The Deptford Histories
Page 72
This base remark caused all the prim females to gasp and fan themselves as if they were going to faint. Then they saw the blood oozing from Mulligan’s shoulder and two of them really did wilt into their dithering husbands’ arms.
“If you want the physician,” a bony-faced mouse with a long thin nose began, “he isn’t here.”
“Thank you, matey!” Mulligan replied jovially. “Then I’ll just wait till he returns.” To the chagrin of his fellow snobbish travellers he manoeuvred himself down, sighing with pleasure as his bottom sank into the yielding hessian of the bale.
“There’s uncommon comfort,” he grinned, pummelling the soft bunk with his fists. “I could get used to this. It’s like an emperor I’ll be feeling when this is over.”
Thomas and Woodget were standing at his side and he looked up at them gratefully. “However can an old salt like me begin to thank you two fine fellows?” he asked.
“Just you get well,” Woodget told him, “and next time you find yourself in these parts, come visit me.”
“Who knows,” Thomas added, fidgeting with his red kerchief and impatiently shifting the weight from foot to foot, “you and Bess might be wed by then, if you ever get round to asking her.”
The fieldmouse chortled shyly and Thomas held out his paw to bid Mulligan farewell.
“’Fraid we can’t tarry,” he told him. “Already we’ve been longer than we ought.”
But the grey mouse was strangely anxious that they should not leave him just yet and became most insistent. “I can’t let you pair disappear without sharing a sup of rum with me,” he declared. “I’ve a flask put away someplace; I’ll just take it out.”
“We really ought to be headin’ home,” Woodget began.
“What nonsense are you talking?” Mulligan muttered, carefully unbuckling his pack and rummaging inside. “A fine lad like you wouldn’t decline a drink with a mate.”
Thomas glanced at Woodget and gave him a look that told him they had no time for this.
“It’s already very late,” he said, “and there’s still a tidy walk we’ve got in front of us.”
“All the more reason you should take a tot to set you on your road,” Mulligan answered, blithely disregarding their polite refusals and removing a large leather flask from his bag which he carefully fastened again and kept close by him.
“Not for me, thanks,” Thomas said as the seafarer pulled out the cork with his teeth. “I had my first taste of something similar this night and I’ve no wish to try any more. We really have to go!”
With the flask in his outstretched paws. Mulligan stared from Thomas to Woodget and a hurt expression crossed his whiskered face.
“It’s real offended I’ll be if you don’t accept what’s offered,” he breathed. “Is that your intent—to give me a second wound this night? To be sure this pains me more sorely than any rat bite could.”
Confronted by this, Thomas and Woodget had no choice but to accept the mouse’s invitation.
“There’s my fine young mateys,” Mulligan cheered and he could not disguise the relief in his voice. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me and be so harsh.”
Thomas took the flask from him and lifted it to his lips. He had the uneasy feeling that Mulligan was deliberately trying to prolong their stay, but he was determined that as soon as they had taken one drink then he and Woodget would most certainly depart. As he tilted back his head, a rich exotic smell rose up from the flask—filling and burning his nostrils—then Thomas drank.
Almost immediately he was coughing and spluttering. The rum was nothing like Old Vetch’s brew; it was far stronger and he leaned against the bale wheezing and gasping.
“I’ll bet that warmed your innards,” Mulligan laughed, “and set a fire raging in your veins.”
By this time Thomas had given the flask to Woodget and now it was the fieldmouse’s turn to squeak and choke.
Mulligan regarded them happily as he took his turn at the rum and gulped down a great swig.
“What I still don’t understand”, Thomas began when the breath returned to his lungs and he found his voice once more, “is why those villains out there were after you in the first place—I mean, what did they want?”
Mulligan paused in wiping his mouth and he wavered for a moment before answering. “Isn’t that the strangest occurrence?” he replied. “For here’s me with only my few worthless bits an’ pieces, and look how those bloodthirsty devils were set on cutting my throat. I tell you, lad, the world is growing stranger every day. Mind you—no one can fathom the workings of a rat’s worm-eaten brains. Like as not it was with someone else they’d muddled me.”
