The Cambrian Contest

By Ben Cowdell

A tiny village in Wales is the scene for a contest in the distant past and the present, involving characters drawn together by social awkwardness and sci-fi hi-jinks.

A young woman running from her furtive past and battling deep-seated issues.

A scarred colonel exiled out of the army, made to live out his twilight years by the sea.

A bomb-disposing earl from the Twentieth Century bemused by travelling in time and trying to find his place in the future.

Together they face machine machinations, revelations about the past and come to terms with the re-running of a contest about man and technology's place in the future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9780244677473

Book preview

The Cambrian Contest

The Cambrian Contest

By Ben Cowdell

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 by Ben Cowdell

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2017

ISBN 978-0-244-67747-3

Contents

Thanks

Part One: Exiled to Haven

Part Two: Unlikely Tourists

Lucy Jaeger:

Part Three: The Masked Man

Harold Pelican:

Part Four: Strange Leavings

Charles Howard:

Part Five: Artistic Clues

Mayor Mac:

Part Six: Help from the North while Events head South

The Sirens of Barmouth:

Part Seven: Animal Instincts

The Animalarium Keeper:

Part Eight: The Summons

Nia:

Part Nine: The Contest Renewed

Geraint:

Part Ten: The Metal Storm

The Journalist:

Epilogue: Repercussions

Thanks

With many thanks to Luke Williams for his extensive review of this work and all the trouble he endured because of my passion for the project. I’ll say I deeply appreciate it here just in case the many T-Shirts I’ve bought him aren’t suitable recompense.

My thanks also extends to everyone who did not throw the copy of the first completed draft right back at me after I constantly babbled at them about what I had made. This includes Andrew Gow, Rhiannon Harries, Susanna Fantoni, Alex Mariaro, George Overington, Nicolas Wilson, Kieran Kennedy, Emily Allen and everyone else who heard about it through heresay at the University of Sussex Doctor Who Society.

This project is also dedicated to the two unfortunate Lynx who died at the Borth Animal Kingdom in November 2017, many months after this project was completed and years after the project was started.

The Regionalism Partwork Series #2: Wales, 2026.

Part One: Exiled to Haven

Lying on the West Coast of Wales are mostly beautiful idyllic towns and villages. Settlements on the coast have been recorded as far back as a couple of thousand years BC. Borth is no exception to this generalisation; it is a little fishing village from which some settlers took the bait and made it their home. Time wound onwards, the village growing to the size of around two thousand inhabitants, all nestled between the hills and the river Dovey. Just beyond the river side and opposite the beach used to be a large forest, a bracing mile’s walk away to the north east of the village. But this landmark strangely vanished prior to the village's recorded existence. This disappearance seemingly passed without a fuss as there was no evidence as to why it had simply gone, leaving large holes in its wake. Time took over and eroded the landscape to create a submerged forest, home to all manner of myths and legends, more than enough to keep the astute minds in the village curious. But astute minds are rare, and the myths slowly died out with each generation. It was simply forgotten.

Borth would maintain a quiet existence, a good few miles away from anything else of any relevance, with nothing but the sea as a constant companion to generations of fishermen and their families. Traditions endured and kept the inhabitants quiet.

Human progress and regress eventually meant the idyllic recluse adapted to become a vibrant and peaceful holiday resort and thus hundreds upon hundreds of caravans descended upon the residents. With surprisingly good grace, the villagers gave away various spots of land to the holidaymakers, as far away from their own homes as they could in a rare act of peaceful coexistence. Relative peace restored, Borth surged through modernity and into the twenty-first century, becoming more and more noticed by travellers as roads and railway snaked through the once restful scenery. Its quaintness remained intact during its battle with modernity, but only just.

And this is where the story begins. Not with a modern bang, but with a modest whimper.

In a very small flat lived a modest young woman who was trying her hardest to be normal. She was twenty-three and once was spry and feisty. These two attributes and more had given her the childhood nickname of The Tiger. The young lady was living a normal life of the period; spending her teenage years partying hard and the beginning of her adult life regretting said decision, trying to make amends and settle down. She had stumbled on Borth quite by accident, having moved there following a humongous and very public family feud. She and her sister went separate ways to escape the public self-destruction of her parents’ marriage, her sister went east of the border of England and Wales whilst the Tiger disappeared west. The sparks that lit the flame to burn her fiery identity to the ground was an overbearing boyfriend, a deed poll form and a lot of fermented hops in concentrated form.

Thus what was Lucy Taylor became a mellower Lucy Jaeger. One identity melded into another.

