The Great Galloon

by Tom Banks

  ‘Mr Lungren,’ said Rasmussen. ‘Good idea.’

  But before the orchestra came to a natural halt, the hideous rumbling noise came again. And it was, again, louder than ever. Both of them dropped to their knees on the stairs and covered their heads. Through watering eyes, Stanley looked up at the orchestra and, to his immense surprise, saw the Boomaphone player, cheeks puffed out like pumpkins, blowing as hard as ever he could, all three arms flailing wildly, pressing valves, twisting knobs and pumping bellows.

  The other orchestra members had pained expressions on their faces, but were obviously not suffering in the way that Stanley and Rasmussen were. In fact Rasmussen was now bumping down the stairs on her bottom, while Stanley clung to the banisters for all he was worth. The noise lasted for one minute and four seconds, and when it stopped, their ears carried on ringing for another minute. Stanley looked at Rasmussen and they said together, ‘The Boomaphone!’ Stanley and Rasmussen ran down the rest of the steps and into the full view of the orchestra, who stopped what they were doing and all turned to look, including Mr Lungren, the keep-in-timer.

  Nobody was talking. Stanley and Rasmussen started to feel very small as they stood staring at everyone, not sure what to say now the moment had come.

  ‘Ermm . . .’ said Stanley.

  ‘Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Marianna Rasmussen, and this is my friend Stanley.’

  ‘Marianna?’ said Stanley. ‘Is it really?’ He’d never thought to wonder whether Rasmussen was a first name or a second name, and he didn’t have time to dwell on it now, as she carried on in her best ‘being presented to polite society’ voice.

  ‘We couldn’t help but overhear your beautiful performance, and felt that we had to come in and congratulate you all. We also believe that this may belong to the Boomaphone man.’ She held up the brass implement, at which Mr Ramalan’s eyes lit up.

  ‘We also wondered if you wouldn’t mind awfully not playing the Boomaphone at full volume, as it is upsetting the crew of the Great Galloon, and causing our friend the Brunt to be unable to do his job or have any fun. It is also leading to rumours that there is a dragon or a dinosaur loose on the ship, which can only be a bad thing . . .’ She trailed off slightly, as every member of the orchestra looked at her blankly.

  ‘Perhaps they speak another language,’ said Stanley. But Mr Lungren was frantically waving his stick in the air, to get the attention of his orchestra. Once they were all looking in his direction, he bent down, and picked up a large piece of black cardboard. Written in white across the top of the card were the words:

  The Bilgepump Orchestra

  and underneath, in a larger, bolder hand:

  Earplugs Out!

  As Stanley and Rasmussen read this sign, they heard a faint popping sound, and then another, and then another and many more as the members of the Bilgepump Orchestra unplugged their ears. When they had all finished, Mr Lungren turned to Rasmussen and said, ‘I’m sorry, we didn’t get a word of that. Could you say it again?’

  ‘Slosh ’im!’ came the cry, and another BeheMoth was drenched. It fluttered its wings irritably, but didn’t pause in munching on the store yard webbing.

  ‘Keep ’em coming!’ yelled Clamdigger, unabashed, as the empty bucket was dropped on the floor. ‘Send it back for more.’

  Cloudier had finally managed to find Clamdigger, and after an awkward greeting, had told him all about Fishbane and what she had read in ‘The BeheMoths, and How We Frightened Them Away’. Clamdigger had, to his eternal credit in Cloudier’s eyes, not doubted her for a moment, or patronised her, or asked her to repeat herself. He had simply jumped to the task, pulling as many people together as he could to help him.

  They had gone to the place on the larboard side of the main deck, where a huge rope and pulley system stood, with two great wood and leather buckets swinging from a gibbet over a closed hatch. This was the water gurney – beneath the hatch was one of the Galloon’s many reservoirs, which filled up in any storm, and which held water that was used for swabbing the decks and so on.

  It was short work to organise the people they had mustered into a bucket chain, and to bring up the two buckets in quick succession, slopping over with chilly water. The buckets were big, each holding as much as a couple of bathtubs, so the harder part of the operation was to manhandle them off the pulley hooks, and over to where the nearest BeheMoths were at work.

