Drowned Wednesday (24 page)

Once they had the knack, Scamandros took the reels back.

‘I have to write the spell on them first, so you’ll need to start again,’ he explained. ‘In any case, we should do the noses first. They will take the most time, and will also need to dry.’

The next eight hours were taken up entirely in craft activity, interspersed with occasional breaks for tea or to look at something interesting in the crystal globe. Once they passed through a large sargasso of salvage, and all kinds of things bumped past the submarine. Long-lost possessions, treasured by their owners. Many of them were children’s toys, dimly seen stuffed animals and wooden figures, floating in the darkness of the sea.

Finally, the work was done. The rat noses looked like papier-mâché cones with paper whiskers. The rat tails looked like three-foot-long braids of brown wool. But if you looked closely, you could see the words of Scamandros’s spell moving about in the paper, or on the wool. Tiny letters marching around, joining up into words. Arthur couldn’t read them, but when he looked at them his mind was filled with images of rats. Normal rats, the kind he used to see occasionally slipping out of the gutter near the central railway station in his old home city.

‘Try them on,’ urged Scamandros. ‘But please remember, you must have both nose and tail on for the complete illusion, and if you only wear one of the two, there might be some imbalance in the spell.’

‘Like what?’ asked Suzy.

‘Suffice to say that if you put a nose on, put the tail on quickly thereafter,’ said Scamandros. ‘And vice versa.’

Arthur picked up a rat nose and stuck it over his own, tying the cord at the back of his head. It felt ridiculous, a feeling made even worse when he fastened the rat tail to the back of his trousers.

‘Marvellous!’ said the Doctor. ‘Say something.’

‘I feel stupid,’ grumbled Arthur. As far as he could tell he looked just the same and his voice sounded normal. But Scamandros clapped his hands and Suzy laughed.

‘I’ll try mine!’ she said.

Arthur slipped off his rat nose and undid the tail as Suzy put hers on. As she tied the cord at the back, she disappeared. Arthur blinked, and it took him a moment to think of looking down. There was a rat near his feet, looking up at him and waving a pink paw.

‘It works!’ exclaimed Arthur.

Suzy reappeared, the rat nose hanging around her neck like a strange necklace.

‘I could have done with one of these years ago,’ she said. ‘How long will it last?’

‘A few days,’ said Scamandros. ‘The Nothing in the Activated Ink will eventually eat through the paper and the wool. But it is a reliable, well-made charm, even if I say so myself. It might even last a little longer.’

Arthur looked at Suzy. Her eyes were dreamy, indicating some thought about an additional use for the rat disguise, beyond sneaking into Feverfew’s worldlet.

‘Pilchards,’ said the helmsrat. ‘Or sardines.’

Everyone looked at the crystal globe. It was suddenly full of flickering silver shapes, so many that Arthur had to stare and focus to work out that the
Balaena
had struck a huge shoal of fish.

‘We must be approaching Drowned Wednesday,’ said Longtayle ten minutes later, when there was no sign of any lessening of fish. ‘She concentrates the fish in her path, using her powers.’

He picked up the speaking tube.

‘All hands! Secure for ramming stations! Close all watertight doors! Stand by all pumps! Everyone strapped in back there?’ Longtayle called out.

‘Yes,’ said Arthur.

‘Indeed,’ said Scamandros.

‘Reckon so,’ said Suzy.

Longtayle did not leave his chair, but he leaned around to talk to the others.

‘Drowned Wednesday usually cruises near the surface, and according to our observations her mouth extends from four hundred fathoms above sea level to an estimated six hundred and fifty fathoms underneath. We have calculated that if we go in at about thirty fathoms below sea level, we should have a very good chance of finding a hole in the upper straining plates and should have no risk of being caught between her jaws. The plates are mostly holes, in fact, but we will have very little time to see one and steer for it, if we are not in the grip of too strong a current.’

‘We’re getting a current now,’ reported the helmsrat. ‘Speed in the water has increased to twenty-six knots.’

Longtayle turned back to concentrate on the controls.

‘What do we do if we don’t go through a hole?’ asked Suzy.

‘I think we get smashed to bits,’ said Arthur. ‘But like Longtayle said, it’s mostly holes. And the current must aim for the holes, or get directed through them. We’ll be all right.’

‘What happens if we don’t get smashed completely to bits, but just a bit smashed to bits?’ asked Suzy after a while. ‘I mean, so we’re still alive but drowning?’

