Anton and Cecil (4 page)

CHAPTER 4

Impressment

W
hy is it, Anton wondered, that when you've been to a place you love, and you try to share it with a friend, it's suddenly a different place?

Anton slipped into the saloon storeroom quickly, scarcely ruffling his smooth gray fur. Cecil got his big head through the opening but then he was stuck. “It's fine,” he said. “I can hear quite well from here.”

“But you can squeeze in if you try,” Anton urged him. “Just push in one shoulder at a time.”

“Easy for you to say; you're as slim as an eel.”

“Just try. I'm sure you can squeeze in.”

Cecil pulled his head out, and for a moment, Anton thought he had given up, but then one white paw came through the narrow space, followed by a black shoulder. Then Cecil's head, pressed tight against the other shoulder, shoved through. “Now you've got it,” Anton encouraged him. The back half of Cecil glided in. He sat up, looking dazed.

“I squashed my head,” he said, passing a paw over one ear. “This had better be good.”

The door was pushed to the wall with a barrel holding it in place so there was nothing to hide behind—not that anyone was looking into the storeroom. Two sailors were shouting at each other at one table and a woman was weeping at another while the bartender went up and down, muttering to his patrons as he filled their glasses. The brothers looked in, Anton dismayed and Cecil frankly disdainful. “Wow, I love that tune,” Cecil said.

Anton shot him a pained look. “They haven't started yet.”

Cecil's ears rotated front to back and he stretched his neck up, taking a slow breath. “There's a mouse in here.”

“Ugh,” said Anton.

“It would give us something to do while we wait for the fabulous singing.”

“It would bring the barman on our tails,” Anton replied. “He's not a kindly one.”

One of the shouting men rose from his table and threw his mug at the other sailor. The mug hit the floor and rolled into the storeroom. Cecil turned toward the loose board.

“That does it for me,” he said. “I'm sleepy. I want to be up and out on the water early. If you want to see what it is they sing about, you should join me.” And with that he nudged the board aside and, after a brief struggle, disappeared into the night.

Anton felt his spirits flag as his brother's fluffy tail slipped away. He'd pictured Cecil swaying along with the music, admitting that it was better than he'd imagined it would be, but now he was gone. And of course in the next moment the stringed instrument let out a mournful wail and the singer launched into a ballad Anton recognized, as sad as it was sweet. He lay down by the barrel and curled himself into a ball, letting the music comfort him.

When Anton woke, the room was quiet. The whole saloon was dark, the barman was gone, and not a sailor in the place. A thin, milky light streamed in through the opaque glass in the front door. All the chairs were turned upside down on the tables, and there was a strong smell of vinegar in the air. Anton yawned and stretched, feeling foolish. How had he slept through the night without anyone noticing he was there? He crawled out through the opening and stood in the alley. The air was fresh and briny, and the light was so soft it looked as if the shops lining the dirt road had been painted with a pink brush. Anton took a deep breath, thinking again of his brother. Cecil's parting words came back to him. He was out there on the wharf right now, no doubt, waiting for the fishermen to come clambering up the gangplank, calling him “lucky” and welcoming him aboard. “If you want to see what it is they sing about,” Cecil had said, “you should join me.”

Anton darted through an alley at the end of the lane and came out on the wharf near the harbormaster's office. Billy was there, purring heavily as he lapped at a bowl of milk his master had left for him. He sat back as Anton approached, running his tongue around his lips, pulling in the last drops. “Good morning,” Anton said.

“You're up early,” Billy observed.

“I fell asleep in the saloon,” Anton admitted. “I'm on my way home.”

“Even your brother's not out yet, and he's the earliest cat on the docks.”

The office door opened and the harbormaster stepped out in conversation with a ship's officer. Anton and Billy were silent as the two men walked past, heading toward the great barque, the
Mary Anne,
which now rested low at anchor, its gangplank nearly flush with the dock.

“That's the captain of the new ship,” Billy informed Anton. “She sails this morning. Let's walk down and watch her cast off.”

Anton agreed, though he found Billy's insistence on calling ships “she” a bit ridiculous, coming from a cat. A light rain began to fall as they followed the men to the ship, where the sailors shimmied up and down, tightening lines and checking the rigging on sails, busy as bees in a swarm around the queen. The captain was greeted by two officers standing at the top of the gangplank. As they spoke the men and the two cats all observed a disturbing sight. A large brown rat scurried out from under the dock, leaped onto a line, and rushed up and out of sight through a porthole.

“Curse the creature,” the captain said. “My beautiful, clean new ship doesn't need a cargo of those devils.”

“You'll need a feline,” the harbormaster observed. “They leave a boat in droves if they know there's a cat on board.”

“True enough,” said the captain. “Where will I find myself such a creature?”

Anton and Billy stood looking on, absorbed in their own observations. “They've got a rat on already,” Billy said. “And probably not the first or the last.”

Anton shuddered. “I can't bear rats,” he said.

“I ate one once,” Billy said. “Before I found the harbormaster. Not a tasty meal, but it was better than starving.”

“I think I'd rather starve,” said Anton.

