Posted on Monday, 31 October 2005
The wind howled around the military camp. It whirled in gusts through the empty spaces between the tents, lifted a flap here or made a fire dance more ferociously there.
Colonel Fitzwilliam scowled as he looked up. Heavy clouds hung threateningly in the sky. For thirteen days the sun had been unable to break through. The world had been drowned in a diffuse greyness that put everyone on edge. Everything was grey. One was not able to tell if that shadow over there was a man or a tree.
The previous day, Smith and Carter had entertained themselves by blindly firing shots at a dark lump that had risen among the uniform grey. It took fifteen minutes to calm everyone down and persuade Smith that Napoleon had not invaded the camp but that the boy had mistaken a stone for the figure of a crouching French soldier.
Everyone was as tense as a coiled spring.
On top of that, now, they had run out of coffee.
The Colonels scowl deepened. The current situation had all the makings of a tragedy of Grecian proportions. His mind was already awhirl with possible doomsday scenarios. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for what was to come.
A soldier is a simple man. His first thought upon making camp is to light a fire. His second is to make a cup of strong coffee. Those who have to stay awake during night shift depend even more on the beverage. Take away the coffee and instead of an alert soldier you are left with a desperate and disconcerted man.
Pretty soon, each patrol turned into a Coffee Search Squad. Into each town or village - however tiny - the regiment passed through or by, a squad was dispatched to run into the local store. To no avail. Apparently, no coffee was to be had in all of continental Europe. Napoleon had cut off all the transport routes, closed the ports and done whatever other fiendish plan he could come up with.
The rather impersonal hatred for the French (a patriotic duty to every British) turned into very personal loathing on part of the Colonel's regiment. Never deprive a soldier of his coffee.
It started on another of these endlessly grey days. Fitzwilliam's regiment had put up camp somewhere in Flanders. No one knew to say where exactly. Everything had looked the same these last weeks. For all that the soldiers knew they could have gone in circles. A village - so very much like every other village in Flanders - was situated nearby and was just like all the others they had passed, deserted. The villagers being quite understandably averse to warfare and dying had long since fled this swathe of land.
This time, though, the patrol came back with exciting news... and a man who had not been gone, yet. For whatever reasons, he chose not to tell. Not that the soldiers bothered to learn why. They had far more pressing matters on their minds.
"Colonel, Sir! There's coffee! A whole greenhouse full," burst out a happy young lieutenant who had been part of the patrol.
The villager was a thin and balding man of middle age. Until then he had retained an air of indifference and recalcitrant defensiveness. Upon the words of the young lieutenant he lost his composure: "No, Sir, don't go there. The place is no good. Don't... don't go there."
As if noting that he had taken too many liberties, the man subsided into fearful silence.
The Colonel looked at him in astonishment: "Pray, tell, why's the place 'no good'?"
The villager, seeing that he was in no imminent danger of being shot or otherwise painfully brought to death, gathered a little courage again: "Why, Sir, it is cursed, that place is."
Fitzwilliam blinked. He certainly had not expected this. Something like the water or earth being poisoned... yes. Montezuma's revenge upon drinking the coffee... yes. These were all possibilities. But a curse... He threw his head back and laughed.
"Cursed," he chuckled. "My, my... Then we'll have to be extra careful when we harvest the coffee, won't we?"
"No! She won't like it. She doesn't like anyone near her greenhouse. Leave her alone. Don't disturb her. She doesn't like that."
The man was babbling now. Frenzied repetitions of the same sentences over and over again. He grabbed Fitzwilliam's arm. The Colonel tried to shake him off but the man's grip was clawlike.
"She? Is she the owner of the greenhouse? I'm sure we'll be able to come to an understanding. I will talk with her."
The villager gave a short, panicked bark of laughter. "Talk with her? You can't talk with her. She's a ghost. A vengeful ghost! Leave her alone. Leave her alone."
This was ridiculous. Curses - ghosts - Fitzwilliam finally shook the man off and in walking away, said: "It may do very well for you to believe there to be such a thing - a ghost - but we are rational British. I assure you, ghosts don't happen to us."
