Jamrach's Menagerie

by Carol Birch

  Comeragh appeared, harpoon poised. The dragon was fast. It flicked round like a fish, the harpoon flew wide and clattered off the edge of the open door – then all so fast I don’t know how, Comeragh was down on the deck and it was running, snapping and slavering, he was pushing himself back, heels sliding, kicking at it, but all to no avail, for it opened its long, crocodile mouth wide and sank its teeth into his leg just below the knee and he let out one almighty scream that brought everyone running. It gave a shake of its head that snapped Mr Comeragh’s head back on its stem, let go and charged through the yelling mob, which spun about as if stirred in a pot and gave chase. I jumped down, saw Abel Roper fall on one knee next to Comeragh, heard Comeragh cursing heartily and steadily through his teeth. I ran with the others. There was the horrible thing with its fat legs pumping and scrambling back along the larboard deck. And then the end came suddenly, as ends do, a flood of hatred, a bursting tide of it that drove the creature overboard. They poured from the hatches and down from their safe perches, a screaming yelling tide which I joined in triumph. We were legion. We came from both sides and it had no chance. Someone loosed the bolts and opened up the ship so we could drive him over, and down he went, sprawl legged and ridiculous, a splayed fool walking on nothing, kicking at the void, then – an explosion, a hole in the black ocean receiving one more offering.

  Gone.

  A cheer went up. We gripped the rail, leaning forward and looking over. He must have sunk a fair way down because it took as long as a few breaths in and out for the great block of his head to punch through. Another cheer. He dived once more, deliberately; then up, the shake of a great humped back, a circle-turn of movement, purely graceful. And away he swam, front legs paddling the wave before him, due northwest on a steady course, away into darkness never more to be seen.

  Tim was beside me at the rail. Dan Rymer stood behind, put an arm round each of our shoulders, breathing ale. ‘There goes our fortune, lads,’ he said softly. ‘There goes our fortune swimming away.’

  ‘How did it get out?’ the captain roared.

  ‘Skipton!’ Rainey grabbed Skip’s shoulders. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ Skip said, with a simpleton smile on his face.

  ‘You were there, I saw you. You let it out, didn’t you?’

  ‘You let it out, didn’t you?’ Skip repeated.

  Rainey struck him hard across the face and he went down.

  ‘Mr Comeragh’s got a nasty bite,’ Sam Proffit said, appearing at the captain’s side. ‘Bloody.’

  ‘Fool!’ Rainey’s boot slammed into Skip’s side. ‘That thing could have killed someone. Get up! Get up, you son of a whore!’

  Still vacuously smiling, Skip shakily rose, one hand vaguely hovering before his brow.

  The captain’s face wore a look of exaggerated calm, but he was tight with fury. ‘Mr Skipton,’ he said, ‘you have endangered the entire ship.’

  Skip laughed, a harsh loud hack that burst from his throat. Blood burst out of his nose at the same moment and dripped down his front and onto the floor.

  ‘Are you mad? Are you mad, Mr Skipton?’ the captain shouted. ‘What have you done? Do you know what you have done? You could have killed someone!’

  Skip shoved his hands under his nose to catch the flow.

  ‘Speak,’ the captain said. ‘What the devil got into you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Skip.

  ‘Nothing! Nothing! You are insane. We should have put you ashore at Cape Town.’

  ‘It was …’ Skip said.

  Mr Comeragh came walking lopsided, leaning on Abel Roper. He didn’t look too bad, but there was a lot of blood on his breeches.

  ‘Mr Comeragh,’ the captain said, ‘this fool let it out.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Comeragh, looking at Skip.

  ‘It told me to,’ Skip said.

  Rainey hit him across the face again.

  ‘Do you realise the value of that creature?’ the captain said.

  ‘Value? Value?’ Skip shouted right into his face.

  Proctor blinked sharp and his voice went up a notch. ‘We have had enough of you, you, Mr Skipton, you have ruined this endeavour. We had succeeded! We were bringing back a great new wonder of the world. Mr Rainey! Put him in irons!’

  ‘By all means, sir,’ said Rainey.

