by Paul Gallico
He was fond of cats, and so Peter was able to spend many a pleasant and exciting hour sitting on the table where Mr. Carluke was writing one of his tales. It was, he told Jennie later, almost as good as going to the cinema. For the little second mate would lay down his pen and quite suddenly and dramatically leap to his feet, clap both hands to his sides in the action of one extracting two horse pistols from their leather holsters, and then pointing his forefingers with thumbs cocked like the hammers of a pair of six– shooters, he would say in a tense voice, 'Dinna ye move, thar, Luke Short, ye no-good hoss thief, or I doot not I'll be lettin' some ventilation through ye with my twa double oction forty-five colibre gats, forbye!' Then he would go quickly back to his desk and write it all down exactly as he had said it, which Peter found quite miraculous. Or he would pick up a kitchen knife and go through the motions of lifting the scalp of an imaginary redskin, and even imitate the sound of the chase when the cavalry came to the rescue by slapping his hands briskly in rhythm against his legs, thup-athup, thup-athup, thup-athup.
Since Jennie's domain was the forecastle where during the night watches she constituted herself a very terror amongst the giant rats which inhabited it, to the delight and satisfaction of the members of the crew who had to live there, she was more familiar with the characters up for'ard and brought Peter tales she had managed to glean of some of the strange people in that part of the ship.
There was, she told him, a sailor who had once been a hermit and lived in a cave for ten years until one day he thought better of it, another who had operated a permanent-wave machine in a beauty parlour in Edinburgh until something had unhappily gone wrong with it and he had toasted a client's hair to a crisp, so that it had all fallen out and he had been discharged, and a third who used to give exhibitions at Brighton of staying under water for extraordinary lengths of time holding his breath.
Through practice and association, Jennie was becoming more conversant with human speech again, and her most remarkable story was of Angus the bo'sun and how he occupied his spare time when not on watch or engaged in other duties. What did Peter suppose he did?
Peter had seen Angus, an enormous giant of a man, whiskered like a Highlander, with arms like the branches of oak trees, horny hands with red, bony knuckles, and fingers as big and thick as blood– pudding sausages. When Peter said that he couldn't imagine what his hobby would be, she told him– 'Embroidering.' He embroidered beautiful flowers with coloured thread on a linen cloth stretched over a wooden hoop. They were really exquisite, for she had spent one entire morning watching him, and so lifelike one could almost smell them.
One of the new men on board had been so foolish as to sneer at Angus and mock him, whereupon Angus had stretched him unconscious on the deck with one blow, and thereafter there was no more laughter. When the fellow returned to consciousness, after several buckets of water, the men had told him that he had been foolish to ridicule Angus, not because of the blow he had received but because he ought to have known that when the Countess of Greenock arrived in Glasgow, Angus took the embroidery to a certain place and received three pounds ten for it.
It was remarkable that in spite of the strange mixture of men, interests and hobbies, the crew of the Countess of Greenock and the officers, with the exception of the captain and the first mate, got along quite nicely with one another and somehow managed to perform their duties sufficiently well to get her from port to port along the coast without breaking down, running her aground or getting lost too often. Jennie said that of all the ships she had travelled on she had never seen a more inept or inefficient bunch of sailors, and naturally with nearly everybody aboard having some kind of sideline or other interest, from the captain down, nobody had much time or inclination to keep the Countess either clean or shipshape. But since Captain Sourlies did not seem to care whether his ship looked like a pigsty, nobody else did either, and so they all lived quite happily and contentedly in the mess. Jennie found it rather distasteful, but Peter being part boy thought it a real lark to be some place you simply couldn't get dirty because it was already so, and he only bothered to keep himself clean because of not wishing to let Jennie down.
But outside of this, Jennie had few complaints to make, and Peter none at all. She had been quite right about the routine aboard the ship. Everyone attended either to his job or to his private affairs, whichever happened to interest him the most, and no one had either the time or the inclination to be loving or sentimental with the two cats. Mr. Carluke would sometimes timidly rub Peter's head a little when he sat on his desk, but otherwise they were left quite to themselves.
It was not necessary for them to eat their kill, for twice a day, morning and evening, Mealie the Jamaican cook set out a pan of delicious food for them—cereal with tinned milk over it, or salt meat chopped up, or a bit off the frozen joint mixed up with some vegetables. They were protecting his stores from the depredations of mice and rats, and he was grateful and treated them with the respect due to regular crew members who were doing their job. In the morning when he came in to make the galley fire he would call down the companionway to Peter below: "Ho, you Whitey! How many you cotch los' night?'
Then he would come and look down to where Peter would have the night's bag of mice neatly laid out at the foot of the ladder.
He would laugh and call down, `Ho, ho! You Whitey, you do good job. I give you and your gorl-friend good brokfost this morning. How you like to have a piece fry bacon?'
