by Paul Gallico
Next he had to learn to move his paws so that, as he flew through the air and landed, they were striking left, right, with incredible speed, a feat that was much more difficult than it sounds since he could not use them to land on but had to bring up his hind part in time while lashing out with the front.
His second mouse he missed by a hair's breadth, due to over-anxiousness, but Jennie praised his paw– work and spring, criticizing only his judgment of distance and haste. `You rarely lose a mouse by waiting just a little longer,' she explained, `because a mouse has a one-track mind and will keep on doing what it started out to do provided it isn't disturbed, and if it is disturbed it will just sit there and quake so that you have all the time in the world really . . .'
But his third mouse Peter caught and killed, one-two-three, just like that. Jennie said that she could not have done it better herself, and when Peter made her a present of it she accepted it graciously and with evident pleasure and ate it. But the others they saved because Jennie said that when they came to be discovered it would be a good thing to have some samples of their type of work about them.
And so for the rest, Peter practised and hunted busily, and Jennie advised him to keep the mouse alive and in the air as long as possible, not to torture it, but to gain in skill and accuracy, and train his muscles to react swiftly at the slightest movement.
It was the second night before they sailed that Peter awoke to an uncomfortable feeling. There was a new and unpleasant odour in the storeroom, one that tended to make him a little sick. And suddenly from a far corner he saw glowing two evil-looking red eyes. Before he could stir, he sensed through his whiskers that Jennie was awake too, and for the first time using this means of communication with him so that there should not be a sound, she warned: `Rat! It is serious, Peter, and very dangerous. This is something I cannot teach you or help you with. You'll just have to watch me and try to learn as best you can. And above all now, whatever happens, don't move a muscle, don't stir, and don't make a sound, even if you want to. Now remember. I'm off.'
Through the shadowing gloom, Peter watched the stalk, his heart thumping in his chest, for this was different from the gay, almost lighthearted, hunt of mice. Jennie's entire approach and attitude was one of complete concentration, the carriage of her body, the expression of her head, flattened forward, the glitter in her eyes, and the slow, fluid, amazingly controlled movement of her body. There was a care, caution and deadly earnestness about her that Peter had never seen before, and his own throat felt dry and his skin and moustache twitched nervously. But he did his best to hold himself rigid and motionless as she had told him, lest some slip of his might bring her into trouble.
The wicked red eyes were glowing like two hot coals now, and Peter's acute hearing could make out the nasty sniffling noises of the rat and the dry scrabbling of its toes on the store room floor. Jennie had gone quite flat now, and was crawling along the boards on her belly. She stopped and held herself long and rigid for a moment, her eyes intent upon her prey, measuring, measuring. . .
Then, inch by inch, she began to draw herself up into a little ball of fur-covered steel muscles for the spring. The rat was broadside to her. She took only two waggles, one to the left, one to the right, and then she was in the air, aimed at the flank of the rat.
But lightning-fast as she was, the rodent seemed to be even faster, for his head came around over his shoulder and his white teeth were bared in a wicked, slashing movement—and Peter wanted to shout to his friend: 'Jennie, LOOK OUT!' but just in time he remembered her admonition under no circumstances to make a sound, and choked it down.
And then he saw what seemed to him to be a miracle, for launched as she was and in mid-air, Jennie saw the swift movement of the rat and, swifter herself, avoided the sharp, ripping teeth and making a turn in the air, a kind of half-twist such as Peter had seen the high divers do in the pool at Wembley one summer, she landed on the back of the rat and immediately sank her teeth in its spine, just below the head.
Then followed a dreadful moment of banging and slamming and scraping and squealing, and the sharp snick of teeth as the rat snapped viciously and fought to escape while Jennie hung on for dear life, her jaws clamping deeper and deeper, until there was a sharp click and the next moment the rat hung limp and paralysed and a few seconds later it was all over.
Jennie came away from it a little shaken and agitated, saying, `Phew! Filthy, sickening beasts! I hate rats—next to people. … They're all unclean and diseased, and if you let them bite you anywhere, then you get sick, for their teeth are all poisoned, and sometimes you die from it. I'm always afraid of that …'
Peter said with deep sincerity, 'Jennie, I think you are the bravest and most wonderful person—I mean cat—I ever saw. Nobody could have done that the way you did.'