  Funny how things change in a second. Skip burst into tears, no longer a mysterious and irritatingly knowing boy, just a kid snivelling for his ma. His nose ran and his breath piled up in sobs in his throat.

  ‘This is bad,’ said Abel, meaning Comeragh’s leg.

  ‘How bad?’ snapped Rainey.

  ‘Very, very bad.’

  ‘Oh, God in damnation!’ Rainey’s eyes looked hollow. ‘Kill the fool.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Dan, his calm voice in the middle of it all. ‘What happened, Skip?’

  Mr Comeragh sat down on the deck suddenly, and Abel peeled back the bloody cloth. ‘It’s the swelling, sir,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at the captain. ‘That’s what’s got me a bit worried.’

  Mr Comeragh’s leg had blown up like a fat sausage.

  ‘I might want to be lancing that, I might. Looks like a snake bite sort of thing, that’s poison in there, that is.’

  ‘Hurts like fucking mad,’ said Comeragh tightly.

  ‘Nothing to worry about, sir,’ Abel said brightly. ‘We’ll just get you below deck and cut this boot off and you’ll be up and about quite soon. Sam, give us a hand.’

  ‘I thought I gave orders,’ Dan said. ‘No one goes near the beast but myself and Jaf Brown. Why was this boy allowed anywhere near?’

  Not a word. It was me, I let him go there to draw.

  ‘Allowed?’ Proctor turned with a look of outrage. ‘He was not allowed! Surely, Mr Rymer, it was your duty to set a watch upon such a valuable animal.’

  ‘Certainly, if there was a man to spare twenty-four hours a day, but there isn’t,’ said Dan. ‘An order’s an order and should be obeyed.’

  Proctor turned on his heel and walked round in a small circle that brought him back to face Dan. ‘Mr Rymer,’ he said, ‘you and your boys were responsible for the animal’s welfare. The animal has gone. You are the one who must explain this to Mr Fledge. For myself, I thank God the damned thing is off my ship. Damn you, Skipton. Put him below!’

  Henry Cash and Gabriel led Skip to the hatch, him blubbing and wiping his nose on his sleeve. The captain stomped away up onto the quarterdeck, where his plump figure could be seen motionless in morose contemplation of the eastern sea for more than an hour.

  Early morning. A vast canopy of cloud covered the sky in the west, black and slate grey and white. Rough sea, dark grey. Upon the quarterdeck the captain and Mr Rainey. Billy Stock aloft. Wilson Pride in the cookhouse soaking hardtack, Joe Harper carefully mending Simon’s fiddle, Felix Duggan yawning, Yan straddling a spar, a knife in his mouth and a rope in his hand.

  First thing Dan told us Mr Comeragh was still poorly from the bite. Bled a lot, he said. It had stopped now, and Abel had lanced the swelling, but he’d got a nasty fever. Sam was keeping an eye on him.

  ‘Will he be all right?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d say so.’ Dan looked tired. ‘I have to write a report. Know what he told me? Skip?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Said he was taking it for a walk around the deck.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Here, Polly-dog,’ said Tim, and laughed.

  ‘Boys,’ Dan said, ‘don’t worry, you’ll still do well out of this. We never thought we’d find the thing in the first place, did we? You both did well. I shall make that clear.’

  Then he sent us off to muck out the cage. Its open-doored emptiness made me sad. There was the imprint of a long thick body in the straw, the shedded debris of black scales. He was a messy dragon. Didn’t care where he shat.

  ‘No one will ever believe it,’ said Tim, and laughed. ‘That we really caught it. No one will e
ver believe.’

  ‘Jamrach will,’ I said, stooping to pick up Skip’s sketchbook. ‘So will Fledge. He’ll send another expedition.’

  ‘Think so?’ Tim leaned on his broom. ‘Will you go?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ I said, flicking through the pages. Dragons, demons, bars. ‘Depends. Depends what it’s like back home.’

  ‘Back home,’ he repeated dreamily. ‘Feels like a mirage.’

