The next day there was quite a bit of activity up and down the hill road. All involved were military vehicles; jeeps and staff cars. The local police were demoted to stopping cars going over the top with a road block on the edge of the village. Ahab glanced at the headlines in the local paper in the newsagents that morning, but the big news was about a cat stuck up a tree for three days. They won’t have last night’s events ready for press yet he thought. He was surprised, though, to listen to the BBC news on the radio at lunchtime, and nothing was mentioned. At 6 o’clock he watched the main news on TV and still no mention. The Welsh news followed, and again nothing was reported. “Must have been of those experimental planes” he concluded. “If they aren’t going to tell us, I’m not going to bother to ask.”
On the Wednesday night the light of the army camp had been obvious and more vehicles headlights could be seen coming over the pass from the other direction.

On Thursday the paper still had no mention of a plane crash. Not even a column inch anywhere inside. Ahab bought a copy this day and went through all the stories several times, but found nothing relating to a plane crash, or explanations of the military activity. Nobody in the village had any news either. The road was closed to the public, with those living along it only being allowed to come down the hill to the village and having to make a long detour if they needed to go the other way. It was said that Dr Jenkins had gone up there, but when the police arrived he was given the ‘nothing to see here’ instruction. A group of walkers on a public footpath up there were rather indignant that they had been ordered off the hills by armed soldiers, being told to find something better to do, and without any explanation. The leader of the walking group had protested his right of way. “My rights are inviolate, Sir!” The soldiers just stood their ground, blocking the path. Helicopters had been circling nearly non-stop during daylight hours, with occasional swoops away from the site as if they had spotted something.

It was getting dark that afternoon when a convoy of trucks, jeeps and military staff cars came down from the site in convoy, with not a trivial noise. They turned left onto the main road and disappeared. The black boxes, heavily strapped shut, were on the flatbeds, with armed soldiers beside them. The police took down the road blocks ten minutes later. A couple of police were known to the villagers, but when questioned about what was going on, replied that they had no idea either. The first police up the hill had seen some lights across the hills, but to them it looked like poachers with lamps. Then they had been sent down by the army and told only to let military personnel in. No-one was answering any questions. Ahab made his way along the street, past the chemist shop where a new sign had been placed outside. It advertised Vitamo, now with added iron. Vitalise yourself it commanded. “As if I need that” thought Ahab. Opposite Saint Rilievo’s church he saw Tom Wynnstay in the garden of his ancient, but splendid house. Tom was the one person who might get to hear something. He moved in the right circles, namely the golf club.
“What do you think happened?” asked Ahab, not needing to elaborate the question.
“I’m not entirely sure,” replied Tom, but come inside and have a drink and I’ll tell you what I think. They passed under the arch where letters and initials over the door stated LH and MDCXI. Ahab sat down and Tom fetched bottle and glasses.
“Some of my finest home-brewed elderberry wine. Vin solitaire I call it as, nowadays I usually have to drink it on my own”
Over the bottle the two men discussed the events of Tuesday night. Tom had no real information, but Ahab knew him to be well educated, level-headed and realistic. “Almost certainly it was a military plane that crashed. There’s that airfield over by Shell Island, south of Harlech. I do know that they have been having trials of some radio controlled planes there, but usually only during the day and in visual sight of the base. And those planes are not full size. They don’t need to be. If one of those had crashed it would not have made such a loud noise, and the light on the hillside wouldn’t have been bright enough to see down hear. That doesn’t mean they haven’t tried some full size planes at night, and perhaps armed too. They would want to keep that secret wouldn’t they?”
“So it wasn’t an earthquake then” said Ahab, “I couldn’t see why that would glow”.
“There is a phenomenon called ‘earthlight’” informed Tom. “A sort of glow about the ground when a quake’s origin is not deep in the earth. Probably static electricity. But that light could just have been some of those friends of yours, up in the hills poaching and catching rabbits.” Tom thought of the Williams’ whose sons often went out at night. They used polecats rather than ferrets to chase the rabbits out of the warrens. “I can’t see why the military spent two days and nights up there in the sleet and rain investigating an earthquake and poachers though” continued Tom.
“So the flash across the sky was a pilotless plane in trouble then” said Ahab.
Tom gathered his thoughts before answering. “There is an outside chance that it was meteor that came down there. It doesn’t have to be massive to make a big bang travelling at 200,000 mph. Could be the size of a football, at molten heat, as it flies through the atmosphere. You scoured the local news, but a snippet in The Guardian mentioned a fireball seen in Scotland and Denmark on Sunday night. Rocky debris in space can often come in spurts; a meteor shower for instance.”
“But they wouldn’t need the army up there for a meteor though, would they”
“No, that’s what’s puzzling me. Whether it was a plane, earthquake, or meteor, the different contenders will always think their evidence is the most impressive”.
The two men finished the bottle, opened another and watched TV together, before Ahab headed off home. He passed the village women’s outfitters and notice they still hadn’t removed the Christmas decorations yet. Baby Jesus was still in his crib wearing a tinselled crown. “That’s how it should be” he though. “Time stands still in villages like here. No experimental planes are needed.” The window display though distracted his attention from the figure moving in the shadows across the road. It was about five foot tall, of indiscernible gender, and quite slim, and apparently dressed in tight fitting mid-grey clothing. If Ahab had noticed, he would not recognised him or her as one of the village children. The figure flitted quickly from shadow to shadow, with a noticeably limp. It disappeared into the churchyard and lost from sight.

Part III