The Angel of the Vail

by Wentworth M Johnson

Without delay the Scot ran into the Vail. All was silent. The sound of clashing swords had gone. Not even a bird whistled. It was a damp and dismal day; fog rolled in over the rocks where the battle had been. There were no bodies, no sign of a fight at all …

Investigating the mystery of the sudden and unexplained appearance of three dead bodies on an English moor an intrepid explorer becomes embroiled in the strangest mystery of all times. Lurking in the Valley of the Vail is the deadly answer for all to find.

Book Format

hardcover, Kindle, paperback

Reading Age

13 to Adult

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Chapter 1

The Legend of the Vail
Chapter 1
For all my pain and agony, for all the years of sweat, the only thing I have to show is a broken half of a sixteenth-century sword. I must go back; the need is like a narcotic I cannot resist at least not for long. It seems that my very being is over there and not here at all.
For the sake of those who come after me, I must leave this document in an attempt to explain. I came to England from Canada to work and found myself embroiled in the most fantastic adventure. I suppose it began with my interest in old legends of the moors.
There are so many legends and stories that people scoff at or just brush off as nonsense. Personally, I never do. I like to investigate and see for myself if there is any semblance of truth hidden behind the romance. People all over the world invent stories to explain the unexplainable, to make the impossible at least seem plausible.
This particular time I was in a local pub, The Castle Inn, on Nid Lane near South Tulloch in Bodmin Moor, England. I was minding my own business downing a pint of best bitter when I heard the barman talking in low tones, almost whispers. It sounded quite interesting; he was telling someone about something called the Vail.
With my pint in my hand I sidled up to the bar. “You reckon there’s truth in the Vail story,” I said with confidence.
“Truth,” he echoed, “be there truth in the ’oly Bible?”
“Well, er, yes,” I said.
“Do ’ee know the tale of the Vail?” he asked.
“Well as a matter of fact, no,” I said apologetically.
He leaned over the bar. “People don’t mention it much round hereabouts. See tha’ ol’ feller in tha’ corner?”
“Yes.”
“Goo see ’ee, ’is name be Tom, ’ee’l tell ’ee what ’ee wants to know.”
“What does he drink?” I asked placing money on the counter.
The barman pulled a fresh pint. “’ere take ’ee thus, will ply ’is mind and lubricate ’is lips.”
I took the pint and sat opposite old Tom. The old man was lightly bearded and somewhat dirty. “Here’s a pint for you,” I said with a smile.
“What fur yee buy me a pint?” he said ungratefully.
“I would like to know about the Vail of mystery, and I’m told you are the leading expert.”
The old man chuckled then took a good long suck at the beer. “So ’ee wants ta know about tha Vail?”
“Yes please.”
As if some hidden button had been pushed, his eyes narrowed, his voice lost its West Country accent. “The moors are a place of great mystery and have been so for all times. There’s a place by Tulloch’s Load where an angel was cast down from the sky for lying. The angel was to stay there until he could get a passer-by to believe he was an angel.
“On the twelfth night after a full moon you can see him still. BUT beware; his lying has never stopped.”
“If you see him what happens?” I asked.
The scruffy old man looked me straight in the eye, “If I knew that I would be with them that are not ’ere.”
He would not speak any more. He just turned his back towards me and totally ignored any advances that I made. I sat for a while thinking, it wasn’t much of a legend. In fact it wasn’t much of a story. The whole thing was rubbish, not even worth investigating.
I have to admit I was not very intrigued, or even interested. There was nothing to investigate, nothing to see. Tulloch’s Load was quite a well-known cairn or pile of rocks. No one seems to know why it’s there or how long it’s been there.
A few days later the story of the Vail had slipped completely from my mind but was suddenly wrenched back with a sickening thump. I was in another pub more than ten miles from Tulloch’s Load. Whilst conversing with the barmaid, my eyes fell upon the headlines of a local newspaper that was folded and lying on the bar.
‘Knight of the Round Table Found Dead.’ Silly heading, but the first line caused ice in my veins. ‘Again, a body has been found near the feared Tulloch’s Load.’
