Able Seacat Simon Read online

  Able Seacat

  Simon

  Lynne Barrett-Lee is an award-winning novelist and internationally acclaimed ghostwriter, with several Sunday Times bestselling titles to her name. Her work includes The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers, Giant George: life with the world’s biggest dog, and the global sensation The Girl With No Name, which has been translated into 23 languages. Lynne also writes a weekly column for the Western Mail Weekend magazine and teaches creative writing in her spare time.

  More details about Lynne and a full list of her books can be found at www.lynnebarrett-lee.com

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016

  A CBS company

  Copyright © Lynne Barrett-Lee, 2016

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The rights of Lynne Barrett-Lee to be identified as author of this work have been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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  Simon & Schuster Australia, Sydney

  Simon & Schuster India, New Delhi

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47115-183-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-47115-184-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Typeset in the UK by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and supports the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  In memory of all who served aboard HMS Amethyst

  And our own little Alfie

  RIP

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  PART TWO

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  PART THREE

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  From the moment I was asked if I’d like to tell Simon’s story, two things became immediately clear. First, that I would say yes, without a moment’s consideration, and second, that it would be a labour of love.

  After all, how could it not be? I love cats. I love writing. I especially love writing while in the company of my cats. So, to write as a cat? What could be nicer?

  And what a joy it has turned out to be. But, unlike most of the novels I have written in the past, it also involved an element of responsibility. For all that this is fiction – a reimagining of a famous naval incident – it was vital that I remain true to history. Not so much the small, day-to-day things, because that would be impossible, but to the memories of both my doughty four-legged protagonist, and to those of the men with whom he served.

  It goes without saying that I have done much research. I’ve read books and testimonials, pored over maps, charts and photographs, tried to familiarise myself with ‘jackspeak’ and naval lore and ship parts, and welcomed the word ‘corticene’ into my life. It’s obviously my hope that the book wears this lightly – with enough verisimilitude to capture the moment but sufficient innocence that a small, skinny, black and white kitten feels very much the narrator of the story.

  However, what I’ve mostly been is humbled. Like Simon, an innocent in matters military and nautical, the more I immersed myself in the horror of the Yangtse Incident, the more awed I became. It’s already well-documented that the Amethyst’s young crew returned as heroes, and that many were duly decorated, and rightly so.

  But, as is often noted when it comes to momentous events, in order to fully appreciate how it felt you probably had to be there. And though I lay no claim to that – I was only there vicariously – my need to ‘be’ there, in the sense of getting to better know these brave seamen, has helped me understand what they went through on a much more personal level.

  I hope I’ve done them justice (and that they’ll forgive me putting words in their mouths) because I could not respect or admire them more.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Stonecutters Island, Hong Kong, May 1948

  I’d finally found a good route across the island. I used the same one every day now, and could have walked it in my sleep. Past the tamarinds, down the passage past the big house and the small house, across the road, mindful of traffic (which could strike you down and kill you), along the side of the big sheds where men clanged and banged a lot, then down past the cranes onto the docks.

  The rain will come, kitten. That’s what my mother had always told me. It will come in spring, and it will teem, and it will fill the air and drench us. It will drip from your whiskers, and it will plop from your eyelashes, and it will get in your ears, you wait and see. It will come down so hard that it will dance before your eyes, kitten, and you’ll be wet through. And, trust me, you won’t like it one bit!

  I had never seen rain then, not a single glistening drop of it. Only the dew that collected and sometimes fell in streams from the banyans, and the sea, which lapped gently on all sides of where we lived. So while I did trust my mother, and believed everything she told me, I couldn’t quite imagine what rain would feel like. As with so many things I’d experienced since I’d lost her, I was to discover there were still a lot of everyday things I didn’t know; not just the mysteries that lay beyond the harbour.

  Today, though, I didn’t need to imagine. I was wet. I might even, I supposed, be wet through. I was heavy with wet; ‘wet’ clearly being a thing to be concerned about, just like strangers and traffic and snakes. A thing that streamed from my eyes, made my paws slip and slither, made my underbelly cold and damp and dirty. I could see it dancing in front of me, just as she had promised – kicking up from the lakes it had made of all the alleyways, jumping up and down on all the wall tops and roofs.

  It was raining, so it must by now be spring. The time when my mother said the world would start changing. The time of warmth and something wonderful called ‘plenty’. Which was good, because there hadn’t been much plenty since I’d lost her. So far, I had only been able to catch just one or two mice. And that was then. Before hunger. Before spring. Before rain. And, weak from the pain that gnawed and clutched at my stomach, I didn’t know if I’d ever catch anything again.

