The last thing Titch wanted was to let everyone down.
“Good!” replied the admiral. As usual, he hadn’t been listening. “Titch, when I give the order ‘fire’ I want you to open fire on a barrel.”
Poor Titch was shaking with nerves. It was clear he didn’t want to be put under all this pressure.
One by one, the barrels were rolled into the sea.
ROLL
PLOP!
ROLL
PLOP!
ROLL
PLOP!
Soon there were a dozen barrels of gunpowder bobbing around in the water as the British naval fleet approached.
“Titch? Are you ready?” asked the admiral.
The poor private was struggling, trying to ram the gunpowder down the antique musket. “One moment, sir!”
Dotty tried to help by passing him the shot.
“I can do it!” he snapped.
“TITCH!” called out the admiral.
“Ready, sir!”
Titch raised the musket.
“FIRE!”
The private took a deep breath. This was his moment to prove them all wrong. To prove that he could be a hero after all. Trembling, he did something he’d never done before in all his years as a soldier. He pulled the trigger.
CLICK!
Nothing happened.
“Sorry, sir, I’m half-cocked!”
“FIRE!”
BANG!
The force of the blast threw Titch off his aim. Instead of the shot firing across the sea towards the barrel, it skimmed over Woolly’s head, parting her fur…
“HOOO!”
…before blasting a huge hole in one of HMS Victory’s sails.
“You ruddy fool!” raged the admiral. “I’ll have you court-martialled for this!”
“I’m useless!” said Titch, bowing his head in defeat.
“Give that musket to me, Private,” ordered the admiral.
“Let him have another go!” pleaded Dotty.
“Are we at the funfair?” asked the brigadier.
“I had me chance and I blew it!” Titch wailed in despair.
“No, Titch!” piped up Elsie. “You can do it. I know you can.”
She turned to the admiral. “Please?”
The admiral had a soft spot for the girl.
“All right, then,” he huffed. “But there are a dozen barrels and only a dozen cartridges. If he fails, that’s it.”
“No pressure, my love,” added Dotty, somewhat unhelpfully.
The admiral let out a long sigh. “Fire at will, Private.”
Titch loaded the musket, and aimed. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and fired.
BANG!
This shot skimmed across the sea.
KABOOM!
The barrel of gunpowder exploded.
A thick cloud of black smoke appeared.
“HURRAH!” shouted the old soldiers on the deck of HMS Victory.
“HOOO!” hooted the mammoth.
“YOU DID IT, Titch!” yelled Elsie.
“My hero!” added Dotty.
“One down. Eleven to go!” said Titch.
“FIRE!” ordered the admiral.
And another.
Another.
Three in a row.
Bull’s-eye!
YES!
KABOOM!
On a roll now.
Easy.
Final one…
Against all the odds, Titch had hit every single barrel. Now there was a huge curtain of black smoke stretching out across the sea.
“HURRAH!” shouted the soldiers.
“HOOO!” added Woolly.
“SILENCE!” ordered the admiral. “Let’s listen for their ships!”
Everyone on board fell silent. Far off, they could hear the sound of horns hooting and engines grinding.
KERRANG!
There was even the sound of metal hitting metal as ships collided.
BASH!
BANG!
WALLOP!
“Oops!” said the admiral.
“We got ’em!” exclaimed Dotty.
“HOO!” shouted Woolly, punching her trunk into the air in triumph.
“They’re the British naval fleet,” began the admiral. “The best in the world. They’re down but they’re not out. The smoke will lift soon. We must act fast. We need to change course if we’re going to lose them. STARBOARD HO!”
All on board went to work to make the ship dramatically change course to the right. Even the mammoth was getting the hang of sailing now. Using her trunk, she grabbed hold of the wheel, spinning it hard to the right. The ship leaned the other way so fast that the old soldiers tumbled over. Woolly fell on top of the admiral.
“HOOO!”
DUMF!
