The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned (15 page)

In the bow, Mr. Strachan squatted, fondly gazing upon Peter and the still limp and motionless Jennie, and murmured 'Tis a meeracle and an exomple of the wonders of nature. They'll nae be able to deny me the proof o' this tale in Glasgie at the Crown and Thustle,' and he began to rehearse-

`Unable to stond the sicht o' his little sweetheart droonin' in the cruel sea, yon braw and bonnie white tomcat, overcooming its notural aveersion to water, indoolged in a grand and flying leap over the side to swim to the rrrrrrescue o' his ain true love …'

Mr. Box, the carpenter, who was rowing stroke oar, sniggered and said: ''E won't arf catch it from the old man when he gets back. Wait until old Sourlies wakes up from his nap and finds out that Strachan has stopped 'is ship, wasted time, coal and money, and missed 'im the tide. Ow, 'e won't arf smash all 'is dishes, 'e won't.'

The sailor who had been a hermit said: `Aye, that he will, but 'twould have been bad luck to let the wee puss baldrin droon, and though I canna give Muster Strachan full marks for his motives and pairpose in effecting the rrrrrrescue. Yet the resoolts are what count, though I am afeered that the breath o' life has gone out o' the wee one.'

Peter was desperately afraid of the same thing, for Jennie lay there, soaked and limp like a wet dishcloth, and nothing whatsoever seemed to be stirring beneath her thin ribs.

Also it was apparent that Mr. Box had been right and their reception at the Countess of Greenock was not to be a happy one. For waiting at the gangway which had been lowered just beside the falls to enable the crew to make their way back on board from the lifeboat before it was drawn up out of the water via the davits, and looking like an enormous swollen thundercloud that was carrying just about as much thunder and lightning in its midst as it could without letting go, was Captain Sourlies. His pepper– and-salt tweed suit buttoned tightly about him, his purple necktie stood out belligerently from the narrow celluloid band that encircled his throat like the collar on a St. Bernard, and the mustard-coloured trilby hat was perched on top of his head in the exact centre. His little eyes were screwed up with rage, and his tiny mouth drawn together in the smallest possible `o' that could be imagined. All of his chins were quivering.

His temper was not improved by the fine mess the crew made of getting the lifeboat alongside, nearly ramming the Countess, and breaking an oar in the process, but with the aid of much shouting from Angus it was finally accomplished.

Peter found himself picked up by Mr. Strachan and held under one arm. Under the other the mate carried the unconscious form of Jennie, head down. A small stream of water ran out of her. Then he marched up the steps of the gangway and aboard the Countess of Greenock to face the Master.

Loaded though he was with pent-up ire, nevertheless, Captain Sourlies drew in a long, deep breath before he spoke. By all odds, the volume of angry sound that was about to pour forth ought to have rattled the funnel stays, collapsed the mizzen cargo boom, and blasted Mr. Strachan clear to the Cumbrian peaks that formed the distant background to this drama of the sea.

Instead, there emerged a thin, treble piping, a reedy, dulcet squeak-'Well, MUSTER Strachan! Would ye then care to ontertain me with your vairsion of oxactly why ye gave orders to halt my shup and ongage in rowing exercises over the sairface of the sea when Mr. McDunkeld is nearly taking the boilers out of her in an effort to make tide … '

Unfortunately, Mr. Strachan elected to try out the yarn as he planned to tell it at his favourite pub, the Crown and Thistle in Stobcross Street, in Glasgow, when he went on leave after 'arrival there. Acquainting Captain Sourlies with the events that had caused Jennie to fall overboard, he went into his speech beginning-'Unable to stond the sicht o' his little sweetheart droonin' in the cruel sea . . .' and which he concluded with-'Under the saircumstances it seemed only richt an' proper to heave to, stand by, lower away and go to the rrrrrrescue.'

Captain Sourlies inhaled another forty cubic yards of air, and then cooed-'In holy St. Andrew's name, Mr. Strachan, WHAT FOR? For two mangy strays thot. . .'

Mr. Strachan drew himself up-'The proof, sor, of one of the true meeracles of nature. Who would have believed thot yon puss would have forsaken the safety and comfort of this vessel to join his mate in the mairciless sea? But here they both are, and who will be able to dispute the proof?

