The Ribbajack (4 page)

Archibald Smifft’s entire body shook until the bed rattled. He had done it, his Ribbajack was alive!

 

 

 

Rev. Miller slurped the last of his Brown Windsor soup. Dabbing his lips with a napkin, he announced confidently to the headmaster and matron, “I gave that young curmudgeon a piece of my mind, indeed I did! That’ll teach Smithers not to dally lightly with the old Sky Pilot, eh? Magic and spells? Poppycock and humbug, if you ask me!”

Mr. Plother had already heard the chaplain’s account three times. He splodged mayonnaise onto his veal and ham pie salad with renewed appetite. “I’m sure you dealt succinctly with the matter, Padre.”

Mrs. Twogg buttered a slice of whole-meal bread. “Indeed, let’s hope you’ve put an end to the whole unsavoury episode, Reverend. Would you pass the claret, please.”

Rev. Miller topped up his own glass before relinquishing the wine. He began reminiscing about a similar affair involving a young subaltern in Jodhpur when the phone broke in on his narrative. The headmaster arose from his chair. “Excuse me for a moment, please.”

He conversed for several moments with the caller, then replaced the receiver with an irritable sigh. “Would you believe it? Two of our boys have recently boarded a train to Yorkshire—Harrogate in fact!”

The matron looked up from her salad. “Oh, dear, which two?”

Aubrey Plother tapped his chin thoughtfully. “All the pupils were gone by four this afternoon—there’s only three remaining, Smifft, Soames and Wilton. Did you happen to see them around the dormitory, Padre?”

Rev. Miller blinked vaguely. “Afraid not, really. Ah, wait, though, I did spot two young coves before I went up there. Carrying suitcases they were, furtive, pale-faced boys.”

Mrs. Twogg nodded knowingly. “That’ll be Wilton and Soames.”

Mr. Plother looked bewildered. “But they never applied to go home, both their parents are overseas. Where do you suppose they’ve gone?”

The matron stood up decisively. “We shall have to bring them back before any harm befalls them. Next train to Harrogate for us, Headmaster!”

The headmaster picked up the phone. “I’d best telephone the Harrogate Police and instruct them to hold the boys at the station until we arrive. Most inconsiderate and thoughtless of Soames and Wilton. Goodness knows what time we’ll get back here with them.”

Rev. Miller retrieved the claret and poured himself more. “Next train to Harrogate’s at nine-fifteen, you won’t get back tonight. Book rooms for yourselves and the boys at the Station Hotel. You can catch the early-morning milk train tomorrow, that’ll get you back here for breakfast. Don’t worry about me, I’ll hold the fort here. Trains, eh, I remember back in ’twenty-eight, or was it ’twenty-seven? Old Biffo Boulton and I had to catch a train from Poonah junction. Confounded unreliable, the trains out there. Anyhow, Biffo and I had been out on a tiger hunt that same day, so we still had our guns with us, good job, really—”

The matron cut in on his story abruptly. “You’ll have to excuse us, Reverend, we have a train to catch!”

The chaplain raised his glass, announcing to the empty room as the door slammed behind the pair, “What, er, by all means, you two toddle off now. By Jove, old Biffo was a card, y’know, did I tell you he had a wooden leg?”

Rev. Miller continued, unperturbed, recounting tales of himself and old Biffo in India.

 

 

 

Out in the quadrangle, the clock chimed 11:45 P.M. Pale shafts of moonlight replaced the day’s sunrays in the dormitory windows. Archibald had not moved from his bed. He lay there, filled with an awful rapture, seeing the thing that his mind had given birth to. The Ribbajack surpassed anything that a sane, normal person could devise. Archibald Smifft had long passed the states of sanity, or normality.

The monster had curving horns sprouting from its massive blue-feathered head. A single saucer-sized eye dripped noxious fluid, glaring from above a great hooked beak. The loathsome torso, merging from its feathered neck, was coated in dirty yellow crocodile scales, right down to a pair of three-taloned feet. At either end of two long, hairy, suckered arms, the thing’s lethal hands clenched and writhed, searching for something to latch on to. Its beak clashed like a steel trap as it shambled about. Archibald Smifft shuddered in villainous ecstasy as he mouthed in his sleep, “My Ribbajack! Come to your master, Ribbajack!”

As the quadrangle clock struck midnight, a bulky object hitting the floor woke Archibald. Wiping freezing sweat from his eyes, he sat upright, peering at the monstrous beast. It crouched in a patch of moonlight beside his bed, revealed in all its hideous reality.