‘Suzy, please don’t ask me these questions right now,’ said Arthur with as much restraint as he could manage.

The silver fish in the globe were rushing past at a faster and faster rate, and he could feel the
Balaena
rocking up and down and from side to side, as it was swept up by the inrush of water into Drowned Wednesday.

Suddenly, all the silver fish disappeared and the globe went dark.

‘We’re in her shadow!’

‘Emergency power!’ snapped Longtayle. ‘Snout-eye lights to maximum!’

Light glimmered in the crystal globe and grew brighter. The silver fish were no longer streaming past. They were going backwards, along with masses of seaweed and other objects that had to be salvage. Like the submersible, they were all being sucked into Drowned Wednesday’s maw.

Something hit the
Balaena
, the sound echoing through the hull, a deep, long
bong
! It was followed by a whole series of impacts that together made a noise like hail on a tin roof. The submersible rocked and rolled, the helmsrat and Longtayle both working the levers furiously to keep it stable.

Arthur saw the glint of something white up ahead.

‘The straining plate!’

Longtayle saw it too. He and the helmsrat redoubled their efforts, the submersible rolling over to thirty degrees and into a steep incline, then levelling off just as quickly. Arthur saw the solid white ahead of them replaced by a dark hole. The submersible headed straight for it, surrounded by silver fish and hundreds of pieces of flotsam and jetsam of many varying sizes.

‘We’re in!’ called Longtayle as he flicked between the views in the crystal ball. All of them showed distant white walls. ‘We’re going through the straining plate!’

He spoke too soon. With a resounding crash, the
Balaena
hit an obstruction big enough to really slow her down. Everyone was thrown forward, tight against their seat belts, then hurled back again as the submersible screamed to a full stop.

The water and all the smaller debris kept rushing past, not quite so quickly, but the submersible didn’t move at all, even though the engine vibrations began to shake the hull.

‘We’re stuck,’ whispered Arthur.

Stuck deep underwater, in a tunnel of bone.

Twenty–two

‘STOP BOTH!’ shouted Longtayle.

The engine vibrations ceased, but the sound of debris hitting the hull continued and Arthur could see a constant stream of small objects flowing past in the crystal globe.

‘There’s an obstruction in the tunnel,’ said Longtayle over his shoulder. He raised the voice-pipe again and snapped, ‘Damage report!’

Rat voices answered, crackling and echoing overhead. All confirmed that there was no significant damage.

‘What are we up against, Foresnout?’ asked Longtayle.

‘The ramming spike has gone through a timber wall,’ reported the petty officer in charge of the submersible’s front section. ‘Looks like the side of a big merchant vessel, wedged across the tunnel. Very solid.’

‘Retract the ramspike.’

There was no answer for about twenty seconds. Arthur watched the view in the crystal globe. It was hard to make out what lay ahead because of the great cloud of debris flowing past, but there was a shadowy view of algae-covered timber.

‘We can’t retract it, Captain. Even low gear won’t budge it, with everyone on the windlass.’

‘We’ll back out, then,’ said Longtayle. ‘Helm, what’s the speed of the current?’

‘Nineteen knots.’

‘Nineteen?’

‘It’s varying between eighteen and twenty knots.’

Longtayle’s tail whipped out from behind his chair and slapped the floor in agitation.

‘What’s the problem?’ Arthur asked nervously. He decided that he didn’t really like being in a submarine. It was all so enclosed, and if anything went wrong, there was just nowhere to go . . .

‘There’s a wreck wedged in this particular hole through the plate, and we’ve run straight into it,’ explained Longtayle. ‘Our ramming spike is stuck in it. Normally we could reverse and pull it out that way. But our maximum backing speed is eighteen knots, and the current is stronger than that.’

‘So we really are stuck?’

‘Temporarily,’ said Longtayle. ‘Fortunately we have time to deal with the situation. A number of options present themselves —’

‘We’re deeping, sir,’ interrupted the helmsrat.

‘What?’ asked Longtayle. ‘Within the tunnel?’

‘No, sir. It must be the Leviathan herself. She’s diving.’

‘But she hardly ever dives! How deep?’

‘Forty-five fathoms. Forty-eight. Fifty-three. . .’

‘Emergency diving stations!’ snapped Longtayle into the voice-pipe. ‘Brace all watertight doors!’

