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 join, though Wallis did not want to kill and was a pacifist. 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. An instrument Wallis could not recognize, something like a trumpet. A boat that was not recognizable to any side of the war appeared about 20 yards from the shoreline. It was like an old tall ship but made entirely of cold, black iron. On the side was the name: Nemesis.
Wallis then saw figures in Japanese uniforms walking towards the shore, walking in time with the beat of the music. When they got to the shoreline, the control over them suddenly broke, and they turned on each other viciously with their weapons. When they had fallen, dead, the music stopped. Wallis's comrades began to cheer, not because they were glad to be free, but with 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 had taken the uniforms from an original owner who encountered violence. The sailors lined up all of the men on the ship; Wallis and his comrades waited 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. When the POWs asked questions they got no response. Leonard was the first to "dance"--Wallis thinks of it as dancing at least, and he is not sure why. In sudden anger, Leonard grabbed one of the other released prisoners and began beating him, not stopping even after the man was dead. It only stopped when another released prisoner attacked him with a bayonet. One by one the stolen prisoners started succumbing to the music and killing each other.
The crew of the Nemesis cheered on the violence, but they repeatedly looked to the sky with anticipation, then worry as nothing appeared and there were fewer remaining prisoners. Wallis noticed that the ship was slowly sinking. He waited for the music to get him and make him dance too, but it never did. As water began to flow onto the deck, he ran for one of the smaller boats on the ship. The crew simply watched him with deep despair and disappointment. The Nemesis sunk beneath the waves as Wallis sailed away. He was picked up by an Allied ship a few days later, and sat out the rest of the war.
Final Comments[]
For nearly 40 years, Gertrude has wondered about the Slaughter's ritual; she is relieved the Risen War failed before she was born and she does not need to worry about it. She had done research on the Cuban Missile Crisis, but reflects that she should have known that few wars had reached the heightened fear that would be needed for the ritual.
She finds the anticlimax of the ritual fascinating. She theorizes that the Slaughter's followers were waiting 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 the followers had survived the sinking of the Nemesis, they must regret not waiting a few more years and sailing into Nagasaki Harbour instead.
Gertrude has another ritual to cross off her list. It does not help her at all with the Unknowing though. She still has Dekker's backup plan with explosives, but it is 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 is not convinced it would be enough and she has grown fond of the boy. She wonders if she had told him about Eric, whether he would follow in his father's footsteps or not, but it is not like it kept Eric safe anyways. She decides that she can probably discount the Slaughter, as it had its chance.
Post-Statement[]
John 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 it has not been replaced yet. John 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 is a box of tapes and statements in the corner. He think they are ones that Elias did not feel he could trust John with yet, or maybe just the ones he was checking himself. John wants to avoid tipping Peter off to the fact that he has access to the office. John does not Know Elias's safe combination (yet) so he took the first of the tapes that called to him and found this statement.
John is relieved he does not have to worry about a Slaughter ritual, and that he has confirmation that Eric was Gerry's father and presumably Mary Keay's partner. John says that he has 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 John has had was from Gerry, who did not really know what it meant. John believes it to be the grand ritual of the Beholding, and that he needs to Know about it. He feels like he is running out of time, like he is on a deadline and he does not know where to go or what to look for. He is tired.
Continuity[]
- Related Entity: The Slaughter
- The ship HEIC 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.