A selection from "Empire of the Moon" by Harper Hull

Empire of the Moon

by Harper Hull

I

t was a crisp, cold evening in Wick the night that Professor David Napier first saw lights on the moon. The Scottish astronomer had been about to turn in for the night with a hot water bottle and a cup of cocoa when, as was his tradition, he turned his telescope onto the moon to end his nightly stargazing and sky-charting with a loving farewell to Luna herself.

She was close to full, hanging heavy white in the heavens with all the luminescence she could give. Napier took in the familiar lines and shadows of her surface, could have sketched them out freehand he knew them so intimately, when a glint caught his eye towards the shadowy hidden area that segmented the surface like an orange slice.

Napier concentrated and tried to make sure he was not mistaking something else in the sky for the light. No, he saw it again. And then another. And another. Within minutes there was a string of bright lights moving across the moon’s surface, a train of energy that eventually disappeared from view into the blackness of shadow. Napier sprang from his telescope to note down under the date of June 12th 1953 in his viewing diary exactly what he had seen, where he had seen it and at what time and then quickly bounded back up to watch the moon some more.

He kept his gaze on it intently, a small lump in his throat, seeing nothing more unusual until sleep overcame him and he admitted defeat, traipsed off to bed and passed out without either water bottle or hot cocoa. He dreamt of mighty rocket ships and fantastical moon bases made from silver metal.

The next day Mrs. Kenzie Napier arrived home from a shopping trip to the fish stalls by the estuary, her heavy wicker basket overflowing with paper-wrapped haddock and fresh vegetables from the greengrocers. She plonked the basket down in the kitchen and went through the house to find her husband in his study; he had been up awfully late the previous night in the observatory and she wanted to make sure he was feeling healthy and spirited. She found him intently studying some large, leather-bound books at his desk.

“Davie, are you alright dear?” she said gently.

“Me? Just fine, just fine. I saw something quite remarkable last night!” replied her husband, suddenly looking bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Kenzie stepped inside the study and took a seat in a large, overstuffed armchair, sensing a conversation.

“A new star?” she asked, genuinely intrigued, “Or a comet?”

David Napier snorted with laughter and tugged on his mustache.

“Oh Kenzie, sweet, sweet Kenzie, nothing so mundane! I saw lights on the moon! Actual, moving, bright white lights! On the blasted moon!” He slammed his fist against the table and laughed. “What do you think they could have been?”

Kenzie Napier was surprised to see her husband so animated, yet it made her happy too. He was always so serious and lost in his studies of space, this was a welcome change of mood. She raised her arms dramatically in answer to his question and shrugged her shoulders, a wide smile on her face.

“I’ll tell you!” said the Professor, rising from behind his desk, “I think it’s the damned Americans! I believe the rascals have got rockets to the moon! Can you believe it? I’m going to call Arnsdale in London tomorrow; I believe he gets back from India tonight, I’ll see if he knows anything.”

David Napier stepped over to his wife, pulled her up from the chair and took her in his arms. He whistled a Scottish jig and danced her around the study to her utter amazement and delight, both of them finally collapsing in laughter onto the floor.

“The moon! The moon! Yanks on the moon, God bless them!” shouted the Professor, and then gave his wife a big kiss on the lips.

After a wonderful fish dinner with his wife David Napier made his way out to the small observatory at the back of the house for another night of moon watching. He was as excited as a little boy on Christmas Eve anticipating a stocking full of gifts hanging from the bedpost come morning.

The sky was clear, the stars bright, and Napier pressed a bowl of aromatic tobacco into his pipe. He flamed up and savored the heavy blackcurrant flavor for a few minutes before knocking the pipe against the wall of the observatory and going inside.

His hands were shaking as he took hold of the large, mounted telescope and bent forward to place his eye to the viewer. He felt like he was keeping a secret and forbidden liaison with a seductive mistress. There she was, clear as a bell, white and large and magnificent. Not a cloud in sight tonight, conditions were perfect. Napier wondered how long he would be out here straining his old eyes before he caught a glimpse of those magical lights again, if at all, but to his absolute amazement he saw a flash almost at once. It seemed brighter than the night before, if that were possible. Wider as well. Within seconds Napier saw another light, and another, and another. His heart was racing as he tried to keep count of the white circles appearing before his eyes. They looked as if they were all above the moon’s surface by some distance, hovering. The lights suddenly all moved as one and appeared to take an arrowhead formation. This was incredible stuff and Napier knew it; yet even as he felt his chest fill with pride and joy at witnessing such a wondrous event, a small knot in the very bottom of his stomach made him think this was nothing to do with the Americans after all. He realized he had been holding his breath and let out a huge exhalation before his lungs prickled. The lights zoomed out of sight and he quickly rolled back his zoom to catch them again. By God, they were moving at some trot! Getting bigger too; they were closing the distance between the moon and the earth at a significant rate. Napier tracked them as best he could, constantly reducing his zoom and realigning his ‘scope until all he could see was blinding light. He pulled away from the telescope and ran outside to his tiny viewing balcony. As he had expected, he could see them in perfect clarity with his naked eye!

Whatever they were, they were enormous. The lights dipped out of view to the north; Napier wondered if they had struck the sea or one of the islands. He realized it would be foolish to wait until tomorrow to call his colleague Arnsdale and stepped lively back inside and composed himself at the telephone.

Arnsdale was not at his office; nor was he at home, and Napier left a message with Arnsdale’s housekeeper asking he call back immediately upon returning, day or night. With a strange feeling of dread and morbid curiosity Napier picked up the telephone receiver one more time and asked the operator to connect him with an operator in the Shetland Islands.