For once Jennie did not preen herself or parade before Peter, for she was worried now since it was she who had coaxed him into this adventure. She said: `That's just it, Peter. We can't practise and learn on the rats the way we did on the mice, because it's too dangerous. One mistake and, well—I don't want it to happen. I can show you the twist, because you have to know how to do it to avoid that slash of theirs, but the spring, the distance, the timing, and above all just the exact place to bite them behind the neck to get at their spines—well, you must do it one hundred per cent, right when the time comes, and that's all there is. If you get them too high on the head they can kick loose or even shake you off. Some of the big fellows weigh almost as much as you do, and if you seize them too far down the back they can turn their heads and cut you.'
`But how will I learn, then?' Peter asked.
`Let me handle them for the time being,' she replied, `and watch me closely each time I kill one. You'll be learning something. Then if, and when, the moment comes when you have to do it yourself, you'll either do it right the first time and never forget it thereafter, or—' Jennie did not finish the sentence but instead went into the washing routine, and Peter felt a little cold chill run down his spine.
When they were finally discovered it was some seven hours after sailing, as the Countess of Greenock was thumping her slow, plodding way down the broad reaches of the Thames Estuary. When the cook, an oddly triangular-shaped Jamaican negro by the name of Mealie, came into the storeroom for some tinned corned beef, they had a bag of eight mice and three rats lined up in lieu of references and transportation. Three of the mice were Peter's, and he felt inordinately proud of them and wished there could have been some way whereby he might have had his name on them, like autographing a book perhaps—'Caught by Peter Brown, Storeroom, Countess of Greenock, April 15th, 1949.'
The negro grinned widely, increasing the triangular effect, for his face and head were narrower at the top than at the bottom, and said: `By Jominy, dat good. Hit pays to hodvertise. I tell dat to Coptain,' and forthwith went up on to the bridge, taking Jennie's and Peter's samples with him. It was the kind of a ship where the cook did go up on to the bridge if he felt like having a word with the captain. There he told him the story of finding the two stowaways, and then added: `But by Jominy they pay possage already. Look you dat!' and unrolling his apron showed him the fruits of their industry.
The captain, whose name was Sourlies and who was that rare specimen, a fat Scotsman, looked and felt ill, and commanded Mealie in no uncertain language to throw the mess over the side and go back to his galley. It was the beginning of his time of deep unhappiness, anyway, for he hated the sea and everything connected with it and was reasonably contented only when in port, or near it, or proceeding up and down an estuary or river with plenty of land on both sides.
He carried this queer notion to the point of refusing even to dress the part of a ship's captain, and conducted the affairs of the Countess of Greenock wearing a tweed pepper-and-salt business suit with a gold watch chain across his large expanse of stomach, and a mustard-coloured fedora hat, or trilby, with the brim turned up all round.
However, as Mealie was leaving, he
did decree that inasmuch as the cats seemed to have got aboard and appeared inclined to work their passage they might remain, but to shift one of them to the fo'c'sle as the men had been complaining of the rats there.
But Mealie took his time going aft, and told his story and showed the bag to everyone he met, with the result that there arrived back in the storeroom quite a committee consisting of Mr. Strachan, the first mate; Mr. Carluke, the second; Chief Engineer McDunkeld; and the bo'sun, whose name appeared to be only Angus.
They held a meeting, the gist of which Peter tried to translate rapidly for Jennie's benefit, and before they knew it the two friends found themselves separated for the first time, with Jennie sent forward to live with the crew and Peter retained, chiefly through the insistence of Mr. Strachan, in the officers' quarters.
Jennie had only time to say to Peter, `Don't worry. We'll find ways to get together. Do your best. And if you come across a rat, don't hesitate and don't play. Kill!'
