USING the smooth sides of a huge packing case as a practice ground, Peter learned the secret of the double jump-up, or second lift, or rather, after long hours of trial with Jennie coaching, it suddenly came to him. One moment he had been slipping, sliding and falling back as he essayed to scale the perpendicular sides, and the next he had achieved it, a lightning-like thrust with the hind legs, which somehow this time stuck to the sides of the case and gave him added impetus upwards, and thereafter he could always do it.
Jennie was most pleased with him, for, as she explained it, this particular trick of leaping up the side of a blank wall without so much as a crack or an irregularity to give a toe-hold, was peculiar to cats, and it was also one that could neither be wholly explained, demonstrated or taught. The best she was able to tell him was: `You think you're way to the top, Peter. You just know you are going to be able to do it, and then you can.'
Well, once the old Countess had taken a bit of a roll in the trough of a sea, and that helped Peter a little and gave him confidence. And the next time he felt certain he was going to be able to do it, and he did.
Jennie was endlessly patient in teaching Peter control of his body in the air, for she maintained that few things were of so much importance to cats. With her he studied the twist in midair from the spring so that once he had left the ground he could change his direction almost like flying, and Peter loved the sense of power and freedom that came to him when he turned himself in the air like an acrobat or a high diver, and this he practised more than anything. And he had to learn, too, how to drop from any normal height and twist in falling so that he would always land on his feet, and soon, with Jennie's help he became so expert that he could roll off a case no more than a yard from the ground and still, turning like a flash, whip round so that his four paws touched the deck first and that without a sound.
But their free time was not all devoted to hard work and practice. There were quiet hours when they rested side by side on a hatch combing and Peter would ask Jennie questions, for instance, why she always preferred to perch on high things and look down, and she would explain about the deep instincts that survived from the days millions and millions of years ago when no doubt all cats were alike in size and shape and had to learn to protect themselves to survive. To escape the dangers that lurked on or near the ground from things that crawled, slithered or trampled, they took to living high up in rocky caves, or perched along branches of trees where they could look down and see everything that approached them.
In the same manner, Jennie explained, cats liked to sleep in boxes, or bureau drawers, because they felt completely surrounded on all sides by high walls, as they were deep in their caves, and therefore felt relaxed and secure and able to sleep.
Or again, Peter would say: 'Jennie, why, when you are pleased and happy and relaxed, do your claws work in and out in that queer way? And once back home, I mean when we lived in the warehouse, I noticed that you were moving your paws up and down, almost as though you were making the bed. I never do that, though I do purr when I am happy.'
Jennie was lying on her side on the canvas hatch cover when Peter asked that question, and she raised her head and gave him a most tender glance before she replied: 'I know, Peter. And it is just another of those things that tell me that in spite of your shape and form you are really human, and perhaps always will be. But maybe I can explain it to you. Peter, say something sweet to me.'
The only thing Peter could think of to say was: `Oh, Jennie, I wish that I could be all cat—so that I might be more like you …. The most beatific smile stole over Jennie's face. Her throat throbbed with purring, and slowly her white paws began to work, the claws moving in and out as though she were kneading dough.
`You see?' she said to Peter. 'It has to do with feeling happy. It goes all the way back to our being kittens and being nursed by our mothers. We cannot even see at first, but only feel, for when we are first born we are blind and our eyes open only after a few weeks. But we can feel our way to her breast and bury ourselves in her soft, sweet-smelling fur to find her milk, and when we are there we work our paws gently up and down to help the food we want so much to flow more freely. Then when it does, we feel it in our throats, warm and satisfying; it stops our hunger and our thirst, it soothes our fears and desires, and, oh, Peter, we are so blissful and contented at that moment, so secure and peaceful and … well, just happy. We never forget those moments with our mothers. They remain with us all the rest of our lives. And, later on, long after we are grown, when something makes us very happy, our paws and claws go in and out the same way, in memory of those early times of our first real happiness. And that is all I can tell you about it.'
Peter found that after this recital he had need to wash himself energetically for a few moments, and then he went over to where Jennie was lying and washed her face too, giving her several caresses beneath her soft chin and along the side of her muzzle that conveyed more to her than words. She made a little soft, crooning sound in her throat, and her claws worked in and out, kneading the canvas hatch cover faster than ever.
But likewise, during the long days of the leisurely voyage, and particularly when they were imprisoned in Dartmouth Harbour for two days by pea-soup fog, there was mock fighting to teach Peter how to take care of himself should he ever find himself in any trouble, as well as all the feline sports and games for one or two that Jennie knew or remembered and could teach him, and they spent hours rolling about, growling and spitting, locked in play combat, waiting in ambush to surprise one another, playing hide– seek-and-jump-out, or chasing one another madly up and down the gangways and passages below deck, their pads ringing oddly on the iron floors of the ancient Countess, like tiny galloping horses.
