by Joan Aiken
“Where’s Mrs. Churt?”
“Having a lie-in, I daresay, after that beanfeast she cooked last night.”
Dakin thought this most unlike Mrs. Churt, but he had no time for more talk, the call for assembly was sounding on Catchpole’s whistle; men were tumbling out of the big doors at the rear of the train, and forming into squares of ten. Dakin, who had been polishing his drum since 3:00 A.M., tumbled himself out likewise and took his place at the side of the troop, who all looked like unicorns in their pronged Snark masks. They carried long wicked December guns, squat, wide flame-throwers, and had Kelpie knives slotted all over their equipment wherever there was room.
“Now then—you little smitchy-faced article!” roared Sergeant Bellswinger to Dakin. “You keep your eye on Captain Twilight there, and follow wherever he goes. When I say the word march, you begins to play, and you doesn’t stop till you hears Catchpole sound the recall. Understand? Comprenny? Troop! Shun! Verse—arms! Eyes—front! Left—turrrn! At the double—MARRCH!”
“Titherump, titherump, titherump, rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tum!” sang Dakin’s drum under his rattling drumsticks, as he panted along in Captain Twilight’s rear beside the troop of men, who were hurrying grimly and gaily up towards the top of a long rough slope of moorland. When they reached the summit they could see down on the other side, through the morning mist, the battered tower blocks of Manchester.
Between the troop and the town, though, swarmed a wild medley of monsters, hopping, swooping, galloping on nine legs, gliding on slimy suckers, prancing on claw-fringed hoofs, floating on bat-wings.
“Croopus,” said Private Mollisk. “’Tis like ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’.”
“As good as a panto,” said Private Reilly. “All we need’s the Fairy Queen.”
“Rumpa-tumpa, tumpa, tump!” beat Dakin’s drumsticks.
“Squad-load!” bawled Sergeant Bellswinger. “On the word—fire!”
A sheet of flame and a black hail of missiles swept across the open space.
It was a ferocious battle. Out of the mists to the south a dim red sun presently mounted and cast patches of crimson light on the frosty slope, on the grisly many-shaped monsters and the men, who looked almost as wild, in their Griffin capes, Gorgon shields, and Snark masks.
Dakin, too, had been issued with a Snark mask. It was much too big for him and kept slipping; every few minutes he had to hitch his head back to shake it into position. He longed to take it off and sling it over his shoulder, but he did not, for three reasons: first, Sergeant Bellswinger had threatened to cut his tripes out if he did so; second, he observed Ensign Crisworthy take his mask off to blow his nose and, a second later, vanish like a burnt tissue as a Snark winged down on him; third, rattling away at the big drum like a mad woodpecker, Dakin simply hadn’t time to do anything but keep drumming.
Sometimes the fight roared and seethed all around him, sometimes it swept away into the distance; sometimes he had the satisfaction of seeing some beast pause, hesitate, catching the sound of his desperate tattoo, and then suddenly fall in half like a tree struck by lightning. On the whole he received very little notion as to how the general trend of the battle was going, whether the Cockatrice Corps might be winning or losing. There seemed to be an unlimited supply of monsters; they kept pouring out of the sky, and from the towers of Manchester, like swarming seagulls or hungry locusts. Dakin thumped away, often ducking a whistling wing, or leaping aside to dodge a raking talon; once he was wrapped in slimy tentacles and had to slash himself loose at frantic speed with his Kelpie knife, transferring both drumsticks to his left hand temporarily; but not once did he stop drumming, not even when he thought he saw Mrs. Churt hurry across the hillside among the men in their dark-brown uniforms and the cream-coloured, salmon-pink, yellow, grey, and leopard-spotted monsters.
“I must have imagined that I saw Mrs. Churt,” Dakin thought. “What on earth would she be doing in a scrimmage like this? Maybe I’m getting feverish. I’ve got cramps in my arms and feet, and I can’t feel my hands at all.”
