Jamrach's Menagerie - Carol Birch [69]
There came a time when I knew he was going to live. He ate a hog. It was a good time for it to happen, just after supper when everyone was hanging around on deck. I’d given him live ones before, but he never took any notice. This time, ten minutes after I put the hog in and it had gone for the trough and was rootling about in the greens, I saw that he had one eye on it, watching intently. Poor old pig never had a chance. Never saw anything quick as that in all my time at Jamrach’s. The way that thing was still as a stone then—suddenly six feet away, near the end of his rope—snap! With the pig in his mouth. It was a horrible thing to see. Its scream, pure high terror, brought everyone running. He had it by the neck. Sucked and wolfed its whole head and all of its neck sideways in, down to the shoulders and the beginning of its kicking front legs, mouth stretching impossibly like a snake’s, shaking it all the while from side to side, rolling and banging it about on the ground. Down his throat he hauled it in a series of violent gulps, chomp, chomp. A ragged cheer went up. Four or five convulsive efforts and only the back feet remained sticking out, mercifully still.
Then it was gone; no more hog, and him there champing his lips. His tongue flicked out and in.
“Good boy!” I said.
He rewarded me with a short hiss.
“That’s fucking disgusting,” John Copper said.
“No it isn’t,” said Gabriel. “You expect it to eat with a knife and fork?”
Dan laughed. “Boys,” he said, lifting his shoulders and rubbing his hands together like a street corner magician, “I believe we’ve done it. I believe we’ve made our fortunes.”
It was me. I made the dragon live. Catching it was only the beginning; making it live was the thing. It was only then I allowed myself to feel relieved, and to realise how much I wanted to get home. Home. Ratcliffe Highway, with money in my pocket, the hero returns. Buy Ma a new dress. A bonnet. And Ishbel, what would she want? Buy her a good night out somewhere swanky, that’s what she’d like. Treat her. Dance with her. Drink with her, tell her my tales. What would I take back for her? Fans and beads and feathers.
“He’ll do fine now,” said Dan. “He’ll do fine and I may very well retire.”
“You won’t retire.” Tim slouched on the windlass, grinning. “Can’t see you sitting by the fireside for long, Dan.”
“A-ha-ha,” said Dan, “that’s where you’re wrong. There is nothing in this world I long for more than to see this voyage out and turn my face from sea for ever.”
“You, Mr. Rymer?” the captain smiled. He was there with Mr. Rainey and Henry Cash.
“Me, captain,” Dan replied.
We stared at the dragon and it stared back, motionless apart from an occasional flicking of the tongue.
“Old Bingo,” the captain said. “Suppose they’ll name it Rymer’s Dragon? They name things after their discoverer, don’t they?”
“Immortal!” cried Dan, who’d drunk a fair amount with his supper and was in warm crinkle-eyed mode. “I’ll drink to that. And to the fat bonus every manjack on this tub’s well earned. Felix boy, run get my cup.”
“They should name it after this boy here, if anyone,” Mr. Rainey said brusquely, flicking a hand in my direction. “He nursed it through.”
Me.
Don’t know why that moved me so. Rainey with his big, dark face and troubled eyes was the only one on the ship I was scared of. Not the captain. Just as Gabriel said when we were starting out, the captain was not right for a captain. I’ve known a few now and they keep themselves apart, the captains do, but not Proctor. Proctor strolled about the deck with a faint smile on his freckled face, hoping to be liked. Sometimes he joked: “And are you an able roper,