Savage Wings: Book Three of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 1

Taken from the journal of Benjamin Garrick, physician.

 

May 27th,1692, Sozopol.

 Forgive me, for it hath been some days since I was afforded the opportunity to document my travels. So determined I was to record every detail, every sight, sound, taste, smell. So resolute I was that not one single iota of wondrous discovery would be missed. However my journey hath taken a decidedly unexpected change of direction, one for which I was certainly not prepared.

I barely know how to document the happenings of the last few days. I know not where to begin. I know not how to arrange my thoughts in some semblance of order. It is as if my rational mind hath abandoned me completely. But I will try to record something, although of what value it will be, I could not truthfully say. I hope, at least, that inscribing my thoughts to this page might enable me to make some sense of what is occurring and, in time, to find a solution to these troubles. Although I confess, the latter seems like a distinct impossibility.

When I set sail from England just three months afore, I had dreamed of great adventures. Oh, so thrilled I was at the thought of the places I was destined to discover, all the mysteries I would unfold, the great work I could do! So utterly glad I was to be free of London, with all its filth-encrusted streets, it's grasping, gluttonous aristocracy and the pitiful squalor of the East End. I still insist there is an unnatural air about that place. It is like the shroud of Death itself is wrapped around the city, cloaking every part of it. As a young physician, newly admitted to the College of Physicians just two years afore, I knew London would cripple my spirit and crush every dream I had ever harboured. In fact, I knew that if I was to remain there another year, it would kill me. I wanted more and what I wanted London did not possess.

Is it not strange how a person always desires more and then laments terribly when they get just that? For I suppose that is just what I am doing. However I never once imagined I would befall such a strange twist of direction on my travels, just as I never once imagined I would miss England, and yet I do. I have begun to miss it dreadfully. Everything here seems so bewildering; like I have somehow stumbled into a nightmarish world the mind torments you with during slumber. I certainly feel tormented.

Here I am, digressing already, when I should record my thoughts and begone! Sleep hath wickedly eluded me these last few nights and I must capture as many hours or perhaps, minutes that I can, for the townsfolk need me and a physician who cannot think clearly, or indeed even stand through sheer exhaustion, is no good to anyone, not even himself.

Just four days ago, and two days after I last recounted my travels in this journal, I was on the road to Stambul, desiring to see the great wonders of the Ottoman Empire, fuelled by those stories told to me by my dearest Uncle Samuel before his passing. Through Transylvania and Walachia I had travelled, finally reaching the coast of the Black Sea, although why they call it Black I shall never know, for it is the most beautiful of places and the sight of it now seems to be the only thing that calms my spirit.

It was on this road, I happened upon a gentleman of the cloth, an English priest heading to Roma, after fleeing the Catholic hatred troubling our homeland. He now travelled across the continent administering comfort and blessings to the sick. On bidding one another a good morning, we discovered that we were in fact, kinsmen on foreign soil, and struck up a conversation. As we spoke, I could not help but notice that he seemed somewhat troubled. He wore a dark expression, as if he was here in body and yet his spirit was locked in some torturous prison.

'From whence hath you come, Father?' I asked the priest.

The priest pointed in a southerly direction and I saw that his hand shook noticeably as he did so.

'Sozopol,' he replied. 'But do not go there, sir, for there lives the Plague.'

'The Plague, you say?' I remarked in surprise. 'Are you certain?'

It is true that I had heard of recurrences of the foul disease upon my journey, small pockets of infection here and there across the continent but this was the first time I had happened upon an infected town myself.

'Some of the townsfolk are tainted with an awful malady,' the priest said. 'The contagion does not appear to be as fast as that I heard afore, but I fear it will take firm hold soon, for more and more fall sick with each dawn of a new day.'

'But you have seen signs that it is the Plague?' I asked.

'It surely must be,' the priest replied. 'For there is no cure to be found. Nothing the physician did could help those people.'

'Well then, perhaps I can assist him,' I said with enthusiastic fervour. 'For I am also a physician, from London no less.'

'Whether from London or Paris, you cannot help him now, dear sir, for he is quite dead,' he said with grim face.

'They hath no physician? Then all the more reason for me to go directly there and help them,' I said. 'You should return with me, Father, together we can help those poor afflicted people.'

The priest appeared truly horrified at my suggestion. 'Sir, I will not go back to that place and if you value your life, then you will heed my warning and do the same. There is nothing there for you or for anyone except Death himself.'

'But Father, I beseech you! We cannot leave them to suffer so.'

'If they suffer it is because someone there hath bargained with the Devil,' the priest replied.

I was truly aghast. 'Why would you say so, Father? Did you see evidence that someone amongst them worships the Beast?'

'The sign of their contagion is enough for me, sir. I tell you now, there is something very wrong indeed in Sozopol and your skills as a physician cannot save them. It is a cursed place.'

The priest did then wish me good day, urging me again to change course and avoid Sozopol altogether and then he did make haste on the road until he disappeared from my sight.

I confess, I waited there for some time, considering the priest's words, yet for all his warnings, I could not willingly leave the people of Sozopol to suffer so. I was a physician and greatly proud of my calling in life, having sworn to always help those in such need. How could I, in good faith, turn my back and ignore their plight?

Since entering the town, I hath thought often on that moment. Alone in my dwelling place in the dead of night, when the silence of the town hath gripped me in a fear I could not rightly explain, I have pondered much on my decision to follow this path. In fact, I think I torture myself with it. I am a doctor. I am meant to help the sick. It is what I was put on the Lord's Earth to do and I do not have the right to decide who I shall help and who I shall abandon. Yet why do I wish I had heeded the priest's warning?

I hath verily believed myself to be a good Christian man, and yet, as a physician, my mind looks to science to explain, rationalise and heal. My scientific mind cannot explain what is happening here, nor can I rightly rationalise what I have heard and seen since I stepped foot in Sozopol. I am certainly failing in all my attempts to heal these people. With each failure to cure yet another of the infected, the townsfolk become increasingly convinced that the Beast walks amongst them and that they are indeed cursed, as the priest did affirm.

I hath taken great efforts to suppress the hysteria that grows in this place, but the townsfolk are in the grips of some infectious madness and the longer I stay here, the more I feel that same madness taking root within me. I care not for hysterics and wild conjecture. I care only for the factual, but the facts here perplex and terrify me.

Something ails this town, whether it is the work of the Devil remains to be seen but there is one thing that I do know. It is not the Plague that stalks the streets of Sozopol, but something else entirely.