Sir Ian Peters Read online



  Sir Ian Peters

  By Kevin P Pearson

  Text Copyright 2013 Kevin P Pearson

  All Rights Reserved

  To those that doubt, may you believe.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Katarzyna for her realistic cover picture of poor Sam, caught out on a cold night.

  To get in touch with Katarzyna regarding possible art projects, please contact her directly at the email address below.

  Katarzyna Waszewska-Adamowska

  LABARTE

  Email: [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Pine Meadows 1920

  Chapter 1

  My name is Edward Johnson the third. After dad’s passing in January 2007 at the miraculous age of one hundred and seven, I discovered a hand written document placed very carefully atop precious items and letters of note.

  Having examined these notes in great detail and considered the aging, yellowing pages, along with acknowledging the fact that my father, Doctor Samuel Johnston possessed the most truthful of characters; I can only conclude that the text is entirely genuine. Therefore I have left them for you, my inimitably valued reader to peruse at leisure. I hope you derive as much satisfaction, comfort and humour from them as our family have.

  Dad lived all his long life in the same area of rural Northumberland. It seems he never spent much time revising these notes, writing the document in a very short period, preferring to allow memories to flow as freely as possible. I ask those who choose to read further understand and respect this.

  This manuscript has only been altered by placing quotations at the start of various chapters. Dad adored puzzles such as these more than most of his generation, positive they were: ‘Words of wisdom, the parables of our time!’ I am convinced this is what he would have wanted.

  One month before dad’s sad departure, I received an excited, hurried note: ‘Edward, all has come to pass. I have seen them! All three were present last night, at the very foot of my bed! At their touch I felt their glowing warmth passing through my hands! The feeling was akin to none other! It was nothing less than love, pure, unadulterated love! I did not doubt for one moment that they would visit; only that they would appear in such a truly glorious manner! Edward, believe me, my chamber was illuminated with the power of a thousand suns! Please come at once, with the greatest of haste - There is much we need to discuss.’

  Regrettably, I did not arrive till the morning after his passing. I was otherwise engaged on the Africa savannah, in the heady endeavour of setting up a charitable trust, proving to be of great benefit to the indigenous Bemba tribe and their wildlife. By the time I laid eyes on dad’s urgent request, a month had already dissolved into the constantly expanding ether.

  The nurse on call on the night dad alluded to in his final communication confirmed that there had been an extraordinarily bright light issuing from all areas of his bedroom door. At the time this was thought to be dad’s work, reliving youthful experiences. Folk surmised he was being mischievous, purely for fun of course. It’s widely accepted the very elderly often do this kind of thing. I’m sure every one of us has this playful urge still buried somewhere, for we never truly lose this gift. Thankfully I still see it daily, a purse of the lips when discussing a particular subject, that certain sparkle in the eyes - not least is it more apparent in some of the most interesting, endearing people I know.

  When Dad awoke the next morning he reported he’d been blessed by the deepest, most refreshing night’s sleep since his one hundredth birthday celebrations. Such was the plane of his exquisite rapture at the night’s proceedings his exhilaration never fell below this standard. Over the next month this elevated mood never faltered.

  (Enclosed notes)

  20th May 1970.

  Dearest Edward,

  my most trusted Son,

  Considering I am advancing in years and old father time is slowly shaping me as he does us all, and although I have recently passed the very respectable age of seventy years and true, have no fear! I have no plans to retire from the genuine pleasure of your company anytime soon. So, if you should happen on this letter before I’ve the opportunity to discuss its content with you in full, please don’t take your discovery as some sort of strangely predictive fond farewell! For tis merely a moral tale, albeit an entirely true one, which I feel demonstrates in a small way the complexities of life and our still highly uncertain position in it.

  In order to fully satisfy my mind, I need to be as certain as possible that I have provided you with the absolute truth in this matter. I should also like to impress upon you to keep this letter close to your heart in a safe place, for the sake of your children and theirs.

  Edward, I have absolute faith in you to produce these notes at the exact moment necessary, precisely at the moment in your family’s lives when you think they will do most good. Take my word you need not worry yourself one jot with such suspicious thoughts of madness, nor choose to disbelieve these words because they seem bizarre, or suspect they are purely the influence of an aging mind. Just be aware at all times of their absolute veracity. I can assure you, my faculties are still of the highest standard, uncannily close to my younger days in 1920 when these curious events unfolded.

