Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  Mrs Fergusson tried to stop him, so did the others, but Michael broke free of them and waded as far out into the river as he could, until he was as near to him as he could get. “You’ve got to swim!” he cried. “You’ve got to. Go under the bridge and just keep going. You can do it. Don’t turn around. Don’t come back. Please don’t come back!”

  There were people and boats everywhere, bustle and ballyhoo all around, so much of it that Michael could barely hear the whale when he spoke. “I’m trying,” he said. “I’m trying so hard. But I’m very tired now, and I don’t seem to know where I’m going any more. I’m feeling muddled in my head, and I’m so tired. I just want to sleep. I’m afraid that maybe I stayed too long. Grandfather warned me, they all warned me.” His eyes closed. He seemed almost too exhausted to say anything more. Then his eyes opened again. “You do remember everything I said?” he whispered.

  “Of course I do. I’ll never forget. Never.”

  “Then it was worth it. No matter what happens, it was worth it. Stay with me if you can. I need you with me.”

  So Michael did stay. He stayed all that day, and Mrs Fergusson stayed with him, long after all the other children had gone back home. By late afternoon his mother was there with them – they’d got a message to her at work. And the white egret stayed too, watching everything from his buoy.

  As evening came on they tried to make Michael go home to sleep for a while.

  “There’s nothing more you can do here,” his mother told him. “And anyway, you can watch it on the television. You can’t stay here all night. You’ll catch your death. We’ll get a pizza on the way. What do you say?” Michael stayed crouching down where he was. He wasn’t moving.

  “I tell you what, Michael,” Mrs Fergusson said, “I’ll stay. You go home and get some rest, and then you can come back in the morning. I won’t leave him, honestly I won’t. And I’ll phone if anything happens. How’s that?”

  Between them they managed to persuade him. Michael knew everything they said was true. He was tired, and he was cold, and he was hungry. So in the end he agreed, just so long as he could come back in the morning, at first light, he said.

  “I won’t be long,” he whispered to the whale. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

  Back at home in a hot bath he shivered the cold out of him, but all the while he was thinking only of his whale.

  He ate his pizza watching his whale on the television. He knew he couldn’t go to bed. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted only one thing, to be back down by the riverside with his whale. He begged his mother again and again to let him go, but she wouldn’t let him. He had to get some sleep, she said.

  There was only one thing for it. He would wait till his mother had gone to bed, then he’d get dressed and slip out of the flat. That’s what he did. He ran all the way back down to the river.

  All the rescue team and the divers were still there, and so was Mrs Fergusson, sitting by the wall wrapped in a blanket. And everywhere there were still dozens of onlookers. The egret was there on his buoy. And the whale was floundering near the shore, not far from where Michael had left him. But there was something else out on the river. It looked like a barge of some kind, and it hadn’t been there before – Michael was sure of it. He ran over to Mrs Fergusson.

  “Miss, what’s that barge there for?” he asked her. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re going to lift him, Michael,” she said. “They had a meeting, and they decided it’s the only way they can save him. They don’t think he can do it on his own, he’s too weak and disorientated. So they’re going to lift him on to that barge and carry him out to sea.”

  “They can’t!” Michael cried. “They’ll kill him if they do. He can’t live out of the water, he told me so. He’s my whale. I found him. They can’t, they mustn’t! I won’t let them!”

  Michael didn’t hesitate. He dashed down to the shore and waded out into the river. When he found he couldn’t wade any more, he began to swim. A few short strokes and he was alongside the whale. He could hear Mrs Fergusson and the others shouting at him to come back. He paid them no attention. The whale looked at him out of his deep dark eye.

  “I need you with me,” he whispered.

  “I know. I’m back,” Michael said. “Are you listening? Can you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” replied the whale.

  “I’m going to swim with you,” Michael told him. “I’m a really good swimmer. We’re going together. You just have to follow me. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll try,” said the whale.

  From the bank they all saw it, Michael and the whale swimming away side by side towards Battersea Bridge. They could hardly believe their eyes. They could see the whale was finding it hard, puffing and blowing as he went, that Michael was battling against the tide. But incredibly, they were both making some headway. By now the rescue team had sent out an inflatable to fetch Michael in. Everyone could see what was bound to happen in the end, that the tide was against them, that it was too cold, that it was impossible. Both the boy and the whale tired together. They hauled Michael out of the water, and brought him back to the shore. From there he had to watch his whale swim bravely on for a few more minutes, before he had to give up the unequal struggle. Even Michael knew now that there was nothing more he could do, that the barge was the whale’s only chance of survival.

  Michael was there on the shore with his mother and Mrs Fergusson later that morning when they hoisted the whale slowly out of the water, and swung him out in a great sling on to the barge that would take him out to sea. With the world watching on television, followed by a procession of small boats, the barge carried him along the river, under the bridges, past Westminster and the London Eye and St Paul’s, out towards Greenwich and the Thames Barrier and to the sea beyond. There was a vet on hand to monitor his progress all the way. And Michael too never left the whale’s side, not for one moment. He stayed by him, pouring water over him from time to time, to keep his skin moist, soothing him and talking to him to reassure him, to keep his spirits up, all the while hoping against hope that the whale would have the strength to survive long enough to reach the open sea.