  I slipped through the spaces between two sets of fences, wondering when life might get better. If I didn’t manage to catch anything, then what would become of me? Which was why (I kept telling myself this, over and over) I’d had no choice but to go down to the docks and scavenge for scraps, despite all that my mother had told me – repeatedly – about how dangerous it was to be around humans.

  The quayside was an assault
on all my senses, as always. The big ships with funnels, the smaller ships with sails, the swarms of running people, the shouting and whistling, the sudden metallic shrieks and clangs, the gouts of steam and smoke, the cargo crates and nets swinging high above the ground. I felt my mother’s presence keenly as I approached my special spot: the place where she’d explained the rudiments of hunting and where I, always distracted by the wonders all around me, took too little notice of the skills she’d tried to impart.

  My ears pricked and I tipped my nose a fraction higher, sniffing. Could I trust this one smell among the many, many odours? I slunk down into the space between my usual barrels with great care, and rounded the corner to where food sacks were often piled up – there to be loaded, my mother had said, onto the ships bound for the sea.

  And then I stopped, transfixed. Because perhaps today was going to be a better day. For a few yards in front of me was a shrew. I knew it was a shrew from the shape of its snout. Look first, Mum would say to me. Don’t just leap in haste. Look. So I lowered myself down, not even caring about the wet now, just the tiniest fraction of the tip of my tail twitching, because that, my mum had told me, was what a tail was meant to do.

  The shrew had so far been lucky. Something bigger – a rat or a fox or a cockatoo, even – had nibbled its way into the corner of a sack of grain. It was the bottom-most sack of a pile among many piles; piles that reached way higher than I was. The shrew was feeding, preoccupied, rooting around with its back to me, and, as far as I could tell, had no ready means of escape. The first surge of strength I’d felt since the rain had come coursed through me. I’d have that shrew, I just knew it, for my dinner.

  Everything went wrong in an instant. So wrong that something else my mother had told me popped into my head. Was this going to be a day for misadventure? Her words came back to me, as they always did when things became scary: remember, she’d say, every day holds the capacity for adventure, kitten, but never forget that it holds the capacity for misadventure too.

  And it looked like misadventure might have found me. I’d been settling into position, just a moment from pouncing, when a sound and a strong smell hit my ears and nose together, and a voice – a deep human voice – broke the spell.

  ‘Well, well, well, well!’ it said. ‘What do we have here, then?’

  The still-lucky shrew streaked away out of sight, but I realised I had no such possibility. Not without turning round, and I knew I mustn’t do that. So, instead, I arched my back, and I hissed.

  The human – a man – opened his mouth again and laughed at me. ‘Hey, little feller, don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.’

  I hissed again, drawing my lips back, partly in rage, partly in terror, all the while trying to work out my own best means of escape. Should I make a leap for the nearest barrel? Scale the sacks just ahead of me? Try to squeeze myself through the tiny space by the wall, as the shrew had? It was clear from the way the man was still looking down at me that he wasn’t going to leave me alone yet.

  ‘Hey, kitty, kitty,’ he said, looming even closer, squatting down on his haunches and extending his arm.

  I knew about this. Sometimes humans liked to offer things to you and then, when you plucked up the courage to inch closer, would grab you and take you away and put you in a cage. My terror intensified as soon as that thought popped into my head, because I knew all about cats being put in cages. It was probably only because I was still a kitten that I hadn’t yet been in one – because putting kittens in cages was considered bad luck.

  But perhaps the human in front of me didn’t know about bad luck, so I shrank further back against the wall and hissed at him a third time.

  Again he laughed. ‘Don’t be scared, little feller. Don’t be frightened.’ And then he reached all the way to me and just as I tensed, stricken, he smoothed his huge human hand all the way down my back, like the kind lady in the big house used to do.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘My, you’re just skin and bone, aren’t you, Blackie? Shall I see if I can find you something to eat?’

  Eat. He meant food. And I was starving, so I wavered. But most humans weren’t like the lady in the big house. I knew that too. I saw my chance. Spied the sack. Made a leap and scrabbled up it. Then ran away just as fast as my legs could carry me.

  Chapter 2

  I never knew what happened to the brothers and sisters who’d been born along with me. My mother never said, and I was too scared to ask, for fear of hearing something that would frighten me. Cats were supposed to have nine lives – it was one of the first things I ever remember her telling me – but even so, one by one, all of them had disappeared. ‘Such a shame,’ the lady in the big house used to say, shaking her head as she stroked the tips of my mother’s ears.

