Able Seacat Simon

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  I made my first rat-catching foray in the small hours of the night. The ship, always sleepy at this hour, was preternaturally still, with just the slap of river water sploshing weakly against the hull and the ever-present drone of the night insects.

  I took a route I knew well: past the wardroom, down to the galley, through the tight space between the ovens, then down to the very back of the stores, where everything ahead of me was solid black. And oh, how I felt crippled without my whiskers to help guide me, constantly having to stop and nudge my nose up to make up for the unsettling loss of vision.

  I hobbled. Doubly lame. Like a blind animal in a blind alley. And because no one had ever told me, I had no idea when, or even if, new whiskers might start growing. I could only trust in logic, albeit without a great deal of confidence, and hope that they would grow again, and soon.

  I padded on doggedly, and at last I caught a strong rodent scent – strong enough to have me quivering with anticipation, and pausing to take both stock and soundings. And almost immediately after that came the all-too-familiar scufflings and scratchings of a rat dining on food that didn’t belong to it.

  I slunk round a pipe then, cold against me, and at last spied my prize. And when I fixed it in my vision (albeit hazily, without the reassuring confirmation from my whiskers) I sank down again slowly, trying to focus; trying to ignore the scream of protest in my hips. Whatever I currently lacked, I reminded myself firmly, one advantage I did have was my silence – my ability to stalk prey without creating so much as a whisper of unsettled air.

  But there was no point in lingering. I would only stiffen up. I tensed myself and sprang.

  And, to my horror, I missed. My claws found nothing more substantial than a scrape of scaly tail, and even that, as if to taunt me, caught my ear like a whiplash, as the filthy animal made good its escape.

  There was no getting away from it. I felt desperately sorry for myself. My body ached, my ear hurt – the rat must have caught the spot that had been burned already – and it took some minutes before I was able to properly catch my breath.

  Worse still, though, were the thoughts swirling in my head, which, like the rat, seemed to mock me for my arrogance. What had possessed me? I was in no fit state to hunt – even a cockroach could now evade me – and I had no idea when or if I would be. I had gone, at a stroke, from being a valued crew member to a burden, a useless liability to my friends. And as I made my way forward, with no clear idea where next to lie, I felt the welling of shame stinging my eyes and my gait becoming sluggish – as if grinding to a halt, much like the Amethyst herself, a prisoner of my own feeble state.

  Thank God for my ears, though. At least they hadn’t failed me, and for the noise that, though distant, was caught by them now. I turned my head a little. Listened hard. It was regular. Tinny. And I realised – daring to hope now, my failure all but forgotten – that it was coming from the wireless room. Was it Jack?

  I limped off to find out, climbing awkwardly over the barriers beneath the doorways, which, it seemed to me, had almost doubled in size. But as I neared the noise, the deficiencies of my hind legs mattered less to me, with my only goal – my only need – being to know if Jack was alright.

  I halted, however, just a few yards from the wireless room, confused by what looked like sacks of flour arranged around it. Had it suffered terrible damage? Was it flooded? No longer in use? But as I sat there, uncertain, I realised I could hear voices – ones that seemed to be coming from inside the room, talking urgently.

  ‘So, this to C in C.’ Was that Captain Kerans speaking? He reeled off a message about deadlocks and meetings. From his tone it was obvious he wasn’t very happy. ‘Quick as you can, Flags,’ he finished. I imagined Jack (let it be Jack!) scrib- bling furiously with his pencil, ready to turn the message the captain had given him into Morse code.

  Then came Lieutenant Hett’s voice, as ever, deep, clear and strong. ‘I’ll have Lieutenant Fearnley give you something,’ he said. ‘Some more Benzedrine will help, lad. And what about some food, eh? When did you last eat?’

  ‘I’m not hungry, sir. I’m fine. Just the Benzedrine’ll be fine, sir.’

  It was Jack’s voice! It was Jack! I was so excited I almost forgot myself, emerging from the shadows and only narrowly avoiding cannoning into the captain and lieutenant as they swept out of the room and hurried off back to the bridge.

  The wireless room was warm and looked untouched by the shelling; still humming and cosy and exactly as it always was, a constant in a world that had been so changed.