  Michael didn’t have to ask, he could see the vet was not optimistic. He could see his whale was failing fast. His eyes were closed now, and he had settled into a deep sleep. He was breathing, but only barely. Michael thought he did hear him breathe just one more word.

  “Promise?” he said.

  “I promise,” Michael replied. He knew exactly what he was promising, that he would spend his whole life keeping it. And then the whale simply stopped breathing. Michael felt suddenly very alone.

  The vet was examining him. After a while he looked up, wiping the tears from his face. “Why?” he asked. “I don’t understand. Why did he come? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Ahead of them, as they came back into the heart of London, flew a single white bird. It was the snowy egret that had never left the whole way out and the whole way back. The whole of London seemed still with sadness as they passed by under Tower Bridge.

  On 20 January 2006, an eighteen-foot (five metre) northern bottle-nosed whale was spotted swimming up the Thames past the Houses of Parliament. She swam up as far as Battersea Bridge where she became stranded. For two days rescuers battled to save the whale, as the world looked on, hoping for the best. But in spite of everyone’s efforts that whale died before the rescue pontoon on which she was being transported could reach the safety of the open sea.

  14 July 1965

  s I sailed into Arnefjord this morning, I was looking all around me, marvelling at the towering mountains, at the still dark waters, at the welcoming escort of porpoises, at the chattering oyster-catchers, and I could not understand for the life of me why the Vikings ever left this land.

  It was beautiful beyond belief. Why would you ever leave this paradise of a place, to face the heaving grey of the Norwegian Sea, and a voyage into the unknown, when you had all this outsi
de your door?

  The little village at the end of the fjord looked at first too good to be true – a cluster of clapboard houses gathered around the quay, most painted ox-blood red. On top of the hill beyond them stood a simple wooden church with an elegant pencil-sharp spire, and a well-tended graveyard, surrounded by a white picket fence. There seemed to be flowers on almost every grave. A stocky little Viking pony grazed the meadow below.

  The fishing boat tied up at the quay had clearly seen better days. Now that I was closer, I noticed that the village too wasn’t as well kept as I had first thought. In places the paint was peeling off the houses. There were tiles missing from the rooftops, and a few of the windows were boarded up. It wasn’t abandoned, but the whole place looked tired, and sad somehow.

  As I came in on the motor there was something about the village that began to make me feel uncomfortable. There was no one to be seen, not a soul. Only the horse. No smoke rose from the chimneys. There was no washing hanging out. No one was fishing from the shoreline, no children played in the street or around the houses.

  I hailed the boat, hoping someone might be on board to tell me where I could tie up. There was no reply. So I tied up on the quay anyway and jumped out. I was looking for a café, somewhere I could get a drink, or even a hot meal. And I needed a shop too. I was low on water, and I had no beer left on board, and no coffee.

  I found a place almost immediately that looked as if it might be the village stores. I peered through the window. Tables and chairs were set out. There was a bar to one side, and across the room I could see a small shop, the shelves stacked with tins. Things were looking up, I thought. But I couldn’t see anyone inside. I tried the door, and to my surprise it opened.

  I’d never seen anything like it. This was shop, café, nightclub, post office, all in one. There was a Wurlitzer juke box in the corner, and then to one side, opposite the bar, the post office and shop. And there was a piano right next to the post office counter, with sheet music open on the top – Beethoven Sonatas.

  I called out, but still no one emerged. So I went outside again and walked down the village street, up the hill towards the church, stopping on the way to stroke the horse. I asked him if he was alone here, but he clearly thought that this was a stupid question and wandered off, whisking his tail as he went.

  The church door was open, so I went in and sat down, breathing in the peace of the place, and trying at the same time to suppress the thought that this might be some kind of ghost village. It was absurd, I knew it was, but I could feel the fear rising inside me.

  That was when the bell rang loud, right above my head, from the spire. Twelve times. My heart pounded in my ears. As the last echoes died away I could hear the sound of a man coughing and muttering to himself. It seemed to come from high up in the gallery behind me. I turned.

  We stood looking at one another, not speaking for some time. I had the impression he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He made his way down the stairs, and came slowly up the aisle towards me.

  He had strange eyes this man, unusually light, like his hair. He might have been fifty or sixty, but weathered, like the village was.

  “Looking at you,” he began, “I would say you might be English.”

  “You’d be right,” I told him.

  “Thought so,” he said, nodding. Then he went on, “I ring the bell every day at noon. I always have. It’s to call them back. They will come one day. You will see, they will come.”

  I didn’t like to ask who he was talking about. My first thought was that perhaps he was a little mad.

  “You need some place to stay, young man? I have twelve houses you can choose from. You need to pray? I have a church. You need something to eat, something to drink? I have that too. Yes, you’re looking a little pale. I can tell you need a drink. Come.”

