Winters Tales 2 - Help Me!

I didn't much want to go out to the pit head with Harry. But Tracey thought I better had. 'Keep things as normal as possible' as she put it.

And, after all, things were in fact pretty normal. Normally, if Harry was involved in an interesting piece of fieldwork not too far away, he would invite his very oldest friend Dan to come along and join the fun. And normally, if Harry was holed up at the Iinstitute turning the fruits of his investigations into dry articles for other academics to enjoy, his very oldest friend Dan would be busy at home shagging his wife. The only difference between the two perfectly normal situations was that in one case Harry-boy wasn't completely in the loop as to what was going on. And that was where Tracey and I wanted to keep him – out of the loop. Tracey didn't want to jeopardise her marriage and neither of us wanted to hurt Harry. He was just too nice a guy.

So when Harry, his big gangling frame flapping about and glasses steaming up with enthusiasm, told me about his experiment out at the pit and asked me to come along, I said yes. As a journalist, I didn't even have to take time out to tag along with Harry – so much of what Harry gets up to is features-worthy.

Harry's an Industrial Historian, which doesn't sound that exciting. But Harry has some interesting research methods. That day's little number turned out to be EVP.

The idea of Electronic Voice Phenomena has been around for years, of course. There's even an Institute in Maryland that claims to have voice recordings of thousands of ghosts, including Beethoven and some dead aliens. But for Harry, EVP was just the latest way of getting to know some of the eighteenth century mine workers he'd been working on, at first hand as it were.

' I've got two recorders set up' he explained breathlessly as we stumbled over the rough ground toward the head of the shaft, Harry's longish hair whipping out behind him. 'A Panasonic RR-DR60 and an Olympus WS-550M. Different background noise from different mechanisms, you see, but any vocal trace should be common to both. I've had them running for two days now. They're voice-activated, so there shouldn't be too much to check through.'

The mine superstructure, what was left of it, was a craggy pile of crumbling red sandstone blocks. The original roof had long since gone, together with the pithead itself, but part of the remaining structure was covered over with corrugated iron giving enough protection for Harry's recorders, and for us ; there was a nasty wind blowing outside. The mine shaft was just a great square-ish ragged hole, cordoned off with a wooden post and rail fence. There were signs warning about trespassers and danger, but the place was so remote it hardly seemed necessary.

Harry checked the machines, which had clearly been recording away at something. He set the Panasonic to play-back, and we squatted together listening to half an hour of wind, creaking trees, scuffling creatures and the usual sounds nature makes when left on its own to get on with it.

'Not very hopeful' Harry said sadly, 'Ah well. Anyway, I want to take a look at that mound over there while we're here. Will you come?'

'I'll stay here' I said 'It's a bit blowy for me'

I'd been sitting huddled in the corner for about twenty minutes, the recorder crackling away, and was thinking about going back to the car, when I heard it. A tiny, fragile, hopeless voice.

'Help me' it said 'Help me'.

Itwas indistinct, and seemed to be coming from a very great distance, but I was fairly sure that was what it was saying. I tracked back, and played the recording through again at higher and higher volumes. As I raised the levels, the background noise and static increased in proportion, so the voice, though louder, was no clearer. Less if anything. But it was there, it was real; a human voice, very small, faint and in terrible distress, crying out for help in a long-deserted eighteenth century copper mine.

I picked up the Olympus and tracked forward to what I thought would the same point. Nothing. Then I realised that the Olympus would have different sensitivities so would have been recording for a different length of time. I tracked back further, and was still frantically fiddling when Harry returned.

Together, we found the voice on the Olympus too. ' Help me. Help me'. Harry was overjoyed. It didn't seem to me to say a lot about eighteenth century miners, but I don't think Harry was too bothered about that. He was just pleased that his new toy worked. He downloaded both machines onto his laptop, then reset them, positioning them tenderly close to the shaft.

'I'll give them a week this time' he said. 'See what we get. Promising, eh? Promising....'

It was, in the event, a busy old week. Harry spent one night at a conference in Bath, and Tracey and I broke the rules by spending it together at their house, something we said we'd never do. We got two afternoons in as well, as Harry seemed totally wrapped up in something at the Institute – we guessed he was busy hearing voices. I'd told Tracey about 'Help me. Help me.' but of course Harry had told her already.

She was surprisingly affected by it. 'Poor little boy' she said, as we lay entwined together under the duvet. 'Do you suppose he's been trapped between two worlds or something for centuries? Don't you think you ought to get him exorcised?'

'I'm not particularly sure it was a boy' I said ' It could have been a grown man, whispering. A woman. It could be anyone, at any time. Or more likely just a trick of the technology. Listen, I don't really believe in all that stuff anyway. Do you?'

'I don't know' Tracey said 'But I hate to think of something all alone like that, crying out for help liek that for years, maybe centuries, and it never coming. And Harry's taking it seriously. He seems quite emotional these days. For Harry, that is.'

At the end of the week, Harry called me again, as I'd rather hoped he would.

'Will you come out as check the recorders with me again? I think it's important to have a witness. Impartial.'

'Of course I'll come'

We travelled in Harry's old Land Rover, as before, bumping in silence over the tussocky ground, then on foot across the moors to the where the pile of sandstone stood out, isolated and stark. Two hundred years ago there must have been pit mechanisms silhouetted against the sky, workers' cottages all around.... I was never that great on industrial history, to be honest.

The geography of the place was more familiar to me now. Harry had propped the two recorders up against the fence posts, close to the shaft. I crouched over the Panasonic, which I could see had been activated. As I did so, I felt a terrific weight on my back and was splayed forward. The recorder shot out of my hand and tumbled down into the shaft. Harry's big body was on top of me, winding me.

'What the Hell did you do that for?' I gasped, struggling under his weight and twisting to face him. 'Now we've lost the recorder.'

His face was very close to mine, his hair tangled across it, glasses knocked sideways, eyes streaming with tears.

'I know about you and Tracey' he said quietly, sadly, his mouth moist against my ear ' I know everything about it'

I felt as though I'd been kicked in the stomach as well as the back. I managed to shift his weight off me and to half-rise.

'Look, lets talk about this....'

I struggled to my feet, but as I did so Harry launched himself forward again, and I was thrown off balance, backwards this time. I felt the fence rail behind my thighs, then heard it give with a crack as I stumbled back. I fell, one leg twisting under me. As I kicked out with the other, I realised I was kicking into open air and suddenly I was slipping backward into space, into the body of the shaft. My hands flailed and grappled automatically for something solid to catch onto, and found it. The top of the shaft was lined with planking. My fingers grasped at the wooden lip, and held fast.

Harry was standing above me now. He had picked up the Olympus recorder, and was looking at it with a puzzled, distant expression, as though he had forgotten I was there.

My ribcage was so stretched that I could barely breathe. My fingers were cramping and slipping under the dead weight of my body, dangling above hundreds of feet of emptiness.

'Help me!' I managed to whimper in those last few seconds, before my grip finally failed and the pit opened up to embrace me in its darkness forever. 'Help me!'

Help me. Help me.