  As the makeshift detail was doing this sweaty work, Abel stood back a few feet, watching sceptically. As the first bucket had come up, he had said a few helpful things like, ‘If this works, I’ll be in the Captain’s good books for sure!’ but had otherwise done nothing to help.

  Bucket One had done nothing to deter a particularly mean-looking BeheMoth from chewing up and swallowing the flag of Eisberg, which sat ready on deck to be used on the Galloon’s arrival. Bucket Two had barely been noticed by a pair of moths that had begun chewing on the ropes of the water gurney itself. Now they were landing thick and fast, and Abel was nowhere to be seen.

  Clamdigger was running back and forth, being organised and positive, but Cloudier could see that it was useless. Her research had failed. The one thing she felt sure would work made no difference at all. She chewed her lip and berated herself for thinking she was going to save the day. Clamdigger stopped congratulating the bucket chain on their efforts, and came over to her. She was mortified to see an element of pity in the look he gave her.

  ‘I thought it was going to work for sure,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Cloudier, and a prickle in her eyes told her she would have to work hard not to shed a tear of frustration. ‘I thought the rainstorm frightened them off.’

  ‘The Captain will think of something, Clouds,’ said Clamdigger, and his arm waggled clumsily as if he was wondering where to put it. ‘Or maybe even Abel will.’

  This made Cloudier look up and scour the deck for Skyman Abel. All she saw was the work detail returning to the business of fighting off the BeheMoths in any way they could.

  ‘Where has Abel gone?’ she asked.

  After explaining the whole situation to the Bilgepump Orchestra a second time, Stanley was surprised that they were still not keen to stop their rehearsals, or to come up on deck and introduce themselves to the Captain.

  ‘I’m sure he knows you’re here anyway,’ Stanley said. ‘He’s got spies everywhere.’

  At this, a hurdy-gurdy player coughed guiltily and whispered something into the collar of his shirt, but Stanley wrote this off as a coincidence. He was just about to make an attempt to appeal to Mr Lungren’s conscience, when beside him he saw Rasmussen draw herself up to her full height and adopt the facial expression she used when she was giving someone a good ticking off.

  ‘Now, look here,’ she said, and Stanley grimaced. This was the seventh worst of the nine possible openings to a Rasmussen ticking off, just below, ‘It seems clear to me.’ The orchestra, already feeling a bit sheepish, were all now fiddling with their tuning pegs, grinding their toes into the floor and generally trying hard to look as if they were somewhere else. But something strange happened. Rasmussen stopped before she had properly started. Stanley looked at her, and saw that she was no longer with them. She was staring into space, with her head cocked slightly on one side.

  ‘Rasmussen?’ he said tentatively.

  She took him by the arm, and Mr Lungren by another, and without a word, started to walk.

  ‘Erm. It’s best just to go along when she does stuff like this,’ said Stanley to Mr Lungren, who was looking alarmed, but was trotting along unresistingly.

  ‘Where is she taking us?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing through here but the cloakroom.’

  They were trotting past the orchestra, across the dusty dancefloor, to a small door in the side wall of the ballroom. Rasmussen still had her head cocked, as if listening, but as she walked, she began bending her knees in an odd way, as if testing a trampoline she didn’t trust.

  ‘Back in a min
ute,’ she called over her shoulder, and Stanley heard a murmur arise from the orchestra.

  She pushed open the door with one foot, and led Mr Lungren and Stanley through to a room that was more brightly lit than the one they had left, although much, much smaller. There were rows of pegs along each wall, and at the far end, only fifteen feet or so from them, was a small lattice window. It was round like a porthole, and slightly too high up to be comfortable for any of them to look through.

  Rasmussen stood in front of it, facing the wall still with her head to one side. Then she tipped it back the other way, and did the bouncing thing again. Instinctively, Mr Lungren and Stanley did it too, though neither of them knew why. But Stanley felt something odd.

  ‘Something odd is happening,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ said Stanley, unsure of where to begin.

  ‘Odder than usual, I mean,’ she added, before he could start. ‘Something is . . .’

  ‘Attacking the Galloon,’ said Stanley, and then wondered why he had said it.