“OOF!” cried the admiral. “GET THIS GIANT FUR BALL OFF ME!”
Elsie smirked as she and all available hands on deck prised the mammoth off their leader.
“Thank goodness I’m not planning on having any more children!” muttered the admiral as he clambered to his foot. He limped over to the stern of the ship.
DUFF! DUFF! DUFF!
Next, he took out his telescope and studied the sea behind them. The curtain of smoke was slowly lifting. Elsie sidled up to him and Woolly followed. The mammoth was intrigued. She plucked the telescope out of his hands with her trunk.
SWIPE!
“GET OFF THAT!” he snapped before snatching it back. He then turned to Elsie. “Please try and control your pet mammoth.”
“I’ll try, sir,” she replied with a grin.
“I can’t see any ships,” he said. “I think we’ve done it. My goodness, we’ve done it.”
Just then, Elsie spotted a shape poking out of the curtain of smoke.
“THERE!” she shouted.
The admiral put the telescope back up to his eye. “BLAST! One of them has got through.”
“We can’t give up, Admiral,” said the girl.
“NEVER! Now listen up, men! And, erm, woman, and, of course, girl…” began the admiral.
“HOOO!” added Woolly, not wanting to be left out.
“Yes, yes, apologies,” replied the admiral, rolling his eyes. “And listen up, mammoth! One of the ships has got through.”
“OH NO!” came a chorus of replies.
“We have to prepare for the worst. In less than an hour, they will have reached us. We must be ready to be boarded. Men, and, erm, woman, and, of course, girl…”
“HOO!” Woolly reminded him.
“…and, who can forget, mammoth. We have no more shot. The gunpowder is gone. But you must arm yourselves with whatever you can lay your hands on!”
“YES, SIR!” came a chorus of replies.
“Good luck, men, and everyone else not contained in that umbrella term!”
Immediately, the deck of HMS Victory was a hive of activity, as all on board went about arming themselves. There weren’t enough cutlasses to go around, so most of the soldiers picked up brooms and mops.
Slowly but surely, the British naval ship that was still pursuing them came into focus. She was the mighty HMS Argonaut.*
With four huge funnels pumping smoke from its coal engine, the Argonaut was powering through the waves right towards the Victory.
With their makeshift weapons in their hands, the old soldiers were ready for the worst. The admiral approached Elsie. “You are but a child. I think it best you go below deck.”
“Are you kidding?” replied the girl, reaching for a long wooden sail batten. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“We’ll make a sailor of you yet!” said the admiral. He took off his wooden leg and brandished it, ready to do battle. Forgetting he couldn’t stand up on his one leg, he wobbled for a moment before hitting the deck.
THUMP!
“SURRENDER!” boomed a voice over the loud-hailer from HMS Argonaut as it drew up alongside the Victory.
“NEVER!” came a chorus of voices from HMS Victory.
“WE SAID ‘NEVER’.”
“DID YOU SAY ‘NEVER’?”
“YES!”
“SORRY, IT’S HARD TO HEAR. YOU DON’T HAVE A LOUD-HAILER YOU COULD USE, DO YOU?”
“NO!”
“WHAT WAS THAT?”
“WE SAID ‘NO’!”
“THAT’S A SHAME.”
“WE KNOW.”
“SORRY, WHAT WAS THAT?”
“WE SAID, ‘WE KNOW’.”
“THANK YOU. NOW OUR ORDERS ARE TO RETURN THE Ice Monster TO LONDON. IT IS THE PROPERTY OF HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.”
All the old soldiers looked to Elsie. She told them, “Woolly isn’t the property of anyone.”
“OH NO, IT’S NOT!” began the chorus from HMS Victory.
“OH YES, IT IS!” came the voices back.
“OH NO, IT’S NOT.”
“OH YES, IT IS.”
“Are we at the pantomime?” asked the brigadier.