  You will of course, excuse mistakes in spelling, phrases or similar errors in punctuation I may have made, as I have never professed to be much of a writer of tales, much preferring the aural theatre in this regard. I didn’t choose that particular forum for this account as I’d sworn a solemn oath never to reveal these events till a series of signs became known, assuring me I had leave to do so. Once I have sworn allegiance to such an undertaking, nothing can convince me to the contrary.

  On that note: That none of my family would lie to their neighbour for their own financial gain overwhelms my person with the greatest of pleasure and grants me the very height of contentment. I fear I may have rambled too long with these preliminary notes, and my actual tale may prove a bit of an anti climax. I can only pray it will not appear that way. Perhaps its true meaning will shine through in the end?

  Edward, due to the substantial price of such things back in 1920 there exist precious few pictures of any of us from that era, thankfully least of all me. But I may as well make a clean breast of it and tell you in my early twenties I was a tall, thin, gangly youth, one of those whom sprouted early. In fact by sixteen I’d already reached my maximum height of an impressive six foot one. Unfortunately the rest of my body did not wish to follow suit. Muscles, there were none. My upper torso erroneously gave the impression of a soul damned to suffer the endless torment of eternal malnourishment, whilst my unusually protracted face successfully carried the ensanguine pallor of one cursed with a singular aversion to our sun.

  What passed for hair was an abhorrent straw like mixture of deep, rich brown and darkened ginger, growing every which way possible at unbelievably different rates. The only possible advantage of this was it served to take notice away from my matching set of unfeasibly large ears. All barbers then and since have thrown their hands up in complete despair. I do not blame them one jot.

  With my body ‘twas an impossible task to tr
y and restore any semblance of order, one thing which I craved ceaselessly in all areas of life. Thankfully the more I searched for order, the easier it became to uncover. ‘twas a beautiful discovery, almost as if it wanted this to be so. To my mind order as a concept can be summed up in a whole host of ways. For instance, in society absence of order would allow the strong to continually prey unchallenged upon the weak. Order consists of an immaculately clean library of perfectly aligned books strictly alphabetized for ease of function to the time challenged scholar.

  For me I found order of a most invigorating kind in the exciting field of mathematics. We all learn early on in our lives order exists in the perfect alignment and calculable orbit of our galaxy’s planets in conjunction with our life giving sun. Order is always at work unsleeping in the natural world all around us, regardless of whether we acknowledge it or not. To my mind, a world without order is one where only chaos reigns.

  My impromptu lecture could go on, so foregoing the unnecessary need to over dramatise a single iota - without order not a single one of us would be alive today. But above all back then I believed order was there to save us time. And time we are told is one of the few constants in our universe, is indescribably precious and woe betide one who foolishly squanders it. For as a wise soul once philosophised: ‘One does not want to reach the hour of one’s death, only to find that one has not lived.’ At least I used to think this way.

  Of course all these former points were and still are perfectly valid for ninety nine percent of our world’s population. By now you can confirm that order gave my life a deeper meaning along with immense comfort and in some ways still does. I was once graced with the good fortune to have an awfully good friend who envied and ridiculed me equally for these very same thoughts, though he’d never admit it.

  But tell me, what if one day all order were snatched away from you in a single moment and replaced with gnawing, abject uncertainty? How then may you react? Please bear with me, stay a while if you will, and if I can I shall endeavour to convey the significance underlying these confusing words.

  Note: Whilst the youngest, most mischievous amongst you may well consider these types of games old hat, I can assure you that in my day such self indulgent pastimes were almost entirely new and their effectiveness very real. Suffice to say, I’d lost count of the occasions such terrible pranks had befallen my sorry person. A desperate admission indeed coming from the mouth of a well accomplished mathematician.

  If I were to readily admit to you in my youth I was plagued, this statement wouldn’t be as far from the truth as you might imagine. This particular plague came not from the usual form of rats, mice, spiders or cockroaches. Nor was it born from any similar crawling beasties the vast insect kingdom has to offer. No sir, it sprang forth from the thoroughly evil mind of a far more cunning animal. One possessive of no rules of conduct nor morals which blight most folk; namely my younger sibling of twelve years, my true nemesis, Edward.

