The Cannibals (7 page)

“What you want and what you get, it's never the same, now, is it?” He chuckled, then went straight to work on the longboat. Or, rather, he stood with his hands on his hips and wondered where to start. He walked around the hull. Halfheartedly, he pulled at a loose nail, then looked up. “ 'Ave any of you, by chance, happrenticed to shipwrights?”

We shook our heads. “Midgely grew up in a dockyard,” I said.

“But I never built no boats,” said Midge. “I never even drove no nail.”

“I might 'ave guessed,” said Mr. Mullock.

“But you know who has?” asked Midge. He looked toward each of us with his blind gray eyes. “Benjamin Penny, that's who.”

“Penny built boats?” I asked.

“Hardly!” scoffed Midge. “It was coffins, Tom. He used to talk on the hulk about his master, what made coffins.”

“Hah!” shouted Mr. Mullock. “You brought a coffin maker to my island, did you? There's Fate at work for you.” Behind his beard, his skin looked pale. “Tom, you run and bring 'im 'ere.”

“No, don't!” cried Midge. “Please, Mr. Mullock, I don't want him here. He's the one what blinded me, Mr. Mullock.”

“Is 'e?” Mr. Mullock touched Midgely on the shoulder. “Well, lad, 'ow about this: an eye for an eye? 'Ow does that sound to you?”

His words struck me cold. But the small smile that came with them was worse.

“Crikey, I couldn't blind him,” said Midge. “I'm a meek now, Mr. Mullock. Ask Tom if I ain't.”

“A meek, are you?” said he. “Out to inherit the earth, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.” Midge nodded. It was just what I'd taught him in the prison hulk.

“Now, if I was you,” said Mr. Mullock, “I'd let this Penny
do the work. I'd sit right 'ere and watch 'im. And then, when 'e was done, I'd launch the boat and leave the boy behind, that's what I would do. Leave 'im blind to the world for hevermore. That's what I call justice.”

Surprisingly, Midgely agreed to that. Mr. Mullock clapped him on the shoulder and sent me off to find Benjamin Penny.

I saw Gaskin Boggis first, as I trotted up toward the summit. He was standing near the top, the tallest thing on the island. Weedle and Carrots and Benjamin Penny were kneeling on the ground, playing slide-thrift with pebbles.

I scuffed my feet, and they all turned as one to look.

“Why, it's Tom,” said Gaskin. He waved to me, and called out a greeting.

Weedle told him to shut up. “No talking with the enemy.”

I took a few more steps, then stood below them on the trail. Gaskin looked like a statue looming against the sky.

“What do you want?” said Weedle. “It ain't water, we know that. You got water and you got oil; we seen it. We seen that green man too.”

“I've come for Benjamin Penny,” I said.

“What for?” asked Penny.

“You made coffins once. You can help us fix the longboat.”

“Wal-ker!” said Weedle. “He won't do nothing for you.”

He was his old self now, again the king with his court around him. Carrots sat grinning, his red hair dusted to white. I guessed he'd been scrabbling in the dirt to find food for Weedle.

“Now hop it!” Weedle picked up a stone from the ground.

“Without the boat you're stranded,” I said. “We're all marooned without it.”

“No, we ain't,” said Gaskin. “There's people coming, Tom.”

He pointed north, but I couldn't see beyond the summit. Weedle hurled his rock at me. “Go on!” he shouted again.

I turned and jogged across the slope, skirting the hill. I came to a ridge that looked to the north, and saw a feather of grey smoke rising from the nearest of the distant islands.

I was to wish later, with all my heart, that the smoke had been the only thing I saw that day. But Mr. Mullock's island sprawled below me, and I found myself looking straight down at the neck that divided it in two. Spanning that space was the pile of stones I'd spotted from the longboat. From there it had looked like a jumbled mass thrown together by winds and waves, or tremors in the Earth. But now I saw that the stones had been carefully placed, one wedging another, as cleverly as any mason could have managed. I knew right away that I was looking at Mr. Mullock's wall, and of course his warnings of the Gypsy were the next thoughts in my mind. I found that in that lonely place, with the great heap of
stones before me, it was suddenly not so easy to laugh at those warnings. I decided that I didn't really care what lay beyond the wall.

