Stephen Jones: The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Vol 15

“Then came ‘The Bowmen’?”

“Yes, sir, then along came ‘The Bowmen’.” Despite his age, the old man moved effortlessly through the darkened streets. Stepping over rubble, or sidestepping a bloodied human limb, did not interrupt his faultless discourse. “My story ‘The Bowmen’ wasn’t a great work of literature that had been maturing inside me. Far from it! The tale suggested itself to me on the last Sunday of August, 1914. Before going to church I — like my countrymen — had been reading press reports of terrible calamity on the battle fields of Europe. Our army was in retreat. The Germans were close to breaking through our lines before racing to capture the Channel ports. In short, it looked as if the British nation was doomed. During the singing of the Gospel by the deacon in church I, unbidden, found myself imagining the British Army embroiled in a furnace of torment, agony and death. In the midst of this our brave fighting men were consumed by the flame, yet aureoled in it; they were scattered like ashes and yet triumphant; they were martyred yet forever glorious. I saw our men with a shining about them. And this vision, I suppose you could call it, formed the basis of the story ‘The Soldier’s Rest’, which is a far better work than ‘The Bowmen’. Incidentally, I did write ‘The Bowmen’, despite rumours you might have heard to the contrary that I had secret knowledge of an actual event, or that the manuscript of the completed story was delivered to me by ‘a lady-in-waiting’ and that I simply added my name beneath the title in an act of literary piracy! No, I penned a tale that, although mediocre in execution, I hoped would at least moderate the misery of a small percentage of our people who were living in such unhappiness and fear. And so the story appeared in the Evening News of 29 September 1914. I apologize for making its genesis appear such a profound event. It wasn’t; it was merely a short tale about British soldiers being saved by the ghostly archers of Agincourt. As it appeared in an evening newspaper, I believed it would be forgotten by the time the following morning’s paper arrived on the public’s doormat. However, a month or two later, I received requests from the editors of a number of parish magazines to reprint the tale. As I did not own the copyright of ‘The Bowmen’, my editor agreed. I wasn’t unhappy. If readers’ hearts were lifted by my work then all well and good. However, when letters began to arrive at the office with requests to reprint the story as a pamphlet — together with a plea that I write an introduction, citing the source of my material, giving dates and names of witnesses of the miraculous event — I found myself in very peculiar territory indeed. In short, within the space of a few months, rational men and women the length of Britain — perhaps even the Empire — believed that ‘The Bowmen’ was not a work of fiction at all, but a newspaper report containing nothing but hard fact. In retrospect, I understand that my story delivered a powerful morale boost to the nation. But at the time it turned my life into a nightmare. When I replied to countless hopeful letters that my story was ‘made up’, I was greeted with disbelief. People had read the story in a newspaper so it must be true; that’s how the logic ran. And when I insisted ‘The Bowmen’ was fiction, that it contained not a shred of fact, that was when men and women turned on me as viciously as starving dogs. I was spat upon in the street, threatened with a beating in bars. My wife was pushed to the ground in our own garden when a priest, who’d called to remonstrate with me, didn’t believe that I was not at home. And then another miracle occurred: the miracle of mass self-delusion. When it seemed that I had the upper hand — when at last I began to build an argument that ‘The Bowmen’ was a piece of fiction — some very senior churchmen launched a counter-argument. They conceded that while ‘The Bowmen’ was intended as fiction, I had, in fact, experienced a God-given vision of a genuine miracle: the rescue of our troops on the battlefield by some immortal agency. Moreover, the churchmen claimed I was so conceited, so consumed by greed that I’d passed this wonderful vision off as my own work, whereby I could benefit from the fame it would bring me and become monstrously rich! The public accepted the churchmen’s argument. I was seen as something lower than a swindler and blackmailer.”

Smith glanced at the shadowed face of the writer. “But the money you earned must have helped compensate you for the social discomfort.”

“Money? What money? I didn’t earn a penny from the story. I wrote it as part of my salaried duties for the newspaper. The newspaper owner collected all the royalties and reprint fees, and kept them for himself without so much as a thank-you flung in my direction. There was no money, lieutenant. Not for me. Merely national contempt.”

“So you discount that the churchmen might have been right? That there’s no supernatural element entering into the equation?”

“As I wrote a little while later: ‘Here indeed we have the maggot writhing in the midst of corrupted offal denying the existence of the sun.’ I’m not saying that there was never a supernormal intervention during that war, or this one. Only that I have no evidence one way or the other. And ‘The Bowmen’ is certainly not evidence of such divine intervention. It is a story, a story, a story. Fiction and nothing more.”

The old man awarded the younger one that searching glance again. “But you, Lieutenant Smith, would take the contrary point of view. After all, you say you believe you saw the events of my story take place in reality.”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Then let us prove to ourselves that ‘The Bowmen’ story exists in the real world. Ah! At least the archive hasn’t been blasted to smithereens. If you step through that gateway to your right…”

Smith passed through a gate set in a brick wall. Just along the road he could make out the imposing bulk of the British Museum. Searchlights still probed the clouds’ underbelly. A smell of burning persisted in the air, but here at least the city had fallen silent.

Machen said, “Take care. It’s very dark in this yard. Do you think it would be safe for me to smoke my pipe now… ahm, best not. The rules against naked lights at night are very strict. Now… where is it?”

“Can I help?”

“I’m trying to find the bell push. Good Lord, it’s so dark I can’t see my hand in front of my face… ah, this is it. No, no…” He chuckled. “I’m trying to push my finger into a satyr’s eye. I should add, a carved one. If you could see this old door frame you’d see how intricately carved it is. Ah, this is it.”

Smith heard a bell sound faintly inside the building, and after a long pause a muffled, disgruntled voice came through the carved door hidden in the darkness.

“The archive is closed. Opening hours are nine till five. Goodnight.”

“Benjamin, it’s me. Machen.”

“Arthur? Why didn’t you say?”

“I just did, Benjamin.” Machen’s tone was good-natured. “Aren’t you going to let us enter your fortress?”

“Of course, of course.” There came the sound of bolts being drawn, a key turned, and the darkness changed shade. “Careful how you go, Arthur. I can’t switch on the light until I’ve closed the door behind you. Blackout regulations, you know.”

“Of course, Benjamin. Ah, I have a friend along, too. We’re on something of a quest.”

“Splendid! In you come, then. Ah, terrible tonight. I heard there were two hundred bombers in the formation.”

“Terrible indeed, Benjamin. They won’t rest until they have us living in the sewers.”

Smith walked into an echoing hallway and the door clunked shut behind him. There was another click and a dazzling light lit up the surroundings. Standing close by was an elderly man, stooped and disturbingly frail. Smith noted that he wore an exotic cricket blazer, trimmed with pale blue at the cuffs and collar, a team badge adorning the breast pocket.