A captain, who had followed him, now grinned: "I beg to differ, Sir. In my family home, we happen to have a ghost. Makes us quite famous. People come from all over England to see him."
Fitzwilliam shot him a withering look: "That's different. That's family."
With a derisive huff, he continued: "But who ever heard of a ghost in a greenhouse? This man is quite mad. Give him some food and send him on his way. Today, we're going to have coffee."
'Today' turned out to be a bit optimistic on the Colonel's part. It was difficult to recruit anyone for the mission. For a bunch of soldiers desperate for coffee, the men suddenly proved to be reluctant to go near the greenhouse. By midday rumours were flying high.
"I heard the plants are guarded by a vampire ghost."
"A vampire ghost?"
"Indeed. It comes and sucks you dry of all your blood. Just like a vampire. But as it's a ghost you can't kill it. You can't stake a body that isn't there."
"Maybe it's guarding the plants because it prefers coffee? Maybe it doesn't care for human blood."
"It's a vampire. How could it go against its nature? Join Sunhaters Anonymous?"
"I heard there's a curse on the greenhouse that turns everyone who tries to take a few beans into a coffee plant himself."
"Yes, curses do that. My great-grandaunt was cursed once. When she woke up the next morning, she was a yeti. Has been ever since."
"Is that hereditary? You're quite hairy."
"Feeling a bit cocky today, aren't you?"
"Isn't being a yeti terribly inconvenient?"
"Oh no, she lives up in the Scottish highlands. Says the fur comes in very handy in the winter."
"That is all very well. But there's a difference between being a yeti and being a coffee plant."
"A coffee plant must lead a boring life. Photosynthesis morning, midday and afternoon. I wouldn't want to be one."
Thankfully, there were a few who thought, like the Colonel, that all this talk about curses, ghosts, vampires, yetis and the likes was bafflegab. There were a few to whom the promise of coffee weighed more than some imagined horror. These brave souls - with the Colonel leading them - set off through the greyness of the afternoon. To boldly go where no man had gone before. To pluck some beans or die trying.
The greenhouse stood on the other side of the village. In fact, it stood well outside the village, in a glade hidden amidst a forest of pine trees.
The small group had just passed the first trees when dusk set in. Not that they noticed. Grey is grey from whichever side of the light you are looking at it. They did notice the darkness that swiftly and quietly took hold of their surroundings. Blackness pressed in on them from everywhere. Even the pine trees seemed to draw closer and the rustle of their needles threatening.
Suddenly, all noise stopped. It was as if the whole world held its breath. They had stepped onto the glade.
There in the middle, right in front of them, stood the greenhouse. It was big; much bigger than they had anticipated. It glowed. Although 'glowing' did not describe it. The whole thing seemed to be very, very faintly illuminated from within the supporting structure. The high vaulted building was in very good condition for a forsaken place. Not one glass panel had broken. Somebody must have looked after it.
The crack of a twig as some unseen animal stepped on it brought the men out of their trance. The world with all her noises came rushing back. As suddenly as they had stopped the voices of nocturnal birds started up again. The dry rustle of the pine needles was back as well.
Yet, it seemed as if all sound was slightly muffled, as if the outside world did not quite dare to fully penetrate the silence of the glade.
Fitzwilliam pulled himself together and barked: "Alright, boys, no more dilly-dallying. We're on a mission here. Let's go in."
Inside, the building seemed even more spacious. Neatly arranged row upon row of coffee plants stretched into an impossible distance. The bushes were laden with beans. The branches drooped under their heavy load, nearly laying flat on the earth. The beans were ripe for picking.
Grinning delightedly at each other, the men took out the bags they had brought along and set to their task.
The harvest took quite a few hours. Not the actual picking of beans - that was accomplished very fast. The beans seemed to almost jump of their own free will into the bags. What held them up was that Jones got lost. No one could say where or when or even how Jones got lost but they searched for him for three long hours. When they found him, the young man could not give any satisfactory explanation either. Wide-eyed and still reeling a bit from the scare, he could only tell of walking along the rows of plants and neither seeing nor hearing anybody.
This the others found improbable for they had combed the greenhouse from one end to the other, all the while calling out his name. Everyone knew that Jones had a bit of a lazy bone. It was suspected that he had sneaked off to have a little nap. Yet, the young man denied any such thing and staunchly stuck to his story.
