Able Seacat Simon: The Wartime Hero of the High Seas

Chapter 19

We were united with the fleet – well, our friends on HMS Consort, who’d come steaming along to greet us – just as we cleared the river’s estuary. Now it really was time for congratulations and celebrations. We’d spent a full 101 days trapped up the Yangtse, and we were finally back on the open ocean.

As soon as we were free – and, oh, how glorious it was to be out on the open sea again! – Captain Kerans had Jack send a message. ‘Have rejoined the fleet south of Woosung. No damage or casualties. God save The King.’

And The King, to the delight of everyone on board, signalled back.

‘Please convey to the commanding officer and ship’s company of HMS Amethyst my hearty congratulations on their daring exploit to rejoin the fleet. The courage, skill and determination shown by all on board have my highest commendation. Splice the mainbrace.’

Needless to say, everyone did.

The next twenty-four hours passed in something of a blur. The Concord came alongside us and resupplied us with much-needed oil, and then, soon after dark, we were joined by another ship, the Jamaica, which was carrying all our mail – this had the men almost beside themselves with excitement. There was also a band, who were out on deck and playing for us, as she steamed all around us, a tune Frank said was called ‘Rolling down the River’.

‘Not that we had much chance to do any rolling!’ he pointed out to Petty Officer Griffiths as we watched them from the quarterdeck. ‘Rolling? No ruddy time for any of that!’

There was no time for anything much at all now, as in a little over two days we’d be in docked in Hong Kong, the ordeal finally over, where we’d been warned that there was ‘one hell of a reception’ waiting for us, as the captain put it.

I wasn’t sure what ‘one hell of a reception’ might feel like, but with the mood on board so buoyant, I was as swept up in the atmosphere as everyone else was. Had I a tail like Peggy’s, I would have wagged it. As it was, I hadn’t – my own tail ‘wagged’ for rather different reasons – but I don’t think I’d spent so much time purring in months.

‘You know, young fellow,’ Captain Kerans said, as we steamed towards home, ‘you’re still so very young, but I reckon you’ve lived more lives than many cats do in their entire lifetimes!’

I thought I probably had, too.

And then, before I knew it, we were home. Gazing out towards the hills that rose steeply in the distance, I felt almost as if we’d never been away.

It was good to see Hong Kong again. Good to see the sheer, happy bustle of it. Good to see the sampans bobbing in the bay, their brightly coloured sails like the wings of so many butterflies, all of which had chosen this perfect shimmering bay on which to settle.

Approaching the docks, I was also pleased – if a little overwhelmed – to see the thousands of people who had come out to welcome us back.

In truth, I found it difficult to believe what I was seeing. Despite there having been many signals back and forth to prepare us for the escort we’d be receiving – and for the throng that would likely be greeting us – the sight of all the sailors lining the decks of the escort convoy was quite astonishing. Even more astonishing was the sheer volume of the cheers and whoops and whistles that kept ringing out, again and again, across the bay.

Peggy, true to form, was like an animal possessed. Had it not been so firmly attached to the rest of her, her tail would have been in danger of becoming detached. As it was, she was kept from getting too over-excited by a makeshift leash tied around her neck, which seemed to be fashioned from a length of sailmaker’s twine. At least it kept her from leaping bodily into the water at the dockside, which had been suggested several times as a strong possibility. It also silenced her to an extent, because she couldn’t seem to understand that if she strained too hard against it, it prevented her from barking, so she kept trying to do both at once.

Watching her doing this, I was very glad no one considered me enough of a nuisance to put such a contraption round my neck. Though, once I thought about it, if they had got such an idea into their heads, I’d have probably ‘skedaddled’, just like George used to, before they even tried.

I felt very much like skedaddling, in any case, if I was honest, because the closer we got to our berth at the dockside the more the press of people began to alarm me. So much shouting, so much waving, such a huge number of people, adding an extra layer of anxiety to that which was already welling, at the fire crackers and hooters that kept going off and making me jump.

Not that I would be given much chance to escape, because while the ship was being oiled, resupplied and fixed up as much as was necessary, there was a certain naval function Peggy and I had been told we must attend.

‘You are the hero of the hour!’ Captain Kerans announced a few days after we’d docked. ‘You and Peggy both, but particularly you, it seems, Simon. And guess what. You are not only going to be awarded an Amethyst Campaign Medal, you are going to get another medal too!’

He was sitting in his cabin, with Lieutenant Hett and Lieutenant Berger. Berger had rejoined the ship after our escape, having recovered from the wounds he’d suffered back in April.

The captain was half hidden under mountains of paperwork. It had been the same since we’d docked. All sorts of paperwork had been delivered, to replace all the charts and documents Lieutenant Weston had had to burn, I supposed, as well as all sorts of official-looking files.

He flapped a piece of paper he held in one hand, and patted his knee with the other. I didn’t need to jump, though, because Lieutenant Hett scooped me up and plonked me on the captain’s lap.

‘Now then, see this?’ he told me. ‘This is a letter of confirmation that you are to be officially awarded the Dickin Medal, which is a decoration awarded to only the bravest and most courageous animals, who have helped their human friends in times of war. And there’s more – you are the very first cat ever to be awarded one. How about that? How about that?’ he repeated to the other men. ‘I had no idea about that, did you?’ Both shook their heads. ‘Pigeons, dogs, horses, but never a cat. Quite something, eh?’ He turned back to me, his eyes bright. He seemed amused by it all. ‘And now a cat has been awarded one. You, Simon.’ He looked pretty pleased with himself, I decided. ‘You are going to be decorated twice! At the Royal Navy Fleet Club, tomorrow night, as it happens.’

‘If we manage to get him there,’ Lieutenant Hett pointed out.

‘Shall I have Dusty see if he can rustle up a crate for us?’ asked Lieutenant Berger. ‘We can’t risk carrying him down there, can we?’

The captain shook his head. ‘No, we can’t. Good idea. Or a strong cardboard box. See what he can come up with. Anyway, how about that, Simon? The hero of the hour!’ he looked more than pleased. He looked delighted.

‘Or a trunk,’ Lieutenant Hett was saying. A trunk? I was alarmed now. ‘We could always pop him in a trunk. And if we put a lead on him, just in case…’

A lead? I was not liking this one little bit.

‘And you can be sure there’ll be a hullaballoo once this hits the press,’ the captain added. ‘They’re sending a collar for him as well, by all accounts. That’s for you to wear in lieu of the medal, Simon,’ he explained to me. ‘Then, when we return to England you’ll be presented with the medal itself – in London. Bit of pomp and circumstance for you to enjoy!’

He still looked delighted. He couldn’t have looked more delighted. But all this talk of collars and hullaballoos was beginning to make me anxious. Not to mention trunks and leads and strong cardboard boxes. And presentations at fleet clubs, whatever they were. It all sounded very, very worrying to me.

I decided that a course of evasive action would be necessary. They would have to have their presentation without me. I made myself scarce. For two days.

We were just over a month in Hong Kong. The Amethyst was restocked with supplies and refuelled, and such repairs that were immediately necessary were completed, and such hullaballoos as were deemed necessary were also completed, all of which I tried to give an equally wide berth.

Not so my shipmates, who seemed to revel in their new status as heroes, and deservedly so. It was only now, with them safe and rested, that I think I truly realised how much of a toll the whole experience had taken.

Everyone had been given leave, and they were making the most of it, allowing me to see them in a very different and welcome light. Now our ordeal was over, they seemed energised; bright-eyed and smiling. To an extent it was as if they’d been reborn – as if they too had nine lives and, having just lost one, were determined to plunge enthusiastically into the next.

So, while I kept to my routines (the Amethyst might be berthed, but there were still rats that needed hunting) my friends came and went, often seeming almost as over-excited as Peggy. I was reminded of the tottering revellers I used to observe at night back when I was still a kitten, sitting on an oil drum or pile of pallets in the moonlight, more often than not mystified by all the strange activities.

Now I studied my friends’ antics from up on the bridge, where I still stood watch for at least some portion of the night, my view of them so different now, and in such an unexpected way.

What a long way we’d all come together.

Though I’d had no particular desire to leave the ship during our time in Hong Kong, on our last day in dock I had a sudden change of heart. It suddenly struck me we’d be sailing for England in a matter of hours.

