by Anna Fargher
Pip woke with a start, feeling the umbrella bump and sway on the choppy waters beneath her. Groggily lifting her head and opening her eyes, for a brief moment she thought she was at home in the umbrella shop. But as she shivered against the cold, she quickly realized she was alone, and a long shuddering sigh escaped her lips as she remembered the horror and sadness of the day before.
A chilly midnight air blustered about her fur as she clambered up to the umbrella handle and stared into the gloom behind her. Pip had drifted far from the riverbanks of London and into the Thames Estuary. Turning to face the waves merging into the North Sea beyond, she was astonished to see a group of curious metal houses standing out of the water on stilts. Each had two floors and a row of glass windows, and a bridge connecting it to its neighbour. Huge, long-barrelled guns pointed into the sky from every roof. Pip’s ears flattened, hearing a mechanic rattle approaching high above. Her heart shivered as it grew louder and suddenly the guns screamed to life in a blaze of light, firing into the night sky and making the air shudder. A pointed black plane with stumpy wings and a thick tail dropped through the clouds, smashing into the sea. A tower of white water soared into the air and the umbrella surged up and down in a sickening sway.
A strange clattering sounded above her as strong, beating wings and curved black claws dived through the sky towards her. Lurching backwards out of harm’s way, Pip’s heart clamoured in her ears as she felt the empty air close around her, pulling her towards the choppy waters below.
‘Don’t worry liddle lady,’ a deep, velvety voice cooed in an American accent. At the same moment, bony claws snapped around her wrist and yanked her upwards to the handle. ‘We gotcha!’
Thunder rumbled. Before her, Hans straddled the back of a broad-chested pigeon with a white stripe across his beak.
‘How did you find me?’ Pip said, scowling with annoyance.
‘Dickin went straight to Bernard Booth when you ran away,’ Hans said and a smile drew across his scarred face. ‘You’ve got guts doing what you did.’
‘Guts!’ The pigeon laughed as the rat dismounted, carrying a pouch made from a tied-up red and white polka dot handkerchief. Unravelling it, he expertly rigged it to the umbrella handle with string. ‘Crazy-assed stubbornness, I’d say. Nobody has ever backed Bernard Booth into a corner like you have. He’s sent us to make sure that message gets to where it needs to go and now we’ve got no choice but to take you with us.’ He cocked his head at the scroll tightly clasped in Pip’s paw. ‘I believe you have something that belongs to me, miss.’
‘No,’ she said, drawing the paper close to her chest. ‘I’m delivering it to the French Resistance.’
A crash of thunder boomed above, making each of them cower in alarm. Fat raindrops pitter-pattered about them, drenching their fur and feathers.
‘This is GI Joe,’ Hans said, shouting over the howling wind. ‘He’s the fastest pigeon we have and that message must get to Noah’s Ark in Normandy by midday tomorrow.’
‘But I need it!’ Pip said desperately. ‘It’s all I have to help me get to Italy.’
‘If you don’t give GI Joe the scroll, we’ll miss our chance!’ Hans said, gravely staring into her eyes. ‘The message is worthless if it doesn’t get to the Resistance in time and you don’t know where you are going.’ The rat clenched his jaw with impatience. ‘Pip, you have no idea what you’re doing. You are drifting on open seas!’
Hans’s words hit Pip’s pride like a blow to the face. He was right – she didn’t know which way she was sailing or how she would locate the Resistance in Normandy. Nor had she thought how long it would take to find them. She didn’t think it would matter, she just needed to get to France and then she’d look for them.
‘And if the message gets into the wrong hands, you waste all the work we’ve done!’ He held out his paw for the scroll. ‘Give it to me now, Pip. Lives are at risk.’
‘Fine!’ she frowned, slamming the scroll into Hans’s open paw with shame burning inside her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know!’
‘Believe me,’ GI Joe cooed as Hans urgently inserted the scroll into a small canister attached to the bird’s ankle, ‘this message will pave your way to Italy.’ He glanced at Hans and his amber eyes glowed with determination. ‘See you on the other side.’