  Jack was alone, with his back to me, busy working on the message at his little fold-down desk. As I entered he straightened, pulled his Morse code machine towards him, and began tapping out the message in that curious staccato rhythm that ‘another Jack’, he’d explained to me, ‘will hear through his earphones, translate, and write down – and that’s it – job done. Bob’s your uncle!’

  I sat back on my haunches, carefully, and waited for him to finish, only going to him once he peeled his headphones from his ears, and stuck the pencil back in place over the right one.

  Then I mewled. He looked down. Then he blinked. Then his mouth gaped. ‘Blackie!’ he exclaimed, pushing his chair back and patting his knees. ‘Love a duck! Where’ve you been? We thought we’d lost you!’

  I couldn’t jump. Didn’t try. Didn’t dare. He quickly real- ised. He bent down, and as he did so, he let out a heavy groaning sigh.

  ‘Aww, look at the state of you,’ he said, picking me up very gingerly by cupping his hands around my front legs. ‘You okay, boy? When d’you last eat? You’re skin and bone. Look at you . . .’ He gently turned me this way and that, so he could get a better look at me, and I forced myself to cope with the pain even this small movement gave me – it didn’t matter. I was just so grateful for the comfort of his touch.

  I studied Jack too. He looked exhausted. His skin was the colour of paper. I wondered when he had last eaten, as well. ‘Those ruddy bast— ’scuse my French, Blackie, but look what those bastards have done to you! Here, sit yourself down. That’s the way. That’s the way. Lord, it’s good to see you. Been getting awful lonely sitting in here, hour after hour, all on my lonesome.’ He grimaced. ‘’S only me now, my friend. Ruddy commies got the others. Just me now. Been up round the clock for ruddy days now.’ He laid a hand on my head, taking care to mind my ear. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you. We all thought you’d bought it. Taken yourself off and died somewhere, we thought – and here you are! You’re a sight for sore eyes, you know that?’ Then he suddenly leaned forward. ‘Eh oh. Here we go. Hang on, Blackie. Let’s get this down, eh?’ Then he pulled the chair up to the desk again, plonked his earphones on his head, and began transcribing the reply to the message the captain had sent, while I sat in his lap, feeling warm and safe and humbled.

  Chapter 13

  Sound asleep on Jack’s lap that night, I dreamed of my mother. She was on the Amethyst, alongside me, my protector and friend, and when a machine gun was fired at us from a battery on a shore – the bank flocked with the enemy, all shouting and raging – she sprang up and took the bullets for me, falling lifeless at my feet. A bloom of blood then grew beneath her, till the tug of gravity took it, and it rushed in a stream into the scuppers.

  I woke with a start, to the sound of voices again, but this time they were low and conspiratorial. Trying to shake the horrible images from my head, I opened my eyes, to see Lieutenant Hett and the man Frank had called Doc standing over us, the latter with a plate of sandwiches in his hand.

  Lieutenant Hett smiled and raised a finger. ‘Shh . . .’ he mouthed more than said to me. It was then that I realised that Jack was fast asleep. His head was resting on his arm, which was flat across his desk now, and had formed a cosy human tent for me to doze under. I realised the rhythm of his breathing; it was the same one that must have rocked me to sleep.

  ‘Good to see you again, little fella,’ the one called Doc whispered. Again I wondered. Was
he here because Doctor Alderton was injured? And where was Thomas, the sick bay attendant? I’d not seen him either.

  The doc turned to Hett and nodded, and they both moved further away. ‘I don’t mind staying in here for a bit,’ he said, keeping his mouth close to the lieutenant’s ear. ‘Let him sleep. He’s done in. He can take more Benzedrine later. I can wake him up soon enough if anything new comes in.’

  Hett nodded. ‘Good man. I’ll send a cuppa down for you when it’s brewed then.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘How about you, Simon? Peckish, old son?’ He came back and crouched down so he was on my level. ‘My, boy, you look like you’ve been existing on thin air!’