“I’m sorry, Sir, there is no-one picking up,” the sweet voice of the Wick operator came back. “Can I do anything else for you?”

“One more thing, yes,” said Napier, “try and get hold of the Orkneys instead if you could, Miss.”

“One moment, Sir.”

Napier waited, drumming his fingers and feeling his heart race.

“Sorry Sir, no answer in Stromness or Kirkwall either. Very strange, I must say.”

“Indeed, indeed…well, thank you for your help, Miss, you have been most kind.”

So, thought Napier, the game is afoot it seems. The Shetlands, down. The Orkneys, down. Where would be next in line if we assume they are moving south, whatever they might be. John o’Groats. Thurso. Wick.

Wick. They had to get out of there as soon as possible. Napier had an urge to speak to the sweet telephone operator again and tell her to leave also, but realized he would just come across as a senile old fool. Which, he considered, maybe he was. Basing his insane assumptions on falling lights and unanswered telephones on rugged, windswept islands. Yet his gut told him something was very wrong, and he didn’t want to take any chances.

Within minutes he had roused Kenzie and the two of them became a whirlwind of finding, folding and packing, the Professor the conductor of the storm and his wife a mere bystander caught in its frantic power.

The morning train to Inverness left at seven AM and the Professor and Mrs. Napier were clutching tickets and standing on the platform by six-thirty. If the train arrived, Napier decided, then Thurso still stood, as that was the origin city of the steamer. He planned on getting to a hotel in Inverness for the night and trying to contact Arnsdale again. He must be home by today, he just must.

At a couple of minutes before seven Napier heard the familiar whistle of the train as it approached the platform. He felt huge relief, yet also a small amount of self-doubt at this whole caper. Looking at his wife standing beside him, confused and scared but putting on a jolly face, he knew he couldn’t risk it and that if he was a buffoon and the butt of a grand joke for the next twenty years amongst his peers, it would have been worth it. Just in case. He watched the Bonnie Prince Charlie puff into the platform and slowly come to a stop with a huge hiss.

The family seated in the same carriage as the Napiers’ soon brought all of the Professor’s fears boiling back to the surface of his conscious. This mother and her two children were visibly upset and Kenzie, being a kind-hearted soul, had engaged them in conversation to see if she could help them in any way. The family, named McTeage, had come from Thurso that morning after making a last minute decision to board the train, as had many fatherless families currently aboard the Bonnie Prince Charlie. The night fishing fleet had been out as usual the previous evening but only one smack had made it back to harbor. The two men left on board had been white-faced and trembling, scared out of their wits. They said a low cloud bank had come from nowhere and covered the fleet. Ridiculously low, they claimed, you could have jumped into the air and practically touched it. The fleet got spooked and decided to head for home, but before they could set out the boats started going violently down. Not just listing, not just suffering a leak and taking on water, but literally being pulled under the sea and out of sight in an instant. Pop, pop, pop they went, one after another. No wreckage, no bodies, nothing but open water and a cresting plume to show where they had been. They had been the last boat left floating, and the rest of the crew had panicked and jumped into the sea, started swimming. They were pulled down too, almost the second they hit the water. One fisherman had actually been shot out of the sea, his body engulfed in flames. He had disappeared through the strange cloud cover and not fallen back again.

 For some reason the last boat, named The Lucky Kipper, had been left intact. They had made for harbor, expecting instant death to take them at any second, but had made it home safely. The clouds and the sea, they said, something bad was coming to the mainland and everybody should head south as fast as they could, they said. A lot of people listened to them and made for the railway station immediately. Mister McTeage had been on one of the first boats to go under which is why his new widow was taking their children south.

Upon arriving in Inverness David Napier went to the guard’s office and demanded use of his telephone as a matter of national security. Permission was granted without question by a dumbstruck guard and Napier again tried to contact Sir Anthony Arnsdale in London. Thankfully, he was at home this time, and Napier immediately felt as if his troubles had been cut in half when he heard his friend’s voice.

“Anthony, thank God, we are being invaded. I saw –”

“Hold on David, I know. I came in today to find messages and reports from practically every bloody member of the British Astrological Association. They came from the moon, eh? The Royal Observatory tracked them down last night as well, consensus is they touched down in the Shetlands and are moving south. I take it you have left Wick?”

Napier was shocked and, he hated to admit, a little peeved that Arnsdale already had so much information.

“Indeed, Anthony, we just arrived this very moment in Inverness. What else do you know, is Winston informed?”

“First, listen to me carefully my friend; keep going as far south as you can possibly get. If the trains have stopped running, steal a car, a tractor or a bloody bicycle made for two, whatever it takes. As for our beloved PM, yes, he knows. He was told this morning and suffered a quite severe heart attack. Keep it mum would you, we’ll tell Fleet Street in our own time. He looks like he’ll be fine, thankfully. Bloody great shock though, who can blame the poor bugger. He hasn’t been well since the whole re-election.”

“What are you going to do? What is London going to do?”

“Forces are mobile as we speak. I’m heading north and I’ll surely meet you somewhere along the way. Edinburgh? The Royal Navy have battleships heading up both the west and east coast of Scotland. Now, get moving again, I’ll see you soon, God willing.”

Napier hung up and swiftly moved back onto the platform to fetch his wife.

Along the east coast of Scotland Her Majesty’s Ships Swiftsure, Blackcap, and Vanguard sailed through the calm waters between the mainland and the Outer Hebrides, destination Durness. On the opposite coast the vessels Dunkirk, Protector, and Sentinel headed towards the rough seas north of Wick. An emergency Naval Command (NC1) had been set up in Aberdeen to co-ordinate with the vessels and communicate their findings directly to London. A Royal Air Force fighter squadron was on stand-by at the Dundee airfield.