Turning around, the captain spied the two cats. “I'll be jiggered. There's a pair of them right here.”

“You don't want old Fletcher,” the harbormaster said. “He's too lazy and he lives on cream.”

“What are they up to?” Billy said, voicing a suspicion Anton apprehended a moment too late. Suddenly the harbormaster reached down, grabbed Anton by the scruff of his neck, and whipped him high into the air.

“Here he is, I've got one for you,” said the harbormaster.

Anton popped out all his claws and battled the air with his legs, but he couldn't reach anything, hanging as he was like a kitten in his mother's jaws. What was going on? Cats didn't get impressed in the light of day. It was a dark-night business, shameful and cruel. The sailor came up and Anton tried to sink a claw into him, but the sailor grasped Anton's paws from behind and held them together while gripping his neck flesh tightly as the harbormaster handed him over.

“Look,” said the sailor. “He's a fierce fellow.” Then he was off, up the gangplank, holding the flailing Anton out before him like a squirming fish. On the deck the sailors laughed at his struggles and one said, “It was like that for me, brother. I didn't want to go to sea.” At last Anton understood his efforts were to no avail; the grip on his neck only tightened as he fought. He let himself hang loosely and raised his eyes, looking out across the deck where the ships were lined up, the wharf busy now with sailors moving to and fro. Down past the fishing schooners Anton saw a sight that made him cry aloud. Cecil was striding purposefully around the bend from the lighthouse path.

“Cecil!” Anton called. “Cecil, they're taking me away!”

“Put him in the hold until we're off,” said the captain. A sailor stepped forward and yanked up a plank door, beneath which loomed a ladder and a black hole. Anton wriggled and strained to see down the dock. He glimpsed Cecil bounding past Billy and breaking into a gallop toward the
Mary Anne
.

“In you go,” the man clutching Anton said. “You're a sailor now.” He took a step down into the hold, dangled Anton out as far from the ladder as he could, and dropped him all at once into the darkness below.

After his adventures with Anton at the saloon the night before, it was well past dawn when Cecil trotted down the path from the lighthouse. The sharp smell of approaching rain hung in the air. “Out too late, slept in too long,” he muttered, hoping he hadn't already missed his fishing schooner. Anton had been unenthusiastic about the big ship last night, almost dismissive. Miffed, Cecil resolved not to bother trying to convert Anton any further.
Nope, not a drop of sailor blood in that cat, that's for sure,
he thought.

Rounding the corner of the harbormaster's house, Cecil squinted down the long row of ship bows tied to the piers along the dock. His heart sank. The schooner had gone out, and to make matters even less pleasant, a misting rain began. The big barque was still in, however, with a great deal of activity around her, sailors swinging across the masts unfurling the sails, and more crew crisscrossing the decks with crates and boxes. Cecil sat under the eaves of the house and watched, envious and morose. Where was she bound, and what would she do there? He could just make out the figurehead of the two young girls, a little silly for such a majestic ship, in his opinion. Better would be a wild animal like those their mother had told stories of, or even a cat, a really dignified cat.

Suddenly a real cat flashed into view, hustling down the dock toward him. It was Billy, his stubby legs propelling his sloshing girth as fast as they could manage. “Cecil!” he huffed, gasping to catch his breath. “Anton!” he panted.

“I have no idea where Anton is. He didn't come home . . .” began Cecil.

“The
Mary Anne
!” Billy struggled with the words.

“Quite a ship, yes . . .”

“They took Anton!” Billy finally expelled with effort.

“
Took
him? Oh,
no,
” Cecil moaned as he hurtled past Billy and down the wharf.

“Casting off!” Cecil heard Billy yell behind him and his heart jumped higher in his chest. The dock boards were slippery in the fine rain, and Cecil dodged legs, bales, and netting as he plunged toward the barque. The ship was set sideways against the pier, with the gangplank stretched across nearer the aft end. He could see the men's hands grasping the edge of the plank, lifting it off the ship's rail.

Anton, where are you? Where did they put you?
Cecil thought desperately. Careening down the pier he prepared to dash across the plank but the men had pulled it swiftly onto the ship's deck, and Cecil saw with horror at the last moment that the jump was too wide. Jamming to a halt at the edge of the pier with an angry yowl, he looked around wildly for another way on.

Men on the piers were pulling the thick, heavy ropes up over the wide posts and tossing them up to the deck. One rope had been cast away, and the ship drifted closer to the pier where the remaining rope held. Cecil streaked to the end of the pier to reach the ship's fore. The new timbers creaked and rattled; the barque seemed almost eager to be unbound from land. The dockhands struggled with the last loops of rope and heaved them up to the deck, where they uncoiled and hung halfway down the side, and the great ship slowly began to draw away. Cecil gathered all his strength and sprang from the dock out over the water, catching the end of one hanging rope in his claws, whumping cruelly into the broad side of the boat but still hanging on. The dockhands hooted in amazement watching the frantic cat
. I made it!
Cecil thought for a brief moment, but the rope was slick with rain and his claws shredded the fraying threads.
Splunk
. He dropped like a rock into the cold water below.