And here again, Peter was to learn that not only were there methods and strict rules that governed play as well as the more serious encounters between cat and cat, but that he needed to study as well as practise them with Jennie in order to acquire by repetition the feeling of the rhythms that were a part of these games.
Thus, Jennie would coach him: `I make a move to attack you, maybe a pass at your tail, or a feint at one of your legs; raise your left paw and be ready to strike with it. That's it. That makes me think twice before coming in. No, no, Peter, don't take your eyes off me just because I've stopped. Be ready as long as I am tense. But you've got to feel it when I've changed my mind and relaxed a little. You can drop your left paw, but keep watching. There! I've looked away for a moment—now WASH! That stops everything. I can't do anything until you've finished except wash too, and that puts the next move up to you and it's your advantage.'
Most difficult for him was the keeping of the upper hand by eye and body position and acquiring by experience the feeling of when it was safe to relax and turn away to rest, how to break up the other's plans by washing, luring and drawing the opponent on by pretending to look away and then timing his own attack to the split second when the other was off balance and unprepared for it, and yet not violate the rules, which often made no rhyme or reason to him at all.
None of these things Peter would have done instinctively as a boy and he had to learn them from Jennie by endless repetition, and often he marvelled at her patience as she drilled him over and over: `Crouch, Peter. Now sit up quickly and look away … WASH! Size up the situation out of the corner of your eye as you wash. I'm waiting to jump you as soon as you stop washing. Then turn and get ready. Here I come. Roll with it, on to your back. Hold me with your forepaws and kick with the hind legs. Harder … harder…. No, stay there, Peter. I'm coming back for a second try. Chin down so I can't get at your throat. Kick. Now roll over and sit up, paw ready and threaten with it. If I blink my eyes and back away, WASH. Now pretend you are interested in something imaginary. That's it. If you make it real enough you can get me to look at it, and when I do, then you spring!'
Jennie had a system of scoring these bouts, so many points for buffets, so many for knockdowns and roll overs, for breakaways and washes, for chases and ambushes, for the amount of fur that flew by tufts to be counted later, for numbers of back-kicks delivered, for bluffs and walk-aways, feints and ducking, with bonuses for position and length of time in control, and game plus one hundred points called any time one maneuvered into position to grip teeth on the throat of the other.
And gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, the scores drew nearer level, and soon Peter found himself winning regularly over Jennie in the training ring they had arranged amongst the crates and boxes in the forward hold. And when this proved to be the case and Peter won almost every time, none was prouder and happier over it than Jennie. `Soon,' she said with satisfaction, `you'll be cat through and through.'
And yet when the tragedy happened it was just as well that Peter was not all cat.
In a way it began when Peter caught his first rat. The Countess of Greenock was ploughing the Irish Sea 'twixt the Isle of Man and the Cumberland coast, close enough inshore that one could see the peaks of the Cumbrian mountains inland, shining in the sun. The ocean was flat, calm and glassy, and the only cloud in the sky was the one made by the black smoke poured forth by the Countess and which, due to a following breeze over the surface, she carried along with her over her head like an untidy old charwoman shielding herself from the sun with an old black cotton umbrella. They were on the reach between Liverpool and Port Carlisle on the Scottish border and Captain Sourlies was in a great hurry to make it before nightfall, which was why the Countess was under forced draught, emitting volumes of soft-coal smoke and shuddering from the vibrations of her hurrying engines.
Peter had an appointment with Jennie on the after-deck at six bells of the early afternoon watch, or three o'clock, for he had quickly learned to tell the ship's time from the strokes of the bell struck by the look-out on the bridge. This was always a kind of do-as-you-please time aboard the Countess, for then Captain Sourlies would be taking his afternoon nap in his cabin, Mr. Carluke, torn from his latest literary composition, which he was calling The Bandit of Golden Gulch, was on duty on the bridge, and everybody else followed his hobby or loafed by the rail or snoozed in the sun. And since Mr. Strachan, the first mate, still had a badly aching arm from the stitches taken in it, his dummy lurked in a corner in disgrace and the red-haired mate on this day was yarning with Mr. Box, the carpenter, about an episode that had happened to him in Gibraltar during the war, and as proof produced an 1890 Queen Victoria copper penny that he had happened to be carrying on his person at the time of the adventure.
Jennie was already dozing in the soft spring sunshine, squatted down atop the stern rail. She like to perch there because it was fairly high and gave her an overall view and also to show her superiority, for every one was always prophesying that some day she would be knocked or fall off from there into the sea. But of course there never was a cat more certain or surefooted than Jennie Baldrin.
