside that started on the East Coast taking in a river, navigable to small coastal merchant vessels where they passed on their way to several small inland wharves dotted along the river banks. The westward limit of my beat bordering on the neighbouring county police district and sometimes when it was quiet on nights I would meet up with my colleague over the border and swap mail bags – a very useful way the various forces saved on postage for force to force correspondence! Personal computers and email having yet to grip the world! My colleague over the border was an old ‘Mucker’ from my Navy days so it was good to keep in touch and talk about old times in the Grey Funnel Line as the Navy was affectionately known. I was on the ten to six night shift and for the first half of this period I was to be accompanied by one of the sub-divisional police cadets. A young man in his final year as a cadet before going off to the area police college for fourteen weeks of gruelling training to hopefully pass out as a probationary police constable. Being a lonely rural beat it made a pleasant change to have some human company along for the patrol.
My beat took in many pretty little villages which included several small police stations known as police boxes, because they were little more than that, brick boxes housing a couple of small offices. These were only occasionally occupied during the day and evening up to midnight. From these outlying police posts local country policemen patrolled their patches but their shift system meant that they never worked later than midnight. To the armchair criminologist this may seem to be a frugal use of meagre police resources but despite that apparent enigma associated with the perils of the night when the general belief is that the ghouls of crime lurked in the shadows of every dark corner. Contrary to common belief factually the busiest call on police time is during the daylight hours. So after midnight the whole of this vast rural area was covered by me and my colleagues in our powerful Landover known as a fast response vehicle. I and six other constables shared this task working a system that covered the 24 hour period 365 days a year. Our vehicle, one of Solihull’s finest, was a long wheel base model, all white with a large fluorescent orange stripes down each side and the county police badge emblazoned with the words ‘To Serve and Protect’ on each of the front doors, topped off with a flashing blue and red light bar across the roof. The vehicle came complete with an assortment of equipment such as first aid kit, cones, portable blue flashing lights, road signs and finally black body bags for use in the less glamorous aspects of police work.
My contact with the police operations room back at county HQ 30 miles away was via a powerful radio unit in the cab with an additional life line of a small personal repeater set that I wore on my lapel so I had contact with HQ whilst away from the vehicle, my call sign was ‘Whisky Romeo one five’.
Normally I had a set system for working my beat, so that about halfway through my tour of duty I would end up at one of the little out post police stations where I could take my meal break of sandwiches and a flask of tea. Usually alone in front of a warm stove stoked up by the last bobby on duty there, sometimes I would be joined by the crew of a night traffic patrol car if they happened to be in the area at the same time. This provided of course that I wasn’t directed by the operations room off my planned route to go to one of a hundred or so tasks that the police are called upon to deal with. However, tonight had started off quietly without any calls on my services and I would have to work my beat so that I could call in and return my ‘chatty’ companion, the cadet, to the sub-divisional HQ at 2 a.m. for his meal break and then allow him to finish the remainder of his shift in the 24 hour manned divisional police office.
Having taken my meal in the sub-divisional HQ’s canteen I left once more at 3 a.m. to continue my nocturnal prowling and tour the rest of my beat, deviating to the east coast side of my patrol area. Before setting off I had a quick word with my sergeant regarding some files I had submitted for court and then left. His parting words to me were,
‘Let’s have some names for the Night Check Book George’.
‘O.K. Sarge’ I replied with a wave as I passed through the outer office and once more out into the cold black night.
The ‘Night Check Book’ is for recording the names of anyone stopped by police officers for whatever reason during the night hours, usually after midnight. This then feeds information to the station intelligence officer commonly known as the ‘collator’, as to who was out and about during the ‘wee’ small hours and possibly up to no good! Many a crime in the area had resulted in a successful detection through information put into this book by patrolling night beat officers. Only a few months previously whilst on night duty around 2 o’clock in the morning, I had stopped a car which had caught my eye a couple of times as it appeared to be aimlessly wandering around the patch. The four young men occupants from the city claimed they were bored and had taken a ride out into the country before going home to bed! A check of their car and names revealed as nothing known to the police. With their permission I searched the car to discover a tool bag of carpentry type tools which raised my suspicions. However, ownership of these tools was proudly claimed by one of them who said he was a carpenter, even producing business cards to that effect, offering me his services should I ever be in need of a carpenter! So off they went but their names were placed in the ‘Night Check Book’ as per force requirements. A couple of weeks later a local farmer and his family returned home from holiday to find his farmhouse and outbuildings had been burgled. As the dates tied up with the night these men had been checked by a me, a resultant house search of one of the young men whose names had been placed in the ‘Night Check Book’ turned up a cache of property stolen from the farmhouse.
