The Devil's Throat by David Rafer
Published 05 January 2012 as part of the Writing East Midlands and Lincolnshire Echo Short Story Competition
I remember the gulls crying that January morning in 1866, forlorn as they wheeled under the leaden winter sky whilst the dark sea refused to yield the souls of the dead. I was young then, the chill pools on the sand reflecting the smooth features of my face in broken rivulets. I hiked over dangerous, soft, sandy cliffs grimacing as I saw the crumbling ruin of the old lighthouse tower perched precariously on the edge like a listing gravestone. The lighthouse was to fall that night but its keeper, as I was to discover, couldn’t leave.
I reflected on what I knew of this place. The Devil’s Throat a notorious area for sailors, its treacherous sands ensuring the need for a guiding beacon. Before 1669, ‘ecclesiastical lights’ shone from the local church but a succession of lighthouses built since had met with ill-luck, doomed to abandonment and leading to the ruin of their owners such as the lighthouse of 1669 that ended up with ‘no fire kept in it’. The Old Lighthouse of 1792 was more successful being fitted with revolving oil lamps but, in the new era of electrical lighthouse construction, I had been charged with the responsibility of evicting the keeper before it fell into the sea.
Much of the cliff had eroded and fallen, relentlessly harried by implacable North Sea storms. The bleak, rotting, vestiges of wooden sea defences stuck up from the beach like the broken spine of a sea monster half-submerged in frothy white foam. Unfolding the company letterhead, I read my instructions. I was to ‘ensure the lone occupant of the Devil’s Throat Lighthouse complied with all the articles of the marine safety code by vacating said lighthouse immediately’. The whole cliff was unstable and the engineer reckoned it could fall at any moment so why did the Keeper stay?
Unfortunately, communicating our concern hadn’t been easy. Letters were difficult to get through as the locals avoided the place. Now that I’d seen it, I understood their trepidation. It had taken me a long carriage ride and a stiff walk to reach this remote spot. I carefully negotiated the dangerous cliff path, nearly falling before reaching the base of the lighthouse and rousing the Keeper. When the door creaked open, a choking smell of coal and oil struck me, grating my throat as the sallow Keeper curtly acknowledged me, his tangled beard seeming part of his thick, fishermen’s jumper as he let me enter. Blackened oak panelling limed with soot followed the Tower’s curving inner walls, winding around the cramped stairwell making me giddy as I followed Old Smokey, as the Keeper was known, up into the Keeper’s quarters, a sparsely furnished cell, no more than bunk bed and table. I thought the man’s name appropriate given the terrible, choking conditions inside his infernal tower so unlike those in the electric lighthouse being constructed on one of the more stable eastern cliffs.
I arrived at his quarters gasping for breath and scarcely in a fit state to explain the reason for my visit.
“You…must…leave… It’s not safe!” I waved the engineer’s report, breathing more slowly. “You are to vacate this place forthwith.”
Old Smokey’s jaundiced, yellow face stiffened, his eyes gleaming like coal embers under thick, bushy eyebrows as he retorted, “This is my place, I’ll not abandon it for thee, stranger.” He simply refused to be reasonable and leave the wretched tower before it fell into the sea. I reasoned I couldn’t be held responsible for his actions but knew my superior wouldn’t see it that way. “It’ll be dark soon,” Old Smokey muttered. “Thee’d best be gone before sundown.”
“What? I’ve only just arrived!”
“Company man or no, you ain’t welcome, Mister.” Despite further argument, I somehow found myself outside the lighthouse as Old Smokey slammed and bolted the door behind me. I shouted but failed to rouse him and wondered if he was deaf or hard of hearing, mad, or both. He’d scarcely heard a word of my warning.
Dreading another walk over the crumbling cliff path, I began climbing down a steep gully, the descent difficult but possible. It wasn’t a route I would have attempted had the cutting wind been stronger but somehow I got down safely and set to walking back to the village as whispering waves lapped the beach. I negotiated two more coves before looking up to find no sign of the drayman to take me back to Norwich.
“Confound it!” I was stuck out here having achieved absolutely nothing. I crunched up the shingle and came at last amongst the scant houses with their drab closed doors and shuttered windows that gave no comfort as I knocked and rattled each in turn until giving up in frustration. Night descended, brooding about me, its coldness stealing my warmth.
From behind me a voice said, “There’s a storm coming.”