  Sadly it appeared little Edward’s maturity had not yet caught up to his high intellect. If one had not had far more pressing, more mature matters to attend to, then I’d gladly have devoted all of my waking life, as well as all the world’s resources in order to rectify such a mystifying anomaly.

  Edward’s entire existence, his all consuming passion was the careful erection of certain childish traps, or engagements as he liked to call them. Their sole purpose was to ‘meet the mission objective,’ which inevitably took the form of my person being sprayed with some noxious, sticky substance at the most unexpected and inconvenient moments. Normally this would happen with his full knowledge that I was expected at an important engagement and wore my very best attire.

  I later discovered that Edward kept a detailed diary, hidden not quite carefully enough under his bedroom floor, containing notes on all previous engagements. Each completed mission had been carefully marked using a scoring system on a sliding scale, considering how well they’d played out. His results had been pretty impressive. Also included in his art of war were complex strategies for future sorties, including back up plans and exit strategies - devices in case the rare, the unthinkable happened and the mission went pear shaped.

  My heart fell when I found no hints concerning actual future dates, still further reading the bold, underlined note at the back: ‘No information concerning forthcoming mission particulars can be released at this time, due to the fact that enemy intelligence networks can never be underestimated, nor their abilities to become cognisant of our cunning designs. Spies are around us at all times, ready at a moment’s notice to ruthlessly tear our army’s heart asunder. Forthwith you are now duly reminded that is regarded as very poor show to avail yourself surreptitiously of other people’s affairs. In other words, mind your own damn business!’ signed General Claus Gordon Davis of the queens own regiment, first battalion.’ Such insane ramblings beggared all belief.

  In order to furnish you with just a tiny inkling of how Satan’s advocate’s mind operated, I shall detail one of his earlier sorties, so you can judge its crazed heights and sit in wonder at his sheer lunacy.

  As Edward’s relentless campaign intensified, he resorted to far more ingenious devices. Consequences falling on me were catastrophic. That fateful day I’d had a particularly busy day at the office, completing many complex calculations. Back home I was greeted by my strangely attentive sibling’s bulging eyes, who was currently engaged in the messy, but highly important job of munching away on a batch of chocolate cakes.

  Evidently these buns had been freshly baked to absolute perfection. Quickly grabbing the largest one before his gluttonous hands lighted on it, I soon reduced it to an extremely small pile of crumbs. And why not? Hadn’t I truly earned it? Throwing Edward a quick salute of success, which he happily accepted, but not being the type to stay too long basking in the warm glow of victory, I retired to the relative safety of my bed to sleep off the day’s toils which had left me tired and slightly vulnerable.

  I awoke only an hour later with a terrific start. Angry, thunderous monsters rumbled deep down in the pits of my stomach. Realising immediately what had to be done I took flight via the back door, stumbling through the heavy cold night air to the outside toilet at the bottom of the garden, which was the fashion at the time.

  On arrival, barely had I toasted my miraculous success and assumed the required position, when my bowels opened up with such a furious vengeance that can never, ever be described accurately. Truly, it was all I could do, considering the shortness of breath, but whisper a series of plaintive bleats for help, whilst deeply contemplating the sheer futility of further existence.

  I will forgo the intricate details as to the results to ones psyche on finding out that some hideous merchant, specialising in negative energies, cleverly, carefully and with deep malice of forethought, had tightly covered the entire toilet pan with a new, almost transparent substance. Those of you living in the civilised world will recognise this material as cellophane. Need I say more? Resulting back blasts were literally of tidal proportions.

  Not only that, just try to guess at the depths of my dismay on the terrible discovery that all means of cleaning material, including paper tissues were strangely absent. I soon partly regained the power of speech. My cowed mewing then quickly escalated beyond all conscious control, eventually giving full unrestrained voice to the true heights of dreadful anguish. Horrifying screams of the most telling nature brought my parents rushing outside, plunging headlong into the inky darkness, ready to fight off my raging murderer.

  If the dim glow of my parents old lanterns didn’t reveal the true level of my misery, then passing neighbours certainly did, considering they were working country folk whose modern torches produced optimum illumination. One of them had rushed over, despite living nearly two miles away!

