The Monster Hunter

by Kit Cox

  ‘Master Gaul, would you please come with me?’

  Ben stood and approached the lady, surprised at her stature, for the women at home had been delicate flowers in build even if they were strong in spirit within. It appeared that Mrs Reed wore her strength of spirit outwardly for all to see and Ben immediately fancied she could storm a castle single-handed and win.

  ‘I’m sorry to have disturbed your class, children. I shall leave you to your studies.’ There was almost an audible sigh from the gathered children as Reverend Luck took up his Bible again to continue.

  Ben followed Mrs Reed into the hallway and back into the main entrance lobby before climbing the sweeping staircase past paintings of ships and stern-looking men in naval uniform, until they filed into the warm cocoon of Mrs Reed’s study and office.

  She motioned towards the straight-backed chair in front of her desk and sat down. Ben was instantly aware of how many desks he had now sat before while people organised his life from more comfortable chairs. However, Mrs Reed’s study was certainly different from that of the triangular-faced man of the First Tea Company. He had placed his chair with its back to the window so the view was not a distraction to his work; Mrs Reed, however, had placed her desk so that the window lay to one side and she only need look up from her work to see the world outside – the view took in the orphanage’s back garden, a high brick wall and the apple orchards beyond. And whereas the triangular-faced man had seemed to favour a tidy simplicity, Mrs Reed appeared to be a fan of the cluttered chaos of a busy mind. A fireplace took up one wall and the mantle above was crammed with marble busts of learned men while above this was a simple oil portrait of a portly gentleman in round glasses and a neatly trimmed moustache, standing with his hand on the shoulder of a young boy.

  Behind Mrs Reed was a glass-fronted bookcase and Ben found his eyes drawn instantly to the titles along the spines. There were books on education, field guides of flora and fauna from Britain, Ireland and around the globe, a grand atlas, a series of encyclopaedias bound in blue covers and finally a whole row of what could only be storybooks. Ben could not stop a smile creeping across his face. Mrs Reed smiled back, unaware of where the boy’s happy gaze was directed.

  ‘It is good to have a happy boy come to attend the orphanage. So often our charges arrive here with much recent sorrow in their hearts. Of course, your sorrow is a couple of years behind you now and it must be nice to be in a civilised country.’ This she said with all the goodwill in the world.

  ‘Ceylon is as civilised as here. We have policemen like your Constable Bobbins and schools for the children,’ replied Ben rather indignantly.

  Mrs Reed looked at the boy for a second longer than was comfortable. ‘Well, Ceylon is British now; there will of course be an element of civilisation creeping in.’

  She opened a book and flicked back a page. ‘You must be in your thirteenth year now, closer to fourteen in fact, and that means that we can put you to work as an apprentice, so that you can help to earn your keep. I hadn’t thought we’d be able to do that for a few months but the earlier we start the better.’ She picked up another book and flicked though from the front, occasionally looking up at the boy before her. ‘Well, I must admit that there are a lot of jobs you could do in the local area, but it is best to find one that will match your particular … personality. In that way, you will thrive and learn good skills. As well as being an asset to your new employer.’ Putting the book down, she focused her wrinkled eyes on Ben. ‘What did you do on board your ship, Master Gaul?’

  It was Ben’s turn to clear his throat and speak. ‘I was a galley boy, Ma’am,’ he said as clearly as he could and on realising more information was needed he continued: ‘I kept the ship’s kitchen clean and prepared the vegetables and fish for the cook.’ He waited hoping that was enough, as in all honesty there hadn’t really been a lot else to his job unless he was asked to help out on deck, when weather turned and all hands were needed to secure the sails. The answer seemed adequate and to please Mrs Reed.

  ‘So you’re used to handling seafood then and you’re happy with the sea. It seems you will be a blessing to our Mister Mansfield. He has Whitgate’s only oyster farm and a lad who can clean fish and gather them would be a feather in his cap, that’s for sure.’