Thomas was still not convinced but he let it pass and declared that now they really had to leave.
“What?” Mulligan asked. “Not stay for just one more tot?”
“It’s very kind,” Thomas answered, but his anxiety to return to the quayside had mounted to near panic, “but no, this time we really must go. Come on, Woodj.”
Mulligan looked at them squarely and he cocked his head as if he was listening for something, then a broad grin lit his face. “Well, go with my blessings on you,” he told them. “You’ve made a true friend this night, so you have.”
Woodget held out his paw in farewell but at that moment, without warning, the deck lurched under him and he stared wildly at Thomas.
“Oaks and ivy!” he cried. “What is it?”
Thomas scowled as the ship tilted again and in horror he realised that what he had feared had indeed come to pass.
“She’s set sail!” he yelled. “Quick, Woodj—before it’s too late!”
Frantically, the two mice pelted from the cotton bales, too filled with anguish and urgency to take their leave of Mulligan.
Sitting upon the soft hessian, the seafarer chuckled mildly to himself as they scurried down the steps, and gave his belongings a thoughtful pat.
“Weren’t nothing else I could do,” he murmured severely to himself. “There’s more at stake here than some paltry romance, so there is. The poor young lad’ll get over it—if he comes through this perilous business.”
Recorking the flask, the grey mouse was at last able to consider all that had happened that night and his face grew extremely grave and stern.
“The road ahead will be hard and deadly,” he breathed. “All that matters is to keep the fragment from the enemy’s grasp.”
Over the slumbering bodies of mice—young and old—Thomas and Woodget leapt until they were in the central road once more. Blundering past those creatures foolish enough to get in their way, they knocked them to the deck—heedless of the yelps and angry cries which rang out in their wake.
“Hurry!” Thomas bawled over his shoulder when the fieldmouse began to lag behind.
Woodget was running as fast as he could and when they reached the edge of the cargo crates where the rats were gathered, their sprawled filthy figures no longer held any fear for him. Even when he accidentally stomped on one of the tails which snaked over the dusty boards and the rat let out a deafening yowl, he did not pause in his flight.
The thought of Bess was filling his mind—nothing else mattered. He had to see her. Yet even as he followed Thomas up the narrow sloping passage which led to the upper decks his spirits were sinking. The gentle rocking movements of the ship and Thomas’s ominous words struck a miserable chord in his heart and a chill dread was creeping over him.
“Hoy there!” roared the bosun when they stormed by him as he trotted down. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Desperately, Thomas scrambled onto the upper deck where he darted to the side of the ship and stumbled to a halt.
In a few moments Woodget joined him and they both stared out across the dark water in utter dismay.
The Calliope had left the harbour and was already sailing over the open ocean. To the mice’s distress, the little Cornish town was now only a glittering hoard of amber jewels shining in the distance and Woodget shivered violently.
Thomas hung his head. “Even if you could swim,” he began sorrowfully, “it’s too late. You’d never reach the shore—we’re too far out.”
“Then, what will become of us?” the fieldmouse breathed in a small and defeated voice. “Won’t we never get home?”
Thomas gazed at him and knew how crushed his little friend was. “Course we will,” he answered, rousing a little. “Ships don’t go sailing round and never stop. As soon as this vessel puts into a port we’ll hop off and find another to ferry us back.”
“Really?” Woodget asked, putting his paw to his eyes to check the brimming tears. “Is you telling the truth, Tom?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Woodj,” came the sincere reply. “You just remember this—it was me who got you into this fix so I’ll not be easy till I deliver you safe and sound to your Bess. Rely on Thomas Stubbs, Master Pipple, he’ll never let you down—ever.”
The fieldmouse smiled faintly then rested his chin on his paws as he stared bleakly out at the dwindling lights in the distance.
