The Fog of War

Chapter 2

Chapter 2One of the gentlemen farmers she had most trouble with was Arthur Webber, although it wasn’t what Walter persisted in calling a trouser problem. It was more serious than that.

He was a retired journalist who’d come back to the village to run the family farm when his brother joined up. He was a well-educated man, tutored by the old vicar, gone to Oxford, and then all over the world reporting for his paper. She remembered him from her childhood; older than her, and a presence in the village.

By the time she came home, he’d gained a distinct reputation for eccentricity.

“I’m worried about him, if the truth be told,” his housekeeper, her old friend Annie Beelock, told her when they met by chance in the Post Office. “He’s losing weight and he’s a funny colour. I can’t get him to come down to the surgery and see you though. He flat out says there’s nothing anyone can do for him. Could you drop up one day? Just say that you were passing?”

Sylvia agreed.

When she finally spoke to him, eccentric didn’t begin to cover it.

“I don’t want you here,” he’d said, as Annie showed her into the sitting room.

He was in an armchair beside the fire, at the centre of a muddle of books and papers spilling off the table, onto the chair seats, and thence the floor.

“There’s nothing you can do for me, Dr Marks. You’re wasting your time.” He looked over his half-moons at Annie. “And you, I told you I didn’t want her. Show her out again.”

“And so you did, Arthur Webber. But here she is, and you’ll talk to her the once, just to keep me happy.” Her voice was stern. “I’m worried about you. You’re fading away. And you’re not yourself half the time.” Her glare was as stern as her voice. “So, you’ll talk to her and let her have a look at you and then I’ll stop pestering you.” She ended abruptly, smoothed down her apron, pivoted, and headed for the door. “I’ll make a cup of tea in the kitchen when you’re done with him,” she threw over her shoulder at Sylvia. “Don’t take no for an answer.”

Sylvia stood and looked at him. He looked back and sighed.

“You’d better sit down,” he said. “Over there.” He gestured to the book-covered settee. “Excuse me not getting up. I get tired, that’s all.”

She nodded. “Tell me what’s going on,” she commanded. “How do you feel? Why’s Annie worried?”

He stared at her for a moment.

“Honestly?” he said. “I’ll tell you. But you won’t believe me.”

“Try me,” she said, crossing her ankles and folding her hands in her lap. “Try me and see.”

He looked at her seriously for a moment before he began to speak and by the time he’d finished, she was considering telephoning the asylum for advice.

He’d convinced himself that creatures were coming to get him through some sort of otherworldly portal and that if he could open the portal himself, he’d become a powerful magician and create a weapon to bring the war to an end. The fact that the war was already over seemed to have passed him by.

“Mr Webber…” she said. She was at a loss for words. What a sad end to a man who had left the village brimming with potential and enthusiasm to right the wrongs of the world.

“Mr Webber…how long have you known about this? How long have you been researching this?”

He looked at her shrewdly. “You don’t believe me,” he said. “I told you you wouldn’t.”

She looked back at him steadily. “Would you believe you?” she countered.

He made a dismissive snorting sound. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said. “But here we are. I know what I know. And you can choose to accept it or not, as you please.” He waved a hand around him. “I’ve got the books and papers to prove it if you want to have a look. I’ve been collecting them and studying them for years.”

She raised a brow at him. “Have you now,” she said. “And does anyone else know about this, other than the people in the books?”

“They’re not people in the books, my good woman.”

She bristled at him and he backtracked. “They’re not people in the books, Dr Marks. They’re not story books. They’re reference books. Notebooks. Experimental notes.” He glared at her. “This is a serious scientific study!”

She raised both brows at him this time. “And that’s what’s making you sick?” she asked.

He huffed and pulled a face. “Yes!” he said. And then more quietly. “The work is draining me. The energy…it comes from the world around us. And another world, where these creatures live. They come when you use the power. But it’s worth it…the things I’ve seen, Dr Marks! You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen and done!”

Well. He was clearly raving. But he didn’t seem to be a danger to anyone else…or even himself. She would telephone down to the mental hospital at Cotford and speak to one of the psychiatrists when she got home and see what they said, but she thought he was stable enough to be left here at home, particularly with Annie Beelock coming in every day to keep house.

He wouldn’t let her examine him. He looked pale, yellowish, and far too thin. Probably liver problems, or a cancerous growth of some kind. But she couldn’t diagnose without looking at him physically.

He didn’t want Walter near him either.

At least Sylvia had made him speak to her, that was something. And she could drop in every few days—he seemed grateful for someone to talk to. A cancer or similar illness could make you wander in your mind sometimes. It was probably that. If he wouldn’t let her look him over, all she could do was keep an eye on him.

The Asylum Officer from Cotford was reassuring. “Hallucinations?” he queried. “Yes, yes. We have a few of those.” She heard him take a drink. “What sort?”

“He thinks he can do magic,” she said, sinking down in the telephone chair in the hallway of the house. “He’s got a very well-formed, well thought out, logical framework that seems internally consistent.”

“How interesting.” The psychiatrist paused. “That sounds very similar to a chap we have down here.”

“Really? In what way?”

“Convinced there are monsters coming for him because he can do magic, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, that is interesting. How peculiar! Is he dangerous? To himself or anyone else?”

“No, not at all. Just very thin, weak, and fading away. His family couldn’t look after him at home anymore, so they asked us to take him. But he’s not manic. Just very fixed in his own mind, within a logical framework as you describe.”

“Have you been able to examine him properly?” Sylvia said. “I wondered whether it was a growth in the brain or optic nerve. He says he can see lights.”

“There’s nothing that we can see. Of course, when he goes, we’ll be able to open him up and have a look.” He sounded very matter of fact. “But for now, all we can do is make him comfortable.”

Sylvia hummed. That was all she could do for Webber, really.

“Do you want to send him down, Dr Marks?” the officer asked. “We do have space if you think it necessary. But if he can be nursed at home it’s probably for the best.”

“He’s fine where he is for now,” Sylvia said. “But if he gets any worse before his brother comes home from France, I may need to contact you. If you do a post-mortem on your chap, can you let me have the results?”

“Certainly. And likewise, if you have anything else helpful, could you pass it on? I feel sorry for the poor old chap, just fading away there.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

She replaced the earpiece thoughtfully and put the telephone back on the sideboard.

How peculiar.