Boris gave him an odd look before replying. ‘Don’t carry it, Captain. Anything happens where I might need it, and I’d likely get no chance to use it,’ he said.
Ambel nodded, moving to the ladder.
‘Try Peck,’ Boris advised. ‘He’d be the one.’
Ambel nodded again, climbed down, and swung at the bottom to drop himself before the door of his cabin. Once inside he immediately opened his sea-chest. He didn’t attempt to open the box containing the Skinner’s head — just stared at it for a while before closing the chest and leaving his cabin. Clumping across the deck, he opened the hatch leading down into the crew quarters, and went through. As he descended, he could smell rum tea being made.
‘You got any sprine, Peck?’ he asked.
Peck looked up from the little stove, shook his head, and returned his attention to the kettle. Ambel reckoned he was lying. Any Hooper who had been through the kind of experience Peck had endured would carry sprine just in case such a situation should recur.
Ambel didn’t push it. ‘Any of you others got some?’ he asked generally.
‘Got any what?’ asked Pland, who lay on his bunk with a book propped on his knees.
‘Sprine, you idiot,’ Anne replied, from the bunk above him.
‘I ain’t that rich,’ complained Pland.
Ambel looked next at Anne and she shook her head. He leaned back and glanced over to the junior’s quarters, then decided not to bother. No chance young ‘uns like that had any sprine. You didn’t really get to think much about dying until you were reaching the end of your second century.
‘We’ll have to refine some then,’ he said.
Nobody asked what for. They all knew what Ambel kept in his cabin.
‘We’d need a steady mooring for that,’ observed Pland.
Ambel said, ‘We’ll cross Deep-sea, pick up one or two more on the way across, then moor at the west atolls. We can do it there.’ He gave them an estimating look. ‘Take an hour or so off, then I’ll want you up on deck and ready.’ And, with that, he climbed back above.
An hour later, he was up on the cabin-deck, scanning the sea with his ancient set of binoculars, when a humped shape slid into view.
‘We got one!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hard to port!’
Boris drained the last of his rum tea, and hung his tin cup on his belt, before steering the ship towards the distant shape.
Windcatcher adjusted himself accordingly. The rest of the crew clambered up on deck, but as the Treader drew closer to the shape, they all realized something was wrong. There were no prill visible there, and the hump was too steep, too immobile.
‘Yer molly carp again,’ said Peck.
They were silent for a while as they watched the great fish parallelling their course, then, because they were now on deck anyway, they slowly began to set about their normal duties. Anne sharpened harpoons and knives. Peck had a couple of juniors helping him repair ropes, and making new ones from a bag of fibre beaten from sargassum stalks. Pland worked in the hold, salting rhinoworm steak, and Boris had the helm, of course. Other crew continued with that constant round of tasks which kept their ship seaworthy: the constant repairs to the superstructure; the greasing of chains and sprockets; the tightening of chains, cables, and bearing shells, besides the endless scrubbing and polishing.
As they worked, the crew-members considered what they already knew. They had all heard stories about molly carp — about their tenacity and the odd things they did. They were aware that to have one hanging around while they were hunting giant leeches could be dangerous. Through his ancient binoculars Ambel watched the molly carp for a while longer, then turned his attention elsewhere. The drizzle had ceased and the sun was burning the sky a lighter green, when he was able to yell out another warning. A group of three leeches had come into sight and they immediately headed for the Treader.
‘Twenty degrees to starboard!’ Ambel yelled. ‘Hold it there.’
As the ship hove over, Pland came up on to the cabin-deck and quickly went to replace Boris at the helm. Boris meanwhile went to load the deck cannon with its powder charge and stones. The others brought out their own weapons and readied them. Ambel slid down the ladder, dived into his cabin, and came out with his blunderbuss tucked under one arm.
He looked around. ‘All juniors below!’ he yelled, eyeing Gollow and Sild. The two men looked set to argue with him, before nodding acquiescence. It was fair enough: none of the juniors was as strong as any senior, or anywhere near as strong as Ambel, so they could easily get killed during a leech hunt. Gollow and Sild, who had done well enough during a previous hunt, were still suffering from the injuries they had received when going ashore with Ambel after the last rhinoworm — for juniors also did not heal as quickly as older crew.
Once they were gone, Ambel scanned those who remained. ‘We’ll take the last one, lads.’ He glanced up at Boris. ‘You hear that?’
‘I ain’t deaf, Captain.’
Boris sighted down the deck cannon at the last of the three shapes rapidly approaching. Ambel watched them for a moment, then turned his gaze to the right. Further out in the sea, the molly carp held station and watched.
The incursion of prill from the first leech to arrive was short-lived and quickly repelled. The leech itself, after grinding at the wooden hull for a moment, lost interest and swam away with most of its prill remaining on its back. The same happened with the second leech, but the third one arrived only moments after the second had turned away from the ship, so the attack of prill from both was unrelenting. Boris managed to fire three times on the back of the final leech. Ambel managed to get off two shots before taking up the first of the harpoons and planting it in the huge creature. He continued methodically planting four harpoons deep into its body, hauling tight the ropes to each, and bringing the leech hard against the side of the ship.
Prill were mashed and smashed and blown apart. Bits of prill still managed to crawl to the scuppers and drop through into the sea, but what remained on board no longer had any mobility. Anne and Peck washed this mess out through the scuppers after the rest, where no doubt some of the larger pieces would grow into more prill again.
‘This is a good one, lads,’ said Ambel, rubbing his hands together.
He scrambled down the rope with his crampons fixed to his feet and hooks hanging from his belt. Pland followed with the knife and bar and they were soon out standing on the slippery mound of the leech and making the first incision. At one point the leech convulsed momentarily, and Pland fell and began to slide down its side, before Ambel caught hold of his collar and hauled him back up. Soon they had the incision braced open and Pland was inside groping about in the bloody morass of its intestines. The leech convulsed once again, sinking down at its tail end. Ambel looked back and saw a large swirling in the water there. The humped crown of the molly carp suddenly surfaced. The creature regarded Ambel for a moment, then it sank out of sight again.
‘Crafty bastard,’ he muttered.
Meanwhile, the juniors, hearing that the shooting had ceased, came back out on to the deck to help in any way they could. But really, at this stage there was little they could do. They would just get in the way, so they stayed back and watched.
Peck next threw out the rope and Ambel caught it and lowered the end of it to Pland. When the leech shook again, Pland let go a stream of curses. He was on his way out of the incision when the molly carp got a firmer hold on the leech’s tail and gave a hard tug. As the bracing bar slipped, the incision closed on Pland like a wet mouth. Ambel slipped and fell and caught himself only a metre from the sea’s surface by driving one of his hooks into the side of the leech. One harpoon came free with a sucking crackle, and the leech now had enough of its mouth end free to investigate the damage being done to it. Luckily, that end oozed back past the creature’s main body, in the sea underneath Ambel, to where the molly carp was attacking it.