Lord Morgan's Cannon

by J. M. Walker

  “The bridge leads from the woods to the college,” said Tony.

  Doris embraced the mud. She plodded into it, shooing away the swan and drank from the river. She sucked up ten buckets of water and poured them over her back, her first wash since the circus rehearsal ruined by the old leopard. She caught the dog in her downpour, soaking his patchwork coat. As Tony shook his body, the ripples cascading down from his head to his tail, Doris asked him a question.

  “If that links the woods to the college, and we have to walk over it, what are we doing down here by the river? Do we have to climb all the way back up there?” she said.

  She sucked up another trunkful of water. She held it in, waiting for Tony to answer.

  “Yes I suppose so,” said Tony.

  Doris blew the muddy water all over the terrier, who looked at her with sad, confused eyes as little waterfalls cascaded down his eyelashes and the hairs of his beard.

  It took until nightfall for the animals to climb back up the hill. With the trees for cover, Bessie flew on ahead, reporting back, helping Tony navigate his way to the edge of the woods that joined the road that led to the bridge. Doris had been grateful for her drink and bath, washing the mud and blood off her chest. But now she had become hot with the climb, allowing her ears to fall out and forward, airing her body as a large full moon appeared in the sky, casting the trees, road and bridge in a blue light. Bessie had alighted upon her back and tucked her head into her wing, catching half a sleep while the anteater and dog discussed what to do next.

  Bear had an idea.

  “The humans know you,” he told Tony.

  “They know you too,” replied the terrier. “They come to see you in the circus.”

  For a moment, Bear felt pleased by Tony’s words.

  “But they don’t get excited when they see you,” Bear said.

  “My master does,” said Tony, unsure now of the anteater. “What are you saying? That they don’t like me? I thought we were friends?”

  “We are friends,” said Bear. “It’s good when animals stick together. But I don’t mean that the humans don’t like you. What I mean is that, if you were to walk over the bridge, and any of the humans saw you, they wouldn’t think much of it. You run around here all the time.”

  “This is where I belong,” said Tony.

  “Then you can go ahead and see if it’s safe for the rest of us to cross,” said Bear.

  Tony liked this proposal. He jumped out on to a road made of stone and dirt, lit by a dozen gas lamps hanging from black posts. He walked down the road, as if out on a daytime stroll, passing from one golden pool to another. He appeared larger as he passed under each lamp, his shadow cast in four directions, before he shrank again, consumed by the blue haze cast by the moon.

  As Tony neared the tower guarding the entrance to the bridge, the hairs on his back stood up, forming a fluffy ridge of black and white. He felt a cold breeze coming down the gorge. He walked past a station in the tower, with a light on. But from the road, he couldn’t see in.

  Tony walked out on to the bridge. Something spooked him so he began to run, until he reached half way across. He looked back to see the anteater and elephant standing under the farthest lamp, watching his progress. He felt something move, perhaps the ground beneath his feet. He felt a little sick. Then he jumped, so startled was he by Bessie landing on his back. The little budgerigar had found it within herself to fly the length of the road to join the dog, scouting for humans all the way. The bridge was empty, quiet. The dog and bird conferred and then Tony barked, a single high pitch yelp. The sound carried down the river, bouncing off the walls of the gorge.

  Bear and Doris set off down the road. She eclipsed each gas lamp and compressed the stones into the road. They reached the station, Bear passing just under the sill of a window. Doris walked right alongside it, tossing her head and ears in the wind. She failed to notice the old grey-haired guard sleeping on his chair, feet on his desk, hat down ever his eyes. As they set their feet upon the wooden boards of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s structural masterpiece, they became the first animals of their kind to ever cross into the city centre of Bristol.

  Reaching Tony and Bessie at the halfway point, they couldn’t help but pause to look over the edge. Bear went to the side and stood on his hind legs. He put his huge talons against the iron railing and peered down the gorge, the smooth rock and water glistening beneath. Tony pleaded with Bear to share what he saw. Though he crossed this bridge almost every day with Lord Morgan, he’d never been shown the view. Suddenly Doris scooped the terrier up in her trunk and lifted his body over the side. He whined and yelped with fear and excitement as she held him a hundred feet above the river. All the animals laughed at the silliness of it, as Bessie flew about their heads, the stars appearing behind her blue and white feathers, peeking through a blackening sky. For a moment, they forgot they were entering a land forged by humans.

  Retreating from the railings, Doris set down the dog. The animals walked and flew on past the second tower. They had crossed the river and stood on the same side as the college. The gas lamps continued down the road, which veered to the right, sloping back down a hill in the direction of the docks.

  However, Tony said they should take a smaller lane splicing off to the left. Occasional houses bordered this smaller unlit road. These were the dormitories in which students at the college stayed, he said. Further down the lane was the building housing the behavioural sciences. And it was there that Lord Morgan had taken Edward the tufted capuchin monkey.

  Bear didn’t like the lane. It smelled of urine and rats. But the mention of Edward heartened him. He was becoming practised at thinking ahead. He called the animals into a huddle. Night had arrived, he told them. As they all knew, the dark of the night would cloak their movements. It would allow them to free Edward without being caught by any humans, and then they could all rest, he said.

