by Tom Banks
Stanley saw the candlestick juddering across the landing, towards the edge and the nothingness below. He began creeping after it, with one paw over his left ear, and the other clutching the slimy planks of the landing. The candle shuddered along and threw hideous shadows up the wall. Rasmussen cried out as Stanley reached to grab the candle, moving nearer and nearer to the edge.
All this time, the noise continued and made these events look like a very old film, where the characters shake and move too quickly. Stanley reached as far as he dared towards the edge of the landing. Rasmussen had crawled across the planks, too, and now grabbed hold of Stanley’s knees.
Just then the incredible noise stopped, and two things happened. Firstly, Stanley managed to grab the candle and hold it aloft in triumph. Rasmussen shouted something, but he couldn’t hear what she said, as his ears were ringing like the bells at a royal wedding. Secondly, the rickety landing they were lying on gave a creaking sigh and came away from the wall, forcing Stanley and Rasmussen to cling on to the gaps between the boards with their fingertips. A noise like nails on a blackboard filled the air as gravity took hold. Stanley and Rasmussen were sliding down the now sloping platform, towards the near-bottomless depths. Stanley gulped. Rasmussen gave a nervous chuckle, as she often did in times of stress. And then they fell.
By now, Cloudier and the Seagle had reached an understanding. She would sit very still on her cushions, and the enormous bird would stand haughtily on the rim of the basket, occasionally saying, ‘Caw’. So far it was working well, although Cloudier was aware that at some point she was going to have to retrieve her warning poem from the bird’s hooked beak. This was a job she wasn’t looking forward to. So, for now, just the sitting.
Very few people got to see a Seagle up close. They were often seen following the Galloon, but they always kept their distance, and were seen as a token of bad luck by the more impressionable Gallooniers. Able Skyman Abel claimed to have kept a pet Seagle once, which wore a wig and answered to the name ‘Pete’. Looking at the mighty specimen now perching a couple of feet from her, Cloudier thought this unlikely. It was fully four feet high, so it towered over her as she sat back on the cushions where she had fallen. It eyed her sternly, and then swallowed her poem.
‘You’re quite right. It wasn’t up to scratch,’ she muttered. ‘But I must let the Captain know what’s happening. He trusts me and I owe him everything.’
The bird made a noise like a steam train being scraped down a blackboard.
‘Erm. Please may I stand up now, please?’ she said in her best so-polite-she-could-convince-herself-she-was-being-ironic voice.
The Seagle lifted its tail and squirted out a long line of white poo. Cloudier couldn’t help but notice that the poo was whipped away upwards. Even in her slightly panicked state, she knew that this meant the Galloon was in real danger.
‘Erm,’ she added, nervously. ‘If I were to write another note, would you eat that too?’
The bird shuffled its feet and yawned. Cloudier took that to mean no, it wouldn’t eat the note. She reached out very carefully and got a fingertip to her notebook. The bird watched. She managed to pull the book towards her, and slowly opened it at a blank page. The bird made a low gurgling noise and cocked its head.
‘There there, birdie,’ said Cloudier, feeling utterly foolish.
‘Caw!’ said the birdie, and quite right too. Cloudier now took out a spare pen from her pocket. The look in the bird’s eye changed from unblinking indifference to a hungry glare. Cloudier stopped. The bird made the low gurgling noise again. Cloudier had the strange feeling that this was a noise of encouragement. She clicked the lid off the pen, and quickly scribbled a new note.
Dear Captain Anstruther,
I have no doubt you have noticed, but I feel bound to inform you that the Great Galloon is losing height. I will keep this note brief and prosaic, because I am being watched by a big ugly Seagle. He smells of fish and seems a bit mad, but I don’t believe he will cause me any harm.
Yours,
Cloudier Peele,
The Weather Balloon
As she signed the note, the Seagle hopped around the rim of the basket until it was standing directly behind her, looming over her shoulder. It was still making the gurgling noise, and it began to lean ever closer. Cloudier moved to put the lid on the pen, and the tone of its noise changed to one slightly more threatening. Cloudier took the lid off again, and the tone lightened. The bird was now very close to Cloudier’s ear. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the murderous beak reach past her cheek, and gently pluck the pen from her hand. It stood up again to its full height, and let cry another cacophony of screeching and cawing, which made Cloudier wince. She turned around to see it throwing its thick neck back and forth, as if manoeuvring the pen into position to be swallowed.
