“The Roll Call of the Reef” was written by A.T. Quiller-Couch and first appeared in The Idler (June 1895). Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) was a British poet, novelist, and critic who wrote under the pseudonym of “Q.” He was known in his lifetime not just for his writing but also as an educator and lecturer. Quiller-Couch was prolific, and “Roll Call” is perhaps his most anthologized story, and an excellent one.

In 1809 an awful storm blows up along the coast of England, and during the night of the storm two ships are wrecked, the Primrose and the Despatch. The locals on the coast swarm out to the shores to rescue any survivors and get what salvage they can before the preventive (anti-smuggling) men arrive. They find only a few survivors, a few cavalrymen from the Despatch, including one trumpeter, and a drummer boy from the Primrose. The trumpeter is only a little wounded by the wreck, but he is not right in the head. The drummer boy is feverish but eventually recovers. The two are housed at a coastal village while they recuperate and eventually meet. Although there is an initial dislike between them, based on inter-service rivalry, they soon become friends, and spend a summer rowing out to the rocks where the Primrose and Despatch sank and playing for the dead, the drummer his tattoo and the trumpeter his calls. At summer’s end the drummer boy has to rejoin the Marines, and he and the trumpeter say their farewells. Five years pass and the hurt in the trumpeter’s head spreads to the rest of his body, and he spends his time dozing and feeble, preparing for the end. But the drummer boy appears one night and asks the trumpeter to accompany him one last time out on to the water: “...I’d fain see the Marines again...and you, you shall call once more for the Queen’s Own.”¹ The drummer boy has a bullet wound by his breast bone, but he does not acknowledge it. The pair go out one more time, rowed out by the man who has been taking care of the trumpeter, and the two play for the dead:

And the trumpeter...put his trumpet to his mouth and sounded the reveille. The music of it was like rivers running...and the drummer took his sticks and beat a tattoo, there by the edge of the reef; and the music of it was like a rolling chariot....and while the drum beat, and my father held his breath, there came up out of the sea and the darkness a troop of many men, horse and foot, and formed up among the graves; and others rose out of the graves and formed up--drowned Marines with bleached faces, and pale Hussars, riding their horses, all lean and shadowy.²

The trumpeter and the drummer go ashore, and the trumpeter calls the roll, and each man comes forward and confesses his sins. Though flawed and in some cases wicked, each soldier “died as a man ought,” and is content to rest with his fellows, and is allowed to be with them. So, too, are the drummer and trumpeter, and when the roll is done they walk into the darkness and join their comrades. The trumpeter’s body is still on the shore, but he is dead. Later, news comes that the drummer died in action in France that night.

“The Roll Call of the Reef” addresses themes that are more uncommon than common in nineteenth century ghost stories: fidelity, brotherhood, and the love soldiers have for each other. “Roll Call” succeeds on several levels. Q creates a convincing seaside milieu; he was knowledgeable in rural folklore and puts his knowledge to excellent use here. Q creates character well; in relatively few sentences the trumpeter and the drummer come to life. Q tells a good story, with memorable imagery and some well crafted lines. And it is to Q’s credit that he manages to evoke emotions in the reader and make the end of the story touching.

Print: Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Horror on the Stair and Other Weird Tales. Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press, 2000.

¹ Arthur Quiller-Couch, “The Roll Call of the Reef,” in Wandering Heath. Stories, Studies and Sketches by Q (London: Cassell, 1896), 31.

² Quiller-Couch, “The Roll Call of the Reef,” 30-31.