by Robin Jarvis
Lowering his gaze, he was suddenly acutely aware of the many curious eyes turned in his direction and he flinched from their unwanted attention. Any of those seemingly innocent passengers could be the one, he thought. Behind their fair masks, what horrors lay hidden? Kindly words poured easily off sharpened tongues. Even the youngest were to be suspected, for his enemies were born into their hellish cause and dedicated to that foulness with their first breath. Coldly he reflected that even the weakest paw could hold a poisoned knife.
Mulligan trembled and he snapped his eyes tight shut. In his troubled mind he had turned all the merry faces into a mob of snarling fiends with lidless eyes and he felt utterly besieged—helpless and without any hope of aid.
In his heart he knew he could no longer go on alone; he would have to share the terrible burden or be driven insane. What manner of mouse was he becoming, when he was forced to question even the motives of children?
“A poor choice I was,” he murmured, ”Aye, it’s well I’ve done what I have.”
His face settled into an expression of stone, like an image hewn by chisel and hammer from solid rock. In his pack, hidden and wound about with yards of cloth, resided the most fearful secret entrusted to any living creature—and its very presence terrified the mouse to the core of his being. It was a perilous charge, ever it gnawed at him and he yearned to be rid of it. But he had sworn many solemn oaths and vowed to surrender his very life before yielding up the ninth and most precious fragment.
Bowing his head, he prayed that his courage would not falter; though the vile forces of his foe’s legions march against him, he begged that he might remain true. The fate of the world was in his keeping and if he stumbled, then endless night would fall.
Able Ruddaway stumbled to the upper deck and reeled backwards as the keen salt air gusted into his lungs. It was already dark but that night no stars glimmered above, for the heavens were hidden by a suffocating expanse of black rolling cloud.
Only the lights of the Calliope shone over the open sea and from where he stood, leaning against a rail, the bosun was lit by the bright yellow rays which streamed from the small bridge of the official crew.
For many minutes he stayed there, waiting for his head to clear, listening to the water washing against the ship as it ploughed unnerringly on and, thoughtfully, he groomed the rum from his beard.
It had been pleasant sharing a tot with Mulligan, and to speak of old times. Strange, he reflected, that of late his mind often lingered in the past, treasuring dusty memories with more fondness than the present, or the future that was left to him.
For all of his adult life, Able had been at sea—having left home on the very day he had come of age. Many trials he had been through, but as he stood there, breathing deeply of the sea air and savouring the beloved briny tang which formed upon his tongue, he longed for those youthful, reckless days.
“The world’s changing,” he sighed regretfully. “Who’d have thought I’d end up stuck on a cargo ship ferrying passengers to an’ fro? What happened to that early madness? Where has the ocean-haunted youngster gone—that lad enamoured of the shifting tides? Lost forever he is now and there’s no reclaiming him; he began to perish the very day you wrote in the first of those accursed logs. When you accepted this post your joy of the deep was ended. How long has it been since you caroused like tonight or gazed down at the waves and set your mind free to watch them and wonder what marvels lay beneath?”
A corner of the bosun’s face twitched and he gave a wry smile. “Wouldn’t be doing to tell that scoundrel Mulligan how much I envy him, now would it?” he mused. “But he’s a strange one for all his bluff talk; never says much about where he goes when he’s ashore. And the travels he’s made in recent months! Like a gull without a roost he’s been. Not like him, that isn’t. Still, we all got to steer our own course.”
Able shuddered, for the night was chill and he moved away from the rail, briskly rubbing his goosepimpling arms with his paws.
“Better get that passenger list for the rogue,” he said, striding a little more surely now that the rum-induced haze about his brain was lifting.
Over the deserted deck he went, crossing to the bow where he entered the livid green glow radiating from the starboard lantern, and ducked beneath a low wooden shelf.
Under this, great coils of rope were stored alongside huge rolls of coarse tarpaulin, and the bosun deftly hurried past them to where a triangular hole lay open in the timbers.
