But for all my ever-present anxiety about facing down the fabled ‘King Rat’, when the day of reckoning came, I had no time to even think, much less be frightened. It was all just so sudden, so unexpected, so unlike any rat encounter before it.
I had simply turned a corner onto the quarterdeck one morning, and there he was – it had to be him – looking as bold as you like. He was waddling across the deck in my direction, staying close to the bulkhead, but seemingly oblivious of all the sailors milling about, getting on with their duties. At first I could only gawp. He had such a proprietorial air about him (or so he thought; a rat could never aspire to such a thing) it really was as if he was entirely without a care. King Rat. Afraid of nothing and no one.
I’d sunk down to my belly before I’d even consciously thought about it, my instinct kicking in before my eyes had even registered what I’d seen.
He stopped too, and stared at me, his dead eyes like fish eyes. The same dull, unblinking gaze of a sandfish on a slab. His whiskers, in contrast, were quivering and questing, causing the air between us, which carried the scent of him, to tickle my own. He was a brute and his stench made me nauseous.
Jack had been right, though. Sid even righter. He was a very big rat. Even face on he looked huge so, though I couldn’t properly see the length and spread of him, there was no question that he was almost as big as I was. Not as big, which I registered gratefully, even as I stared. But heavier. So much heavier. A fat rat indeed. An unwelcome glimpse of the tip of his tail soon confirmed it. It was a good foot beyond the end of his body.
I settled and I watched and I waited, as per usual, vaguely conscious of movement at the edges of my vision. The men on deck had now noticed him too.
‘Go on, Blackie,’ I heard someone say to me – in no more than a whisper, though my fear that it might give the rat cause to turn and flee was soon forgotten. Quite the opposite. He was actually edging towards me.
I stayed where I was, mindful of the things my mother had always warned me. With an animal this size, it would be foolhardy to ignore them. He rose up as he kept moving forward – though not in a straight line but using a strange angled walk. Then I realised. He was circling me. Trying to come around the side of me. The better to spring? Then I must get the advantage and spring first. I side-stepped, and now I could see the bulk of his body, but with my adrenaline pumping and my hackles fast rising, there was no question of not taking him on, giant though he was. I had my friends to think about. I could not, would not, walk away.
He slipped past me again, and I was treated to a flash of his rodent teeth. Huge pegs, they were. Perhaps the biggest I’d yet seen. Deep yellow, curving up to the roof of his mouth. I would have to spring and get my jaw locked high up on his neck. I spun around, sprang and pounced – no room for waiting, too dangerous – and in one move had my own teeth buried deep into the fur of his upper back.
He whirled then, unbalancing me, sending me over onto my flank, heavily, so I curled my paws round him to stop him gouging at my eyes. And he squealed and squealed and squealed – high, high, and higher, scrabbling and pulling me round with him, using all his strength, which was considerable, to free his front legs. My jaws were on fire from the extent I’d had to open them, my breath coming in rasps as I tried to keep them locked. I couldn’t stand up and, even if I could, I hardly dared to – I knew it would only take the tiniest amount of slackening and he’d be out, he’d be free, he’d be turning on me…
I willed myself to bite down even harder – to try to finish him off now, to try to get a better, stronger, purchase… But the action only made him squeal and scrabble at me all the louder and harder. There was nothing for it – I had to clamp him between my paws and change my bite… One, two, three… Do it now. Do it now! Break and clamp. Break and grab again… Fast as you can. Strong as you can. Do it!
So I did it, and he jerked as if he were a lizard struck by lightning. And with my jaw screaming in pain now, I came so close to losing him, so stunned and unbalanced was I by the strength he had left. But then I felt it – the soft crack of his neck, then the stillness. Even then, for the longest time, I stayed as I was, panting, still as night, still as death, not once daring to loosen my grip. It must have been a full minute before I judged it safe to release him, and let his body drop heavily between my paws.
‘He’s done it! He’s done it! He’s only gone and done it!’
Having little idea of how many had gathered to watch, I almost jumped a foot in the air. The deck felt alive beneath my paws, such was the outcry; feet were stamping, hands were clapping, men were cheering and whooping, buckets were being clanged, mops and brooms rapped against the bulkheads.
I looked up to see a beaming Lieutenant Hett approaching. He was all done up in his whites – he must have just returned from a shore trip – with his cap tucked under his arm so he could clap me as well.
Then he did something odd. He stopped right there in front of me, clicked his heels sharply and saluted me. ‘I officially promote you to the rank of able seaman,’ he told me, which caused a new round of cheers and applause to surge all around.
‘Don’t you mean able seacat?’ shouted someone. There was laughter.
Lieutenant Hett nodded. ‘Of course! I stand corrected. I hereby promote you to Able Seacat Simon. Ship’s ratter of the highest order! Good for you!’
Then, before I had a chance to stop him, he picked the rat up by the tail, which drew another tumultuous cheer. I felt my heart swell. I had done it. I’d really done it.
‘How about that, then?’ Lieutenant Hett said, lifting the rat high in the air, where it swung, turning a circle, grey-brown, amorphous and limp.
And very dead.
‘Farewell, Mao Tse-tung!’ he said, and launched it into the river.
I watched the rat disappear and heard the ‘plunk’ as it hit the water. A very satisfying ‘plunk’ it was too. Though I was still breathing hard and knew my jaw would ache for hours, I don’t think I could have felt happier if I’d tried.
But I didn’t spend a great deal of time on celebrations. I was too exhausted. I went back to the captain’s cabin, curled up on his bunk, and slept for some ten hours straight.
Chapter 16
The demise of the infamous and much hated rodent Mao Tse-tung brought about a marked lift in everyone’s spirits. As for me, I couldn’t have been more thrilled, particularly with my new name of Able Seacat Simon, which I delighted in hearing called out wherever I went. The next couple of weeks saw a general cheeriness even, reaching a particular high when the clever electricians managed to tune us into a programme on the radio which I was assured was a great favourite of everyone on board, being transmitted by something called the BBC.
I didn’t know who or what the BBC was, but I didn’t need to. It didn’t last long, but there was laughter and chat and lots of singing, and – this did seem a miracle, especially when they said, ‘This one’s for Flight Lieutenant Fearnley!’ – it seemed much of the programme was dedicated to the crew of the Amethyst; something to cheer us up and to let everyone on board know that they hadn’t been forgotten.
Which was precious. Because there was no doubt that, for all the peaks of jollity, the troughs of exhaustion and sadness and dejection were deep.