With a robust flap of his wings, GI Joe soared upwards into the thundering black clouds and disappeared in a flash of lightning.
‘Pull that rope.’ Hans pointed to a knot of string by Pip’s rear paw. ‘And release the sail!’
‘Why should I?’ she said, resenting the rat for being right and ruining her plan. ‘I didn’t ask you to help me get to France.’
‘My apologies, your majesty – were you looking forward to drowning at sea?’ he said, smiling sarcastically with the gale swirling about his whiskers. ‘Because I can throw you over the side if that is what you wish?’
Pip scowled and coldly stared into his eyes. Returning her withering look, Hans calmly held her gaze as another clap of thunder sounded above. Neither of them flinched, but Pip crossed her arms tighter to control her trembling limbs. A strong gust of wind blew fiercely from below as Pip’s paws slipped on the umbrella handle. Gasping in alarm and grappling the empty air for something to hold, she lost her balance. As she tumbled backwards, Hans immediately leaped forward and snatched her back to safety by the scruff of the neck.
‘Wrap your tail around the handle and don’t let go!’ he yelled. She did so at once. ‘And pull that rope or I won’t bother saving your life again!’
Putting her pride to one side, Pip obediently tugged at the rope and instantly the polka dot handkerchief billowed in the gale. Grabbing the string in his paw, Hans tied it to the silver handle. As he effortlessly harnessed the wind in the taut sail, the umbrella surged forward and stormed across the water.
‘Next stop, France!’ he said, his ripped ears blowing in the storm. His leathery scars creased around his face in a smile and Pip realized for the first time that he was handsome.
‘Pip,’ Hans said, his arms shaking with the force of the wind in the handkerchief. ‘Take this and point the arrow to SE.’
He handed her a brass button much like the ones Mrs Smith helped Mr Smith use to fasten his shirt cuffs before they went to church on Sunday. The lid opened with a click. Inside looked the same as a clock face, except instead of numbers the letters N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W and NW ran clockwise from where the number twelve normally lived. An arrow flickered between them.
Turning until the arrow quivered on SE, Pip pointed her paw out to sea.
‘That way!’ she cried.
‘Listen to me,’ Hans shouted over the wind and rain howling about them. ‘Whatever happens in the next few hours, if we lose our course we’ll end up in enemy territory and I don’t plan on dying today.’ He stared at the compass. ‘You are my guide. Keep SE and we’ll reach the Resistance in Normandy. If you drop it – you kill us. Do you understand?’
She nodded, gripping the compass tightly in her paws.
All night, Pip kept the arrow flickering on SE and shouted directions whenever Hans went off course, the storm circling above them. The umbrella climbed one towering wave after another, plummeting down the backs of them into dark troughs of water.
As they climbed the crest of a monstrous wave, a furious snarl tore through the sky. In a terrifying explosion of hot water, a scorching, violet dagger of lightning pierced the peak they had just left. Startled with fright, the compass slipped through Pip’s fingers and disappeared into the flooded umbrella canopy below.
‘What are you doing?’ Hans cried over the gale, watching in alarm as the little mouse scrambled down the umbrella handle and dived into the canopy after the compass. ‘Tie yourself to something!’
But Pip didn’t hear. Taking a deep breath, she plunged underwater.
It was strangely peaceful under the surface, as though she had left the storm behind a closed door. Swimming inside the rain and seawater collected in the cano
py, a flash of lightning shone across the surface of the compass where it was lodged between the uppermost ribs of the umbrella. Her chest screaming for air, Pip embraced the compass with both arms and tugged, but it remained stubbornly unmoving. Struggling to pull it free, the urgent need to breathe drummed inside her ears.
As the umbrella climbed another wave, the water inside the canopy rushed backwards and poured it over the side and into the sea. Suddenly the compass popped free, sending Pip backwards through the water towards the canopy’s edge. She grappled for something to hold and, making a desperate leap, snapped both paws around the edge of an umbrella rib. Trembling all over, she dragged her sodden body upwards and clambered up the pole to Hans.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he bellowed, grabbing her by the scruff of the neck and roughly pulling her to his side of the umbrella handle. ‘I told you not to let go!’