Slowly I unfolded the paper and read how this was another in the never-ending series of unexplained deaths. It seems that twice before in living memory dead people had been found near the Load. The peculiar thing being that in all three cases they were wearing ancient original medieval clothing. None of the bodies were ever identified.
The very latest victim was a middle-aged male, wearing a toga and chain mail. He had been killed by a single blow to the throat. A large red Maltese cross emblazoned on his blood-stained linen tunic.
The words of old Tom echoed through my mind. “If I knew that, I would be with them that are not ’ere.” If only old Tom had been more explicit. There was only one thing for it, I had to visit Tulloch’s Load.
I figured that I may as well do it properly. The library would be able to tell me when the full moon would be. Unfortunately it was a 20-mile drive to the nearest decent library. I made good my visit – I found out that all three bodies arrived on the twelfth night after a full moon.
The first body arrived twenty-eight years ago; it was an old man. The clothes were crude and handmade. The curator of the local museum said the clothes and the broken arrow that was sticking out of his chest were excellent replicas of pre-tenth-century artefacts.
The second visitor who only arrived two years ago was a giant of a man, in height and stature. He was dressed in iron armour and mail of the fifteenth century. The man appeared to have been beaten to death. There were no puncture wounds. Grasped tightly in his lifeless hand was the sharp end of a lance.
The oddest thing – he wore no shoes. He carried no sword or sign of any other weapon. All three unidentified bodies arrived roughly two weeks after the full moon. Not one was ever identified. The police believed them to be accidents in some secret society or other.
The plot seemed to be thickening. It was all so very blatant and obvious, why had no one investigated the coincidence of the twelfth night before? It had to be some terrible joke; everyone knew but no one seemed to care. I could hardly wait for the twelfth night to arrive to see for myself.
Tulloch’s Load was very hard to find, and not at all what I had expected – a small stack of quite small rocks, about 8 feet high and maybe 6 feet across the base. The capstone was larger than the pile stones giving it a look of some giant grotesque mushroom.
Someone had scratched into the stone, ‘Vail of the Devil’. And of course, there were thousands of initials carved into the rocks. I began to think that the whole thing was very silly. What on earth was I doing miles from civilization in a very unfriendly environment, with my bed pack, and no means of escape except on foot?
For those of you who have never seen a moor, they are a freak geological formation of vertical strata – a desolate terrain, friendly only to the bugs, snakes, and other vermin; thorn bushes, moss and coarse grass, great rocky outcrops here and there; the whole thing windswept and unusually colder than the normal ambient temperature outside the moor.
Bearing all this in mind, darkness approached, there was no moon, and it had begun to rain. I huddled in a crevice sheltering from the inclement weather, wishing that I had not been so stupid. I could have been in a warm bed enjoying the dryness of indoors.
Time passed interminably slowly, I assumed that the bewitching hour would be at about midnight. At around eleven or so I walked around the Load and searched for the angel. I didn’t notice the time, but it must have been around midnight when I saw a window about half a mile to the west.
There were no buildings within three miles of this place, yet there was a window out there on the moor. Nothing else at all transpired, except I got thoroughly soaked, had a very uncomfortable night, and learned nothing. It would be a month before I could try again; if I should decide to do so.
About three days later in broad daylight I went to Tulloch’s Load and looked for the cottage that produced that light in the mysterious window. There was nothing, I could not find any trace of any building. Whilst searching for it I made the decision that no matter what, I must identify that window. Returning the next night with telescope, flashlight, and compass I awaited the appearance of the window. It never appeared. My conclusion was that it must have been someone with a tent camping out on the moor. After all what else could it have been?