When he could find his voice, Archibald addressed the thing. “Ribbajack, are you really here?”

Fixing him with its ghastly eye, the monster rumbled:

It stood waiting on Archibald’s word, swaying from side to side, clacking its beak and clenching its talons. The dreadful eye never strayed from him. Archibald stared back at the Ribbajack, his confidence returning. After all, the thing was his creation, and here it was, standing, awaiting his command like a giant dog. What did he have to fear? Sliding from the bed, he confronted it boldly, speaking aloud:

Without further exchange of words, the Ribbajack bounded swiftly from the dormitory, leaving Archibald alone in his den. Climbing back into bed, he smiled blissfully (a very rare thing for the terror of Duke Crostacious’s school). Exhausted by his strenuous mental efforts, Archibald fell into a deep sleep.

 

 

 

At nine-fifteen on the following morn, the train from Harrogate puffed into the station. Mr. Plother and Mrs. Twogg emerged onto the platform, minus the two boys they had gone to fetch back. Tipping his cap to them, the stationmaster enquired, “What happened, sir, did the two lads give the police the slip at Harrogate?”

The headmaster replied wearily, “Not really. It appears they went off to visit Soames’s aunt, quite unofficially, of course. There wasn’t a great deal we could do about it. I gave them a stern piece of my mind about giving prior notice of absence. But boys will be boys, I suppose. Apart from a wasted journey, there’s no great harm done. Young Soames’s aunt was very hospitable. She put the matron and myself up for the night, gave us a first-class breakfast, too. Her man drove us back to the station this morning, in time for the early train.”

It was not a long walk back to school. The matron strode out energetically, stretching her legs after the train ride. Mr. Plother gave a halfhearted hop-skip, trying to keep up with her. Mrs. Twogg breathed deeply.

“Ah! What a glorious day, Headmaster, not a cloud in the sky and dew still on the hedgerows. Hark, is that a lark ascending over the meadows?”

Mr. Plother’s ingrown toenail was bothering him, but he tried to get into the spirit of things. “I believe it is, Matron,
Alauda arvensis,
the common skylark. Well, marm, our troubles are over. Perhaps that lark is the herald of a long, peaceful summer. The old school lies empty, boys all away until autumn term, and the Padre has solved our Smifft problem. What more could we ask for?”

The matron answered promptly. “A nice cup of tea, Headmaster. I do hope the Reverend has the kettle boiling when we get back to your study.”

On entering the school, the matron waved cheerily to the cleaning lady, who was busy mopping the entrance hall. “Good morning, Mrs. McDonald, do I smell the aroma of our chaplain brewing tea in the headmaster’s study?”

The cleaner paused, leaning on her mop. “Rev. Miller ain’t up out o’ bed yet, Matron. I took a cuppa me own tea up t’the poor man earlier. I s’pect it’s a touch of the malaria from ’is service out in India. All manner of h’ailments a body could catch out there, they say. You wouldn’t catch me goin’ to foreign parts. Margate’ll do nicely for me, thank you.”

Mr. Plother stayed the matron’s progress for the stairs. “I’ll pop up and take a look at the Padre. You know how he hates ladies fussing about after him. Stay down here and have a cup of tea with Mrs. McDonald.”

Mr. Plother’s hesitant tap on the chaplain’s door was answered by a booming voice. “Enter!” Rev. Miller was sitting up in bed, looking rather flushed. The top of his nightshirt was torn, with three buttons missing. The headmaster smiled encouragingly.

“Just back from Harrogate. The two boys are staying with an aunt, no cause for alarm. Mrs. McDonald said you weren’t feeling quite up to the mark, old chap. How d’you feel now, better?”

Rev. Miller snorted. “Confounded busybody, that lady. There’s not a thing wrong with me. Bit of a bad dream last night, nothing more. Huh, veal’n’ham pie, and two large glasses of claret before bedtime—self-inflicted injury, as they say in the army. Feeling right as rain now, though, eh!”

Mr. Plother made the error of pursuing the subject. “Bad dream . . . perhaps you had a nightmare, Padre?”