I knew everything and nothing about this fabled place called England. I knew it was home for most of my friends, that it was always spoken of with love and reverence, and that the men seemed to almost ache for it, so keen were they to see it again. But I also knew it was far away – far further than I’d ever been – and in the north, where it was apparently often cold; a kind of cold I’d been told I would’ve ‘never known the likes of’ and which, in the oppressive heat of a Yangtse night, my friends would yearn for.

I had no such yearning. I didn’t see why anyone would like the cold. As with being ‘wet through’, which had turned out to be decidedly unpleasant, I suspected I wouldn’t like ‘cold’ one little bit. But as all I wanted was to stay on the Amethyst, I was happy enough. I would go where she went; where my friends went.

It did occur to me that with England being so far away, it might be a very long time before I saw Hong Kong again. Who knew? I might never come back here. In thinking that, I felt a sudden powerful urge to say goodbye to it. To sit, for a while, on the end of the jetty. To be close, for just a short time, to my mother. So while everyone was busy with the last of the preparations I slipped away down the gangway onto the dock I hadn’t set my paws on for well over a year.

It was the strangest thing. I remembered the way. All that time away at sea – all those adventures, all those trials, all those lives I’d been living – and yet it wasn’t even as if I had to consciously remember. It was the opposite. It was as if I’d never been away.

I padded away from the quay, feeling unexpected waves of nostalgia and sadness come over me. Having been away so long, I soon realised just how much I’d forgotten, from the sight of my beloved banyans and the caws of the cockatoos, to the green softness of the hills that rose up beyond the city, as if hugging it in their protective embrace. Particularly intense was the feel of sand and earth beneath my paws, both so unexpectedly soft and warm and fragrant after the cold unyielding corticene I’d grown so used to. But I also understood why my senses had forgotten them. Because that was what being a cat was all about. We thrived because we knew how to live where we were, rather than – as humans often seemed to, I’d discovered – where our hearts wished to be.

Not that I wished to be anywhere but the Amethyst now, living with the friends who had become so precious to me. As I left the bustle of the harbour, the feeling only intensified, as every new vista pulled me back to some wisp of painful memory that reminded me how lucky I’d been. Not in losing my mother, whose presence I still felt constantly, but to have escaped from the miseries of those last months as a stray, when I’d hunt till my pads were raw, getting drenched and despondent, and sit at the end of the jetty and wonder what kind of better life there might be beyond the bay.

I felt proud that I’d found the courage to go in search of it – well, once the terror had abated, anyway. That I’d allowed myself to be scooped up by dear sweet Ordinary Seaman George Hickinbottom – where was he now, I wondered? – who I missed still. He would never know how grateful I was that he’d given me the opportunity to live a life I could never have imagined. To become the cat I could never have imagined either.

It was a warm morning, the rain that had greeted our arrival having cleared, and as I padded along the familiar tracks and pathways, alternately bright and shady under the tamarinds and banyans, I let the happier memories of that earlier time wash over me.

Memories of the kind old lady who used to live in the big house – which I now hurried past automatically, slightly braced, automatically fearful – the hunting forays (how proud I hoped Mum would now be of me!), the anxious crossings of the murderous road that spilt the island into two, and our little jetty on the far shore. This stood exactly as I’d left it – reaching out from the sand, gnarly plank by gnarly plank, on past the shingle, to hover above the water as if a path to something wonderful, where we’d sit and gaze up at the moon.

There was no moon now. The sky, the same intense butterfly-wing blue I would always remember, was reflected in the gently lapping water, which in turn was sprinkled, as it always was, with shards of dancing sunshine. Almost on an impulse, I jumped down onto the sand and slipped beneath the jetty, aware as I did so how much bigger I’d grown, how much smaller our sometime home seemed. Small and safe, kitten. I could almost hear my mother saying it.

I spent a few moments there, luxuriating in the welcome cool and shade, remembering what I’d left here, idly following the progress of a tiny lizard between the pebbles, but feeling not even the tiniest urge to stretch a paw out and toy with it.

My mother had been right. It had been my safe place and I was glad I’d come back; it felt good to return here and experience it again. But it wasn’t long before I felt the tug of the Amethyst calling me back to her. And, perhaps, floating on the breeze, the sound of Peggy, too – yapping furiously about nothing in particular, as she so often did, and Coxswain Frank, hollering irritably from some corner of the ship or other, ‘Will someone please shut that ruddy dog up!’

I didn’t linger longer. It was time to head back. To my new life, my dear friends, to my quarters – which were admittedly various. And some of them perhaps a little too fine for a working naval seacat. But then, as Jack had pointed out, I was ‘decorated now’, wasn’t I? It still felt slightly unreal, that, and it humbled me to even think about it, but I was reassured that we’d be back at sea soon and all the fuss would die down. (Captain Kerans had reassured me, when all the people had swarmed so alarmingly up the gangway, my ‘fan-club’, whatever that was, definitely couldn’t come with us there.)

As I left the shore, a flock of cockatoos took flight, as if to wish me well. Time to say goodbye to Hong Kong. Time to go home.

Chapter 20

My absence had caused something of a commotion. I wasn’t aware of it at first, because the Amethyst looked exactly as she had when I’d left her, bar the one difference I welcomed – that all the well-wishers seemed to have left. The sun was strong on my back now, and the long walk had left me feeling weary. I realised it was the first time I’d travelled such a distance in over a year, and my hind legs were busy reminding me.

But all was not as I’d left it, clearly, because before I’d so much as placed a paw on the gangway, a shout rang out from high above me, and I looked up to see Jack, waving his arms to someone down on the lower deck, shouting, ‘He’s back! Martin! Paddy! Look! No, not that way – that way! Sid, get down there and grab him! Get him back! Take the herrings!’ upon which there was a scramble to locate the fish they’d obviously found for me, in the hopes – or so I assumed – that I might need some enticement to be coaxed back on board again. As if there was a chance that I might decide not to board the ship again. As if they might need (and at this I was confused and confounded) to persuade me that my life and home was with them.

By the time I’d padded up the gangway, feeling grateful that the ship placed it in shadow – a balm for my much-too-hot paws – Sid and Martin were already crouched at the top of it, waiting, the legs of their shorts flapping and their caps pushed right back, a pair of hopeful grins on their faces. There was no sign of Jack, so I assumed he was still shimmying down to us. Somebody must have seen me leave the ship, I realised.

‘C’mon, Blackie. That’s the boy,’ said Martin, gesturing to the saucer on the deck in front of him. ‘Here you go. Fishy fishy! Some lovely herrings for you – look! Orders of the captain. Opened specially, they were. Just for you.’

I duly went up and sniffed the fish, and Martin began to stroke me. ‘Where’ve you been, little fella?’ he wanted to know. ‘Off to find your sweetheart? You’ve had us at sixes and sevens, you have, Blackie. Caused one almighty hulla-ballo, I can tell you. The boss has been beside himself – it was him saw you leave. Can you imagine the to-do if we sailed back to Blighty and the hero of the hour wasn’t with us?’

I was beginning to feel increasingly humbled by all this, not to mention touched that the captain had spotted me leaving and set up a watch for my return. And guilty for having been the cause of yet another hullaballoo. Guilty too, about being called the ‘hero of the hour’ – as if every man and man-boy aboard the Amethyst, not to mention those who’d been taken from us by the communists, were anything less than heroes themselves. Not forgetting Peggy, who, despite the misfortune of having been a dog (or perhaps because of it) didn’t have a bad bone in her body, as Jack had once told me – well, not unless she’d eaten one, that was.

In any event, I was glad to be back amongst my friends again, and without so much as a whisker of regret in my head that we’d be off to sea again and might never be required to come back.

A whistle sounded, and it was only then that I realised that the ship must be weighing anchor sooner than I’d thought. Either that or the time had passed faster than I’d known. In any event, it made more sense of the panic at my arrival, and it also struck me (with only slightly less panic) that had I stayed longer on the beach I could have been too late. An image formed in my head then, of rounding the quay and seeing only sea and sky and sampans where the Amethyst should be. That’s when it really hit me fully: I could have come back – to my home – and found it no longer there.