'Proof! PROOF!' turtle-doved Captain Sourlies, though by the amount of oxygen he took in and the empurplement of his features the sound at the very least should have split the Countess amidships– 'PROOF! ye clobberhead! What proof have ye got but one dead cot and anither that is half dead? Ye big, redheaded gossoon, ye could exhibit those in the market square from now until Michaelmas and not an iota of proof would ye have for yer blosted fairy tale …'

Peter thought that his heart would break with grief at the captain's words that Jennie was dead. Tucked under Mr. Strachan's arm, he saw the puzzled expression spread over the face of the mate as he tried to comprehend the captain's argument.

`But, sor,' he protested, `what more proof could anyone want than thot I'm the mon, stonding before their verra eyes, that fished the two oot of the drink, and here are the verra pusses they will have just heard aboot.’

`Muster Strachan! MUSTER!' said Captain Sourlies, in the last extremity of indignation, anger and outrage, which caused his voice to fall away to a mere trill-like gurgle 'Ye will oblige me by carrying out my orders. Ye will retire to yer quarters, relieved of all duties as of this unhoppy moment. On the way ye will drop yon dead cot over the side, and for all of me, the ither one with it. Upon our arrival at Glasgie, ye will hond me yer papers and prepare to sever all further connections with this craft. Dismissed.'

At the order to drop poor Jennie over the side, Peter managed to squirm out of Mr. Strachan's arms on to the deck, prepared to fight to prevent this, unaware, of course, that Mr. Strachan had no intention whatsoever of carrying out the captain's command. At that particular moment the mate was less distressed over the fact that he had been summarily dismissed from his job than over the doubt the captain had cast over the nature and validity of his proof of quite the most wonderful yarn through which he had ever lived or actually played a part.

Having given his orders, Captain Sourlies turned on his heel and marched to his cabin, from which thereupon issued the sound of smashing glass and crockery and which continued for a long time, four and three-quarter minutes, to be exact, for Mr. Box timed it by the biscuit watch he carried in his trousers pocket attached to a leather thong. Since Mealie had not yet removed the luncheon dishes, nor for that matter the breakfast things either that day, he had rather more ammunition than usual, and he was likewise a good deal angrier than he had ever been before.

The engines of the Countess of Greenock rumbled, shuddered and pounded, the propeller thrashed, the column of dirty black smoke ascending straight up into the air flattened out and again became an umbrella. She thrust her blunt nose northward once more and resumed her wallowing progress towards her ultimate destination.

Mr. Strachan, with Jennie still under his arm, started back aft to his quarters with Peter trotting at his heels, prepared to spring at the back of his neck and bite and paralyse him as he had done to the rat at the first sign of dropping Jennie over the side. The mate, however, was sorely baffled and needed time and quiet to think things out. In the meantime, he had no intention of disposing of the proof no matter what the captain had said, and anyway, since he had been discharged, what difference did it make what he did?

And so with Peter still at his heels he went inside his cabin, tossed the body of Jennie Baldrin on to a mat in one corner, and sat down at his desk to try to think. Here, however, he was overtaken by the thought of the injustice of it all, the contrariness of Captain Sourlies and the fact that he had lost his job. And because he was young and such things are very serious at such a time, he put his head down upon his arm and gave himself up to the pleasures of being genuinely sad over the unhappy turn that events had taken.

But Peter truly mourned over his good, kind and dear friend, and the tears that fell from his eyes as he sat over her who had once been so lively and animated and full of the spirit of adventure and independence, and saw how small and still she now was, were no less salty than the sea water that matted her poor coat.

And Peter thought that as a last respect to his lost friend, he would wash her.

He began at her head and the tip of her nose, and washed and washed, and in every stroke there was love and regret and longing, and the beginning of the awful loneliness that comes when a loved one has gone away. Already he was missing and wanting and needing her more than he ever dreamed he could when she had been alive.

The salt on her fur stung his tongue, the ceaseless motion of his head added to the other efforts he had made that day brought on fatigue and weariness almost beyond endurance; he wanted to close his eyes and crawl away and sleep for ages, but he was caught up in the rhythm of the washing, a kind of perpetual motion, almost as though by continuing he could wash her back to life again.

Darkness fell, lights sprang up in the other cabins of the lumbering Countess, but Mr. Strachan remained at his desk with his head buried in his arms, without moving, and Peter washed and washed.

