The Great Galloon and the Pirate Queen

by Tom Banks

  ‘I think we can close that now!’

  As the gyrocopter pulled away, Stanley reached out and grabbed the latch of the open window. The view below him was truly astounding – they were low over the sea, and the crests of the waves were like white horses galloping along. He stopped to look for a moment, and then yanked the window shut. Stanley breathed out, but there was no time to relax.

  ‘Look, Stanley!’ said the Captain, pointing down at the sea. ‘Look what we would have landed on if we’d fallen!’

  There, only a few dozen feet below them now they were at the lowest point of the Great Galloon, was a great grey shape, shoving its way through the sea. It bashed and crashed into every wave, but seemed to be making good progress nonetheless – it was slowly pulling away from them.

  ‘The Grand Sumbaroon!’ murmured Captain Anstruther.

  ‘And on it, your despicable brother, who made off with your wife-to-be, Isabella, just moments before you were due to marry her!’ said Stanley.

  The Captain gave him a funny look.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Stanley, I know all that. I have thought of little else since that fateful day. But the end is in sight – I will not lose them again. Even in this storm.’

  ‘But the Sumbaroon can dive, can’t it? And get away unseen?’

  ‘It is my belief that the Sumbaroon will struggle to dive for long in this swell – even at the best of times it cannot stay below for longer than an hour or two. As long as we keep track of its course, we should be able to follow it wherever it goes. We will rescue my Isabella soon.’

  ‘Well – that’s good. And then we can have some wedding cake at last,’ said Stanley.

  Cloudier Peele was whooping. She didn’t often allow herself a good whoop, as she did not see herself as the whooping type. Whooping, she felt, was for jolly people in multicoloured clothes. People who might say things like ‘chin up’, and ‘You have to laugh!?’ But whoop she did, and here’s why.

  She was standing in the crow’s nest high up the mainmast of the phenomenally huge flying ship, with lightning crackling all around her, the rain in her face, and the rush of the wind in her hair. The main balloon itself loomed over her like a storm cloud made of dark red canvas. Usually this was enough to keep the worst of the wind and rain away, but today the water was being whipped from the sea below and the clouds above. It was being thrown about by the wind in such a way that there was no dry corner to be found. Her velvet dress was ruined, her book of interesting thoughts was now a mush of soggy pages, but she had given in to exhilaration, and it felt great. She even did a little dance, because no-one was watching.

  She had been here quite a lot recently, spending time with her friend who was a boy, Clamdigger. He too was away right now, but the fact that he might pop up through the lubbers’ hole at any moment, was at least part of what made Cloudier dance.

  As she so often did, she felt a sudden rush of self-consciousness, and sat down heavily on the little bench that ran round the inside of the crow’s nest. She put an eye to the powerful telescope that stood nearby, and peered out. Although she was many feet above the deck, her field of view was limited by the gigantic balloon above, the ship itself below, and the rigging and sails that surrounded her. But she could see the horizon all around, and she peered at it intently. She knew that many members of the Galloon’s crew were out there in the storm, hoping to spot the Grand Sumbaroon, and give chase. She secretly hoped to be the first to see it.

  A small brassbound box on the bench beside her hissed and spat, drawing her away from the search.

  ‘The Squeaking Tube!’ she cried, dramatically, and leaned down to listen, a hand cupped round one ear.

  A tiny voice began to speak from the box. With the cracking and hissing that came with it, and the noise of the storm all around, Cloudier could make out only a few words, but they were enough.

  ‘… ssssss … kkkk … all hands, attention all hands … well, ears, I suppose … fffffftttffft Captain speaking from the observatory … have spotted my dastardly brother … heading west nor’west by starboard, forty degrees at twelve o’clock, occasionally poor, growing fine later … Ms Huntley, you have the bridge … kkttthhfffffsst … turn this damn thing off …’

  The wind in Cloudier’s face blew even harder as the Galloon picked up speed. She knew that, down in the bowels of the great vessel, the Brunt would be shovelling coal into the furnace, to give the Galloon as much power as possible. The lines around Cloudier hummed and whistled as the Galloon raced along. She looked through the telescope again, and saw that many of the flying craft that had been searching the seas were now in formation, gathered around the prow of the enormous ship. Although they were hundreds of metres away, with the telescope she could see the gyrocopter flitting around, the Seagle Fishbane diving and swooping, She could just make out the stripy jumper of Clamdigger, who was piloting the old steam-powered airbus known as the charabanc, and for a moment she allowed herself a daydream of sitting next to him, and tootling off into the wide blue yonder. But she found even the daydream embarrassing, and snapped back to reality as the charabanc dived out of sight. She grabbed the Squeaking Tube and spoke into it as clearly as possible.