Pip was panting too urgently with fear to reply. Above them the clouds swirled together, collecting all their fury in a shuddering fist. As the umbrella began another sickening plunge into a valley of water, the storm threw its deadly punch. A gargantuan bolt of lightning pummelled the wave and the umbrella vaulted into the sky.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FLIGHT
Somersaulting into the clouds, Pip and Hans grasped the umbrella handle with all the strength they had. All around them, thunder pounded the sky like an enormous drum and Pip winced as the rain whipped her fur.
‘Hold on!’ Hans yelled, seeing her tremble uncontrollably. ‘Don’t let go!’
But it was too late. As the gale roared, Pip’s fear grew. Watching lightning rip the darkness open with hot, jagged claws, her grip on the umbrella handle failed.
‘No!’ Hans cried, leaping after her.
Dangling with his tail still wrapped around the umbrella handle and catching her just in time, he carried her by one paw above the furious water below. Another crash of thunder threw them downwards. Grazing the crest of a wave, salty seawater stung their eyes before a sudden gust of wind burst inside the canopy and into Hans’s sail.
‘Climb up!’ Hans cried, eyes gleaming with adventure. ‘Now!’
Pip struggled breathlessly upwards and clambered over him, quickly wrapping her tail and both arms tightly around the righted umbrella handle. The rat followed her, effortlessly pulling himself upright to stand beside her. Snatching the string for the sail once more, he harnessed the strong wind and confidently guided the umbrella into the sky.
‘Quick,’ he yelled over the storm furiously crashing about them. ‘Where is south-east? We must stay on course.’
‘I. . . I. . .’ Pip stuttered. She glanced down at the waves thrashing below and her whiskers drooped. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t hold on to it.’
‘What?! We could be flying straight into the enemy for all we know!’
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it!’ she shouted over the gale. Her chest grew tight with shame and she winced at the sight of his jaws hardening in frustration. ‘I didn’t mean to!’
‘I have an idea,’ he said after a pause. ‘But if you don’t do as I say, I’ll throw you over the side.’ Pip nodded earnestly – he had saved her life three times since they met and she wasn’t about to argue with him now. ‘Take this –’ he handed her the end of the rope that tied the lower part of the sail to the umbrella handle – ‘and when I say pull,’ he said, taking the corresponding rope for the upper sail in his own paws, ‘you do it with every muscle in your body!’
As he loosened the handkerchief, the umbrella instantly buckled as it lost momentum and dropped through the air. The sail violently rippled and flapped, battling against the howling gale.
‘Ready?’ Hans cried and his eyes glowered with determination.
Pip nodded and took a deep breath as a fresh gust of wind swirled around her whiskers.
‘PULL!’
They yanked the ropes with all their strength, and the umbrella rocketed upwards into the black clouds. Blindly hurtling through the thick blanket of damp and gloom, Pip yelped, feeling the rope burn into her skin.
‘I can’t hold on much longer!’ she cried, scrunching her eyes closed in agony. ‘I’m not strong enough!’
‘Don’t let go!’ Hans yelled through gritted teeth, his arms shaking as they struggled against the sail shuddering dangerously against the force of the wind. ‘Not yet!’
Just as Pip feared her strength would fail her, suddenly clear air filled her lungs. The wind was no longer in a fury and the bite of the rope in her paws ceased. Daring to open her eyes, her mouth fell open in astonishment. All around her were endless white stars blinking in the night sky.
‘Now you can let go,’ Hans said, smiling with relief.
Gently prying away Pip’s fingers, he took the rope from her. Tying it to the umbrella handle, the sail grew taut and the umbrella flew steadily over the rumbling storm clouds below.
‘You see those three stars strung together in a line?’ he said, pointing into the clear night sky. ‘That’s Orion’s Belt. Now look directly under the middle star. That star is Orion’s Sword. It will guide us south to Normandy.’
Fascinated, Pip gazed into the night. In London, she knew the stars were there but they never shone like this and she had never seen them this way before. Shapes were everywhere.