  Stanley had noticed that, sometimes, the people who loved the Galloon the most seemed to have a kind of sixth sense about it. The Captain, of course, knew every move it made whether he was at the wheel, asleep in his cot, or hanging off the prow chatting to Claude, the figurehead. Clamdigger sometimes knew when a rope had snapped, or a sail come loose, just by the creaking and tension in the woodwork, or a change in the way air flowed over the deck. Now Stanley got a sense of it too. It wasn’t that he could physically feel a difference, not consciously anyway. He just knew the Galloon was in trouble.

  ‘Upsy,’ he said, and made a step out of his hands for Rasmussen to stand on. She stepped up, and looked out of the window. Silently she stepped down again, and they swapped over. Stanley looked out, saw what was going on, and also stepped down. He indicated to Mr Lungren to do the same.

  Uncertainly, but seeming to understand that something important was happening, Mr Lungren stepped up into Rasmussen’s hands, and put his other foot on Stanley’s shoulder. He heaved himself up with slightly more fuss than was necessary, and then shrieked like a monkey on a rollercoaster. He clutched the windowsill, and screamed, wide-eyed, for a good long time. Then he fell backwards off his perch, his hands still clawed as if clutching the woodwork, even as he lay on his back on the ground.

  ‘The Moths! The terrible Moths!’ he gibbered. ‘Something must be done! The Galloon needs our help!’

  ‘Just what we thought,’ said Stanley, as behind them, the bloodchilling features of a BeheMoth peered in through the little porthole.

  On the deck of the Great Galloon, chaos still reigned. Able Skyman Abel was back and now he was marching backwards and forwards shouting orders, but not particularly useful ones, such as, ‘Attack at dawn!’ and ‘Make another bucket chain!’ Clamdigger was being slightly more helpful, rallying people and seeming to be everywhere at once.

  Cook was boiling up a heartening stew, stopping occasionally to fling a well-aimed spud from his ladle. Mr and Mrs Wouldbegood were handing things out from the Galloon’s depleted weapons store – a broken catapult, some hoes and a sharpened mop – and Ms Huntley, who had left the wheel room to help out at the front line, was trying to explain to the frightened crew what was going on.

  ‘They won’t hurt you directly!’ she was shouting. ‘And they mean us no harm! We’ll just end up floating on the sea, with no means of propulsion.’

  ‘Great!’ yelped a woman at the back of the crowd. ‘That’s all we need!’

  ‘Is it? Phew!’ replied another voice. ‘I thought we were in danger.’

  There was a nervous laugh from everyone, unsure whether this was a joke or a mistake.

  ‘We are in danger!’ said Clamdigger, irritated that no one seemed to be taking this threat seriously. ‘They will cling on to the balloon, sails and rigging, until they have eaten every last thread, or we plunge into the ocean, whichever happens first. We thought that water would scare them off, but it seems we are wrong. So we must continue to do everything we can to scare them away, or to shake them off. More are coming.’

  ‘More! What can we do?’ said Abel, forgetting himself momentarily.

  ‘I heard they’re not scared of anything,’ shouted a woman holding a small child.

  ‘It is true that they are not easy to scare, but we must do what we can,’ said Clamdigger.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cloudier dejectedly. ‘I felt sure the rainstorm was significant somehow. I’ll carry on reading up about them, see what else I can learn.’

  ‘Reading! Pah! Who ever learned anything useful by reading? Where’s the Captain when we need him?’ said the woman again, causing a restless murmur amongst the crew and passengers, most of whom were now gathered on deck.

  Suddenly the great bell clanged angrily.

  ‘I am here,’ said the Captain, and his voice carried easily over the crowd, with no obvious effort on his part. ‘I appreciate that this is a terrifying situation, but every last one of you is here at your own risk. Something fundamental is wrong; quite besides these magnificent beasts taking a liking to my vessel, we are losing height. I have my suspicions as to why this may be, but have had many important things to think about.’

  ‘His lost love,’ whispered Cook emphatically, to a chorus of sshh.

  ‘In a short while,’ the Captain continued, ‘I will ask Skyman Abel and his team to man the control ropes, and we will drift slowly to the surface of the sea, where the Galloon will function perfectly as a ship. Hopefully we will land before the BeheMoths do enough damage to cause us to plummet from the skies. On the water we may buy ourselves enough time to fight off the beasts. I cannot guarantee this.’