“Hope it don’t take long,” he muttered. “She’ll get so worried—not a good worrier, Bess ain’t.”
Thomas put his arm about his friend and let his eyes drift upwards, up to where the stars blazed with a cold, white fire.
He had never seen them burn so brilliantly before and despite the predicament he was in, found himself dazzled and rendered speechless by their beauty.
At his side Woodget remained unmoved, for his thoughts were elsewhere. The enveloping darkness was but a mirror of his own feelings and he wondered how many days or weeks would pass before he found himself treading familiar paths with the mouse maiden at his side.
Under the great awning of night the Calliope journeyed, further from the coast until the craft was lost from sight altogether and a complete blackness closed about it. Only the silver-flamed splendour of the springtime stars punctuated the devouring dark and to Thomas it seemed as if the sea fell away beneath them and the ship rose silently, with a noble and dignified grace, up into the heavens—to sail amid the celestial and everlasting lamps.
Thomas’s first voyage had begun.
Yet in the hold of the Calliope, amidst the weary travellers and masquerading as one of their number, something evil was stalking. With watchful eyes and a black soul consumed with malice, the figure passed between bunks and berths, seeking out the one who had thwarted his followers upon the quayside.
A lust for death and slaughter boiled behind those unwavering eyes. Somewhere in that labyrinth of wood and bale, the object of his hatred was resting, no doubt congratulating himself on his escape. But from the nightmare which prowled stealthily through that meandering, unsuspecting warren there could be no deliverance. An end was coming, the final throe in the unrelenting agonies of the world was close at hand and no one, certainly not an ageing mariner, could prevent that. The time of the usurping Green was nearly over and the ancient shadows were already lying heavy over eastern shores. The terror of the Dark Time was rising, that which had been cast out in ages past was nigh.
The night deepened and, unaware of the black fate which lay ahead, the Calliope journeyed on—towards the awaiting doom.
4 - Steeped in Venom
In the days that followed, Thomas saw little more of the watery world outside, for that first night when his wonder at the beauty surrounding him had waned, he had begun to feel queasy.
With an almost green pallor, he had spent three days down in the hold, groaning at the slightest movement of the ship and feeling thoroughly miserable.
“It’s the sea-sickness all right,” a hearty Mulligan had told Woodget. “Nowt for it but to let him squirm and suffer with it; seen the condition a hundred times afore—the malady’ll right itself as soon as he finds his sea legs. Mind you, some folk never do. A fine mariner he’s proving to be.”
The fieldmouse had stayed by his friend’s side for all of the first day but by the evening he had grown restless and, when Thomas had fallen into an uncomfortable slumber, he decided to investigate the hold a little more.
There was no more room by the cotton bales so he and Thomas had been forced to take what quarters they could find and eventually discovered a warm berth amongst a veritable hill of large wooden barrels bound about with hoops of iron.
From the midst of these, Woodget crept and stretched his arms wide. Before him wound an alleyway walled by great oaken chests, intersected by many tapering ravines that were too narrow and cramped to sleep in but which served as handy back routes to other parts of the hold.
Woodget did not dare attempt to explore any of those just yet for he was certain he would get lost in the connecting canyons; they were still like one gigantic maze to him. So, keeping to the familiar path, he set off and his heart was light.
Gone was the misery of the previous night. The fieldmouse was not one to wallow in self-pity and, since there was nothing he could do to speed up his return home, he had resolved to learn as much as he could about his fellow travellers—looking forward to the day when he could recount their tales and histories for Bess’s delight.
“First off I’ll have another word with Mulligan,” he told himself, “see if’n that physician who tended his shoulder hasn’t got summat to ease poor Tom’s tum.”
Wandering through the alley, Woodget headed for the hold’s central trackway. Passing beneath a wide pillar that reached all the way to the dark heights of the ceiling, he was astonished to discover that a family of dormice had built a neat nest around a series of pipes that ran the length of the towering column.