‘Now, look behind you,’ Hans said, turning with her. ‘There’s a saucepan over there made up of seven stars, can you see it?’
She scanned the moonlit sky and sure enough, seven stars made an outline of a saucepan, jauntily tipped downwards as though it was filling up with water.
‘That is Ursa Major. Now find the top point of the bowl,’ he continued, pointing to it. ‘And look up to the right. Do you see the little upside-down saucepan?’
She nodded, entranced.
‘That is Ursa Minor. At the end of the handle, where it’s brightest, is the North Star. Now you can find north and south, you will never lose your way.’
Hans looked into Pip’s delighted face and they smiled at one another, both enjoying the endless display of stars gleaming all around them and the calm silence they brought after the storm. After holding her gaze a moment longer, the rat turned away with a tug of the handkerchief, sailing the umbrella swiftly southwards through the night sky.
‘Why are you helping me?’ Pip said, plucking up the courage to ask him. ‘Is it just because you want to go back to Germany?’
‘I am an orphan too, Pip,’ the rat said after a solemn pause. ‘I didn’t have anyone to help me when my family died and it was my grief and loneliness that made me vulnerable to the enemy. I got away just in time.’ Hans’s expression softened. ‘I don’t want that to happen to you. I’ll take you to your family in Italy and then I will return to Germany to finish the fight once and for all.’
Pip didn’t dare ask more, feeling his reluctance to speak cool the air around her. She had hoped he would tell her his story, but glancing at the silvery scars torn across his fur, part of her feared knowing exactly what had happened to him. Etched into his skin forever, the violent, jagged lines cried out with suffering and filled her heart with sadness.
As the night drew on, the storm faded into the distance behind them and soon all was quiet as though they were the last two living creatures in the world. With only the sound of the wind whistling in her ears, Pip’s eyes grew heavy, her head bobbing up and down with fatigue, until she spotted a tiny white light blink from below.
‘What’s that?’ she said, suddenly feeling wide awake. She pointed her paw down to a white dot blinking in the dark ahead of them. ‘Down there. Look!’
‘Ha! It’s a lighthouse!’ Hans said with a broad smile. ‘We made good time. This storm was lucky after all.’
Pip scowled in disagreement.
‘It’s Normandy!’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because the lighthouse is on – it’s guiding the Allied boats to the French coast, just like Bernard said.’
‘We made it!’ Pip
said, leaping up on the umbrella handle with excitement.
‘Not yet, Pip,’ Hans said, gravely shaking his head. ‘The danger is only just beginning.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
NORMANDY
Pip’s nose twitched inquisitively as they flew closer to shore, flying over countless black battleships gently bobbing on slumbering seas. Ahead lay a wide stretch of sand with stark metal crosses peppered along it, the first indigo belt of sunrise revealing the jagged outline of black treetops silhouetted along the horizon beyond. The lighthouse stood taller than anything Pip had seen before and seemed to graze the brightening sky with its dependable, blinking light, protectively watching the night give way to the lofty morning clouds.
‘We need to land over there,’ Hans whispered, pointing his paw behind the lighthouse where a small farmhouse stood at the edge of a forest. ‘Noah’s Ark is somewhere inside those woods. We must reach it before the humans see us.’
The wind dwindled as they descended through the air and no matter how hard Hans harnessed it into the sail, the breeze collected heavily inside the canopy. Before, the umbrella had confidently stormed through the sky, but now it moved with little more than a glide as it drifted over hundreds of khaki tents, tanks and trucks parked on the beach. Dotting the war-torn landscape beyond them stood rows of upright rifles. The gun barrels were buried in the sand with metal army helmets sombrely resting on top of the rifle butts. Seeing the size and shape of the mounds of earth beneath them, Pip’s whiskers drooped with sorrow thinking of Mr and Mrs Smith’s son, Peter. She hoped with all her heart that none of these makeshift headstones belonged to him.
Pip gasped as a cockerel crowed. The farmhouse chimney had crept directly into their path as they approached the roof. Hans yanked the sail, but the silver handle scraped harshly against the brick stack, knocking the umbrella backwards into the grey slate roof with a crash.