From the Files of MI13: Britain's Secret War

The roll of waves pulsed in time with Lieutenant Turnbull’s headache. He gazed off into the clouds crawling overhead. He tried to focus. To focus on the scene, the crescent moon, the languid surf, the smell of salt and diesel. He tried to focus on a timeless scene that had taken place since volcanic fire had birthed the brutal form of Brach eons prior, a scene that ebbed and flowed and pulsed; like the roll of a wave, or the beat of a vein. Here and there the clouds broke to reveal stars. Turnbull at another time might have thought them beautiful, the heavens. Now though he thought those momentary fissures of light intrusive, like a battery of infinite eyes, peering through the cracks. The darkening of his thoughts brought Turnbull to the immediate, as the sound of riot carried across the water. He watched dull shapes struggle on the pebbled beach from the ship. The native folk were not a persuadable sort.

When the HMS Arcas had come to the Isle of Brach several hours prior, the patriarch of the hundred or so inhabitants had welcomed Captain Ford and the rest of the landing party. The patriarch was a short, flabby creature, his face glistening in those last moments of amber sun. He carried a tattered red blanket around his body and his eyes sat deep, like they had burrowed into his skull. He pervaded an odour of peat and rotten fish but then so did everything on Brach. He had taken them down the Street, for there was only one. There sat a dozen squat stone houses in a row staring over a cliff into the sea. Offering the party tea and grinning far too long and often between bursts of gibbered English, the patriarch no doubt assumed these Navy men had come to check the radio transmitter. When Ford casually explained the Arcas was there to evacuate the people, to utilise the island for submarine hunting, the grin had contorted into a grimace.

The shy denizens of Brach had responded to their leader’s screaming oaths. They had poured from their houses, pushing and yelling at fully-armed Royal Marines, their rasping tongue all but incomprehensible even to the Gaelic-speaking Ford. They were no more attractive than the patriarch, folds of skin and wide-pupil eyes making them seem inhuman in the dying light. When one of the islanders, a brutish thug, had lunged for the Captain, Turnbull had intervened only to receive a terrible blow to the skull. It had taken a volley of rifle fire over the islanders’ heads to finally calm them. Bleeding and woozy, Turnbull had returned to the ship with the first evacuees. Some had to be restrained but most went in sullen silence.

However as the people of Brach left in small guarded groups by lifeboat, the remainder became ever more agitated. Ford had tried to persuade them from the start it would only be temporary but to no good. Soon those dull shapes became violently animate. From what the lieutenant could make out from the deck a few of the islanders had broken free, forcing the marines to chase them into the blackness, arcs of torchlight revealing their progress.

‘Sir…’

Turnbull turned to the strained greeting to see Sergeant Donaldson approaching his side. The towering marine bore a rifle in his hands.

‘Yes sergeant?’

‘You think we should get down there sir?’

Turnbull watched as one of their men tackled a fleeing islander to the ground, throwing both of them into the surf.

‘Yes… yes sergeant I think that would be best,’ he massaged his bloody forehead, ‘ready a boat and your section’. Donaldson nodded and descended into the hull. The lieutenant unbuttoned his coat, wincing as the gale bit down. He pulled his revolver from its holster and carefully placed a bullet in each chamber. The idea of using force against fishermen had seemed ridiculous five hours before but here they were, tying old maids to bunks.

The Isle of Brach had a reputation even amongst the Western Islanders for its isolation and primitive nature. The natives lived by the sea and snatched gulls eggs from cliff-side nests, while their small numbers and deformed appearances suggested obvious tendencies. Worst of all was their ill-piety, with crude worship at altars not fit for Christian prayer. The only regular contact the island had with the outside world was through Presbyterian ministers. They boldly came every few years, like missionaries trekking into the Congo, their predecessor having fled through violence or despair. The last had drowned in 1915.

The people of Brach had more or less accepted the transmitter the same year (it at least did not preach) but the service crews had been wary not to stay on land too long. Now a real outpost was needed. Reports of lost ships and unidentified sightings had risen in past months and no garrison would wish to share the island with the natives. Captain Ford had laughed when he read Turnbull the telegram from the Scottish Office, stating the islanders would be grateful for evacuation.

As the lieutenant and Donaldson’s section rowed towards the shore, things were becoming even more chaotic. By now the sun was completely gone forcing the sailors and marines to work solely by lamplight as the islanders lashed and bellowed unknown oaths. They had become so agitated that they were now being hog-tied and transported to the Arcas two to a boat under armed guard. As Turnbull landed the marines immediately commandeered his craft, keen to finish their task. He made his way over to Captain Ford who was directing the men with great sweeps of his cane.

‘Quickly now!’, he barked. Turnbull could see bags under his eyes and the slumping posture of a man exhausted. ‘Ah lieutenant, are our guests relaxing below deck?’

‘As well as is to be expected sir.’