  Oh I wish I was back in Ratcliffe Highway,

  Ratcliffe Highway across the sea …

  ‘Suppose we’ll never be rich, me and you,’ I said, sliding the book into my pocket. It was an easy fit.

  Tim laughed. ‘I don’t care about the money.’ He resumed his sweeping. ‘I was sure I was going to die. I thought, Blow this, if I ever get off this damn island and get home, I’ll never ask for anything more – Jesus Christ, this stinks! – and I wouldn’t. I’ll not be going to sea again, Jaf, but you will, I’m sure. It’s not for me. I’m the man of the family now. I’ll go home and work for Jamrach and keep my dear old ma happy.’

  ‘Still,’ I said, ‘you’ll have some great stories.’

  He snorted. ‘And no one will believe—’

  ‘That we saw dragons feeding on one of their own on an island,’ I said.

  ‘You got a way with words, Jaf.’

  ‘How far could it swim?’ I wondered.

  ‘Pretty far maybe,’ Tim replied. ‘Not that I know,’ and then he sighed. ‘Poor old Skip. Stuck down there. He can’t help being mad.’

  I thought of the dragon in the sea, swimming valiantly back west towards its home. I saw its tough bowed legs walking in the water. How far? Hundreds of miles. It was probably dead by now. All that ancient wildness and power gone. It was just a thing that can die. I saw things die at Jamrach’s. It’s always the same: a light dimming, going out. The only human I knew who’d died was Tim’s dad, and that was just as if an old chair that had stood in the same place for years had suddenly been thrown out.

  ‘Think it’s dead?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe.’ He drove dirty water out onto the deck. ‘I have no idea.’

  I liked to think of it swimming on for days and days, ever westward, landing on a scrap of land here and there and taking nourishment, eating fish, swimming on and on and on, till it finally hauled itself up onto the shore of its own island. Home.

  ‘We shall never see a whale again,’ Dag Aarnasson said.

  Nine bells, the air still and hot. The ocean had a troubled look.

  ‘Why do you say so, Dag?’

  He grinned. ‘Curse of the dragon. So they say.’

  ‘I could believe anything out here,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s gone now.’

  ‘True enough.’ John Copper, soaked in sweat. ‘So, what say we never mention the damn thing again?’

  Billy, aloft, called out. The captain shouted: ‘All hands ahoy!’ I heard the sound of running feet.

  Tim, staring past my shoulder, suddenly had a look of wonder on his face. ‘Oh God, what now?’ he said softly.

  I turned.

  In the west the dark cloud ceiling had a bloated, boiling look, but was luridly bright in one place. From here, a long, white serpent, swaying gracefully, reached down to the surface of the ocean.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Waterspout,’ said Dag.

  ‘Tumble aft!’ Rainey yelled. ‘Every one of you! Gabriel to helm.’

  A forked gash of lightning flickered deep inside the cloud.

  ‘Jump to, jump to.’ Rainey swept us aft. ‘Billy, get down!’

  It was coming nearer, a lovely whirling dreamy thing dancing across the water with furious speed.

  ‘Clew him up, clew him up!’ the captain cried.

  Strange to have to jump and haul when all you wanted to do was be silent and watch. I’d seen many a wonder since I left home but nothing to match this. It seemed as if it ran at us but stopped a mile or so away to observe. It looked as if the cloud was sucking up the sea through a spinning column of luminous mist.

  ‘Main tack and-sheet let go!’ shouted Captain Proctor.

  A huge brightness was like fire in the sky behind it.

  ‘Don’t stand gaping, Mr Linver, jump to!’

  We got her round. It was on our lee. I had a moment to look: there was a massive commotion at the foot of the spout, a brightening, as if a spectral ship sailed there. Then again, the whole thing was like a silver column resting on a silver plinth. It climbed and climbed through the sky like the beanstalk in the old story, like the world tree joining earth to heaven. How big was it? I don’t know. Monstrous. Everything here was monstrous.

  ‘Topsail halyards let go!’