As I drove away into the night a steady and heavy fall of snow had started, once again I was glad of my thermal underwear. Although I was patrolling in a smart modern police vehicle with a very efficient heater, it was part of my duty to park the vehicle at each village and time allowing patrol on foot for what is called in modern police jargon as high visible policing but, in the dead of night! However, not for me to reason why! It was all part of the continuous PR campaign! On a freezing cold night like tonight a strong conviction and determination to carry out this duty was certainly required.
My first port of call was literally just that, it was a small village that overlooked the river. The centre of this little township being an old stone wharf and a row of warehouses, a commercial port of a bygone age that had seen a revival in recent times with small coasters calling on a regular basis from the continent, transhipping cargoes from places like Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg. I always looked forward to my call here, as an ex seafarer before I joined the force it was pleasing to walk around the jetty and look at the small yachts and cabin cruisers moored there, the toys of the wealthy. This call on my nightly patrol was made even more attractive as I was always assured of a welcome from the night sister at the local cottage hospital with a warming cup of freshly brewed tea.
By the time I had pulled to a stop in the centre of this little port the whole area was covered in a thick blanket of snow. Bringing the Landrover slowly to a halt near the old jetty, the tyres creating a loud crunching noise as the snow was compressed and sandwiched between rubber and stone, almost deafening in the eerie silence of the night. I switched my car radio over to the pocket set. A reassuring link with the main operations room, informing them I was going on foot patrol. The sexy silky femine voice of the controller oozed warmth from my radio and sent a shiver down my spine as I left the warm interior protection of the Landrover and greeted the freezing night with large snowflakes gently floating to the ground in the still night air, creating almost white out conditions as my eyes attempted to penetrate the wall of whiteness. Acknowledging the controllers request that I call up every half hour whilst on foot patrol, not that intended to be out for half an hour in this weather I laughed to myself. I then set off on my lonely walk wrapping the collar of my great coat around my neck and pulling the peak of my cap down in an attempt to keep the snow out of my eyes. I plodded around the old stone wharf to the creepy sound of my foot steps in the snow taking a childish delight as I kicked up clouds of soft virgin snow. The still night was broken by the distant sound of chugging engines of the small coasters plying the river as they sailed to and fro on the high tide, gliding by on the calm inky black water, silhouetted against the night sky, blackened out apart from their navigation lights. The wharf and jetty that extended out into the river was empty of any commercial ships, the small dockside crane standing aloof pointing skywards as if indicating to some distant galaxy. Now shrouded in snow like some supernatural monster and guardian overlooking the yachts and motorboats which looked like ghosts ships as they lay at their moorings, covered in a dusting of snow as if frozen in time. Reassuringly my radio crackled away as I heard the ops room communicate with other patrols. Sniffing the night air I smelt an aroma that made me reach instinctively for my pipe, deep within the pocket of my great coat. The sweet smell was undoubtedly someone smoking a pipe nearby. One of the pit falls or perversely pleasures of being a pipe smoker is seeing or smelling a fellow pipe smoker enjoying his hobby, this creates a longing for ones own smoking piece. It was with these thoughts that I cursed myself for leaving my tobacco pouch on the facia panel of the police Landrover. Oh well, it’ll be something to look forward to when I stop for a cuppa at the cottage hospital, so with these warming cheery thoughts I wandered in search of the source of the pleasant aroma. Eventually I came to the end of the wharf where I found a hunched figure sitting atop of a large bollard, hands thrust deep into his pockets, puffing steadily at his pipe exhaling thick clouds of sweet burnt tobacco smoke that sailed lazily up in the still night air. The snow had finally stopped leaving a thick carpeting underfoot and as I approached the unknown figure I pondered on the virgin white snow that lay before me and mused that my nocturnal stranger must have been there for sometime before the snow had started to fall, as there were no foot prints leading to his resting place. As my stranger of the night appeared to be lost in his thoughts starring out across the river at the passing ships and not wanting to startle him I made my footsteps heavier as I approached with a friendly greeting.
‘Good evening sir, it’s a pleasant but cold night.’
Without looking at me or taking his pipe from his mouth he replied,
‘Aye lad it is that.’