I spun round to find an old fisherman behind me on the shingle. “Impossible, the forecast was good.” I asked if he knew where I could find a bed for the night but shaking his head he slammed and bolted his cottage door without replying. With everywhere closed, I had no choice but to take the long walk back to the one place that couldn’t deny me entry. The night chill wrapped about the Devil’s Throat as I returned to the grim lighthouse on the cliff, reasoning that, as I was a Company man working for the owners of the building, naturally I had a right to stay overnight. I intended to leave the ghastly place the moment it became light, hopefully never to set foot in it again. Avoiding the cliff path I made my way back along the beach, the wash of the tide taunting me, revealing things in the swell that I couldn’t quite make out. I braved the swirling water, wading out to see a bony hand stretching towards me but the water rolled in, submerging it before I could get near enough to be certain. It wasn’t only the chilling cold that made my skin goose as I waded back, stepping carefully around the shifting sands before reaching the cliff. I quickly began the steep climb up to the lighthouse. It was utterly dark by the time I reached the cliff-top and again tried to rouse the Keeper, banging as hard as I could upon the door.
“Let me in!” I cried. “Give shelter, damn you!”
The door creaked open and my heart skipped several beats as I saw the shocking face of the Keeper loom through a sulphur-tinged haze. I barged my way inside, angry at my fear and almost defying him to stop me.
“There’s a body out in the bay,” I gasped. The cold wind died as the door banged shut behind me and the Keeper lit a candle to guide our way up to the crew quarters. When we arrived, he set the candle down on the bare table and nodded to the bunk.
“’Can’t be helped you’re here. Just stay out of things, Mister, and you may survive the night.”
“But what about the body in the bay?” I called it a corpse though there had been scarcely any flesh left.
“There’s a storm coming. Many lost bones get washed up on these shores when a storm’s coming.”
Cold and hungry, I dried myself as best I could in this dismal chamber. My reluctant host went to tend the oil lamps on their revolving frame whilst I paced the floor. A search of the bare cupboards yielded no food or drink. As I peered out of the tiny window, I saw a pitch-blackness dropping in, darker than it should be for any normal night and made worse by a clinging, unnatural fog that sprang from the sea and shrouded the cliffs. I couldn’t leave now. I’d never negotiate the cliffs in the dark.
As the hours passed and the candle light lulled me, I drifted into a troubled sleep only to wake in a cold sweat in the witching hour, thinking a bell was sounding from hell itself. Impenetrable fog merged with inky blackness across the bay as I realised that death knell was real enough. There was a ship out there, its tolling bell casting the same sound that had roused me from my terrible dream into the nightmare now unfolding, for the light, the guide needed to save the mariners’ lives, was no longer shining.
I ran up the stairwell, round and round, fearing I’d never reach the top. Finally, I burst onto the platform barrelling into the Keeper. Impossibly, I saw it was true; the lamps on the revolving frame were covered.
“Open the covers, man, let shine the light!”
“It stays dark.”
“What?”
“You heard me, stranger.”
“You can’t do it, those people will be killed.”
“That’s as maybe but the light stays off till this night’s end, as is the Devil’s due.” The Keeper stared right through me as I rounded on him, grappling with his dessicated, deadness but his strength overthrew me.
“You must keep the light on, sound the horn, anything!” The cries outside came hard upon the sound of the ship’s timbers cracking.
“When I came here I was just a boy. I soon realised I couldn’t save the ships with this poor light no matter how hard I worked, so I struck a bargain with the real owner of the Devil’s Throat.”
I guessed his meaning, “To switch off the light at the height of a storm? To murder innocent lives?”
“Only for this one night of the year must I let ships be wrecked on the Throat’s shifting sands and jagged rocky teeth. For the rest I save more lives than ever were before. It isn’t an easy bargain but consider the alternative.”
“Then I break your contract old man!” Furious, I wrenched him aside, pulling free the lamp shields so that light once more streamed out across the sea. “There, it’s done. Whatever hellish bargain you’ve struck is over. Will you now sound the fog horn and save those lives?” but such a strange look of terror passed across his grimy face that I felt suddenly afraid.
“You don’t know what you’ve done; the Devil will have his due!” Suddenly the floor lurched and crumbled. I ran from the lamp room, fearing for my life and not sure whether the light had saved the ship or not until I heard its bell ring and realised it had somehow steered itself to the safety of open water once more despite the damage ripped into its rigging. The Lighthouse toppled at last, at such an angle that my feet left the stairs and I nearly fell but Old Smokey pulled me back and helped me to work my way down. We climbed quickly, half falling to the entrance where I clasped the handle and opened the door but my rescuer stood back from the threshold.
“Come on, the tower’s falling!”
“Contract’s broken,” he kept muttering. “It’s time to pay my side of the bargain. I can’t leave.” I pulled at his arm but he was rooted to the ground more surely than if he were a stump of English oak.
“Come with me man, save yourself!”
“I can’t,” he cried, “I can’t. I have to pay the price.” I scrambled out and ran across the cliff only to stop when the ground finally calmed. When I looked again, the lighthouse and most of the cliff had gone.
I somehow clung to the new cliff-top until it was light enough to make my way to the safety of the shore. By the time I’d climbed down, the tide had receded and the storm had passed, taking its grim contents once more out into the deep. Of the lighthouse only a few curving bricks remained amongst a pile of rubble and sand, as the sea whispered ‘pay the price’ to the winds.
