The Deptford Histories

by Robin Jarvis

  “What about that one, Mister Mulligan?” Woodget asked, pointing to a small tattoo that had faded to a near invisible smudge of indistinct blue ink. “It looks like a star.”

  Mulligan glanced down at the mark on his right wrist and rubbed it with his other paw. “Aye,” he muttered, “’tis the oldest of my skin scrawls. My father bore one the same and so did his before him—stretching back to I don’t know when.”

  “What do it mean?” asked the fieldmouse.

  “Oh, why nothing,” came the evasive answer and Mulligan covered the star with his paw then tried to steer the conversation elsewhere.

  “Have any of you ever clapped eyes on the land of Greenwich?” he began. “A haven for the weary it is but governed by the grimmest old hatchet I ever did meet. Still if you’re ever heartsore then it’s to that restful spot you should take yourself. Almost I forgot my cares when I was last in its borders, so I did.”

  “When was that?” asked Dimlon sleepily. “I could do with a doze right now.”

  “This very winter I stood before that throne of oak and endured the Starwife’s withering scorn,” Mulligan replied, then he coughed and blustered about the fine weather as if he had not meant to mention that he had been there at all.

  Woodget lay on his back, with his paws behind his head and his eyes gazing up at the deepening blue sky. Warmed by the dipping sun, he too felt sleepy and for a while was perfectly content to listen to the talk drift over him. Mulligan’s brash voice rumbled in the air and Dimlon’s fluting giggles were becoming ever more frequent. Beside him, Thomas’s normally sensible tones sounded a little slurred and, as he listened, their combined voices seemed to blend into a comforting hum that pulsed in his ears and lulled him into a delicious sleep where a fair and haunting voice sang in the far-off distance.

  Suddenly Woodget snapped his heavy eyelids open, for surely that voice was no figment of his drowsy brain and for an instant it seemed that it was real and called to him.

  “There is one question I’d dearly like to know the answer to,” Thomas was saying as he took the flask from Mulligan. “How did you come to lose your leg? Was it in that fight you spoke of before?”

  The Irish mouse stared at him with narrowed eyes. “Nay,” he whispered. “Not then, them Portugese rats were a scurvy bunch but it was scum worse than they who lamed me and I won’t tell of it. I was lucky to get out with my life and the leg was a cheap bounty for that. I’d have paid an awful lot more—aye a lot more to flee from that evil place.”

  In the silence that followed, Woodget sat up and turned his head this way and that, his sensitive ears filtering out the rush of the sea as it washed against the hull, desperate to hear the plaintive, soul-wrenching music once more.

  Woodget scratched his forehead then tutted as he wiggled a finger in his earhole. “Dreaming you are, Pipple,” he told himself.

  Then, when he had given up all hope of ever catching that blessed sound again, there it was, drifting on the warm evening breeze.

  It was painfully sweet to hear and as he hearkened to the high, lilting notes he felt that he could abandon anything to continue listening. For if there was ever an end to that ravishing melody it would be more than his spirit could endure.

  With a squeak, he jumped up and dashed over to the rail, hopping onto a low shelf so that he could peer over the side.

  Behind him his friends regarded the fieldmouse with amusement. “Sure, there’s something biting that one,” Mulligan commented. “Been restless and nervy all the afternoon, so he has.”

  Thomas called Woodget’s name, then his jaw dropped and he too heard the heavenly voice.

  Immediately he sprang to the fieldmouse’s side, and when the sound finally came to Mulligan and Dimlon they hastened to join them.

  “What is it?” Dimlon breathed, flapping his large ears. “It’s a delishuslugholeticklinserenadeycoo.”

  Now the divine music filled the air, and those who listened prayed that it would never cease.

  Profound yet light was the refrain, being both wrung with unquenchable sorrow and inspired by limitless joy. Tears unbidden came to the eyes of the four mice as they held their breaths and the sound unfolded, but none of them knew from whence the harmony came.

  Abruptly, Woodget jolted and jabbed a finger across the sea.

  “Look!” he hissed. “Over there!”

