‘After ordering our rudder to starboard in case we too should be hit, Rudder Captain Roberts told us all to ‘stand fast at our posts’ despite the boulders falling closer and closer to the control room, then called his second-in-command to his side, a career petty officer named Trubshaw.
‘“Listen here, Trubshaw,” said Captain Roberts, “you’ve got to get over to the other rudder control room and bring the starboard rudder hard over, no matter what. Drive like the wind, old girl.”
‘It was a good plan, it was the only plan, and if it wasn’t executed in about half an hour the island would run aground and the Trolls would board us. After that, it would be all over. Trubshaw just had time to salute before a massive boulder ripped through our control room and I was knocked off my feet. When I stood up, there was nothing left of Trubshaw, the other ratings or even the control room, which was a ragged mass of tangled steel and broken glass. I called in to report the damage, but all communications were down. I crossed to the rudder captain, who was barely alive; his body was half crushed beneath a steel stanchion.
‘“It’s up to you now,” he told me, “and this one’s from the admiral: hard a starboard both, all other considerations secondary.”’
‘What does that mean exactly,’ asked the Princess in the pause that followed, ‘“all other considerations secondary”?’
‘Exactly what it says,’ replied Wilson, ‘that I was to fulfil my orders with no consideration to anything else. This was the most important order I was to carry out – that anyone on the Isle of Wight was ever to carry out – and nothing could stand in my way. Everything and everybody was expendable in the execution of this one order. If the Trolls boarded the island, all would be lost, the hundred thousand inhabitants eaten or enslaved.’
‘Wow,’ said Ignatius, ‘it’s like you could do anything.’
‘It’s not like I could do anything, my muddle-headed friend, I could do anything. I took my car and drove like the wind to the starboard rudder control centre on the other side of the island. Twice the road was blocked by rubble, and twice I had to abandon my vehicle, climb across the rubble and requisition another car to carry on. When I got to the starboard rudder control room I found Rudder Captain Gregg on duty with a junior officer in attendance. I told him my orders were from the admiral himself and he told me to calm down, to leave, and only return “when I was acceptable to be presented to a superior officer”.’
‘What did that mean?’ I asked.
‘I had lost my cap,’ said Wilson, ‘so was not technically in uniform. I didn’t know it at the time, but my ear was half hanging off, and my face was covered with blood. I must have looked quite a sight.
‘I told Rudder Captain Gregg that if he did not get the rudder hard over to starboard all would be lost, but the rudder captain insisted that he would only accept orders direct from the admiral or the admiral’s staff – and that if I didn’t leave he would have me arrested.’
‘What an idiot!’ said Curtis. ‘What did you do?’
‘I took out my service revolver and shot him dead, right there and then. His second-in-command made a move to stop me, so I shot him, too.’
He stopped again, and I saw his eyes glisten at the memory.
‘To be fair to Rudder Captain Gregg,’ continued Wilson, ‘I think he was probably in shock, and his number two was just being loyal. In any event, I was now the ranking officer so called “Rudder hard a starboard expedite!” and with a groaning and shouting from below, the order was executed. The island swung about, and within an hour we were heading back to the open sea, and safety. Communications with both rudder command posts was restored, and we limped back to port for extensive repairs.
‘The Isle of Wight, once the finest seaborne island in the world, was a shadow of its former self. We lost seventeen hundred men and women and three-fifths of all buildings were destroyed in the bombardment. We didn’t set sail again for another nineteen years, and haven’t participated in a Troll War since.’
‘What happened to you?’ asked Curtis after a pause. ‘I mean, you shot two officers.’
Wilson’s expression changed. He sighed, and I saw his shoulders sag.
‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ he said quietly. ‘Although I was there on that fateful day, I’m not the officer who saved the island. I told it first person to make it more exciting. No, the young man who saved the day was Brent, an officer of considerable resource, resolve and steely-eyed adherence to duty. He’s now Admiral Lord Brent of Cowes, the most decorated officer we have ever honoured.’
There was a pause.
‘So what were you doing on that day?’ I asked.
‘I was the second officer in the starboard rudder control room, the one who was shot by Communications Officer Brent. I should have assumed command from Rudder Captain Gregg and got that rudder hard over on my own initiative, but I didn’t. I was tested, and found wanting. I failed not just myself and the service, but everyone on that island. Consumed by shame, I left the Isle of Wight soon after, never to return.’
Wilson fell silent after he had concluded the story, deep in thought, and after we all agreed that it had been a good story even if it wasn’t his, we spun the bottle again.
A deal with Curtis
This time, the bottle pointed towards the Princess.
‘Goody,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hands. ‘I’ll use this opportunity to explain precisely how the financial futures market works.’
‘This should be a bundle of laughs,’ grumbled Curtis, but the Princess ignored him.
‘The first thing to remember about futures is that they are a contract for the supply of specific goods at a specific price at a specific time in the future—’
‘What was that?’ said Ignatius, staring into the darkness.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ said the Princess crossly, ‘I’m not going to have my fascinating account of financial derivatives sidelined by the old “what was that?” trick.’
‘I thought I heard something too,’ I said, ‘a clinking of tin cans.’