‘No!’ blurted Cloudier. ‘That’s my best—’
But before she could finish, the bird grasped the end of the pen, leaned right over her again, and began to swish and sway its head around over the notebook. What it was doing was writing, and what it was writing was this.
Meredith, my friend, greetings from the Seagles, Masters of the Four Winds.
I have tidings to make even your blood run cold. You are being pursued by those foul beasts the BeheMoths, attracted by your low altitude and, no doubt, some trickery of your brother’s. You were ever blind to his faults. They will be upon you in hours unless you bring the Galloon high out of their reach. As for Zebediah, my spies tell me he has changed his course – look to the Chimney Isles, my friend. For they are his destination, and your destiny.
This girl is loyal to you and brave, if a bit rude when she doesn’t think she’ll be found out. Sorry I pooed in her basket.
Yours,
Fishbane the Wanderer
Cloudier read the note, her mind whirling.
‘But . . . But . . .’ she said lamely, before mastering herself and remembering her manners. ‘But . . . Fishbane, sir . . . erm . . . you didn’t poo in my basket!’
The bird clicked its tongue, and picked up the message pod from the bottom of the basket. It dropped the metal cylinder in Cloudier’s lap, looked straight at her and winked one red eye. Then it turned, squirted fishy white poo all over her nice purple dress, and dropped into nothingness. Cloudier threw herself at the edge of the basket and looked down just in time to see the great creature open its wings and soar away.
‘Right,’ she said, after a few stunned moments of collecting her thoughts. ‘I’d better get this note sent, and then see if there’s anything I can do to help.’
Gagging only slightly, she rolled the note up and slipped it into the capsule, before settling down on her cushion again, next to her small selection of interesting books.
Stanley and Rasmussen had been falling for what seemed like a week, but probably wasn’t. After a while they stopped shouting, as it didn’t appear to be making a great deal of difference, and they couldn’t hear each other anyway. Stanley peered at Rasmussen through the gloom, her ponytail streaming out behind her as she fell, and, tucking the unlit candle under his arm, signalled in the secret sign language they had developed for just such an eventuality.
What do you think will happen when we hit the floor of the hold? he said with his hands.
I don’t know what we’ll get for dinner. Why do you ask now? replied Rasmussen.
No, said Stanley, still signing furiously. You misunderstand me. Do you think we’ll land safely?
There are twelve of them. But it hardly seems relevant, signed Rasmussen crossly.
Stanley rolled his eyes and decided that, if they ever got the chance, they should practise their secret sign language a little more often.
The advantage of this exchange was that it took both of their minds off what was below them, and moving closer by the second. Stanley saw Rasmussen squeeze her eyes tight shut and decided to do the same.
Despite falling through the air with their eyes closed, they managed to find ea
ch other and cling on. Stanley could feel his ears flapping in the wind and could hear Rasmussen doing her best to hum a little tune, as if she were sitting on the beach with her grandmother, rather than plummeting through the air at a thousand miles an hour, or thereabouts.
And then, just when they felt they would either hit the hull of the Galloon and be splattered like custard or smash straight through and continue falling into the ocean below, something completely unexpected happened. They both braced for the impact, but instead of the solid smack of the mahogany hull, they hit something slightly softer, slightly shaggier, and slightly warmer than they expected.
They heard a gruff, rasping voice say, ‘OOF!’ as they landed, but when Stanley opened his eyes, the darkness was so complete that it made no difference, and he closed them again.
Stanley and Rasmussen clung on tightly to each other and tried to feel what they had landed on. It felt like a warm wardrobe, with arms, covered in carpet, but they knew that couldn’t be it. As whatever it was lurched into a loping walk, Rasmussen leaned over to where she thought Stanley’s ear must be, and whispered, ‘What are we being carried by?’
