I halted, however, just a few yards from the wireless room, confused by what looked like sacks of flour arranged around it. Had it suffered terrible damage? Was it flooded? No longer in use? But as I sat there, uncertain, I realised I could hear voices – ones that seemed to be coming from inside the room, talking urgently.
‘So, this to C in C.’ Was that Captain Kerans speaking? He reeled off a message about deadlocks and meetings. From his tone it was obvious he wasn’t very happy. ‘Quick as you can, Flags,’ he finished. I imagined Jack (let it be Jack!) scribbling furiously with his pencil, ready to turn the message the captain had given him into Morse code.
Then came Lieutenant Hett’s voice, as ever, deep, clear and strong. ‘I’ll have Lieutenant Fearnley give you something,’ he said. ‘Some more Benzedrine will help, lad. And what about some food, eh? When did you last eat?’
‘I’m not hungry, sir. I’m fine. Just the Benzedrine’ll be fine, sir.’
It was Jack’s voice! It was Jack! I was so excited I almost forgot myself, emerging from the shadows and only narrowly avoiding cannoning into the captain and lieutenant as they swept out of the room and hurried off back to the bridge.
The wireless room was warm and looked untouched by the shelling; still humming and cosy and exactly as it always was, a constant in a world that had been so changed.
Jack was alone, with his back to me, busy working on the message at his little fold-down desk. As I entered he straightened, pulled his Morse code machine towards him, and began tapping out the message in that curious staccato rhythm that ‘another Jack’, he’d explained to me, ‘will hear through his earphones, translate, and write down – and that’s it – job done. Bob’s your uncle!’
I sat back on my haunches, carefully, and waited for him to finish, only going to him once he peeled his headphones from his ears, and stuck the pencil back in place over the right one.
Then I mewled. He looked down. Then he blinked. Then his mouth gaped. ‘Blackie!’ he exclaimed, pushing his chair back and patting his knees. ‘Love a duck! Where’ve you been? We thought we’d lost you!’
I couldn’t jump. Didn’t try. Didn’t dare. He quickly realised. He bent down, and as he did so, he let out a heavy groaning sigh.
‘Aww, look at the state of you,’ he said, picking me up very gingerly by cupping his hands around my front legs. ‘You okay, boy? When d’you last eat? You’re skin and bone. Look at you…’ He gently turned me this way and that, so he could get a better look at me, and I forced myself to cope with the pain even this small movement gave me – it didn’t matter. I was just so grateful for the comfort of his touch.
I studied Jack too. He looked exhausted. His skin was the colour of paper. I wondered when he had last eaten, as well. ‘Those ruddy bast— ’scuse my French, Blackie, but look what those bastards have done to you! Here, sit yourself down. That’s the way. That’s the way. Lord, it’s good to see you. Been getting awful lonely sitting in here, hour after hour, all on my lonesome.’ He grimaced. ‘’S only me now, my friend. Ruddy commies got the others. Just me now. Been up round the clock for ruddy days now.’ He laid a hand on my head, taking care to mind my ear. ‘Oh, it’s so good to see you. We all thought you’d bought it. Taken yourself off and died somewhere, we thought – and here you are! You’re a sight for sore eyes, you know that?’ Then he suddenly leaned forward. ‘Eh oh. Here we go. Hang on, Blackie. Let’s get this down, eh?’ Then he pulled the chair up to the desk again, plonked his earphones on his head, and began transcribing the reply to the message the captain had sent, while I sat in his lap, feeling warm and safe and humbled.
Chapter 13
Sound asleep on Jack’s lap that night, I dreamed of my mother. She was on the Amethyst, alongside me, my protector and friend, and when a machine gun was fired at us from a battery on a shore – the bank flocked with the enemy, all shouting and raging – she sprang up and took the bullets for me, falling lifeless at my feet. A bloom of blood then grew beneath her, till the tug of gravity took it, and it rushed in a stream into the scuppers.
I woke with a start, to the sound of voices again, but this time they were low and conspiratorial. Trying to shake the horrible images from my head, I opened my eyes, to see Lieutenant Hett and the man Frank had called Doc standing over us, the latter with a plate of sandwiches in his hand.
Lieutenant Hett smiled and raised a finger. ‘Shh…’ he mouthed more than said to me. It was then that I realised that Jack was fast asleep. His head was resting on his arm, which was flat across his desk now, and had formed a cosy human tent for me to doze under. I realised the rhythm of his breathing; it was the same one that must have rocked me to sleep.
‘Good to see you again, little fella,’ the one called Doc whispered. Again I wondered. Was he here because Doctor Alderton was injured? And where was Thomas, the sick bay attendant? I’d not seen him either.
The doc turned to Hett and nodded, and they both moved further away. ‘I don’t mind staying in here for a bit,’ he said, keeping his mouth close to the lieutenant’s ear. ‘Let him sleep. He’s done in. He can take more Benzedrine later. I can wake him up soon enough if anything new comes in.’
Hett nodded. ‘Good man. I’ll send a cuppa down for you when it’s brewed then.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘How about you, Simon? Peckish, old son?’ He came back and crouched down so he was on my level. ‘My, boy, you look like you’ve been existing on thin air!’
I doubted anything would have woken Jack, but I took the utmost care in any case, slithering down from his lap as carefully and smoothly as I could. Then, with a wobble of my hindquarters, which I quickly corrected, padded across to say hello to my lieutenant friend. ‘Some sardines, eh?’ he whispered. He looked amused. Pleased to see me. ‘Least the rats can’t get their filthy teeth into the tins, eh? Well –’ he grimaced. ‘Not yet, anyway. Way they’re going, I wouldn’t put it past them.’
I pressed myself around his shin, purring, then wound a slow double figure of eight around the pair of them, to let them know just how pleased I was to see them as well. Then I padded off, over the threshold and back to the dark, infested places. I would love some sardines. My mouth watered at the prospect. It was the first time I’d thought of anything but pain and thirst in all these days.
I would love some sardines. A plate of herrings out, too. Or herrings in, even. The kind in the horrible sauce Jack favoured. That was how hungry I suddenly found myself. I held onto the thought.
Then I tilted my nose, sniffed the air, caught a scent and began to follow. No doubt about it. I would love some sardines. I really would. But not just yet. First I was going to earn them.
Hunger and fury are a potent combination. That and the power of friendship. I was not going to let my friends down.
I killed two rats that night. Though at some cost to myself, admittedly. The second, a big ugly brute of a male, made a swipe that tore open the wound in my ear – again – and made it bleed so much it dripped all down my face.
But such was my delight – and relief – at having dispatched the hated animals that it could have bled all the next day (and might well have, had Petty Officer Frank not managed to staunch it) and I wouldn’t have cared. As it was, I was exhausted, but it was a good kind of weariness. The weariness of a job done to the best of my abilities and more than that, proof that where there is a will, there is, almost always, a way. I had Jack’s devotion to his own duty to thank for that.