I AM THE CAT

by William Stafford

  She turned and saw me watching her. “You were there, Puss; you saw how beastly I was to him. I was taken by surprise; that was all. I can’t afford to give up my disguise.”

  I kept my face straight. The Boy, I knew, would be overjoyed to hear of this and I couldn’t wait to tell him. I would have fled from the galley right then but I didn’t want my hasty exit to be misconstrued as commentary on her conduct. And there was still the matter of a morsel of meat or two.

  “You just wait,” the Girl continued, drying her hands on a rough and threadbare cloth. “As soon as we reach the mystic East, I’m going to make it up to him. You’ll see: everything is going to be fine. Now let’s find you something for supper.”

  ***

  I dropped by the hold for a cursory inspection on my way to the Boy’s bunk. I strutted around, did a bit of spraying, and generally felt as though I owned the place. I actually wanted some rats to try something. I almost went so far as to dare them out loud - but I knew my brother would hear, so I held my tongue. Now was not the moment to be pouncing on rats. I had good news to deliver to the Boy, news that would lift him from the doldrums and put wind in his sails again.

  I crossed the deck, heading for the sleeping quarters when movement on the main mast flickered in the corner of my eye. I froze and watched.

  A large rat, fur glistening, was scaling the mast. Larger than your average rat, it could only be my brother. Unseen - by humans - he reached the crow’s nest and raised himself onto his hind legs to survey the ship below, the sky above and the sea all around. He looked like he was master of the entire world.

  Not if I had anything to do with it.

  “What are you up to?” I muttered, almost silently, but he heard. His gaze located me on the deck and he waved a little pink paw in a mockery of friendliness.

  That’s for me to know and you to find out. The words jabbed into my mind like pins in a cushion.

  “You mind you don’t fall,” I thought, with bitter sarcasm. His laughter flooded my head. I cringed from the pain, trying to keep my thoughts clear. Even he wouldn’t be so - so - stupid as to -

  There’s nothing stupid about it! He snapped. It was like a smack in my face - from the inside. But don’t you worry about me, bro; I’ll be just fine!

  The voice ceased. My head was suddenly empty and I was a little disoriented for a minute. Where was I going?

  Oh, yes.

  I forced myself not to hurry - I didn’t want to give my brother the satisfaction - and ambled across the planks, making my way below to the Boy. I tried to quash any notion of climbing that mast myself and dealing with my brother once and for all - I didn’t want to let him know what I was thinking.

  I found the Boy moping below when he should have been mopping, leaning on the ragged mop he used for swabbing the decks - one of his more onerous duties (the swabbing, not the leaning).

  “Hey, kiddo -” I greeted him and was about to launch into a guess-what-I’ve-just-been-told preamble when our attention, and the attention of every hand on board, was snatched away from our conversations by an almighty crack of thunder.

  “Storm comin’,” observed one fellow, redundantly.

  The room was cast into momentary stark relief as sheet lightning flashed in from above. Already the ship was beginning to buck as the waves grew larger and choppier.

  A whistle blew and a cry went up for all hands. The men dropped from their bunks and hammocks and scrambled up top. They knew the drill. There were things to be secured, others to be unfurled, and others to be lashed up tight.

  “All hands!” the redundant fellow snarled over his shoulder at the Boy before disappearing up through the hatch. The Boy mumbled something about being right behind him. He dithered about, wondering if he should take his mop. The floor beneath our feet rose and lurched. I found myself slipping backwards. My claws could find no purchase on the planks. Seconds later I was flung forwards. The Boy gathered me up just as his shoulder blades were slammed against a wall.

  “Find somewhere safe,” he yelled, above another roll of thunder.

  “Oh yeah? Like where?”

  “Sorry, Puss!” the Boy was reaching for the rope ladder, which was swinging violently, “but if I know anything about you, you’ll be all right.”

  He climbed up and out of sight.

  What was that supposed to mean? If he knows anything about me...?

  The ship was thrown upwards and came down with a jolt. A loose overhead beam came crashing down on top of me and everything went -

  Everything just went.

  ***

  And then I was above the ship, above the waves. I was incorporeal and my brother was there, also bodiless but somehow his rat shape was still in the crow’s nest, conducting the storm like a deranged orchestra leader - a lightning conductor, if you will. The elements were doing his bidding.

  “You’re going to destroy the ship!” I pointed out.

  That’s the aim of the game.

  “But why?”

  You can stop this, you know, any time you like.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Give me what I want and all of this will go away.

  “Sorry; I haven’t a bloody clue what you’re on about.”

  Think about it...

  “Well, perhaps if I had a larger brain than this little bitty cat one, I might have the capacity -”

  He’s not doing very well, your boy, is he? Look!

  I watched, helpless, as the largest wave yet threatened to capsize the ship. The sea was batting the Bow Belle around like a - like a - like a cat with a mouse. The ocean was throwing the ship into the rain and catching it again, coiling waves over it as though embracing it in a gargantuan bear hug. Sailors who had not lashed themselves to the masts and other fixtures were cast into the air before being swallowed whole. I couldn’t help thinking of a human throwing a nut into the air and catching it in his mouth and feeling smug about it.