‘Not hungry? Well, there’s a first.’ It was Jack, who’d come down and joined us. ‘Been scavenging, have you?’ he asked, squatting down and laughing. ‘Stalking a big old gecko, perhaps? Lost track of the time?’

He was right. I wasn’t hungry, but not for the reasons he thought. It’s not in a cat’s nature to be too over-emotional, but how glad I was that it was never necessary to explain. I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to explain.

And perhaps I didn’t need to. I made a start on the herrings.

It was after we’d sailed before the extent of my ‘celebrity status’, as the captain put it, really began to sink in. Though I had managed to avoid any involvement in anything to do with trunks, leads or collars while on land, it seemed I wasn’t going to be able to escape entirely, as no sooner had we reached the open sea than Captain Kerans managed to collar me and affix the stiff new collar around my neck. He wasn’t content with my just wearing it – I was made to pose with it for a series of photographs, too. ‘You’ll be the star of Pathé news!’ he assured me.

Then there was the news report that someone had brought on board just before we’d slipped, and which, during our usual church service a couple of days later, Lieutenant Hett had produced and read out to the crew.

‘Sailors get award,’ he began. ‘That’s “sailors” as in Simon and Peggy here, as opposed to you lot, obviously,’ he added, sweeping his gaze around the deck. ‘Hong Kong: Able Seaman Simon and Guardsman Peggy received campaign ribbons on Saturday with all the modesty of heroes. In their case, it was a purr and a wag of the tail. As members of the crew of the British sloop Amethyst, during the dash down the Yangtse from communist captivity, they were honoured in a ceremony in the British Navy’s Fleet Club, complete with honour guard.

‘Said Petty Officer Griffiths, who officiated at the ceremony, to Peggy the dog: Guardsman Peggy for meritorious service on HMS Amethyst, is hereby awarded the distinguished Amethyst Campaign Ribbon.

‘Simon the cat – Yes, that’s you, Simon. I told you you shouldn’t have missed it – got the same, word for word, and this additional citation: “Let it be known that though recovering from wounds, Simon did single-handed and unarmed hunt down and destroy Mao Tse-tung, a rat guilty of raiding food supplies.

‘Another Mao Tse-tung is the leader of China’s communists.’ He folded the paper and grinned. ‘Like we didn’t know that, eh?’

But the piece in the newspaper was as nothing compared to the surprise that would greet me a few hours later.

With all the routines of heading to sea again taking priority over everything, once the service was over it was all hands to their duties. We were well out of the harbour and on our way to Singapore when Captain Kerans came and found me.

‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, plucking me unceremoniously from his bunk. ‘Something told me I might find you here, you little scallywag. Come on. We’re off to see Frank in the wardroom.’

I had no idea why, but I didn’t mind the interruption. Now we were back at sea I would have plenty of time for napping. It was a good feeling. A good feeling indeed.

We duly went down to the wardroom, Captain Kerans humming to himself as he carried me. It was good to see him so happy too.

But he stopped in the doorway. ‘Goodness me!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look at this lot! Good Lord. What a thing, eh?’

As I was still half asleep, I wasn’t quite sure what he was on about. He seemed to be referring to a number of sacks – bulging hemp sacks, of the kind that the post usually came in – that had presumably been brought in by the quartermaster before we’d sailed.

He put me down on the big wardroom table and turned to Frank. ‘This lot is really all for Simon?’

Frank nodded. ‘Aye aye, sir. The lot. All been sorted already. And you’re right. You wouldn’t credit it, would you?’

Yes, I thought, padding across the table for a better look, but what is it? What’s this ‘lot’ that he’s on about? Because I’d missed most of what Frank would probably call the ‘carryings-on’, I had only the vaguest idea what they were talking about. And even less about what might be in the sacks.

Tins of sardines, hopefully. If they had been delivered here for me, there was a chance of that, wasn’t there? I licked my lips. Tins and tins and tins of sardines, if I was lucky. And if I was even more lucky, there might be some cream in there too. For all Captain Kerans kept saying I looked ‘like the cat that got the cream’ lately, I’d seen nothing in the way of cream – precious little in the way of milk, even – since we’d left Shanghai for Nanking all those months ago.

I could already feel my mouth watering at the prospect of my fond imaginings, but no one seemed much inclined to look for any. Instead, Frank pulled a clutch of papers from the top of one of the sacks, and started looking through them with what appeared to be great amusement.

He then pulled out another handful and Captain Kerans joined in too, wrestling out another wodge of them himself. ‘Well, I’ve seen everything now, Coxswain,’ he said, chuckling to himself and then waggling one of my ear tips. ‘I’ve seen a very great deal in my time in the Senior Service but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before. Who could ever have imagined it?’ he asked Frank. ‘Fancy. I really have never seen anything quite like it.’

He thrust one of the papers under my nose. I was washing my whiskers – might as well, I thought, while they busied themselves in not finding any sardines – but the paper jiggled in front of me seemed at least worth a sniff. Then I realised what it was: it was post. It was letters. Just like the sacks of them that used to reach the Amethyst via the supply ships and, latterly, while we were marooned up the Yangtse, via the sampan or landing craft that used to bring them sporadically, and which always caused such a great fuss.

Post was important. I knew that. It had always been important. It was one of the things that kept the crew happy and boosted morale – though I was so often privy to it having quite the opposite effect (at least in private) that, for all that my human friends loved to receive it, I didn’t trust the business of post quite as much as I might have.

I sniffed the letter carefully. ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right,’ Captain Kerans said, looking pleased with himself. ‘That’s you, little feller. Able Seacat Simon, is what it says there.’ He ran his finger along the writing. ‘Care of HMS Amethyst, Hong Kong. As does this,’ he added, flipping through the rest of the pile in his hand. ‘As does this, as does this, as does this. They are all for you.’ He scratched his head again. ‘Honestly, Frank, really. Who’d have thought it? This little fellow here has obviously captured quite a few hearts!’

‘I’ll say so, sir,’ agreed Frank. He was still busy with his own sack and was now pushing his arm halfway down it. I wasn’t altogether sure what the captain meant. Captured hearts? Because, confused though I was, I’d at least worked out one thing: that the contents of the sacks seemed very likely to be related to the masses of people who’d come to greet us at the quayside on the morning we’d docked, and who’d continued appearing right up until we’d left Hong Kong. And related to the collar, and the ceremony I’d been at pains to avoid attending, and to the piece in the newspaper about Mao Tse-tung.

I eyed the sack Frank was still riffling through hopefully.

Perhaps he had found some sardines at last.

Apparently not. Well, at least, I doubted it, because what now appeared in his hand was a strange-looking package, wrapped in brightly patterned paper, and which looked as much like a tin of sardines as I did. ‘Permission to open it, sir?’ he asked the captain.

‘Of course, Frank, go ahead. I’m sure Simon’ll be keen to see what it is, won’t you, feller?’

Which I was, well, a little. I certainly liked the paper, which crackled pleasingly and looked fairly interesting. But no sooner had I worked out that there was unquestionably no fish in it than something flew from Frank’s hand, wheeled high overhead, and landed with a flump on my head.

It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, but it was something of a shock so, though I was aware they found it funny, I immediately launched myself at it and (as a cat has to do in such situations, always) held it tight between my front paws, clamped my jaws around what appeared to be its neck, and then proceeded to attack it with my hind legs.

‘Well, that’s apt,’ the captain said, grabbing the other end of it and tugging, which seemed no sort of thing for the captain to be doing and definitely something he had never tried to do with any rat I’d presented him with. So I let the prey go, not least because it didn’t even seem to be wriggling. Was it dead? I felt suspicious. Had it ever been alive?

I pulled back. I sat on my haunches, and took a better, more considered look at it. Until Captain Kerans picked it up and tried to rub it against my nose. I didn’t hiss – that would be rude – but I certainly shuffled back a bit. Whatever this thing was, one thing was very clear now. It definitely wasn’t any kind of food or animal.

Frank laughed. ‘You know what, sir, thinking about it, I wonder if our Simon has ever even seen a cuddly toy before. I don’t reckon so, do you?’

‘I suspect you might be right,’ the captain said, waggling it in front of me again. ‘It’s a mouse, Simon,’ he said. ‘See? A mouse for you to play with. Squeak squeak!’