With the flurries of snow having ceased the full silvery moon broke through bathing the area in a chilly icy glow reflected by the thick covering of whiteness giving the whole place a luminous ghostly appearance. Observing my night owl companion I saw that he was wearing an old navy heavy coat, its brass buttons reflecting in the cone of weak insipid light coming from one of the several old lampposts spaced along the wharf. I also noticed the tarnished gold braid denoting the rank of captain on the shoulder tabs of his great coat. On his head he wore a battered naval officer’s cap and turning his head to look up at me I saw the gold anchor and crown of the Merchant Navy badge, just above the peak which was bordered with gold braid, commonly referred to as scrambled egg. Beneath the cap his dark tanned face sported a thick heavy grey beard with an old curly briar pipe clamped firmly between his teeth.
Despite his obvious old age his eyes whilst appearing bright and sparkling from the refection of the light, they had a depth of frightening blackness making me involuntarily shiver as though someone had walked over my grave.
Digging his hands deeper into the large pockets of his naval great coat he shrugged his shoulders, appearing to snuggle down into the coat as if attempting to keep out the chilly night air. This action together with his penetrating stare sent a further shiver down my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck bristle as I too felt the cold atmosphere despite my thick clothing.
Looking down at this apparent old sea-dog I queried,
‘A bit late to be out on a night like this?’
‘Aye lad but, I just wanted to see the ships again for the last time’ said he as he turned and gazed at the ships, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.
‘That sounds rather final doesn’t it?’
‘Aye’ was his gruff reply.
‘I take it you are a seafarer then’ I enquired, trying not to sound too condescending, just because he was wearing an old naval uniform, he could just be an old eccentric living in an abstract world. Being a policeman had taught me never to take things at face value. Many people, young and old alike buy pieces of redundant military uniforms and live in a ‘Walty Mitty’ world. It had been recently been discovered that some dreamers even pinned old medals onto their chests and took part in Remembrance parades.
‘Aye’ came his reply as he continued ‘but things have changed since I signed on. In those days when I first went to sea as an apprentice in the old Baron Line of Newcastle there were still sailing ships plying to Australia and South America’.
‘Aye it’s all changed now.’
Recalling the parting words of my Duty Sgt and his reference to the ‘Night Check Book’, I enquired as to the old seaman’s name. Without saying a word he withdrew from his pocket and presented me with his Seaman’s Discharge Book from which I was able to procure his personal details. He then proudly invited me to turn the pages to the entries of ships he had sailed on pointing out a column showing when and where he had been discharged from various vessels, indicating to two entries marked ‘Discharged at Sea’ during 1941. These were the days of the Battle of the Atlantic when he’d served on vessels that had been sunk. The ‘Discharged at Sea’ notation meaning that his ship had been hit by enemy action and had to be abandoned via the lifeboats! As myself previously serving as a seaman, it made for humble reading to know what this old seadog had gone through in the defence of our freedom. It was with a sense of guilt that I made a mental note of his details for putting in the ‘Night Check Book’ and returned his discharge book, consoling myself that all is not always as it seems, just as he muttered once again.
‘Aye it’s all changed now.’
It seemed as that was to be his final word and feeling as though I had intruded on his privacy for too long, I turned and continued my lonely foot patrol vigil. After all he must have wanted to be alone. Although to be out at this time of night had me wondering why? But then there was the eccentricity of the old.
I finished my rounds of property checking and returned to the warmth of my police vehicle where I packed my curly meerschaum pipe with tobacco then flashing it up with my old ‘zippo’ lighter, a present from my sailor Grandfather, started producing clouds of smoke as I steadily sucked on the stem. Having successfully got it going I opened the window to clear the fast accumulating fug from the cab so I could see my note book. I made all the necessary entries concerning my patrol and details of the old Sea Captain. Learning forward I picked up the radio handset to call the Ops Room back at HQ.
‘Whiskey Romeo One Five to Bravo X-ray’
‘One five go’ immediately replied the warm sexy voice of the female controller back at force HQ as her voice leaked seductively from the loudspeaker wrapping around me like a warm blanket.
‘From One Five, request talk through with PNC’
‘Standby One Five, collar number and location please’
‘From One Five, 206 at Butley’
‘Received One Five Stand-by’
As I waited for the controller to come back to me I mused to myself with a chuckle, here I am conjuring up pictures of petite sexy female controllers when in actual fact they may just as well be over weight and ugly to boot!
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted.
‘PNC to Whiskey Romeo One Five go ahead’ repeated the crisp voice of another controller as I came abruptly out of my day dream.
I passed her the details of my strange sea captain and after a few seconds she replied that she had ‘no trace’ which is police jargon for people not recorded as being wanted or of any interest to the police.
Shivering and winding up the window I decided it was definitely cup of tea time with my friendly night sister at the local hospital, so putting away my pocket book I started up the powerful land rover turned off the quay leaving my night owl stranger and the snow covered sleepy Christmas Card looking port, shimmering in the full moonlight.