She was awake rather early one morning, whimpering at the sunlight streaming through thin curtains. After breakfasting and dressing in that order, the young woman left her one-bedroom flat and took to the streets for an early morning walk. The sea air was breezy to say the least that morning, so she was pleased she'd made the right decision to wear her thick dark green jacket this morning. After crossing a few streets and passing the remaining post-box in the village, she had a clear run to the seaside. This was her daily exercise to breathe in a bit of sea air and attempt to feel calm and reasonable before yet another day at a stress-inducing workplace.

Borth was serene rural normality. This day in the village however would not be completely normal.

For as Lucy toiled away as modestly as she could at a tiresome work, there were strange scenes unfolding hundreds of miles away in London, at Platform One of Euston station. At midday, electronically operated gates opened to allow black, streamlined, menacing looking Bentleys to drive onto the platform. Any gawping passengers were kept back from the strange spectacle as the car doors opened and armed security guards propelled a body out from one of the cars. His head and torso were fully covered by a thick black blanket and he was then hustled onto the awaiting train along with some luggage. Two burly men took turns to dress into plain clothes in the nearby toilet and then sat with their prisoner. The blanket was then removed and the peaceful looking sleeping figure of a forty-five-year-old man with a red beard was revealed.

Within fifteen minutes, the train departed with its usual array of travellers as if nothing had happened. The plain clothed prisoner and escorts' ultimate destination was, strangely enough, the quiet port town of Borth.

The workday withered away to become the early evening, and this was when Lucy untied her hair, loosening it from the shackles of a green hairband. Departing her chosen workplace for the day, she headed to the beach again for an evening stroll north. A good ten minutes later, she had reached the northern boundary of the town; a golf course. In front of it lay a small caravan park. However, she was surprised to stumble upon the commotion occurring there. One empty caravan had been surrounded by police and armed guards. The latter force was a new phenomenon that had developed within the past ten years, made necessary for certain political reasons. Her curiosity peaked, she approached and asked the nearest person also watching the commotion what was going on. He merely shrugged his shoulders in an apathetic form of reply.

In the distance, the sound of ancient, rattling carriages drew ever closer to the hamlet. A small train was approaching from the north-east. A few passengers were ready to disembark on arrival at Borth’s railway station. Two young and burly men and a middle-aged man got off with their luggage and wasted no time walking up the high street towards the caravan park. By this point in time, Lucy had left to make her way back home, having discovered nothing about the commotion. The rendezvous became reality. She passed the three men by on the pavement, giving them the same confused glance that they had been given by other people on their day's journey. She shrugged them and the armed security presence off, wanting simply to go home and rest. Eventually the crowd dispersed as well, having learnt nothing about the event whatsoever. Apathy had seemingly won the day once more.

The three men were given access to the caravan by the very nervous land owner and entered the very small abode. It had the basic facilities and little else, unfurnished beyond the necessities, designed for a bracket labelled just about managing. The two burly men plonked the elder man down on the bed, hurled his suitcase beside him and left without a word, slamming the door shut behind them. Their job was done.

The man with the ginger coloured beard looked at his new accommodation and sighed, rubbing sleep from his eyes. It had been a tiring day, but now it was over, and his new life was beginning. He unpacked his things, filling his wardrobe with the various military uniforms he possessed, complete with prestigious officious looking medals. He saluted them as he closed the wardrobe’s door, knowing full well that they would only gather dust from now on. He located the thermostat, turned the heating up and gazed out of the one window onto rows of other caravans. If he looked hard, between the rows he could see the lapping of waves onto the shore. He wanted to know precisely what his new life would entail, so he smartened himself up to look like a civilian and left his abode, pocketing the key left on the one table he now owned. It was a small room in which to live and decay.

This man’s whole world had become a lot smaller. Or so he thought and hoped.

Sleep proved evasive to Lucy. In fact, any form of relaxation seemed not to work today. One thing lay in the back of her mind; that new arrival. There was something strange about them and it just... Bothered her. They were not part of rural normality. They were… exciting?

Lucy Jaeger decided to investigate. She put on her green coat once more and set out into the cold dark evening. She met the few locals that were still on the streets and talked to them, asking about the new arrivals. No-one seemed to care. It didn’t harm them; it was none of their business and so on. They were just holidaymakers. But this one was different, she insisted. Not so, don’t worry about it, came the reply. Despite her friendly outward appearance, inside Lucy was seething. Why didn't anyone care? She stormed off for the inn, determined to have something related to her surname to cool her relit ardour down.

The Friendship Inn was bustling with people tonight, not that this mattered to two of its entrants. Both wanted to calm their respective inflated and uninflated egos and by being alone, both were failing to do so. It was Lucy who spotted the ginger bearded man first. For a split second, she wondered whether sitting down with him would be prying and whether she would get all sorts of remarks from the locals. She decided that the thought should screw off and that she would talk to him after all. The dark-haired girl approached his table and bent herself to see the glum expression of the elder