While the Storm Rages, page 12
The water cannister had been empty since lunchtime, though it didn’t stop Frank shuffling to it every ten minutes to see if anyone had mysteriously refilled it. His face every time he found it empty was one of disgust and despair.
With the heavy mac and hat on the heat addled Noah’s brain, his worries grating against each other, new ones fighting for space too. The river was slightly quieter today, as Central London shrank slowly behind them, but he remained standing on the box, in full captain’s attire. He couldn’t be sure if his disguise was fooling anyone though, every vessel that passed slowed down to stare. First at the donkey, then at the dogs who inevitably barked and hollered, whilst the kittens walked the deck’s rail like a couple of drunken trapeze artists. Then the spectators turned their attention to the driver, and Noah would turn his collar higher, pull his cap lower, and feel the sweat glide down his back.
‘Do they realise we’re kids?’ Noah asked Clem, each and every time it happened.
‘Who knows? It didn’t trouble them enough to stop us, did it?’
‘Suppose not.’ But in his mind he fretted that they were already planning to find the nearest bobby and report what they’d seen.
Noah scanned the horizon, a haze hugging the surface of the river, but he could still make out a copse of trees overhanging the water on the northern bank, and movement and noise coming from them. As they neared, Noah spotted what was going on: there was a rope swing dangling from one of the branches, much to the delight of a gaggle of children about their age, who were plunging again and again into the coolness of the river.
Noah felt envy instantly, but Clem saw an opportunity. One that would give the boat some respite.
‘You look so hot Big Col,’ she said. It was true, the boy had spent half the morning in the overheated cabin with his snake and was now slumped over the side of the boat sweating heavily beneath Delilah’s embrace.
‘You really are smart, aren’t you?’ he replied, sarcastically.
‘Gosh, imagine how great it would be if we could stop, even for a few minutes, to do what they’re doing.’
‘I thought you said it was dangerous to swim in the Thames.’
‘No, that was the tidal bit. There’s no current here. Just cool water for swimming in.’
Clem waited and watched, sighing every few seconds, noticing how Big Col couldn’t take his eyes off the children now. By the time the boat was fifty yards from them, it was too much to bear.
‘I reckon we should stop and swim,’ he announced suddenly. ‘Not for long. Just to take the edge off. Besides, I can see the dogs are hot too.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we can do that, not when we’ve been making such slow progress,’ Clem said, mock innocently. ‘Besides, what would we do with Delilah and the kittens?’
‘Delilah won’t mind being in the cabin keeping warm. And as long as she’s in her sack, then the kittens can be in there too.’
Noah looked at Big Col, aghast that he wanted to stop after moaning so loudly about their progress, but as he went to speak, Clem dug him in the ribs.
‘Say nothing,’ she whispered, ‘we can rest the boat without him realising it was his idea.’
Noah did as he was told, pulling over where Big Col told him to, killing the engine gratefully as Clem moored the boat in the shade by the rope swing.
Their arrival was greeted with hilarity and intrigue, especially when Samson was spotted. The local children, of course, wanted to know everything about what the threesome were doing, so Noah, getting carried away, concocted the shaggiest dog story he could. It didn’t matter that not all of it was true.
‘We’re runaways,’ he bragged. ‘From our parents, the police, AND the Nazis.’
None of them believed him, which suited Noah, but he allowed them to stroke Samson as he fed himself grass on the bank, and before long they all found themselves in the river, thrashing and ducking and plunging with such delight that they forgot everything else.
It was like the war hadn’t even started, they were children again, without the pressures of saving animals or their dad’s boats. They played until they were tired, saying goodbye to the others before drying themselves on the deck.
‘Do you think the rest will have done Maudie good?’ Clem whispered once they were dressed and casting off.
‘Can’t have done any harm,’ Noah said, feeling the paranoia return as he gradually opened the throttle and they spluttered from the bank.