He massaged her shoulders and neck, and the thin bony chest beneath which the stilled heart lay, her lean sides and long flanks, her soft white muzzle, the eyes and behind the ears, stroke after stroke, in a kind of hypnotic rhythm that he felt he could not have left off even had he wished to do so.

Wash, wash, wash. There was no sound in the darkened cabin but the even breathing of Mr. Strachan and the rasping of Peter's tongue over Jennie's coat.

Until someone sneezed.

Peter thought his own heart would stop. For he was quite certain that it had not been his sneeze, and it was by no means a large enough one for Mr. Strachan to be the author of it.

Wildly hoping, yet not really daring, Peter redoubled his efforts, rasping, scraping, massaging, working around under Jennie's shoulders and over the breast-from beneath which now came a small flutter. And then there were two more quite distinct sneezes, and Jennie in a faint voice called-'Peter . . . Are you there? Am I alive or dead?'

With a glad shout that rang through the cabin and caused Mr. Strachan to raise his head from his arms with a start, Peter called-`Jennie! Jennie dear! You are alive! Oh I'm so glad. Jennie, they all thought you were dead, but I knew you weren't, that you couldn't be.'

At the noise, Mr. Strachan leaped up from his desk and switched on the cabin light, and there on the mat where he had dumped her lifeless form was Jennie, blinking in the light, sneezing a few more times to clear her lungs of the last remaining drops of the salt sea, and even managing to stagger weakly to her legs for a moment and give herself a few licks. And at her side was the big white cat still washing and ministering to her.

Making a queer kind of noise in his throat, Mr. Strachan bent over Jennie, stroked her and said, `For a' the siller in the National Bonk o' Scotland, I wouldna ha believed it. 'Tis the last and final meeracle and the grrrand finish to the yarn. Now will they nae believe the proof that's before their eyes?' and scooping Jennie up into his arms he ran out of the cabin with Peter after him.

Up the passageway, down the steps, across the after cargo hatch, up the iron steps, and on to the bridge ran Mr. Strachan with Jennie clutched to his broad chest where she lay quietly, being yet too weak to struggle against such close contact with a human, and when he arrived there he shouted, 'Coptain! Coptain Sourlies, look here, sor' just as though nothing had ever happened between them.

And when the captain stepped out of his cabin, prepared to quiver once more with rage, Mr. Strachan solemnly showed him Jennie, now stretching and making small sounds of protest and craning her head around to try to see Peter who was right at his feet. And in the voice of one who is discussing Higher things, the mate said:

`What sae ye now that I nae ha proof? Raised from the dead she has been by the tender meenistrations of her mate, in my cobin before my verra eyes, and here's the proof, yawning and stretching before ye, and whoever else says it did not hoppen, there's the proof in the twa of them for him too …'

Strangely, Captain Sourlies no longer found it possible in his heart to be angry with Mr. Strachan, since it was obvious that he was never going to be able to grasp the simple idea that an object was not and rarely could be proof of a happening long after the happening was over, but remembering how Jennie had looked hanging head down in the mate's grasp earlier, with the water running out of her, and how she appeared now with the sparkle back in her eyes, her nose pink once more and her whiskers standing out stiff and straight, he suddenly felt better than he had in a long time, and besides, the lights of Port Carlisle were just ahead and they were going to make the tide after all.

And strangely, too, word had got around the ship that Jennie was not dead, but alive, and there was a kind of gathering of the men in the forward cargo well just beneath the chocolate layer-cake bridge, and when Mr. Strachan came out and showed them Jennie there was a big cheer went up, and everybody suddenly grew lighthearted and began slapping his fellow on the back and shouting, `Well, well,' and ' 'Tis woonderful,' just as though something splendid had happened to them.

The sailor who had been a hermit called for three cheers and a hip-hip-hooray for the white `un, to which Mr. Box said, Ear, 'ear,' and they were given with a will, and Peter had never felt quite so proud and happy in all his life.

And the captain forgave Mr. Strachan and said no more about turning in his papers and leaving the ship, and after the mate had ordered Mealie to open a tin of condensed milk and gave Jennie a big dish of it, he put her to bed in his cabin on his own bunk and resumed his duties on the bridge of the Countess with Peter happily purring at his feet. And that is where the Carlisle pilot found them when he came aboard to steer the ship into port.