A Problem at the Docks. Chapter Three.
An hour after sunset and Sergeant Peck stood by the main gate to the Bristol old docks. This late at night there would be no loading or unloading unless it was the odd smuggler trying to avoid the excise but tonight it was more empty than normal. There were a few ships tied up to the docks, each one festooned with lamps or torches and the closest two had armed guards standing on deck.
The three constables on night duty were supposed to be walking the dock and keeping an eye out but all three were standing by the dock masters office where one of the new electric lamps was burning brightly.
The sergeant knew he should get them out on the beat but for one of the rare times in his life decided to let them be.
One of the three, Constable Trapman, had been part of the team that had gone into the warehouse after the demon worshippers. Judging by the way the three stood with heads close together and with looks of disbelief on the two younger men Trapman was in the process of telling a story he had been very clearly told never to repeat.
Peck was a hard man, the sort of man that would walk to his death if he felt it was worth doing. But though he would never reveal it the deaths of the three constables that he had led into that warehouse bothered him.
He would rather not have to knock on anymore doors, standing there in his uniform waiting for someone’s wife or mother to answer. Three times was enough. So rather than order them out to patrol the docks where God alone knew what could be lurking he left them to talk in the imagined safety of the light.
Instead he walked the length of the dock himself, exchanging a few words with the guards on the ships as he went. Nothing was moving and no sound disturbed the steady rhythm of the water lapping against the dock and pier.
Having reached the end he spent a few minutes looking out over the water and listening for something, anything, that was out of the ordinary. But what did a monster or a giant rat sound like?
Finally he grew bored and turned to walk back along the dock, this time he walked along the town side wall beside the piles of crates and barrels ready to be loaded on the next ship.
Police issue boots are tough and cheap, designed to survive a constable walking the beat year after year. The uppers and bottom were hard leather and they tended to click when you walked on stone. But wear them long enough and they softened to the point where they were all but silent. Pecks boots made no more than a whisper of leather brushing stone.
As he walked he listened. A gentle breeze flapping the flags and wrapped canvas of sails on the ships. The faint buzzing of those new electric lights. Two nervous French sailors standing on the deck of their ship talking loudly to ward off their fear. The creak of bending wood.
Peck froze. The sound had come from the stacks of crates ahead of him by the wall between the dock and the city.
Creak. Wood bending, slightly louder. Ten feet ahead, perhaps twelve.
The sergeant looked down the dock, his three constables were too far away. He would need to shout and that would alert whoever was making the noise. Or worse it would alert whatever was making the noise.
Slowly he took a step, then another. He came to the edge of a tall stack and was able to peer round them. Deep shadows, movement. The creak of wood bending and then the crack as wood broke. A shape, twisted, inhuman. No legs, but a broad base like a tree trunk. Human arms that stuck out to either side. No head, just a rounded top. The shape was moving around a crate, its form seemed to swirl and shift, the lower half grew larger and smaller.
Peck’s hand slid into his jacket, to the inside pocket that had had sewed himself, strictly not regulation but then neither was the ironwood club hidden in that pocket. That club had saved his life in the warehouse and bought him luck, it was a comfort when things got weird and he had picked it up as soon as he got to the station for duty today.
Monsters made him nervous.
It was opening a crate, lifting the lid. Both arms reached into the crate and Peck heard the rustle of straw.
“That’s my lovely. That’ll do granny.”
A human voice, a woman’s voice!
Suddenly it was no monster but a woman in a floor length skirt that swirled around her legs and a hood pulled up over her head.
“Oi you. Police, Stand where you are.”
The woman turned quickly, squealed and ran so quickly that by the time Peck’s shout had finished she was several paces away and running fast. Her long skirts held up around her knees.
The sergeant’s shout had carried across the dock. Sailors and constables looked toward the noise and saw the figure running.
The woman kept looking over her shoulder to see if Peck was chasing her, he was not. Instead he stood and watched as she ran, her head turned to look back at him. She ran straight into the grasp of Constable Trapman.
With the woman safely caught Peck turned his attention to the crate that had been broken open.