‘It feels like a hairy hillside, or a cross between a bear and a wall. But I know that can’t be it. Perhaps I should light the candle again,’ said Stanley.
The thing that was carrying them seemed to expand slightly as he said this, and Stanley had the feeling it was breathing in, and therefore must be a creature of some sort.
‘NO CANDLE!’ it said, in the same huge, rasping voice as it had used to say ‘oof’.
‘Okay!’ said Stanley, so terrified that he had forgotten his manners.
‘Sorry. And thank you,’ said Rasmussen, who had been brought up in the best circles.
‘NO PROBLEM,’ said the huge voice, and Stanley had the feeling that being polite was a very good idea.
‘I’m Stanley, sir, and this is Rasmussen,’ he said. ‘We live on the Galloon, and normally we wouldn’t come down here, but we were volunteered to tidy up, and to get food for the crew’s dinner.’
As he talked, Stanley was aware that the huge creature had carried on striding through the darkness. Now they had reached a door. The creature put them gently down on their feet, and heaved against the door with its shoulder. There was a dim but comforting light coming from the room beyond, and a warmth that was welcome after the freezing clouds outside and the draughty dampness of the hold. The light meant that finally they could see the beast that had carried them here, albeit not too well, as he was standing between them and the light. Stanley had the impression of a huge, shaggy, man-shaped creature. He could just about make out two impressive, curled horns like a ram’s on the creature’s head and huge muscles moving over each other as the creature extended a hand.
‘I’m the Brunt,’ he said, slightly more gently than before. ‘And this is my home. Come in, Stanley and Rasmussen.’
Back on the deck, Clamdigger had finally plucked up the courage to tell someone that he had opened a message from Cloudier despite it being addressed to the Captain. He wasn’t sure which was more problematic – the fact that he had opened a message intended for the Captain, the news of the Galloon losing height, or the fact that it appeared to have been written by a bird. Unfortunately, the only person he could tell any of this to was Able Skyman Abel.
‘Hmmm,’ said Abel. ‘Well, of course, the Captain will have to be told.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Clamdigger, impatiently. ‘And very soon.’
‘Of course. Now, let me ask you one thing.’ Skyman Abel was pacing up and down in front of Clamdigger, trying to look important. ‘This “losing height” thing. Is it good news?’
Clamdigger was slightly taken aback.
‘Erm. No, sir—’ he started, but Abel jumped in officiously.
‘Of course it isn’t!’ Skyman Abel was now staring meaningfully at the horizon, but with just the faintest hint of panic in his voice. ‘So it won’t . . . help my promotion, then, if I tell the Captain?’
‘Well . . .’ began Clamdigger, uncertain how to deal with a superior officer of quite such staggering stupidity. ‘If the Captain isn’t told, we’ll all plunge into the sea, and that certainly won’t help—’
‘Won’t help my promotion!’ finished Abel, as if the idea had been his all along. ‘So listen up! I’ve decided that it’s very important that the Captain hears about this, but it’s also very important that it’s not me who tells him. Any volunteers?’
Clamdigger looked around and saw, as he suspected, that he was the only person within earshot.
‘Er. Me, sir?’ he said, resignedly.
‘Good boy! And don’t let me see you being so reluctant in future. No place on the Galloon for those unwilling to put themselves forward.’ Skyman Abel took out a small comb and began combing his moustache unnecessarily.
‘And remember,’ he added, as Clamdigger moved off. ‘If he’s pleased, I’ll take the credit. If he’s upset, you take the blame. Agreed?’
‘Yes, sir,’ agreed Clamdigger through gritted teeth, and then he ran off to find the Captain while Abel carried on preening himself.
A few minutes later, Clamdigger found the Captain alone in the wheelhouse with his foot on the wheel and a chart spread out before him on the table. He was holding Cloudier’s letter up to the light and peering at it intently. Clamdigger had expected him to be outraged, but instead the Captain merely stroked his beard, stared out at the horizon and said, ‘Yes. I had the impression something was wrong, and this note confirms my suspicions. The mountains have been at the wrong angle for a while now, but I can’t get a feel for the damn ship while these noises are changing all the vibrations. Thank you, Clamdigger. This note could be vital.’