But as it turned out, the boat was for once the least of their problems, as suddenly, from nowhere, Noah heard a voice behind him. It didn’t belong to any of his crewmates, and the tone of the question made him jump.
‘Afternoon all. And where do you think you’re going then?’
32
Noah’s instinct was to accelerate away. Surely only one type of person asked a question like that, and if the police had tracked them down, then he wasn’t going to surrender peacefully or quickly. If they wanted him to go home without achieving his mission, then they’d have to handcuff him and drag him there kicking and screaming.
But before he accelerated, he looked to who had spoken and saw it wasn’t a policeman at all. It was a man who had pulled up alongside in a small boat. He was about Noah’s dad’s age, with a threadbare beard and a skipper’s hat of his own, grubby and frayed, a good three sizes too small. It sat at a curled angle on his head, like a comma on a page, and although the mouth below the hat was smiling, the eyes were not. They were furtive, darting, surveying everything onboard, like the man was totting up what it was all worth.
‘I said where you all going on your own then?’ he asked again, revealing fewer teeth than expected. The ones that still sat in his gums seemed to be hanging on for dear life.
‘Oh you know, nowhere special,’ Noah replied without lifting his head. He kept his voice low and slow but succeeded merely in sounding like the boy he was.
‘Youngest skipper I’ve ever seen.’
‘Yeah, well my dad, he’s...’ but the answer wouldn’t come.
‘Sleeping downstairs,’ Clem suddenly offered.
‘Sleeping? Mid-afternoon? Been on the drink already?’ The man laughed.
‘No, he’s just unwell. He’s...’
At that moment Big Col made an appearance, swaggering up with Delilah coiled around his upper body and three dead fish in his grasp. The man stumbled backwards in his boat, eyes wide and unblinking.
‘He’s eaten a dodgy fish,’ Clem said quickly, using Big Col’s catch as her inspiration.
Big Col, unaware of the situation saw only a slight on his fishing skills.
‘Whose fish are dodgy? And who’s taken sick?’ He couldn’t work it out. Noah was standing right there, at the wheel like he always was. And, anyway, there was nothing wrong with anything he’d caught. Every single fish had practically jumped straight from the line into the pan!
‘You know?’ Clem said, turning her back to the man so he couldn’t see her eyes, imploring Big Col to play along. ‘Noah’s dad. The only reason Noah’s driving is his dad’s having a lie down. Isn’t that right?’
But the boy wasn’t great at picking up signals: he was all sledgehammer and no subtlety.
The man however, was no longer interested in a queasy dad. Now he had recovered his balance, he only had eyes for Delilah and probably the money she would make him if she happened to find her way into his possession. Any thoughts he might have had though about wrestling her from the boy were soon squashed by Delilah herself, who without warning, lurched towards the man, fangs extended, a long, sly hiss slithering off her tongue.
‘You need to control that thing!’ the man said, clearly terrified. ‘Put it in a cage or something.’
Normally, Clem would correct the lunacy of his statement: that bars would do little to contain a python, but Delilah answered herself. Another lurch forwards, a ferocious one this time, that almost pulled Big Col off his feet. It was a reminder, and a scary one at that, of the raw power she held. He might have been on the relative safety of his own boat, but the man had seen enough.
‘I don’t know what you lot are up to, but you’re clearly trouble. Especially you!’ he spat, though it was unclear if his words were pointed at Big Col, or Delilah. ‘You want to be careful, though,’ he added, ‘threatening a fellow sailor with a snake. Things like that have a way of backfiring. So I’d watch your flipping back if I were you.’ Except he didn’t say flipping, he said something ruder, before opening his engine and moving off.
‘Well, that worked,’ sighed Noah in relief. ‘Even if you didn’t mean it to.’
‘Why were you on about your dad? ’ said Big Col.
Noah thought about explaining, but he was hot, and he was tired, and he was trying not to get distracted by the idle threats of a drunken fisherman. He had to keep his mind on the mission in hand: sail the boat to the Duchess’. Deposit the pets safe and sound. Don’t blow the boat’s engine up. And don’t get arrested. If he could manage that as well as not being eaten by a python, it would be a job well done.
