The Abandoned, page 13
It was the little Needle-nose who eventually provided the opening for which Mr. Strachan had been waiting. Nodding toward Peter and Jennie, he said: “Huish, that’s a fine pair o’ puissies ye have there. I’ll reckon ye are no little attoched to them.”
“Oh, ay,” said Mr. Strachan, and then added in a slightly louder voice: “Would you say now, just stondin’ there lookin’ at them, that there was onything verra extraordinary about the twa?”
This question naturally provoked the large docker and the commercial man to turn and look too, as well as those sitting at the nearest tables. Challenged, the factory worker remarked: “Noo then, I wouldna like to say exoctly or draw comparisons ’twixt yin and th’ ither, though it strikes me the white one might verra well be a superior specimen. What had ye in mind?”
“Would ye believe it,” asked Mr. Strachan in a still louder voice, which centered upon him the attention of practically all except those who were watching the darts game, “if I were to tell you that yon pair. . .” and without waiting for any further expressions from his audience, he launched full tilt into the tale of Peter and Jennie—that is, from his point of view and as he had seen it.
He told how they had been found stowed away in the storeroom of the Countess of Greenock, with a supply of mice and rats laid by as an offering to pay their way, of the size of the rat that Peter had overcome and the subsequent disaster to Jennie, Peter’s uncatlike and heroic act in going over the side to join her, the rescue by the lifeboat crew, with Jennie given up for dead, and the final resurrection accomplished by Peter.
He told it quite well, it seemed to Peter, and listening to it, he found himself rather enjoying the narrative besides being the center of many pairs of interested eyes. There were a few details here and there he would have liked to fill in or elaborate upon somewhat, but in the main he felt that the mate was doing a good job and had done them justice. And if the truth be told, Jennie likewise seemed far from averse herself to being the center of attention and even preened herself a little, washing, and turning her head this way and that so that those in the rear of the room who were now craning their necks could get a better look, as Mr. Strachan concluded his yarn with a flourish: “. . .thus providing an exomple of unparalleled fidelity, love, and devotion far beyond the call of duty in the onimal kingdom, and the proof of which ye see here stonding on the bar before your verra eyes.”
The needle-nosed factory worker with the peaked cap, took a swallow of his beer wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and said just one word, which unfortunately was “Tosh!”
“Eh?” said Mr. Strachan. “I dinna believe I heered ye correctly.”
“Oh yus ye did,” said Needle-nose, who really, Peter decided, had a most unpleasant face and close-set distrustful eyes. “I said: ‘Tosh,’ to which I will be glod to add ‘Bosh’ and ‘Fosh.’ I will also say that I have never heered such a pock of lies and fobrications in a’ me life.”
Several of the bystanders sniggered, but one of them said: “Ah’ve heered stranger things before, and, like he says, yon’s the proof before ye.”
This support was all that Mr. Strachan needed to restore some of the confidence that Captain Sourlies had so badly shaken, and he drew himself up to good height with: “Bosh and tosh, is it? Sith an’ if ye no can take the evidence of yer ain eyes, letting alone the fact that I was in commond of the verra life-saving craft that bore down upon them struggling for their lives in the sea. . .”
Needle-nose now turned and put his face, on which there rested a most unpleasant sneer, quite close to Jennie and Peter as though inspecting them minutely.
Jennie turned suddenly, squatted down on the bar with her head veered toward the door, and said very quietly: “Peter, I don’t understand all they’re saying, but I know by the signs of how people behave there is going to be a jolly little dust-up in here in just a minute. Whatever you do, don’t leave the bar while they’re fighting. Wait until the constables come and then follow me.”
Needle-nose, having completed his investigation, turned his face to Mr. Strachan again and said: “I have inspected your cots, and I no can find onything writ on them neither by hond nor in fine print to the effect that on such and such a day sairtain hoppenings took place. Ontil such time as such becomes legible ye wull forgive me if I say—tosh!”