Then he shook his head. ‘As if he’s in need of such diversions round here, eh? Still, it’s jolly nice. And it’s the thought that counts, obviously. He’s not going to have much access to rats in quarantine, after all. I tell you what, Frank, we’ll need to put someone in charge of this. If this is the shape of things to come, there’ll be a lot more of the same before we finally make Plymouth. And we must do the decent thing and keep a record. Catalogue what’s received. Get some photographs taken. I’ve a feeling the fourth estate will be interested in this, what with the Dickin thing, don’t you? Tell you what,’ he said, having popped the post he’d pulled out back in the sack. ‘Have a word with Lieutenant Hett; see if he’d like to take charge of this. Just the job for him. Don’t you think? Something to keep him amused on the long journey home.’

I got another bat on the head then, with the thing which was definitely not a mouse. ‘So now you even have your own official Ship’s Cat Officer, Simon! How about that?’ said the captain.

But it was what Frank said next that really floored me. ‘And how about this lot?’ he asked the captain, gesturing to another bulging sack.

‘Er… what? You mean there’s more?’

Frank nodded. ‘This lot’s been sent for Peggy. Wasn’t sure what best to do with it all now she’s gone, sir.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Well, let me think. Have it dropped off at Shanghai, perhaps?’ Then he seemed to ponder for a moment. ‘On the other hand, doubt the purse strings will extend to having it shipped back to her in Hong Kong… Not given that it was the purse strings that had us leave her there in the first place, eh? No, on balance, we’ll just hang on to it. That would seem to be the best thing. Leave it with Lieutenant Hett. Perhaps the gifts could go to the PDSA.’

‘Good idea, sir,’ said Frank. ‘Righty ho.’ Then he turned to me. ‘So, young Simon, me lad. Wonder what other delights are going to be here for you?’

I could only stare at him, the ‘cuddly toy’ (which wasn’t cuddly in the least bit) forgotten. Peggy gone? Peggy gone? Gone where?

Chapter 21

Bay of Biscay, 1 November 1949

It took three months for us to sail to England, time which I spent as I’d always done; maintaining my watches, keeping the (now thankfully much smaller) rat population in check and wherever possible finding a billet in a warm, welcoming bunk or hammock, particularly as the temperature began dropping, and the thing they called ‘taters’ and ‘parky’ and something about ‘brass monkeys’ began to take on substance and shape.

Peggy had indeed gone, and the ship felt all the quieter and sadder for it. I kept listening for her bark, or bracing myself for her imminent arrival, or expecting her to appear around the corners of passageways, bounding along and prancing about and extremely keen to lick me, her tail thwacking back and forth like a mast in a gale. Then I’d remember that she wouldn’t, because something called the ‘purse strings’ meant she had been found another home, and in Hong Kong, which was strange and unsettling.

As for the why, what about Petty Officer Griffiths, who was the one who’d brought her on board? She’d been his dog originally. So how did he feel about it? With no answer forthcoming, I could only wonder about it. And wonder I did. How did Peggy feel about it? I missed her.

For the most part, the time passed easily, with the ship shipshape, the men occupied and the atmosphere largely happy. The traumas we’d all been through were fading thankfully away, though at the same time, albeit curiously, they worked an unlikely magic in making everyone appreciate how lucky we were.

But the closer we got to the place almost everyone called home, the more I became aware that something significant might be happening – something that I might not quite like. I could sense it, in the same way that cats can sense most things, and though I didn’t know what it was, I was about to find out.

‘I know how you’re going to feel, Blackie,’ Jack was explaining, on the morning of our arrival. It was past eight o’clock but, in this curious part of the world, still quite dark. ‘You’re going to feel like we’ve abandoned you. But we haven’t,’ he said. ‘Not a bit of it, okay? It’s just that there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s no getting round quarantine, I’m afraid. The law’s the law, and there’s no way around the law once we’re home, even if you are the most famous cat in the world.’

It was a curious business, sitting in the mess with so many of my friends, knowing this was the last day, perhaps for a long time, that we’d all be at sea together. We were within ‘spitting’ distance, as Frank would say. I wished we weren’t.

We’d left Gibraltar the previous day and were now making good speed to Devonport, where everyone kept saying we were going to have ourselves a welcome to rival all the welcomes we’d already had put together. We were returning as heroes, and the ‘world and his wife’ would be waiting there to greet us, which, though it clearly made my friends happy in the utmost – which of course made me happy – was increasingly making me feel sad for myself, because it reminded me that my home was here.

Back in Hong Kong, we had already been greeted by more people than I had ever seen together in one place. It had been much the same ever since. We’d stopped at so many ports along the way, it was hard to keep track of them – Singapore, Penang, Colombo, Aden and Port Said – where Frank was reunited with his son, and had to try so hard not to cry.

Then it was Malta, and most recently Gibraltar. I’d not gone ashore – after Hong Kong, I didn’t think I’d better wander off again, just in case – but each dock would still have a place in my memory because each had smelled different, looked different, felt different. In one aspect, each had been much like the one before it; we’d leave the open sea only to have it replaced by another; a sea of cheering humans, the warmth in their smiles, waves and welcomes unwavering, whatever the vagaries of the weather.

But since leaving Gibraltar, something very worrying had started happening; something that was beginning to make me question my previous assumption that, once the Amethyst had been repaired, and the crew had seen their families, we’d be off to our next posting on the South China Seas.

The worry was that strange new word ‘quarantine’. That curious word that Captain Kerans had first mentioned just as we’d left Hong Kong, and which I wished I had paid a great deal more attention to. This strange, worrying place where there’d be no rats to hunt – that much I had at least recalled.

I’d been hearing the word ‘quarantine’ here and there ever since. Not to me, particularly, but always in tones that made me sure it was something not so much to be excited about, but be borne.

I stood up on Jack’s lap now, arched my back and had a stretch, then settled down again and, because I knew he was in his best togs today, took care not to knead my front claws on his knees.

‘Daft, ain’t it?’ said Martin, who was similarly scrubbed up. The whole crew were, because once we docked, the ship’s company were going on parade again – their last in a run of them (I’d never seen so much spit-and-polishing) this one, the main one, through the streets of Plymouth. ‘You’d think they’d make an exception for him, wouldn’t you?’ he argued. ‘I mean it’s not like he’s going to be off being someone’s pet an’ that, is it? Not like he couldn’t just stick around with one of us till we’re off on our travels again.’

‘Yeah, but where?’ Jack said. ‘Someone would have to take him home, wouldn’t they? You know, back out into civvy street. And you’d hate that, you would, Blackie, trust me,’ he told me, running a big hand down my back. ‘Now you’ve got your sea legs, I reckon you’d find it pretty miserable. All those other cats, for one thing…’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Martin, grinning. ‘Who’s to say he wouldn’t meet a nice lady cat? Being such a good-looking tom now, and all.’

‘Not to mention a war hero,’ Paddy pointed out, while I was still trying to work out if I was to be given yet another name. Tom? Where had Tom come from?

‘Hey, Blackie, mate, that’s a point,’ said Jack. ‘You can show all the girls your medal!’

I had no idea why, but they seemed to find this extremely funny, because they laughed so much that they all fell about the mess and doubled up, and Jack’s lap suddenly became a wild, stormy sea. In fact, I only clung on till he choked on his ciggy, upon which I had to leap off and retire to a safe distance till he finished the resultant coughing fit.

He soon scooped me up again, and I wished so much that I could go home with him. With any of them. I’d be proud to. And yet it seemed I couldn’t. It was becoming chillingly clear that I wouldn’t be allowed to.

‘Tell you what, though,’ Jack said, cuddling me, ‘we’re going to miss you something awful. ‘’T ain’t right, is it? You being packed off like this. Perhaps Peggy got the best of it. But then, you’re a hero now, aren’t you? No question of not bringing you home. But don’t you worry, Blackie – they’ll make such a fuss of you once you’re there, you’ll see. Give you a proper hero’s welcome. You’ll be spoiled rotten by all those kennel maids. Just you wait. And we won’t leave you high and dry, mate,’ he added, tugging on one of my front paws. ‘A few of the lads don’t live so far away from where they’ll be taking you, me included. We’ll come visit you, okay? Promise. So you’ll have plenty of visitors to look forward to. You’ll see – those six months will fly by in a flash. Even if it’s that long, and I reckon it probably won’t be. You wait, you’ll pass muster with the powers that be and then we’ll be all of us – well, most of us, I reckon – back to sea.’