  Two of the masts had already snapped off. Men were scurrying around like a disturbed ants’ nest but, with the noise of the thunder and rain, I couldn’t hear their shouts and cries. I was too far up to distinguish individuals.

  “Let me help them!” I urged.

  My brother laughed.

  There is nothing you can do. Your boy is searching for his girlfriend. I must say, I admire his determination. Perhaps he’ll find her, just at the last minute before - Oh no! Too late. The last minute is now!

  The waves seized the ship, front and stern, in enormous claws. They pulled it apart like a Christmas cracker. There was an ear-splitting crack as the ship snapped in two, spilling its contents into the water.

  Seconds later, the storm was over. The sky was blue and cloudless. The surface of the water was becalmed with an eerie stillness. Of the Bow Belle there was no sign. Not even a splinter.

  Before I could reproach my brother, an irresistible force pulled me down towards the sea, as though I was the water and it was the drain.

  Everything went, again.

  ***

  The sun was high above the narrow stretch of beach I woke up on. The sudden brightness when I opened my eyes was like a stab to the head. I was lying among the remains of the locker the Cat had concealed itself in. It must have brought me to shore before being smashed upon rocks.

  Trembling, I got to my feet. I checked myself over - limbs and tail were all intact, present and correct. I had to fight back the impulse to wash myself from nose to bum - there were other more pressing considerations.

  Where was the Boy? Had the tide rendered him the same service and thrown him up on these very sands? Or was he trapped beneath the waves, sealed in some part of the ship that would forever be his tomb?

  This macabre mood was strengthened when the waters washed a shape I recognised in front of me. T
he carvings were unmistakable. I backed away in horror from the unattached leg of Captain Codd.

  I moved further back away from the advancing water. The tide must be coming in, I reckoned. What else and who else would it bring?

  Oh, if only I hadn’t returned to this limited mortal frame just yet! Had I my freedom in the air, I could have searched for him and found him and made everything all right. And I would know - I would be able to tell if he was still living.

  I jumped onto a large rock that seemed to be dry and out of the water’s reach. From here I could get a good look around. To the east - reckoning by the position of the sun - a large section of the ship had washed on shore, rammed deep into the sand. The wooden figurehead had been decapitated and I was pained to think of the comparative fragility of the human body, almost driving myself insane with worry for my Boy.

  To the west, colourful shapes lay strewn haphazardly across the beach. I recognised the stripes of the friendly topman’s jersey. The unnatural arrangement of his neck and limbs told me, even from this distance, that he was dead.

  Others, luckier than he, were beginning to stir. They moaned and wailed due to a combination of their injuries and their fate. The large angular figure of Mister Bottle was roaming aimlessly to and fro, his face turned to the skies. In his arms he cradled the lifeless form of little Master Bobbin. His heart-wrenching sobs rent the air, a bull in mourning for its calf.

  And then another figure approached him, and tried to placate him. A soothing hand was placed on his arm. This figure was in male attire and my heart leapt to see as much. I bounded from the rock and across the sand.

  It was the Girl.

  She steered Mister Bottle away from the beach and to the shade of a palm tree. Here she encouraged him to lay Master Bobbin’s body on the ground. The big man obeyed her instructions like a compliant but docile child. He sank to his knees besides his deceased friend and formed the very monument of grief.

  “Puss!” the Girl’s face brightened when she caught sight of me. She gave Mister Bottle a pat on his shoulder, which he seemed not to register, before she joined me on the sand. “I’m so happy to see you!” she cried. She gathered me up and hugged me to her, and then she wept.

  “Have you seen him?” she asked, her nose flattening my ear. “Please tell me that he’s all right.”

  We began to search, going from survivor to non-survivor. As soon as it was established that an individual was not the Boy, I was keen to move on to the next but the Girl would stop and offer what aid she could. Those who could move she directed towards the palm tree. Before long, Mister Bottle had a considerable number participating in his vigil.

  Those who could not move, she summoned assistance for. These cases were carried into the shade.

  I was touched by her ministrations and the soothing, matter-of-fact way she spoke to people, although on the inside she was undoubtedly as anxious as I was about our continuing failure to find the Boy.

  And then a cry went up, an incoherent non-verbal roar like a walrus sounding the alarm. We looked to see the sound was coming from Mister Bottle. He was on his feet and pointing a long arm towards the sea.

  A swimmer was approaching. As he reached shallower water he stood and we could see he was dragging something - someone! - along with him.

  Those who could sprinted from the shade, splashing into the water to help him. I bounded across the beach, hurling myself between the sudden confusion of legs onto the wet sand to see. Could it be? Could it be?

  It was.

  Strong arms pulled the Boy from the water before turning their helping hands to his burden. Both were laid out on the sand, the group standing over them.

  “Give them room! Give them room!” the Girl demanded and, given the way she had taken charge of the situation, no one questioned or disobeyed her command.

