Then followed a dreadful moment of banging and slamming and scraping and squealing, and the sharp snick of teeth as the rat snapped viciously and fought to escape while Jennie hung on for dear life, her jaws clamping deeper and deeper, until there was a sharp click and the next moment the rat hung limp and paralysed and a few seconds later it was all over.
Jennie came away from it a little shaken and agitated, saying, `Phew! Filthy, sickening beasts! I hate rats—next to people. … They're all unclean and diseased, and if you let them bite you anywhere, then you get sick, for their teeth are all poisoned, and sometimes you die from it. I'm always afraid of that …'
Peter said with deep sincerity, 'Jennie, I think you are the bravest and most wonderful person—I mean cat—I ever saw. Nobody could have done that the way you did.'
For once Jennie did not preen herself or parade before Peter, for she was worried now since it was she who had coaxed him into this adventure. She said: `That's just it, Peter. We can't practise and learn on the rats the way we did on the mice, because it's too dangerous. One mistake and, well—I don't want it to happen. I can show you the twist, because you have to know how to do it to avoid that slash of theirs, but the spring, the distance, the timing, and above all just the exact place to bite them behind the neck to get at their spines—well, you must do it one hundred per cent, right when the time comes, and that's all there is. If you get them too high on the head they can kick loose or even shake you off. Some of the big fellows weigh almost as much as you do, and if you seize them too far down the back they can turn their heads and cut you.'
`But how will I learn, then?' Peter asked.
`Let me handle them for the time being,' she replied, `and watch me closely each time I kill one. You'll be learning something. Then if, and when, the moment comes when you have to do it yourself, you'll either do it right the first time and never forget it thereafter, or—' Jennie did not finish the sentence but instead went into the washing routine, and Peter felt a little cold chill run down his spine.
When they were finally discovered it was some seven hours after sailing, as the Countess of Greenock was thumping her slow, plodding way down the broad reaches of the Thames Estuary. When the cook, an oddly triangular-shaped Jamaican negro by the name of Mealie, came into the storeroom for some tinned corned beef, they had a bag of eight mice and three rats lined up in lieu of references and transportation. Three of the mice were Peter's, and he felt inordinately proud of them and wished there could have been some way whereby he might have had his name on them, like autographing a book perhaps—'Caught by Peter Brown, Storeroom, Countess of Greenock, April 15th, 1949.'
The negro grinned widely, increasing the triangular effect, for his face and head were narrower at the top than at the bottom, and said: `By Jominy, dat good. Hit pays to hodvertise. I tell dat to Coptain,' and forthwith went up on to the bridge, taking Jennie's and Peter's samples with him. It was the kind of a ship where the cook did go up on to the bridge if he felt like having a word with the captain. There he told him the story of finding the two stowaways, and then added: `But by Jominy they pay possage already. Look you dat!' and unrolling his apron showed him the fruits of their industry.
The captain, whose name was Sourlies and who was that rare specimen, a fat Scotsman, looked and felt ill, and commanded Mealie in no uncertain language to throw the mess over the side and go back to his galley. It was the beginning of his time of deep unhappiness, anyway, for he hated the sea and everything connected with it and was reasonably contented only when in port, or near it, or proceeding up and down an estuary or river with plenty of land on both sides.
He carried this queer notion to the point of refusing even to dress the part of a ship's captain, and conducted the affairs of the Countess of Greenock wearing a tweed pepper-and-salt business suit with a gold watch chain across his large expanse of stomach, and a mustard-coloured fedora hat, or trilby, with the brim turned up all round.
However, as Mealie was leaving, he did decree that inasmuch as the cats seemed to have got aboard and appeared inclined to work their passage they might remain, but to shift one of them to the fo'c'sle as the men had been complaining of the rats there.
But Mealie took his time going aft, and told his story and showed the bag to everyone he met, with the result that there arrived back in the storeroom quite a committee consisting of Mr. Strachan, the first mate; Mr. Carluke, the second; Chief Engineer McDunkeld; and the bo'sun, whose name appeared to be only Angus.
They held a meeting, the gist of which Peter tried to translate rapidly for Jennie's benefit, and before they knew it the two friends found themselves separated for the first time, with Jennie sent forward to live with the crew and Peter retained, chiefly through the insistence of Mr. Strachan, in the officers' quarters.
Jennie had only time to say to Peter, `Don't worry. We'll find ways to get together. Do your best. And if you come across a rat, don't hesitate and don't play. Kill!'
Then the bo'sun picked her up by the scruff of the neck and carried her forward.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: The Countess and the Crew
WHEN Peter had been a boy at home, Nanny had often told him stories about the small steamers that used to tie up at Greenock and Gourock, the two port towns outside of Glasgow, where she used to live when she was a little girl. But never, Peter decided, could there have been such an odd ship with such a strange and ill-assorted crew as the Countess of Greenock and her motley band of officers, sailors and deckhands whom he now learned to know as the Countess loafed lazily along the south and west coasts of England, thrusting her stubby, rust-eaten bow into port apparently at the slightest opportunity and even when there did not seem to be a legitimate reason for her doing so.
For nobody on board, as far as Peter could make out, seemed to make much sense. With the exception of the second engineer, who was absolutely not to be separated from the ancient and clanking machinery that somehow still managed to propel the Countess at jellyfish pace through the choppy waters of the Channel, each and every one appeared to have some peculiarity or hobby which interested him and took up more of his time than was devoted to the necessary duties connected with keeping the-ship afloat and guiding it to its destination.
To begin with, there was the Captain, Mr. Sourlies, and when, in their spare time during the afternoon, Peter and Jennie used to foregather in the cargo hold just abaft the island bridge, or keep a rendezvous astern to gossip and exchange notes on their work, adventures and the people they had met, they agreed that from everything they had seen and heard they had never encountered a queerer one than he.
His dislike of the sea and everything and everyone connected with it, Peter learned through listening to the officers and members of the crew discussing him, stemmed from the fact, according to Mr. McDunkeld, the chief engineer, that Captain Sourlies came from a long line of seafarers. But when it came his turn to take up the profession, he had run away from home in Glasgow to a farm, for what he was really interested in was agriculture.
Mr. Fairlie, the radio operator, to whom Mr. McDunkeld told this story, said that he had often heard of farm boys running away to sea, but never in all his born days had he known of a sea-type running away to a farm. Peter then heard Mr. McDunkeld say that as far as he knew it was true, and that Captain Sourlies' father had been very angry when he found him in the midst of a lot of cows and chickens and pigs, and brought him back, shipped him off to sea and forced him to take a master's ticket. When his father had passed on, he had hung the final anchor around his son's neck by willing him the controlling interest in the Countess of Greenock. Captain Sourlies' Scottish thrift and business acumen would not permit him to entrust her to others and so he, who so loved the land, was doomed to a life at sea.