I tried to take this all in. In what sense might Peggy have had the best of it? What was the worst of it, then? What were they sending me to? If I was going there, I was going there, so I tried to think like Jack did. Tried to remember I must make the best of it. Tried to remember what Captain Griffiths had once said to me about both sailors and cats being so adaptable. To be reassured that my friends would come and visit me, just as they promised. That the time would pass quickly. That the kennel maids – whoever they were – would indeed make a fuss of me. But six months. Six whole months. That was how long he’d said it might be, hadn’t he? We’d been 101 days aground at Rose Island – which was barely half that. And if that had felt like forever and a day – which was how I remembered Jack himself had put it – then how long would my spell in the quarantine place feel?

I could hardly bear to think about it.

We were due to dock in Plymouth late morning. As we continued north, through a choppy, unfamiliar sea, I could sense a lifting of spirits around me the like of which I didn’t think I’d seen before, the men laughing and joshing with each other as we carved through the water, wearing our battle scars, as the captain put it, like bunting. There was much talk of things that were entirely new and strange to me. Talk of ‘Blighty’ and ‘sweethearts’ and ‘proper ale on draught, finally’, none of which – however hard I tried – I could understand, let alone share. I could only get the sense that, for most of the men, this place called Plymouth was a ‘coming to’ rather than a ‘leaving from’ kind of city; that there were loved ones here, precious humans, some of whose pictures I’d seen often, and who would apparently be waiting excitedly to greet them when we finally drew alongside wharf six.

I thought back to Stonecutters Island, the place where I’d been born, and tried to put myself in their shoes. How wonderful it must be for my shipmates, after everything that they’d been through, to know that soon they might catch a glimpse of the people they’d missed so much, whose few letters they had read and reread so many times. I tried to imagine – though I chased the thought away as if vermin itself – what it would feel like to see my mum waiting there on the dockside for me too.

But that wasn’t to be, and I had no choice but to accept it, however much I wished things were otherwise. I wished that we could sail right past this Plymouth (which from what I’d heard, and could now begin to see, looked cold and grey and regularly beset by sheets of heavy rain) and just head away again, fast, back out to the only home I now knew; the sea.

Instead I was bound for ‘quarantine’. I kept hearing the word in my head over and over again. Quarantine. Qu-ar-ant-ine. It was such a strange word; a word I’d never heard before the captain had mentioned it. And I was no nearer to understanding it when Jack had said it either. Where was quarantine? What was quarantine? In what way did you go ‘into’ it? And what was an animal supposed to do when it got there? For, from what Jack had half-explained, that much did seem to be clear. That only the animals from the Amethyst had to go in there – and since Peggy was longer there, she didn’t have to – and that, given what I’d been through, I’d be treated like a king. But I didn’t feel any the wiser about why we had to go there, or what naval duties might be required of me when I got there. If they didn’t have a rat problem, perhaps they had another. Plagues of lizards, perhaps? Voles? I didn’t think so, or else, why would they have needed Peggy? Peggy could no more catch a vole than her own tail. Was that why she’d left the Amethyst? Because they hadn’t needed her in quarantine? That was still a mystery to me, too. And I was completely at a loss to know what I’d have to do in order to ‘pass muster’. Only that it was ‘the law’, and as Jack had made clear, no one – man or animal – was above that.

I tried to think it through logically; make some sense of why it had to happen, when, strictly speaking, I had been deemed ‘above’ the law when on board the Amethyst. I knew that because I’d heard it said more than once by my beloved Captain Griffiths. But what did it mean? I tried to rack my brains, to see if I could fathom it. If I remembered rightly, he’d said something about it when I walked over his new charts with wet paws one day – which now felt like such a very long time ago. ‘Look at this one,’ he’d said to Lieutenant Weston, who was working on them with him. ‘Bold as you like! Cock of the walk!’ Then he’d shaken his head. ‘Mark my words, Number One, he thinks he’s above the law, that one. Look at him! If he was a rating – are you listening, Simon? I said if you were one of my ratings I’d have you on a charge, you hear that? Put on deck-mopping duty –’ He’d paused then and chuckled. ‘Or strung up against the mast and soundly thrashed with a cat-o’-nine tails! Yes, you heard right – a cat-o’-nine tails!’ Then he’d thrown his head back and laughed. ‘And I’d have yours for good measure, you mucky pup!’

That had always been the thing about Captain Griffiths: he’d say one thing and do another, so sometimes you weren’t sure where you were with him. Well, the men weren’t – which was as it should have been – but I knew him rather better. So I wasn’t in the least surprised when he’d picked me up, kissed my forehead and dropped me gently to the floor. It was what he’d often done, for all his blustering and huffing.

I tried to think how the two things might possibly be connected, but none of it, looking back now, made a great deal of sense. Not least because, actually, it was Peggy who was the mucky pup.

So I wasn’t any the wiser.

We docked at Devonport on schedule, and I had my first proper look at the place all my friends seemed to yearn for so much; the place about which they’d always talked so long and lovingly; the place which a lot of them had fought to protect.

I watched it fill the horizon from my newest favourite viewpoint (the stowage box on the upper foredeck, which was sheltered from the worst of the wind by the starboard whaler) and tried to feel the same sense of excited anticipation.

But it was difficult. It was nothing like the place where I’d been born. Unlike in Hong Kong, where the mountains rose behind us so magnificently, the land beyond the dock here was indistinct, flat and grey. It seemed to hug the earth rather than rise from it, as if anxious not to show itself. Such features as were visible all seemed to merge into one another, melting into, rather than meeting, the dingy smear of sky. There was little light, little colour; just the rain sliding down on us. This rain fell not so different from the way it had when we were trapped halfway up the Yangtse – out of a sky that was heavy with as yet unshed water. But, just as I had imagined from what I’d learned, it was not nearly as warm. All of which made it equally difficult for me to warm to the place. Rain will come, kitten, I remembered, and you won’t like it one bit. Here, would it ever go away?

But as we approached, the warmth came to us in other ways. As we neared the harbour, it was as if the whole world had come to greet us; we were joined by a flotilla of all sorts of craft, their decks alive with sailors of all kinds. Boats and ships, big and small, were soon everywhere around us, while above us half a dozen planes swooped and dipped and soared, signalling their approval through the roaring of their engines.

The welcome on the dock was as warm as the Plymouth air was cold, with people stretching almost as far as the eye could see. And not just at the wharfside – every structure that had space on which to stand held yet more people, anxious to better see.

As we pulled alongside the wharf, to such a cacophony of cheering, to such a bright ocean of smiles, my friends’ happiness began to rub off on me.

Not that I didn’t have my wits about me, too. I had never seen so many humans crammed into such a small space, and experience had by now shown me that this could mean only one thing: that if I didn’t make myself scarce they would soon all come swarming aboard and overwhelm me.

And come aboard they did, in their droves. For a while, it was impossible to avoid the crush and chaos, because Captain Kerans seemed determined to make me part of the celebrations, particularly when it became clear that everyone wanted to take my picture.

But there was the taking of pictures and the taking of pictures, and this was nothing like the picture-taking I had known. There were cameras everywhere, which didn’t in itself worry me unduly; I’d long since got used to having my picture taken at sea, and had coped with all the people wanting them in Hong Kong. But here it seemed tenfold – like no other port before it. Many of the cameras were held by shouting, jostling men; men who seemed not to care about pushing in front of one another in order to shove their enormous lenses in my face, and, with a terrifying ‘pop!’, blind me with hot white light.

There was nothing to be done but grit my teeth and get on with it, just as Captain Griffiths had always told me. And as I was held fast in the captain’s arms, there was little I could practically do in any case, at least for the moment; to try to wriggle free from him would have been insubordinate in the extreme, particularly when he was recounting to everyone around us what heroes both Peggy and I had been.

But I think he sensed my discomfort. I could tell by the way he held me, and no sooner had the flashes begun popping in earnest than a lady stepped aboard – one whose face I thought I recognised – who, at a nod from Captain Kerans, held out her arms to me, scooping me up against her shoulder. She immediately bore me away along the nearest gangway, off the deck, away from all the crush and noise.