  ‘Cloudier to Captain, over. Can you give me an update on the status of Mr Clamdigger, over. I’ve lost visual contact, over.’

  ‘Erm, Cloudier,’ said a small voice that wasn’t the Captain’s. ‘You don’t say “over” ’til you’ve finished what you want to say. Over.’

  Cloudier knew this was Stanley. She waited to see if he was going to say anything else.

  ‘That is, you only say “over” when you’re not going to say anything else. Over.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘I thought it was just the thing you said when talking into a contraption like this.’

  Silence.

  ‘Over,’ she added.

  ‘No – it just means it’s the other person’s turn to talk. Over,’ said Stanley.

  ‘I see. So it’s a way of making sure we don’t talk over …’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stanley.

  ‘… each other. Over,’ she finished.

  ‘Erm. Yes,’ said Stanley, his voice sounding like a little lost mouse once it had negotiated the miles and miles of tubing that now snaked its way all around the Galloon. Clamdigger had realised, during the affair of the Kraken’s Lair, that a way of communicating all around the ship would be very useful, and so he had spent every spare minute since installing this network of pipes, which had quickly become known as the ‘Squeaking Tubes’. It was indeed very useful, but it was taking some getting used to.

  ‘Is the Captain there? Can you see Clamdigger, over?’ she said.

  ‘The Captain’s gone back to the wheelhouse to help Ms Huntley,’ said Stanley. ‘But between you and me we should be able to see most of the outflyers. Yes – I can see Clamdigger. My, he’s really flying that old bus! He’s being thrown around a bit but it looks like he’s trying to bring it low over the Sumbaroon. Yes, he’s aiming straight for it, but the wind is trying to throw him off course! He’s wrestling with the controls …’

  ‘Go on, Clamdigger!’ shouted Cloudier, unable to stop herself. Then, realising she was in danger of losing her cool: ‘Or don’t, you know. Whevs.’

  But she held the Squeaking Tube to her ear nonetheless as Stanley’s commentary continued.

  ‘The Sumbaroon – it’s dipped below the surface – and now … and now …’

  ‘Now whaaaat?!’ squealed Cloudier.

  ‘The Sumbaroon is leaping like a dolphin! And again! It seems to be surfing along on the crests of the waves, and then leaping high, and falling back into the sea! Clamdigger seems determined to stay with it! But … it’s leaping again! It’s jumped right over …!’

  ‘You can’t stop there!’ screamed Cloudier, entirely forgetting to be insouciant, nonchalant, or any of those other things she would never admit to being.

  ‘No! This isn’t that kind of “over”, this is just me saying “It�
�s leapt right over him!” He’s been doused with spray! He’s wobbling! The Sumbaroon has gone – it’s dived out of sight! I think the charabanc has water in its engines! It’s spluttering! He’s clipped a wave!’

  ‘Come on, Jack Clamdigger!’ hissed Cloudier.

  ‘He’s ditched! He’s in the sea!’ cried Stanley. ‘The Sumbaroon is diving out of sight!’

  Cloudier literally put her fist in her mouth as she listened in.

  ‘Stanley to wheelhouse! Ms Huntley! Clamdigger’s in the sea, and he’s in danger! It’s too rough for the ’copter too! We’ll have to stop and rescue him! Stanley to wheelhouse, do you read me? Over.’

  ‘All hands, full stop, please!’ came Ms Huntley’s voice.

  As soon as Ms Huntley had said the words, Cloudier heard movement in the rigging, and a great bell began to clang. The shout of ‘Full stop!’ rang out around the Galloon, and she immediately felt the loss of speed. In fact, it came close to tipping her out of the crow’s nest. She grabbed the Squeaking Tube to steady herself, and heard the Captain’s voice, slightly out of breath.

  ‘What the …?’ he boomed. ‘The Sumbaroon! Ms Huntley, the Sumbaroon must not get away!’

