Able Seacat Simon

by Lynne Barrett-Lee

  I willed myself to bite down even harder – to try to finish him off now, to try to get a better, stronger, purchase . . . But the action only made him squeal and scrabble at me all the louder and harder. There was nothing for it – I had to clamp him between my paws and change my bite . . . One, two, three . . . Do it now. Do it now! Break and clamp. Break and grab again . . . Fast as you can. Strong as you can. Do it!

  So I did it, and he jerked as if he were a lizard struck by lightning. And with my jaw screaming in pain now, I came so close to losing him, so stunned and unbalanced was I by the strength he had left. But then I felt it – the soft crack of his neck, then the stillness. Even then, for the longest time, I stayed as I was, panting, still as night, still as death, not once daring to loosen my grip. It must have been a full minute before I judged it safe to release him, and let his body drop heavily between my paws.

  ‘He’s done it! He’s done it! He’s only gone and done it!’

  Having little idea of how many had gathered to watch, I almost jumped a foot in the air. The deck felt alive beneath my paws, such was the outcry; feet were stamping, hands were clapping, men were cheering and whooping, buckets were being clanged, mops and brooms rapped against the bulkheads.

  I looked up to see a beaming Lieutenant Hett approaching. He was all done up in his whites – he must have just returned from a shore trip – with his cap tucked under his arm so he could clap me as well.

  Then he did something odd. He stopped right there in front of me, clicked his heels sharply and saluted me. ‘I officially promote you to the rank of able seaman,’ he told me, which caused a new round of cheers and applause to surge all around.

  ‘Don’t you mean able seacat?’ shouted someone. There was laughter.

  Lieutenant Hett nodded. ‘Of course! I stand corrected. I hereby promote you to Able Seacat Simon. Ship’s ratter of the highest order! Good for you!’

  Then, before I had a chance to stop him, he picked the rat up by the tail, which drew another tumultuous cheer. I felt my heart swell. I had done it. I’d really done it.

  ‘How about that, then?’ Lieutenant Hett said, lifting the rat high in the air, where it swung, turning a circle, grey- brown, amorphous and limp.

  And very dead.

  ‘Farewell, Mao Tse-tung!’ he said, and launched it into the river.

  I watched the rat disappear and heard the ‘plunk’ as it hit the water. A very satisfying ‘plunk’ it was too. Though I was still breathing hard and knew my jaw would ache for hours, I don’t think I could have felt happier if I’d tried.

  But I didn’t spend a great deal of time on celebrations. I was too exhausted. I went back to the captain’s cabin, curled up on his bunk, and slept for some ten hours straight.

  Chapter 16

  The demise of the infamous and much hated rodent Mao Tse-tung brought about a marked lift in everyone’s spirits. As for me, I couldn’t have been more thrilled, particularly with my new name of Able Seacat Simon, which I delighted in hearing called out wherever I went. The next couple of weeks saw a general cheeriness even, reaching a particular high when the clever electricians managed to tune us into a programme on the radio which I was assured was a great favourite of everyone on board, being transmitted by something called the BBC.

  I didn’t know who or what the BBC was, but I didn’t need to. It didn’t last long, but there was laughter and chat and lots of singing, and – this did seem a miracle, especially when they said, ‘This one’s for Flight Lieutenant Fearnley!’ – it seemed much of the programme was dedicated to the crew of the Amethyst; something to cheer us up and to let everyone on board know that they hadn’t been forgotten.

  Which was precious. Because there was no doubt that, for all the peaks of jollity, the troughs of exhaustion and sadness and dejection were deep.

  Most kept it hidden. Rather too well hidden, sometimes, I mused, so many of the sailors – particularly the ones who’d seen so much, suffered so much, had to tend to their dead and dying friends – feeling not quite able to articulate the shock and revulsion that I knew must regularly dance through their dreams. So I acted on what had now become a powerful instinct; I gave comfort where needed, in the shape of my physical presence and, increasingly, because sometimes the pain was buried deep, gave comfort where it wasn’t even known that it was needed.