‘Poor Simon,’ she whispered, speaking almost as if she knew me. ‘This is getting all too much for you, isn’t it? And I’m not surprised at all,’ she added, holding me out in front of her to make the usual thorough inspection. ‘My word, you’re doing well!’ she said. ‘Almost as good as new, eh? Look at those whiskers. I did so feel for you losing those whiskers. But here they are, all grown again. You’re a sight for sore eyes, and I’ve half a mind to take you hostage. I expected you to be looking so much more sorry for yourself.’

‘Something of a miracle, if you ask me, Mrs Kerans,’ came a voice from behind us. The lady turned, me along with her, and agreed that it was.

It was Lieutenant Hett, my official Cat Officer, and he shook his head slightly. ‘Honestly, you should have seen the state of him,’ he said, coming up and scratching the fur behind my left ear. ‘Captain’s cabin took a direct hit, so it really is a miracle. Not just the whiskers – no eyebrows either, and shrapnel wounds everywhere… Never thought he’d last the night, let alone make any sort of recovery. It’s no word of exaggeration that we owe a very great deal to this little fellow. And to Peggy too, of course. The pair of them. But especially this one, what with the rats, and him being so badly injured. Talk about nine lives! Brave as a lion, too, aren’t you, Blackie?’ he added, chucking me under the chin and grinning. ‘I tell you, all this fuss – if that’s what it’s being called, and I’m guessing you’re finding it a fuss, aren’t you, feller? Well, it’s no less then he deserves, it really isn’t.’

There was a sharp rap on the bulkhead by the open door at that moment.

‘Captain’s compliments, sir. Can you come along to the forward deck, sir? The Vice Admiral’s just coming aboard.’

‘Of course,’ Lieutenant Hett said. ‘I’ll be there right away.’

‘What about this little fellow?’ Mrs Kerans asked, still petting me.

‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind popping him in the CO’s cabin and shutting the door, that would be grand. You’ll know where it is…’

She nodded. ‘Indeed I do.’

And it seemed she did. I was so busy wondering how she knew her way around the Amethyst so well, that she’d done exactly that before I’d even got my bearings (much less crafted some plan to have her indeed take me hostage), her ‘It’s been an honour to meet you finally, Simon,’ still ringing in my ears as she click-clacked her way back along the deck.

It was cool in the captain’s cabin – perhaps a little too cool for my liking – and with the bunk stripped, the walls bare and the dust cover over his typewriter, the sense that it was no longer Captain Kerans’ cabin but simply a compartment was heightened. It seemed almost inconceivable that I’d been in this very place when a shell had exploded into it. I looked across towards the door, which was still riddled with shrapnel holes to remind me, but now minus the caps that habitually hung from it. I wondered how long it would be before I saw it again.

Because my memory of that day had never properly returned to me, I could only imagine, rather than relive, the events of that morning, but it occurred to me that Captain Kerans’ wife might have been right. Perhaps it was a miracle that I was still here, even with me being so blessed on the lives front.

But what now? I was suddenly anxious for the next thing to happen. The sooner the parade was over, the ship repaired, and I had ‘passed muster’ in the thing called quarantine, the sooner we’d be reunited and back at sea again.

I could hear noises floating up to me; perhaps the crew were being assembled. Perhaps the parade through the streets of Plymouth was about to begin. I hopped up onto the captain’s bunk and across to peer out of the scuttle, from where I had at least a partial view of events down on the quay.

There were indeed lots of things happening below me. Crowds moving along, opening up a route, the crew beginning to get into position, the cameras still popping, a marching band playing, flags waving everywhere, all of it so good to see. The air of joy and celebration was almost palpable – but at the same time, the sense of leaving, of my friends leaving me, was acute. I could hardly bear to watch as they marched away from me.

I turned away. I would take refuge in sleep, I decided. Take advantage of the peace and quiet and have forty winks. Since I was shut in here – itself peculiar, but I tried not to think about it – the captain’s bunk, even minus its covers, would do nicely.

I’m not sure what made me pad back over to the scuttle then. The sound of the parade was growing fainter and fainter, so I’m not sure what instinct led me back for one last look. But it did, and I saw something on the quayside that made my blood run cold.

It was a man walking towards the Amethyst, carrying a cage.

Chapter 22

He was clad in a brown coat, and wore a hat of a type I hadn’t seen before. I didn’t take my eyes off him till he disappeared beneath me, up the gangway.

I knew I must be brave – hadn’t Jack promised they would all come and visit me? But the cage was such a scary thing – such an unexpected horror – that I stayed where I was, still transfixed by the sight of it, long after I couldn’t see it any more.

A cage. They were actually going to put me in a cage? It was almost too overwhelming to contemplate. Was this my immediate future? To be trapped in a cage? To become one of those wretched souls I’d seen in the Hong Kong markets, doomed to see out their days trapped behind bamboo bars? Was that what quarantine was going to be? A place where animals were held prisoner? For as long as it took them to pass muster with the powers that be? I wished so much that I could work out what that meant.

It was soon enough to send me into a flat spin of panic. I jumped down from the captain’s bunk and hid away under it, squeezing into the scant space between the bed base and floor. Here I tried to think. Should I try to keep hidden? Would that be best? There were so many places and spaces to choose from, after all; so many secret nooks where no one bar the rats would be able to find me. But the idea seemed futile, even as I thought it, because what would be the point? The Amethyst was fast becoming a cold, empty vessel, with almost everyone I knew and loved already gone from it, all away down the wet streets, proud and happy. And without my friends, would I really be any better off than in quarantine? No, I wouldn’t. Given that the Amethyst was now to go to a repair dock, which I knew was the plan, it would make it all the harder to be reunited with them. I’d have to scavenge for food again, leave the ship, live off my wits – become a stray again, in fact, which was the last thing I wanted. No. Despite the cage, I must, I must, be brave.

So when the door opened, revealing the captain’s wife and the man in the brown coat, I squeezed back out again and allowed him to take me. When he put me in the cage – which smelled of something alien and bitter and immediately made me gag – I didn’t even hiss at him. I was an able seacat, and I had to be strong now.

We left the ship just as the sound of the parade melted away altogether, and the few remaining well-wishers peeled away too. The sky was still dark as if dusk was falling soon, though it wasn’t even close. As the man carried me down the gangway I had to concentrate hard not to panic, putting all my energies into trying to keep my balance as the cage, with me in it, jiggled and swung at his side, and thumped against the side of his leg.

‘You’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘There, there,’ he said. ‘There’s a good boy,’ he said. I was reassured that he said all this not unkindly. But then he opened the back of his van, filling my nose with foul, confusing odours, placed the cage inside, then shut me in the dark. ‘Go to sleep now, little fellow,’ he said as he shut the door behind me. I knew I wouldn’t.

The journey was long. Oh, so long. As long as one of Jack’s watches. And with nothing to look at bar a glimpse of darkening sky through the little square scuttle, I could only retreat into my thoughts. I was taken back to my first days aboard the Amethyst immediately: the same wobbly weakness, the same nagging queasiness. I had travelled what must have been thousands of miles across the ocean, and, apart from those first days when I struggled to keep my feet where my brain said the deck was, I hadn’t felt sick like this before.

It was such a long journey that at one point we stopped. The man came to ‘see’ to me – or so he told me – to give me a small bowl of water and a cuddle, standing on a grassy strip at the side of a busy road.

He put me back in then. Shut the cage door, which was made of the same wire as the rest of it, then disappeared out of sight, the back doors of the van still hanging open. I stared out into the half-light, feeling perplexed and morose and unsettled, with the cars thundering past, kicking up spray. I decided I hated roads just as much as I ever had.

I must have slept then, because I woke with a start, hearing a noise. Light flooded in. A bright light, like a searchlight, which dazzled and confused me. A light not like the moon – too close, too bright, too startling – radiating down from above and making rods of the raindrops which were falling steadily and thickly on the ground.

‘Come on, lad,’ said a new voice. Then, ‘Thanks. You must be exhausted. This flipping weather. Cats and dogs, eh?’ This to the man, who’d come back into view again. A high voice. Soft and welcoming. A woman’s. ‘Long old trip. Still, you’re here now. Shall I make you a cuppa? Let’s get him in and then I’ll go and put the kettle on.’

