by Cylin Busby
I looked to the place where his head met his body and, mustering my courage, went in for a bite there. My teeth met something hard, and it crunched as I bit down harder and shook my head from side to side. It took only a second, maybe two; then his body was limp. There was no struggle, no sound. I lifted my paws off him gingerly and shook them, as if he were a dirty puddle I had stepped in. The black rat lay in front of me, his limbs loose, his mouth slightly open as if he were asleep. But his head was at that funny angle, turned in an unnatural way that to me, since seeing Slattery’s body the night of the storm, would always signal death.
I must have stood there panting and looking at the rat for some time before I realized what I had done: I had killed him. I had done what the captain wanted of me, and what my mother had done for years before I had ever been born. I tried to connect the memory of my beloved mother with the scene before me, and I could not. I could not picture her biting, clawing another creature, taking its life. It was a side of her that I had not chanced to see, and I found it very hard to believe.
I wondered if she would be proud of me, as I picked up the dark rat by the scruff of his neck and made my way to the ladder that would lead me back to the main deck. I was exhausted, sore, and somewhat sad about what had transpired. The sound of the rat’s cry still rang in my ears. I questioned if I had done the right thing, the right way. But I also now had something to leave outside the captain’s door—just as my mother had done—and in my proud little body there was no room for doubt. So I pushed those feelings aside and focused only on the plan I had made to save the captain. I would lay this rat outside his door and I would wait. When he awoke, he would see it. And then he would be well.
When I arrived on the deck, my prize in my mouth, I was surprised that it was not still night. Bright sunlight washed over the deck. I had been below for some time, but how long? I made my way to the captain’s cabin and dropped the rat outside his door. Then I lay down, nesting my head in my front paws. I could not stop a deep purr from rising in my throat—how excited I was! Finally I had earned my keep aboard the Melissa Rae, and I meant to continue to do so. I closed my eyes, just for a moment, and played back the fight over and over again in my mind.
“What’s this?” I heard Moses say, waking me from my light sleep. I roused myself to look up into his surprised face. “Jacob, is this your work?” His eyes went to the dead rat, and for a moment I doubted that he was pleased. Then I realized that he was teasing me, when with a wink he opened the door and announced to the captain what I had accomplished. I could hear the captain talking inside, but I was too embarrassed to take a look within—my appearance must be dreadful, with my bald tuft on my foreleg and my fur askew. Instead I stood outside and waited.
Moses came out at last with a weak smile on his face. “He’s terribly proud of you,” he said, petting me down my back. “Not feeling much better today, though.” Moses stood and stopped for a second, taking a step back. “My, you are becoming a real young fellow, aren’t you? Handsome as can be, the spit and image of your mother.” He smiled, and from the look in his eye I could tell that he, too, was remembering my mother and perhaps thinking how proud she would be of me now. His kind words were enough to encourage me to rouse myself, take a wet paw to my face, and begin my day.
When you are a sailor, and I now considered myself one, the days at sea begin to pass in a most ordinary way. If the weather is “shipshape”—clear and a good wind—you cannot tell a Monday from a Wednesday, or any other day. The sunrise and sunset come and go in a predictable pattern that somewhat bored me. I could not fathom how the sailors could repeat the same tasks and eat the same boring meals every day, day in and day out.
Waking in the gray light of the early-morning bells, I would tumble from my cozy spot in the galley and go up to watch the sun rise. I always stood for a moment at the stern, to take in the color of the morning sky and wait for any odd feelings, like those I had on the morning of the terrible storm. I planted my feet firmly and closed my eyes, breathing in the sea air. But I did not again get that awful, foreboding emotion that would predict a storm. Sadly, I did not have the power to recognize that another type of storm would eventually engulf us all.
Following early-morning bells, the sailors would start their day scrubbing down the boards with sloppy seawater and lye soap. They would raise and lower sails according to the wind, repair anything that wanted fixing, and spend their idle time working on the ropes. When there seemed no more work to be done, there was the tedious task of picking oakum—taking apart old slacks of rope, bit by bit—to use around the ship, stuffing joints and leaks.