‘It was nothing, sir. I thought you ought to know,’ said Clamdigger.
‘Indeed. Though you may find it hard to believe, there are men aboard the Galloon who would rather let this sort of thing go unreported than risk my wrath.’
At this, the Captain gave Clamdigger an inscrutable look out of the corner of his eye, and seemed for a moment to stroke an imaginary handlebar moustache. ‘All we can do for now is lose some ballast and stay ahead of the BeheMoths.’
Clamdigger, for whom this one-on-one conversation with the Captain was a first, struggled to take everything in. ‘What are BeheMoths, sir?’
‘Normally we fly too high for them. They latch onto the ship and the balloons, and cause all sorts of damage. I lost the first Galloon to them. And I’ve never yet found a way to shake them off.’
And that appeared to be all he wanted to say on the matter.
Clamdigger looked through the back window of the wheelhouse, to where the Great Galloon’s central funnel sat, squat and black against the sky. And for the first time he noticed that where usually there would be clouds of thick black smoke billowing into the atmosphere, there was the merest wisp, like a summer cloud.
Oh dear, thought Clamdigger, his mind whirling. That can’t be good.
Although the Brunt tended to speak in short sentences and think long before he opened his mouth, Stanley had the feeling that he was enjoying having company, and through a series of questions they had found out quite a lot about him. The Brunt lived in the hold and had done for many years. He didn’t mind that almost no one in the main part of the ship knew he was there, because he liked a quiet life, and he had all he needed. The Captain let him eat all he wanted from the stores and sleep in this hot little room, and in return the Brunt did a job that it used to take thirty strong men to do. He used his immense strength to shovel coal into the furnaces, which heated the air that kept the Galloon afloat. Without him, they would all sink slowly to the ground, and be marooned. He also helped Cook by finding the barrels and sacks he wanted, and putting them on the food loading platform. He didn’t have to do this, but he had once, many years ago, embarrassed himself by scaring a kitchen boy to tears, and so nowadays he made sure no one had to come into the foodstore. It wasn’t that the Brunt was anti-social;
it was just that he rarely offered anything more than a straight answer.
‘So you live down here all the time?’
‘Yes, Stanley.’
‘Do you ever get off when we stop?’
‘No, Rasmussen.’
‘Do you like it down here, the Brunt?’
‘Yes, Rasmussen.’
‘Do you ever have visitors, the Brunt?’
‘No, Stanley.’
And all the time they asked questions, the Brunt never got impatient or annoyed, but he rarely added any details of his own, as most people would. He moved around his little room with surprising delicacy, finding dusty teacups, wiping them with an old cloth, sorting out a little cracked bowl of sugar and pouring some milk from a big metal urn in the corner into a yellow jug. Finally, after enough questions to make most people snappy and tired, he picked up a battered kettle in his outsized hand, turned to them and said, ‘Tea?’
They both nodded eagerly. Tea was one of Stanley and Rasmussen’s favourite things and watching the Brunt get things ready had made them both thirsty.
‘Follow me,’ he said. He picked up a greasy little oil lamp and left the room. Stanley and Rasmussen looked at each other, hopped off his low bed and followed him out. Together the three of them walked down a long corridor, in a bubble of light from the lamp.
Before they had a chance to ask another question, the Brunt turned aside and pushed through a heavy oak door with iron studs all over it, and ‘Fire Entrance’ written across it in brass letters.
‘Hot,’ said the Brunt, and, from a shelf just inside the door, he handed Stanley and Rasmussen each a heavy leather hood with a thick brass-framed window in the front, like in a diver’s helmet. Once he had it on, Stanley felt as if he was looking at the world from inside a film, although he could hear perfectly and the hood was surprisingly light. Rasmussen looked like a strange little mushroom, especially as her helmet came down over her shoulders and pinned her arms to her sides. He laughed as she bounced off the doorframe and finally made it through the door that the Brunt was holding open.