It was the woman who carried me, cooing in gentle, friendly tones. I tried to feel reassured by it, shaking the sleep from my head, as the cage was borne steadily – carefully, gently – up a path, lined with more grass, to a large wooden door.

‘There,’ she said as we reached it, speaking down to me in the cage. ‘Our precious cargo delivered. We’re so excited to have you! Everyone’s so looking forward to meeting you. But first something to eat, yes? Poor mite. You must be hungry. And bewildered too, I’ll bet. You must be wondering what on earth’s going on, eh? But there’s nothing to be afraid of.’ She set the cage down on a table. Then her face loomed. A round face. A pale face. A friendly face. I couldn’t stop shaking, even so.

I was taken, still in the cage, to another compartment, and the first thing that struck me was the absence of metal. It was a huge compartment. Almost as big as the place in the picture in the paper, from where Peggy had received our awards. Oh, Peggy, I thought, feeling unbearably lonely suddenly. Everything would be so much better if Peggy was with me. I missed the smell of her. I missed her barking. I missed the sound of her sleepy whimpers – chasing rabbits in her dreams, Jack had told me. I missed the thump of her tail when it struck a piece of canvas. I even missed the sudden sprays of water when she’d been horsing around on deck and got herself drenched by the mops and the buckets. Peggy would be fine here, and I missed her so much.

But I knew I must rally and trust in the woman’s gentle tones. I was welcome. She’d told me. No one wished me any harm here. On the contrary; within minutes half a dozen people had clustered round me, one wondering if they should get me out and ‘take a proper look at me’, or leave me. Or feed me. Or simply transfer me, as it was late, to the ‘cattery’ straight away – which word sent me all into a spin once again.

In the end it was decided that, since everyone wanted to cuddle me, the best thing would be to take me out and do so. I was passed around, fussed over, and declared to be a hero. That same word again and again, and again, always said so reverentially.

So I tried hard not to quake. Tried to purr. Tried to please them. And I did rally, even when I was taken to another place – a room (that was their word for it) that was apparently going to be my home. It was almost all white, and at first sight, a more reassuring place to me: angular, functional, and reassuringly metal. It smelled a little like the Amethyst’s sick bay.

Less reassuringly, I then saw where I was going to be billeted, which was a smaller compartment within it. It was still a cage, I supposed, but a much bigger one than I’d come in. It had a human-sized wire door, beyond which lay a basket – ‘This is your bed, Simon. Isn’t it cosy?’ said the lady – and beyond that, a rectangular tray which was filled with tiny pebbles, and to the side a brace of small shallow bowls, one containing water, the other empty.

I looked first at the ‘bed’, which was not like any bed I’d ever slept on, then up above it, where, to my immense relief, I saw there was a high place. I scampered up a gangway that seemed there specifically to take me to it, and there I stayed, trying to trick my brain into believing I was not where I was. That I had once again boarded the Amethyst, and we were sailing. And then, remembering that sleep was so often the best refuge, I slept.

On second inspection, just before sunrise the following morning, quarantine looked less terrifying than I’d first expected. Yes it was a strange place, and, despite the gangway, very different from the Amethyst, but not so different that it felt completely alien. And though the sky was still grey, and seemed to hang so low above me, there was at least a window that enabled me to see it.

It was odd knowing the world outside the window felt like home for most of my human friends, as, to me, it looked barren and strange. The skeletal trees here were nothing like banyans or tamarinds. They seemed to claw upwards towards the sky, for one thing, though below them there was enough green to cheer me up a bit. Not on the trees, but it did seem to carpet almost everywhere. When we arrived, and I’d finally been freed from the cage, it had felt strangely reminiscent of the garden around the old lady’s house.

I remembered what the man in the brown coat had said to me when we’d arrived here. ‘You’ll be treated like a king here, me little laddo,’ he’d reassured me. ‘Just you wait – you’ll be the bee’s knees and the bug’s elbows!’

I had no idea what he meant then, and I still didn’t now. But remembering it, and particularly the way he’d said it, made me resolute. I must remember there was nothing to fear here. So, mindful of Captain Griffiths, who had always led by example, I duly settled in and got on with it.

And on one level, it was an easy thing to do. The man in the brown coat had been right about my welcome. However strange my new home, I couldn’t have been treated with more kindness, particularly by the lady who’d greeted me when I’d arrived. Her name was Joan, she said, and she’d been given special responsibility for me.

Every day – twice a day, in fact – post arrived for me. Such a lot of post! Being mindful of how happy post made my shipmates, I decided the post was yet another thing to reassure me. I was thought about. I was missed. I was loved.

There were sacks and sacks of letters, of the kind I’d first seen in the wardroom, and I wished Lieutenant Hett could be with me to share them. There were more cuddly toys, things to play with, and enticing new things to eat. There were also visitors – though often strangers, who would sometimes overwhelm me. I was used to my shipmates, every last lovely man jack of them, but the seemingly endless procession of new faces (albeit smiling ones, with nothing but praise for me) began to stress me and make me keen, unbelievably, for the sanctuary of my cage. And for my high place, for which I was very grateful.

I was also visited, to my joy, by a few crew members. Not Jack, because Jack’s home on dry land was several hundred miles away. But I saw Frank and Sid, and Lieutenant Hett, and though I hated that feeling when I watched them leave the building again, it was enough to keep my spirits mostly buoyant.

Best of all, Captain Kerans and his wife, who was called Stephanie, visited twice, and on his second visit he promised me that, should it work out that way for whatever reason, I had a permanent home in England, with them. Which was a comfort, but at the same time, a worry as well. What about the Amethyst? Would I not be given another roving commission? Would I not be able to rejoin my ship and go to sea again?

I tried to put it out of my mind and find pleasure in each day – after all, I was being treated exactly as Jack predicted: given nice things to eat, made a great deal of fuss of and, best of all, I had Joan, who had already become a friend, and who spent a lot of time playing with me every day.

I was especially grateful to Joan. Because one thing did strike me, and it struck me very quickly; I finally understood the word ‘boredom’. Without my friends and my work and the whole ship to roam, days were longer here, passing agonisingly slowly.

I remembered what Jack had told me the sailors sometimes did at such times. Mark a cross on a calendar as each day was done; create a line, then a block, then another, then another, till the days without crosses were almost none.

Perhaps I should do that, if only in my head. Mark a cross in my mind for every day that I spent here till the day came – and it would – when I finally passed muster and was allowed to pick up the thread of my seafaring life.

Because at those times between visitors, and when Joan was busy elsewhere, the time really did seemed to crawl. So I snoozed – I had never done quite so much snoozing – and tried to remember how much I had to look forward to, not least the ceremony that Captain Kerans told me would take place in December, at which I’d formally be presented with a very important medal – the one I was to receive in place of the ribbon I’d been sent when we were back in Hong Kong.

Though I was grateful, I was privately bemused by it all. I had done nothing more than the job that had been expected of me from the outset; from when Captain Griffiths had given me my commission aboard the Amethyst, to take charge as best I could of the rats. Everything else – all this talk of courage and gallantry, and of comforting my shipmates in troubled times – that was no more than I’d have done willingly without the commission. I had been given a wonderful opportunity, given friends and given hope. I had been reborn, almost – given a life I could never have dreamed of, and though the horror of that April day would stay with me also, I already felt so privileged; I had made friends, who I loved, and would continue to cherish and, most of all, I had escaped with my life and recovered, where many brave, decent men had not.

In short, more than anything, I had simply been lucky. If I’d seemed to have been in any way heroic, it was the least I could do – the very least I could do – as a mark of my gratitude.

Perhaps it was exhaustion – so many visitors, so many people, so many comings and goings. Or perhaps it was the fact that I no longer had a ship to wander around and the sea breeze to refresh me that, unaccustomed to the lassitude, I’d grown weary. I didn’t know why or how, but something was wrong. Some sort of malaise seemed to take a grip of me.

It was late on one crisp, cold November afternoon that I began to feel unwell. Joan had brought me sardines, but I couldn’t face eating, and milk, which I didn’t want to drink.