Mr. Strachan had had it. He was rubbed raw. The Captain had badly upset him and his faith in himself, and now this nasty bit of work was proposing to ruin the best yarn he had ever told—with proof. “Ah weel,” he said softly, with a kind of sigh, “perhaps this will improve your veesion,” and he carefully poured his untasted pint of dark over the head of Needle-nose.
The large docker next him with the badge thereupon turned sadly upon Mr. Strachan and said in a mildly reproving voice: “Now then, ye shouldna ha’ done that to little Jock, who lacks the height of ye. Ye’ll have some of your ain back then,” and without further ado he poured his beer over Mr. Strachan, who at the same time received a punch in the stomach from Needle-nose.
The stranger who had originally taken Mr. Strachan’s part now reached for the docker, but in so doing jostled the two sailors causing them to spill their grog. Mr. Strachan, aiming a retaliatory blow at Jock hit the commerical man instead who fell into the nearest table showering the neighboring one with the upset drinks.
And the next moment, to Peter’s horror, everybody in the bar seemed to be fighting everybody else while the barman went up and down behind the bar with a bung-starter looking for heads to crack at, and the bar-woman screamed murder at the top of her lungs.
“Stand fast!” Jennie cautioned. “Don’t let them push you off the bar or they’ll trample you to death. It won’t be long now.”
Faster and faster came the blows, the shouts, the cracking of chairs and tables knocked over and splintered, while Peter and Jennie leaped this way and that to avoid some of the swings aimed at no one in particular. Half the room was siding and fighting with Mr. Strachan, the others had nominated themselves partisans of Needle-nose, and the gauge of battle turned first toward one, then the other. Somebody threw a bottle that went crashing into the street through the window. And then all of a sudden the door flew open and in marched the largest constable that Peter had ever seen, backed by a smaller one who stood in the open doorway.
“ ’Ullo, ’ullo, ’ullo, ’ullo,” boomed the first constable. “What’s a’ this?”
His voice and words had a most amazing effect, just as in a fairy pantomime Peter had once seen when the wizard had spoken magic words and waved his wand and everybody had frozen stock-still in whatever position or attitude he happened to be in or whatever he was doing.
For as much as five seconds nobody moved in the public bar. Some stood with arms drawn back, others half ducked, others still had their fingers intertwined in the hair of opponents, and the last thing Peter remembered was that Jock, the needle-nosed one, had climbed halfway up Mr. Strachan and was perched there like a monkey on a stick when Jennie said: “Now!”
In a flash they were both off the bar, onto the floor, and out the door, running together down the street as fast as they could.
THE KILLERS
MORE AND MORE Peter was aware of a change that seemed to have come over Jennie Baldrin. She did not appear to be her old, gay, talkative self any longer, but was given over to falling into moods and long silences, and several times he caught her apparently staring off into space, quite lost in some inner contemplation. Once when he had offered her the traditional penny for her thoughts, she had not replied, and the sudden switching and twitching of her tail had warned him not to pursue the matter. Peter set it down to the shock of her experience when she had fallen overboard from the Countess and nearly drowned.
Not that her behavior toward Peter had changed except to become more loving and tender and somewhat dependent as more and more he learned the things that were necessary to be a free and masterless cat and less and less leaned on the memories of when he had been a boy. There was no doubt that she looked up to him ever since he had saved her life and that she enjoyed doing so. Peter, in turn, had experienced some of the dangers of going off at half cock in this new and exciting life and was always ready and willing to listen to and profit from his clever little companion who had learned so well how to take care of herself without the help of human beings.
If Peter was disappointed in their life in Glasgow, having expected goodness knows what of the city, to whom its distance had lent enchantment, Jennie was not, for she had already found out that for the poor and underprivileged the slums and backwaters and dock areas of one city are exactly like those of another, and this Peter, too, was now observing from experience.