In a trice he disappeared within—down to a well-ordered though humble space which served as his quarters.
Once inside, Mr Ruddaway fumbled in the darkness, reaching out for the tinder box he always left just below the entrance. When he found it a spark crackled and flared and the ember of a candlewick kindled into flame.
The modest room contained everything that he owned and that was not much, for a wanderer such as he had been put down few roots and needed little in the way of belongings.
Most of the small space was filled by a hammock that was stretched clean across two opposing corners. Upon the walls such meagre mementoes that he did possess were regimentedly displayed; two pictures, one of his mother, the other of his father, hung side by side as souvenirs from his former, landlubbing youth. Under them, a tobacco pouch was suspended by a silken cord and finally, on the adjoining wall, there was an oilskin coat and hat.
Beneath the hammock and classified into ascending years was a prodigious row of books. Every passenger that had ever journeyed or even boarded the Calliope during Mr Ruddaway’s time was entered in their correct and balanced pages and it comforted him at times to peruse some of the older volumes and remember those early voyages. Most of the faces that leaped from those yellowing pages were no longer to be seen roaming the wide world. Many had been regular travellers but now only a few die-hard rovers were left. Mulligan was one and, remembering his request, the bosun took up the most recent notebook and turned the pages.
“Mulligan, Mulligan,” he muttered, searching the final entries. “Ah, Mulligan and two comrades boarded, being a Master Woodget Pipple and Master Thomas Stubbs.”
Holding the book a little closer to the candle flame he peered at the names entered beneath and fingered his beard.
“There were three more then,” he mused. “Seems he was nosing the right scent for a change—though that last one’s a surprise! How could I have forgotten him? Well, let’s hope this’ll ease the old rogue’s mind when he sees it.”
Tucking the book into his belt, he snuffed out the light and clambered through the opening once more.
Upon the deck, bathed in the green glow of the lantern, someone was waiting for him. Two eyes watched the bosun’s burly form emerge from the shadows and a low hiss issued into the cold sea breeze.
Leaving the low shelf behind, Mr Ruddaway straightened then, with a jolt, saw that he was not alone.
“Hoy!” he said sternly. “You shouldn’t be up here. Early evening and at dawn—that’s when passengers are allowed on deck—no other times.”
The eyes that watched him narrowed and a soft, sibilant whisper flowed from tight lips.
“I was seeking you,” it said.
“Aye, well you’ve found me now,” the bosun said. “You can go back down and speak to me there if you must.”
“Verily I shall return to that place,” came the answering hiss, “yet those words I must share with you now, there cannot be any delaying of them.”
Mr Ruddaway stared at the glowing green figure and tapped the notebook with his paw.
“Just been reminded when you joined us,” he said, but his voice faltered when he looked on that face whose fur was shining like sun-drenched grass. Was it an illusion caused by the lurid light or were those eyes truly changing? Golden they appeared now and their pupils shrivelled into dark slits.
“Your... your eyes,” Able stammered, “you... you look... unwell...”
“I am indeed most hale,” the figure replied, “more so now, for my ta
sk is drawing to its conclusion.”
The bosun shivered, for the voice had become dreadful to hear and his paw strayed to the hilt of his sword.
Before him, the sinister shape gave a flick of its tail and Mr Ruddaway choked back a cry when he beheld the hideous sight before his eyes.
“Green save us!” he gasped. “Then it’s true—the stories from the East.”
“Assuredly so,” the watcher laughed hollowly. “The Scales do exist, but too late have you learned the truth, woebegotten and forsaken mariner. That knowledge shall die with you.”
With that the creature leaped forward and upon his claws two golden blades glittered like slivers of emerald in the ghastly light.
Mr Ruddaway drew out his sword and sprang back, slicing at the air and hacking wildly. Expertly, his attacker dodged aside and whipped smartly around—the gleaming razors raking twin lines across the bosun’s cheek.