* * *
Then, all of a sudden, the battle was over. Not because one side or the other had gained a definite victory, but simply because of the weather. Sharp, slashing javelins of snow hissed down out of the low grey clouds, now purpling towards sunset, the sunset of Christmas Eve; the snow cut and stung and blinded men and monsters alike. In five minutes hardly a living creature was to be seen on the rough hillside. Bodies lay scattered here and there—men, Manticores, Snarks, Hydras, Cocodrills, tossed higgledy-piggledy. Dakin recognized the bodies of two men and an officer, Captain Twilight, but he was too dead-tired to feel anything but a kind of puzzled sadness. His one wish was to find his way back to the train, fall on his bunk and sleep for a hundred hours. Had the recall been sounded? And which was the way back? During the battle he had been pushed further and further along the slope; now he found himself at the foot of a shallow gully, but it was hard to see more than a few yards through the slicing, stinging snow.
It must be right if I keep going downhill, he thought and ran, stumbling and slipping, as fast as he could over the tussocky ground, his drum banging awkwardly on his hip. A layer of snow caked over his Snark mask, blinding him, so he took off the mask. Snarks can’t like this weather any more than I do, he decided. And if I keep it on I shall only walk into a river or something.
Looking everywhere for the troop train, he was dismayed to see instead a high wall ahead of him. It was so high that its top was veiled in cloud and snow. Oh crumbs, I must have gone wrong; that must be Manchester town wall. I’ll just have to turn round and go back—
Before he could turn he was halted by a shout. “Who goes there? Man or monster? Stop or I shoot!”
“I’m a m-m-m-man,” called Dakin through chattering teeth. His uniform was soaked through and his boots were full of snow; he felt like an icicle.
“Man? You don’t look like it,” said the voice. “Well, come forward—but slowly—for if either of us makes a mistake you’ll end up with a stomach full of red-hot sand.”
Dakin scrunched slowly over the snow towards a narrow gate which he now saw in the wall ahead of him.
“Holy smoke!” said the voice. “It is a nipper! Wait till the warden of the gate hears this. Come along in, you poor little sardine—you must be half perished.”
Five minutes later Dakin found himself in a warm, bright, noisy place—the barrack-room of the Manchester town wall guard squad—where he was given a cup of hot herb tea, rubbed with towels, and questioned eagerly by the warden, the mayor, all the guards officers, and half the citizens of Manchester, about the battle, his part in it, and the cargo of the Cockatrice Belle.
“We did manage to set up radio transmissions, you see, but then lost them again when that cloud of monsters swooped down so low,” the mayor explained. “And the visibility was so bad, and the Snark glass in the town wall windows is so thick, that we couldn’t see what was happening. Often enough, the monsters have battles among themselves; we couldn’t be sure it wasn’t that.”
You might have sent a party out to make sure, Dakin thought, but he was too tactful to say so.
“We’re all a bit weak here, you see,” the mayor apologized. “Half a cup of thin gruel each a day for the last six weeks.”
Dakin realized that the Manchester men did look desperately thin and pale; he forgave them for not dashing out to help their rescuers.
“There’s a big load of tinned carrots on the train,” he said.
“Carrots! I’ll have a try at making radio contact again now that dark has fallen.”
Radio contact was presently established from the mayor’s electric shaver to Colonel Clipspeak’s teakettle and Dakin learned that the men of the sally party had fought their way back to the train, having inflicted heavy casualties on the monsters and not suffered too badly themselves. The colonel was delighted to hear that his drummer boy was safe in Manchester, and promised to send in the carrot supply at first light as a
Christmas present for the population of Manchester.
“The boy had better stay with you; we’ll pick him up in the morning.”
Dozens of people offered Dakin a bed for the night. He had never felt so popular. But he said, “My Auntie Floss used to live in Manchester. If she’s still alive! Mrs. Florence Monsoon. And my cousin Sauna. I’d like to see them if they’re still here.”
Somebody knew where Mrs. Monsoon lived, in a high-rise block called Brylcreme Court, and Dakin was taken there in the mayor’s rickshaw, pulled by a dozen weak but grateful citizens.
Brylcreme Court was a gaunt concrete tower at the end of a cul-de-sac.
“The stairs are through that door,” coughed the mayor’s son, and pointed with a shaking hand. “You won’t mind if we don’t come up? Weeks of gruel don’t leave your legs up to climbing stairs. Your auntie’s at number fifteen.”