  Then another came, also from the west, a beautiful oyster-pearl column with what seemed like a pale cloud rising within, and then a third, wider at the top like the funnel of a trumpet and tapering down to a place on the water with the appearance of grey fire. These two joined the first. The three stood swaying, sinuous, spinning gloriously on our lee. So beautiful. I never saw anything so beautiful in my life. I could almost say it was worth it all to see a sight like that. First they danced a stately court dance, three willowy girls weaving in and out of one another, advancing, retreating, bowing and bending, coming together to part and circle, deft and elegant in every move as nymphs and fairies but stronger than Hercules. And all the while we ran about settling down the topgallants and tops while the mains snapped and cracked in the growing gale.

  ‘It’s revenge,’ said Billy, ‘that’s what it is.’

  ‘Right enough,’ agreed Felix sagely.

  ‘Don’t talk shite,’ Tim said. ‘It’s weather.’

  We tacked round cautiously. The western sky was bunched and black, full of inner movement. A distant sound of shrill singing came from afar. Captain Proctor’s face was worried, and that worried me. Lightning shuddered in the clouds. Mr Rainey strode about shouting orders, and we nipped about like wraiths, the sky flashing silently every few seconds and lighting our faces, all of us a-shake and agog in the eerie light.

  We were making good progress away when the dance played itself out. The three columns stood for a moment, vibrating finely as if collecting themselves, then, one after the other in perfect harmony, traversed a smooth wide arc and regrouped once more on our leeward side, where with no more ado the youngest – and as it were, the most slenderly girlish – peeled away and ran at us. She came with the roaring of the deluge and unimaginable speed, passing no more than a hundred feet before our stern and raising a wave that rocked us violently and soaked our decks. The wind yanked us round. The sails thundered. A great jag of lightning pierced the west. We struggled with the ship, and as we struggled the second one came, passing after her sister and spinning us round in circles. The decks tilted. The sound of a mountain falling was the second spout, and the sound of sea chests and boxes hurtling around below, the crashing of crocks and pots in the cookhouse, the howling in the rigging. And a great falling about among us lads.

  But it was the third that did for us. While we’d held our own against those two outriders, she’d been gathering, drawing the angry sky into a thick funnel like a gigantic bruised lily flower. The first two ran far away, taking the gale with them. They left us suddenly still, breathless and dumb. Then the sky flashed and she was there, with a density to her, an awesome gravity that stopped the blood.

  The top was like a trumpet or a chanterelle, a horn of plenty from which the massed clouds of the canopy had burst forth like foam. The stem was a mighty trunk, grey, shot through with quivers of lightning, and she stood upon a shimmering darkness on the sea.

  ‘Let go all halyards,’ came the cry, but there was no time.

  She charged. The wind came before, screaming. We should have got away. We changed course, tacked about like a flying bat, but she mimicked us, played Simon Says, turning as we turned, changing as we changed. You’d have sworn there was a brain in that thing. But they do that. I know it now. I’ve spoken wi
th many a sailor’s seen the same or near enough. They chase, don’t ask me how, but they do. I didn’t know that then though, and its dogged stalking pursuit horrified me in more than a merely physical way. I was filled with supernatural dread, as if what came truly was a living monster.

  As of course she was.

  She chased us no more than a mile full-out flying before we were hopelessly outrun and she hit. I flew out of myself. All was unaccountably silent for a second. I was a thoughtless fear unbodied and unbrained, a fleck of foam on my sleeve, a plummeting spar, a fiery salamander tipping a wave of the sea. I was all these things, but I was not me. Me was gone out somewhere, dreaming it all and watching afar. Yet I felt it all – the shock of cold wet air knifing down my throat and singeing my lungs, the sharp throb of a panicked heart in my chest, the warm sea a huge shining coil, dragon green, a tongue licking over the rail. Sound crashed in with the sea. A horrible cry of pain, outraged and childish. Whose? A fiendish roaring, shouting, things falling spear-like around me on the deck.

  The world rolled round and I rolled with it, banged and winded and beaten by the timbers of the deck and the hard outcrop of the tryworks that cracked my knee and sent a fire screaming up into my chest. I fell from there as the world swung all around my head, lurched again, grabbed and hung onto the weather rail.