  She smiled as if the process of finding Ben a job this quickly had been a rare occurrence and saved her a lot of soul searching and poring over books. ‘Well, Master Gaul, it seems that you are not only a welcome addition to our little family at Garden Orphanage but also as a productive member of the community.’

  Cherries

  The next couple of months at the Garden Orphanage were to produce a mixed bag of emotions for Ben. First off, he had to become part of the pecking order within the circle of children. His entrance into the school had taken the total numbers to sixteen in which the boys outnumbered the girls eleven to five. There was, of course, a mixture of ages with Ben one of the older boys – only two lads were older in years and only one was larger. This was the straw-haired boy of the first day, who on the very first night, alone in their dormitory, made it very clear who was in charge. Ben had been issued a bed and chest that was to be his personal space in the shared bedroom. He had already placed his possessions in the chest and was readying himself for bed when the straw-haired lad spoke his name.

  ‘Benjamin Jackson Gaul, my name is James Edwards and before you settle yourself down to sleep you need to kiss my feet.’

  The words were spoken rather theatrically and Ben turned expecting to see a smiling face. Instead, he was faced by three boys standing around a bed on which sat the straw-haired James in his nightshirt, holding his feet stiffly out in front of him, seemingly waiting for them to be kissed. The other boys were either getting ready for bed, ignoring the situation that developed in the dorm, already asleep or sat up in bed watching to see what unfolded. Ben turned back to his bed removed and folded his shirt, and proceeded to unfold his nightshirt, a garment he had been handed by Mrs Reed when she had found that he didn’t own the appropriate nightwear.

  ‘Kiss them!’ snarled James, not wishing to be ignored by the new boy.

  Ben pulled on his nightshirt and turned down the covers of his new bed. ‘I have no wish to. I accept you are in control of this house but you are not in control of me. I do not wish to fight you as I do not fight and I feel our scuffle will bring unwanted attention to our room.’ He slid off his trousers from beneath the shirt and slipped into bed.

  The slight was too much for James and he stood quickly and went to approach the bed in which Ben had lain to rest.

  ‘He’s right, James,’ came a voice from one of the other beds followed by a prolonged cough. ‘If you fight him now, Reed will be in here in a second. I think he accepts you’re the boss now so go to sleep.’ The cough started again and went on for a time while James waited as if making his own decision. James finally turned away, pushed the boys from around his bed and slipped in between his own covers.

  ‘It’s not the end, Benjamin,’ James said with a huff and blew out his candle. One by one the boys extinguished their candles and the room fell into a darkness that was lit only by the light emanating from the embers of a dying fire that cast long shadows and gave enough structure to the gloom for eyes, still open, to watch the unfamiliar surroundings of the new home.

  Ben awoke to heavy coughing somewhere in the room and an unknown voice whispering: ‘Are you all right, William?’

  The reply was a long time coming but when it did it was croaky and dry. ‘Yes, I’m good – just can’t seem to shake this cough.’

  ‘Go to sleep!’ whispered a third. ‘If it isn’t bad enough listening to you cough all night, I don’t want to have to hear you talking too. I have to go to the orchard tomorrow and learn about bloody apple trees!

  And with that all three voices stopped, although the coughing continued.

  Ben woke again to the first rays of light creeping into the room and to the stirring noises of a room fu
ll of boys. He was surprised to find a man crouching beside a boy’s bed in the room. The man was heavy set and dressed as if he had either recently returned from sea or was planning on going out on to the waves. He had wispy white mutton chops and a large red nose. He stood up and Ben realised that the man had been placing his hand on the head of the boy who had been coughing all through the night.

  ‘Looks like you’ve got a fever, Master Percy. I’ll tell Mrs Reed you’ll be staying in your bed today and she can send for the doctor. I’ll tell old Harry you won’t be joining him today either, so you just concentrate on getting better. Can I get you anything?’

  The boy in the bed shook his head at the words of the white-haired man and with a final look the gentleman walked towards the door. As he passed Ben’s bed he stopped: ‘You must be the new lad. Benjamin, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Sir!’ said Ben, pleasantly surprised that for once he hadn’t been called Master Gaul.

