These Things I Saw

The human race has a fundamental propensity to imagine its dreams as somehow existing in the real world and not simply be the patterns of belief, most often handed down with language skills and cultural traditions. These delusions of belief can be, it has to be said, beneficial but also can do great harm to an individual, a nation, even the world at large. Nowhere has this been more evident that the fields of Europe over the last few years, where the imaginings of politicians and the crowned families of these great domains have led to the wholesale slaughter and utter deprivation of an entire generation of young men in the name of Empire.

My name is Simon Thompson and I am an alienist, appointed by His Majesty's government no less, to deal with the fallout of these Imperial nightmares that have brutalised the minds and bodies of young men since 1914. Unlike most doctors I am not one to heal the physically sick but to assist those shell-shocked and mortally horrified young men who have been affected by this disgusting pointless war. I have dealt with men who did naught but cry, others who were catatonic and yet more who did little but rock back and forth, staring into the distance, to the void muttering the names of their dead friends. In the last four years I have seen countless young men driven do the depths of despair and madness by the thoughtless machineries of war. In this time, however, I have never experienced anyone who shook my own rational certainties so violently as to leave them almost rubble as the young artist Daniel Maughan.

Most of the patients I see are referred to me either by doctors at asylums or by those who still work for the Ministry of War. Young Daniel was not, rather he arrived into my life late one wet November evening of 1917. I first met him at my doorstop after he battered my door in an urgent tattoo. Annoyed by this disturbance, I swung open my front door to find him standing there soaked to the bone. His black hair was longish and his little cultivated beard immediately signified him as one who belonged to the “bohemian” sub-culture. He held, in his arms, a large thin rectangle, wrapped in brown paper which was becoming increasingly wet. My ire almost vanished upon gazing at this damp and wretched looking creature but I still managed an angry “Yes?”

The young man looked up at me, almost in tears and said “Doctor Thompson? I desperately need your help.”

I advised this stranger that I had a practice and that he was welcome to make an appointment to see me however he began to plead, to beg, even fell to his knees on the puddle-filled pavement. Since I live in one of the city's better neighbourhoods, I knew that this sort of behaviour would be a matter of hostile gossip amongst the district and so I thought it better to deal with this by inviting the young man indoors.

His thanks were as repetitive as his pleadings as he entered my home and I escorted him into my study, which was made difficult by the cumbersome package that he was holding. I sat him down, offered him a whisky, which he took with thanks and then I went to get him a towel so he might dry himself off and not ruin the upholstery of my leather chair.

When he'd become somewhat less stressed and sodden, he took a deep breath and apologised for his urgency but he asserted he had little choice.

“What is the problem?” I asked.

He looked at me with his dark rimmed eyes, like those of a beaten and terrified dog. I'd seen the look he wore on his face dozens of times, the look of defeat, of trauma, of shock, so familiar from the poor souls left haunted by their experiences in the muddy trench-hells of the Western Front.

“I don't know where to begin.” He began. “I feel silly for even bringing this matter to you considering the severity of the conditions of most of your other patients. I'm a war artist by trade, I've witnessed the atrocities that drove many young men to your office, so believe me when I say to you that my choice to visit was not whimsical.”

He paused took another sip and then before I could respond said, “Doctor, I am being haunted.”

“Haunted? You mean by a spirit, a ghost?” I inquired.

He shook his head. “Nothing as straightforward I fear, besides I never believed in ghosts, do you?”

“No.” I answered. I was relieved by his own admission, there were so many young folk being lured into the delusions of mysticism and theosophy in those decades that even prior the war there were many minds shattered by such nefarious ideas.

He gave a half-satisfied nod. “My name is Daniel Maughan. I was discharged in August 1916 during the ugliness at Verdun. I was hit in my left lung by some shrapnel from a shell. I almost died. I spent three months recuperating in a military hospital and then came back home. I started painting then, but unlike the realistic style I had been hired for, and in fact was my oeuvre, my new work was dark, phantasmagorical. I did not try this, I wanted to depict the horrors of war but while that remained the subject, I found myself painting a different kind of horror.”

I nodded looking at the large rectangle in brown paper and concluding this was one of his pictures. However I was already losing patience, while I was under no doubt this poor man was suffering but it did not seem his issue was my domain. “I fear I may not be able to help you, I am not an art critic.”