‘I think we could have saved ourselves some bother and just shot the lot of them Turnbull. They’re bloody animals.’

‘It is a thought sir,’ the younger man smirked but Ford either failed to notice in the twilight or was too tired to engage with jokes.

‘Well take over lieutenant, I’ll return to the ship with the next batch and oversee the internment. I need to get off the ugly little rock’.

‘Very good sir’, Turnbull saluted. Ford straightened himself, saluted back and headed over to the midshipman prepping the next boat.

The lieutenant suddenly heard a noise coming from inland. He looked into the darkness.

‘Sergeant! Are all the runaways accounted for?’ he called without turning.

‘Yes sir!’

The noise came again, a shifting, slopping sound. Turnbull grabbed the electric torch from his belt and shone it into the black. At first he saw nothing but the dirt of the Street road. Then the light caught a glimmer. He did not know what he was looking at but for several second they sat there, two pin-sized beads, reflecting his torch light. He began to move closer when the roaring alarm siren of the Arcas broke out, echoing across the bay. Enemy contact.

The lieutenant and the rest of the men rushed to the water’s edge as the spotlights of the destroyer swung out into the sea to catch a U-boat emerging. The submarine was clearly damaged with a great gash along it hull that even Turnbull could make out from where he stood. The hatch on the conning tower opened, black smoke billowing out as men appeared throwing their arms about, their mad cries drowned out by the Arcas’ siren.

To the utter astonishment of Turnbull, Captain Ford and every other sane man witness to the event, creatures began clawing out of the water onto the hull of the submarine. Naked, half-humanoid forms, they glistened in the light as they bounded towards the sailors desperately escaping their wounded craft. The Germans defended themselves with bats and pistols but were soon set upon, a dozen men torn apart by grotesque figures who used only tooth and claw. The monsters, drenched in blood brayed as if in challenge to the Arcas, a hideous reptilian chorus. The bound islanders were calmed by the noise and responded in kind with their own loathsome cry.

‘Ia Sehul Mehnot! Sang ugros! Ia Dagonis abhiq!’

Sergeant Donaldson turned in time to receive the full force of one of the creatures’ charge coming out of the surf. He screamed as the thing tore into his throat, its huge, distended body crushing him into the sand. Turnbull looked out to see dozens of large, bulbous faces rising out of the waves, their eyes reflecting the light. Captain Ford stood frozen.

‘Fire’, cried Turnbull, ‘Fire! FIRE!’

The marines and sailors opened up with a ragged volley into the water. The U-boat, swarming with fish men, exploded with a direct shot from the Arcas which itself was now struggling to repel ghoulish boarders.

Turnbull downed a creature with three shots directly to the chest, its webbed hands still reaching for him as it slumped to the ground. He picked up Donaldson’s rifle and clubbed the sergeant’s attacker who was still feasting on the dead man’s flesh. It rose to meet the lieutenant and he swung, over and over to the sound cracking bone and cartilage until finally it too fell limp. Panting and wild-eyed he surveyed the beach. Now the entire landing party were battling the fish men, with many of them already being devoured alive, the sound of rifle fire and pitiful screams mixing with the inhuman battle cry of the things.

The Captain ran for the nearest lifeboat and began pushing it against the tide. He was panting, terrified, incredulous. One of the monster towered over Ford. A fan of sharp quills bristling down its back as it revealed lines and lines of razored teeth. Its blank lenses bored into his eyes before eviscerating him.

More faces rose up from the water.

‘Fire!’, called Turnbull between pot shots, ‘Fire!’

Then, above the din, a cyclopean roar filled the air, rumbling the ground as originating from the very earth itself. Turnbull swung round into the dark, his face illuminated by the burning petroleum carrying across the bay. He saw something, something else.

‘Oh no’, he whispered, ‘oh please god no’.

Ia indeed, thank you gentlemen.

This is a little narrative AAR idea I've had for some time, it will be a war story in the Lovecraft style, heavily inspired by Cthulhu's Third Empire AAR and Yogi's Fu Manchu series.

This will not be replacing my Vicky 2 AAR for its (few) fans who are worried this is simply something different to give me some variety.

It will contain horror and mild peril. You have been warned!

The winter sun was blinding but without warmth. Wrapped in a thick lambskin coat outside the Café Chapelet sat Doctor Julian Karswell. He was a plump gentleman, his aristocratic airs in no doubt. Balding but with a thick, shaggy crown of black hair and an impish beard, the doctor lazily surveyed the boulevard. He played with his cutlery, bouncing light off the silver into the eyes of other patrons and passers-by. One victim, an elderly woman in furs had taken offence and scolded him in French not five minutes before. Her husband, a stern looking officer in uniform, turned in his seat to see the offender. Ready to rise from his seat in protest he caught Karswell’s gaze and paused. Perhaps he recognised him. Or perhaps as he looked into those dark, deep eyes he saw something unnatural lay within. With a disgruntled clearing of the throat he turned back and hushed his wife while the fat man merely smiled.