  Doris and Bessie both liked this idea. The past few days had tired their bones, both huge and fine. Tony also agreed. He missed his master and wanted to sleep again on his lap. But he knew that Lord Morgan would by now be readying to leave his laboratory, heading home for a dinner of game and fresh vegetables prepared by the old maid. The college grounds would be empty, making it easy for the animals to walk right in, collect Edward, and walk out.

  And so they all decided to walk along a gravel path, right up to the wooden front door, with its loud brass knocker, of the Department of Psychology and Education at University College, Bristol.

  University College

  Edward the pin monkey had never been the best traveller. Whenever he’d journeyed upon a horse-drawn cart or wagon, he was prone to vomiting a little pile of sick into his small hands, which he then flicked away, wiped upon his red waistcoat or ate a second time. The irony of a circus animal feeling this way was not lost on either him or his human handlers, who chided and taunted him for it.

  Now he could feel his tummy rumbling, as he held tight to the bars at the front of the puzzle box. His motion sickness was made worse by the blackness. He’d often heard the Ring Master say that animals were better moved unsighted. But he knew it to be a lie. He tried to wretch but he’d eaten too little for any sick to come up. He coughed and cleared his throat which had become hoarse with his screaming. He wretched again producing a slice of coconut in a pool of green bile. He threw it against the side of the box not caring if it was to slide under his bottom and stick to his fur.

  He ran his hands along the sides of the puzzle box, its floor and ceiling and every bar. But without being able to see, he couldn’t find a way out. He tried calling to Lord Morgan, chattering sweetly in a bid to draw the human in, to seduce him and make him remove the veil and open the cage. At that point Edward planned to leap out, scratch Lord Morgan’s face and dance over the human’s shoulder to freedom.

  But on it we
nt, Edward feeling the rocking and rolling of his cage, the sound of the horses’ hooves below hurting his dysfunctional ears.

  Finally, the motion of the carriage stopped. He felt the cage move in the hands of his captor and heard the sound of human feet crunching upon gravel, then the hinges of a door swing open. He heard Lord Morgan’s shoes clap upon a smooth solid floor, a key turning in locks and another door opening. The cage shuddered, placed on a flat surface.

  Edward grabbed at the bars and steeled himself to spit at Lord Morgan the moment the human peered into the cage. But soon the monkey’s arms weakened. Nothing happened, bar the sound of leather squeaking. Then he heard the professor talking to himself, and to someone else.

  “Well well, what a day,” Lord Morgan sighed. “There was me thinking we were nearly done. And I go and find a performing monkey. What do you think Charles? Shall I finish off my cannon? Or test the monkey?”

  It fell quiet again. Then the sound of a jar lid turning and popping open.

  “Here you are Charles. Come on boy. Yes. There you are. You like nibbling carrot don’t you? So shall we test the monkey?”

  Edward could hear Lord Morgan walking around now, in no particular direction.

  “But my cannon is almost done. What if I test the monkey and he surprises me? What if he’s so much better than you Charles? What if he reveals a flaw with the cannon? What then eh? But that is the point of science. Test, test and test again. Seek out the truth. Yes, let’s test the monkey and find out the truth. If that means I need to change my cannon, then so be it.”

  Suddenly Lord Morgan ripped the veil from the puzzle box. The light from a glass standing lamp battled the sunshine entering through a closed window. Edward raised an arm to shield his eyes. He pulled the red hat off his head and held it over his face, as if he was a poorly trained gentleman attempting grace.

  He peeked out to see Lord Morgan sitting in a leather chair, hunching over a big book on his desk.

  “Let’s get to the nub of it, shall we Charles?” said Lord Morgan, stroking his beard. “When we do these experiments, as you know full well, the key point is this. When we watch this monkey, when we study him, we must remember...”

  Edward again retreated behind his hat as Lord Morgan lifted the book and began to read out loud.

  “...In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of one which stands lower in the psychological scale,” said Lord Morgan.

  Despite his poor hearing, Edward registered every word. However, he didn’t understand their meaning. Yet, as if to drive the point home, Lord Morgan repeated them, more loudly.

  “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of one which stands lower in the psychological scale!”

  Edward lowered his hat. The professor closed his book, nodded in agreement with himself, and looked straight at the monkey. Edward hadn’t been this scared since he’d been pulled from his mother’s chest for the final time. Lord Morgan stood and walked towards Edward. But he paused. He reached down to a glass jar of cut carrots on the same desk as Edward’s cage. He took out a rectangular orange stick and carried it to another box. In it was a white rabbit with wet, pink eyes. Lord Morgan pushed the carrot through the bars of the rabbit’s cage.

  “There you are Charles. Now you watch this monkey, you hear? You might learn a thing or two.”

  The rabbit drew back its ears, laying them flat along its shoulders as the carrot tumbled on to the floor of its box. It tried to hop to the rear wall but there was no space to hop into. Lord Morgan moved to Edward.

  “Let’s first undo this padlock,” he said. “No hang on, let’s get rid of this first, lest it distract him.”

  He then pulled a penknife from his pocket. He opened the blade. This was it, thought Edward. The end.