  His friends squinted through the glare of the shimmering water and then they saw a dark speck bobbing upon the burnished waves.

  “Hello there!” Woodget called, jumping up and down and waving his arms.

  At once the singing stopped and the speck sank below the surface.

  Slowly the mice stirred and the world seemed paler and filled with a sudden bitterness at the loss of that ravishing sound.

  “Why did you do that?” Thomas complained.

  The fieldmouse stared mournfully at the unbroken waves.

  “I didn’t mean for the tune to end,” he said sadly. “I wanted whoever it were to come closer.”

  “That were a piece of driftwood,” Mulligan said, shaking himself out of the spell the beguiling song had woven around him. To his dismay he saw that he had left his pack unattended on the deck where they had been sitting and swiftly he ran over to it and gripped it tightly in both paws.

  “And that was no voice,” he called, “just the wind. Mighty strange things happen at sea; cold blue flames a-licking the masts I’ve seen and fish with wings leap from the deep, but though there are yarns of sirens who lure mariners to their doom or chant their witching songs over them to make them forget all they are—I ain’t never seen nor heard one.”

  He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and his face was set and stem. “There are myths enough that are mine to contend with,” he uttered grimly. “Aye, old tales that might yet spring to evil life. It’s no time I have for other fables—the one alone is plenty for me.” He lapsed into brooding contemplation as he gazed up at the deepening blue of the sky, then shivered.

  “Brrr!” the one-legged mouse said. “It’ll be cold when that sun sinks behind the waters and the stars pop out above. I’m thinking it’s time to get below.”

  Woodget continued to stare out at the empty waves. “Not yet,” he muttered. “I’d like to stay a little while. In case it does come back.”

  “I’m definitely stopping,” Thomas added, swaying a little from the rum. “I wants to get a good look at who’s singing. Oh yes, oh yes—I do and there’s no mish... mishtakingit.”

  Mulligan frowned—he had remained up here too long. The deck now seemed horribly open and exposed, a perfect place for an enemy to make a sudden unexpected attack. He clutched his pack thoughtfully and longed to return to the hold which at that precise moment offered the best hope of sanctuary, even amongst those snobbish characters berthed on the cotton bales. All his instincts were telling him to return, to seek the safety of a crowd and leave this undefended place where Able Ruddaway had undoubtedly looked into the pitiless eyes of Death.

  But to gain the refuge of the hold meant walking the dark length of that sloping passage and for all his bluff talk of old battles. Mulligan did not want to venture there alone.

  “What about you, Dimmy?” he asked suddenly. “Will you be staying with your two mates or would you care to keep an old rascal company? It’s wearisome work tramping back down there on my tod.”

  Dimlon glanced at the others, pondered for a moment then nodded with a brisk flap of his ears. “Alrighty,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll go with you, if you’re willin’.”

  “That I am lad!” came the all too grateful reply.

  Together they marched to the entrance of the dark passage which led down to the hold and entered its deep, clinging shadows.

  For some time their sight floundered in the darkness. Away from the rich dazzling sunlight it seemed as though they had plunged into a chasm of engulfing night and they stumbled on blindly, the only sound being the rhythmic taps of the peg-leg striking the sloping floor.
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br />   Dimlon’s eyes gleamed in the gloom and all traces of his former sleepiness appeared to have left him. With a smile on his face he followed Mulligan into the blackness, his gaze fixed upon the Irish mouse’s back, and silently he fumbled with the buckle of his satchel.

  “What’s this then?” croaked a dry voice in front of them. “Had a little party have we? That’s nice, oh yes, isn’t that pleasant?”

  Mulligan thumped his stick on the ground and squinted as his eyes grew accustomed to the murk, whilst Dimlon’s face fell.

  “Who’s there?” the Irish mouse demanded. “Get here where I can see you.”

  Ahead of them there was a shuffling sound and from the complete darkness ahead loomed the imposing figure of a tall rat.

  The creature was plump, but the uncommon length of his arms, combined with the stretched appearance of his upper body, lent him a gangly aspect—resembling a wide-boled tree with sagging, yet sturdy branches. The rat’s eyes were small, yet fiercely alive and full of sly curiosity, shifting constantly from Mulligan to the pale grey mouse at his side. His features however were not sharp or cruel, but neither were they docile or dullwitted.