  ‘I’m Mr Reed. I’m Mrs Reed’s brother-in-law before you confuse me for her late husband. I look after you lads when it comes to more male complaints, if you get my meaning.’ Ben nodded, happy to see a man on the premises who didn’t look like he would preach at you if you had a problem. ‘I take it none of the boys has been pulling rank on you since you arrived.’ The man cast an eye towards James Edwards, who tried to avoid his gaze. ‘Lucky for them really – what with your past.’ The man gave Ben a wink. ‘Was it an actual pirate ship you served on or were you just chasing pirate ships? I guess I’ll have to read Mrs Reed’s book to find out.’ And with this the man left the room, chuckling to himself.

  Ben never knew whether the comments of Mr Reed did him any good that morning or were actually the reason why he was never really included in anything by the other children. The one sure thing was that James Edwards never made good his threat of that first night. It seems words did have power.

  Those first couple of months were certainly about finding his place and adjusting to the strange, stale education provided at the Garden Orphanage. They also included Ben’s introduction to Mr Mansfield of Whitgate Oysters, as he started his apprenticeship.

  Mr Mansfield was the owner of two well-stocked oyster beds and an oyster factory on the seafront. He was a short man, and already Ben was taller than his employer by a few inches. Buddy, as he liked to be called by everyone, was clean shaven and the retreating crown of hair on his head was jet black in colour. He had a round, open face with a wide mouth, often twisted into a confused sideways smile. He instantly took to young Ben. Buddy had no wife or children of his own, so his family life was spent with his brother and sister-in-law and his two nephews, However, he saw the people who worked at Whitgate Oysters as sort of his own family.

  Most of the employees, of course, would go home at the end of the shift, but Ben was always more than happy to stay and do more work. Buddy found the young lad very easy company and was more than happy to have him around the place. This was good for Ben, too, because, although he had tried his hardest to fit in with the other children, he could never really achieve his desire.

  Buddy once asked how life up at the Gardens was, and when Ben explained that the other children didn’t like him, Buddy explained that the lad was just being sensitive: there was always someone who wanted you to belong. Ben, however, knew this not to be true because of the cherries.

  The cherries were the children’s special secret.

  William Percy was the oldest boy, the one with the cough. He was smaller than James Edwards but was several months older. In Ben’s eyes, he always looked sick but that was because Ben had only ever seen him sickly and confined to bed. William had been the one who had first brought the cherries to the orphanage; he was apprenticed to Old Harry who was the local pest controller. Old Harry would keep the rabbit population down on the orchards and the birds off the freshly sown corn. It meant Old Harry pretty much wandered around the lanes and fields of Whitgate all day, and on three days of the week he took William with him. It was on one of these days that William discovered or, perhaps more truthfully, rediscovered the old cherry orchard. It wasn’t very large and William made sure to keep its location as secret as he could, only telling his closest friend, Sarah Lensby, of its exact location. The cherries were a treat and whenever the children felt they would have time to indulge their appetites without interruption they would do just that. In fact, as far as Ben could make out, every one of them was invited along – that was, except him. He only found out about the cherries when he was reading in the dorm and William woke up from one of his sleeps and saw him there and being the only other face spoke to him for the first time.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ he said with little coughs between most words.

  ‘They’re all out playing, I suppose,’ said Ben, looking up from his book. He couldn’t help thinking William and he might be friends if only William hadn’t been so ill.

  ‘Don’t you like cherries?’ said William through a forced smile.

  ‘Never really had them,’ said Ben putting down his book. ‘I grew up on lychees and bananas.’

  William shook his head as if the words meant little to him. ‘Theses cherries are so big and sweet; even the birds leave them well enough alone until they get plump and juicy. You should go and try some, and then come back and remind me how they taste.’