Then the bo'sun picked her up by the scruff of the neck and carried her forward.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Countess and the Crew
WHEN Peter had been a boy at home, Nanny had often told him stories about the small steamers that used to tie up at Greenock and Gourock, the two port towns outside of Glasgow, where she used to live when she was a little girl. But never, Peter decided, could there have been such an odd ship with such a strange and ill-assorted crew as the Countess of Greenock and her motley band of officers, sailors and deckhands whom he now learned to know as the Countess loafed lazily along the south and west coasts of England, thrusting her stubby, rust-eaten bow into port apparently at the slightest opportunity and even when there did not seem to be a legitimate reason for her doing so.
For nobody on board, as far as Peter could make out, seemed to make much sense. With the exception of the second engineer, who was absolutely not to be separated from the ancient and clanking machinery that somehow still managed to propel the Countess at jellyfish pace through the choppy waters of the Channel, each and every one appeared to have some peculiarity or hobby which interested him and took up more of his time than was devoted to the necessary duties connected with keeping the-ship afloat and guiding it to its destination.
To begin with, there was the Captain, Mr. Sourlies, and when, in their spare time during the afternoon, Peter and Jennie used to foregather in the cargo hold just abaft the island bridge, or keep a rendezvous astern to gossip and exchange notes on their work, adventures and the people they had met, they agreed that from everything they had seen and heard they had never encountered a queerer one than he.
His dislike of the sea and everything and everyone connected with it, Peter learned through listening to the officers and members of the crew discussing him, stemmed from the fact, according to Mr. McDunkeld, the chief engineer, that Captain Sourlies came from a long line of seafarers. But when it came his turn to take up the profession, he had run away from home in Glasgow to a farm, for what he was really interested in was agriculture.
Mr. Fairlie, the radio operator, to whom Mr. McDunkeld told this story, said that he had often heard of farm boys running away to sea, but never in all his born days had he known of a sea-type running away to a farm. Peter then heard Mr. McDunkeld say that as far as he knew it was true, and that Captain Sourlies' father had been very angry when he found him in the midst of a lot of cows and chickens and pigs, and brought him back, shipped him off to sea and forced him to take a master's ticket. When his father had passed on, he had hung the final anchor around his son's neck by willing him the controlling interest in the Countess of Greenock. Captain Sourlies' Scottish thrift and business acumen would not permit him to entrust her to others and so he, who so loved the land, was doomed to a life at sea.
By keeping the Countess in the coastwise trade, and causing her to call at as many ports, almost, as there were between London and Glasgow, he managed to avoid the sea as much as possible, as well as pick up a great deal of business. While en route between ports he was silent, gloomy, irritable and un– happy, and kept to himself in his cabin where he studied the subject of agriculture. He rarely appeared on the bridge. Any delay encountered at sea between ports, such as engine trouble, or fog, or headwinds, would see him show his head at his door for a moment to inquire into the cause thereof, and then, no matter what the reason, retire to his cabin in a huge and absolute tantrum which manifested itself in his breaking every bit of glassware or crockery that happened to be within reach at the time.
Peter and Jennie estimated that the captain weighed close on twenty-two stone, which would be over three hundred pounds. He had smallish eyes, somewhat deep-set and knowing, like a pig's, and a series of chins that rippled out from a small and petulant mouth, reminding Peter of the concentric rings that formed in a pond when you throw a stone into the water. But what astonished them both the most was that instead of the deep and thunderous rumble one would expect to have emerged from such an enormous frame and cavernous chest, his voice when he spoke was high-pitched and cooing like a dove, and the angrier he became over anything, and most things when he was at sea made him angry, the higher and sweeter and more softly he cooed. He never appeared on the bridge or anywhere on deck without his mustard-coloured trilby hat, and in bad or wet weather he wore not oilskins and sou'westers as did the rest of the crew, but a tan mackintosh. He only cheered up and appeared for occasional meals aft when the Countess was running up river somewhere, or landlocked in an estuary.
Quite the opposite was Mr. Strachan, the first mate, a tall, youngish fellow with red hair, narrow blue eyes and a low forehead, who, as Jennie pointed out, was not very bright, but who loved the sea and considered everything that took place on or about it to be an adventure, great or small. This naturally was bound to bring him into conflict with the captain, and truth to tell, the two men did not get on too well. But since, at any rate at sea, Captain Sourlies left practically the entire operation and management of things to Mr. Strachan, this did not matter too much.