A chorus of ‘aye, ayes’ came over the speakers. Longtayle leaned over to watch the depth meter with the helmsrat, who kept calling out the depth anyway.

‘She’s levelling off,’ reported the helmsrat. ‘Level at sixty-seven fathoms.’

‘How deep can we go?’ asked Arthur.

‘Deeper than this,’ said Longtayle. ‘The danger is that a very small movement for Drowned Wednesday might take us down too far. We counted on her just cruising along the surface like she normally does.’

‘I bet she saw something to eat,’ said Arthur. ‘But we’re okay for now, aren’t we?’

‘We have to get out of this hole in the plate,’ said Longtayle. ‘Once we have freedom to move within her, we’ll be fine. But we’re too deep to send divers out now, to chop away the obstruction. Perhaps, Doctor Scamandros, you might have some sorcerous solution?’

Scamandros cleared his throat.

‘Hmmph, can’t say anything springs to mind, sadly. Most of my practical knowledge is for wind and wave, on top of the sea, not underneath it.’

‘We’ll try to shake ourselves out then —’ ‘She’s diving again, Captain.’

‘Depth?’

‘Seventy-two fathoms and getting deeper. Eighty-two fathoms. Eighty-seven fathoms. Ninety fathoms. Ninety-five fathoms.’

The helmrat’s impassive voice was suddenly drowned by a horrible, metallic booming that sounded like someone hitting an enormous bell. It was so loud it completely drowned out all other noise. Then it slowly eased into a host of different booms and squeals, none of them as loud, but all of them very frightening.

‘We can go deeper,’ said Longtayle. He sounded confident, but Arthur saw that the Rat’s tail had gone completely white.

‘One hundred fathoms. One hundred and two fathoms.’

‘Send a bottle message,’ ordered Longtayle suddenly into the voice-pipe. ‘Test depth reached. DW still diving.’

‘Aye, aye,’ came the disembodied response.

‘Doctor Scamandros!’ Arthur turned to the sorcerer. ‘What about communicating with Drowned Wednesday? Is there anything you can do to. . . to, I don’t know. . . cast a light in the sky so she’ll look up at it?’

Scamandros was mopping his forehead with his yellow silk handkerchief. He put this away and started hunting through the numerous inside pockets of his coat. In fact, he seemed to have more pockets than it was possible to have inside a coat.

‘No, no, that won’t do . . . won’t work from down here . . . never quite mastered that one . . . perhaps, no, used that up . . . have to be able to see the target . . .’

‘How about you bung an illusion of a big hunk of roast beef on top,’ suggested Suzy. ‘I reckon she’d go for that.’

‘I can
make
the illusion,’ said Scamandros peevishly. ‘But I can’t get it outside!’

‘One hundred and six fathoms,’ reported the helmsrat. He turned to look at the Captain and said, without a tremor in his voice, ‘Estimated crush depth is one hundred and ten fathoms.’

Arthur didn’t need to ask what the
crush depth
was. It was obvious from the horrible booming and screeching sounds coming from all around them. He jumped as a new sound started, and turned to see water spraying up from the floor.

‘One hundred and eight fathoms.’

‘Can Drowned Wednesday hear underwater?’ asked Suzy.

‘Crush depth exceeded,’ reported the helmsrat. ‘One hundred and eleven fathoms. . . and getting deeper.’

As if in answer to his voice, all the lights suddenly went out. Arthur stared into the darkness, expecting any moment to hear the hull completely buckle . . . followed immediately by the cold shock of tons of water and almost instantaneous death. At least it would be quick . . .

Everyone else seemed to be expecting the same thing. They were totally silent for about ten seconds, then Longtayle spoke.

‘Switch to circuit B!’

The helmsrat moved. Through the constant booming and whistling, Arthur heard a switch click and the Rat swear under his breath. Then there was a glimmering of light in the filaments as the bulbs heated up, gradually brightening to cast a strange red glow over the submariners.

‘Depth!’

Once again the passengers held their breath. Surely they couldn’t still be going down, or they would already be crushed.

‘One hundred . . . one hundred and thirteen fathoms! And steady!’

‘What did you say, Suzy?’ asked Arthur.

‘I said, “Can Drowned Wednesday hear underwater?”’

‘I bet she can,’ said Arthur quickly. ‘Whales have sonar! They sing to one another! If we can make a really high-pitched loud noise, then she’ll. . . she’ll know there’s someone stuck in her jaw . . . That’s probably not going to help, is it?’