  I doubted anything would have woken Jack, but I took the utmost care in any case, slithering down from his lap as carefully and smoothly as I could. Then, with a wobble of my hindquarters, which I quickly corrected, padded across to say hello to my lieutenant friend. ‘Some sardines, eh?’ he whispered. He looked amused. Pleased to see me. ‘Least the rats can’t get their filthy teeth into the tins, eh? Well –’ he grimaced. ‘Not yet, anyway. Way they’re going, I wouldn’t put it past them.’

  I pressed myself around his shin, purring, then wound a slow double figure of eight around the pair of them, to let them know just how pleased I was to see them as well. Then I padded off, over the threshold and back to the dark, infested places. I would love some sardines. My mouth watered at the prospect. It was the first time I’d thought of anything but pain and thirst in all these days.

  I would love some sardines. A plate of herrings out, too. Or herrings in, even. The kind in the horrible sauce Jack favoured. That was how hungry I suddenly found myself. I held onto the thought.

  Then I tilted my nose, sniffed the air, caught a scent and began to follow. No doubt about it. I would love some sardines. I really would. But not just yet. First I was going to earn them.

  Hunger and fury are a potent combination. That and the power of friendship. I was not going to let my friends down.

  I killed two rats that night. Though at some cost to myself, admittedly. The second, a big ugly brute of a male, made a swipe that tore open the wound in my ear – again – and made it bleed so much it dripped all down my face.

  But such was my delight – and relief – at having dispatched the hated animals that it could have bled all the next day (and might well have, had Petty Officer Frank not managed to staunch it) and I wouldn’t have cared. As it was, I was exhausted, but it was a good kind of weariness. The weariness of a job done to the best of my abilities and more than that, proof that where there is a will, there is, almost always, a way. I had Jack’s devotion to his own duty to thank for that.

  I delivered my trophies, one by one, as naval protocol dictated – the first, at dawn, to the captain’s bunk – he being apparently busy inspecting the boilers. I’d yet to properly meet him and was keen to assure him that I was anxious to do my bit. I hoped he’d be pleased, and spent time arranging the rat’s body just so, before padding back to resume my duties below. My second catch, just an hour later, I decided would be for Jack, to cheer him up while he toiled at his post in the wireless room. He was by now wide awake again, looking all the better for his sleep, and munching on one of his ‘herrings in’ sandwiches.

  He looked almost bug-eyed, in fact – like one of the black beetles that used to cling to the banyan fronds at dusk – when I padded in with my kill, saying, ‘That is the best thing I’ve seen in days!’ He immediately leaned across to send a message up the voice pipe, shouting, ‘Wireless room to engine room! Guess what. Blackie’s killed a flippin’ monster!’, upon which a message came back, almost immediately. ‘Er, correction, Flags – he’s actually killed two!’

  It was the captain’s voice. He’d obviously found it. I couldn’t have felt more proud. Or, indeed, more hungry. When I was presented with the promised plate of sardines shortly afterwards, I ate them so fast that Jack even whistled his admiration up the voice pipe. ‘Gone almost before you could say Jack Robinson, sir!’ he told the captain.

  Whoever Jack Robinson was. I felt proud of that, as well.

  But, in reality, there was little room for pride on board the Amethyst. Not as things stood. As I patrolled the ship over the next couple of days, full of emotion, full of respect, it was clear that, for all the camaraderie, the crew were not just physically exhausted, they were emotionally exhausted too, grieving for and mourning their dead friends. Most of all, again and again, it confirmed my first impression: that just as the memory of my mother’s brutal death would always haunt me, so the faces of the crew – particularly the youngest, most inexperienced seamen – wore the pain and revulsion of the things they had witnessed, their brows etched not just with lines made of oil and grease and soot, but by the business of remember- ing, and the distress it must cause them. I felt for them. Grieved with them. Wished I could better help them, but knew I could not.

  It was Peggy – dear, silly, muddle-headed Peggy – who first showed me that I was quite wrong about that. Something that should have been as clear as the nose on my face: that I could do so much more than just deal with the rat colony for my friends. I could help them in other ways, too.

  It was a few days later, and I was patrolling the rat runs, as focused as ever, as, with no sign of us being allowed to continue on our journey to Nanking, it seemed we could be stuck for some time.