All of a sudden we were on our feet, staring into the darkness. Something was either trying to get through, or had got through and was now inside, staring at us from the darkness.
‘What do we do?’ whispered Curtis.
‘We get ready to scoot up your pod poles,’ said Wilson. ‘Better to be safe than eaten, as the saying goes.’
We started to back off towards our pre-allocated pod poles. And while pre-allocation might seem a bit sad and nerdy and controlling, it can actually save lives if you can imagine sixteen panicked tourists all trying to climb up the same pole. As soon as we were fifteen feet up a lever could be tripped and the first section of ladder would be drawn upwards by an internally falling weight. As you can see, the terrors of the Cambrian Empire have been well catered for over the years.
We were all creeping slowly towards our poles when there was a faint crack and a rustle in a nearby hedge. With images of Snork Badger, Hotax and flesh-eating slugs in our minds, everyone ran for it. There was then a scream from the Princess, and I looked back to see her rolling on the ground.
‘My face!’ she yelled. ‘Get it off me!’
I jumped down and ran towards her. She was clutching her face and there seemed to be a trail of glistening slime up her arm, but if it was a flesh-eating slug, it was a tiddler.
‘Hold still, for admiral’s sake,’ said Wilson, who had reached her first, ‘and we’ll get it off—’
‘Wait!’ I yelled, and they both stopped struggling. I pulled the Princess’s hands away and then plucked … the homing snail from her face.
‘There’s no panic,’ I said, ‘I think this was meant for me. But you know, I think it’s really time to turn in before something genuinely nasty finds us.’
There were mutterings of agreement at this and those already halfway up their pod poles continued on, leaving Wilson, the Princess and me on the ground.
‘If you’re okay,’ said Wilson, ‘I’ll
be off to bed.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Princess, and clasped his hand for a moment.
‘It was only a snail,’ replied Wilson, ‘barely dangerous at all.’
‘But you didn’t know that when you came to my aid,’ replied the Princess.
He looked at us both without saying anything, and I detected a sad, resigned look in his eyes.
‘I am bound to help wherever possible,’ he said sadly. ‘I was found wanting once. It won’t happen again.’
‘Is that why you’re out here?’ I asked, realising that Wilson probably wasn’t here for the birdwatching after all.
‘Back home, my name is forever linked with cowards and ditherers. I am here looking for a second chance – a time of extreme jeopardy where my intervention can make a difference.’
That can’t be too difficult out here, surely?’ I asked.
‘You’d be surprised,’ said Wilson, ‘simply saving a life is not enough. My act of contrition has to have far-reaching consequences, so that years from now, someone will say: “Without Wilson, all would have been lost”.’
He sighed, then bid us goodnight.
We wished him the same and he scooted nimbly up his pod pole.
‘I feel a fool to have been frightened,’ said the Princess sadly, wiping the snail-slime off her face with a handkerchief, ‘most unregal. A princess should be resolute in the face of danger, and unflinching. I’d be a rotten queen.’
‘Queenliness is a skill that must be learned,’ I told her, ‘and this is the place to do it.’
‘I hope so,’ she said with a sigh, then added, after a pause: ‘I was so obnoxious to you back at the palace. You must think I’m a complete arse.’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ I replied. ‘You and I are both victims of a random chance of birth: you a princess, me an orphan. But we’re both working against it to improve ourselves.’
‘I suppose technically speaking I’m an orphan too,’ said the Princess, ‘or at least, I will be until I get my body back.’
‘It’s the mind that defines the person,’ I said, ‘not the body.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘looks like I am a princess after all. What does the note say?’
I had been unfolding the message stuck to the shell of the homing snail, and let the Princess read it over my shoulder by the light of the nearest fireberry.
Received your msg, contents noted. Use EVERY EFFORT to secure return of Perkins, then find Rubber Colin. Will be waiting at the conch seven tomorrow if possible, much happening and not any of it good, take no risks with yourself or the handmaiden and carry on search for EofZ with all determination. Raining here in Hereford, Tiger says hi – Moobin.
I read the note twice, trying to figure out what he meant, if anything. There seemed to be something going on that didn’t sound brilliant, and a sense of urgency over our task.
‘He underlined “Every Effort” and capitalised it,’ said the Princess. ‘Do you think that’s an “all other considerations secondary” kind of deal?’
‘I think so,’ I replied, ‘and if I know Addie, that’s the approach she’ll take to get Perkins back. What’s worse, I think I asked her to do it, which makes me responsible.’
‘How does that feel?’
‘Not good. Good night, ma’am.’
‘Laura,’ said the Princess, ‘just call me Laura.’
We climbed our pod poles, but I got quite a shock when I clambered into mine, for I wasn’t alone. Curtis was there, and he smiled in that ‘I’m so cute’ manner that I found so utterly odious. Worse, he was lying on my bed, all sort of stretched out and pretend-relaxed.
‘You’d better have a good reason for being up my pod pole,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘is it yours?’
‘You know it is. Out.’
The smile dropped from his face.
‘I thought we could be friendly over this, but never mind: although today I’m a tourist, I’m also a businessman, and a businessman is always on the lookout for new business opportunities.’
