Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

There was, at the start of this sea-passage, a mutter of mutiny from men who, being still loyal to Slagger Mulps, were upset at the ship reverting to the name of Warwolf But serious trouble did not begin till their vessel neared the island of Drum – and then it was trouble of an altogether different nature.

On a bright day in the Penvash Channel, not far from Drum, Drake renewed his acquaintance with dolphins. With something close to joy, he watched them bounding through the brisk seas, as slick as soap and every bit as fast as legend claimed.'Harly!' yelled Drake. 'See!'

Harly Burpskin came, saw, and frowned. Months ago he had made a bet with Drake that dolphins and sea serpents

were mythical; the manifestation of dolphins was, therefore, unwelcome.

'Well,' said Burpskin, 'we still haven't seen a sea serpent.''We will,' said Drake, with confidence. 'We will.' But would they?He could hardly expect to be lucky twice in one day.

The Warwolf strove through the seas with the wind straining against her green canvas. The weapons muqaddam was in one of his organizing moods, meaning hard times for idle hands, whether they were theoretically off watch or not. Drake kept out of his way, and got talking with a passenger: the youth he had first sighted playing cards with Bluewater Draven in the tavern at D'Waith.

They had not yet had time to get properly acquainted when the ship shuddered as if she had hit a rock or a whale. Then she was struck again, and out of the water rose a bullock-girthing sea serpent. Up, up it rose, slick with the glittering sea.Then sank again.

But before Drake had time even to laugh with relief, he realized there were at least five more of the brutes in the water. Under threat of doom, Jon Arabin gave the orders he must. The ship's women were dragged up from below and thrown overboard in an attempt to glut the monsters' greed.'That's murder!' cried the passenger, clearly shocked. Drake felt himself grin.

'Them or us,' he said, talking nice and spritely to conceal emotions he would have been ashamed to acknowledge as fear and horror. 'Which would you prefer?'

That gave the stranger pause. But, before said passenger could come up with an answer, he was seized by the weapons muqaddam, dragged to the stern rail – kicking, screaming, biting and scratching – and thrown overboard himself. There was something so amazingly comical about his performance that Drake collapsed to the deck, laughing.

He was still rolling around giggling – which was perhaps preferable to the alternative, which was to writhe around screaming – when the stranger who had been thrown overboard came bumping back onto the deck.How?

Drake had no time to find out, for a sea serpent hit simultaneously, smashing the stern rail. He waited to see no more, but fled.

Drake was high in the rigging when the stranger – a born survivor, that one – climbed up beside him. Down below, a regular slaughter was going on. But, since they were so high above it all, it seemed unreal; the funny little figures scattering and screaming looked like caricatures of human beings, like puppets. Drake felt an enormous calm descend upon him. Benevolently, he turned to the stranger, who was sniffing a bit – well, almost snivelling, if truth be told.'Enjoy your swim?' asked Drake.

He got a reply of sorts, but in strangely accented Galish too full of rage and fear to follow. Criticism, perhaps?

'What did you expect?' said Drake. 'We're pirates! You got off lucky, though.'

He elaborated, increasing the stranger's fury. Which subsided soon enough. Shortly they exchanged names: Drake for Forester.

Before they could start a proper conversation, a sea serpent pulled down the mast. Drake, falling, closed his eyes. The sea smashed into him. Breathless, he struggled, floundered, gasped. A bewilderment of sea-thrashed sun. Water up his nose. The sea-rinse blurring his vision. Ropes tangling his feet. A free-floating spar trying to brain him.And Forester?

The boy had been thrown clear. He was floating away. Drake, clinging to the wreckage of the mast, called on him to swim – but the stranger was carried away by the current.

The Warwolf plunged onward, listing badly with one mast trailing, and Drake holding fast to that trailing mast.

Three sea serpents were grappling with the ship. Surely there was something brave, intelligent and constructive for Drake to do. Yes. But he couldn't for the life of him think what it was. Closing his eyes again, he committed himself to his death.

On board, Jon Arabin, three monsters locked in mortal combat with his ship, made no such commitment.

'Fire!' he yelled, seeing the cook staggering about the deck with a dazed expression on his face. 'Go below, man! Bring me fire!'

Then Arabin grabbed a battle-axe. He hacked at the nearest sea serpent. As most of the human meat had run for shelter, the monsters were trying to crack the ship open, as woodland animals might try to rend a rotten log to get at the maggots within.

Jon Arabin, sweating, succeeded only in blunting good steel against a monster's scaled armour. The cook returned with a pannikin of hot coals. Arabin looked around for helpers.

'Mulps, me beauty!' he roared, seeing the Walrus trying to lever away an armoured scale with a crowbar, while Ika Thole stood ready to drive a harpoon into any flesh exposed by that strategy. 'Mulps! Thole! To me! To me! It's a fire we're setting!'

There was an ominous graunching sound from the ship's timbers. They could not take much more of this.

Willingly, Mulps, Thole and the ship's cook laboured with Jon Arabin to set a fire. It spread swiftly, sending up thick black smoke. One of the masts began to burn, like a tree struck by lightning. There was a bellowing blubbering scream of outrage from one of the sea serpents, which slid to the sea to escape the flames.

That left two.

'Bucks Cat!' shouted Arabin. 'And you! Mike! Whale Mike! Grab yourself over here!'Six men versus two monsters. Impossible odds?

'Cat! Mike!' said Arabin. 'Go below. Bring up the chain.'

'Alone?' asked Bucks Cat, knowing the chain in question was that which had guarded Pram Harbour in Hexagon before the pirates stole it.

'If that's the only way,' said Jon Arabin, calmly. 'Or perhaps you can find some gnomes and fairies to help you do it. Now bugger down below and get it done!'

The pair of strongmen returned shortly with the chain, plus the shackles that went with it, and sixteen quaking cowards they'd forced to give assistance.

'Those monsters there,' said Arabin. 'Sling the chain round the first brute. Make a loop. Then loop it round the second. Shackle it back on itself. Graft the near end to the capstan.'

'Aye man!' shouted Mulps in high excitement, seeing his plan. 'That's the story!'

The men picked up the chain and ran with it, a feat even Arabin would have believed impossible. In a trice, it was strung in loops round both monsters and connected to the capstan.'Bar on, boys!' roared Arabin. 'Bar on! Haul away!'

With a will, men threw themselves against the twelve bars of the capstan. They heaved. Flames roared upwards from the burning mast. The ship pitched and heaved in the lumbering seas. Heroes pushed muscles to bursting point. No time for sea shanties! But Arabin started a chant which the others took up, simply:'Go! Go! Go! Go!'

The slack disappeared. The chain tightened. The monsters pulled away senselessly, sea serpents having an irresistible instinct to pull away from captivity (which is the only hope of survival for a baby sea serpent snaffled by octopus or squid).

Animal strength fought leverage. Leverage won. Unable to escape, the monsters began to panic. In a rage of fear, they began to fight, savaging each other with hysterical jaws.

Then one of the monsters in chain-torture threw its head high and vomited a fountain of blood. Its scales crushed inwards, its flesh ruptured, and, a moment later, the chain-loop tightened to nothing, cutting it clean in half.