It is very hard to admit failure, especially for me. I was so close to the truth that I decided that I would give it yet one more try. Again, I waited the twelfth night after the full moon. Again, I hid near the Load. This time it did not rain, but it was still cold, particularly cold for September. Lo and behold, at midnight the window appeared. Carefully I checked the direction with my compass. The sight of it through the telescope filled my veins with ice.
There must, I thought, be something wrong with my telescope, the window was not a window at all. The whatever it was looked like a shimmering luminescent waterfall, glimmering and shining in cascades of silvery sparks. How foolish, I thought, it’s merely the moon shining on water, but there was no moon nor was there any water that I could remember.
Darkness on the moor is almost absolute, there was no way that I could navigate to that place where the thing sparkled. I decided to make good use of my sleeping bag and my hiking tent. I would spend the night warm and check out that waterfall by the light of day.
In the morning, I was awakened rather rudely by a large foot kicking the end of my sleeping bag. With my eyes full of sleep and having great difficulty to focus, I crawled from my roost. There stood an old man, a very weather-beaten old man. He was dressed in very dirty rags.
“What’s up?” I greeted.
“What are you doing ’ere?” he said gruffly, his red whiskers waving in the breeze.
“I was sleeping,” I said indignantly. My eyes were beginning to clear. I could feel ice beginning to flow in my veins as I carefully observed that dreadful apparition before me. The words of old Tom echoed through my head. ‘On the twelfth night after a full moon you can see him still. But beware; his lying has never stopped.’
“Who are you?” I asked with authority.
“If you are looking for the Vail, you be a fool. Go back from wherever you come, and do not return.”
What a peculiar sight this man was; large in stature and at least 6 foot 4 tall, unkempt red beard and hair. He was wearing a very dirty tricorn hat, very baggy riding britches of dingy-blue hue, and a dark-grey, mud-spattered jacket with a sort of poncho. Though his hair was long on his left side it looked as though his ear was missing. There was a slight ring of Scottish in his West Country accent.
“Go,” he said roughly.
Not to be perturbed by the filthy old vagabond, I nonchalantly bent down to retrieve my sleeping bag. There was a light mist and it was daylight. I could not have been more than two or three seconds, but when I looked up he had gone. This mysterious person was as elusive as the wind. Could it be that I had met and talked to the Angel of Tulloch’s Load.
Hanging around a cold and wet moor in the fall, or at any time, was not a good pastime, and definitely not my favourite sport. Unfortunately my time was running out, I had to return to Canada. Though I spent the rest of the day searching, I couldn’t find any trace of the water, or the vagabond.
This story would never have been written but for an inexplicable series of coincidences, fate, or the angel himself having preordained it. When I returned to Canada, I was billed for a double room at the Castle Inn. Although I had visited the Castle Inn, I most certainly had never stayed there. The bill was for one entire month, the same month I was in Cornwall.
About a year later the communications company I work for sent me to Paris France on a course, to learn about new equipment that they were buying. While I was there a large ship ran aground just off the South Cornwall coast in Britain.
Whilst enjoying myself in my hotel room, I received a phone call from headquarters. They wanted me to fly down to Penzance and establish a satellite link for live TV from the wreck area. It really was no big deal – the British people did all the real work. I just represented our company and took the blame for anything that went wrong.
In only four days the big excitement settled, the show was over. The only flight home that I could get was from Heathrow in London. I rented a car and began that long drive to the capital city. As I was passing through Bodmin Moor, I had that terrible feeling and shudder as though a ghost had passed right through my body. Suddenly I noticed a sad little signpost. It reported, ‘Tulloch’s Load 2 miles’.
As though driven by an unseen force I pulled the car over, stopped and extracted my diary. It was the twelfth day after the full moon. Tonight was the twelfth night. Even though I was not equipped for camping at that bleak place, I was drawn like iron to a magnet. I drove the car as close as I could get, then walked the final mile to Tulloch’s Load.
Evening was rapidly approaching; the mist was rising, casting a ghostly hue over the bleak landscape. There was no sound, not even the song of a bird. What a Godforsaken place this really was. The cold was beginning to seep through my clothing by the time I reached the spot where I had camped only a year ago.