But as I turned away, I saw that it was steepest on the side away from me. Mr. Mullock had never made that wall to keep out Gypsies. It had been built by someone else. To keep out Mr. Mullock.

I took a few steps from stone to stone, climbing halfway up the rubble. I thought I might satisfy myself by going just high enough to peer across the top. I saw that the island was much the same on the other side. The rocks were just as white, the ground just as barren. There was no movement, except from a cluster of birds pecking away in a cleft of rock.

But why were they there? It seemed strange that birds on one side of the wall left the island to feed at sea, and those on the other stayed behind. I wondered what it was that made them peck and squabble, that sent swirls of them suddenly circling through the air.

I wanted to hurry and tell the others of the smoke in the distance. I wanted Midgely, especially, to know that people were coming. But I thought I might not have another chance to cross the wall. For a moment I dithered. Then I decided it would take only a few moments to run to the birds and back.

Up to the top and over I scrambled. I went not at a run after all, but at a cautious walk. I sent the birds into flight. And I found a man below them.

He was lying in a small ravine. Swarthy of skin, black of hair, he did indeed seem Gypsy. He was wilder than Mr. Mullock, a man in utter rags, shoeless and filthy. I knew at once that this was the running man I had seen.

But never again would he run. His skull had been caved in at the front, perhaps by a fall, but just as easily by a blow from an axe. The skin on his forehead was split, and tiny bits of sand and shells were stuck to the tattered edges of the wound. His hands, his face were bird-pecked, and he lay at my feet with his life pouring from him.

I clambered down into the ravine. I stooped beside him, reached out to touch him. And suddenly he moved.

His eyes flew open. His hand reached up and grabbed my arm. “Kill him,” he said in a whisper. “Kill him quick before he kills you all.”

“Who?” I asked foolishly. “Mr. Mullock, you mean?”

With a rattling moan, he took hold of me with his other hand as well. “We were seven in number,” said he. “But he done for us all. He done for us each in turn.”

“Why?” I asked.

But he'd spoken his last words. His eyes rolled up and, with a tremble, he was gone.

His eyes remained open, his teeth in a terrible smile. I had to pry his fingers from my arm, fearing all the time that Mr. Mullock would suddenly appear above, come to find where I had gone. I fled from the place and over the wall.

As Boggis had said, the island seemed haunted. It rang with the cries of murdered men. I imagined that I was racing over their hidden graves, and I heard them shout; I saw the ground shift as they struggled up from below. I ran and ran, and didn't look back until I reached the streets of the tiny city.

I slowed then. I gathered myself, wondering what to do. Things made sense now that hadn't before, and Mr. Mullock
suddenly seemed like a monster. “That's over,” he'd kept telling his little bat, and he must have meant the killings. But what was I to do: challenge him outright? Pretend I'd seen nothing?

I leaned against the high wall of the Admiralty, still breathing hard and fast. The face of the dying Gypsy hovered in my mind, and I still felt the grasp of his fingers.

Behind me, pebbles crunched. Every muscle in my body seemed to leap and tighten. Mr. Mullock called out, “Did you see 'im?”

I was about to lie, to tell him I'd seen no one. But my voice caught in my throat, and Mr. Mullock strode up the Mall.

“'Ave you gone deaf now?” he asked. “I said, did you see that boy?”

“Penny?” I said, my voice a squeak. “Yes, I saw him. He won't come and help.”

Mr. Mullock looked into my face. “You're white as a sheet. What else did you see?”

“Smoke,” I said quickly. “On one of the islands there's smoke. The others won't help because people are coming.”

“The junglies!” said Mr. Mullock. He suddenly looked as fearful as I felt. He clawed at my arm. “Are they coming now? Did you see the boats?”

“Only smoke,” I said.

“Then there's time,” said he. “There's still time, thank God.”

He pulled me down to the beach. From the top of the slope he shouted at Early and Midge, yelling as he ran. “It's the junglies!”

I hadn't known until then that fear could spread like a plague. Not I nor Midge nor Early had the slightest idea what a junglie was. But I saw the blood leave Midgely's face, and drain as well from Early's, and suddenly I feared junglies more than I'd feared anything in my life, including Mr. Mullock. I couldn't stand in terror of a man who was terrified himself.