  Ben was curious now and an invite from William was hopefully an open invite from all. He put down his book and tracked everyone down to the girls’ dorm and knocked on the door. All the noise behind turned to a whispered frantic scrabble. The door opened slightly and Sarah’s face appeared in the space and looked past Ben up and down the corridor. Sarah was certainly attractive for a country girl: her hair was the nicer side of ginger and her cheeks were speckled by freckles. Of course, Sarah was also the girl who had made her mind up about Ben on first seeing him and had not spoken to him since beyond the occasional order to move out of her way or pass something.

  ‘What?’ she said as curtly but quietly as she could.

  Ben was wrong-footed by the pretty gatekeeper and at a loss for words. ‘Erm … I’ve come for the cherries.’

  Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘There’s not enough,’ she said quickly. ‘And even if there were, I wouldn’t be sharing them with you.’

  Ben was shocked. ‘William sent me,’ he said, playing his trump card and expecting the door to just open at the words.

  ‘Well, William doesn’t gather them any more – we all do and we say there’s not enough to go around.’

  Ben heard muffled laughter in the room and a few voices talking quietly.

  ‘Run along, oyster boy.’ And with this she closed the door, leaving Ben standing alone in the corridor, feeling even more dejected and outcast than he had before. By the time he returned to the room William was asleep again, his brow wet with fever. If Ben needed any more proof that he was not accepted, the cherries had sealed the deal.

  Of course Ben also knew nothing about cherries: he had neither seen one nor tasted one, so if he couldn’t experience the sweet taste of which William spoke he would read about it. Over the following days he managed to get Mrs Reed to lend him a book about Britain’s fruit trees and read up on the succulent fruit. Maybe he would track some down himself, he certainly didn’t need Sarah.

  However the tracking down fruit would have to wait as the orphanage was rapidly taken over by illness. Miss Poppy and Miss Smith fell ill on the same day, vomiting and full of fever. The subsequent days saw Masters Pinchin, Baker and Green fall ill with similar symptoms. The doctor couldn’t tell what they had caught but likened the symptoms to poisoning rather than a virus, and the children were asked whether they had eaten something in common.

  It was halfway through the second week of the outbreak that tragedy struck. All the boys who were not too ill were summoned to the classroom; even William was taken from his bed as he was certainly showing signs of improvement.

  Mrs Reed and her brother-in-law stood at the front of the class. Mrs Reed was lo
oking very ashen faced and as she went to speak her words failed her. She turned to Mr Reed, who stepped forward.

  ‘Boys, I am afraid to announce that late last night Miss Poppy died in her sleep. She has been ill now for a few days but it seems her body could not recover from the sickness that she contracted. We will therefore be cancelling all classes for the next day and will inform the masters of those who have apprenticeships that you will be absent until after the funeral, which you shall all attend.’

  ‘It’s the cherries!’

  All eyes turned to Ben who had suddenly blurted out the strange comment. Mr and Mrs Reed almost spoke in unison:

  ‘What do you mean the cherries?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Mrs Reed – Ben’s just jealous,’ interrupted James, giving Ben a hard threatening stare.

  ‘I’m not jealous,’ continued Ben. ‘It’s the only thing that everyone eats and even William said that the birds won’t touch them. Everyone knows animals have a better sense about these things. The cherries must be poisonous.’

  Suddenly aware that the words had an element of sense to them, the children went quiet – all, that was, except Farley Moore, who was usually a quiet child.

  ‘It can’t have been the cherries,’ he said with a definite note of certainty to his voice. ‘Wasn’t just the birds who didn’t eat them. Poppy didn’t eat them either; she didn’t think it ladylike to spit out the pip so she gave all hers to me.’ All eyes went from Farley to Mrs Reed, who just looked confused.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re all suddenly going on about cherries but it’s something I will get to the bottom of. Right now a young girl has died in my care and four others are still ill with the same symptoms, and I believe they are my priority right now. You boys will stay in and around the orphanage today and if any of you want to talk about anything – excluding cherries – you can do so with Mr Reed or Reverend Luck, who will be joining us later.’