Three timid faces were poking out of the twiggy entrance and regarded him meekly. Woodget tried to remember the correct way to greet these distant cousins and nodded his head three times.
“How do up there!” he called. “That looks like a cosy home—a bit like the ones we make in my field. Did you lug them sticks an’ straw all this...” but the dormice had already disappeared inside and the nest trembled as they shivered within.
On the timbers below, the fieldmouse chuckled and shrugged. No doubt he would get acquainted before the journey was over. There were still many hundreds of other folk to meet.
“Wouldn’t bother with them if I was you, Titch,” came a croaking voice. The sound was so unexpected that Woodget jumped and looked about him.
“Dormice ain’t good fer anythin’,” the voice continued. “All they ever talks about is the state of their sweaty old nests and if you’re real unlucky they’ll recite the roll of their ancestors at you. Bore the prickles off a hedgepig, that would.”
Woodget squinted into the darkness that obscured the entrance to one of the narrow ravines and, amongst the shadows a little distance away, he thought he could just make out the tall silhouette of a rat.
Woodget’s throat dried and he caught his breath as he began to edge away. From somewhere inside of him he knew that here was another of that foul race who would not be cowed by mere angry words and shaking fists.
“And where might you be a-going?” the cracked voice flowed from the darkness. “Off to see that peg-leg chum o’ youm? I’d be careful if I were you, Titch. I done heard odd tales about that one. More to him than meets the eye or I’m no judge, and what do you suppose he keeps in that bag of his, the one he guards and binds so close to him the whole time?”
With that the rat shape stirred and took several steps closer to the opening but still remained hidden in the dim gloom, immersed in the concealing shade.
Woodget glanced back nervously, wondering if the creature would suddenly rush out at him, and he bit his lips as he tensed himself, preparing to run.
“Don’t you be afeared of old Jophet now,” the voice drawled at him. “He never does no one no harm, not unless they threaten him first, o’ course.”
“Why are you lurkin’, an a-hidin’—creepin’ up on folk?” Woodget demanded in a fr
ail voice. “Why aren’t you with the rest of your kind? Go... go pick at the slime and stink of your wormy fish gruel.”
“Happen I got tired of their company,” came the hissed reply. “That’s not to be amazed at, for they don’t have an ounce of sense betwixt ’em. Jophet wanders where he will and won’t be quartered nor shown no boundary. “’Tweren’t my intent to scare you though, my tiny friend.”
“I ain’t scared!” Woodget rallied, not very convincingly. “And I ain’t your friend!”
“Then you ought to be,” the dark shape uttered softly. “A green-eared fellow like you don’t have the first notion about the wild world. There’s terrors out there to wither your tail and staunch the blood in your veins. Were I to tell you half the yams I heard or the foes I seen, you’d jump straight into the gurgling deep and drown yourself stone dead rather than face them. Be warned, Titch, and put your faith in no one—’specially not that soused old peg-leg. Lead you in a deadly dance, the halt-footed one would.”
Even as he spoke, there came the sound of footsteps and the lamplight in the alleyway where the fieldmouse stood flickered. The croaking voice was silenced and Woodget turned from the dark ravine to see who was approaching. With a smack of his tail against the crates, the shadowy rat turned about in the cramped passage and scooted off into the distance—vanishing into the dark.
Woodget rubbed his eyes, unsettled by the things the unpleasant creature had said, but he did not dwell on them for long.
“Broken biscuits!” cried a much lighter voice which, compared to the croaking tones of the rat, seemed to Woodget like the sound of clean spring water trickling through a parched and stony ditch.
“You’d best find them what knows, Dimmy,” it went on. “Find ’em quick an’ tell ’em like. How come they aren’t a doing summink about it? Oh deary dear! We’ll never be getting nowhere if it goes on. Aunty was right—as sure as birds got beaks and slugs is stickier ’n lickrish.”