That had always been the thing about Captain Griffiths: he’d say one thing and do another, so sometimes you weren’t sure where you were with him. Well, the men weren’t – which was as it should have been – but I knew him rather better. So I wasn’t in the least surprised when he’d picked me up, kissed my forehead and dropped me gently to the floor. It was what he’d often done, for all his blustering and huffing.
I tried to think how the two things might possibly be connected, but none of it, looking back now, made a great deal of sense. Not least because, actually, it was Peggy who was the mucky pup.
So I wasn’t any the wiser.
We docked at Devonport on schedule, and I had my first proper look at the place all my friends seemed to yearn for so much; the place about which they’d always talked so long and lovingly; the place which a lot of them had fought to protect.
I watched it fill the horizon from my newest favourite viewpoint (the stowage box on the upper foredeck, which was sheltered from the worst of the wind by the starboard whaler) and tried to feel the same sense of excited anticipation.
But it was difficult. It was nothing like the place where I’d been born. Unlike in Hong Kong, where the mountains rose behind us so magnificently, the land beyond the dock here was indistinct, flat and grey. It seemed to hug the earth rather than rise from it, as if anxious not to show itself. Such features as were visible all seemed to merge into one another, melting into, rather than meeting, the dingy smear of sky. There was little light, little colour; just the rain sliding down on us. This rain fell not so different from the way it had when we were trapped halfway up the Yangtse – out of a sky that was heavy with as yet unshed water. But, just as I had imagined from what I’d learned, it was not nearly as warm. All of which made it equally difficult for me to warm to the place. Rain will come, kitten, I remembered, and you won’t like it one bit. Here, would it ever go away?
But as we approached, the warmth came to us in other ways. As we neared the harbour, it was as if the whole world had come to greet us; we were joined by a flotilla of all sorts of craft, their decks alive with sailors of all kinds. Boats and ships, big and small, were soon everywhere around us, while above us half a dozen planes swooped and dipped and soared, signalling their approval through the roaring of their engines.
The welcome on the dock was as warm as the Plymouth air was cold, with people stretching almost as far as the eye could see. And not just at the wharfside – every structure that had space on which to stand held yet more people, anxious to better see.
As we pulled alongside the wharf, to such a cacophony of cheering, to such a bright ocean of smiles, my friends’ happiness began to rub off on me.
Not that I didn’t have my wits about me, too. I had never seen so many humans crammed into such a small space, and experience had by now shown me that this could mean only one thing: that if I didn’t make myself scarce they would soon all come swarming aboard and overwhelm me.
And come aboard they did, in their droves. For a while, it was impossible to avoid the crush and chaos, because Captain Kerans seemed determined to make me part of the celebrations, particularly when it became clear that everyone wanted to take my picture.
But there was the taking of pictures and the taking of pictures, and this was nothing like the picture-taking I had known. There were cameras everywhere, which didn’t in itself worry me unduly; I’d long since got used to having my picture taken at sea, and had coped with all the people wanting them in Hong Kong. But here it seemed tenfold – like no other port before it. Many of the cameras were held by shouting, jostling men; men who seemed not to care about pushing in front of one another in order to shove their enormous lenses in my face, and, with a terrifying ‘pop!’, blind me with hot white light.
There was nothing to be done but grit my teeth and get on with it, just as Captain Griffiths had always told me. And as I was held fast in the captain’s arms, there was little I could practically do in any case, at least for the moment; to try to wriggle free from him would have been insubordinate in the extreme, particularly when he was recounting to everyone around us what heroes both Peggy and I had been.
But I think he sensed my discomfort. I could tell by the way he held me, and no sooner had the flashes begun popping in earnest than a lady stepped aboard – one whose face I thought I recognised – who, at a nod from Captain Kerans, held out her arms to me, scooping me up against her shoulder. She immediately bore me away along the nearest gangway, off the deck, away from all the crush and noise.
‘Poor Simon,’ she whispered, speaking almost as if she knew me. ‘This is getting all too much for you, isn’t it? And I’m not surprised at all,’ she added, holding me out in front of her to make the usual thorough inspection. ‘My word, you’re doing well!’ she said. ‘Almost as good as new, eh? Look at those whiskers. I did so feel for you losing those whiskers. But here they are, all grown again. You’re a sight for sore eyes, and I’ve half a mind to take you hostage. I expected you to be looking so much more sorry for yourself.’
‘Something of a miracle, if you ask me, Mrs Kerans,’ came a voice from behind us. The lady turned, me along with her, and agreed that it was.
It was Lieutenant Hett, my official Cat Officer, and he shook his head slightly. ‘Honestly, you should have seen the state of him,’ he said, coming up and scratching the fur behind my left ear. ‘Captain’s cabin took a direct hit, so it really is a miracle. Not just the whiskers – no eyebrows either, and shrapnel wounds everywhere… Never thought he’d last the night, let alone make any sort of recovery. It’s no word of exaggeration that we owe a very great deal to this little fellow. And to Peggy too, of course. The pair of them. But especially this one, what with the rats, and him being so badly injured. Talk about nine lives! Brave as a lion, too, aren’t you, Blackie?’ he added, chucking me under the chin and grinning. ‘I tell you, all this fuss – if that’s what it’s being called, and I’m guessing you’re finding it a fuss, aren’t you, feller? Well, it’s no less then he deserves, it really isn’t.’
There was a sharp rap on the bulkhead by the open door at that moment.
‘Captain’s compliments, sir. Can you come along to the forward deck, sir? The Vice Admiral’s just coming aboard.’
‘Of course,’ Lieutenant Hett said. ‘I’ll be there right away.’
‘What about this little fellow?’ Mrs Kerans asked, still petting me.
‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind popping him in the CO’s cabin and shutting the door, that would be grand. You’ll know where it is…’
She nodded. ‘Indeed I do.’
And it seemed she did. I was so busy wondering how she knew her way around the Amethyst so well, that she’d done exactly that before I’d even got my bearings (much less crafted some plan to have her indeed take me hostage), her ‘It’s been an honour to meet you finally, Simon,’ still ringing in my ears as she click-clacked her way back along the deck.
It was cool in the captain’s cabin – perhaps a little too cool for my liking – and with the bunk stripped, the walls bare and the dust cover over his typewriter, the sense that it was no longer Captain Kerans’ cabin but simply a compartment was heightened. It seemed almost inconceivable that I’d been in this very place when a shell had exploded into it. I looked across towards the door, which was still riddled with shrapnel holes to remind me, but now minus the caps that habitually hung from it. I wondered how long it would be before I saw it again.