  It was the strangest thing – well, at first. I soon learned to understand it. I’d have a rating pick me up, seemingly at random, and then they’d pull me close to their face – their conscious mind assuming that they were petting me. And then that outbreath. That sigh. That realisation seeping into them. That, actually, it was the other way around.

  If the communist garrison leader – a Colonel Kang – hoped to break the crew, and have the captain agree to his terms, he had underestimated the strength of everyone’s resolve. This was strengthened even further when, towards the end of June, three mail sacks got through to us, and better still came the news, following an otherwise fruitless meeting with Captain Kerans, that Kang was going to allow us to have delivered some of the reserves of fuel oil that were currently up in Nanking.

  The captain, in a rare display of levity, almost clapped his hands together in glee. ‘Now that’s what I call a mistake!’ he told the officers. ‘I still can’t quite believe it, I really can’t.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s been an instruction from on high, sir,’ Hett suggested. ‘You know. Humanitarian grounds and that. It won’t look good if the men start dropping, will it?’

  The captain scratched his head. I could see he was thinking about Kang. Though he’d not said it publicly, because he didn’t want to frighten the men, I knew he believed everything Kang did was threatening. That he would have no compunction, if we crossed him, about killing us all. ‘Hmm, perhaps there has,’ he said. Then his face fell. ‘Or perhaps he’s playing mind games again. I should have thought of that. We still have to get it.’

  It would be a long wait, too, but knowing it was coming, and that it would make everyone’s lives so much more palatable in the increasing heat, raised everyone’s spirits right up again. Then, ten days later, we greeted the day – a rare fine one – with the sight of a tug boat towing a lighter, approaching from upriver.

  It took a while to be sure, but as it drew nearer, a cheer went up all over the Amethyst, as it became obvious that what it carried was the promised supply of oil. At last we’d have the means to light and ventilate the ship properly – simple things perhaps, but, in our current straits, so important.

  Everyone free to do so crowded the starboard guardrails. The happy expectation turned out to be short-lived, however. As the craft tried to approach our side, the tide had its own ideas about where the oil should be headed, thwarting every attempt to get alongside us, and pulling both tug and lighter away downstream.

  There was no way it was going to get away without a fight, and, eventually, through the valiant efforts of the pilot (helped by Peggy, who barked encouragement throughout, possibly under the misapprehension that it held some dog food) the lighter was tied to us and the business of unloading it could begin. The only problem now – and it was a big one – was how that could be done. For all that the precious liquid was a godsend, every last drum of it, a little under three hundred drums would have to be hoisted on board and then drained into the oil fuel tank by hand.

  But it was a challenge the men welcomed and they rolled their sleeves up willingly. They’d not had any decent exercise for some 82 days now, and everyone was feeling it. There was another wait first, because to do so at night would be too dangerous. With the dusk closing in, the captain decided ‘Operation Oil’ would have to wait until the morning.

  No one seemed to mind the dawn reveille, and it was cheering to hear the determination and commitment in the crew’s voices as they began the mammoth task of transferring our welcome haul into the tank. It was a messy business; by lunch time there seemed to be oil everywhere. It was spilled on the decks, all over the crew and, less
happily, up my nose – the smell of it being the nearest I decided I would like to get to it. It was hard enough to keep clean in the current conditions at the best of times, so I busied myself, as per usual, padding along all the still well-travelled rat runs, happy in the knowledge that the light and air and general lifting of spirits would help send the creatures back from where they came.

  ‘To C in C,’ the captain said to Jack, when, by around four in the afternoon, the last drop was safely sloshing where it belonged. ‘Fuel now on board. 54 tons. Operation commenced 05:00, finished at 16:00 hours, working nonstop throughout, 11 hours. They worked like TROJANS!’ he finished. ‘And make sure that’s in capitals, Flags. What an excellent day’s work.’

  There was further good news when a message arrived by boat a short while later in the form of a letter asking the captain to attend a meeting in Ching Kiang, the Communist People’s Liberation Army’s HQ, the following day.

