by Tom Banks
‘Yes, Captain Meredith.’
‘Can you move?’ asked Rasmussen.
‘Yes, Rasmussen,’ said the Brunt, and he walked round in a little circle to show them. He could indeed move comfortably, although woe betide anyone who stood nearby as a cloud of hot ash and cinders blew up about him as he went.
‘Then let us head out on deck – we’ve been travelling at full sail for some time now, and I think with these following winds, we should be able to see the Chimney Isles approaching.’
And indeed they could – a short while later, as Stanley, Rasmussen, the Brunt and Captain Anstruther stood at the prow of the ship, they could see jagged mountain peaks reaching up from the icy waters. The Captain must have given orders for the Galloon to lose height, as it was closer now to the water than Stanley could ever remember it being, and it looked to him as if some of those mountain peaks would loom over them if they got much closer. From each volcanic island, a column of smoke rose high in the air before dissipating in the strong winds.
From far behind them, the sound of revelry could be heard, as the Grand Winter Ball was still in full swing. Party-goers were now spread out around the decks of the Great Galloon, and their arrival had given one young couple the fright of their lives, as they lay out on Claude’s head, looking up at the stars.
‘The Chimney Isles!’ said Stanley, and beside him the Captain grunted agreement.
‘Yes, lad. And there, dead ahead, is the one known as “Kraken’s Lair”. We’ll be there before long.’
‘Why is it called …?’ Rasmussen began to ask, but her question was interrupted by a deathly scream, which would have given them the screaming heebie-jeebies if they hadn’t met Fishbane before. He swooped in and landed clumsily on the taffrail ahead of them, which was the final straw for the young couple. They clambered over the rail, apologising as they went, and disappeared back towards the party. Not a moment too soon, as Fishbane let go with his trademark long white squirt of poo just where they had been lying.
‘Fishbane!’ cried the Captain, with genuine delight. ‘What news? Have you seen it? Have you found the token? Seen my dastardly brother? Tell all!’
‘And how is Cloudier?’ asked Rasmussen, at which the Captain jumped visibly.
‘Egad! Of course! How’s the young lookout? Keeping out of danger, I hope?’ he cried.
At this, the Seagle, unable to make himself understood any other way, shook his head frantically.
‘Not out of danger? In danger?’ snapped the Captain.
The Seagle nodded and pointed a wing towards the Kraken’s Lair.
‘You don’t mean …?’ yelped Stanley.
Fishbane nodded.
‘You can’t mean …?’ cried Rasmussen.
Fishbane nodded.
‘You wouldn’t mean …?’ roared the Captain.
Fishbane nodded.
‘What do you mean, large bird?’ said the Brunt.
‘Cloudier is in the Kraken’s Lair – and she’s in danger!’ yelled Stanley and Rasmussen together.
‘What have I done?’ said the Captain, and he swung round, so that he was facing the three of them.
‘Stanley, Rasmussen, find Clamdigger. Ask him to prepare the boatswain’s chair for the Brunt’s descent. If we can get you in there, Brunt, perhaps you can protect her. Fishbane, hurry to her and do all you can. I will go and find Harissa Huntley. By all that’s good in the world, may nothing happen to that child. Go!’ he cried.
Everybody jumped to action – Fishbane leapt from the rail and soared away, Stanley and Rasmussen ran off to find Clamdigger, and Captain Anstruther and the Brunt lumbered away to look for Ms Huntley.
‘I hope everything will be okay!’ said Stanley as they went.
‘Of course it will! This is the Captain we’re talking about!’ said Rasmussen.
But, for the first time in a long while, Stanley wasn’t so sure.
Cloudier was running out of poems. It was a habit with her to recite poetry to herself in times of great peril, but until a couple of months ago the greatest peril she had ever been in was being embarrassed at a party. In the last couple of months she had been attacked by monster moths while dangling in mid-air from a rope with no safety net, flown over icy seas in pursuit of a known kidnapper, come within feet of being squished by a Sumbaroon, almost frozen to death on a precarious ice floe, and now she was sitting on a rock ledge halfway down an active volcano, watching the Captain’s brother go about his nefarious business.