  Outside the church he stopped to shake my hand and to introduce himself as Ragnar Erikson. As we walked down the hill he told me who lived in each of the houses we passed – a cousin here, an aunt there – and who grew the best vegetables in the village, and who was the best pianist. He spoke as if they were still there, and this was all very strange because it was quite obvious to me by now that no one at all was living in any of these houses. Then I saw he was leading me back to where I’d been before, into the bar-cum-post office-cum-village stores.

  “You want some music on the Wurlitzer?” he asked me. “Help yourself, whatever you like, ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, ‘Sloop John B’, ‘Rock Around the Clock’. You choose. It’s free, no coins needed.”

  I chose ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, while he went behind the bar and poured me a beer.

  “I don’t get many people coming here these days,” he said, “and there’s only me living here now, so I don’t keep much in the bar or the shop. But I caught a small salmon today. We shall have that for supper, and a little schnapps. You will stay for supper, won’t you? You must forgive me – I talk a lot, to myself mostly, so when I have someone else to talk to, I make up for lost talking time. You’re the first person I’ve had in here for a month at least.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Too much was contradictory and strange. I longed to ask him why the place looked so empty and if there were people really living in those houses. And who was he ringing the church bell for? Nothing made any sense. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Instead, I made polite conversation.

  “You speak good English,” I told him.

  “That is because Father and I, we went a lot to Shetland in the old days. So we had to speak English. We were always going over there.”

  “In that fishing boat down by the quay?” I asked him.

  “It is not a fishing boat,” he said. “It is a supply boat. I carry supplies to the villages up and down the fjords. There is no road, you see; everything has to come by boat, the post as well. So I am the postman too.”

  After a couple of beers he took me outside and back down to the quayside to show me his boat. Once on board, I could see it was the kind of boat that no storm could sink. It was made not for speed but for endurance, built to bob up and down like a cork and just keep going. The boat suited the man, I thought. We stood together in the wheelhouse, and I knew he wanted to talk.

  “My family,” he said, “we had two boats, this one and one other just the same. Father made one, I made the other. This is the old boat, my father’s boat. He made it with his own hands before I was born, and we took it over to Shetland, like the Vikings did before us. But we were not on a raid like they were. It was during the wartime, when the Germans were occupying Norway.

  “We were taking refugees across the Norwegian Sea to Shetland, often twenty of them at a time, hidden down below. Sometimes they were Jews escaping from the Nazis. Sometimes it was airmen who had been shot down, commandos we had been hiding, secret agents too. Fifteen times we went there and back and they didn’t catch us. Lucky, we were very lucky. This is a lucky boat. The other one, the one I built, was not so lucky.”

  Ragnar Erikson wasn’t the kind of man you could question or interrupt, but I was wondering all through our supper of herring and salmon, in the warmth of his kitchen that evening, what he had meant about the other boat. And still I hadn’t dared to broach the subject that puzzled me most: why there seemed to be no one else living in the village. When he fell silent I felt he wanted to be lost in his thoughts, and so the right moment never came.

  But after supper by the fire, he began to question me closely about why I had come sailing to Norway, about what I was doing with my life. He was easy to talk to because he seemed genuinely interested. So I found myself telling him everything: how at thirty-one I had found myself alone in the world, that my mother had died when I was a child, and just a couple of months ago my father had too. I was a schoolteacher, but not at all sure I wanted to go on being one.

  “But why did you come here?” he asked me. “Why Norway?”

  So I told him how, when I was a boy, I had been obsessed by the Viking
s; I’d loved the epic stories of Beowulf and Grendel; I’d even learnt to read the runes. It had become a lifelong ambition of mine to come to Norway one day. But arriving here in this particular fjord had been an accident – I was just looking for a good sheltered place to tie up for the night.

  “I’m glad you came,” he said after a while. “As I said, no one comes here much these days. But they will, they will.”

  “Who will?” I asked him, without thinking, and at once regretted it for I could see he was frowning at me, looking at me quite hard suddenly, and I feared I might have offended him.

  “Whoever it is, they will be my family and my friends, that’s all I know,” he said. “They will live in the houses, where they all once lived, where their souls still live.”

  I could hear from the tone of his voice that there was more to tell and that he might tell it, if I was patient and did not press him. So I kept quiet, and waited. I’m so pleased I did. When at last he began again, he told me the whole story, about the empty village, about the other boat, the boat he talked about as if it had been cursed.

  “I think perhaps you would like to know why I’m all alone in this place?” he said, looking directly at me. It felt as if he was having to screw up all his courage before he could go on.

  “I should have gone to the wedding myself,” he said, “with everyone else in the village, but I did not want to. It was only in Flam, down the fjord just north of here, not that far. The thing was, that ever since I was a little boy, the bride had been my sweetheart, the love of my life, but I was always too timid to tell her. I looked for her every time I went to Flam to collect supplies, met her whenever I could, went swimming with her, picking berries, mountain climbing, but I never told her how I felt. Now she was marrying someone else. I didn’t want to be there, that’s all. So my father skippered my boat that day instead of me. There were fourteen people in the boat – everyone from the village except for me and two very old spinster sisters. They did everything together, those two. One of them was too sick to go, so the other insisted on staying behind to look after her. I watched the boat going off into the morning mists. I never saw it again, nor anyone on board.