One day, with the real work of the ship behind them, the fellows were sitting on the hot, sunny deck with a pile of oakum and decided to have a bit of fun. As I played nearby with a stray piece of string, thrown to me by one of the men, they took me into their confidence and spoke to me as a fellow mate. I can now understand that the sailors were as bored as I, and needed something to set their minds to. “Archer has an affliction to this cat,” Chippy said, watching me bat the string to and fro across the deck with my paw. “What if he were to wake and find the creature in his own bunk?”
I could see Sean’s brown eyes sparkling at the idea. “Do you mean to put Jacob—accidentally, of course—into his quarters?” he asked.
A young sailor named Daly joined in the fun, whispering, “Not just his quarters—into the bunk itself, the bedding and all!”
The three men moved toward me, and before I could leap, Chippy’s large, rough hand closed around my middle. They crept to Archer’s quarters, all the while watching to be sure the man himself was not on deck but remained below, having tea in the galley. Sean pulled open the door and glanced quickly inside, and Chippy placed me gently onto a small, short bed, much like what the captain had in his room, only these quarters were a bit tighter.
“Roll around there, Jacob; get a good feel for it.” Sean laughed as I set my nails into the soft bedding, kneading it under my paws. I did not fully understand their intentions, but as my kneading seemed to please the sailors so much, I did it a bit more. Sean clapped and rubbed his hands together. “That’s it.”
“You make yourself at home there, rat,” Chippy said, and petted me roughly on the back as they turned to leave. And then I was alone in the dark quarters on soft bedding. I kneaded the blanket below me until I had raised some threads, making it even softer, though perhaps not as attractive as it had been. Then I waited a while, but when Chippy and Sean didn’t return, there seemed to be nothing better to do than curl up and have a rest. And that is indeed what I did, right on the middle of the softest bit, which I later learned was Archer’s own pillow.
I cannot say what time passed, as I usually did not heed the ringing bells that would signal the hour, but when I woke it was to the hollering of Archer and his stamping boot. Quite a rude awakening! “Out, you vermin. Out this instant!” he yelled, his jacket buttons undone, exposing a stained white shirt and a round belly that pushed against it. Archer would not touch me; as I had learned quickly on, I repulsed him. But instead he waved his hands furiously over my body as I slowly stretched my length on his pillow, easing my muscles out of the deep sleep that I had enjoyed on his soft bed.
He turned to a side table and took up a leather-bound book, swatting at me as if I were an insect. “Go on then, you! Go out!” He pulled open the door to his quarters and pushed me off the bed with the book, shoving my bottom as I reluctantly made my way out onto the wooden deck. “Go, you arrogant beast!”
The sunny deck was a hard adjustment for my eyes, so while I did exit his room, I lay down on the deck in front of his door to gather my wits, but the man kept after me, shoving and pushing, now with his boot. “You are not welcome here—go, and take your fleas with you!”
As I did finally make my way down to the deck, I noted that the sailors had all suspended their work and were watching the proceedings with eagerness. Even Chippy and Sean, who should have been below, wer
e on deck to witness Archer’s red face and sudden sneezing fit. The man doubled over, again and again, achooing and wheezing between yelling and swatting, before he finally tumbled back into his quarters, holding his chest. Even with the door closed behind him, we could hear the respiratory ailments that continued to afflict him.
The sailors hardly waited to see his door close before the laughter started. Chippy and Sean exchanged satisfied looks, and I continued my path through the sailors, enjoying the congratulatory pets along my back and cheers of “Good on you, Jacob!”