‘Herr Doctor?’, came a voice from behind. Karswell looked over his shoulder to see two Germans, for they were clearly Germans, wearing an outlandish parody of Alpine peasant dress, with knee high socks and feathered hats. The questioner was short, round and bespectacled. He looked like a bullied school boy. His companion was taller and roughly shaven. He seemed to be scanning the surroundings for danger with his creased, squinting face.

‘Yes’, drawled Karswell, ‘and you are Mr. Glauer I presume’. The smaller German smiled awkwardly and motioned for them to sit to which he nodded.

‘Yes I am Helmut Glauer and this is my colleague Erhard Torre’. The tall man acknowledged his name and continued his vigil. ‘Thank you for accepting this meeting’.

‘Well it was a very interesting letter. I have never heard of your group but your claims certainly contained a peculiar novelty’.

Glauer laughed politely, not responding to the slight. ‘They are not claims but facts sir, facts that must be illuminated. We feel your talents would be of great value to us’.

‘I’m sure they would’.

‘There are some within the Society who are great admirers of your work Herr Doctor’.

‘How pleasant.’

‘Your writings with the Heliopic Temple of Anshar were most-’

‘Tedious?’ Karswell interjected, startling Glauer who feared he had offended him.

‘No, no Herr Doctor of course not! The Book of Mu, your visions of Hyperborea, the coming of the Great Race!’

‘The Temple is a club for old women and Mayfair mystics Mr. Glauer. I have no use for them anymore. Before Mussolini banished my coven from Sicily I conversed with unfathomable beings and gazed into the cosmic abyss. Even if I had revealed to the Temple the true extent of my knowledge they are too small minded to understand.’ The Germans sat in silence. ‘I trust your members are not so?’

‘We are not’, said Torre firmly.

Karswell grinned. ‘Should I take your word for it?’ Torre reached under his chair and produced a small leather bound briefcase, placing it on the table. ‘If its marks in there don’t bother, I can buy my own toilet paper.’

‘It is not money Herr Doctor’, insisted Glauer in a knowing tone, ‘it is a gift.’ Torre turned the case to face Karswell. He unbuckled the latches and opened the lid to reveal a slim manuscript of clearly great age. Its vellum pages were yellowed, torn, their edges curling, the binding rotten. The cover was blank save a symbol in faded ink, a seven-pointed star; its edges covered in the glyphs of an unknown language and in its centre a single eye. The Elder Sign.

The Englishman’s smirk slipped away.

‘What is this?’ asked Karswell.

‘When Edward Kelley[1] was imprisoned for murdering one of Emperor Rudolf’s courtiers in a ritual’, said Glauer, ‘he was visited by his friend John Dee one last time. Dee fed him a rare Asiatic herb. He claimed it would quicken the man’s death. Instead it opened Kelley’s mind to plains of time and space unseen by normal men. For hours he spoke in tongues and scribbled signs and symbols, which Dee recorded. When Kelley did finally die, wracked by seizures and insanity, Dee took his writings and produced them in this manuscript: The Book of Unknown Worlds.’

‘Libra Opscurum Mundi’, Karswell whispered, his eyes alight, staring at the innocuous bundle of parchment. ‘How did you come by this? King James burnt Dee’s library to the ground’.

‘Emperor Rudolf insisted on a copy for his own library’, answered Torre. ‘When the Catholics sacked Prague in 1620 many of his occult books were hidden with the Kabbalists in the Old New Synagogue. We have a contact, a scholar in Czechoslovakia, a Jew, but useful. He found it for us.’

‘For a price naturally’, added Glauer.

‘It is a gift Herr Doctor, so that you know the Thule Society can be a powerful ally.’

Karswell pulled his gaze from the manuscript, a malevolent smile plastered across his face, ‘Yes mein Herr, I imagine you could’.
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[1] A 16th century mystic and medium who claimed to communicate with astral entities he believed were angels

JodelDiplom: They are my two favourite narrative AARs and in my top 5 AARs of all time. They heavily influenced me not only here but to read Lovecraft and weird/horror fiction in general. Glad to have you on board.

Metroid17: Ha, I'll try and get eldritch and cyclopean in a bit more. Thanks for the compliment this is part AAR part writing exercise so I'm hoping the quality will increase as I go on.

Milites: Hello Milites! Thanks for coming along, I hope it is 'brilliant', kind of put a lot on me there.

Dr. Gonzo: It isn't abandoned fret not I just want to have a bit of variety from 19th American politics. Karswell is basically Crowley though not quite so crass and a lot more dangerous. He is from an M.R. James story. This is going to be heavily Lovecrafian but other weird authors, Occult Nazi lore and my favourite comic series Hellboy will all be influencing the AAR.

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Update hopefully tomorrow.