It was packed with straw so he pushed his arm down into the crate until he felt something solid. He pulled it out and carried it down the dock to the three constables, one old woman and an electric light.
As he reached the light he looked at what he had taken from the crate, it looked like a soup bowl, a posh one at that.
The woman glared at him sullenly, a constable standing either side holding her arms. Trapman standing back a little to keep an eye on things.
“Stealing plates old woman, you willing to risk gaol for some bit of crockery?”
The woman just glared.
“Beg pardon sergeant but that’s posh stuff. Italian! My mum works as a maid and she serves table. I grew up seeing stuff like that. It’s real expensive stuff. Sunday best for the upper class.”
Peck took another look at the soup bowl then put it carefully down on top of a nearby crate. “Anything to say for yourself before we put you in the nick. Stealing some lords tableware is going to get you ten years I reckon.”
Peck leaned closer to the woman tried to flinch back but was held by the two constables. “Nothing to say. Well don’t say I never gave you a chance to talk. Take her down the nick lads, thieving.”
Both young constables started walking, all but dragging the woman between them. Peck turned face Trapman. “I’ll stay with you for a bit; help keep an eye on things here till they get back.”
“Wait.” The woman stuttered the word. “Wait.” She spoke more loudly.
“You had your chance to speak. Off to the nick with you thief.”
“I know where it is, I seen it last night.”
Peck turned to face her.
“The monster, I seen it.”
Three constables and one sergeant looked at her, their faces hard in the harsh electric light.
“Where?”
“You let me go and I’ll tell you. Let me go and I’ll tell you where it went.”
Peck stepped closer, his legs brushing the woman’s skirt and his breath warm on her face.
“Three dead and you know where it is. How many dead while you keep it secret. You tell us right now and you can walk. You keep it secret and I’ll turn you over to Inspector Thorn. He’ll have you shot or hanged most likely. An evil man is the inspector. Doesn’t like secrets.”
The woman had no idea who Inspector Thorn was but she was face to face with Peck and she could look him in the eye. He had the look of a man who had done things, seen things, ungodly things. Killed men and worse.
She collapsed, all her courage and bravado gone.
“At the low end where the wooden pier starts, there’s a cave. I saw it dragging a body into the cave. It was just a shape. Big and black but I saw it.”
~
Three constables, one sergeant and the woman stood at the end of the stone pier looking out at the mud and silt that marked the bank. A wooden pier extended out into the deeper water and some way further down the river but here there was just the bank and the walls of warehouses.
The riverside bank was some seventy or eighty feet long before it became a small wooden pier hidden behind the main pier, a single ship was tied to this pier but there were no signs of life.
“Down there.” The woman pointed at a tangle of weeds that covered the bank no more than a few feet from the end of the stonework. “It went in there.”
Peck knelt down and leaned over the edge of the dock.
There was no moon but the bright stars cast a little light, enough to see a gap under the tangle of bushes, enough to see the marks where something had been dragged across the mud and into the bank.
He stood up and gestured the others to back up.
He looked at the woman. “Get yourself away woman, and don’t let me catch you here again.”
The woman fled.
Once the woman was out of earshot Peck addressed the others.
“Trapman get yourself back to the station. Rouse one of the drivers and get a wagon ready. Round up four of the night shift. No make it six. Pick good lads. Then go into the Inspectors office, there’s a rack of keys on the wall behind the door. Take the big one with the wooden handle.”
“Sarge, that’s the key to the lock room.”
“I know, which is why I’m sending you to do it. Nice and quiet. A couple of shotguns, some pistols, that pile of axe handles and a few oil lamps. Bring along a keg of oil as well. Remember, nice and quiet.”
Trapman looked nervous but nodded. “Right you are Sarge, it’s on your head.”
~
Nine constables, one sergeant, two shotguns, three police revolvers and a plentiful supply of good oak handles stood watch till the first light of dawn appeared in the sky.
The crew on the nearby ships could not fail to see the men as they stood watch, the two oil lamps lit the end of the dock and the bank beyond and made the shotguns and axe handles plain to see.
