Handing Over the Horn
Sogmarsh Wireless Presents — being the last night of an old fog-watcher's watch, the young one who comes to take the horn, and three days in which the fog would not let either of them go.
Wind, low and steady. A wooden post creaking. Far off, the long, hoarse, wavering note of a fog-horn — a big curled horn, blown by breath. It dies away into grey silence.
ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless presents Handing Over the Horn; from the Fog Watch Post, at the very edge of the drawn world, above the low ground called Lower Hollows — where the fog comes in off the Hem, and a watcher sits up in a little tower and blows a horn to bring the travellers home. It is a hard post and a lonely one. Tonight its keeper of forty-five years is giving it up.
Interior. A small wooden room at the top of a post-tower. The wind in the boards. A kettle on a little stove. An OLD VOICE — a man, slow, dry, patient, used to talking to nobody. The WATCHER.
THE WATCHER. (to himself, packing) Cup. Other cup. Knife. Spare wick. (beat) Horn stays. Horn always stays.
SFX: feet on a ladder, climbing. Puffing. A trapdoor thumps open. A YOUNG VOICE — a woman, early twenties, cheerful, out of breath, far too loud for the room. The NEW WATCHER.
THE NEW WATCHER. Hello! Hello — is this — are you — I'm the new one! From Lower Hollows! They said come up at dusk and you'd show me the horn.
THE WATCHER. (after a long pause) You're loud.
THE NEW WATCHER. Sorry! (quieter) Sorry. It's a long ladder.
THE WATCHER. It's a long ladder. Sit down. Don't touch the horn.
THE NEW WATCHER. I've blown a horn. My dad had one for the cows.
THE WATCHER. (not unkindly) This isn't for the cows. (beat) Tea?
MUSIC: a short sting — low, reedy, patient.
SFX: the same room, a while later. Cups. The wind.
THE WATCHER. It's not hard. That's the first thing. Anyone can blow it. You watch the Hem Road — there, out of that window, the white stones going off into the grey. When the fog comes in off the edge, and it will, you blow the horn. One long. Then you count your breathing, slow, twenty breaths. Then one long again. All night if it wants. Anyone on the road, lost in it, turns to the sound and walks to it, and comes home.
THE NEW WATCHER. That's it?
THE WATCHER. That's it. (beat) The hard part's not the horn.
THE NEW WATCHER. What's the hard part?
THE WATCHER. (simply) The not knowing. You blow all night, and in the morning the fog lifts, and the road's empty. And you never know if anybody heard. If anybody was out there at all. Forty-five years, and I could count on my hands the ones I saw come in. (beat) The rest you blow for anyway.
A pause. The wind.
THE NEW WATCHER. (quieter) The board by the door. Downstairs. "When you hear it, it is already late."
THE WATCHER. Aye. That's for the travellers. When you hear the horn, you're already lost — so stop and turn to it, don't walk on. (beat) It's for the watcher too, if you like. By the time you're sure it's fog, it's been fog a while. Blow early. Nobody ever died of a horn blown too soon.
MUSIC: sting.
SFX: night. The wind has dropped entirely. An eerie, padded silence. A drip.
THE NEW WATCHER. (whispering) It's gone quiet.
THE WATCHER. (already up) That's the fog. It eats the wind first. Look.
SFX: a shutter opened. Nothing. A thick, muffled nothing.
THE NEW WATCHER. I can't see the stones. I can't see the window.
THE WATCHER. Then blow.
THE NEW WATCHER. Me?
THE WATCHER. It's your post. From tonight. Blow.
SFX: a deep breath. The horn — a thin, cracked, unsteady note that wobbles and dies.
THE NEW WATCHER. (mortified) That was the cow one.
THE WATCHER. (patiently) From the belly. Not the chest. You're not calling a cow, you're calling a person who's frightened and can't see their own feet. Make it a sound they'd walk to.
SFX: a breath. The horn again — longer, deeper, steadier, rolling out into the fog and away.
THE WATCHER. (quietly) There. Now count.
THE NEW WATCHER. (counting under her breath) One... two... three...
MUSIC: a long, slow sting under the counting — the horn again, at intervals, fading.