‘You’re off colour, aren’t you, pet?’ she declared, looking anxious. Then she went off, at some speed, to fetch the man called the vet, who was like the doc, only he took care of animals.

I tried to stand up when she came back with him. I was always pleased to see him. He had hands as big as shovels, but you’d never have known it, he was always so gentle.

‘Oh!’ Joan said, as I stood, then I wobbled and fell back over. ‘You see?’ she said. ‘He’s not well at all.’

The vet took hold of me and examined me on his big metal table, and even his gentle touch made me tremble. My skin felt all shivery, and my head felt all woozy. Joan was right. I really didn’t feel well at all.

The vet took my temperature, and some blood – which I barely even noticed – then I was put to bed, where I slept for a bit. And when I woke, I heard his voice. He was standing outside my cage now, discussing me with Joan. I tried to look but my eyes kept flickering closed.

‘It looks like a pretty nasty virus,’ the vet was telling her. ‘So he’ll need to go into isolation, just to be on the safe side.’

‘Of course,’ I heard Joan say, in her gentle voice.

‘I’m going to give him some drugs,’ the vet went on. ‘An injection and some tablets. The tablets to help him sleep. That’s the best way.’

He sighed then. ‘There’s little else to be done, I’m afraid. As far as this ruddy virus goes, it’s really up to him now.’

I sensed Joan before I saw her; I felt the vibration in the air as the door opened, and her hand came across to stroke me. Then I heard her sigh as well, and the sound of it shook me to the core. ‘It’s so unfair,’ she said. ‘After all the poor mite’s been through. And him still so young…’ She didn’t say any more.

‘Well, he’s proved the odds wrong once,’ the vet said. ‘Let’s hope he does the same again, eh? Wages the same war on this wretched virus as he seems to have done with all those rats…’

‘I’ll stay with him, tonight,’ Joan said at last, her voice low. ‘At least till he’s gone off to sleep again. Well…’ She paused. ‘Perhaps longer… Can’t have him on his own. Not at a time like this. Oh, the poor little mite,’ she said again.

‘Well,’ the vet said, ‘I commend you for your dedication.’ There was a pause, but again, I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes open. ‘And I’m sure he’ll pull through,’ the vet said eventually. ‘You know what they say about cats and their nine lives…’

Chapter 23

I had no idea what time it was when I woke up. The light spilling across the grass outside lent everything a pale luminescence, so it must be some time in the small hours of the morning, I supposed. I knew I’d slept for several hours – it had been perhaps the longest time I’d slept without waking for three days now; a deep, dreamless sleep, and one apparently untroubled by the fitful, and now feverish, nightmares that had dogged me since I’d left the Amethyst at Plymouth.

I was in a different room now. A smaller one, which was much more dimly lit. From where I lay, I could see though some glass doors to what looked like the quarantine garden. I was lying on my side, my head nestled on a square of folded muslin, and slightly to my right I could see Joan.

I was at first surprised she was still with me, because I’d slept for so long now, but then I realised that she was fast asleep herself, sitting in an armchair, her small hands clasped together loosely in her lap. I liked the vet’s hands but I loved Joan’s hands the best. They always smelled of honeysuckle and jasmine, and were the softest and gentlest I’d ever known.

I lay motionless for some time, taking stock of my surroundings, and making a mental assessment of how I was feeling. Not because I felt anxious about moving, as I had when I’d been injured on the Yangtse, but because, though I felt wide awake now, and seemed free of my fever, I also felt no pressing need to move anywhere. I was comfortable, relaxed, and could think of no particular reason to be anywhere other than I was, happy to let my body rest and leave my mind do the wandering.

I thought back to the events of the last couple of weeks. To the curious nature of being back on what my friends had called ‘dry land’ but which had, for the most part, been anything but. As had often been the case when we’d been stranded on the Yangtse, this place – this patch of land my friends called home, and seemed to love so much – seemed endlessly beset by heavy rain.

It had been raining constantly, beating a tattoo on the window, the sound of it almost as mesmerising as Jack’s Morse code machine. Only here, with no sun to suck it back up to make the clouds again, the rain lingered and seemed to cause everyone trouble. ‘Muddy feet! Muddy boots! Muddy paws! Blooming mud!’ These were the words that had often drifted over to me as I dozed, along with other things that made no sense – and which I would spend hours pondering – such as the business of it being ‘too cold to snow.’ I was, I decided, settling in well.

I thought of the kindnesses shown to me, which had sometimes overwhelmed me, and of the letters and gifts that were being sent to me, still. As if I had done something more than the men and dog I’d served with. Which I hadn’t. I’d just done what I could. Which had always been the most – and least – I could do. It was beginning to become something of an embarrassment.

I thought mostly of my friends, and what they might be doing, and wondering if they might be thinking of me too.

I thought of Jack, and his ‘herrings in’, and the long nights we spent together. Of how glad I was to hear he’d been decorated for his efforts – of how much of a hero and a true friend he had been.

I thought of gentle George Hickinbottom, who’d left the ship so long ago – was he at home with his cat, Sooty? I hoped so.

I thought of Captain Kerans, who’d brought us all to safety. How proud I felt to have him as my friend, and how much I looked forward to seeing him again.

I thought of Captain Griffiths, whom I’d loved and who’d given me my name. It was nice to think, even if our paths never crossed again, that my picture might end up on a bulkhead above his bed, and that I might be another memory in his heart.

Mostly, though, I found myself thinking increasingly of my mother, and of the cat’s life she’d tried to prepare me for but which I’d never quite had. Was she still up there, looking down on me? Was she proud of me? Did she know I was now an able seacat? I realised how much I wanted to be reassured on all those points – perhaps a feeling at the heart of orphaned souls everywhere.

It was a clear evening, and from where I lay I could see enough of the night sky through the window to view a sprinkling of stars. They felt far away here – further than they’d ever felt before – and it struck me all at once that perhaps being in the middle of this land mass was the problem. I’d begun my life by the sea, and spent the rest of it on it. Perhaps dry land was not a good place for a cat like me to be.

I thought I might like to go and sit by the window. But, despite feeling so different, and so pain free, I wasn’t sure I dared to – it having also come back to me just how much it had hurt when I’d come round after the shelling back in April. Yet my fever seemed to have dipped now, and my body felt relaxed, and it occurred to me that I might be well enough not only to move to the window, but to consider setting off on another journey.

You’ll be back on board before you know it, old son. Captain Kerans had been clear on that point.

Wouldn’t be the same without you, Blackie! Had that been Jack, or was it Frank?

Couldn’t countenance it, Simon. You’re one of us! Was that Lieutenant Hett? It was all becoming so blurred in my mind.

But when would I – would we – be back on board my beloved Amethyst? I didn’t know. And neither did they. In the meantime, the feeling was growing ever stronger that I was not meant to stay here on dry land. That I didn’t want to stay here any longer.

Then come to me.

I started. It was my mother’s voice.

Come to me, kitten. Clear and strong now. I want you to tell me all your tales.

I opened my eyes. Strained to look. Strained to see as well as hear her. But the brightness of the moon, making everything gleam, was too strong for me to be able to see beyond it to the furthest stars. It was a full moon, and the light from it spilled across everything, streaming through the glass door, washing whitely over the linoleum, sculpting and painting everything with a luminous creamy brightness. It settled on Joan, on the table, on the cabinets and chair legs, catching fire here and there, wherever it met with something shiny, bathing everything it its warm benevolent glow.

And on me. I realised I was quite, quite recovered. No longer fearful. No longer parched. No longer pining for what had been, or worrying about what might yet not happen. No longer anxiously struggling against the illness the vet had told Joan in grave terms that I must fight as hard as I had fought the Amethyst’s rats.

Was that no longer true? Had the virus left my body? I stretched out a paw, tentatively at first, testing ligaments and tendons.

That’s the way, kitten, I heard my mother say. You’re done with this life. Come to me. Come to me now. Come and tell me all your tales…

I stretched another limb, feeling a new strength begin to flow through my body. Pinged my claws. Flicked my tail. Felt a breeze stir my whiskers. Felt a lightness of spirit I’d not felt in days.

I rose then. Another day, another journey, another place.

Another life to be lived, and so many stories to tell. I was ready to begin the next part of my adventure.