Able Seacat Simon

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  In some ways, it really was a lifetime ago, as I’d now been on the Amethyst for longer than I’d lived in Hong Kong, and, apart from when my mother visited me in snatches of strange, wistful dreams, the memories of that time were fast fading. I’d finally got my ‘sea legs’, just as George had always told me I would, and was now, nose to tail-tip, a sailor. Which no doubt meant I now had something of a sailor’s intuition to go with my animal instinct, because there was definitely a quiver in my whiskers; a sense that testing times might well lie ahead.

  Though the fog had now cleared, the morning sky still looked bruised when I emerged out onto the deck, and I wondered if more might be on the way. But not as much as I wondered what other dangers lay in front of us – ones not of nature’s, but of human design.

  I padded across the quarterdeck, feeling the dewy dampness on the freshly painted corticene beneath my paws, and thought the time might have come to deploy the Union Jack flags. And no sooner had I taken up my usual post on the electrical box at the rear of the bridge than all the reassurance we’d hung on to of being a neutral party was blown out of the water at a stroke.

  Though I’d not experienced war, I had known the sort of terror that grips you when you know someone or something means you harm. Someone meant to harm us now. I just sensed it.

  The attack, when it came, though, seemed completely out of the blue. One minute the captain was relaying directions to the wheelhouse via the voice pipe, the next, there was a flash of flame on the shore, followed by a terrible screeching wail, and it was as if the river we’d been previously gliding along was boiling, exploding, rising – up, up, up, up! – before my eyes, in great fountains of hissing, rushing water.

  Both the captain and the first lieutenant grabbed their binoculars and raised them, scanning the place from which the eruption of water might have come. ‘Watch for the flashes on the bank!’ barked the captain.

  Though the fog had gone, the shore was still distant and murky – a hazy and indistinct bluey grey. And as I watched, another flash came, and another wall of white water exploded, this time so close it almost showered us all. I felt my claws scrabbling for purchase and my heart starting to pound, and wondered if I was about to use up every one of my lives all at once – wondering if we all were; feeling terrified, terrified, for my friends. I hadn’t felt such fear since the day I had watched my mother die, and had never expected to again. I had never experienced shell fire, or anything remotely like it, and the sight and sound – the terrifying nearness of the explosions – came as such a shock that all my fur stood on end. And it seemed they weren’t done with us yet. As I struggled to keep my balance, further licks of flame bloomed on the north bank, and more fountains of water streaked skyward.

  Captain Skinner lowered his binoculars, his face set and watchful. Then he leaned into the voice pipe that snaked down below. ‘Bridge to wheelhouse,’ he barked. ‘Increase speed to 15 knots!’ I could hear men all over the ship still hurrying to their various action stations. ‘Number One,’ he said to Weston. ‘See if you can get that bearing.’

  Thankfully, the firing ceased almost as soon as it started, and the whole thing was over in a matter of moments. And as I quivered behind Captain Skinner, wondering quite what had just happened, I was reassured to hear his voice take on a less anxious tone.

  ‘Looks like we’ve just been caught in the crossfire,’ he said to Weston. ‘That salvo clearly wasn’t meant for us, or they would have hit us, wouldn’t they? Perhaps it was just a show of strength.’

  ‘Or they didn’t see the ensign,’ Weston suggested.

  ‘Maybe so.’ He paused and peered across at the north bank, which clearly told him little. ‘Well, unless we’ve an errant communist shore battery on our hands. Order the X gun crew to unfurl the Union Jacks just to be on the safe side.’ The first lieutenant did so. ‘In any event,’ he mused, scanning the north shore once again through his binoculars, ‘we’re sitting ducks and need to be clear of this as soon as possible.’ He leaned again to the voice pipe. ‘Bridge to wheelhouse. Let’s have 19 knots now. Full ahead.’

  He turned to me then. ‘You still here, Simon? Looks like you’re finally seeing a bit of action, eh?’ He stroked me absently. ‘Let’s hope we don’t see any more, eh?’

  It was a wish that was not to be granted.