  And it hadn’t just been the two kills that had fired me with such ambition. It was the fact that the rats were becoming their own worst enemies. So emboldened had they become since the ship had been marooned that they were often to be seen scuttling along their rat runs in broad daylight, as if – or so they thought – they had nothing to fear!

  One of their runs ran through the sick bay, and was becoming increasingly well travelled, doubtless providing some new and devious rodent short cut to the already diminishing stores. There was sufficient food as yet – plenty of preserved food, and a reasonable stock of dry goods – but without fresh food of any kind, bar what could be obtained from the nationalists, the dry goods were an increasingly precious commodity. They had become currency, and could be traded for potatoes, greens, and eggs.

  But it was that same store of dry goods – flour and cereals and rice, and so on – that the rats were most intent on stealing from under us, and what they didn’t steal, they spoiled, rendering it useless. Because there was also the health risk, which was not something I knew much about, admittedly, but the new doctor was clear on the dire threat they posed.

  Rats spread disease and the rat population was growing. I had never been more needed and my injuries seemed as nothing in the face of it.

  Peggy was in the sick bay, on a bunk, sitting squarely on someone’s chest. Which was an arresting enough sight in itself. She barked when she saw me (being entirely without any sort of hunting instinct, she could scatter prey in an instant) and the sailor turned around and grinned at me.

  I didn’t know him well – he was one of the young lads that had only joined the Amethyst recently – but the smoothness of his skin under the sweat and grime was telling.

  There was a bucket beside the bunk and as he had no visible injuries, I suspected he must have gone down with an infection of some kind – one of those ‘health risks’ our new doctor kept muttering about to the captain, while exhorting the men to wash and clean and scrub.

  ‘It’s the hero of the hour!’ he said. His face was greyish. Gaunt and angular. ‘Come here, little man,’ he coaxed, ‘come and have a cuddle with me and Peg, eh?’ He hung an arm down at the side of the bunk to coax me, while Peggy licked his face.

  I duly trotted across, noticing as I did so how strange the sick bay smelled now. It was a new smell; sharply acid, and oddly sweet, too, and as I inhaled it I remembered something I’d previously forgotten – the frantic panic, the screaming, the desperate cries of ‘Get him in! Get him in!’. It was only a wisp of memory, a snatch of something I’d prefer to bury, but the scene, even though I couldn’t quite see
it, became clearer. This same sick bay, not so long ago, would have been full of horribly wounded sailors, with our doctor – I’d now learned he’d been slain, along with his assistant, Thomas – dashing around desperately, trying to do what he could for his men, slipping and sliding on the pools of spilled blood . . .

  Wash, clean and scrub, I thought. Wash, clean and scrub. Once the surviving wounded were taken away and driven to hospital, the sick bay – scene of so much carnage – must have been one of the first priorities. No such care and attention for my mother, whose body had no choice but to stay where it had been flung. I’d had to find a new route across the island from that day.

  Today, the sick bay was clean, neat and bright, and almost empty. Bar this one young sailor, and a rating in bed in the far corner, who was snoring, the only other patients were ghosts.

  I nudged my head into the sailor’s hand, feeling sadness pressing down on me, and though I braced for the pain as he brushed my still scabby ear, none came. His touch was as light as a cloud.

  I managed to jump up onto the bunk, which was happily low, feeling extremely thankful for the growing strength in my back legs. And as I padded up the blanket, Peggy woofed, just a low, gentle snicker. And then stuck her great black wet nose into my face.

  ‘Look at you two,’ the young sailor said, in his high but rasping voice. ‘Who’d have thought a cat and dog would ever get on like you do?’ Who indeed? I thought, as Peggy hopped down and trotted off to make room for me. ‘Here you go, then,’ said the sailor. ‘Have the warm spot, why don’t you?’

  I settled down in the space Peggy had just vacated, and kneaded my claws into the rough grey of the blanket. ‘Aren’t I the lucky one?’ the sailor said, a smile stretching his tired features. ‘I could get used to this, I could. I well could . . .’ And within what seemed like mere moments, his eyes had fluttered closed, and his breathing had become slow and regular. Every once in a while, the corners of his mouth would twitch a little. Happy dreams? I hoped so. To chase away the nightmares.