33
‘Why are you slowing down AGAIN! We’ll be going backwards soon, and I’ve already seen Richmond once today!’ yelled Big Col. He yelled something similar, on a number of occasions.
‘I thought I saw a heron,’ would be the reply from Noah. Or kingfisher, or otter.
Noah did nothing but fret and worry about the state of Queen Maudie ’s engine and went as slowly as he could to keep her temperature down.
There were other excuses on offer too thankfully.
The next lock, at Teddington, proved a lifesaver in more than one way, for as they waited for the water levels to even, Clem spotted a tap on the side of the keeper’s house, and bundled on to the bank to fill as many bottles and cans as she could find. As she busied herself, Queen Maudie rested, welcoming the minutes on offer, until the lock gates could be opened.
But as they spluttered forward into the lock, with Big Col pushing them closed behind them, they hit a new problem. The prying eyes of the man in charge of it.
‘Bit young to be sailing a vessel like this, aren’t you?’ he said suspiciously.
Their feeble retelling of the ‘ill father below deck’ story was met with a raised eyebrow and more questions, especially about Samson.
‘Have you not heard about what they’re doing to animals?’ Noah said. He didn’t have to act to put emotion in his voice. ‘Killing them. Thousands of them. All cos of bloomin’ Hitler. But my dad’s got a brother, out Windsor way, with a field. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to put a healthy beast like this to sleep, would it?’
The man looked momentarily sympathetic. ‘That’s all well and good,’ he said, ‘but young uns like you shouldn’t be left in charge of a boat like this.’
‘We’re not. Not really. Dad’ll be up in no time.’
The lock keeper pulled at his beard and shook his head in doubt, but as he was about to demand again to talk to the responsible adult, he was interrupted by a loud tuneless horn from behind them. As they turned, Noah saw a boat much bigger than their own, manned by men in soldiers’ uniforms. His first instinct was to check for his own dad there, but then realised it was foolish, as an officer yelled over them.
‘Can you get a move on?’ he demanded. ‘We’ve important cargo to get to Reading by end of day. We’ve no time for idle chat.’
He spoke with an authority that exceeded that of the lock keeper and everyone knew it, especially the lock keeper himself.
‘I’ve some stupid children here, with no adult on board. Can you back up so they can reverse out?’ he stammered.
‘Our boat don’t work in reverse.’ Noah blurted. The lock keeper looked appalled, but not as appalled as the soldier on the boat.
‘We haven’t the time for this!’ he roared. ‘For pity’s sake, let them through so we can be on our way. Do you hear me?’
‘Right,’ the lock keeper blustered, throwing Noah the meanest of looks.
Picking up his wrench he turned to the mechanisms, spinning his tool so quickly that his arm seemed almost to blur.
Almost instantly, the children felt the difference. The water around them seemed to drop and the Maudie began to drop with it. It was a strange feeling, unsettling, yet the lock keeper didn’t look concerned, only angry, muttering under his breath for the next four minutes until the water level on the other side of the lock was identical to their own.
Pushing the gates open, he offered them a final, parting shot.
‘Get out of my sight, quickly. And don’t be thinking you can come back through my lock without an adult at the wheel, do you hear me?’
Clem thanked the man and told him that she was sure their dad would be well again by then.
‘You heard the gentleman, Noah,’ she went on. ‘Let’s go.’
So Noah did, though he knew, as the soldiers’ boat breezed past them minutes later, that they had had not one, but two lucky escapes in a very short amount of time.
The episode left them rattled, the relaxation of the swim entirely forgotten, and after a short while, Noah was almost pleased that Frank and Winn started to demand another break in their journey.
The Queen Maudie was not a big boat, far from it: the dogs had grown tired of its confines and began to whine. There wasn’t enough of interest left to sniff. They wanted to breathe in other animals, to cover and mark their scents, as well as run and chase and hide in the long grasses that lined the riverbank.