ANNOUNCER. The old watcher was to go down the ladder at dawn. But the fog did not lift at dawn. It did not lift at noon. It lay over the Hem Road and the Fog Watch Post and the whole of Lower Hollows for three days and three nights — the longest fog anyone could remember — and nobody could see to go down a ladder, let alone walk home.
SFX: day, but you would not know it. Muffled. The horn, at its interval. Two voices, tired now.
THE NEW WATCHER. (hoarse) How long do they last? The fogs?
THE WATCHER. A night. Mostly. (beat) Not this one.
THE NEW WATCHER. We've no more bread.
THE WATCHER. No.
THE NEW WATCHER. And the lamp oil's low. And I can't feel my lips.
THE WATCHER. Keep blowing.
THE NEW WATCHER. (a little frightened) Is anyone even out there?
THE WATCHER. (gently) That's the hard part. I told you. (beat) Blow.
SFX: the horn. Then — from below, faint, muffled by the fog — a thin answering sound: a small handbell, rung three times.
THE NEW WATCHER. What's that?
THE WATCHER. (sitting up) That's not a traveller. That's the rope-bell.
SFX: something bumping against the tower wall outside. A rope creaking taut.
THE WATCHER. There's a line strung from the post to the Hollows — the old folks strung it, before my time, for the long fogs. You don't need to see a rope. You follow it with your hands. (the trapdoor, opened; he calls down) Hello?
A VOICE FROM BELOW. (a woman, older, calling up through the fog, cheerful) Is that our girl? Is she blowing proper yet? We heard her the first night and thought a cow had got up the ladder!
THE NEW WATCHER. (appalled) Mam?
THE VOICE FROM BELOW. There's bread on the rope, and oil, and a stew in the crock. Pull it up careful. And your Gran's sent up socks.
SFX: a basket bumping up the outside of the tower on the rope. Laughter from below — several voices now, muffled. The rope-bell rung again, cheerfully.
THE WATCHER. (quietly, hauling) ...They came up the rope.
THE NEW WATCHER. (through tears and laughter) Of course they came up the rope. It's the Hollows. (calling down) Is Mister — is the old watcher's supper there too?
THE VOICE FROM BELOW. Course it is! And his sister's here! She's been sat on the rope-end since yesterday, she says tell him he's a fool and she's got his bed aired.
A long pause. The old WATCHER doesn't say anything.
THE NEW WATCHER. (softly) You said you never know if anyone hears.
THE WATCHER. (rough) Blow the horn. It's past your count.
SFX: the horn — deep, steady, the best yet.
MUSIC: sting — lifting.
SFX: the fourth morning. Wind returning, stronger and stronger, a gust — birds. Grey giving way to light. The shutter opened. Wide, open air.
THE NEW WATCHER. (awed) I can see the stones. I can see the whole road. (beat) It's empty.
THE WATCHER. Aye. Mostly is.
THE NEW WATCHER. Three days. And nobody came in.
THE WATCHER. (packing his cup, the other cup, the knife, the spare wick) Nobody you saw. (beat) The Hollows came out, though. Up a rope. For two fools in a tower. (beat) That's who the horn's for, if you want to know. Forty-five years I thought it was for the travellers. It's for them down there — so they know somebody's up here. Keeping the road.
SFX: the trapdoor. A foot on the ladder.
THE NEW WATCHER. Will you come up? Sometimes?
THE WATCHER. (going down) No. It's your post. (beat, from lower down) I'll listen for it, though. Blow early.
THE NEW WATCHER. (calling after him) Nobody ever died of a horn blown too soon!
THE WATCHER. (far below, almost a laugh) Now she's got it.
MUSIC: the theme, slow.
ANNOUNCER. Sogmarsh Wireless has presented Handing Over the Horn. The old watcher went home to Lower Hollows, where his sister had his bed aired, and where — people say — he still wakes on foggy nights and lies listening for the horn, and hears it, and turns over, and sleeps. The new watcher keeps the Fog Watch Post on the edge of the drawn world. She blows early. And the rope to the Hollows has been re-strung with new line this year, by the whole of the parish, on a clear day, in case of long fogs.
The wind. Far off, one long note of a horn. Then quiet.