It was one thing to arrive in a new city or place or country with your parents, who would thereupon engage a victoria, fiacre, barouche, or taxicab and drive around to visit the points of interest: the parks with their fine statues reared to the memories of famous heroes and scientists, the main shopping streets with their glittering store fronts, the residential areas filled with beautiful villas and huge ornate hotels, the museums, art galleries, exhibitions, churches, and ruins as well as the Strand or Corso or Mall where the band was playing. It was quite another to be alone and penniless, without food or shelter or a friend, in a strange city with life to be somehow preserved and a living to be won from it, particularly when, like Jennie, you were unwilling to pay the price of giving up your liberty in return for food, shelter, and a home.
Under those circumstances you remained away from the more attractive centers of the city, where a stray was most likely to collect abuse, kicks, and blows, with the possibility even of a trip to the pound and loss of life in the gas chamber, and confined yourself to those less-favored sections of the city where the inhabitants had enough to think upon to get along themselves without chivvying and worrying fellow unfortunates in the animal world.
To Peter, the docks along the Clydebank, the smells, the noise, the buildings, the hoists and derricks and tall cranes, the piles of ropes and cables, and the miles of railway trackage were very like those on the Thames in London, and the slum warehouses and stern neighborhoods in their vicinity quite alike.
Jennie taught him the art of working the cover off a dustbin to get at the scraps of food and disposed-of garbage remainders. It was done by standing up on the hind legs and pushing upwards with the nose under the rim of the can. The trick, as Jennie figured it out, was not to become discouraged if at the first attempt it could not be budged, but to try all around at various places on the circumference of the can until sooner or later one found the weak spot where the cover was more loosely attached and would yield a trifle to the first shove. Once it began to go, it was only a question of patience and energy before it could be lifted off.
Peter soon became an adept at this, for he had had a good, sturdy little body as a boy and now was powerfully built as a cat, long and lean in the flank and strong and heavy in the shoulders. Also, in time he came to be able to recognize a fellow vagrant at once by the tiny bald strip across the bridge of the nose where the hair was quite worn away from pushing up the iron rims of the lids.
Once the lid was off, a few sniffs were as good as a bill-of-fare to reveal the contents and its state of preservation, and they went at it with their paws, or if what appeared to be tempting and with a possibility of nourishment lay buried too deep, Jennie had worked out a refinement that lay open to the two cats working in concert in such a partnership as was shared between herself and Peter. It was just that the two leaped up and both clung to the same side of the can as close together as they could, and usually their combined weight was enough to tip it over with a terrific crash and clatter, spilling its contents onto the ground.
Too, they learned to haunt the butcher shop, the fishmonger, and the greengrocer as well as the alleys behind restaurants and hotels when the big vans from the wholesale houses came to make their deliveries, for the chance to snatch at scraps that might fall off or be dropped between lorry and store, and make off with them for a meal, which invariably they shared equally. For they ate not only bits of meat and fish when they could get it, or chewed up old bits of bone, but also any pieces of fruits or vegetables, biscuit, bread, stale oatmeal—anything and everything, in short, that could be chewed, swallowed, and digested.
And here again Peter was discovering that it was one thing to be fastidious about your food and complain because Nanny had not cut all the fat off his lamb chop, or refuse to eat his spinach because there was a bit of grit in it, or dawdle over a banana sliced thinly on cereal with plenty of sugar and milk, and indeed quite another never to have enough in your stomach and not know when or where your next meal was to come from. Of course, being a cat, his palate was quite different from what it had been when he was a boy, but, as Jennie pointed out, the average pampered house cat turned loose in a city to fend for itself would soon starve to death if it did not learn to subsist on anything and everything.
They ate old carrots and onions, bits and pieces of melon rind, raw cauliflower, and old bread crusts, cooked turnips and cabbage stumps, mysterious leavings from cocktail parties, cake crumbs from tea, bits of haddock skin and heads and tails of smoked herring, beef gristle and lamb bones that had been boiled until they were white; they licked out the inside of corned-beef tins to get at the fat and learned to go down to the quayside where the foreign ships from Sweden and Norway, Finland and Spain and Portugal dumped their more interesting garbage overboard, and fight the screaming and enraged gulls for some of the bits and pieces that floated alongside the stone jetty steps and that they could fish up out of the water with their paws.