It was at times such as these when I felt the most closely bonded with the sailors—and missed my mother most fervently. A good number of the crew, and I among them, held Archer more than partially responsible for my mother’s death and that of young Slattery, as it was at Archer’s urging that we sailed directly into the storm. So while it may have appeared a bit of good ribbing to anger the man, there was a current of true animosity for Archer that ran just below the surface. Since the captain had been injured, Archer had been more than happy to step into the role of substitute captain—much to the chagrin of the sailors. If our first mate had been an experienced man, such as Sean or Chippy, the men would not have minded a lick. But Archer’s lack of experience, combined with his arrogance, led him to continually make a spectacle of himself. He was not in favor with the men. So I could not blame them for having a bit of fun. If anything, their exploits had broken up the boring routine of daily life aboard the Melissa Rae, and I welcomed a change from the usual.
Even the grub that Moses served the men was the same every day: breakfast was a gruel of water and oatmeal with coffee to wash it down; lunch was usually hardtack biscuits with a bite of meat—salt pork or beef—and dinner was fish-head soup, maybe fried corn porridge, potatoes, or pickles. On the Sabbath, however, Moses made a special treat: a batch of pudding with molasses, called duff, which the sailors adored but I could not abide.
I had no way of marking the time except to note that I was, indeed, growing larger and stronger every day. I was still a kitten, to be sure, but my paws appeared larger, even to me, and I had to squeeze myself quite flat to fit beneath the warm stove in the galley. Every day, I checked the galley pantry and the ship’s food supply. To have a nest of rats there would be quite terrible for all on board. And every night, I went below, searching for my enemies and keeping tabs on the goods in the hold, looking for damage or any signs of habitation. I did not find a foe on every night, but when I did, I was quick about things. I went for the neck before the creature even had a moment to cry out in pain. When I was done, I would carry whatever I had caught up to the deck, and lay the bodies outside the captain’s door by dawn.
On one particular morning, when I had caught two rats—albeit small ones—I went to lay my prizes outside his quarters and realized I’d not seen the captain in many days. How many to be exact, I could not be sure, but his progress, or lack, had been unchecked by me. So later, when the last meal of the day had been served, I was close at Moses’s heels when he made his way up to the captain’s cabin with the brown bottle in hand.
The room was dark and smelled musty, but there was the captain, lying stretched out on the divan, as he had been the last time I had visited him. He gave a weak whistle for me, and I leapt up by his side. He seemed pleased to see me. “My boy, how are you?” He scratched me under my chin, and I surprised myself to hear a deep, loud purr escape my throat. “I hear that you are growing up to be a fine ratter,” the captain said, his voice quiet and gravelly.
“Aye, that he is, sir,” Moses agreed, taking a seat in the chair beside him. “He brings up one or two a day now. How do you fare tonight?” He started to unwrap the stained bandages over the captain’s wounded leg, and a terrible smell escaped. I knew what that smell was. The first rat I had left outside the captain’s door, the one that had sat in the heat of the sun for a day, had given off the same terrible stink as its body swelled up and collected flies. Dougherty eventually tossed it overboard, before the captain had even had a chance to see it. “Good job, mate,” he called to me as I watched him carry the rat’s bloated body to the side of the ship, holding it gingerly by its tail. “But these vermin aren’t for collecting!” The planks where it had lain gave off a bad smell until the decks were washed down the next morning. Now I was terrified to witness the same smell again. Did this mean the captain would die?
I heard Moses pull in a deep breath and let out a sigh as he wrapped the leg back up. “ ’Tis not good, Captain. Worse now than ever. I know you’ll disagree, but I have to put forth again that we talk to Archer and chance turning back.”
“Preposterous,” the captain snapped. He pushed Moses’s hands away and did the rewrapping himself. I’d not seen him so angry since after the storm, when he had given Archer a stern talking-to. “It will heal, or it will not. I cannot ask my crew to make a fool’s errand of returning an ailing captain to port.”
“Sir, I worry that it is too late for an amputation. A wound like this might be poisoning your blood. I’ve seen it before—”
“With all due respect, man,” the captain barked, “you are no doctor!”