He laughed at this, a weak exasperated sound. “My good Doctor, I am not here for you to review my work. I'm here because I fear I am going mad, which I have been assured is something you are skilled at treating.”

“Go on.” I said, feeling somewhat admonished.

“Perhaps I'd be better off getting to the point. A few months ago I began working on a painting about my last days in Verdun. I wanted to show several of the men I met there, all of whom died long before I was hospitalised. They were killed one night after being sent over the top and so I wished to display that last moment, the abject and certain terror they had climbing out of the trenches into enemy fire. Instead I painted this.” He said unwrapping the painting. It looked like a bruise. Dark colours, a grim impressionist set of shapes which took several moments for me to understand, visually.

There were six men climbing up ladders out of a filthy grey trench into a dark no-man’s land with septic yellow coloured clouds hanging in a sombre purple twilight sky. The figures were not merely haggard young men but ghouls, ghastly shapes with sunken eyes and ruined bloody faces, skeletal, pale and with the grinning rictus of death. It was a dismal work, gruesome certainly but there was nothing I could see that was so shocking or transgressive as to propel a mind into madness. “It is a bleak work certainly but I've seen equally as grim subjects in Museums and galleries.”

“Yes, the thing is I only painted five figures.” Daniel answered before he tapped upon the canvas. This figure at the back, the one that looks as if he is staring out at us, he just appeared.”

“Just appeared, you say?”

“Indeed. Worse it seems to be the image of my cousin Patrick, who committed suicide after being discharged with shell shock.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.” I said, mustering as much sympathy as I could.

“I thank you. The other men though, these were not the men I originally depicted, I have no idea who they are. This painting, like others, seems to have changed, to be changing.”

“So you are claiming the painting has been altered without your knowledge?”

“No sir, I am stating that the painting has changed itself. Several of them were locked away in my tiny attic which no other person has access to. So, either I am vandalising my own work without recollection of the events or the paintings are themselves changing. Neither is, I'm sure you'll agree, the conclusion of a stable mind.” The young man confessed.

“Well let's not jump to such conclusions just yet.” I responded, attempting as best I could not to agitate him further.

“There is more. Since the paintings changed, I have seen these horrible figures in my life, just glimpses, at the edge of vision, reflected in mirrors or flitting away from distant windows. As I said I am being haunted, not by ghosts, but by images from these paintings.”

“Paintings of dead men, painted ghosts.” I added.

He nodded thoughtfully whilst pulling a silver cigarette case from his inside jacket pocket. He opened the case, offered me one, which I declined. He took one out and lit it and I supplied him with an ashtray which he took with thanks.

“You have been through a horrible experience Daniel, your body, mind and soul have been under sustained assault and while it is true you've mended physically, I am sure now and then you feel the odd twinge of pain, yes?”

“Yes, my shoulder hurts often.”

“And so it is with the mind, it is trying to heal as best it can and sometimes the trauma you endured, the existential horror of being stuck in such a hellish environment as the trenches, also twinges. These are memories, being projected onto the living world, there is nothing particularly uncommon...”

“THERE!” Daniel yelled cutting me off in mid-sentence. His trembling index finger wavering at the painting. There was a seventh gaunt ghoul behind the sixth that was climbing up the ladder while looking outwards from the painting. “Do you see it?”

I said nothing for a moment, taking stock of what had happened. The seventh figure was nondescript compared to the others and I wondered if this was some elaborate hoax being perpetrated against my person; a ghastly jape at my expense. The paint did not seem to change at all but within a period of several seconds the figure had transformed. It was recognisable to me, a young man whom I'd failed to help, who'd descended into morphine use to ease his own waking nightmares and had overdosed. I am shamed to admit I acted angrily, irrationally. “Yes I see it, is this some kind of cruel joke?”

“No!” Daniel protested, his eyes filled with suppressed tears. His look was one of such unhinged despair that I could not believe he was capable of such complex trickery let alone lying about it. I was confounded and very unsettled by this.

“Well one thing is certain, you're not imagining this.” I whispered, while a cold trickle of fear ran down my spine.

Daniel gave a nervous but relieved laugh. “Then what could this be?”