  Catching his breath, Dimlon studied the rat doubtfully and saw that he possessed a large pimply snout, marred by a deep scar which travelled all the way across his face, from one jowl to the other.

  “Who are you?” Mulligan demanded, gripping his stick and brandishing it threateningly.

  A swaggering arrogance was in the rat’s bearing as he prowled nearer, alarmingly unconcerned by the weapon in Mulligan’s paw.

  “Mebbe you’ve heard my name already,” his cracked voice uttered. “I done told your other little chum.”

  “Jophet...” Mulligan murmured and he stared nervously at the creature’s tail, but it was too dark in there to be certain. “Spying on me is it?” he cried, rallying a little. “I’ll have none of that! You get back to the rest of your filthy kind.”

  Jophet folded his long arms and slouched against the passage wall. “No,” he replied with a forbidding calmness. “I’ve a mind to stay here awhile and watch you return to the hold. I wouldn’t want owt to happen to you, now would I?”

  Beads of sweat pricked Mulligan’s brow and he bared his teeth, preparing to fly at the insolent villain. Then he remembered that Dimlon was there and he mastered himself once more.

  “Dimmy,” he said, “stand close to me. This vagabond won’t harm us if he knows what’s best.”

  A smirk appeared on Jophet’s face and he snickered softly. “You call me a vagabond?” he cackled. “Is it I who have flitted from isle to isle these past years? Tell me, Haltfoot, what quest sends you halfway round the world? What business drives you on—could it be an errand of some kind? If so then I wonder what could have been entrusted to you? A message perhaps? I think not. A treasure more tangible, I guess. Hmm, yes I wonder very much and you can stake your remaining leg that heads other than mine are puzzling over it too. What plots are you hatching? we ask ourselves.”

  Mulligan’s paws were shaking now; the rat knew too much.

  A hissing laugh whistled through Jophet’s lips when he saw how uneasy his words had made the Irish mouse.

  “For your own safety,” the rat told Dimlon, “I would not remain in the stumptoe’s company. Only ruin can come of mingling with such as he.”

  “Do not listen to him,” Mulligan instructed. “We must continue on our way. Let the fool prattle his rattish nonsense with none to hear it.”

  “What’s in the bag, Peg-leg?” Jophet inquired with a twitch of his arched brows. “Shall we open it and take a peep? Let me lay my curiosity aside.”

  “Keep back, you vermin!” Mulligan roared, his temper finally flaring and he thrashed his stick furiously in the air, only a hair’s breadth from the rat’s snout. “I’ll not be spoken to like that by one of your hellish breed. Listen to my warning and heed these words well if you value your stinking skin. If I so much as clap my eyes upon your heathen face during the rest of this voyage or at any time thereafter, then you’ll feel the brunt of my rage. Your flea-bitten hide I’ll tear from your bones whether you be an adept or no and leave your bloody sinew shivering in the darkness!”

  Breathing hard and quivering with fury, the Irish mouse drew Dimlon closer and placed his paw upon the pale grey mouse’s shoulder.

  “The air reeks in here,” he muttered. “Come, Dimmy, to the hold.”

  With his eyes fixed upon Jophet’s disrespectful and arrogant face. Mulligan limped by. But as he journeyed down the passage he was painfully aware of the rat’s glaring and watchful eyes boring into the back of his skull.

  Helping Mulligan hurry along, Dimlon glanced around and to his dismay saw that Jophet’s unflinching stare was now fixed upon him. It had been a frightening and disturbing encounter and now his mind was greatly troubled and he was eager to return to his lonely encampment upon the wool sacks to consider what he should do.

  Quickly the two mice gained the bottom of the sloping way and the hold opened up before them. Alone in the passage, Jophet drew his claws thoughtfully over his snout and slipped silently after them.

  “Come on, Wood,” Thomas called.