Moses kept his calm. “I am not a doctor, sir, that is correct. And that is indeed why I would ask you to let us return you to England so that you can see one. Before it becomes too—”
“You are dismissed,” the captain said, turning his head away from us both. “Leave the bottle,” he added as Moses stood. I kept my place beside the captain and nudged his side with my head, rubbing my ears against him. “You too, Jacob. Go now. I’m not fit for company.” The captain’s voice sounded weak again, so I did as he asked and leapt down, scooting out the open door before Moses closed it behind him.
I followed Moses back to the galley, and I noted that he stopped along the way twice, once to rouse Sean from his hammock and again to lean in on Chippy during his poker game. To both of them he said the same thing: “It is time.”
The second and third mates followed the cook into the galley, and I knew that I could easily have stayed and hidden beneath the stove, listening to every word. But the sight of the captain and the smell in his cabin had made me feel restless, useless in a way I could hardly stand. I could not, would not, accept that the captain would go the way of my mother and sailor Slattery, tossed overboard like a dead and bloated rat! I would not allow it. I would do the only thing I knew: go below and do my job. The sailors had said that when my mother lined up dead vermin outside the captain’s door, it put a smile on his face. So now I would do the same. I would beat her record, and either I would make him well again or his last day on board would be one where he was the most pleased and proud of the runt he had saved, of Mr. Jacob Tibbs.
As I crossed back over the deck to the main hatch, I sensed a change on board: a certain tightness had taken hold. The sailors seemed more subdued to me; there was less chatter in the second dogwatch, just the men going about their business with little of the jovial nature that was usually evident. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I heard whispers as I scurried down the hatch, set on achieving my goal by the time daylight broke over the waves. Perhaps this whispering had been going on for some time and I had not taken notice of it. Perhaps it was new tonight, with word of the ailing captain. I focused my eyes on the darkness around me. The captain had given me only one task on this ship, and I was determined to do it.
The first kill that night came easily. I was well rested and eager, and found a small rat who’d wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. Perhaps I was growing faster, more agile, or perhaps my reputation among the rats was beginning to be known, because when I made eyes on the kill, the little rat froze in place and I was upon him in a blink. I laid the limp body at the bottom of the ladder to take up later. I noted he was indeed small, but still a rat. Not bad, I reasoned, not bad.
But my early luck on this night was not to be repeated. I prowled the hold in the dark and quiet for hours, not coming across any other vermin, u
ntil I grew tired. I hopped up on a wooden trunk and spread my body the length of it, digging my nails into the wood for a nice stretch, then curled into a ball. I would close my eyes, not for long—it took but a few moments to wake and feel refreshed again. A “catnap,” one of the sailors had called it, though you wouldn’t find any of them taking such a rest, not while on watch. Just two days previous, one young sailor had tried to grab a rest under the longboat when all was shipshape during his watch. When Archer found him, he grew so angry you would think someone had poured hot tar on his head. He screamed and went red in the face, telling the sailor and anyone else who would listen that this type of behavior was unacceptable. He ordered the young sailor to remain on deck for the next two watches without a rest or meal between. Punishment served, the poor lad had stumbled to his hammock, dead on his feet, and since then I’d always seen him at his best on the deck, never slacking on a watch again. He had learned his lesson.
When I’d been resting for what felt like only a few minutes but may have been a quarter bell, I heard a slight sound and my ears perked. It was quiet below, aside from the gentle sounds of the waves against the side of the ship and occasional footfalls above, but I’d grown used to those and knew the noises well. This was something else.
I opened my eyes and slowly turned my head—to move too quickly might scare whoever, or whatever, was near. It didn’t take me long to spot the source of the noise: a large gray rat was gnawing away on the wooden pin inside a roll of cloth. One of the sailors had said that rats’ teeth continued to grow, and that was why they constantly had to chew and gnaw at hard things, to sand down their long, horrible front teeth. The scraping sound was subtle but had been loud enough to wake me. I quickly got my wits about me and moved onto my paws without a sound. At least, I thought I hadn’t made a sound. But the rat stopped and turned its head ever so slowly, looking over the shoulder and directly at me.