Shortly before dawn, they arrived back at the camp. Those who had remained there, at first, were reluctant to approach them. But after making sure that none was sprouting leaves or fangs or anything and especially beholding the bags filled with coffee beans, the group was heralded like returning heroes. The greenhouse now seemed like a golden opportunity not to be missed. Coffee! There for the taking!
Almost immediately, new troops were dispatched to gather more beans. Meanwhile large pans were heated over the numerous fires in the camp - the roasting and grinding of the beans went on all day. Soon, a heavenly smell drifted through the camp and fields. Not a few men were seen sniffing the air and surreptitiously wiping their eyes. Aye, this was the stuff coffee dreams were made of. When his adjutant brought him the first cup of coffee - real coffee, not roasted acorn - even Colonel Fitzwilliam had to choke, overcome with emotions.
A message from the headquarters in _____ had come through. They were to remain at their current location and wait for new orders, which suited everyone just fine. Patrol, harvest and roasting shifts were established on the spot. When not a single bean could be found in the greenhouse anymore, the regiment had enough coffee to last them three weeks, at least.
The following night, the guards reported a strange light circling the camp. But the patrol that had been sent out found and saw nothing.
The next night, the guards saw the light again. It had drawn nearer; still circling the camp, making as if to enter only to withdraw again. This time, the patrol did see it, too. Whenever they approached it, though, it disappeared - only to reappear somewhere else a short while later and continue its odd to and fro circle dance around the camp.
Unease grew among the men. Frightened whispers about the cursed greenhouse sprang up again.
Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed them all off: "Someone's trying to fool us. Have you never heard of a thief's lamp? It has shutters on all four sides which can be as much closed or opened as you will. There's nothing mystical about it. In the dark, a man can easily hide himself from a group of people with lights."
He sternly looked at his assembled regiment and continued: "But this has gone on long enough. You've had your fun. I won't ask whoever did this to come forth but I want it stopped. Now! Is that understood?"
The whole camp joined the guards that third night for the watch. Everyone was straining to see something. There was nothing but the usual blackness which marks the night. It seemed the Colonel had been right with his explanation and whoever was responsible had stopped. The circling light did not appear again.
Suddenly, they heard a noise which did not belong.
Clop-clop.
And again: Clop-clop.
The sound grew steadily louder, heading in their direction.
Clop-clop.
The men turned to it.
Clop-clop.
Hands tightened on their rifles.
Clop-clop.
Lips moved in silent prayer.
Clop.
"Good evening, gentlemen. I bring news from the headquarters."
The messenger dismounted his horse. Looking at the crowd before him, he said gaily: "Lord, I've been riding all day. I'm done."
To be true, it was a bit anticlimactic. They had been fully - well, not really - prepared to face a ghost, vampire, any cursed thing - say, a walking coffee plant - and what did they get? A messenger who started sobbing when they gave him coffee. ("I haven't had a cup in weeks!") It was a bit disappointing.
The Colonel looked in exasperation at his men. They did not know what they wanted. One moment, they were terrified because of an imagined whatever and the next, they were disappointed that the world held simpler explanations than something supernatural. They should make up their minds. Superstitious bunch, all of them! He snatched the message from the rider, snatched a new cup of coffee and stomped off to his tent.
Moments later he stalked out again and barked "Light!" in the direction of the crowd. Not bothering to check if his adjutant had heard him, he disappeared back into the tent. There he squinted at the paper and grumbled: "Stupid fools! Writing so small a fly would need a microscope to read it. Where's Sanders with the damn light?"
As if on cue, light appeared.
"Sanders, I can't read any better when you hold the light right behind me."
He did not turn around but impatiently waved his hand. "Go, stay over there."
Obligingly, Sanders moved.
"Now, that's better. Let's see what they have to say ... hm ... hm ... Just another order to move. In two days. You'd think the headquarters would sooner or later tire of letting us randomly traipse from one end of the country to the other. Oh well, to Waterloo it is."
