The Doomsday Canticle: Part V is a chapter by Jack Rusher, published here Wednesday, May 19, 2004. It is part of Stories.
A Lovecraftian horror novel in the round, co-written by my friends at Brokentype, FTrain and Logodrome. The other chapters are located, in order, here, here, here, and here.
The Journey from London to Palestine
Excerpts from a transcript of the journal of Charles Cahill, prepared for Dr. Montequieu by the general staff of Holy Oak Sanitarium.
June 15th, 1921. After Dinner. The Cliffside Hotel at Dover. I have been dispatched to the Holy Land by a talking flower. We steam for Calais early tomorrow morning.
June 16th, 1921. Afternoon. Aboard the cross-Channel ferry. My stomach is much aggrieved by the choppy seas. We’re steaming slowly due to dense fog; it feels as if we have been at sea for days. Standing on deck this morning I thought I saw Kitty’s face approaching on the masthead of an old wooden sailing ship full of pirates, but the ship and the masthead were both phantasmal. I’ve been away from home for too long.
June 22nd, 1921. Tea time. In my stateroom aboard the Orient Express, southeast of Paris, on route to Lausanne. The accommodations are entirely first rate, as is the brandy — of which I am much in need. I came near to fisticuffs with a rude and myopic Irishman in Gare de l’Est today. He insisted his name was Daedalus and then cursed me venomously in Latin and Greek. I gave as good as I got, but I still left the encounter feeling uneasy. Mantula, indeed.
June 25th, 1921. Lunch time. We passed through passport control in Trieste this morning. It is impossible to travel through the Balkans without thinking of Sarajevo and all that happened after. Thinking of the war brings back many unpleasant memories: the screams of the dying, the taste of rancid meat rations aged in a punctured bacon tin, the interminable boredom of trench warfare and the constant taunting from my companions because of my commission with the Army Pigeon Service.
June 27th, 1921. Afternoon. We have departed from Adrianople for Constantinople, which these damnable Turks insist on calling “Istanbul”; how this perversion of the Greek phrase for “in the city” is an improvement over the name used for the duration of the Byzantine Empire escapes me, but there has been no arguing with them since Gallipoli.
June 28th, 1921. Morning. I’ve secured passage on a steamer to the Palestinian port of Jaffa. The land route is currently quite dangerous due to violence within the former Ottoman Empire. I shall attempt to view the Dardanelles during our passage.
A disturbing dream last night: I heard someone or something scratching at the portal of my stateroom. With a feeling of absolute dread I floated to the window through what felt like aspic, struggling every inch of the way. My dire feelings increased as I approached the portal. I reached the curtain and forced myself to pull it aside, but just when I should have seen who or what was outside, I awoke screaming.
June 30th, 1921. Late. Awakened by shouting above decks, I emerged to find the crew brandishing glass charms inscribed with the all-seeing eye. The sky was black and the sea completely calm. Something large in the water had hold of the ship, which seemed frozen in place. I tried to get someone in the crew to translate the Turkish words they were chanting, “dev mrekkep balii,” but none of them would. Just when it seemed that the ship was going to collapse and slip underwater like a broken bathtub toy, the creature vanished and we continued steaming through the night.
July 2nd, 1921. After lunch. We came into view of the coast at sunrise and landed at Jaffa after breakfast. I have secured rail passage to Jerusalem, departing tomorrow. The air here is dry and feels older than the air in Europe. I will spend the afternoon examining sites of historical significance and practicing the few Arabic phrases I have thus far learned from my French-Arabic guide de conversation.
July 2nd, 1921. After dinner. Had the strangest sense of being followed in the Jaffa souk today. There are many predators in the cities of Palestine, but they shan’t have an easy time with this tourist.
July 3rd, 1921. Afternoon. Aboard the train. The train service in Palestine is a far cry from the Orient Express, but we should arrive within a day. The local “cuisine” has once more harmed my digestion. I hope the British Mandate will bring some decent—
Cahill’s writing veers off the edge of the page in a single broad stroke, the cross of the tee sliding down and to the right. He continues on the next page, the handwriting larger and more unsteady.
July (?), 1921. Time unknown; my watch is missing. Train derailed in the desert (sabotage?). Awoke in the arms of a bedouin who loaded me onto the back of a camel. When I began to struggle, he said one word, “Kreuger.” We have ridden, silently, some hours into the desert, though in what direction I know not. We are presently camping under an empty sky, consuming barbarous victuals by the fire. I hope this is a dream, that I will awake safe at home with the boys pleading for a Saturday morning game of baseball in the back garden, but I fear I shall never see them again.
There are no further legible entries in M. Cahill’s diary, which, from this point onward, descends into a series of glyphs, gibberish and a patchwork of quotations in archaic languages.