Driven by an unseen force, I walked, almost mesmerized, in the direction of the mystic waterfall. Even though I could not see it, I knew where it would be. The darkness began encroaching, visibility narrowed, the rocks became grotesque monsters, the only sound was my breathing, and the echo of my footsteps.
Suddenly I realized I was lost. God, I thought, now I know why they find bodies on the moor. I trembled from head to foot. I don’t know whether it was the cold or the fear. Without warning, the Vail appeared only 20 feet away, and with it, new sounds. I wanted to run screaming, but I was too afraid to move.
The Vail was quite clear, even through the fog: a staggeringly beautiful curtain of cascading silent water. Slowly I approached. Its sounds began to make some sense. Explanations of what it could be began flooding through my head.
Birds could be heard, as if on the other side of the Vail. There was light on the other side, a mystic aura emanated from this somehow terrible apparition. Closer and closer I crept. It was as though there was another world on the other side of that shimmering light. I must have been about a metre from it. I could even smell the perfume of spring from this wonderful world through the Vail.
Without warning there was a bang within my head, and there was darkness. I could hear a voice. “Wake up, wake up,” it said. I opened my eyes. It was daylight. For a moment the world seemed upside down, then I realized I was lying down. Leaning over me was the old vagabond.
“Are you the Angel of Tulloch’s Load,” I asked foolishly.
His steely grey eyes seemed to stare through me. “If I were, and said, YES, thou wouldst not believe me, yet if I were not and I said NO, thou wouldst still deny me. Therefore,” he said still without blinking, “maybe I am and maybe I am not.”
I was rather alarmed by his appearance – he was a very big man. Two of his fingers on his left hand were missing, and there was no sign of his left ear. He smelled quite bad, his breath obnoxious. I tried to get up – my head felt terrible. A nauseous feeling came over me.
“You were trying to cross the Vail,” he said angrily.
I staggered to my feet so that I could face him, and perhaps avoid his breath.
“’Twas I that stopped you. ’Tis not time yet.”
“Stopped me,” I said. “How?”
He brushed his beard thoughtfully as he observed me carefully. He always used his three-fingered hand. “You would have ventured through and likely died that day.”
I felt terrible, my head ached, I had an awful pain in my back, and I was very cold. The events and experiences of the night before were only as if a dream.
“Come laddie,” he said taking my arm and pulling it round his neck, “I’ll take you to my shack.”
There was little or no use resisting; this powerful man could have carried me. The walk seemed almost interminable. The morning was sunless, and the mist was wet. The water collected on my eyelashes like sparkling beads. His shack or shanty was in a small canyon that I had never seen before and was not visible from the regular path. It was in fact an ancient crofter’s or shepherd’s cottage, crudely repaired.
Inside the stone shack it was considerably warmer; there was a low smouldering fire and the air smelled of scorched peat – a sweet sultry smell. The furniture was sparse and exceedingly crude – a rough cupboard, a table, and two chairs.
“Sit yee down, lad,” he said. “I’ll fix you some hot broth to chase these chills away.”
His accent seemed to drift in and out, sometimes Scottish, sometimes West Country, and sometimes Biblical. I sat, the sparse furniture was hand-hewn, and used no nails. In the corner was a new looking iron bound box, and on the wall two beautifully made broad swords in almost new condition. “You a collector?” I asked.
“Nay lad, a user.”
I didn’t really want to push the point, but those swords intrigued me. “Where’d you get those swords?”
“Not far in distance from here.”
Both of us fell silent for a while, but soon he brought a bowl of hot stew. It was good. He sat opposite me watching every move as though I was his long-lost brother. When I’d finished, he spoke. “So you think I am the angel, do you John Little?”
“How do you know my name?”
“Perhaps I am the Angel of the Vail.”
“It’s only a story,” I said.
“True, there is no angel.”
“What is the Vail?” I asked.
He stroked his beard again with his three-fingered hand. “I’ll tell you a story. It’s not true, but you’ll see the explanation of the Vail within it.”