He turned and jerked backwards. What stood behind him was definitely not Sanders. For one, Sanders had a body and that thing had not. It had the faint outline of a body without the actual flesh and bones part. Moreover, the thing looked like a woman. Or at least, had once been and still retained the appearance. It... She didn't hold any light either. Rather she herself was surrounded by a strange glow.
The Colonel said the first thing that came to his mind; which was an exclamation that should not be used in the presence of ladies. Some might now argue that a ghost is a ghost is a ghost and not a lady, so it was not so bad that the Colonel had a little slip of tongue but that is neither here nor there.
Give my babies back.
"What? Are you sure you're in the right place? I don't think we have any babies here. Well, one might say that McDougal acts like one when he doesn't get what he wants but you better not mean him. When he's drunk he's not at all baby-like and his jokes are not funny," Fitzwilliam clamped his mouth shut. He was babbling. Granted he was in a rather unusual position but that did not excuse babbling.
Give my babies back.
"You already said that and I replied that there are no babies in this camp. It could help maybe if you just said where you are from and of whom you speak."
The ghost looked a little lost. After a moment's thought though, she raised her arm and pointed to the exit of the tent.
"This established that you didn't rise through the floor but knowing you come from outside of the tent isn't exactly what I had in mind."
She frowned and pointed again to the exit, this time more impatiently.
"Oh, beyond in that direction! Well, there's the camp, then a bit of nothing in particular, then the village... the pine forest and the greenhouse... Are you the alleged ghost of the greenhouse? I'm afraid, we didn't take any babies from there either, merely the coffee beans-"
MY BABIES!
Fitzwilliam gulped. She considered the beans her babies? Uh-oh.
Give my babies back.
"Well, you see ... uhm ... that might be a bit difficult."
While the Colonel was still groping for words to break the news gently to her, the ghost began to fade. Then she was gone. He was left gaping at the empty place where she had stood.
The sun had risen.
Fitzwilliam flew out of the tent. He grabbed the next best soldier that passed his way and shouted in the poor man's face: "I don't care how you do it. I don't care what you have to do to do it. Get me a villager - any villager! Find that sodding man we had here a few days ago. Whatever! I want an explanation!"
Others had stopped to watch the spectacle. They had never seen their Colonel like this. Only the singularity and utter incredulity of the event must be the excuse for the soldier who now said in near insubordination: "Sir, you seem tense. Maybe you should take a rest. Would you like a cup of coffee?"
"NO!"
Nothing the soldiers said smoothed the matter. Several offers of coffee were rejected, each more ferociously, until the men steered well clear of the Colonel.
Over morning coffee they discussed their superior's drastic behaviour.
"Most unusual. He's never lost his head before. Not like that anyway."
"Have you seen how he rounded in on Johnny? It was only a cup of coffee. The way he acted you'd think it was a cup of pure acid."
"It must be the news from headquarters. They must have been really bad."
"You're right. That's it. Oh my ... do you think we lost the war?"
"What? How? Where did you get that idea?"
"Well, if the news were bad enough to put the Colonel into that foul a mood than they must have been extraordinarily bad. I can't think of anything worse than losing this war."
"Bloody...! We can't have lost the war. My mum'll kill me if we lost. She fully expects me to beat the French."
"She fully expects you to beat the French?"
"Yes, well, her world-view is a bit strange. Her mind's not all the time connected to reality."
"Just like the Colonel today. Finding a villager when everyone's fled long ago ... It's the needle in the hay stack."
"Completely fruitless. They'll find none."
The men were wrong. In the early afternoon, the search troops returned with a villager. In fact, it was the same man who had warned them about the ghost a few days ago.
The Colonel cut right to the chase: "Tell me about the greenhouse."
The civilian looked him up and down: "Ah, you didn't heed my warning. Now, the world has changed, hasn't it? Ghosts can indeed happen to the mighty British, eh?"
Fitzwilliam threw him a look that - it was said - once, in India, stopped a tiger in mid-jump and reconsider. "The greenhouse."
The villager squirmed a bit: "I don't know all the particulars."
Another look from Fitzwilliam hastily put him onto track and he told them what he knew.