By the time it was light enough to see both of the nearby ships had their entire crews on deck, one had steam up and the other had its sails half unfurled. Both cast off as soon as they could see to navigate. Neither captain wanted to stay with such a well-armed group of police clearly looking for something so close by.
Constable Trapman walked closer to Sergeant Peck so that he would not be overheard by the others.
“You reckon its safe now Sarge?”
“Maybe, suns up now so maybe.”
Trapman looked around to make sure none of the other constables could hear him.
“Giant rats sarge, you believe that or is it another one of them things, from the warehouse.”
“Buggered if I know, but we killed that ugly bugger from the warehouse and I reckon we can kill this one.”
Peck looked at the horizon. “Head back to the station in the wagon, leave everything here. Round up the day shift and get half of em down here, send both wagons back with the men. I’ll wait here till the day shift gets here then I’ll go talk to the Inspector.”
“Right you are sarge”.
Constable Trapman walked over to the wagon, woke the driver and climbed up onto the drivers bench. The noise of the wagon leaving alerted the other constables who watched it leave then turned to look at Peck.
“Stand easy lads, he’s off to get the day shift.”
A lot of faces looked happy to hear that. None of these constables had been at the warehouse but they had heard stories and every gossip in Bristol was talking about the monster on the docks. The sun was up, the day shift was on the way and no monster had come out. A good shift by every measure.
~
I woke normally, someone was standing over me. The sunlight was bright, the air smelt fresh. Not long after dawn.
“Inspector. I’m sorry but he insisted.” A nurse came into view pointing toward the door. I lifted my head to see Sergeant Peck standing there, he looked both excited and worried.
“Reckon we found em sir, under the docks.”
Excellent news. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed then stopped as my knee exploded with fire and pain. I must have gasped because the nurse leaned over me looking concerned.
Damn this knee. I had to be there for this.
I picked up the leg brace up from the bedside table, “Nurse help me with this please.” She helped to fit it and pulled the straps tight.
Even with the brace I was barely able to walk, this would not work but I could not just sit here and do nothing. Then my gaze fell on the battered tin that had been sitting next to the brace. Carlyle’s powder.
“That will be all nurse.”
She hesitated then left, I had the feeling she was going to look for doctor Harper but hopefully he was not at work yet. The empty water glass was at hand; I opened the tin and took out the silver spoon. One spoonful, was that flat or heaped? I dipped the spoon in the power and pulled it out heaped as high as possible, powder was trickling down the sides of the heap as I moved the spoon to the glass and tipped the powder in.
My flask was in my jacket; I took it out and hesitated. Seventeen year old Glenlivet, such a waste. I up ended the flask and poured about a double measure into the glass. The powder was slowly dissolving so I used the spoon to stir it.
Finally the powder was gone, nothing but an unpleasant looking film on top of the whiskey.
Oh well, nothing ventured. I drank the glass dry in a single gulp. Such a waste.
Nothing happened. I sat there on the bed and nothing happened.
I waited a minute or two. Nothing was happening.
I looked at the sergeant, he looked at me. Nothing was happening.
My knee was still painful, the bright sunlight coming through the window sparkled and danced on the walls. My fingers tingled. I could hear bells somewhere.
Still nothing happening.
“You alright sir, you look sort of peaky?”
Nothing had happened, the powder had done nothing thought the sergeant was oddly out of focus. Perhaps he was standing too far away for me to see clearly.
I felt sleepy, slow.
Then my pain had gone, my knee felt fine. Suddenly I was cheerful, happy.
I stood, the brace supported my knee and with no more than a twinge I was able to cross the room to my clothes.
I dressed quickly while the sergeant waited in the corridor. Everything was fine.
Once dressed I went out to join him. “Do you have a wagon here sergeant?”
“Yes sir, waiting downstairs.”
“Good man, to the station first for my shotgun then down to the docks. Let’s go find this monster.”
Sergeant Peck was looking at me a little strangely but that didn’t matter. There was no pain, everything was nice and clear again, I felt happy.
We had monsters to hunt.