One person was all the chaplain required as an audience. “Nightmare? Well, judge for y’self, sir. Let me tell you about it. I went to bed about eleven, never had any trouble sleeping, went off like a top. Don’t know what woke me, in fact I don’t know whether I was really awake—jolly strange things, dreams. Anyhow, I felt a definite presence in the room. One doesn’t spend all those years in the military and not know about these things, y’know. I almost sat up straight, don’t know what possessed me, but I couldn’t cry out at the creature.”

The headmaster shifted his gaze from a pair of Ghurka Kukri knives crossed over the mantelpiece. “You saw a creature, here, in your room?”

Knowing he had intrigued his listener, the Rev dropped his voice to a dramatic whisper. “Oh, yes, indeed I did, sir. Great hulking shuffling thing, standing there in the moonlight. The blighter looked like a crocodile standing upright. Had long arms, like a gorilla, with suckers growing on them. It was glaring right at me from one big eye, had a head of feathers and a big, ugly parrot’s beak. What d’you think of that?”

A smile formed on the headmaster’s lips. “Really, Padre, and how many glasses of claret did you have before retiring last night?”

The Rev’s wattled neck quivered indignantly. “I resent that implication, sir. Two glasses is my limit, always is, and always has been, since I resigned my commission. How dare you insinuate that I was under the influence!”

Aubrey Plother, I.O.U.E., held up an apologetic hand. “Forgive me, Padre, it was a thoughtless remark. But what was this monstrous thing you saw?”

The chaplain nodded knowingly. “A Jibberack, or a Jabberwok. I don’t recall the exact name they had for it out in Burma, but I recognised the beastie right away. I’ll have to go back a few decades to explain myself, so I hope you’ll bear with me, Headmaster.”

Good manners dictated that Mr. Plother could not refuse. That, and the fact that he was becoming interested in the tale. “By all means, Padre, carry on, please do.”

Rev. Miller continued his narrative. “Many years ago I was Padre to a garrison in Burma, stationed in the Paktai Hills. One day I had occasion to save a chap’s life, Burmese fellow. It was in the floods of ’twenty-three, as I recall. I was younger and fitter then, y’know. Heard villagers wailing and shouting down by the river, so I went to investigate. Saw this poor blighter being swept away, half drowned by the floodwaters. Of course, chap like me, never stopped t’think. Dived right in, swam out, grabbed the man and dragged him bank to the bank. His name was Arif—splendid old boy, as it turned out. Anyhow, after that Arif became my man, wasn’t nothing he wouldn’t do for me, looked after me like a mogul emperor. We became the closest of chums, he was like a brother to me. When my term was served and I was due to return to England, poor Arif, he looked like a lost dog. I was pretty sad, too. We both knew it was the last we would see of each other.

“So there I was, waiting at the station for the coastal troop train back to Blighty. We exchanged gifts to remember one another by. I gave Arif my own personal morocco-bound Bible—wrote in the flyleaf for him, too. Arif had a medal which he always wore about his neck. He took it off and hung it around my neck. It was solid silver with a star and some ancient script engraved upon it. I was deeply touched, and asked him what it was. ‘Tuan Dusty,’ he said—that’s what Arif always called me. ‘Tuan Dusty, this is a most powerful and ancient charm. It was given to me by a very holy man. The medal will ward off the evil of a Ribbajack, and protect you from it.’ ”

Mr. Plother repeated the curious-sounding word. “Ribbajack?”

Rev. Miller’s bushy eyebrows rose. “By Jove, I remembered it. Ribbajack, that’s what they called it out there. Actually, it was a trifle embarrassing, a Church of England minister wearing some Burmese religious talisman around his neck. But be that as it may, I wore it to mark my friendship with Arif, I was proud to. I’m not ashamed to say that I still wear it to this day, see?”

Fishing inside the collar of his nightgown, the Rev drew forth Arif’s medal. It was hung on braided elephant hair and looked exactly as he had described it. Rev. Miller stared out the window at the soft English summer morning, so far from Burma all those years ago. “I’ll never forget old Arif, never!”

Mr. Plother inspected the medallion closely. “Tell me, Padre, what exactly is a Ribbajack?”

The chaplain looked surprised. “You’ve never heard of a Ribbajack? Dearie me, I’ll have to complete your education, sir. Out in the Paktai Hill country, the Ribbajack was a terrifying legend. It’s a monster, an ogre, a thing of immense evil, created in a person’s mind. If you hate an enemy enough, they say that you can give birth to the Ribbajack from your own imagination. Once it is clear enough inside your head, one midnight hour, your Ribbajack will come alive and destroy the person you name.”