Far below her, little figures were standing on the Sumbaroon, scouring the volcano with telescopes, binoculars and similar equipment. Her balloon was wedged against the inside of the volcano, like the ones you find on the ceiling three days after a birthday party. She had not been seen yet, as the Sumbarooners’ focus was looking for the love token, but perhaps it was only a matter of time. She was trying to work out how to dislodge the balloon, and whether she could make it out of the top of the volcano, when something extraordinary happened.
Far below her, she heard a blast of air, and then an almighty splash. The water near the Sumbaroon was a maelstrom of white foam, and as she looked a pair of gigantic tail flukes broke the surface once again. The whale had returned! It clearly had revenge on its mind, as it began circling the Sumbaroon, smashing its great tail against the water, making all the Sumbarooners on top of the vessel rush for the hatches.
‘Hurrah!’ cried Cloudier to no one in particular, pleased to have found another ally.
Immediately though, her attention was drawn to what was happening above her. When the smoke occasionally cleared, she knew it was now a bright moonlit night. She had glimpses of the stars, and some of their light was infiltrating the cavern. But suddenly the stars blinked out completely. The quality of the light in the volcano changed, as now the only source was the orange and red of the lava. Cloudier felt a surge of hope. It wasn’t the smoke that was causing this blackout, as that seemed, if anything, less thick than before. Cloudier could only think of one thing capable of blocking out the starlight over a volcano. She dared to hope that the Galloon had come for her.
‘Look for salvation when the darkness deepens.’
She craned her neck, and saw the Sumbarooners below, some now spreading out in a variety of small boats. A few were taking on the whale, which was still circling and smashing its great tail into the water, and she was pleased to see that so far no one had any chance to start looking for the necklace.
Looking up, she could see nothing at the mouth of the volcano for a while, until her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. She squinted a little, convinced she had seen some movement through the smoke. Surely that was a person? But too big, even to be the Captain. Was she mistaken, was it possible that this was not the Galloon at all, but some hideous contrivance of Zebediah’s?
The figure was getting closer now, and she could make out a cloud around it. A cloud of dust, or ash, which made no sense. Down below, she could hear the Sumbarooners shouting to each other, and she thought she detected a change in tone – had they noticed this newcomer too?
Her heart swelled as the big figure was lowered through the heat haze, past the worst of the smoke, and into focus. It was the Brunt! She had been to visit him a couple of times with Stanley and Rasmussen, and knew that he was immensely kind and strong, but as far as she knew he had never been outside the Galloon in all the time she had been onboard. There was no time for questions, however, as he was getting closer. She could hear the pots and pans clanging about him as he came, and soon he was within earshot.
‘Hello, Cloudier Peele!’ he called, waving a gloved hand.
‘Hello, the Brunt!’ cried Cloudier, happier to see him than she had ever been to see anyone before.
‘I will take you home now,’ said the Brunt, as he came alongside, and gave two strong tugs on the rope.
‘But … but … how are you here?’ she managed to say. ‘The cold … how can you?’
‘Stanley and Rasmussen made me a Stay-Hot Sui
t!’ He grinned. ‘Be careful!’
Saying this, he reached out and plucked Cloudier from her basket as if she were no heavier than an egg, and held her at arm’s length, so that she wouldn’t touch any of the scalding-hot metal about his person. Immediately, despite being dangled in the air hundreds of feet above a lake of molten lava, Cloudier felt safer than she had felt in days. The Brunt tugged twice more on the rope, and they began to ascend.
‘Wait!’ shouted Cloudier. ‘What about the love token? He needs it to keep the Galloon safe!’
‘The Captain says, “Bring back Cloudier. Forget necklace,” Cloudier.’
‘But … his bride … the Galloon …’ stuttered Cloudier, as they ascended jerkily through the huge space.
Far below, Cloudier’s attention was drawn by a loud crack and a crunch. She looked down, and saw that the whale had rammed the Sumbaroon once again, and had indeed finished the job it started. The great iron vessel was bent like a banana, and many of the crew were making off in their small boats as best they could. Cloudier saw the whale dive, and as it didn’t come up, she thought its onslaught must be over.