  And now they had gone too, both the kind lady and my mother. I couldn’t help wonder why I’d worried so much about hearing about my brothers and sisters, because now that I was completely alone in the world I’d have liked to know what had become of them. And, besides, being afraid of almost everything now felt normal.

  Fear travelled with me everywhere because there was so much to be frightened of. It had almost become something of a friend. It accompanied me on all my hunting forays, curled up with me wherever I hid myself away to sleep, whispered in my ears as I prowled around the island, trying to keep to the secret places and shadows.

  I knew fear was a good thing, that it would help keep me out of danger, but it was beginning to be such a constant and insistent companion that there hardly seemed room for anything else. But I was a kitten, soon to be a cat, and there was something else still burning bright in me – the curiosity that I’d been born with. And that night, as on most nights, as I padded along the jetty, it was still up to the stars that I looked, rather than down to the planks beneath my paws.

  It was midnight. And, bar the gentle slip and slosh of the waves, silent. The noise of the harbour always lessened as the moon rose, almost as if it had been instructed to do so. Just now, the huge orb was low-lying and lemony, but I knew it would soon rise up to take its place among the stars, becoming smaller and brighter and whiter.

  Bathed in its glow, the city of Hong Kong was transformed. By day full of the sights, sounds and scents of human industry, by night, from my vantage point at the far end of the jetty, it seemed a less scary, more pretty place altogether. One strung with distant lights, where diamonds danced on the water.

  This is our time, my mother had often explained to me, as we’d sit and gaze out over the inky expanse together. The time when the humans are all going to sleep. The time when the moon is our friend.

  I had liked the moon then. I liked it even more now. Moonlight always seemed to me the friendliest light of all – particularly now that she had left me. The starlight, too, from stars that every living thing had originally come from. Stars to which the soul of every cat always returned.

  I took up my usual position and curled my tail around my paws, feeling the breeze tickle my whiskers and the salt prick my nose as I watched the water lapping lazily at the jetty’s wooden pillars. Then I gazed up, imagining my mother up there somewhere, looking down at me. Remembering how, a while before she’d been run down and taken from me, she’d told me that she would always be there, watching over me, whatever happened.

  I’ll be enjoying my ninth life, she’d told me, which had initially confused me. So she’d explained that cats were lucky. Perhaps the luckiest of all the creatures. Because our nine lives meant more than perhaps I’d imagined; the eight on earth, which was why cats could afford be so curious and courageous, and then the ninth, up in the stars for all eternity.

  I gazed at the moon, wishing eternity didn’t feel quite so far away, then padded back towards the beach, in search of prey.

  Prey was always on my mind but, as hard as I tried, prey kept managing to elude me. By the time the dawn broke on another day I was so weak with fatigue and hunger that the dock, with its slim promise of scraps to pick over, seemed once again th
e only place left to go. At the very least, I knew I could find a sheltered spot in which to rest before trying again.

  So I returned, trying to pad my way lightly along the soggy paths and alleyways, always on the lookout and alert to new scents but, bar a brown snake that reared up and hissed at me threateningly, still failing to find anything to pounce on. But it wasn’t just my empty stomach that was drawing me back. Despite my knowing what my mother had said about how dangerous it was to show myself, the memory of the kind man I’d met the day before had stayed with me. And as I slipped once again through the holes in the fences, I kept going back to what he’d said. Did he really mean me no harm? Could I trust him? Might he feed me? Despite the danger, I wanted to find out.

  When my mum had still been with me, I’d been curious about everything. So much so that there had been many times when she’d been the fearful one. When my curiosity might well have got me into trouble, had she not been there to remind me of all the hazards in the world. I was curious again now.

  And the more I thought about the man’s kindness, the more I wondered. Had I been right to run away from him after all?

  Yes, of course you were right to run away, I could hear my mother’s voice telling me. Who knows what might have happened to you? Humans are dangerous.

  But a part of me – a guilty part, even as it was a defiant part – kept thinking no. Because it seemed to me that not all humans were dangerous. Snakes were dangerous. Rats were dangerous. (My mother had had a scar on her nose to prove it.) Cars and trucks were extremely dangerous, as was everything else that travelled so fast and so threateningly along the big road. I knew I wouldn’t forget about that, ever.

  The old woman in the big house hadn’t been dangerous at all, though. Yes, she’d been human, but she’d given us food and been kind to us; those were two of my earliest memories. Milk on a patterned saucer. Little morsels of meat. She’d also been the last human to stroke me. To bend right down to stroke me and say, ‘Look at you, with those little white socks on your feet! Now, don’t you be going getting them dirty!’