Later whilst enjoying a steaming brew of tea laid back in a far too comfy large armchair, having discarded my great coat and with my uniform jacket open in the cosy warmth of the Nursing Sister’s office, puffing merrily on my pipe. I was having naughty thoughts as I looked across at my wholesome companion, drinking in the delights of her shapely legs wondering if she did, as the risqué Doctor and Nurses films made out, wear stockings rather than the boring tights!
There were times that I wished I wasn’t a happily married man and then thinking of my lovely wife at home regretted those thoughts immediately, knowing that I couldn’t be like some of my police colleagues who regularly had extra marital flings and appeared to think nothing of it as though it was the norm. Flings with accommodating ladies, a practice known in police canteen jargon as having an Aunty!
My lovely nursing sister enquired if anything interesting had occurred on my shift.
Yawning slightly and feeling rather drowsy as I glanced at my watch and saw that I had only another hour and half of my shift left replied,
‘No, a pretty routine night – all quiet on the Western Front as the saying goes.’
‘Huh, I wish mine had’ she replied, ‘I’d no sooner started my shift when one of our elderly patients died.’
‘Oh’ said I trying to fight the weight of my heavy eyelids realising that I would soon have to finish my tea and leave, otherwise I would lose the battle with my eyelids and fall asleep, as my friendly night angel chattered on.
‘Yes a nice old boy, a sea captain, a shame really he died all alone, no family or relatives left to mourn his passing’.
Her reference to a sea captain brought me momentarily back from the edge of darkness as the fight to stay awake continued as I casually commented.
‘Funny I was talking to an old sea captain tonight down by the wharf just before I came here.’
‘Oh really, anybody I would know’ she asked stirring in her chair moving her legs unconsciously and provocatively making her skirt rise tantalising a few inches higher above her black stocking knees as she took a sip of her tea and glanced at me over the rim of her mug with a glint in her eyes, making my thoughts once again turn to sexual encounters.
Dragging my eyes from her lovely legs I replied,
‘Doubtful I’d never come across him before, name of Robertson, Captain Arthur Roberston, Merchant Navy’ I mentioned lazily as the tiredness began to sweep over me as I again wondered what it would be like to be between the sheets with my gorgeous night nurse, smiling inwardly thinking it was an apt name, night nurse!
‘Why it can’t be, the old man that died tonight was called Arthur Robertson’ she exclaimed becoming suddenly alert.
Now it was my turn to be jolted fully awake.
‘Are you sure?’ she asked her voice sounding alarmed.
‘Why yes, he even showed me his seaman’s book’ I exclaimed.
‘Did he tell you he’d been torpedoed twice during the Second World War?’ she asked as she left her seat placing her mug of tea on the table and went over to her desk to consult a register.
‘Yes’ my voice croaked from the back of my throat.
Sitting up on the edge of the chair I placed my cup on the floor and knocked out the remains of my pipe in to the fire. I didn’t feel warm and cosy any more, in fact despite the blazing fire I felt decidedly cold. Still looking at the register on her desk she asked
‘What was his Date of Birth?’
I pulled out my pocket book as I stood up and told her.
Turning to look at me, her cheeks that a moment before had reflected the rosy warmth of the fire were now awfully pale and she said
‘Well luv, I think you’ve been talking to a ghost because he died at 9 o clock last night just as I started my shift’!
‘Yes I think I have’ was all I could mutter as I picked up my hat and coat, pecking my lovely night angel on the cheek she whispered,
‘He always said he wanted to see the ships again for the last time.’
With my skin crawling I went out into the cold night air, it had started snowing again but I hardly noticed as my thoughts were with the old sea dog as I recalled him saying
‘Aye Lad, but I just wanted to see the ships again for the last time.’
Back at my rural police station I met my colleagues preparing to take over the morning early turn shift.
‘Quiet night George’ one enquired as he tested his pocket radio.
‘Yes you could say that…. as the grave’ I added with a shiver passing down my back as I picked up the telephone to call the Divisional HQ control room and book off duty. At the other end of the line I heard the voice of my Sgt answer as I said,
‘PC 206 George Thomas here, sign me off duty at Woodlington please Sarge.’
‘Yes ok George but before you go, did you meet anyone on your travels for the Night Check Book?’ he enquired.
‘Err…… yes’, with hesitation creeping into my voice as I continued,
‘But not one for the Night Check Book Sarge’, I replied, lost in my thoughts about the old Sea Captain before replacing the receiver, another frightening cold icy shiver running down my spine.
© HM Stevens 2005
