Statement of Wallis Turner. Incident occurred at the North Point prisoner-of-war camp, then later the sunken ship “Nemesis” in late 1942. Statement taken 3rd July 1955 at the Pu Songling Research Centre, Beijing.
Statement
Wallis Turner never wanted to fight in the war. He was terrified of the thought of it and when he was drafted, he was close to refusing and taking prison time. Seeing his dad proud of him convinced him to fight. Wallis didn't like killing and was a pacifist, but it didn't matter. He was sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. After six months, he was captured and sent off to the North Point prison camp in occupied Hong Kong.
He was in the prison camp for four months. Leonard Holden, the closest thing Wallis had to a friend in the camp, heard the music first. At first, it was a drumbeat. Wallis could feel his pulse quicken like it wanted to match the tempo, but he didn't know why. Then a trumpet started playing. Wallis calls it a trumpet because its the closest thing he could come up with to the sound, but it wasn't like a normal trumpet. There was a boat about 20 yards from the shoreline. It wasn't Imperial, but it wasn't an allied ship either. It was like an old, tall ship but made entirely of cold, black iron. On the side was the name: Nemesis.
It had been almost a full minute from seeing the ship and there was no response from Imperial forces. Wallis then saw figures walking towards the shore, and he could barely make out the uniforms of his captors. They walked in time with the beat of the drum and the trumpet. After they got to the shoreline, the figures were still moving in time to the beat, but all at once the control over them broke and they started fighting with their blades. When they were all lying still, the music stopped and Wallis could hear his comrades cheer. This cheer was not of those glad for freedom, but the sound of bloodlust and cruelty.
Small boats starting to come from the ship to ferry the POWs over. The sailors on the ship wore a mess of uniforms, many from different countries or eras, but each with a telltale sign that the sailor with the uniform was not the original owner. The sailors lined up all of the men on the ship and Wallis and his comrades stood there, waiting to know what was expected of them. At this point, Wallis noticed that the ship was full of rust and holes and should absolutely not have been floating.
After an hour of sailing, the music started up again. The men on the ship started asking questions, but they got no response. Leonard was the first to "dance". Wallis thinks of it as dancing at least, and he isn't sure why. Leonard started killing one of the other released prisoners. Even after the man was dead, Leonard still kept on beating him. It only stopped when another released prisoner stabbed him with a stolen bayonet. One by one the stolen prisoners started succumbing to the music and killing each other.
Wallis began to see the water line creeping up the ship. The whole time, he expected the music to get him too, but it never did. Instead, he ran for one of the smaller boats on the ship. The crew simply watched him with a face of despair, the deepest disappointment he had ever seen. The Nemesis sunk beneath the waves as Wallis sailed away. He was picked up by an allied ship a few days later.
Final Comments
For nearly 40 years, Gertrude has wondered about the Slaughter's ritual and she is relieved it failed. It turns out she didn't need to worry about it. The Risen War failed a few years before she was born. She thinks she should have known as few other wars had reached the heightened fear that would be needed for the ritual, although she did do a bit of research on the Cuban Missile Crisis. She finds the anticlimax fascinating. She can only assume that they were supposed to be bombed at the height of the ritual. She wonders what stopped it—maybe a Japanese radar filled with spiderwebs or a US destroyer finding itself suddenly alone in the open ocean. She thinks that if any of them had survived the sinking of the Nemesis, they must be kicking themselves. If only they had waited a few more years and sailed her into Nagasaki Harbour instead.
Gertrude has another ritual to cross off her list. It doesn't help her at all with the Unknowing though. She still has Dekker's backup plan with explosives, but it's very risky. She believes the explosion would have to happen from within the Unknowing while it was going on. Gerard might have a connection with the eye, but she's not convinced it would be enough and she's grown fond of the boy. She wonders if she had told him about Eric, whether he'd follow in his father's footsteps or not, but it's not like Eric was safe anyways. She decides that she can probably discount the Slaughter, as it had its chance.
Post-Statement
Jon says that when Daisy broke the lock to get into Elias' office, she broke it in such a fashion that it does not appear broken, and so hasn't been replaced yet. Jon is thus able to get into Elias's office and have a look around. He notes that everything is mostly how he remembers it, but there's a box of tapes and statements in the corner. He think they are ones that Elias did not feel he could trust Jon with yet, or maybe just the ones he was checking himself. Jon wants to avoid tipping Peter off to the fact that he has access to the office, and it turns out that Jon does not Know Elias's safe combination, yet anyway. Jon took the first of the tapes that called to him, the statement we just heard about Wallis Turner.
Jon is relieved he doesn't have to worry about a Slaughter ritual, and that he has confirmation that Eric was Gerry's father and presumably Mary Keay's partner. Jon says that he's felt adrift ever since he crawled out of the coffin, chasing old bread crumbs. He is frustrated that he does not know what the Watcher's Crown is. The only mention of it that Jon has had was from Gerry, who did not really know what it meant. Jon believes it to be the grand ritual of the Beholding, and that he needs to Know about it. He feels like he's running out of time, like he's on a deadline and he doesn't know where to go or what to look for. He is tired.
Continuity
- The ship HMS Nemesis has been previously mentioned in MAG 105: Total War. This was also a statement Gertrude had checked out at the Pu Songling Research Centre.
- The Eric that Gertrude mentions as Gerry's father is likely her previous assistant Eric Delano, as it is known he worked in the archives. He has previously been briefly mentioned in MAG 62 and MAG 85.
- Daisy's love for The Archers was first revealed in MAG 106.