The mouse howled with pain and the blood streamed into his beard but he parried the next blow and with a fierce shove pushed his assailant back.
Snarling, the figure fell against the deck rail but his cruel eyes blazed with fury and, with his bared fangs snapping, he lunged a second time.
Valiantly the bosun fought, yet the wounds in his face burned and the blood which now poured from the ribboned flesh was black and frothed—giving off a putrid stink of mouldering decay.
“Why spend your last strength?” the figure mocked him as his golden blades clashed against the sword and the hideous notes of their desperate striking rang over the deck, chiming like the toneless bells of Death.
“Already you have lost!” he crowed. “Did you not know that our claws are dipped in venom? Can you not feel the dark fires raging in your veins? They are eating you alive, Master Bosun—an agonizing torment now awaits you! It would be better for you if I were to dispatch you swiftly!”
Mr Ruddaway balked at these words, for he could feel a blistering heat scorch his cheek and his teeth ground together as every nerve began to scream.
“If I die—then I’ll take you with me!” he bawled through the pain.
Only hissing laughter was his reply, for the bosun’s strokes were losing their might and the sword no longer flashed with a blur of steel.
Cackling, the enemy drew away from him, waving the golden knives before his face, taunting the dying seamouse and revelling in the racking agony that consumed him.
Able stumbled after him, but a black mist was closing over his eyes and his sword thrusts became ever weaker.
“Much would I enjoy to view your death,” that evil voice needled, as finally Mr Ruddaway’s vision faded and he was plunged into a gulf of absolute dark. “Yet no time have I for that amusing diversion. I must not be missed below.”
The sword fell from the bosun’s paw, for now he was too weak to grasp it and with a wail he fell to his knees.
“HELP!” he yelled. “HELP!”
But he had thought to cry too late. His voice was thin and strangled by pain—in his throat black blood was boiling and the venom burned down into his rasping lungs.
With a callous leer, his attacker came forward and Mr Ruddaway felt the notebook wrenched from his belt.
“Too soon is it for the peg-leg to suspect me,” the bosun heard above the screeching of his own blood in his ears.
Fiercely, the book was hurled over the side of the ship and was at once lost amid the churning waters far below.
Scornfully, the creature turned back to his victim and a contemptuous sneer split his face.
“Of you there shall be no trace,” he spat and with a high, frightful laugh he hoisted the mouse to his feet and dragged him to the side.
But Mr Ruddaway was too consumed with despair and torment to know what was happening. The vicious black froth had welled around his eyes and was already devouring them.
Shaking with pleasure, the foul creature perched him upon the rail and allowed him to teeter there for a moment.
“To the fish you go,” he sang, “but to show how merciful the Scales can be, I shall speed your end and draw those cold breathless mouths all the more readily to you.”
Sniggering, he placed the glittering knives at the bosun’s throat and plunged them deep into his bubbling flesh.
With a triumphant shriek, the monster sliced the mouse in two and a steaming fount of poisonous blood gushed into the sea beneath.
Able Ruddaway’s torment was over and with a violent shove his killer cast the gored and butchered body out over the side.
Malignantly, the creature stared as the limp corpse tumbled down, plummeting into the lathering waves.
“Yet no fish shall venture near,” the fiend spoke. “None shall come within a league of him; the bitter juice of the Serpent now claims those fathoms. All hail him, all abase themselves before him—for he will come amongst us once more. The exile is nearly over.”
And so the evil creature left that place and carefully removed the knives from his claws before returning to the hold where his true victim sat and waited in vain for Mr Ruddaway’s return.
5 - Simoon
“He’ll be nursing his head someplace no doubt,” the skipper had said when Mr Ruddaway failed to turn up for his next watch duty. “Well I’ll not be treating him too tender when he finally shows his bilious face. Go rout him out of his quarters and bring him here at the double.”