Peter and Jennie were on duty at night only, since by day the wary rodents kept out of sight, particularly after the news got around, which it did very quickly, that not one but two cats were on board. They then slept most of the morning after they had had breakfast and met in the late afternoon either in one of the cargo holds amidships, or when the weather was clear and sunny and the sea calm, on deck aft where they could breathe the fresh, invigorating salt air while the Countess of Greenock, pouring black smoke and cinders from her funnel, wallowed close enough to the emerald-green pastures and dark rocks of the English coast for them to see the purple haze of the vast bluebell patches, and, further south, the clifftops dotted with yellow primroses.
But they did not neglect their lessons and practice either, and in bad weather when it was blowing and raining, or when the Countess was held up by fog, they repaired to a clear space in the No. 2 cargo hold where Jennie resumed her labour of love to try to teach Peter all of the things he would need to know if he were to become a successful and self-supporting cat.
CHAPTER TWELVE: Overboard!
USING the smooth sides of a huge packing case as a practice ground, Peter learned the secret of the double jump-up, or second lift, or rather, after long hours of trial with Jennie coaching, it suddenly came to him. One moment he had been slipping, sliding and falling back as he essayed to scale the perpendicular sides, and the next he had achieved it, a lightning-like thrust with the hind legs, which somehow this time stuck to the sides of the case and gave him added impetus upwards, and thereafter he could always do it.
Jennie was most pleased with him, for, as she explained it, this particular trick of leaping up the side of a blank wall without so much as a crack or an irregularity to give a toe-hold, was peculiar to cats, and it was also one that could neither be wholly explained, demonstrated or taught. The best she was able to tell him was: `You think you're way to the top, Peter. You just know you are going to be able to do it, and then you can.'
Well, once the old Countess had taken a bit of a roll in the trough of a sea, and that helped Peter a little and gave him confidence. And the next time he felt certain he was going to be able to do it, and he did.
Jennie was endlessly patient in teaching Peter control of his body in the air, for she maintained that few things were of so much importance to cats. With her he studied the twist in midair from the spring so that once he had left the ground he could change his direction almost like flying, and Peter loved the sense of power and freedom that came to him when he turned himself in t
he air like an acrobat or a high diver, and this he practised more than anything. And he had to learn, too, how to drop from any normal height and twist in falling so that he would always land on his feet, and soon, with Jennie's help he became so expert that he could roll off a case no more than a yard from the ground and still, turning like a flash, whip round so that his four paws touched the deck first and that without a sound.
But their free time was not all devoted to hard work and practice. There were quiet hours when they rested side by side on a hatch combing and Peter would ask Jennie questions, for instance, why she always preferred to perch on high things and look down, and she would explain about the deep instincts that survived from the days millions and millions of years ago when no doubt all cats were alike in size and shape and had to learn to protect themselves to survive. To escape the dangers that lurked on or near the ground from things that crawled, slithered or trampled, they took to living high up in rocky caves, or perched along branches of trees where they could look down and see everything that approached them.
In the same manner, Jennie explained, cats liked to sleep in boxes, or bureau drawers, because they felt completely surrounded on all sides by high walls, as they were deep in their caves, and therefore felt relaxed and secure and able to sleep.
Or again, Peter would say: 'Jennie, why, when you are pleased and happy and relaxed, do your claws work in and out in that queer way? And once back home, I mean when we lived in the warehouse, I noticed that you were moving your paws up and down, almost as though you were making the bed. I never do that, though I do purr when I am happy.'
Jennie was lying on her side on the canvas hatch cover when Peter asked that question, and she raised her head and gave him a most tender glance before she replied: 'I know, Peter. And it is just another of those things that tell me that in spite of your shape and form you are really human, and perhaps always will be. But maybe I can explain it to you. Peter, say something sweet to me.'
The only thing Peter could think of to say was: `Oh, Jennie, I wish that I could be all cat—so that I might be more like you …. The most beatific smile stole over Jennie's face. Her throat throbbed with purring, and slowly her white paws began to work, the claws moving in and out as though she were kneading dough.
`You see?' she said to Peter. 'It has to do with feeling happy. It goes all the way back to our being kittens and being nursed by our mothers. We cannot even see at first, but only feel, for when we are first born we are blind and our eyes open only after a few weeks. But we can feel our way to her breast and bury ourselves in her soft, sweet-smelling fur to find her milk, and when we are there we work our paws gently up and down to help the food we want so much to flow more freely. Then when it does, we feel it in our throats, warm and satisfying; it stops our hunger and our thirst, it soothes our fears and desires, and, oh, Peter, we are so blissful and contented at that moment, so secure and peaceful and … well, just happy. We never forget those moments with our mothers. They remain with us all the rest of our lives. And, later on, long after we are grown, when something makes us very happy, our paws and claws go in and out the same way, in memory of those early times of our first real happiness. And that is all I can tell you about it.'
Peter found that after this recital he had need to wash himself energetically for a few moments, and then he went over to where Jennie was lying and washed her face too, giving her several caresses beneath her soft chin and along the side of her muzzle that conveyed more to her than words. She made a little soft, crooning sound in her throat, and her claws worked in and out, kneading the canvas hatch cover faster than ever.