Dakin said of course he could find his way, thanked them all heartily, and started up the steps. After weeks on the one-storey train and the long day’s battle, his own legs did not feel any too strong.
As he toiled slowly up the concrete flights, illuminating his way by sparing flashes of his Hydra torch, a queer feeling took hold of him. What was it? In the battle he’d had no time to feel frightened; the monsters did not scare him. But now he realized that the hungry, shadowy feeling inside him was fear. He was afraid, and yet he did not know why.
As he neared the door of number fifteen he found himself walking more and more slowly.
The door, which was shabby, dirty, and battered, had a little spy hole in it. When Dakin stood outside, his heart went pit-a-pat. He heard people talking in the flat.
“I can see Cousin Dakin,” said a soft voice, and a louder, sharper voice said, “Oh, don’t be such a pest, Sauna. You put me quite out of patience, that you do.”
Then there came the sound of a brisk slap and a low cry.
Dakin tapped on the door.
Immediately there was complete silence inside. Then a pale-grey eye surveyed him through the spy hole.
“Who’s that?” snapped a voice—the same that had said, “You put me out of patience.”
“Drummer Dakin Prestwich looking for his auntie, Mrs. Monsoon.”
The door opened slowly. A skinny woman stood regarding him with suspicion. Then her face cleared a little.
“Well—upon my word. It is Dakin. Whatever are you doing here?”
“Come to give you Mum’s best wishes,” said Dakin. “I was on the troop train that brought the carrots to Manchester.”
“Oh! Carrots!” breathed the girl who stood behind Mrs. Monsoon. She was Dakin’s size, or a little taller, red-haired, and would have been nice-looking if she were not so thin and sad.
“Cousin Sauna!” Dakin exclaimed. “Remember how you used to play my mouth-organ?”
He would have shaken hands with her, but strangely enough Sauna’s hands were tied behind her with a strip of rag.
“We have to do that,” hastily explained her aunt, observing Dakin’s look of puzzled outrage. “Sauna’s too active for this flat. She’d have everything topsy-turvy in no time.”
There was not an inch of spare space in Mrs. Monsoon’s tiny apartment, Dakin noticed. Hundreds of little china pots covered every surface.
“It was my hobby. Used to collect ’em. Brought ’em back as souvenirs from holidays,” said Aunt Floss, noticing Dakin’s eyes on the pots. “Then Sauna’s mum and dad died abroad and I had to bring her back. And then, of course, we had to stop travelling.” It was plain that she blamed her niece for this.
Dakin began to feel very sorry for Sauna, shut up in such a small place with all those pots, as well as Florence Monsoon, who looked to him like a short-tempered woman. The basement of Barclays Bank, Shepherd’s Bush, was a paradise in comparison.
“Well, Dakin,” Mrs. Monsoon said sharply, confirming his impression of her, “you can’t stop the night here, for we’ve no room, as you can see. Maybe Mrs. Beadnik, who moved in across the way, could take you; I’ll just step across and ask her. Don’t you touch nothing while I’m gone.”
The moment she was out of the door, Dakin cut through the rag fastening Sauna’s wrist with his Kelpie knife.
“How can she tie you up like that?” he said. “It’s dreadful!”
“Oh, no, it’s really best,” Sauna told him earnestly. “Otherwise I’m sure to knock something over. She only ties my hands during the day … But, Dakin, I don’t think it’s a good plan your going to stay with Mrs. Beadnik—she’s not very nice, she’s rather queer. She only came to this building a few weeks ago.”
“Maybe I’d better go back to the barracks,” said Dakin doubtfully.
But Sauna’s eyes suddenly grew large as saucers and she gazed at Dakin in fright.
“Oh, Dakin! I can see a woman who knows you! She’s out in the street, being chased by a Manticore!”
“How do you mean, you see her?”
“She’s in the street down below. Her name’s Mrs. Churt.”
“But how can you see her?” demanded Dakin, for the windows had thick blinds over them.
“Oh, I can see through walls. Quick, quick, let’s go and help her!”
As they scampered down the steep concrete stairs Dakin panted, “Will Aunt Floss be very angry when she finds you’ve gone out?”