  The woman who was holding a small child caught her breath, and the child began to sob.

  ‘Those of you who wish to may use the life balloons to escape the ship, but be aware that they too will be seen by the BeheMoths as food. Those of you who wish to stay, listen to me. I have been thinking about what Cloudier Peele has told us, and I have a plan. If we work together, we may have one chance to keep the Galloon in the air, before we are forced to ditch. But I can make no promises.’

  This was more than anyone on the ship had heard the Captain say in one go for weeks. He very rarely troubled himself now with the day-to-day goings-on onboard. His speech had the effect of focusing people’s attention, and, instead of a rowdy mob, it was a disciplined crew that stood and waited for his orders.

  ‘Stanley!’ cried Ramalan down in the deeps of the Galloon, as Stanley and Rasmussen stood slightly apart, waiting for the result of the orchestra’s pow-wow. ‘Rasmussen! The orchestra have decided to head up. We’re going to help the Captain and let him know that we’ve been stowing away on his wonderful vessel. And I’d like to say thank you for finding my mouthpiece.’ He held up the small brass thing Stanley had found. ‘Now the Boomaphone will sound much nicer.’

  ‘Although just as loud,’ said Mr Lungren, who was recovering his composure slightly, and had been explaining the situation to them.

  ‘When we do get back on deck, I would like to apologise to everyone for the loud noises,’ said Mr Ramalan. ‘I didn’t realise I was causing so much trouble.’

  ‘It’s really quite alright. It’s a, er, unique instrument,’ said Stanley, as tactfully as he could manage, while looking around for any chandelier that looked like it might conceal a quick way back onto the deck.

  ‘But there’re more important things going on.’ Rasmussen was hopping up and down with impatience. ‘The Galloon is being attacked by terrible creatures! We have to get on deck and help fight them off.’

  The members of the orchestra began murmuring amongst themselves.

  ‘Terrible creatures?’ piped up a minuscule piccolo player. ‘These little insect things?’

  ‘I couldn’t quite do them justice,’ said Mr Lungren sheepishly.

  Stanley took a deep breath. ‘They’re huge, terrifying, skellington-faced butterfly-looking dust-flappers!’ he said portentously.<
br />
  ‘BeheMoths!’ cried Rasmussen.

  The hubbub of noise died down. The members of the orchestra looked at each other, wide-eyed.

  ‘BeheMoths, eh?’ said Ramalan, and he cracked his many knuckles. ‘Perhaps we’d better get up there and have a look at ’em.’

  ‘BeheMoths, yes,’ said Stanley. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d know what that was.’

  Rasmussen grinned from ear to ear.

  And with that, the whole orchestra gave a whoop that sounded more than slightly like a war cry. As one, they all turned to their instruments and began adjusting, unscrewing, destringing and reconfiguring the strange assortment of contraptions. Soon a pattern began to emerge. Stanley saw that the cellists were now carrying things that looked more like mahogany crossbows, with bows loaded where bolts would be.

  The piccolo player dropped a dart down the end of his instrument, and with a puff of the cheeks sent it ricocheting off a tuba. All around them, instruments of music were becoming weapons of war. The drums began to roll, and then set up a slow, ominous beat. As one being, the orchestra began to move at a jogging pace along the corridor. Mr Ramalan picked up Stanley in one great hand, and Rasmussen in the other. With the third he helped a company of violin archers pick up the Boomaphone.

  ‘It is many a long age since the orchestra went to war!’ he shouted over the racket.

  ‘This is exciting, isn’t it?’ said Rasmussen to Stanley.

  ‘Yes,’ said Stanley. ‘Almost as exciting as an adventure!’

  ‘Starboard, thirty degrees – that is, right a bit!’ yelled the Captain up on deck, and the team of burly men manning the great iron harpoon gun spun wheels, pulled levers, and aimed at the nearest BeheMoth, flying alongside.

  ‘FIRE!’ ordered the Captain, calmly but with great force.

  The eight-foot-long iron harpoon whistled out of the mouth of its cannon. Clamdigger heard it slice through the air, and smelt the rope burning as it uncoiled at great speed.