“IF YOU RETURN THE CREATURE TO US, THEN THERE IS NO NEED FOR US TO OPEN FIRE. DO YOU SURRENDER?”
“NO!”
“I AM PRETTY SURE THAT WAS A ‘NO’.”
“YES!”
“SORRY, YES THAT WAS A ‘NO’, OR YES BECAUSE IT WAS A ‘YES’?”
“IT WAS A ‘NO’!”
“THANK YOU!”
“OUR PLEASURE!”
“THANK YOU.”
“NOT AT ALL.”
“THEN PREPARE FOR BATTLE!”
“Cor, that took ’em long enough,” muttered Dotty.
HMS Argonaut inched closer to HMS Victory. The young sailors looked across at the old soldiers. The two groups nodded to each other politely. They were all British after all. Finally, the captain of HMS Argonaut gave the order. “ATTACK!”
The young sailors leaped from one ship to another with ease. They landed on the deck of the Victory, brandishing their rifles.
“CHARGE!” shouted the admiral, as he led his pensioners into battle. The old soldiers were brave, and attacked the young sailors with their cutlasses, mops and brooms.
CLUNK!
CLINK!
CLANK!
They went straight for the rifles, trying to force them to the floor.
Meanwhile, Dotty had found an old tin bucket, and was bashing the young sailors over the head with it.
BISH!
BASH!
BOSH!
Many were knocked out by the force of her blows.
“OUCH!”
THUD!
“OOF!”
THUD!
“ARGH!”
THUD!
Meanwhile, Elsie attacked the invaders by whacking them on their bottoms with her sail batten.
THWACK!
“AH!”
THWUCK!
“AAHH!!”
THWOCK!
“AAAAAHHHH!”
A smile spread across her face. This was fun.
Woolly joined in too.
“HOO!”
With her tusks, the mammoth scooped up a sailor, before dropping him in the sea.
“NOOO!”
PLOP!
As Elsie battled on, out of the corner of her eye she could see a cannon on HMS Argonaut swivelling round. Now it was pointing straight at the mammoth. The captain gave the order.
“FIRE AT WILL!”
“NOOOOO!” screamed Elsie as she put her hands up in the air to shield her friend. The gunner fired, and a huge net shot across the decks of the Victory, trapping the mammoth in its web.
“HOO!” roared Woolly. The poor thing was distressed, and began bucking and thrashing around. The more she did so, the more tangled she became.
“HOO! HOO!”
“WOOLLY! WOOLLY!” cried the girl, trying to calm the creature down, to no avail.
The mammoth lurched across the deck, bashing into people and things.
“HOO!”
She swung round and knocked a sailor to the floor.
DOOF!
“ARGH!”
Another was trodden on by a giant prehistoric foot.
BOOF!
“OUCH!”
A third sailor became tangled in the net, and was dragged across the deck.
“HELP!”
Still clutching his rifle, the sailor’s finger snagged on the trigger. A shot rang out.
BANG!
All was quiet and still on board the Victory.
Woolly was quiet and still too. She stopped thrashing around and stood motionless for a moment, before she keeled over and landed with a deafening THUD.
A pool of blood spread across the deck.
“WOOLLY! NOOOOOO!” screamed Elsie.
The old soldiers and the young sailors all worked together to untangle the mammoth from the net. As soon as the captain of HMS Argonaut had hauled two of his sailors out of the North Sea, he stepped on board the HMS Victory to help.
“I’m so sorry this has happened,” said the captain.
Elsie put her hands over the wound in Woolly’s chest to stop the flow of blood.
“WHY DID YOU SHOOT HER?” she cried. “WHY?”
There was no answer.
“Somebody do something!” she begged.
Dotty put her ear to the animal’s mouth. “I can’t hear her breathing. I’m so sorry, Elsie. I know you loved her. And she loved you. But this is the end of the story.”
“NOOO!” yelled Elsie.
BOOM!