  While this saga unfolded, amongst the furore, as I stumbled around the garden in a shameful state of undress, shocked, dazed, confused, and, er, still not quite finished, I fancied I heard th
e unrestrained sounds of the mad general. Wild uncontrollable giggling drifted from the warmth and safety of his bedroom window. I am certain my wild eyes made out the vague silhouette of his repulsive, twisted person passing slyly amongst lengthy shadows created by the thin drapes.

  Next day huge swollen red tear lines were apparent, travelling down from Edward’s eyes, way past his mouth. Believe me these were not from sadness. I will not impress on you exactly how long it took to rid myself of the foul smell, using only the customary tin bath with cold water and lashings of cheap soap.

  To this very day my local reputation still hasn’t recovered from such a devastating blow. I seriously doubt it ever will. E.g. - Mrs Sue Jenkins who still lives at the farm down the road is just one of the affected parties. Every month without fail the old dear calls in person to collect money for her delicious fresh milk and eggs. She tries her level best to disguise it, bless her; but I know exactly what she is thinking!

  My firm belief is ‘twas only the intervention of divine wisdom, the healing power of earnest prayer and a smidgeon of hope in some form of eventual justice that kept my mind from developing some sort of unhealthy obsession with the posterior, along with a not unreasonable fear of unlit lavatories. Briefly I even considered using the garden incognito for this purpose, but that would have presented its own set of problems, especially under cover of night. One also grants my singular, stout, unwavering mindset kept these insidious demons at bay. To this very day the general hasn’t truly admitted his guilt in this disgusting affair.

  I held grave suspicions that this escalation in events was designed as some sort of final crushing blow, in order to effect my unequivocal surrender, thereby bending me forever to the general’s evil will. I could only hope that I hadn’t read the situation correctly and pray this would be the end of all further hostilities, at least on this scale.

  All intelligence gathered from some of the general’s bible’s many stratagems was the possibility that I’d been successfully hit by an entirely original three pronged approach, one along the same lines as the well known pincer movement, but greatly modernised.

  During carefully phrased intensive questioning, the general did concede that was indeed an adroit suggestion, but asked: ‘Did I still not grasp the realities of my particular style of thinking? After all, on some reflection this particular raid had taken the distinct form of a four pronged attack. Besides, had I also forgotten that in the grim, harsh realities of modern warfare casualties were to be expected? Commanders call this ‘collateral damage.’

  Apparently it gave him little pleasure to hear of such reprehensible approaches, but sometimes war veterans suffered from battle fatigue, which was regrettable, but only to be expected and not entirely unusual. Assuredly as night turns into day, as soon as his communication tent was back up and running, which had allegedly been the sad victim of a cowardly bombing run, he’d make no mistake in contacting the squad in question, thereby ensuring he received their sworn statements.

  “Really,” he smirked, “How can a general honestly be expected to be called to account for the actions of a small number of renegade troops?” Such politically styled philosophising did not impress me, not one jot. No, not in the slightest. He’d be hearing of this and more when his duly appointed court hour arrived. Justice would prove swift and decisive.

  Pushing my perceived advantage a little too far at times, I learned to wait for opportunities suggestive of his weakness. Times of obvious physical fatigue or trifling illness became firm favourites.

  “So, a highly decorated General, with no troops, eh? Where are they today then, out on manoeuvres? A veritable one man army you are and no mistake!” were amongst many intelligent lines I cheekily ventured.

  “’tis uncannily fortunate fate smiles upon you in such a loving fashion, that these facts stand so resolutely as they are. For what delicate flavours might you be forced to taste if there were but two of me!?” came the annoyingly witty riposte.

  For months following the previous distasteful toilet incident, usually in company he’d deliberately catch my eye, sniff the air like a wild animal, then work his way up to a low snigger, nudging me continually. I also had the misfortune to have borne witness to accompanying behaviour of this nature, even when the general wasn’t conscious of my person. On at least two instances I became rather disquietly aware of him breaking into insane peals of laughter, evidently replaying this episode in his mind, no doubt along with other choice ones, time after time.

  As time progressed I had to admit to myself that I’d obviously made a schoolboy faux pas in letting my guard down. This could never be allowed to happen again in the face of such an uncompromising enemy. I knew the risks, but chose to ignore them, consequently paying the ultimate price.