To her astonishment, two figures remained on top of the Sumbaroon – one in a large black hat, clinging to a willowy figure in a long white dress. Could it be Captain Zebediah and Isabella? As Cloudier gaped, they seemed to look up and point.
‘I think they’ve seen us!’ gasped Cloudier.
The Brunt gave another tug on the wrist-thick rope that was keeping them up in the sky, and they began to move more quickly. Cloudier imagined Clamdigger turning the hefty winch, but knew that with the Brunt’s immense weight, there must have been a team of strong crewmembers helping him.
‘Look up!’ said the Brunt, in his simple way. So Cloudier did.
There, hanging on an outcrop of rock at the very lip of the crater, where the cold night air met the column of smoke and soot, something gleamed. They were being winched towards it, inch by inch, and Cloudier scarcely dared to believe that it was what it appeared to be, even when they drew level with it.
Hanging on a little jagged edge of rock, where the Captain had accidentally dropped it many moons before, was the lost love token of Captain Meredith Anstruther. It was a simple task for Cloudier to reach out, grab it, and wrap it twice round her wrist.
‘Ha ha!’ she laughed, showing the beautiful thing to the Brunt. ‘We found it!’
‘Yes, Cloudier,’ said the Brunt, but the look on his face told her he was as elated as she was. Catching her eye again, the Brunt jerked his head skywards.
Cloudier’s breath left her as she took in the immensity of the Galloon, hanging in the sky over the Kraken’s Lair. The keel of the thing, encrusted with cloud barnacles like sharp little mountains in themselves, was only a few dozen feet away, but that meant they were still hundreds of feet below the level of the main deck, where Clamdigger was toiling to bring them onboard. Far off in front, Cloudier could make out Claude’s enormous feet, and way astern, the system of rudders and ailerons that allowed the Galloon to be steered through the sky. In between just a huge, bulbous expanse, like the underside of the whale, only hundreds of times as huge.
The Brunt, still holding Cloudier at arm’s length, to keep her safe from his heat pans, began to look worried as the cold night air hit.
‘We’ll soon be back onboard, and we’ll be heroes!’ called Cloudier. ‘Then you can get straight back down to the furnace to warm up.’
‘Yes, Cloudier,’ said the Brunt, as the juddering rope brought them up through the mouth of the volcano for the first time, and out into the great crater at its peak. Snow lay on the ground, even this close to the blistering heat below.
Cloudier knew that keeping the Galloon so steady must have been nigh on impossible, and she was not surprised to see that, now they were clear, the great ship began to drift slightly, so that as well as being pulled up through the sky, they were floating now across the snowy, rocky landscape. It would have been beautiful if it weren’t so terrifying, and she just wished they were safely back onboard.
But these thoughts were interrupted by a stinging slap on the side of her face. Then another jolt, as something cold and wet hit her in the back. She twisted round, and to her horror saw a detachment of Sumbarooners, who had been left up here as lookouts, throwing snowballs at them as they dangled helplessly. She looked at the Brunt, just as a snowball hit him smack in the eye, and another clanged against a casserole dish full of cinders, and turned to slush with a hiss.
‘Cold!’ cried the Brunt, in genuine distress, and Cloudier was mortified to feel his grip slacken around her. More snowballs hit her, and she could see that there was now quite a gathering of Sumbarooners on the lip of the crater.
Still they were rising, but it seemed to Cloudier that something was wrong – perhaps the mechanism was not strong enough to carry both of them, or perhaps there wasn’t room for enough people to help with the winching. They seemed to be slowing down just as they needed to get out of trouble. Snowballs were landing thick and fast now, and while it was irritating for Cloudier, it could be deadly for the Brunt.
A big sloppy snowball hit him square in the face, and another landed on his neck and went down his collar. Some of his metal warming pans were now covered in snowballs, and rather than melt straight off, they were beginning to stick. Looking down, Cloudier saw to her dismay that they were moving closer to the crowd of Sumbarooners on the crater’s edge, and that there were now a couple of dozen men and women there, with more arriving all the time. One seemed to be wielding a long boathook, and they would soon be in range of it. Cloudier winced as more snowballs hit, and she knew this was no coincidence – the Sumbarooners knew just how dangerous this could be for the Brunt.