‘We will stop soon, I promise,’ Noah told Winn repeatedly, but when that promise wasn’t kept quickly enough, the dog took matters into her own paws, and with a run up, leaped effortlessly over the edge of Maudie’s rail, into the cooling water of the river.
The splash was a huge one, and any wildlife in the vicinity soon turned and fled. Winn barked her pleasure all the way to the riverbank.
Frank, back on deck, was furious that his friend had jumped ship without him, but no matter how hard he tried, there was no way his little, arthritic legs were going to clear the rail.
Instead, he looked at Clem with pleading eyes and a tilted head.
‘Frank, if you think I’m throwing you into the river, you’ve another think coming. You can’t even swim the length of the bath without wheezing.’
Frank barked his feeble disagreement.
‘The dogs need a run,’ Noah said, trying to sound disappointed despite knowing a break was exactly what Maudie needed too. ‘Winn’s made that clear. And if we don’t do the same for Frank, then he’ll start protesting all over the deck.’
‘All right. I think we must be near Hampton Court now. Maybe those field there are part of the grounds, it’s hard to know for sure.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Noah replied. ‘Any field is good enough to wear them out a bit. Let them do their business.’
Big Col didn’t like it of course, but he also didn’t like the thought of watching his every step for whatever gift the stupid Nazi dog might leave on deck either. So he didn’t complain quite as loudly as normal, choosing an icy glare and a simmering rage instead. Noah knew he was cross about it, but at that moment, he really didn’t care.
As much as Noah wanted to reach Windsor as quickly as possible, he was ready for the break. His hands ached from holding the juddering wheel of the boat, and it was a blessed relief for his ears not to be battered by the protesting engine.
But there was one thing he couldn’t escape, and that was his exhaustion.
It might have been nearing teatime now, but it felt like midnight to Noah. After tying the boat up securely against the bank, he tried to relax with a quick paddle, which was fine, but as soon as he stood, his bones felt heavy once more.
‘Why am I so flipping tired?’ he moaned at Clem, after gingerly leading Samson on to dry land.
‘I can’t think why. It’s not been a busy couple of days, has it?’ she replied with a smile, before watching Samson try to adapt to a different type of terrain. ‘Do donkeys get seasick?’
It obviously wasn’t a question she’d considered before, but if she had to hazard a guess, she’d say yes. For Samson seemed to be weaving drunkenly, each of his four legs quivering, trying to work out why the earth suddenly felt different under his hooves. Clem also didn’t know if donkeys were prone to vomiting, but knew she didn’t want to be too close if they were.
‘We don’t really know a single thing about him, do we?’ she sighed.
‘Apart from his name and his terrible taste in headwear, no,’ replied Noah.
‘I mean, who would just abandon an animal like that? What if we hadn’t brought him along. What would’ve happened to him?’ She thought about it a while. ‘I know people will say it’s only an animal, but he still deserves a decent life, doesn’t he? Just like we do.’
Noah nodded and the two friends sat with their elbows on their knees watching the donkey from the shade. Once the beast shook off his sea legs, his movements became much more energetic. Winn and Frank, who were in their element exploring the riverbank, started circling Samson playfully, yapping an invitation for him to chase them, darting between his legs, making him perform a clumsy dance that made the children laugh. Frank looked like a puppy again, which made Clem teary.
The play didn’t stop there, and within minutes Samson and the dogs were running laps around the field, chasing, howling and braying with excitement. The kittens tried to join in too, ploughing through the long grass and comically failing to keep up with their older friends. It didn’t put them off though or stop them from trying to hitch a ride on old Samson’s tail, their claws clinging on for a second or two before he swept them back to the floor for another try.
Samson was a truly strong beast. His legs propelled him at great speed and there was incredible power in his hind quarters. Irritated by an itch after running so much in the heat, he backed himself into a tree to scratch, and despite it being no mere sapling, the trunk bent and swayed under his power.