Peck leaned closer to the woman tried to flinch back but was held by the two constables
An hour after sunset and Sergeant Peck stood by the main gate to the Bristol old docks. This late at night there would be no loading or unloading unless it was the odd smuggler trying to avoid the excise but tonight it was more empty than normal. There were a few ships tied up to the docks, each one festooned with lamps or torches and the closest two had armed guards standing on deck.
The three constables on night duty were supposed to be walking the dock and keeping an eye out but all three were standing by the dock masters office where one of the new electric lamps was burning brightly.
The sergeant knew he should get them out on the beat but for one of the rare times in his life decided to let them be.
One of the three, Constable Trapman, had been part of the team that had gone into the warehouse after the demon worshippers. Judging by the way the three stood with heads close together and with looks of disbelief on the two younger men Trapman was in the process of telling a story he had been very clearly told never to repeat.
Peck was a hard man, the sort of man that would walk to his death if he felt it was worth doing. But though he would never reveal it the deaths of the three constables that he had led into that warehouse bothered him.
He would rather not have to knock on anymore doors, standing there in his uniform waiting for someone’s wife or mother to answer. Three times was enough. So rather than order them out to patrol the docks where God alone knew what could be lurking he left them to talk in the imagined safety of the light.
Instead he walked the length of the dock himself, exchanging a few words with the guards on the ships as he went. Nothing was moving and no sound disturbed the steady rhythm of the water lapping against the dock and pier.
Having reached the end he spent a few minutes looking out over the water and listening for something, anything, that was out of the ordinary. But what did a monster or a giant rat sound like?
Finally he grew bored and turned to walk back along the dock, this time he walked along the town side wall beside the piles of crates and barrels ready to be loaded on the next ship.
Police issue boots are tough and cheap, designed to survive a constable walking the beat year after year. The uppers and bottom were hard leather and they tended to click when you walked on stone. But wear them long enough and they softened to the point where they were all but silent. Pecks boots made no more than a whisper of leather brushing stone.
As he walked he listened. A gentle breeze flapping the flags and wrapped canvas of sails on the ships. The faint buzzing of those new electric lights. Two nervous French sailors standing on the deck of their ship talking loudly to ward off their fear. The creak of bending wood.
Peck froze. The sound had come from the stacks of crates ahead of him by the wall between the dock and the city.
Creak. Wood bending, slightly louder. Ten feet ahead, perhaps twelve.
The sergeant looked down the dock, his three constables were too far away. He would need to shout and that would alert whoever was making the noise. Or worse it would alert whatever was making the noise.
Slowly he took a step, then another. He came to the edge of a tall stack and was able to peer round them. Deep shadows, movement. The creak of wood bending and then the crack as wood broke. A shape, twisted, inhuman. No legs, but a broad base like a tree trunk. Human arms that stuck out to either side. No head, just a rounded top. The shape was moving around a crate, its form seemed to swirl and shift, the lower half grew larger and smaller.
Peck’s hand slid into his jacket, to the inside pocket that had had sewed himself, strictly not regulation but then neither was the ironwood club hidden in that pocket. That club had saved his life in the warehouse and bought him luck, it was a comfort when things got weird and he had picked it up as soon as he got to the station for duty today.
Monsters made him nervous.
It was opening a crate, lifting the lid. Both arms reached into the crate and Peck heard the rustle of straw.
“That’s my lovely. That’ll do granny.”
A human voice, a woman’s voice!
Suddenly it was no monster but a woman in a floor length skirt that swirled around her legs and a hood pulled up over her head.
“Oi you. Police, Stand where you are.”
The woman turned quickly, squealed and ran so quickly that by the time Peck’s shout had finished she was several paces away and running fast. Her long skirts held up around her knees.
The sergeant’s shout had carried across the dock. Sailors and constables looked toward the noise and saw the figure running.
The woman kept looking over her shoulder to see if Peck was chasing her, he was not. Instead he stood and watched as she ran, her head turned to look back at him. She ran straight into the grasp of Constable Trapman.
With the woman safely caught Peck turned his attention to the crate that had been broken open.