Peter soon discovered that Mr. Strachan, in addition to his profession, had two major interests in life. One was indulgence in the art of fence—and he faithfully attended the sessions of a fencing club when he was ashore both in Glasgow and London-and the other was a passion for telling not entirely credible yarns tinged with a 'believe-it-or-not' flavour, of miraculous things and adventures that had happened to him in his life at sea and various foreign ports.
When the listener expressed wonder or even polite doubt that such an occurrence could have taken place, Mr. Strachan would present `proof' of the incident by, for instance, exhibiting a burnt-out matchstick, or a small pebble, or a bit of paper, and saying'. .. and this verra bit o' paper I'm showing ye here was in me pocket at the verra instant all this was hoppening to me.' He was always busy collecting such odd bits and scraps to be used for this purpose, and he was quite upset with Mealie, the cook, for eventually obeying Captain Sourlies' orders and dropping the rats and mice that Peter and Jennie had caught over the side, as he felt that the corpses of the rodents would have furnished incontrovertible evidence of the story of the two cats who had stowed away aboard ship and when found had their passage money ready in this form.
Quite fascinating to Peter who, as a boy, had always had a fondness for reading stories and seeing pictures of swordplay, was Mr. Strachan's fencing practice during the voyage. It took the form of attacking a dummy that Mr. Box, the ship's carpenter, had made for him and which he set up on the after cargo hatch when the weather was fine, and belaboured with a sword.
This dummy was known to one and all aboard the Countess of Greenock as 'Auld Sourlies,' for whether the carpenter had intended so or not, he had somehow managed to make him in considerable resemblance to the stout captain both in face and in figure. Auld Sourlies, the dummy, that is, had a wooden arm, canvas-covered, with a powerful spring in the wrist to which was attached his sword, an epee with three needle-sharp little steel points. When Mr. Strachan struck it preparatory to mak
ing an attack upon him it would waggle almost as though Auld Sourlies was vigorously defending himself.
And so when he was off duty, there would be Mr. Strachan on the canvas-covered after-hatch, bare to the waist and sword in hand, shouting 'Hah!' and 'Heh!' at Auld Sourlies set up dumbly facing him, and `Oh, ye would, would ye? Alez, then take thot and thot and thot!' as he leaped in and out jabbing the point of his sword into the dummy's canvas body, while Peter and Jennie, when they also happened to be off duty at the same time, sat a little distance away and watched him, enthralled, their eyes bound to the flashing point and their heads moving as it moved, forwards and backwards, or side to side, almost like patrons at a tennis match.
Once, quite early in the voyage, when Mr. Strachan made a particularly violent attack and lunge, he apparently missed parrying the dummy's riposte somehow, when the blade snapped back and Auld Sourlies' point then laid his arm open almost from wrist to elbow, wounding him grievously. All the crew and officers of the Countess promptly dropped whatever they happened to be doing at the moment and came to look, including Captain Sourlies who had the first-aid kit and put six stitches in Mr. Strachan's arm. He did so, it seemed to Peter, with considerable satisfaction. In fact, it appeared to both Peter and Jennie that the captain was almost pleased with what had happened and was acting in a way as though it had been he who had done it to Mr. Strachan instead of the dummy, as he swabbed and stitched the injured arm, murmuring that he hoped that this would be a lesson to Mr. Strachan.
To the mate, however, it was another miraculous yarn to tell of himself being probably the only fencer in the world ever to be defeated and seriously wounded by a dummy, and what was more, there was the proof of it on his arm which he would carry to his grave.
But Peter's real favourite amongst the officers was the second mate, little Mr. Carluke, who looked somewhat like an inoffensive stoat, and who wrote Wild West and cowboy and Indian stories for the tuppeny dreadfuls and serial magazines in his spare time to eke out his income and prepare for the day when he would retire from the sea and devote his entire time to literature. He had never seen an Indian except in the pictures, or been west of the Scilly Isles, but he had read a great deal about cowboys and their ways and was given to acting out some of his dramas in the seclusion of his cabin between watches, before setting them down on paper.