But likewise, during the long days of the leisurely voyage, and particularly when they were imprisoned in Dartmouth Harbour for two days by pea-soup fog, there was mock fighting to teach Peter how to take care of himself should he ever find himself in any trouble, as well as all the feline sports and games for one or two that Jennie knew or remembered and could teach him, and they spent hours rolling about, growling and spitting, locked in play combat, waiting in ambush to surprise one another, playing hide– seek-and-jump-out, or chasing one another madly up and down the gangways and passages below deck, their pads ringing oddly on the iron floors of the ancient Countess, like tiny galloping horses.
And here again, Peter was to learn that not only were there methods and strict rules that governed play as well as the more serious encounters between cat and cat, but that he needed to study as well as practise them with Jennie in order to acquire by repetition the feeling of the rhythms that were a part of these games.
Thus, Jennie would coach him: `I make a move to attack you, maybe a pass at your tail, or a feint at one of your legs; raise your left paw and be ready to strike with it. That's it. That makes me think twice before coming in. No, no, Peter, don't take your eyes off me just because I've stopped. Be ready as long as I am tense. But you've got to feel it when I've changed my mind and relaxed a little. You can drop your left paw, but keep watching. There! I've looked away for a moment—now WASH! That stops everything. I can't do anything until you've finished except wash too, and that puts the next move up to you and it's your advantage.'
Most difficult for him was the keeping of the upper hand by eye and body position and acquiring by experience the feeling of when it was safe to relax and turn away to rest, how to break up the other's plans by washing, luring and drawing the opponent on by pretending to look away and then timing his own attack to the split second when the other was off balance and unprepared for it, and yet not violate the rules, which often made no rhyme or reason to him at all.
None of these things Peter would have done instinctively as a boy and he had to learn them from Jennie by endless repetition, and often he marvelled at her patience as she drilled him over and over: `Crouch, Peter. Now sit up quickly and look away … WASH! Size up the situation out of the corner of your eye as you wash. I'm waiting to jump you as soon as you stop washing. Then turn and get ready. Here I come. Roll with it, on to your back. Hold me with your forepaws and kick with the hind legs. Harder … harder…. No, stay there, Peter. I'm coming back for a second try. Chin down so I can't get at your throat. Kick. Now roll over and sit up, paw ready and threaten with it. If I blink my eyes and back away, WASH. Now pretend you are interested in something imaginary. That's it. If you make it real enough you can get me to look at it, and when I do, then you spring!'
Jennie had a system of scoring these bouts, so many points for buffets, so many for knockdowns and roll overs, for breakaways and washes, for chases and ambushes, for the amount of fur that flew by tufts to be counted later, for numbers of back-kicks delivered, for bluffs and walk-aways, feints and ducking, with bonuses for position and length of time in control, and game plus one hundred points called any time one maneuvered into position to grip teeth on the throat of the other.
And gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, the scores drew nearer level, and soon Peter found himself winning regularly over Jennie in the training ring they had arranged amongst the crates and boxes in the forward hold. And when this proved to be the case and Peter won almost every time, none was prouder and happier over it than Jennie. `Soon,' she said with satisfaction, `you'll be cat through and through.'
And yet when the tragedy happened it was just as well that Peter was not all cat.
In a way it began when Peter caught his first rat. The Countess of Greenock was ploughing the Irish Sea 'twixt the Isle of Man and the Cumberland coast, close enough inshore that one could see the peaks of the Cumbrian mountains inland, shining in the sun. The ocean was flat, calm and glassy, and the only cloud in the sky was the one made by the black smoke poured forth by the Countess and which, due to a following breeze over the surface, she carried along with her over her head like an untidy old charwoman shielding herself from the sun with an old black cotton umbrella. They were on the reach between Liverpool and Port Carlisle on the Scottish border and Captain Sourlies was in a great hurry to make it before nightfall, which was w
hy the Countess was under forced draught, emitting volumes of soft-coal smoke and shuddering from the vibrations of her hurrying engines.
Peter had an appointment with Jennie on the after-deck at six bells of the early afternoon watch, or three o'clock, for he had quickly learned to tell the ship's time from the strokes of the bell struck by the look-out on the bridge. This was always a kind of do-as-you-please time aboard the Countess, for then Captain Sourlies would be taking his afternoon nap in his cabin, Mr. Carluke, torn from his latest literary composition, which he was calling The Bandit of Golden Gulch, was on duty on the bridge, and everybody else followed his hobby or loafed by the rail or snoozed in the sun. And since Mr. Strachan, the first mate, still had a badly aching arm from the stitches taken in it, his dummy lurked in a corner in disgrace and the red-haired mate on this day was yarning with Mr. Box, the carpenter, about an episode that had happened to him in Gibraltar during the war, and as proof produced an 1890 Queen Victoria copper penny that he had happened to be carrying on his person at the time of the adventure.
Jennie was already dozing in the soft spring sunshine, squatted down atop the stern rail. She like to perch there because it was fairly high and gave her an overall view and also to show her superiority, for every one was always prophesying that some day she would be knocked or fall off from there into the sea. But of course there never was a cat more certain or surefooted than Jennie Baldrin.