  ‘No, Captain,’ said her mother’s voice, gentler but no less firm. ‘Clamdigger is in danger. We must save him. I have called for a full stop.’

  The Galloon bucked like a mule, albeit a mule the size of a market town, and came to a stop. The wind still howled, the rain still battered Cloudier from all sides, but they were no longer racing before the storm.

  The Captain, too, seemed to have become calmer.

  ‘Yes, Harissa,’ he said using Ms Huntley’s first name. ‘You are right as always. Ask Mr Abel to make the chairlift ready – I will see to Mr Clamdigger myself, and only then will we continue the search for the Grand Sumbaroon.’

  ‘Aye aye, Captain,’ said Ms Huntley. ‘And Cloudier – you can stop listening now.’

  ‘Yes, Mum!’ said Cloudier, taken by surprise. ‘I mean, aye aye, Ms Huntley!’

  She put the Squeaking Tube back into its holder. If Clamdigger was going to be rescued, she was going to make sure she just happened to be coincidentally nearby when he came back onboard.

  Three days later, the Galloon was in the Dumps. Not just figuratively – though there was a certain pall over everything, since they had lost sight of the Sumbaroon – but also literally. The Dumps was an area in the Wide Blue Ocean where the winds did not blow. The storm that had brought them here had died down as suddenly as it had begun. By the time Clamdigger had been plucked from the hull of the charabanc, which sadly sunk without trace soon after, the Galloon was drifting around in a dull grey sky. Its sails were hung out to dry, and crewmembers were clambering all over the deck, flogging the water off with rags and towels. Even the main balloon itself was undergoing some much-needed repair, with teams of harnessed Gallooniers scouring it for rips and tears.

  Stanley and Rasmussen did not get involved in this stuff, of course – although they were always willing to help out in a crisis, they did not like to get too distracted from their main business, which was seeking adventure. Stanley had wanted to start a club called the Adventure-Seekers, but Rasmussen had said that was unnecessarily exclusive, and that they should just remain a loose collective of adventure seekers. So that’s what they were. Over the years they had been friends, they had come close to adventure a few times – Stanley had once seen a flying object that he could not identify, but Rasmussen had soon revealed it simply to be a UFO. Rasmussen once thought she’d found a ‘secret door’ map, but owing to a spelling error it had turned out to be a ‘secret doormat’, which wasn’t nearly as exciting. They had wiped their feet on it anyway, but there the adventure had ended. Other than that, they had spent most of their time together just battling monster moths, discovering robot stowaways, and abseiling through a snowstorm onto a live volcano. Rasmussen for one was getting sick of it.

  ‘All I ask for is an adventure!’ she moaned.

  ‘There was that time you fell off the Galloon, and the Captain had to rescue you with a boat hook,’ said Stanley.

  ‘Yes, while people were firing cannonballs at us,’ said Rasmussen, ‘but I mean proper adventure, with derring-do, and ne’er-do-wells all over the place!’

  ‘What are those things?’ asked Stanley.

  ‘I don’t know!’ shouted Rasmussen. ‘I’ve never met a derring-do, or been involved in a ne’er-do-well of any sort!’

  ‘Well, we’ll just have to keep an eye out,’ said Stanley.

  They were sitting in Stanley’s little room, on a lower deck of the Galloon. They had pushed the furniture to the sides of the room, and copied out a map of the Wide Blue Ocean in chalk on the floorboards. They were trying to work out where the Grand Sumbaroon of Zebediah Anstruther would have got to by now. The Captain himself had gone into full cursing and glowering mode, stomping around the Galloon, calling meetings with Ms Huntley, Skyman Abel and the other senior people onboard, but barely speaking to anyone else. He could be seen once a day sweeping into the mess to grab a lunch tray, but then he would storm off to his cabin to eat in peace.

  ‘Look,’ said Rasmussen, idly swinging her foot towards the spot on their impromptu map marked ‘The Dumps’. ‘We lost him here, right?’

  ‘Yeees,’ said Stanley, rolling his eyes at the idea of Rasmussen going through all this for the nine hundredth time that morning.

  ‘And he was heading this way, right? Towards Long-night Island?’

  ‘You know he was,’ said Stanley, pouring himself another cup of tea.

  ‘But he was underwater, and by the time the storm had lifted, we couldn’t see him. Even Fishbane had lost the trail.’