  We continued up the river for several minutes, everyone on the bridge tense and watchful. Despite Captain Skinner’s apparent confidence that the shells hadn’t been meant for us, there was still a sense of nervous anticipation in the air. He’d been right. Whoever they’d been meant for – the nationalists on the south bank, presumably – we were right in the path of any further fire directed their way.

  The minutes continued to pass, though, and with every mile we put between ourselves and whoever had fired on us, I began to feel a little less frightened. We’d soon be clear of the wayward battery and could relax, if only a little. Even so, my hackles kept rising and I refused to be reassured, and, ever conscious that the captain might need to take decisive action, I decided to go below again and get out of his way.

  I jumped down from my box, and made my way down the ladder to the foredeck, passing Frank, who was hurrying up it past me, his eyes focused up and forward. He almost vaulted me, seemingly oblivious to my being there.

  Other than that, I saw no one. The whole crew were on alert still, everyone manning their various stations. From the passageway that led to the captain’s cabin, which seemed as sensible a place to go as any, the thing I could feel, over and above everything else, was the vibration under my paws as the huge turbines toiled beneath me; powering the Amethyst at a speed I had yet to feel her go, and churning the water into an angry, boiling soup.

  But it seemed there was more than one shore battery keeping watch on our progress, because no sooner had I hopped up onto the captain’s desk, in order to see out of the scuttle, than the Amethyst lurched violently to starboard, knocking me off my feet. I scrabbled back up, but no sooner had I got my balance once again than another blast – another shell! – made the water foam in front of me. Just as I recognised that I should immediately take cover, I was ripped from my feet again, the air torn from my lungs, and the world swam away from me and disappeared.

  Chapter 10

  When I woke I could hear nothing but the drone of a mosquito. For a time I simply focused on the low, monotone buzzing sound, and tried to work out where I was. I was lying on a bunk, so my first thought was that I was still in Captain Skinner’s cabin, but something felt wrong. I struggled to clear my head enough to work out what it was. I was definitely in a cabin, but which? Not the captain’s. I couldn’t be in the captain’s, because . . . because . . . because what? Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to focus. I looked around me, sideways on, only one eye fully open, and at last my gaze came to rest on something that looked familiar – the collection of photographs pinned on the bulkhead opposite, which I recognised as belonging to Petty Officer Griffiths. I saw his locker then, as well. The place where he often parked his cap. But there was no cap. It was now open, the lid upright and some of the clothing spewing out of it, as if caught in the act of escaping.

  I strained to listen; to pick up something other than the mosquito’s incessant whining, and realised that it wasn’t even a mosquito – the noise was a constant ringing inside my ears. But there was nothing to help me make sense of what had happened. I hadn’t the slightest idea of how I came to be here.

  I tried to ferret in my mind for the last thing I could remember, but hard as I tried, I found I could not. There had been shouting, the clang of the ship’s bell – which resulted in more shouting – and yet more of those terrifying noises. Explosions and wheee sounds and deafening crumps that sounded like the ship was being ripped and gored and beaten, the licks of flame, the sting of smoke thick and acrid on the air.

  And then . . . what? What had happened? How had I come to be here? How long had I been here? I knew it was light – well, more a dove grey,
from what little that I could see through the scuttle – but I realised I had no idea of time, of what day it was; no idea how long I might have slept. I felt sluggish, stiff and listless, as if I’d been asleep for a long time – a deep, dreamless sleep – having lain in an awkward position.

  I lifted my nose to sniff the air again and immediately regretted it. For some reason it hurt to move my head. It hurt a lot, in fact; a tentative stretch of my neck immediately confirmed it, pain streaking through my hind legs with such heat and intensity that I knew I must be very badly hurt.

  I stayed still, concentrating as hard as I could on not moving; despite the constant urge to shake the noise out of my ears. It helped that I was too scared to even try to see my injuries, so I lay rigid but inert, waiting for both my heart and my head to stop pounding, and for the pain to subside to something I could deal with.