Peter awoke promptly at ten minutes to three—he found that he could now awake at exactly any time he desired—and made a rough toilet with his tongue. He stretched and strolled casually from the lower storeroom which was his quarters and which it was also his job to keep clear of vermin. Up to that moment there had been only mice, which Peter had kept down quite handily.
He should have smelled the rat long before he saw it, but then, although his smell senses were feline and quite sharp, his mind was still human and he had been thinking that he must tell Jennie about a member of the black gang, a stoker who fed the furnace, who was such an admirer of Winston Churchill that he had a picture of him tattoed on his chest, cigar and all. And so he had not been alert. When he saw the rat, he was in a very bad position.
The beast was almost as large as a fox terrier and it was cornered in a small alcove made by some piled– up wooden cases of tinned baked beans from which several boxes had been removed from the centre. Also it was daylight, Peter wasn't stalking, and the rat saw Peter at the same time that Peter saw him, and uttered an ugly squeal of rage and bared long yellow teeth, teeth that Peter knew were so unclean that a single scratch from them might well poison him beyond help. And for the first time he really understood what people meant by the expression `fight like a cornered rat,' or rather he was about to understand. For in spite of the fact that Jennie had warned him never to go after a rat except when it was out in the open, he meant to attack this one and prove himself.
He was surprised to find that now in this moment of danger he was not thinking of lessons he had learned, or what he had seen or heard or what Jennie had said, but that his mind seemed to be extraordinarily calm and clear and that, almost as though it had always been there ready and waiting, his plan unfolded itself in his mind. It was only much later he found out that this was the result of discipline, study, patience and practice that he had put behind him at Jennie's behest.
His spring, seemingly launched directly at the foe, appeared to be sheer folly, and the rat rose up on his hind legs to meet him head on, slashing at him viciously. But not for nothing had Peter learned and practised the secret of continuing up on a smooth wall from a single leap from the floor. A split-second faster than the rat, his fore and hind legs touched the slippery sides of one of the piles of cases for an instant and propelled him high into the air so that the flashing incisors of the rodent like two hideously curved Yataghans whizzed between his legs, missing him by the proverbial hair's breadth.
The extra impetus upwards now gave Peter the speed and energy to twist not half but the whole way around in a complete reverse and drop on to the back of the rat, to sink his own teeth deep into its spine just behind the ears.
For one dreadful moment Peter felt that he might yet be beaten, for the rat gave such a mighty heave and surge, and lashed so desperately to and fro, that Peter was thumped and banged up against the sides of the boxes until he felt himself growing sick and dizzy and no longer certain whether he could hold on. And if once he let go, the big fellow would turn on him and cut him to ribbons.
In desperation he set his teeth with all his might, and bit one, two, three times hard, and at the third felt the rat suddenly stiffen. The swaying and banging stopped. The rodent kicked twice with its hind legs and then was still. It never moved again. Peter unclamped his aching jaws and sat down quickly and did some washing. He was badly shaken and most emphatically needed to recover his composure.
Nevertheless it was exactly at six bells that he came trotting on to the after-deck carrying the rat in his mouth, or rather dragging it, because it was so large that when he held it in the middle, its head and tail hung down to the deck. It was so heavy that he could barely lift it. But of course he managed because he simply had to show it off to Jennie and anyone else who happened to be around.
It was Mr. Box who saw him first and let out a yell `Blimey, looka there! The white un's caught a bloomin' Helephant.'
Mr. Strachan also gave a shout, for Peter passed quite close to him and the rat dragged over his foot causing him to jump as though he had been stung. The cries brought several deckhands over on the run to see. They also woke up Jennie Baldrin.
She had not meant to fall so soundly asleep, but the peaceful sea and the warm afternoon sun had lulled her deeper than she had intended, and now the sudden cries sent alarms tingling down her spine. And when she opened her eyes they fell on Peter and his rat, and in the first confusion she was not certain whether the rat was carrying Peter or vice versa, whether it was alive or dead, whether Peter was still engaged in fighting it. The sound of running feet added to her confusion and she recoiled from the unknown and the uncertain and the thought of possible danger to Peter.
But there was no place to recoil to from her precarious perch on the ship's rail, and with an awful cry, her four paws widespread, and turning over once in the air, she fell into the sea and was swept away in the white salt froth of propeller wash.
`Cat overboard!' a deckhand cried, and then laughed.
'Good-bye, Pussy,' said Mr. Box. 'Arskin' for it, she was, perched up there loike that.'
Mr. Strachan stared with his mouth open.
The sailor who had been a hermit said to Peter: `There goes yer pal, Whitey. Ye'll no see Coptain Sourlies tairnen his ship aboot to rrrrrrescue a wee puss baldrin.'
But Peter was no longer there. There was only a white streak of fur as he dropped the rat, leaped to the rail, and from it, long and low, shot straight into the sea after Jennie.