  I leapt to the Boy’s chest as he lay gasping. His face managed the ghost of a grin before rough hands snatched me away. I was held away from my Boy, although not in an ungentle way, as he drank in huge gulps of air and patted saltwater from his ears.

  Someone rolled over what he had brought from the waters. It was the captain - or what was left of him. The leg was gone, of course, but so were the corkscrew and the eye patch, revealing a lurid red depression where the skin had been sewn over the socket. The man seemed a lifeless lump and people hung their heads in sorrow at his passing.

  Suddenly he surprised us all by coughing out a prodigious jet of water. His lone hand reached inside his coat and pulled out a quantity of seaweed and an octopus, both of which he hurled at the spectators.

  Everyone laughed, applauded and cheered, delighted that the sea hadn’t claimed him.

  “Not bad, not bad,” Captain Codd hitched himself onto his elbows, “even if I’m not half the man I used to be.”

  The Girl was kneeling beside the Boy and cradling his head to her chest. Her face was awash with tears of happiness and relief. I could sympathise. I struggled against my gentle captor before finally having to resort to sinking my teeth - not very far- into his hand. I was dropped unceremoniously to the sand with a colourful oath but I didn’t care. I butted my head against the Boy’s ribs until he paid me some attention too.

  This seemed to amuse the onlookers to a disproportionate extent but then I suppose, when mortals escape death, everything is heightened by the sheer pleasure of being alive.

  Then the laughter seemed to die away. Within a moment there was silence. I tore my gaze away from my beloved Boy and found the crowd around us were standing with their arms raised in the air.

  “What in hell’s name?” grumbled Captain Codd, still on the ground and like me, unable to see what was happening.

  Several people parted and a stranger stepped between them: a tall, muscular man whose deeply tanned skin was protected in the important places by glinting plates of armour. His hair was drawn up into a topknot and a gleaming copper collar cast its reflection upwards onto his sharp features. The point of his curved scimitar was an inch from the captain’s nose.

  “On your feet, dog!” the man snapped. Captain Codd made an expansive gesture that indicated his lower half. “On your foot!” the man amended. He waved his sword at the Boy and the Girl who scrambled to help the captain to stand.

  I darted away. The whole party was surrounded by similar men - soldiers armed to the teeth, with ponytails flying in the breeze.

  “You come with!” the man in the middle announced.

  The group of survivors was rounded up like geese and prompted to walk away from the water’s edge and inland.

  Struggling under the encumbrance of Captain Codd, the Boy was glancing around, looking for me, I bet. I kept my distance. When they had vanished into the undergrowth of the surrounding jungle, I followed, in stealth mode.

  What fresh hell had we landed in this time?

  ***

  The soldiers - what else could they be? - marched their captives deeper into the jungle. The survivors of the Bow Belle were not manhandled or treated roughly although it was patently clear that deviation from the path or any attempt at escape was discouraged. I followed at a distance and like the Englishmen (and Alice) I shared their sense of wonder at the exotica around them. They nudged each other and pointed out each new bird with bright plumage, each new plant with huge, ornate petals. They hushed each other to listen to some willowy cry or chirrup. As one sailor observed, “You don’t get this in Billingsgate.”

  The cat part of me was going crazy with sensory overload. All those new scents and shapes! I could quite easily have got myself lost exploring every inch of that jungle. I would probably have got myself swallowed by a python or snapped up by a crocodile or have met some other grisly fate by some other deadly creature. I had to fight and struggle with myself to keep the party of prisoners within ear- and eyeshot. I suppose I could have tracked them by smell
but, come on, I’m not a bloodhound.

  The trees and the shade afforded by their high canopy of their leaves thinned out. We reached a clearing, a vast plain. The captives saw it before me and their oohs and ahhs hurried me along so I could see it too.

  A city - bigger than the London we had left behind - stretched out before us: row upon row of squat little houses, made from white stone that gleamed in the sunlight, with flat rooves of woven grasses. At the centre, the buildings were taller, circling a mound on top of which sat an enormous palace. This impressive edifice was of the same white stone but its towers were topped with minarets of gold.

  The apparent leader of the soldiers - the one with the topknot while the rest had ponytails - indicated the palace with his sword, although pointing something out with something crooked is perhaps not the best idea. The party seemed to get the idea that the palace was their destination and followed Topknot happily, with the air of tourists following a somewhat uncommunicative guide.

  Their route took them (and me, keeping up the rear) through a residential quarter. All the houses looked in good repair. The streets beneath us were all clean - there was not so much as a stray blade of grass sprouting between flagstones - and the air was fragrant with colourful flowers, transplanted from the jungle behind us, to decorate the corners. There was also the captivating aroma of food cooking, delicately spiced. How difficult it was to keep on the path and not pay a cheeky visit to any of the kitchens we passed!

  Our passage attracted the attention of the residents. They came to their windows and doorways. Some waved, pronouncing welcomes. Others addressed the soldiers directly. The ponytails did not respond but Topknot answered several enquiries. These men had been washed up on the beach. No, it had not yet ascertained where they had come from. No, it was unlikely they were mermaids - they were all male, for one thing. No, that particular one had lost a leg not a fishtail.