“I do not know, nor would I bold enough to hazard a guess, I know less about this sort of thing than I do art criticism.” I answered. It took me a second or two to realise that while I was not best suited to deal with this, one of my old college friends, Aubrey Westcott dabbled in psychical research, though he fancied himself a “parapsychologist”.

I explained this to the young Mr Maughan and asked if he would like me to put him in contact with Westcott.

“Anything that might help me find peace again Doctor.” He responded.

I agreed that I would help him and asked that he leave the painting for me to show Westcott. He had no issue with this and in fact seemed relieved though he did say he had many other paintings equally as questionable. Another whisky to settle his nerves (and mine, truth be told) and after taking his details I bade the young gentleman a good night.

I called Westcott on the telephone the next day, explaining all that had happened. He knew I was not a fanciful man and so took my words seriously and in the afternoon came down to my offices. I had brought the painting with me. I wished I had not.

Westcott arrived shortly after lunch and after a few minutes of catching up I took him to see the painting. The painting had altered dramatically. There were now ten figures, each as horrid and ghastly as the originals, though two were women. Westcott was outraged, furious at me and demanded to know what I thought I was doing. I tried to glean some reason for his ire and in a fury he pointed to the two women. Depictions of his sisters, he claimed, both whom had died as passengers on the Lusitania.

I assured him I had forgotten all about the tragedy, that I would never do something so cruel and explained again that it was the painting, not me, nor the artist who had done this. That neither women were in the painting less than an hour before, when I had last checked it. He seemed to struggle with this. Parapsychologist or not, it was clear he had little experience with such phenomena as he claimed to research. He said he would give me the benefit of the doubt but was less than happy during his time there. He expressed a concern as to the aesthetics of the painting, suggesting the art was deliberately constructed to unsettle the viewer. I could not and did not disagree.

Studying it further I noticed for the first time that one of the original gaunt figures resembled none other than the artist, Daniel Maughan. Had it always, I cannot be sure, but what I am certain of is that Maughan did not make his appointment to meet with Westcott. He did not arrive at my offices, nor did he make any effort to contact me. Westcott was increasingly annoyed by this, accused me of wasting his valuable time. He stormed out and I was left feeling embarrassed and frustrated.

An hour later I received a call from him. Apparently he went back to his research in a foul mood and complained bitterly to his colleagues about my tastless jape. One of his assistants, who unlike Westcott or myself was a bit of an art afficionado, knew of Daniel Maughan.

According to this individual, Maughan was a promising young artist who had volunteered to be a war artist and had been killed in Verdun in August 1916. The individual even supplied Westcott with an obituary in one of the local papers.

I thought at first it was Westcott attempting to get me back for the insult he thought I'd played upon him. I said so but Westcott said he was serious and in fact asked me to stay there until he could come back down and collect this painting. I did as I was asked, I was glad to be rid of it.

Westcott came and took the painting around four and said to me that my find was astonishing, that we might be rich and famous, if it turned out that some dead artist was creating horrid paintings from beyond the grave. I did not believe him but I was happy to be done with the whole situation. I gave him Maughan's painting, which he took with thanks, telling me he would keep me up to date with his findings.

He never did. In fact I never heard from Westcott again. Shortly after taking my painting he resigned from his position and disappeared with the painting and several dozen valuable artefacts of interest to the psychical research community. There were rumours that he'd been lured over to the German side, which I found preposterous. Others claimed he'd set up shop as an auctioneer of occult antiques, and yet more suggested that he had, all along, been working for some other un-named group who had close ties to the crown.

None of this gave me any peace of mind, because even now, to this very day, I see those painted ghouls and others like them. I see them shifting in dark windows, sneaking out of sight in dark tenement closes, hiding behind curtains and furniture. These ghosts of oil paint are always there, just out of sight waiting for me to catch a partial glimpse. Sometimes, not often, I hear them whisper and I imagine it is my name they call from wherever it is they dwell.

I have no evidence, other than this tale, that these things happened and some days I wonder if they ever did. Certainly the staff and Doctor Higgins do not believe me, but perhaps someone will, perhaps someone else has witnessed Maughan's paintings and is also being haunted by the images found therein. I hope this is the case because the alternative does not bear thinking about. I am Simon Thompson, an alienist, appointed by His Majesty's government no less. If I am mad, what hope lies for the rest of us?