  ‘Might this be it, sir?’ Hett asked him, as they gathered in the wireless room. ‘Might we finally be given permission to get away, do you think?’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Captain Kerans. ‘Let’s hope for the best, eh?’

  But his expression told me the rest of what he was thinking. That at the same time, we should prepare for the worst.

  The worst happened. Captain Kerans returned from the meeting stony-faced and sweating. Far from an agreement, he’d returned with yet another disappointment.

  We might have oil, but they were still demanding an admission from the British Navy that not only had we fired first but that we shouldn’t have even been there. That we had no right to be in Chinese waters in the first place, which was patently untrue. But as the communists were now controlling more and more territory around the Yangtse, their implacable stance held more and more sway.

  There was even more; the captain had asked about replenishing our food stores, and was told in no uncertain terms that, as foreign merchant ships were no longer permitted to travel up the Yangtse, any ship – or plane – that attempted to go anywhere near the Amethyst would immediately be destroyed.

  ‘And, of course, he reiterated his usual threat,’ the captain said gloomily. ‘The Amethyst will also be destroyed if we attempt to move it. So that’s that. Another deadlock. I’m sorry to have to say so, but if we’re going to play Kang at his own game, there’s no choice. It’s going to have to be half-rations from tomorrow.’

  The strain of our continued confinement was now making its presence felt right across the ship. Like the ensign that still flew above us, the crew – me included, because I was now on half-rations too – were getting droopy and ragged. Even Peggy was beginning to wilt – and she was usually immune to the extremes of temperature. I’d often catch her standing by a guardrail, looking wistfully at the sludge-coloured water below us. ‘She’ll be in the river – you mark my words,’ Petty Officer Griffiths kept muttering. ‘She’ll be in. For two pins, she’ll be in, for a swim.’

  Still, Peggy, who managed to resist the temptation (just – I had no similar compunction) did what she could to cheer our friends up, as did I. But while we could curl up with our friends in the mess and watch them settle down to sleep, Captain Kerans increasingly seemed preoccupied and distant, mooching around on his own at all hours of the day and night.

  It wasn’t unexpected. After all, he’d been commanding a ship and crew in the most difficult and dispiriting conditions, and as the summer wore on the weather got even hotter, so keeping morale up among his young sailors must have been difficult.

  With the daily grind being just that – a relentless and tedious round of mostly domestic drudgery – it was easy to forget the other spectre which still hung over the Amethyst: the fresh memories, there to stumble upon every time any of us passed over the quarterdeck – of the blood that had been shed and the lives that had been lost – of the friends we would never see again.

  In the meantime, the game of what the captain had called ‘cat and mouse’ with the garrison commander, Kang, was still showing no signs of being resolved. I didn’t know which was which – who was the cat and who was the rodent? I hoped we weren’t the latter – but it was obvious that the repeated to-ings and fro-ings, to attend yet more lengthy and up to now largely pointless-sounding meetings, were beginning to try the captain’s patience to the utmost.

  Either that, or he was doing what Jack had predicted we all might do before long, if we were stuck here much longer, and already ‘losing his marbles’. I wasn’t sure quite what that meant – couldn’t even begin to guess at it – but, judging by Jack’s expression when he’d said it, I suspected it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

  Perhaps Captain Kerans had already lost them. Whenever it was warm and dry (an extremely rare and welcome combination) I had lately taken to returning to one of my old favourite high places – the glass-topped magnetic compass and gyro up on the bridge, which had miraculously survived the shelling unscathed. It was here, one afternoon a couple of days later, that I was to witness first hand evidence that Captain Kerans’ ‘marbles’ might have already deserted him.

  ‘I need a detail of men mustered to deal with the blackout,’ he was telling Frank.

  It was mid-July now, unbelievably. We’d been stuck here a whole two and a half months.

  ‘The blackout?’ Frank answered. He looked confused.

  ‘Yes, it’s not nearly good enough. Lights showing everywhere. We never seem sufficiently darkened at night. Something needs to be done about it.’

  Petty Officer Frank adjusted his face into a configuration I recognised. One that said, ‘Really, sir? You’re sure, sir?’ but without letting on.

