Lynne Barrett-Lee - Able Seacat Simon

‘Weston!’ he boomed (as I would soon learn was the way of things with captains). ‘Look what I’ve found promenading down the foredeck, bold as you please!’

He put me down on what seemed to be a sort of ledge, and, just as had been the case down on the deck, I took the view that to make a bid for escape would probably be pointless. Besides, I had not yet been thrown into the sea, so I suspected (at least, I hoped) that I might not. Though I could certainly see the endless glassy expanse of it, having now found myself in the place that must be from where the captain ran the ship.

Every cat likes a high place (as long as it’s not a high place in a tree, of course) and this was a very fine high place indeed. It was right at the front of the ship, with a kind of windscreen to protect me from the stiff ocean breeze. In time I would realise that dozing behind it on a sunny day was a particular pleasure, but right now I was more excited by the awe-inspiring view; from up here, you could see right to the distant horizon; a place my mother always told me was special indeed, because that was where the earth met the stars.

Reassured now (the captain would surely have launched me overboard by now if he’d wanted to) I began to wash my nose and whiskers, both because they’d taken something of a battering on the scent front and because I was keen to make the best impression I could.

‘Well, isn’t that the darndest?’ the man called Weston said, lowering a pair of what I would learn were called binoculars from his face, and shaking his head. ‘I saw this little feller on the quay the other day, and I was only saying to Frank that we should get ourselves a ship’s cat. Well, I say cat. This one’s only a kitten – not even a year old, I reckon.’

My ears twitched hopefully. George had said exactly the same thing! The captain nodded. ‘Perhaps less. But he’s a handsome little fellow, isn’t he? Plucky, too. A bit small and scrawny, but if he’s a stray, which I suspect he must be, that’s only to be expected. And you know what they say about the strays round these parts, don’t you? He’ll probably make an excellent ratter.’

I stopped cleaning my whiskers so the captain could stroke me, pushing my face tentatively up into his palm. It was a curious thing, this stroking humans seemed to like to do. Curious and nice, and I could feel myself purring. I’d hardly purred since my mother had died; it was like a muscle I had no use for. Yet here I was, astonished to find myself purring all the time, even when I hadn’t exactly meant to.

I wasn’t sure what a ‘ratter’ was, but I had a hunch what it might be. This was confirmed when he explained that it was a very important post, for which he suspected a cat like me would be particularly well qualified, dispatching the vermin that were what he called one of the ‘most damnable evils of life in His Majesty’s Navy’, as they pilfered from the stores and munched their way through anything that took their fancy. ‘Or, rather, did ,’ he corrected. ‘Perhaps no more, eh? Not when they get wind of this little chap in their midst!’

I decided I liked the captain very much, and would endeavour to do my very best for him.

‘He’ll need some meat on his bones then, sir,’ observed the third man, who had a face full of creases and very blue eyes. ‘Shall I call down and have one of the mess boys bring him up something from the stores, sir? Some herrings, perhaps. I imagine he’d be very keen on herrings.’

‘Absolutely,’ said the captain, plucking me up again for another inspection. ‘He’ll certainly need feeding up a bit, if he’s to be given a commission. And you’ll need a name, I suppose, little chap,’ he added, to me. ‘An official ship’s cat needs to have a suitable name.’

‘Socks?’ suggested Weston. ‘Or Felix, perhaps? Tiddles?’

The captain rolled his eyes. ‘ Tiddles ? You hear that, Frank? Really? He’d really have me striding about the place, yelling “Tiddles!”? I’d never live it down!’

‘Alright, Korky, then,’ Weston suggested. ‘As in Korky the Cat. Now that would be apt, given the markings on him, wouldn’t it?’

But the captain, though looking straight at me, seemed to be looking somewhere else, too. Somewhere I had a hunch might be a good bit further away. ‘Simon,’ he said eventually. ‘I think we’ll call you Simon.’

‘ Simon ?’ Weston and the other man said simultaneously. ‘Why on earth Simon?’

‘Very long story,’ replied the captain, very shortly. ‘And once you’re fed, perhaps you can accompany me on my rounds, eh, little Simon? Weston, did that maintenance detail make a start on the boilers yet?’

Weston nodded.

‘Excellent,’ said the captain. ‘So once you’re fed, we’ll start in the engine room, then, shall we, Simon?’

‘Though you’d better take care not to let Peggy see him on your way down, sir,’ the man called Frank said.

‘There’s a point,’ said Weston. ‘He’s right, sir. Better not. You know, I’m not sure if she’s so much as even seen a cat before. I suspect she probably hasn’t, don’t you?’ He, too, came across and stroked me. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘And I wonder what you’ll do…’

‘What they’ll do ,’ the captain corrected, ‘is to learn to rub along together as best they can. Just as we all do, eh?’

He put me down again and, having nowhere else in particular I’d rather be, I stayed where I was, wondering what sort of foodstuff a herring might be. And, more pressingly, wondering who or what Peggy was. They called her ‘she’, so perhaps she was a lady, like in the big house. I hoped so.

More intriguingly, it seemed I was going to be called Simon now, as well as Blackie. And I thought I could probably live with that. I was learning lots about humans, and the curious words they used for things. And given it could have been ‘Tiddles’, which, for some reason, had a bit of an unsavoury tang to it, I thought I’d probably got off quite lightly.

I soon forgot all about Peggy. And with hindsight that was probably understandable. There was so much for me to see and do – much of it in the dark hours of the night time – and the Amethyst was a very big place.

We’d been at sea a few days, and while the view of the horizon was largely unchanging, every day (and night) was still full of wonder because there was just such a lot to try to understand. The ship’s routines, for starters, which I was beginning to get quite a feel for. And quickly, too, because, though I still spent plenty of time napping in gentle George’s hammock, now the captain had discovered me I had become something of a novelty; so much so that on that very day he assembled the crew on the quarterdeck, and made my position on his ship official.

George had told me I’d be made welcome, and I was. He’d told me sailors had always had a friendship with cats, because cats kept sailors safe, having miraculous powers that could protect them from dangerous weather. He also let me know that sailors generally were a very superstitious bunch, and that if I walked up to one of them, they’d feel lucky. Of course, the flip side of this was that if I walked away from them, they’d be unlucky , so I might want to think before deciding to do that. He also told me (though while assuring me he didn’t believe such nonsense) that back in the ‘olden days’, whatever they were, some sailors also believed cats had storm-repelling magic in their tails.

Best of all, however, was the news that if anyone considered throwing me overboard they would think twice, because throwing a cat overboard would cause a great storm to sink the ship and kill everyone and should any lucky ones survive they would have nine years of further bad luck to look forward to.