Blog-o-ween 2023: "Smee" by A.M. Burrage

Today is a special day. Not only for the story we’ll be discussing (and it’s a good ‘un!), but also for the date. Today, the 23rd of October, is Silver Shamrock Day, and it’s celebrated by all the weirdos out there who can’t get enough of Tommy Lee Wallace’s 1982 mash-up of futuristic science-fiction and ancient Celtic Samhain rituals, Halloween III: Season of the Witch. May the tags stay on your Silver Shamrock masks, kiddies, and may you never experience “misfire.”

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let’s get down to business.

Like yesterday’s Blog-o-ween 2023 tale, today’s tale is a Christmastime ghost story. Whereas M.R. James’s “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is best told during the Christmas season even though it did not take place at that time, today’s yarn from A.M. Burrage is a proper Christmas tale. It takes place at an old country house where a group of friends gather to celebrate the holidays. To pass the time, they decide to play a game of hide-and-seek. One of their party, however, refuses to join in the revelries. Let’s gather round as Jackson, the party-pooper, gives his reasons for not being a good sport. Gather round and hear all about another game played on another Christmas night. Come close and learn how to play...“Smee.”

“‘I wonder if any of you have played a game called “Smee.” It’s a great improvement on the ordinary game of hide-and-seek. The name derives from the ungrammatical colloquialism, “It’s me.” You might care to play if you’re going to play a game of that sort. Let me tell you the rules.’

“‘Every player is presented with a sheet of paper. All the sheets are blank except one, on which is written “Smee”. Nobody knows who is “Smee” except “Smee” himself — or herself, as the case may be. The lights are then turned out and “Smee” slips from the room and goes off to hide, and after an interval the other players go off in search, without knowing whom they are actually in search of. One player meeting another challenges with the word “Smee” and the other player, if not the one concerned, answers “Smee.”’

“‘The real “Smee” makes no answer when challenged, and the second player remains quietly by him. Presently they will be discovered by a third player, who, having challenged and received no answer, will link up with the first two. This goes on until all the players have formed a chain, and the last to join is marked down for a forfeit.’”

In this manner, Jackson, a member of a group of friends gathered together for Yuletide, offers the game to his friends for their enjoyment. Jackson, however, steadfastly refuses to play the game himself. Why on earth would he be such a stick-in-the-mud about it?

“‘I sometimes go and stay at a house where a girl was killed. She was playing hide and seek in the dark. She didn't know the house very well. There was a door that led to the servants' staircase. When she was chased, she thought the door led to a bedroom. She opened the door and jumped — and landed at the bottom of the stairs. She broke her neck, of course.'

“We all looked serious. Mrs Fernley said, ‘How terrible! And were you there when it happened?’

“Jackson shook his head sadly. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I was there when something else happened. Something worse.’

“‘What could be worse than that?’

“‘This was,’ said Jackson.”

And thus follows Jackson’s tale of one terrible night spent playing Smee in that house.

Burrage uses the rules of the game — the dark house, the silence, the solitude — to chilling effect. “Smee” has a wonderful ending that, although you see it coming, is still powerful enough to elicit a shudder. Along the way, there are many moments where Jackson and his fellow players rub up against the uncanny and outré. One moment, in fact, on a staircase, involving the accidental (?) miscount of the number of players in the game will make the bottom fall out of your stomach. It is described so matter-of-factly that it’ll hit you between the eyes before you know what’s happening.

Alfred McLelland Burrage was born in Hillingdon, London, England, in 1889. Both his father and his uncle were prolific writers of boys’ adventure stories. After his father died in 1906, Burrage picked up his father’s mantle as well as his pen and began writing to support his family. After serving in the Great War, Burrage wrote a memoir of his time called War Is War. Like his father and uncle, Burrage wrote children’s stories including the humorous novel Poor Dear Esme (1925), about a boy who disguises himself as a girl.

If there is anything for which Burrage is remembered at all today following his death in 1956, then it is his many charming ghost stories. M.R. James himself proclaimed that the tales in Burrage’s collection Some Ghost Stories, “[keep] on the right side of the line and, if about half his ghosts are amiable, the rest have their terrors, and no mean ones.” The American scholar of fantasy literature, E.F. Bleiler said, “The best stories in Some Ghost Stories and Someone in the Room are intelligent, well crafted and imaginative.” Richard Dalby, a scholar and anthologizer of ghost stories called Burrage “one of the finest English ghost story writers, alongside Benson, Wakefield and James.”

Not too shabby!

You can find a copy of “Smee” in any good anthology dedicated to Christmas ghost stories. Why not look for one edited by the aforementioned Richard Dalby at your local library? There are also a few audio versions of the story available online. There is a terrific audio reading by the folks at HorrorBabble, as well as a wonderful reading of the tale by Tony Walker over at his Classic Ghost Stories Podcast. If you’d rather have a dramatized adaptation, then head over to Relic Radio to hear the old South African radio program Beyond Midnight render Burrage’s tale in a more “modern” shape in a 1968 broadcast.

Well, that’s all for today, folks. Be safe as you scurry about the house looking for a hiding place. Not only are there many little nooks and crannies to tuck yourself away in, there may also be an extra player in our midst. If you encounter her, just hold her cold hand, wish her a Happy Silver Shamrock Day, and you may just make it out alive to enjoy...pleasant dreams? Hmmmm? Heh-heh-heh!