Captain Gabriel Hewer, a tall, stern-looking mouse with many furrows creasing his forehead sent the first officer to fetch the errant bosun but even when he returned without him the skipper was not unduly alarmed. There had been several other occasions when Able had not surfaced promptly from whatever hole he had collapsed into after drinking bouts with old friends.
“There’s work to be done and I won’t have my crew carousing if it affects their duties,” he bawled. “Get you below and scour every dark corner till you unearth the old sot!”
Yet the search yielded no clue as to the bosun’s whereabouts and, when the day crept into the afternoon, the hunt became more serious and the captain was compelled to ask the passengers for their assistance.
Leaving Thomas to suffer with the seasickness alone for a while, Woodget found Dimlon and together they helped in the great endeavour to locate the missing bosun. At first the mouse families who took part did so in an amused fashion, not understanding the grave implications of the mystery and viewing the entire affair as a type of entertainment. Yet when evening came and there was still no sign, their seeking became more frantic and spurred by grim desperation.
Never had the ship been so thoroughly searched; every possible niche was pried and poked into, but eventually after much exhaustive labouring, the disturbing conclusion had to be drawn—Able Ruddaway was no longer on board.
Speculation crackled through the hold like a fever; the troubled imaginations of the passengers invented a hundred different reasons for the bosun’s disappearance and each of them was darker and more frightening than the last. Finally the captain was forced to quell the rising panic by declaring his own opinion of what had happened. He had arrived at the regrettable conclusion that whilst in a stupefied state. Able Ruddaway had no doubt stumbled and fallen into the sea. A tragic and ignominious end to a worthy and much respected member of his crew—but to suspect treachery and murder was absurd.
As the captain addressed them with this version of events. Mulligan muttered to himself and knew that the skipper could not be more wrong. He had suspected at once that some wicked cruelty or act of malice had befallen his friend, knowing that the search was in vain and making no attempt to assist in it.
“They can turn the ship upside down and back again,” he mumbled darkly to himself, “but Able won’t never be found—not alive anyway.”
Mulligan’s fears doubled, for now he was certain that his enemies had followed him. No doubt the demise of the bosun was to ensure that the identity of those who boarded the Calliope after Woodget, Thomas and himself would remain unknown—but there was possibly another reason.
“’Twas a signal to myself—old Abie’s death. Sure, the black-souled devil who committed the hellish deed is gloating now. Somewhere here, possibly helping in the hunt himself, he’s laughing at me, knowing that I’m aware of what he’s done. And I must do nothing, I cannot go to the skipper and open my mind to him, for the fewer who know my business the safer it is. Alas for Able, I ought to have gone with him as first I offered.”
The failure to find the bosun had a marked effect upon the mood of the other travellers. Once the initial shock at his unaccountable loss had faded, a disquieting sense of foreboding settled to burden everyone’s hearts. The former, expectant atmosphere of those voyaging in the hold curdled and soured into an unpleasant feeling of dread that no song or story could lift.
When the children snuggled into their bunks that night they went without protest and, although sleep was slow in gathering them into its soft deep pockets, their small plaintive whimperings could be heard throughout the hold.
Here and there, by the corner of a large crate or at the intersection of a narrow way, dismal gatherings of unnerved passengers collected. In subdued voices they murmured their anxieties and whispered their fears. Whatever pleasure the journey once held for them was now crushed beyond recall and many began to doubt the innocence of their all too near neighbours, the rats, in this chilling matter.
But even those unwholesome chewers of slime and gnawers of gristle were ill at ease, for they knew that if any dirty work was suspected then they would be prime candidates for the fingers of doubt and distrust. Tetchily they argued with one another and became sullen and withdrawn, unwilling to talk with their scabby-nosed fellows, preferring instead to watch the comings and goings of the remaining crew and listen for any new developments. Not a sign was seen of Jophet. The owner of the croaking voice in the shadows kept well out of sight, forever dodging the searchers and keeping his own thoughts to himself.
The air in the hold became charged with a bristling tension and when Thomas finally crawled out from his bunk, the discord almost took his breath away.