‘Cold, Cloudier …’ said the Brunt, and she saw that his head-warmer had been knocked clean off by the torrent of snowballs.
‘Come on, Clamdigger!’ said Cloudier through gritted teeth, but as she did so, the rope stopped, then let them down a few feet. Still being held at arm’s length, Cloudier felt the Brunt’s grip begin to fail.
‘No! The Brunt! Think warm thoughts!’ she called, but to her horror they were now within range of the boathook-wielding Sumbarooner. He was standing on the shoulders of another man, and as Cloudier kicked and tried to twist away, he managed to get a purchase on one of the Brunt’s big fish-kettle footwarmers. He yanked and tugged, and there was nothing Cloudier could do to stop him pulling the outsize shoe off and throwing it down into the snow. The Brunt looked terrified as the boathook wielder got hold of his other foot, and began to denude that too.
‘Hold on, Cloudier!’ he cried, as he lifted her into a position from where she could hold onto the rope herself, rather than rely on his grip. He began to kick out with his feet, but the Sumbarooners were wily enough to stay out of the way, while still pelting him with snowballs.
Cloudier cried out as the boathook man got hold of the ropes tying pans and pots to the Brunt’s left leg, and began to pull for all he was worth. Soon three Sumbarooners were clinging to him, and the Brunt was slipping dangerously out of the boatswain’s chair. His immense strength would be no match for any three humans in normal circumstances, but now he was caked in snowballs, and clearly suffering with the cold. With enormous presence of mind, he ripped a huge pan from his chest and poured the hot coals down on their assailants, but they managed to avoid injury, and this left the Brunt with even less heat protection.
‘Slipping, Cloudier,’ he said, and Cloudier saw that he was indeed close to falling out completely, with the three Sumbarooners hanging onto his leg.
‘I won’t … let you … go …’ grunted Cloudier, now hanging onto the rope with one hand, while clinging to the Brunt’s apron with the other. But it was useless – his great weight was now tipping slowly from the harness, and she was distressed to see his eyes begin to roll back in his head, as more and more snowballs hit the exposed areas of fur.
As in a dream, Cloudier felt the Brunt slip from the boatswain�
��s chair, just as his eyes closed. Barely conscious now, he tumbled the ten or twelve feet to the floor of the crater, where he landed with an almighty thump in a pile of snow, the Sumbarooners around him whooping their victory.
‘Nooooo!’ yelled Cloudier, and then distress turned to despair when she looked at her wrist, where the love token had been. It was no longer there. It must have got caught on the Brunt’s apron strings, and was now lying next to him in the snow. The Sumbarooners didn’t look like they had noticed it yet, but they soon would, and it would all have been in vain.
Clinging to the rope, which was moving much more quickly now, Cloudier wept. The figure of the Brunt, lying almost senseless in the snow, was still enormous and imposing as it receded, but as the Sumbarooners closed round it, all seemed lost.
On the deck, Clamdigger, Stanley, Tarheel and Tamp were now manning the winch, but it was slow work. The Brunt had gone over the side, no problem, and they had managed to navigate him into the mouth of the volcano, but after that it had been guesswork, as the Captain stood up on the quarterdeck with Ms Huntley, yelling out occasional orders and trying to keep the Galloon as still as possible, and the winch team did their best to interpret what was going on at the end of the rope. Around them, most of the partygoers were now gathered in a respectful if, in parts, slightly sozzled crowd.
‘Try winding that winch roun’ and roun’,’ said a rotund man at the front of the crowd, not put off by the fact that that was exactly what they had been doing for the past twenty minutes.
‘What was that?’ said Clamdigger to the Countess, who was standing nearby, leaning over the rail.
‘I’ve no idea, Jack – did it feel like two tugs?’ she said.
‘No,’ said Stanley. ‘It felt like an extra weight on the rope.’
‘And now,’ Clamdigger said, looking with concern at the rest of the winch team, ‘and now, it feels extremely light.’
‘My word. Could the rope have snapped?’ said the Countess.