But as in London, it proved to be a hard, rough, hazardous life, albeit an adventurous one, and rarely tempered by any softness or luxury. Compared with it, as they ranged up and down the Clyde, along the Broomielaw, Anderson, and Customhouse ways and then across the big steel and iron Glasgow Bridge to the southern part of the city, life aboard the Countess of Greenock had been palatial. Glasgow was a manufacturing city, and the smoke and grime drifted down and got into their fur and skin and it was difficult to keep clean, besides which it rained a great deal and they were hard put to it to find places to keep dry.
Nevertheless Jennie seemed to find this quite a normal way to live and did not complain or seem to mind except for those moody silences already referred to and the something that seemed to be occupying her mind.
The quest for her family had not prospered particularly nor did it seem likely to, until at last they came across a gray, scarred-up Maltese tabby who appeared to be a distant relative.
There had been one of those cold, penetrating, misting showers for which the Scots capital is famous, and Peter and Jennie had sought out a dry place under one of the arches of a bridge over the Clyde when they were warned by a low, throaty growl and a disgruntled, petulant voice saying: “’Ware! You’re trespassing!”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said Jennie politely. “We did not mean to.”
Peter, as usual when they had to do with another cat, held his tongue so as not to say something wrong, as he had promised Jennie. The speaker, he saw, was a somewhat weather-beaten, darkish gray Maltese with bright yellow eyes and the scars of battle on her ears and nose, and of course the well-known sign of the dust bin ridge. She was not particularly large or formidable-looking and he and Jennie together might well have routed her, but Jennie always insisted upon the politeness and amenities of cats even though frequently they seemed to be superfluous. There was room enough for a hundred or ten times that many cats beneath the span, but because the gray had got there first, by all the rules the territory belonged to her, particularly if she chose to make an issue of it. It all seemed very foolish to Peter, but he knew that Jennie would have insisted upon the same rights had she been there first and that this was a part of the lore of being a cat.
“We will of course be leaving at once,” Jennie said. “I was just looking for some relatives of mine. My name is Jennie Baldrin, and this is my friend Peter. The Baldrin is on my father’s side of course. Pure Scot for generations, and Highland at that. On Mother’s side we’re almost a hundred per cent Kaffir. But then, you’ll have recognized that, naturally. The usual route, you know. Central Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Spain, and then that Armada business.”
The gray did not seem to be too much impressed. She said: “Well, we came by way of the Bosporus originally, but long before the Turks laid siege. We were in Malta already when the Knights of St. John came. Our family got to Scotland with one of Nelson’s captains after he took the island. There’s a remote connection between us probably on the Baldrin side. Where did you say you were from?”
“Well,” Jennie replied, “we’re up from London on a visit, but my mother came from Mull. And of course you know the Baldrins were all Glasgow cats.”
The Maltese stiffened perceptibly. “London, eh? What have they in London that we haven’t twice better here?”
Peter could not resist chiming in: “Well, for one thing, it’s ever so much larger, and—”
“Size isn’t everything,” the Maltese said curtly, and added: “I’ll wager you have no shipyards the match of ours. We have no need of any London cats to come up here and lord it over us.”
“But I wasn’t meaning to lord—” Peter began to protest, when Jennie interrupted him to say: “Of course Glasgow is most beautiful and I’m glad I was born here. Do you know where any others of the family are?”
The Maltese looked down the side of her nose. “Can’t say I bother much. They’re all over the place, and many of them are no better than they should be. There’s a branch supposed to have gone to Edinburgh, but of course we don’t have any dealings with anybody on the east coast. Provincial. Why did you clear out of here? Wasn’t good enough for you, I suppose.”