  Apprehensively, the fieldmouse grasped the rope with both of his tiny paws and began to climb down. “Oh dear,” he murmured. “This is plum stupid. Don’t let go now, Pipple, pretend it’s only a corn stalk a-waving in the breeze at Betony Bank.”

  Determined that this time, if the singing recommenced, they would be ready, Thomas had pattered around the deck rail and decided upon a reckless course of action.

  Realizing that if the singers did return they would be too high up to see anything very clearly, Master Stubbs’s rum-addled reason knew what had to be done.

  Several feet above the water line, he had espied a narrow ledge where two small mouse bottoms might just manage to perch for a while. So, with Woodget’s help, he had thrown a rope over the side and proceeded to clamber down it. Intoxicated beyond reach of common sense and heedless of the great danger, Thomas hurried rashly down—humming happily to himself the whole time.

  When his feet reached the ledge, he scrambled onto it, precariously rocking on his heels as he sought to steady himself and muster as much of his sense of balance that remained to him. Although the platform was proving to be a lot smaller than its appearance first suggested, somehow he managed to press his back against the hull and slither down until his legs were dangling out over the edge of the narrow ledge and he was sitting relatively securely but without much comfort.

  Below him, the churning waters splashed upwards and he was now so close to them that his toes were cooled in a fine salty drizzle. But Thomas was not afraid of the gurgling death that waited for him if he should fall, he glanced only briefly at the thrashing sea, then turned his attention upwards once more.

  “Come on, Woodj!” he called. “That’s it, paw over paw. Sshoon have you here.”

  “I knowed how to climb, Tom!” the fieldmouse yelled back. “But this ain’t no field and I must be softer in the head than I ever did think. What’s got into him—or me for that matter? I sure do regret giving him his first taste of berrybrew that night. The stuff drives out his sense.”

  At that moment a sweeping fold of water smacked against the ship and its showering spray shot into the air, drenching Woodget completely, and for a perilous instant his paws slipped from the rope.

  Upon the ledge below, Thomas saw his friend struggling, his fingers slipping from the wet line and the terrible predicament he had placed him in finally shone through the alcoholic veils which had furled about his wits.

  “Woodget!” he choked, as the fieldmouse wailed and scrabbled to remain aloft. “Hold on!”

  If Woodget had not wound his tail tight about the rope then he would have surely plunged into the rushing waters, but at last he was able to steady himself and held on more tightly than ever before.

  “Go back up,” Thomas called. “It’s too dangerous.”

  �
�Not on your nelly!” Woodget cried back, feeling more determined after a moment’s rest—if not more confident.

  Inch by inch he laboured, descending slowly to that treacherous lip where Thomas was waiting until finally he was sitting beside him.

  Woodget clutched the ledge for dear life. He could not tear his eyes from the foam that bubbled and frothed beneath his feet and his ears were filled with the clamour of the rushing waves and the rumble of the ship’s engines. Never had he sat in such a terrifying place, but amid the fear his excitement boiled and a fierce thrill possessed him every time the cold and salty spray touched his downturned face.

  “Oh Tom,” he murmured, “what an awful seat this is. We could tumble into the drink at any time.”

  Greatly relieved to have his friend safe by his side, Thomas surrendered once more to the rum’s influence and he gave one elaborate nod of the head.

  “Aye,” he agreed, “but what a switch from that stale and noisome hold. Why, you might as well be buried under the ground and a-wandering in a town of the dead as be down there. Least here you know you’re alive and value every second. Did you ever breathe such air, Woodj? A mouse could die here and be happy for it.”

  “Do you think the singing will start up again?” the fieldmouse asked.

  “If that’s what it was,” Thomas answered. “But whose voice could it have...”

  Before he had finished speaking, there it was. The music which they had imperilled their very lives to hear again suddenly began and its sound was clear like a bell of crystal ringing over a barren, tuneless land.

  The mice’s hearts leapt when they heard it and Woodget forgot all about the white-capped danger which rushed below him.

  “Thomas,” he whispered. “Look, do you see?”

  At his side, Thomas’s eyes stared unblinking out to sea and he gripped the fieldmouse’s arm excitedly.