Until We Have Forgotten Them
by
Paul Radcliffe
No one comes to
Palmers anymore. It isn’t all that clear why, but it was probably the ghosts. They
had been there for years and ghosts, like the living, grow more set in their
ways as the years pass. Palmers was known for its ornate rooms, leisurely
ambience and striking views of the Cook Strait, the turbulent and unpredictable
stretch of water that divides the north and south islands of New Zealand. It
had been named for one of the early ships that had arrived and helped found the
capital, Wellington. It looked down on a rugged beach of shingle and jagged
rocks. Many of the city’s streets had been named for arriving ships or local
dignitaries, risen to prominence in commerce and business. Palmers was a
suitable and fairly exclusive retreat for visitors requiring privacy and luxury,
both at a comfortable distance from the common throng. Even minor royalty had
stayed there.
The rocks of the beach stretched out, concealed
from view, into the waters of the Strait. On clear days, the guests could look
out from the lounge windows and see the mountains of the South Island reaching
into a blue sky. The Strait, however, is known for its changeable weather which
can change like the moods of a petulant child. This marked a tragedy which
would remain with Palmers as if part of its foundations.
The hotel was
reached by a series of tracks and paths across the hills. On a night of growing
storm and a wind of terrible spite, a steamship was blown on to the offshore
rocks. They rose from the bottom like the teeth of an unseen dragon, and the
ship, the SS Cormorant, was lost. There
were more than a hundred people on board and few survived. The storm had raged
and tossed and overturned the lifeboats. As the dawn rose, the guests at
Palmers looked down on a scene of horror on the devastated beach. Debris and
crumpled bodies on the shore, a few scattered rescuers wading into the receding
tide.
The ballroom at
Palmers was emptied of fittings and the bodies brought up the winding track to
await transport to the city. Looking across the Strait, there was no sign of
the SS Cormorant itself, just the
littered beach and the timeless rocks. The bodies were a terrible sight. A
woman in a royal blue dress. Children, beneath tarpaulins. Water oozing on the
polished floor. And the guests, offering useless help to those who would have
no need of it. They were not to know it then, but there would never be greater
loss of life in these unpredictable waters.
The dreadful formalities
were to be completed, and the police arrived, watching over the dead till motor
transport could be arranged to the city and the coroner could fulfil his duties.
The next two days, mockingly, were a picture of calm and stillness across the
Strait, though more debris, perhaps from the cabins, continued to wash up along
the rugged shoreline, And the bodies were removed from the ballroom of Palmers.
There had been few survivors, and they told of lifeboats flung against the
dying Cormorant and screams lost in
the gales.
The guests had left
Palmers later in the week, but the wealthier among them had subscribed to a
plaque, bronze and ornate, that was fixed to the wall in the ballroom. It
commemorated the dreadful loss of the SS
Cormorant, and expressed the hope common to all memorials:
Their souls in the care
of the Almighty, whose
mercy knows no bounds
Palmers thrived even in the years of
depression and in the war, it became a lookout station across the Strait. The
ballroom stood unused, but what remained of the staff still conscientiously
polished the brass memorial plaque. Years passed, and the guests returned, slowly
at first but then more frequent as the fifties passed and New Zealand settled
into a peaceful torpor. The hill walks and the sea views, and the mountains of
the south sometimes within touching distance. Or so it seemed. And if the
drowned of the Cormorant did not rest,
then their cries were silent and only the lonely seabirds, far above the weed
and rocks, could hear them.
It is said that time
waits for no man. Less often, but equally truthfully, the economy waits for no
man and slowly but surely began to decline. Fewer guests, closed rooms and
relatively difficult access all combined and the guests, especially the
wealthier among them, preferring the attractions of the city hotels. And
Palmers locked its doors and stood closed, alone with the weather, the lonely
beach far below, and a brass plaque that grew slowly tarnished. The years
passed. Palmers was left to its memories, and the shade of a woman in blue and
sad, lost children. They would never leave. Nothing ever does leave.
Palmers was
purchased, in the end, and restoration—if that is the right word—began. The
wealthier had long found other destinations, but there was a younger generation
of travellers that offered a prospective clientele. Backpackers, needing only
basic accommodation, coming from all over the world and keen to explore the
trails and beaches. Work began on the conversion of Palmers to a hostel. Work
began, but it would not finish. The workmen arrived. The years of decay and
silence had settled the ghosts of the drowned, but they did not care to be
disturbed. Ghosts do not merely belong to the night. They do not conceive time,
and what they most remember is the violence of their death.
There was a
particular silence to the ballroom where the drowned had laid. The workmen
arrived, and the cries began. It was an old building, by New Zealand standards,
but they would hear things that were not creaking wood or rusted pipes. In the
middle of the day, they would hear the sound of a child screaming for help, screaming
about the dark. And sudden silences. They would hear dragging sounds. They did
not know. The noise of a drowned body in a tarpaulin being dragged slowly
across a polished floor. At first, they would joke about it with each other. At
first. And then the cries grew louder, and they could not be passed off as
angry seagulls or the groaning of an old building.
The work continued, slowly,
but it would end very quickly. It ended on an afternoon in late autumn, rain
threatening and the sky an unbroken grey. The sea below rolled in quietly and
the Cormorant, far from sight, rotted
slowly. There were four workmen in the ballroom. Flasks of tea and sandwiches
on a small table. There was no warning, no hints, no gathering gloom. They
heard a scream which ripped through the air, a lingering screech but there were
words. ‘The dark. The dark…’, and the sounds a child makes as the sea closes
over them and they cry for help.
The men did not
speak. A woman had appeared, bare feet and a royal blue dress which clung to
her like a shroud. She stood close to them. They saw water dripping from her. The
men, for a moment, could not move. The pale autumn light filtered into the room,
and it fell on the wraiths of the drowned of the Cormorant. The old ballroom was
filling before the eyes of the
terrified workmen. Misshapen figures, torn clothes, shattered limbs. They rose
from the floor and did not move. Except for one. There was a terrible, slithering
dragging sound as he moved towards the old plaque fixed to the wall. He looked
toward the workmen, and there was a terrible smile across his whitened features.
‘His mercy knows no bounds…’ His finger traced the
lettering, and
he looked at the workmen. ’No bounds?... there
are no bounds…’ His voice had a scraping sound to it, as if long unused. He
looked at the men, and he shouted.
‘There are no bounds because there is no
mercy…’ And the drowned cried and chanted.
‘No Mercy. No Mercy.
No Mercy.’ The
workmen could still hear it as they ran down the track. They would not return. And
since the day they left, no one ever has. Palmers Backpackers remains in a
drawer in an architect’s office. The restoration stopped. I doubt it will start
again.