  Lord Morgan steered the blade between the bars and skewered a piece of celery still drying in Edward’s cage. He dragged it out and tossed it on the floor. He flicked the blade back into the body of the knife and fished out a key, which he turned in the padlock.

  “But first this,” said the professor.

  He moved a lever on the top of the puzzle box, one that Edward hadn’t noticed before. The walls of the box shifted a little, resetting themselves. He then pulled away the padlock.

  “Let’s see if he can free himself, eh Charles?”

  Edward had been trying to do just that since he’d been imprisoned. But this felt different. There was something about the way Lord Morgan walked backwards. The human appeared to be giving the monkey, which remained confined in the same cage, more room to work. The professor didn’t take his eyes off his subject. Edward realised that Lord Morgan was challenging him.

  Edward lunged at the cage door, expecting it to fly open. His small frame bounced off the wooden struts, bruising his elbow. Lord Morgan smirked.

  “Well Charles. Ten seconds. It took him ten seconds to understand there is a puzzle. It took you ten hours,” he said to the rabbit.

  “Now what is he going to do to solve it?”

  Edward sat, watching Lord Morgan flick back his hair. Edward mimicked his captor. The monkey ran his tiny hand across his own head of black hair, frazzled and free from his hat.

  Edward had been challenged before. Once as a young monkey while still in the company of his mother. She had been sold on by her handler in Porto. At eight years of age, she was coming to the end of her useful life for him. She had grown out of playing with tourists and had started to pull at their lapels and purses. She had become pregnant by a younger, male tufted capuchin her handler had bought to replace her. So Edward’s mother was sold to a traveller who crossed the sea and sold her again to a fair atop the white cliffs of Dover.

  There Edward was born and it was there he was first challenged to solve a puzzle. His mother’s owner, an aged ex-serviceman who had lost a foot many decades earlier during the Crimean War, pulled him from his mother’s teat and put him in a shoebox. The man closed the lid and watched, to humour himself and to see what the infant monkey would do. At just a few months of age, Edward rose to the challenge by pushing off the top to the box, freeing himself.

  The Ring Master from Whyte and Wingate’s Big Top posed the second challenge. Soon after the circus left the southeast, to cross England in search of new riches, the Ring Master had invited Edward on to his dining table in his wagon. He swigged at a bottle of brandy as the wagons rolled west, and then explained to the monkey, in sober terms despite his drunken state, how Edward’s mother had died that morning.

  The Ring Master was challenging Edward to understand him. He spoke quietly and slowly. He even gesticulated, using his hands to describe how Edward’s mother had died, sticking out his tongue for effect. But the real challenge was for Edward to not cry. For him to sit there impassive and not scratch at his fur and wail.

  He passed that test. He never gave the Ring Master the satisfaction of knowing that he understood every word that he had been told. Instead, learning he was orphaned, he resolved to make the circus his new family. He started to plan how he might acquire his own circus one day and when he did, no animals would be sold on once they had forgotten how to do their tricks.

  And now he was being confronted by another human, this one a supposed Lord, a professor, a man of science who was inviting Edward to free himself from a wooden prison that had been purposely constructed to confine and frustrate.

  Edward immediately knew where to start. The lever pulled by Lord Morgan must be connected to something else. Just as the watch chains in the punters’ pockets were linked to their watches, which in turn pulled at their little bags of money. Edward sat up. He didn’t yet move for the lever. He needed to think more. He chattered to the human, distra
cting Lord Morgan as he tilted his head, searching for a link between the lever outside of the box and the walls within. But the walls were smooth, beautifully crafted from hard mahogany. Then Edward thought to look at the floor, at where the dried celery had been. He noticed a tiny piece of wood sticking out at an angle, a pedal. He didn’t press it yet. He stood up in the cage and pretended to shake the bars, baring his teeth. As he did so, he slid his foot along from the pedal. His sensitive toes followed a groove that ended at the wall. Standing, his bushy head brushing the ceiling, Edward realised the groove reappeared above him, and within sat a cable. He had worked out the connections. Now he had to time his moment.

  Lord Morgan took off his jacket and set a mechanical clock next to the cage. He pulled up a wooden chair in front of Edward, threw his jacket over the back and flipped open a notebook.

  “Two minutes in and the monkey has made no attempt to find a way out,” he said out loud.

  He licked at a pencil and wrote his words in his book. He sighed.

  “What’s the record Charles?” he asked the rabbit, who didn’t reply. “Thirty eight minutes. Yes, that was it,” he answered himself. “Old Audrey’s cat did it in thirty eight minutes. I had starved it though,” he said, as an afterthought. “With enough practice, a rat will do it in forty.”

  Edward imagined all the animals that had once been locked in this cage. How they would have scratched at the wood or tried to gnaw their way out. He waited for Lord Morgan to again write in his notebook. The moment he saw the pencil committed to paper, he struck. He danced to the side, his waistcoat flapping. He stamped upon the pedal and felt the release of tension. He heard the grind of a cable moving and the rising of a wooden lever above his head. The walls shuddered and the door to the cage dropped a millimetre. He threw his body at it.