Thunder rolled across the sea. Ahead, black clouds were swirling. A storm was coming.
“Sail into the storm!” ordered Elsie.
The admiral looked aghast. “No. It would be the end of us all.”
“It’s the only way we can save her.”
“By sailing into a storm?” demanded the admiral.
“We used lightning to restart her heart before. Maybe we can do it again.”
Dotty rushed over to where Elsie was trying to stop the flow of blood.
“Let me take over!” she said.
The lady pushed the end of her mop right into the wound, and the flow of blood slowed.
“We can tow you into the storm!” offered the captain of the Argonaut.
“No,” replied the admiral. “It’s too dangerous. You young sailors have got your whole lives ahead of you.”
He turned to the pensioners.
“Men. Are you all with me?”
“YES, SIR!” came the reply.
“Good luck!” said the captain, and he and the admiral saluted each other. “We will make sure is told all about your bravery.”
The captain led his men back on board the Argonaut as the admiral called out his orders.
“Set course for the storm!” The men went to work, and soon HMS Victory was flying into the darkness ahead.
“Elsie?” began Dotty. “Do you know what you’re doing? We don’t have a balloon or metal wire or anything.”
“I know.” The girl choked, fighting back a river of tears. “But there must be a way.”
Her eyes searched the deck of the Victory. At the bow, she spotted something.
“See that metal chain, Titch?”
“Yes!” replied the old soldier. “That’s for dropping the anchor.”
“Put the anchor right next to Woolly’s heart, and then pass me the end of the chain.”
“Right-ho!”
Titch scuttled over to the bow, and with the help of his fellow pensioners he dragged the anchor and chain over to where the mammoth was lying.
Elsie took the end of the chain and wrapped it round her wrist. Then she placed a cutlass between her teeth like a pirate, and with her monkey feet began climbing the rigging.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Dotty.
“The crow’s nest, of course,” Elsie replied, her speech hard to understand thanks to the cutlass in her mouth.
As the ship crashed up and down on the angry waves…
THRUMP! THRUMP! THRUMP!
&nbs
p; …Elsie climbed up and up and up. Once at the top, she clambered into the crow’s nest and looked straight ahead into the storm.
“Come on!” she whispered to the sky. “Give me everything you’ve got.”
All the way up there at the tallest point of the Victory, the rolling of the ship in the waves became exaggerated. Elsie found herself holding on for dear life.
She looked down to see the admiral at the wheel, holding on tightly so the waves didn’t hurl him into the sea. Hard rain was flying into the girl’s eyes. It was a struggle to keep them open. Soon she was soaked to the skin. The wind wound around her, and the clouds skimmed her hair.
“Straight ahead, Admiral!” she ordered.
“Aye, aye, Captain Elsie!” he called back up.
BOOM!
Thunder rumbled across the black sky.
“Come on, lightning!” the girl whispered. “I know you’re in there somewhere.”
As if on cue, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky.
KRAZZLE!
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” called up Dotty.
“No. This is madness!”
“Good madness or bad madness?”
“Good, I hope!”
Elsie lifted the cutlass high into the air.
“But the lightning, Elsie. It could kill you!” shouted Dotty.
“If it does, promise you’ll look after Woolly for me. Make sure she gets to the North Pole? PLEASE?”
“Don’t do this!”
“Why?”
“I love you, Elsie. You’re like a grandma to me.”
“I think you mean granddaughter, Dotty, and I love you too, but I have to save my friend. Promise you’ll look after her.”
“I promise!”
A bolt of lightning hit the front sail, and it burst into flames.
BOOM!
“FIRE ON BOARD!” shouted the admiral as his men struggled to put it out.
“Nearly!” whispered Elsie. She stretched her arm as high as it would go, and closed her eyes.
“COME ON!” she shouted.
A bolt of lightning struck the tip of the cutlass.
“AAH!” cried Elsie as the electricity sizzled through her.
The Ice Monster Page 13