  And I would have dealt with it, had my slow slide back into painless oblivion not been arrested by the sound of a single, anguished moan, which seemed to be coming from somewhere close by. I thought I recognised the voice, too. Was it Lieutenant Weston’s? Fear flooded in. Was he hurt? Had he been injured as well?

  It all came back to me then, quickly, intensely and chillingly: the communists. The shells. The orders barked down the voice pipes. Bridge to wheelhouse. Full speed ahead! The Amethyst powering upriver, away from the first shore batteries, the captain not quite believing that what was happening could be happening; that we’d been anything other than simply caught in the crossfire between the communists and nationalists occupying the opposite shores.

  And then the reality, quickly following the assumption that we’d passed the trouble: that, as we’d by now unfurled the Union Jacks the crew had made, there could be no question that they were firing on a British frigate. My padding down to the captain’s cabin, half believing we might be clear of it, then the terrible, terrible sound from just above me – the cabin door slamming shut, and then almost immediately bursting open – the mushroom cloud of choking black smoke surging in. The realisation that they had meant to fire on us – that they were firing on us now; that they meant us grievous harm. The shock of it. The terror. The sense of disbelief and outrage. Of hearing the captain – no, that was wrong – it had been the first lieutenant, hadn’t it? Of the first lieutenant, shouting . . . Return fire! Return fire! Bridge to wheelhouse! Return fire! Feet, thundering past me. Screams – so much screaming! Of the shouts and the cries – the desperate, keening cries – then the massive whump! close at hand, and the feeling that I was flying – of being lifted high, high, and higher, way up into the air, that same air then being violently snatched from my lungs . . .

  The explosion! I juddered involuntarily, causing a second wave of agony to streak through my body, and the darkness sucked me down once again.

  When I woke the second time, in stifling heat now, feeling thirsty and dizzy, it was to a second, even scarier revelation. It was one that I sensed, rather than saw, sniffing a sharp note of charring in the still air of the cabin and having it suddenly hit me what the source of the smell might be.

  My whiskers! Where were my whiskers? Had they been burned off completely? I felt sick. I wanted to be sick, and even felt myself retching. For, despite my prone position, and my having no immediate need of them, the realisation of their absence felt like a violent wound itself. It terrified me anew. Would they ever grow back again? And what other grievous injuries might I have sustained?

  I tried to lift my paw, very gingerly, the better to establish what I’d been left with, but again, the slightest movement – of any part of me, it seemed – caused me intense pain, and sent waves of nausea coursing through me. And as I could see almost nothing, I had no choice but to try to lie as still as I could again. To try to find refuge in further sleep.

  But it was hard to sleep. The sound in my ears was like a burrowing animal worming away at me, and with so many questions swirling round my head, my brain was equally buzzing. What was going on? Where was everyone? What had become of Lieutenant Weston? What was happening to the Amethyst? Was she even moving?

  My senses told me no, but they were muddled. Eventually I did sleep, though it was fitful enough and shallow enough to allow the noises around me to filter through. And the noises were, by now, at least a little less frightening, the screams and whumps of shells being replaced by very different sounds, a few of them even familiar and reassuring.

  I thought I could hear the coxswain. Was that his low, phlegmy rasp? And Peggy? Was that Peggy barking? Oh, I hoped so. After a time, even more reassuringly, I could smell food being cooked, too, immediately conjuring the comforting image of one of my favourite spots in the galley, where I’d sit patiently while Slushy, the cook, trimmed what looked like whole sides of cows so they would fit into the oven, often treating me to a titbit of raw meat.

  But such appearance of normality was soon unmasked as an imposter, and even in my weakened state, and with my mind bent so far out of shape by the constant noise in my head and the pain in my hindquarters, I recognised that despite the welcome clangs, thumps and whistles, things aboard the Amethyst were very far from normal. Was the terrible thing that had happened to us still going on in some way?

  I strained to make sense of some of the sounds that were reaching me; of men below and along the passageway making strange, mournful noises; of angry shouts; of muffled sobs; of a single, anguished scream from somewhere above. They must have eventually triggered something because more memories started rushing back towards me like a tidal wave surging over a beach. Of seeing things happening to my friends that seemed to defy belief and comprehension.