‘You said “business” three times in that sentence.’
‘So?’
‘It’s bad syntax.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘Yes it is. It’s like me saying: “You’re the dumbest dumb person I’ve ever had the dumb luck to meet”.’
‘You’re very sarcastic for someone so young.’
‘You noticed?’
Curtis scowled.
‘Fun’s over,’ he said. ‘This is why I’m here: I thought at first that you were out here for a holiday too, but then I got to thinking. You’re Jennifer Strange, the Last Dragonslayer. You run Kazam, who have recently established themselves as the only licensed House of Enchantment in the world. You are personal Court Mystician to King Snodd and Dragon Ambassador. You are probably the most powerful and influential person working in magic today.’
This was worrying. Idiots like Curtis I can handle so long as they stay being idiots – I have a terrible temper and can fight dirty, if pushed – but when idiots stop being idiots and start sounding smart, that’s another matter entirely.
‘So what are you saying? You want to write my CV?’
‘I’m saying that it’s a little suspicious: you’re heading off towards Cadair Idris mountain with a half-track loaded with fuel and the most experienced guide in the Empire, purportedly to look for Leviathans.’
‘So?’ I said. ‘Everyone needs a holiday.’
‘With a handmaiden who I suspect isn’t a handmaiden, an illegally imported sorcerer and a rubber Dragon? This is a quest, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a search.’
‘No way. This smacks to me of an arduous journey towards greater spiritual understanding of oneself and a greater truth.’
Blast. He’d rumbled us.
‘… and if the International Questing Federation find out you’re questing without a licence you’ll be in serious trouble, and not just with them – the Cambrian authorities don’t like anyone questing out here without a permit. A call from me and you’d be in custody quicker than you can say “blackmail” and you can kiss goodbye to whatever it is you’re looking for.’
We stared at one another for a moment.
‘I want to know what you’re looking for,’ he said. ‘It’s something of extraordinary value, isn’t it?’
I had to think quickly.
‘I’m not telling you anything,’ I told him. ‘Go on, call the Questing Federation. I’d die before I’d tell you anything.’
Curtis drew a knife from his pocket. It was a flick-knife and although I could have disarmed him relatively easily and punched him painfully in the eye, I didn’t. A second or two later and he had me in an armlock and the knife at my throat.
‘Let’s try again,’ he said. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Go to hell.’
I stamped hard on his foot and struggled. There was an opportunity to break the grip he had on the knife and punch him in the eye, but I did neither and pretty soon he had me in an armlock once more and I cried out, even though the pain wasn’t that bad. He held the knife so close I could feel the coldness of the blade, his hands gripped me tightly, and I could feel his breath against my ear. This was good news as I now had Curtis precisely where I wanted him: convinced he was stronger, and smarter. And now he was an idiot again, I could act.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said in a strained ‘please don’t hurt me’ kind of voice. ‘It’s no big deal. We need … Leviathans’ teeth. They’re useful in spells. In particular, we’re trying to reanimate the mobile phone network, which will require a couple of dozen.’
‘Leviathans’ teeth?’
‘Yes; we usually extract them from the Leviathan bites we find on jetliners’ tails, but the attacks have dropped off these past six years.’
The Leviathans’ tooth story was nonsense, of course. No one had used them in potions for years on account of the whole ‘growing antlers side effect’ controve
rsy of the 1720s, and we certainly didn’t need them to spell mobiles into existence. Only one thing was true: Leviathans did chase jetliners – like dogs chase cars, some say.
‘So without Leviathans’ teeth the mobile phone network won’t work?’
‘And a lot of other spells too,’ I said, ‘and here’s the deal: keep quiet about the quest and help us to find the Leviathans’ Graveyard. It’s where the creatures go to die and if we can find it, there’ll be hundreds of tons of dry bones for us to search through. Your silence and assistance will be rewarded: five Leviathan teeth for you to trade with as you see fit. Deal?’
‘I’ll stay quiet and help you,’ said Curtis, ‘but for twenty.’
‘I can go as high as ten.’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘you’ve got a deal.’
He relaxed his grip and took the knife from my throat.
‘Well now, partner,’ he said with a greedy smile, ‘this sounds so much better. And this Leviathans’ Graveyard is somewhere near the top of Cadair Idris, yes?’
‘So legend has it. And now you know where we’re heading, you can get your objectionable carcass out of my pod.’
‘Only too happy to oblige, Jennifer. See you tomorrow.’
He smiled again, convinced that he had somehow managed to secure a valuable commodity with minimum effort when in fact he’d negotiated away his own strong position for something of zero value.
After he had gone, I closed the door and bolted it, then took a deep breath. Curtis was out of my hair for a while, but now I knew he would use violence to get what he wanted, I’d have to keep a careful eye on him. But if Addie was right and he was along for the trip only to make up the fifty per cent casualty rate, I half hoped he would hurry up and become a statistic. I then felt guilty for half hoping he would die, then felt stupid for feeling guilty about half hoping he would die. This might have gone on for a while, so I pinched myself out of the emotional-guilt feedback loop and set out my bedroll on the bed.