It was packed with straw so he pushed his arm down into the crate until he felt something solid. He pulled it out and carried it down the dock to the three constables, one old woman and an electric light.
As he reached the light he looked at what he had taken from the crate, it looked like a soup bowl, a posh one at that.
The woman glared at him sullenly, a constable standing either side holding her arms. Trapman standing back a little to keep an eye on things.
“Stealing plates old woman, you willing to risk gaol for some bit of crockery?”
The woman just glared.
“Beg pardon sergeant but that’s posh stuff. Italian! My mum works as a maid and she serves table. I grew up seeing stuff like that. It’s real expensive stuff. Sunday best for the upper class.”
Peck took another look at the soup bowl then put it carefully down on top of a nearby crate. “Anything to say for yourself before we put you in the nick. Stealing some lords tableware is going to get you ten years I reckon.”
Peck leaned closer to the woman tried to flinch back but was held by the two constables. “Nothing to say. Well don’t say I never gave you a chance to talk. Take her down the nick lads, thieving.”
Both young constables started walking, all but dragging the woman between them. Peck turned face Trapman. “I’ll stay with you for a bit; help keep an eye on things here till they get back.”
“Wait.” The woman stuttered the word. “Wait.” She spoke more loudly.
“You had your chance to speak. Off to the nick with you thief.”
“I know where it is, I seen it last night.”
Peck turned to face her.
“The monster, I seen it.”
Three constables and one sergeant looked at her, their faces hard in the harsh electric light.
“Where?”
“You let me go and I’ll tell you. Let me go and I’ll tell you where it went.”
Peck stepped closer, his legs brushing the woman’s skirt and his breath warm on her face.
“Three dead and you know where it is. How many dead while you keep it secret. You tell us right now and you can walk. You keep it secret and I’ll turn you over to Inspector Thorn. He’ll have you shot or hanged most likely. An evil man is the inspector. Doesn’t like secrets.”
The woman had no idea who Inspector Thorn was but she was face to face with Peck and she could look him in the eye. He had the look of a man who had done things, seen things, ungodly things. Killed men and worse.
She collapsed, all her courage and bravado gone.
“At the low end where the wooden pier starts, there’s a cave. I saw it dragging a body into the cave. It was just a shape. Big and black but I saw it.”
~
Three constables, one sergeant and the woman stood at the end of the stone pier looking out at the mud and silt that marked the bank. A wooden pier extended out into the deeper water and some way further down the river but here there was just the bank and the walls of warehouses.
The riverside bank was some seventy or eighty feet long before it became a small wooden pier hidden behind the main pier, a single ship was tied to this pier but there were no signs of life.
“Down there.” The woman pointed at a tangle of weeds that covered the bank no more than a few feet from the end of the stonework. “It went in there.”
Peck knelt down and leaned over the edge of the dock.
There was no moon but the bright stars cast a little light, enough to see a gap under the tangle of bushes, enough to see the marks where something had been dragged across the mud and into the bank.
He stood up and gestured the others to back up.
He looked at the woman. “Get yourself away woman, and don’t let me catch you here again.”
The woman fled.
Once the woman was out of earshot Peck addressed the others.
“Trapman get yourself back to the station. Rouse one of the drivers and get a wagon ready. Round up four of the night shift. No make it six. Pick good lads. Then go into the Inspectors office, there’s a rack of keys on the wall behind the door. Take the big one with the wooden handle.”
“Sarge, that’s the key to the lock room.”
“I know, which is why I’m sending you to do it. Nice and quiet. A couple of shotguns, some pistols, that pile of axe handles and a few oil lamps. Bring along a keg of oil as well. Remember, nice and quiet.”
Trapman looked nervous but nodded. “Right you are Sarge, it’s on your head.”
~
Nine constables, one sergeant, two shotguns, three police revolvers and a plentiful supply of good oak handles stood watch till the first light of dawn appeared in the sky.
The crew on the nearby ships could not fail to see the men as they stood watch, the two oil lamps lit the end of the dock and the bank beyond and made the shotguns and axe handles plain to see.