  Of men flailing and shouting, men falling and screaming. Of the acrid taste of smoke and cordite in the air. Of mangled lumps of metal strewn all over the Amethyst, as if flung there, like so much jagged jetsam.

  But I mostly saw blood. Viscous, oily pools of it, steam rising from it, almost the colour of Cotton Tree blossom. I remembered lying on the quarterdeck, not understanding how I got there, and seeing blood, instead of water, flowing thickly across the deck and into the scuppers.

  I closed my eyes again, hoping to make it all go away. But it wouldn’t disappear. It seemed burned onto my brain.

  ‘Well, now, look at this one. He really has been in the wars, hasn’t he?’

  I woke again with a start, feeling immediately anxious, because I was sure I could sense a stranger standing over me. It was the odour – strong and musky, laced with some fuel-type tang I didn’t recognise. It was alien enough to snap me into consciousness in a moment.

  He spoke gently, however, and with a strange twang to his voice. It was a form of human speech that I hadn’t heard before. Disorientated and confused, I tried to open my eyes so that I could see him, but found I couldn’t. My eyelids seemed to be gummed shut. After a couple of painful attempts to part them, I gave up trying. Perhaps I should leave well alone.

  ‘Something of a miracle he’s still with us, I’d say, Doc, wouldn’t you?’

  My heart leaped. I knew that voice. It was Frank! It was Frank! I couldn’t see him, but I was immeasurably glad to hear him.

  I also registered that word ‘Doc’. Was the man a doctor? ‘Sid Horton, one of the ratings, found him lying out on the deck this morning,’ Frank was explaining. ‘We suspect he was in the captain’s cabin when it happened. Took a direct hit. He must have. You saw it, didn’t you? When you came aboard? Beggars belief, it does.’ There was a pause. I tried to imagine their expressions. ‘Well, you could hardly miss it, could you?’ Frank added at last. ‘Poor little blighter must have been blown feet in the air.’

  ‘So he’s probably lost his hearing,’ the other man said, his odour mushrooming up around my face now, followed by the shock of feeling his fingers brushing against my fur. I tried to calm myself. He was a doctor. He was obviously taking a look at me.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, sir,’ Frank said. ‘I reckon he can hear us well enough, can’t you, Simon?’ To which I managed to r
espond with all I could manage – a feeble tail flick. It wasn’t much – barely anything – but it seemed it was sufficient. ‘See, Doc!’ said Frank. I could hear the pleasure in his voice.

  ‘So he can hear,’ said the other man. ‘Well, well, well. And there’s no blood in his ears, so that’s good. Though that’s a nasty burn on his left one, poor thing. But you’ve patched him up, I see.’ He touched me a second time. This time on my shoulder. ‘And that’ll heal quick enough.’ There was another pause. ‘Anyway,’ he said finally. ‘As you say, something of a miracle.’

  ‘Did what we could,’ Frank said. ‘And if he’s stayed with us this long, I reckon he’ll be okay, don’t you? Ship’s cat, isn’t he? Survivors. What’s to say?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Anyways, leave your things over there, and we’d best be getting you to the sick bay. The worst are gone, as you know, but we’re far from doing well. Though there’s a fair few in the after-mess as well.’ Yet another pause. He cleared his throat again. ‘We’ve run right out of room.’

  They left me then, and I could hear their steps echoing down the passageway. And they left me thinking. Yes, perhaps it had been a miracle.

  Well, either that or I’d used up one of my nine lives.

  Chapter 11

  Yangtse River, near Tan Ta Chen, Friday 22 April, 1949

  Following my visit from Frank and the man he’d called ‘Doc’ the previous day (who turned out to be in the Air Force and was called Flight Lieutenant Fearnley), I had finally found the wherewithal to try to move. I had puzzled long and hard over why – and how – this doctor had come on board the Amethyst. How did he get to us? Or had the ship made it to Nanking without my realising? And where was our own doctor? Had he been injured as well? I didn’t allow myself to consider the other possibility.