  ‘Yes – but the Grand Sumbaroon is still damaged from its run-in with the great whale. It can’t stay below for more than an hour. If he’d doubled back, we would have seen him. So, as the Captain has people in every harbour on Havnabruck, and there’s nowhere to the south for Zebediah to go, he must be at Long-night. But we can’t follow him, because we’re stuck in the Dumps, with no wind. We just have to wait.’ Stanley slurped his tea, and picked a book off the shelf.

  ‘Who says he can’t go south?’ said Rasmussen, scratching a mark through the chalk with her mother’s cane.

  ‘Have you never paid attention in a Geography lesson!?’ said Stanley.

  ‘I’ve never been to a Geography lesson. But look at the map.’

  Stanley looked at it. Especially at the new scratch that Rasmussen had made. A deep, long scratch through the green of the Baroco rainforest, to the south of the ocean.

  ‘I’m looking, said Stanley. ‘And all I can see is the impregnable forest and enormous cliffs along the whole of the Baroco coast. All the way down to … to …’

  ‘To the Great Brown Greasy Rococo River,’ said Rasmussen, pointing to where her newly scratched river met the sea on the map.

  ‘But … the Sumbaroon couldn’t swim up a river, could it?’ said Stanley. And even if it could, why would it? We’d have it cornered, there’d be nowhere for it to go except deeper into the forest. What would be the point of that? What could they possibly find there?’

  ‘I can only think of one thing that you can find in the heart of the darkest forest, with ancient trees and mysterious civilisations all around,’ said Rasmussen, staring at the map.

  Stanley stared at it too. He slurped his tea.

  ‘Yup,’ he said.

  Rasmussen ground her teeth.

  ‘Ask me then,’ she said.

  ‘But I know,’ said Stanley.

  ‘Just ask me!’ hissed Rasmussen.

  ‘Okay!’ said Stanley. ‘What’s the only thing you can find in the heart of the darkest forest, with ancient trees and mysterious civilisations all around?’

  ‘Adventure!’ said Rasmussen, with a grin.

  ‘Oh right!’ said Stanley with a smile. ‘I was thinking “creepy crawlies”. But adventure is much better. Well done.’

  As they stoo
d up to leave, a crackling noise made Stanley stop in his tracks.

  ‘The Examinator!’ he said.

  ‘No time!’ said Rasmussen. ‘We’ve got to tell the Captain that we’ve worked out where the Sumbaroon is going.’

  ‘But we don’t know … we just suspect. We don’t even know if the Sumbaroon can go up a river! Anyway, why is the Examinator crackling? It’s not lesson time.’

  The Examinator was a large box on a desk in Stanley’s room. It had two aerials poking out of the top, and a glass valve on the side that got hot. In front was a shell-shaped object with ‘Speak Here’ written on it. Stanley used it to communicate with his parents, who were also its inventors. They were back in his home village of Mirrorwater. His mother was a teacher, so he also had lessons over the Examinator every day. But it had never spontaneously crackled into life before. At least, not when he’d been in the room. A light flashed, and a needle in a little dial moved from ‘Nobody There’ to ‘Who’s This?’.

  A voice spoke from the little mesh on the front of the contraption.

  ‘This is Big Dipper, come in? Big Dipper to anyone out there, come in?’

  ‘How can we come in? We are in!’ said Rasmussen sharply.

  ‘Shh!’ said Stanley. ‘She can’t hear you. Who’s Big Dipper anyway? Silly name.’

  ‘Why Big Dipper?’ said a girl’s voice from the speaker. ‘Silly name.’

  ‘There’s a boy and a girl,’ said Rasmussen. ‘She sounds very cross.’

  ‘Big Dipper!’ said the boy on the Examinator. ‘Because we’re big and we dip under the water! We can’t very well go around saying “Grand Sumbaroon”, can we? What would Captain Zebediah say?’

  Stanley and Rasmussen’s jaws hit the floor. Literally, as they both fell over with the shock.

  ‘Who cares what he says?’ said the Examinator girl. ‘I’m even beginning to think he might not be quite the hero he pretends to be …’

  ‘Shhh!’ said the boy. ‘That’s mutiny! Anyway, there’s no-one out there to hear us. Probably for the best, as we won’t be able to get much reception once we’re swimming up the Great Brown Greasy Rococo River anyway. This is Big Dipper, signing out. 10-40 big buddy.’