Some 50 years ago, a woman had lived in the village on whose orders the greenhouse had been built. She wanted to grow coffee plants for she was addicted to the beverage and coffee was expensive - ridiculously expensive really. For some time, she succeeded. The plants grew and she was happy. But that changed as the years passed and not one bean showed among the green. She was desperate. She wanted coffee. She needed coffee.
None knew why she did as she did. Some said that she made a deal with the devil. That she put the greenhouse under the trickster's protection. She herself certainly believed it. Some said that she was insane. That she imagined it. Whatever it was that prodded her to her actions does not matter. What she did in and of itself was horrible enough.
She had given birth to twins a few days prior to the incident. She killed them, watered her plants with their blood and buried the bodies in a corner of the greenhouse. But that was not enough. She later said, her plants demanded, hungered for more. So she killed the babies of other villagers.
There was a trial. But it was more or less for the records. The villagers were outraged. Nothing but the worst punishment would suffice. They tied her up and buried her in her greenhouse. Alive. A priest spit on the 'grave' and declared the place unholy. Legend said the earth would not stop moving for three whole days afterwards.
When the civilian had finished his story, the Colonel looked decidedly green in the face and several soldiers cautiously edged away from their half-filled cups. Did not that look a bit too red to be coffee? Others had let their cups fall to the ground during the story and now stared disbelieving at the spots of wet soil.
"She used blood to water the plants? And we've been drinking this?"
"Her ghost visited me demanding we give her babies back," added Fitzwilliam sickly.
Never in his life had the Colonel seen a whole regiment so determinedly and quickly decamp. An hour after the villager had left them again, they were already on their way trying to put as much distance between themselves and the cursed greenhouse as possible. They marched well into the night.
The only thing which gave an indication that humans had camped at the place were the bags filled with roasted coffee lying abandoned on the ground. None had even wanted to look at them anymore, let alone carry them along.
The human body is not made for strenuous long periods of being awake and running. When they could not walk anymore, they had to put up camp.
Sleep did not come to them that night. The whole regiment huddled around the fires seeking comfort in the presence of each other.
A whimper alerted them that something was not as it should be. One of the men, to horrified to speak, silently pointed to the outskirt of the ring of fires. Colonel Fitzwilliam turned around.
The coffee bags - the bags they had left behind - lay not five metres from them on the ground.
An unearthly cry filled the night air: MY BABIES!
The ghost appeared. She was furious. She continuously waved her hands, one moment pointing to the bags, the next pointing accusingly at the soldiers. All this was accompanied by her cries: My babies! My babies!
At last, she picked up one of the bags and held it imploringly towards the Colonel and begged: Give my babies back.
Fitzwilliam felt cold fear grip his heart.
"I'm sorry. I tried to tell you yesterday, but there's no way we can undo this. I'm really sorry. We didn't know these were your," he gulped, "babies."
The ghost stood still, very still, for a few moments. She had cocked her head to one side. It looked as if she was deciphering what Fitzwilliam had told her. Then she dropped the bag with a horrified expression. A few more silent moments, she stared unbelievingly at the bags and then she turned to the men.
Her face was contorted with rage. She didn't even remotely resemble a human being anymore.
My babies! My babies! My babies!
Her cries grew louder and louder, drumming on his ears, drowning out all other sounds until his whole world seemed to be made up of her lamentation.
My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies!
Her glow expanded from her. Tendrils of it crept here and there, expanding and joining with each other until the whole camp was under a blanket of light.
My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies! My babies!
Her cries ceased.
Colonel Fitzwilliam and his regiment never reported to duty at Waterloo. Some at the headquarters suspected that he and his men had simply deserted the army. Others would not or could not believe it.
After Napoleon had been soundly defeated and the war won, a troop under Colonel Andrews was sent out to inquire about the missing regiment and learn what they could.
Four days' ride from Waterloo, they found the camp. It seemed in perfect order. The tents were arranged in meticulous rows and everything looked just as it was supposed to look. Except that not a soul was there. Colonel Andrews frowned. Usually, deserters did not leave everything behind.
"Colonel, Sir! There's coffee! Whole bags full!"
"Well, upon my word!" exclaimed the Colonel grinning. "I haven't had a cup in ages! Why don't we enjoy a cup of coffee first and then look into this missing regiment business?"