“Oh, no, I’m sure not. She’s very fed up with me. She often says she wishes she’d never had to take charge of me. Look! look there…”
Sauna had pulled Dakin round a couple of street corners, running through the dark, silent town. Now they came to a bit of a waste land covered with lavender bushes—the scent was very strong—and they saw Mrs. Churt being chased by a huge Manticore. She was running clumsily, weighed down by the two heavy baskets she carried. The beast was gaining on her at every bound, it was just about to pounce—
“Stop it, stop it!” screamed Sauna.
Dakin dragged out his liquid-air pistol, aimed it as best he could with shaking hands, and pressed down the plunger. A fierce narrow jet, unbelievably much colder than ice, melted the Manticore into dark-blue jelly when it was only two leaps behind Mrs. Churt.
“Well, my gracious!” exclaimed that lady. “I am pleased to see you, young Dakin! I thought I was a goner that time! Wish we could make him into blackberry tart,” she added, looking critically at the dissolved monster. “And who’s this little beauty, eh?”
“This is my cousin Sauna,” said Dakin, thinking how much better his cousin looked when her cheeks were pink with excitement.
“Pleased to meet you dearie. I can see you’re a gal as’ll go far—in fact I been dreaming about you, my love, these last two to three nights; I thought we’d be meeting soon! Now we’d best be getting back to the train. I’d have been back long ago, making sorrel soup for the lads, if that monster hadn’t chased me out of my way.” And Mrs. Churt indicated her baskets laden with winter spinach and greenery. “I got a little bit of white heather too, to grow in a pot as a memorial for Corporal Bigtoe and those others what got killed.”
“But how can we get back to the train, Mrs. Churt? We’re inside the town wall.”
“Yes, dear, but there’s a way through here no one seems to have noticed, prob’ly because it’s all covered by them lavender bushes.”
And nipping along with great confidence as if crossing her own back garden Mrs. Churt led them along a narrow gully, back to where the Cockatrice Belle was parked. It was lit from end to end, as the combatants sang and drank sassafras tea with rum in it, and played table tennis, and discussed the battle, and planned next day’s manoeuvres. All the red and green Christmas bells were being rung by an invention of Corporal Widgery, from heat generated by the men as they played ping-pong.
Colonel Clipspeak was pleased to see Dakin back, and even happier to welcome Mrs. Churt, who had been given up for lost.
“Never, ever leave the train again without an escort,” he scolded her. “We can’t spare you, Mrs. Churt!”
&nb
sp; “No, but you’ll be glad of all these lovely greens I got,” she replied placidly. “A beautiful mess o’ salad I’ll be able to make for the boys now. And this young lady’s going to come and be my helper, aren’t you, dear?”
“That young person? Certainly not!” exclaimed the colonel. “One female on this train is quite enough. Two would be entirely out of the question.”
“Oh, now, sir, don’t be hasty, just you wait! Don’t you go for to be so sticklish! This young lady’s got a real talent, haven’t you, dearie?” said Mrs. Churt comfortably. “She can see things as hasn’t happened yet—through walls and all, she can see ’em.”
It took a long time, and a lot of argument, to convince the colonel that Sauna would be a really useful member of the crew on board the Cockatrice Belle. That night she had to demonstrate again and again that she really could see things—Hammerheads, Cockatrices, and people—not only through walls, but sometimes ten minutes before they arrived, or even earlier.
At last the colonel said, “Oh, very well! She may come for a trial trip. Just on the run back to London. I don’t promise more than that! Should a message be sent to her family apprising them of my decision?”
Accordingly, next morning, Christmas Day, while the carrots were being delivered under guard, a note was despatched to Auntie Floss requesting the services of Miss Sauna Blow as Assistant Mess Orderly (Female) Supernumerary Second Grade on the Cockatrice Belle.
But, strangely enough, Aunt Floss was not to be found among her thousands of small china souvenirs. Nor, by her neighbours, was she ever seen again. Her new neighbour Mrs. Beadnik seemed to have vanished at the same time.
But the disappearance of people was such a commonplace that no one thought much about it.
Only several days later did Sauna, stirring soup in the galley, suddenly exclaim, “Oh! My goodness!”
“What is it, dearie?” enquired Mrs. Churt, chopping raisins. “Don’t let that soup boil over, lovey; shift it to one side.”