大象传媒

The Oundle Moonlight Stalker

Oundle is a community approximately twelve miles South of Peterborough in England.
Near Oundle at the end of WW2 there was a re-settlement Camp for de-mobbed Service personnel.
Since I had served my seven years with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during WW2 and had finally got home from Germany in one piece where I had spent four years behind wire after being captured on Crete but was now de-mobbed and had got a railway travel warrant by post with instructions to report to Oundle.

On arrival at Oundle Railway Station I got a taxi and it took me to the Camp.
The Camp had some brick and tile buildings but most were Nissan huts made of corrugated and curved iron sheeting bolted together.

I can remember the walkways that joined one hut to another and these were covered over by more curved corrugated sheeting, but since the walls were only waist high one got a good view of ones surroundings from the walkways.
However the down side of this was that if it rained and there was any breeze one was inclined not to tarry since the wet was driven into these passageways and although the tin roof shaded one from a hot sun on a summers day it did nothing to stop the rain being driven in on the slant.

Sitting in a room with a lot of other people and being reminded by the drumming of rain on the curved tin roof just above ones head that indeed you are wet through and uncomfortable does not sit well with the blokes sitting on your immediate right and left.
If I had put a card round my neck with a card informing all present that I had rabies
it would I think have achieved the same result.

However after the debate of which I have no recollection, I was introduced to some more of the lads who had come home safe from afar, and while thinking that this was all a waste of time I perked up on hearing there was a bus going to Peterborough at about six o鈥檆lock after tea time.

It was bandied about that a film called, 鈥淣ight must fall鈥� was about some madman on the loose and was thinning out the population in some remote township in the U.K.
Half a dozen ex Army lads including myself got to the bus shelter and waited.
The bus arrived and we got in and away we went to Peterborough.

Two of the lads decided to miss the film and went to a Pub instead.

After a comedy film and some adverts the main event was screened and the chip bags ceased to crackle and the mood changed when we saw the hero moving in for the last kiss.
But suddenly a shadowy figure flitting through the trees of the wood that was the backdrop to the open hooded car the two lovers were sitting in.
Since we were viewing the scene from the front of the parked car we could see there was a sloping back to the car and the spare wheel was bolted to it.
Also the audience began to get a bit up tight as the shadowy figure crept silently from one tree to another and getting ever nearer to the car then merging into the trees.

Now in a tight embrace the couple suddenly sprang apart as a figure crashed down from a nearby tree and landed on the spare wheel at the back of the folded down hood the back.
Caught completely by surprise our hero suddenly had his head pulled back by the hair on his head and one swift slash and there was blood spurting everywhere.

The madman then grabbed the screaming girl by the hair and repeated the move and then he was gone leaving the two silent bodies to prove that indeed he had been there.

At this stage one of the lads whispered, 鈥淥y! It鈥檚 time we wuz away, that last bus will be here any minute now鈥�
I was so engrossed with the film that although I heard the remark I was tempted to sit and see the outcome and so I sat there while the others left and remembered one parting shot from one of them, 鈥淚t鈥檚 a twelve mile walk if鈥檔 yu miss the bus!鈥�

The film ended when the mad man was finally cornered by one stalwart British Bobby who whacked the cuffs on him and remonstrated with him for being anti social en at.

However to my delight on getting outside the Cinema I saw it was a full moon in the now very dark sky and I set off walking back to the camp.
I prayed the rain would stay away for that one night.
As I plodded the pavement it petered out and I was leaving the built up area behind
along with the street lights that were also now about half a mile behind me.
After half an hour of walking I lost the noise of the town and all I could hear was my own footsteps plodding ever on.
My mind drifted back to the maniac in the film and thought of how much fun they must have had making the film.
I thought of all the ketchup they would have used to make the scenes more gory and it was then I heard footsteps about a hundred yards back in the darkness behind me.

Suddenly the hair on the back of my neck was standing up and I stopped and side stepped into the thick hedgerow.
The other footsteps also stopped and I stood there peering into the gloom.

Thought were racing through my mind like, 鈥淚t, or him鈥� had removed the foot wear and was even now creeping silently ever closer clutching a big knife.

Then I saw the shadowy figure in the darkness on the other side of the hedge.

I was out of that hedgerow like a sprinter doing the one minute mile and it was then I heard the thud thudding of footsteps on the ground as they too made a running noise in the dark obviously intent on catching up with me.

I stopped suddenly on spotting a five-barred gate with some fence palings or heavy wooden lats in the hedge row to my right, and I made for it and kicked off one of the lats that had a pointed top, and I held it like a spear in front of me with a view to leaping over the gate and getting in the first hit.

Just as I was about to leap over the gate an old cart horse poked his head out of the dark of the hedge and over the gate and snorted into my face.

It was a cool night but I was now wet through with perspiration and I looked up at the moon and swore.
But I soothed the old horse and thought I would return one day and take some sugar lumps but I never got chance.

In the early hours of the morning I got back to the billet and was ready for breakfast
But I missed it because I had a shower and washed my under clothing and laid resting on my bed but went to sleep and was awakened for the midday meal instead.

My companion of the night before had a good laugh then got serious, 鈥淵o wuz lucky owd mate !鈥� warbled one bloke, 鈥淐os yu nivver knaw wha鈥檚 runnin鈥� roon loose as suin as it gets bliddy dark, nah war ah meen ?鈥�
鈥� Still an ah鈥檒l, yer did the reet thing, ah meen if he鈥檇 bin a bliddy vampire yu wid hev nailed 鈥榠m guid wi that wood stake鈥�

Tom Barker 1st A&SH

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