By the time it was light enough to see both of the nearby ships had their entire crews on deck, one had steam up and the other had its sails half unfurled. Both cast off as soon as they could see to navigate. Neither captain wanted to stay with such a well-armed group of police clearly looking for something so close by.
Constable Trapman walked closer to Sergeant Peck so that he would not be overheard by the others.
“You reckon its safe now Sarge?”
“Maybe, suns up now so maybe.”
Trapman looked around to make sure none of the other constables could hear him.
“Giant rats sarge, you believe that or is it another one of them things, from the warehouse.”
“Buggered if I know, but we killed that ugly bugger from the warehouse and I reckon we can kill this one.”
Peck looked at the horizon. “Head back to the station in the wagon, leave everything here. Round up the day shift and get half of em down here, send both wagons back with the men. I’ll wait here till the day shift gets here then I’ll go talk to the Inspector.”
“Right you are sarge”.
Constable Trapman walked over to the wagon, woke the driver and climbed up onto the drivers bench. The noise of the wagon leaving alerted the other constables who watched it leave then turned to look at Peck.
“Stand easy lads, he’s off to get the day shift.”
A lot of faces looked happy to hear that. None of these constables had been at the warehouse but they had heard stories and every gossip in Bristol was talking about the monster on the docks. The sun was up, the day shift was on the way and no monster had come out. A good shift by every measure.
~
I woke normally, someone was standing over me. The sunlight was bright, the air smelt fresh. Not long after dawn.
“Inspector. I’m sorry but he insisted.” A nurse came into view pointing toward the door. I lifted my head to see Sergeant Peck standing there, he looked both excited and worried.
“Reckon we found em sir, under the docks.”
Excellent news. I sat up and swung my legs off the bed then stopped as my knee exploded with fire and pain. I must have gasped because the nurse leaned over me looking concerned.
Damn this knee. I had to be there for this.
I picked up the leg brace up from the bedside table, “Nurse help me with this please.” She helped to fit it and pulled the straps tight.
Even with the brace I was barely able to walk, this would not work but I could not just sit here and do nothing. Then my gaze fell on the battered tin that had been sitting next to the brace. Carlyle’s powder.
“That will be all nurse.”
She hesitated then left, I had the feeling she was going to look for doctor Harper but hopefully he was not at work yet. The empty water glass was at hand; I opened the tin and took out the silver spoon. One spoonful, was that flat or heaped? I dipped the spoon in the power and pulled it out heaped as high as possible, powder was trickling down the sides of the heap as I moved the spoon to the glass and tipped the powder in.
My flask was in my jacket; I took it out and hesitated. Seventeen year old Glenlivet, such a waste. I up ended the flask and poured about a double measure into the glass. The powder was slowly dissolving so I used the spoon to stir it.
Finally the powder was gone, nothing but an unpleasant looking film on top of the whiskey.
Oh well, nothing ventured. I drank the glass dry in a single gulp. Such a waste.
Nothing happened. I sat there on the bed and nothing happened.
I waited a minute or two. Nothing was happening.
I looked at the sergeant, he looked at me. Nothing was happening.
My knee was still painful, the bright sunlight coming through the window sparkled and danced on the walls. My fingers tingled. I could hear bells somewhere.
Still nothing happening.
“You alright sir, you look sort of peaky?”
Nothing had happened, the powder had done nothing thought the sergeant was oddly out of focus. Perhaps he was standing too far away for me to see clearly.
I felt sleepy, slow.
Then my pain had gone, my knee felt fine. Suddenly I was cheerful, happy.
I stood, the brace supported my knee and with no more than a twinge I was able to cross the room to my clothes.
I dressed quickly while the sergeant waited in the corridor. Everything was fine.
Once dressed I went out to join him. “Do you have a wagon here sergeant?”
“Yes sir, waiting downstairs.”
“Good man, to the station first for my shotgun then down to the docks. Let’s go find this monster.”
Sergeant Peck was looking at me a little strangely but that didn’t matter. There was no pain, everything was nice and clear again, I felt happy.
We had monsters to hunt.
Peck leaned closer to the woman tried to flinch back but was held by the two constables