Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [52]
A day passed, two, three. Those seas turned me in and deeper in on myself, so little speech any of us seemed to have at that time. Islands came, islands went, suns rose and set, the ocean flowed on, and the sense of immensity returned in me, uncomfortable, an apprehension of something far beneath, beyond my grasp.
We reached a long shadow on the horizon, very far. Low-lying cloud, soft grey. Doves and ladies’ gloves and goose breasts.
“Land,” said Gabriel, leaning sharp sideways from the helm.
It came up like a soft roll of dustball, kitten fur. Cloud wall.
Land.
Long land. Miles and miles and miles of land, this way and that, long, long miles of green jungle and a scattering of islands.
Proctor called us all once more upon the quarterdeck and said there were Malay pirates with spears in these seas, murderers, savages. “Now,” he said in the big captain voice he kept for these occasions, “we are truly far from our homes. These are dangerous seas.” He glared at us as if it was somehow our fault. “Dangerous seas.”
“I’m scared,” whispered Tim in my ear.
Proctor said our normal course from here would take us straight up through the China seas. Good whale seas, the China seas. Good whaling, good sailing, all the way to the Japanese grounds. “However,” he continued, “as was explained to you all when you made your marks, we are also bound to fulfill a certain commitment to our ship’s owner, Mr. Malachi Fledge of Bristol.”
I was amazed. I’d never heard Fledge called anything but Fledge before.
“Mr. Rymer. Would you say a word?”
Dan shambled forward. “You all know,” he said gruffly, “I’m charged with finding and taking alive an animal that may or may not live on some of the islands to the east of here. You know all about this.” He paused. “I never knew anyone who saw this creature but I met a man in Surabaya, who told me he’d spoken to a Lamalera whale man, who’d seen something come out of a forest on an island out from Borneo.”
A showman at heart, Dan looked down and fiddled with his pipe.
“And there were remains,” he said softly. “Two fishermen. Killed by something, and eaten.” He looked up. “In any case, Mr. Fledge has heard these things too.”
“These remains,” Mr. Comeragh said in a thick voice, “where were they found?” His nose was so big you couldn’t help but imagine he must have twice as much snot as normal people because of the size of that conk.
“On Rinca Island, Mr. Comeragh,” Dan said, looking at him. “On a beach. Rinca Island is not far from here, as you know.”
Comeragh raised his eyebrows and nodded.
“So that’s where we go?” Mr. Rainey asked.
“Not necessarily, Mr. Rainey. Pulau Lomblen is where the man who saw it lived. We start there. To sniff the air. Then to—wherever seems wise.”
“We can get a boat at Pulau Lomblen,” the Captain remarked.
“You signed up as whale men,” Dan went on, “not dragon hunters. Apart from me and my two boys, none of you will have anything to do with the animal. If the creature exists Tim and I will find it and drive it down to the shore, where the cage will be waiting.” He looked at me. “Jaffy will make sure the creature goes in the cage and see that the door’s made firm as soon as it’s in.”
This was the first I’d heard of it.
“That sounds easy,” whispered Tim down my neck.
A big smile broke out on my face.
“None of you will approach the creature,” Dan continued, very serious. A terrible urge to laugh was stealing over me. “You will be equipped with drums.”
“Drums?” whispered Tim. I snorted.
“And torches,” said Dan. “You form lines and as soon as the creature appears you scream and shout and jump up and down, and bang whatever you can and wave your torches on all sides and drive the creature towards the cage. Tim and I will be right behind, driving it down the beach. You will close in on either