  ‘The blackout, sir,’ he said. ‘Something needs to be done?’ Captain Kerans flapped a hand. ‘Yes, it does. We need more blackout tarpaulins made. Particularly aft. Stern to amidships. Have a group of men run some up. Lots of them.’

  Frank’s expression must have registered with Captain Kerans as well. Even with the oil, the power was still off by dusk. The nights couldn’t be darker. He cleared his throat. ‘We need to keep the men busy, Frank. All this heat and lassitude is doing morale no good at all.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Frank. ‘Excellent idea for the morale, sir.’ He bent his head to make a note of the instruction in his book.

  ‘And we need to reduce topweight. The ship’s very unstable. We need to strip down anything we can from the decks, particularly the upper decks – including removing some of the masts.’ He stopped then, perhaps noticing Frank’s look of increasing consternation. ‘They can be stored below,’ he added. ‘Again, it’s all work that will keep the men busy, Frank – stop them thinking quite so much about their empty stomachs.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Frank, once again scribbling furiously.

  ‘And another thing,’ said the captain. ‘The anchor.’

  ‘Sir? The anchor?’

  ‘The anchor, sir?’ echoed an equally bemused-looking Lieutenant Hett, who’d just joined them.

  ‘Yes, specifically the anchor chain,’ Captain Kerans repeated, looking like a man not to be messed with. ‘It needs a ruddy good greasing. Clangs about all the time – specially on these high tides. Makes one hell of a racket. Driving me mad, it is. And it’s only going to get worse if that typhoon comes along.’

  He was talking about Typhoon Gloria, a storm that had been building, that Jack had already told me might be headed our way. I’d never seen a typhoon before but felt strangely unafraid of it. With so much on our plates already – not least so much to be afraid of – a typhoon, sent by Mother Nature, seemed quite a benign thing. At least it might help stir things up a bit.

  ‘The anchor chain, sir,’ Frank repeated, scribbling again. ‘Have it greased.’

  ‘Yes, a good quantity of grease and soft soap,’ the captain said. ‘That should do the job, I think. Oh, and while they’re at it, have them wrap it well in bedding. Decent amount of blankets. That should do it. Stop the ruddy thing clanking away and getting on my nerves.�
��

  Lieutenant Hett said nothing this time, but I caught him raising his eyebrows while the captain wasn’t looking, his attention still on the errant anchor chain.

  ‘That’s all, sir?’ asked Frank.

  ‘For the moment,’ said the captain. ‘And as soon as possible,’ he added. ‘Okay, Frank? That’ll be all. As you were.’

  Captain Kerans stood and watched Hett and Frank walk away and down the ladder to the quarterdeck. He was looking very thin, and I wondered if he was eating his rations. Since I’d got to know him, I’d come to realise the sort of man he was, and I wouldn’t have put it past him to have his own food distributed elsewhere.

  And it was then that he looked up and saw me. ‘Ah, there you are, Able Seacat Simon!’ he said, grinning up at me. Then he tapped his nose. ‘Ah,’ he said, mysteriously. ‘Walls have ears, Simon, my lad. That’s the thing you must remember. Walls have ears.’

  I stared back down at him, every bit as confused as his officers. Walls had ears? Perhaps Jack had been right about the marbles.

  Chapter 17

  The 30th July 1949, a day that would prove to be unlike any other, dawned hot and humid, as per usual. The only difference to be seen and felt was the effect of Typhoon Gloria. Though she’d not quite made a visit, she had come pretty close, the result of which was a high tide and fast-flowing current, and flooding on both banks of the river.

  Gloria had certainly made herself felt over the previous week, and in our already difficult straits had added another set of problems. The top of the ship had to be stripped of anything that might be blown away – all the canvas the men had been busy assembling and hanging at the captain’s orders, plus the covers over the guns, and all the other awnings. Then it was simply a case of waiting and hoping. As the wind rose and rose, most of us huddled under some sort of cover – at least grateful for the marked dip in temperature – till the worst of it blew itself out.