“Hurry!” he cried. “It's our lives now, lads.”

We took up the wood; we took up the nails; we swarmed across the longboat. It was as though we, like Noah, had been instantly given the knowledge of shipwrights. I threw a plank atop the hull. Early laid down another, and Mr. Mullock whipped out his axe, all ready to hammer. But that was as far as we got.

We weren't shipwrights; we weren't Noahs. We didn't know even how to start.

“Patch 'er up,” said Mr. Mullock. “Cover the 'oles with patches; that'll do us.”

“They'll only come loose again,” I said. “The boat will sink.”

“If we're not off the island we're lost,” said Mr. Mullock. “We 'aven't a chance. Not a 'ope.”

Then Midgely piped up. “How hard can it be?” he asked. “There's proper idiots building ships, you know. Men with two saws and no thumbs.” He parted his hands in a shrug. “We can do it if we keep our heads.”

Mr. Mullock cackled. “You 'ear that, Foxy?” He cuffed his bat, and it shrieked. “That's the ticket, lad; keep our 'eads!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The junglies,” said he. “They 'unt for 'eads.”

My spine tingled. Headhunters. The first of my father's dangers.

“But wait,” said Mr. Mullock “They might not come, I suppose. Why should they, to a place like this? They don't know that hanyone's 'ere.”

Then Early said, as casually as anything, “Oh, I think
that
might tip them off.”

He was looking inland. He was nodding. “Yes, I think they're bound to see that.”

From the mouth of Mr. Mullock's cave swirled billows of smoke. It was black and greasy, bubbling up like tar. Yellow flames danced on the rock, and out from the cave came Weedle. He was staggering backward, dragging a ball of fire.

“My oil!” cried Mr. Mullock. “They've lit my bags of oil!”

Behind Weedle came Carrots. They each had a sack of oil, and they hauled them together across the ledge. Together they rolled them over the cliff.

The bags tumbled down, spewing fire and smoke. They burst upon London, and the fiery oil flowed into the Thames. It spread to the south, under the bridges and past the Tower, racing to the sea. The smoke went higher and higher.

Mr. Mullock howled like an animal. He brandished his axe, and he shouted at me. “This is your doing, isn't it? Look what you've done!”

“I did nothing,” I said.

Mr. Mullock turned as purple as a plum. “You came to my island!” he roared, and raised his hand and knocked me down. He lifted his axe again, and I thought he was going to
cleave me in two. The blade hung high above his head, sparkling with the flames and sunlight. Then it came flashing down. But it flew from his hand and clattered across the rock; he had hurled it away in his fury.

“Go!” he shouted. “You cabbagehead! Try and save what oil is left!”

He kicked me as I got up. He pushed me forward. I went up the slope as fast as I could, and Weedle and Carrots fled as I climbed. Mr. Mullock and Early—and even Midgely—frantically stomped at the fire.

The cave was full of smoke, and all across the floor, the bags of oil were burning. They lay like flattened sausages, raging in flames from end to end. Oil was still spreading from them, flowing through the cave and down to the chambers.

I took a breath and dashed to the far wall, straight to the back where Mr. Mullock kept the bags. But Weedle had thrown them here and there, and only one could I see. It lay in the next chamber, beyond a narrow passage. On hands and knees I crawled toward it, surprised to find that the smoke was not as thick near the ground. I could breathe there, though the heat and smoke smarted in my lungs.

I came into a room not much bigger than the maintop on my father's ship. I could span the floor with my arms, and saw that it dropped straightaway to a third chamber some six feet below. A trickle of burning oil had reached the edge and was now falling—drop by drop—to that lower place. Little beads of fire sizzled through the air, bursting at the bottom.

I looked over the edge and gasped. Five faces were staring up at me.

From the depths of the cave rose a shriek. It was shrill and deafening, a terrible scream that came amid a fluttering din, as though a hundred carpets were being beaten of dust. Then a dark wall rushed toward me.

I thought it was smoke, but it was bats. By the score and by the thousand they flitted past, all twittering and crying, bouncing from the walls, from my shoulders and my head. My face to the ground, I looked down at a row of skeletons lying side by side. The bones of their arms were stretched out, their fingers splayed. In the flickering shadows, the skeletons seemed to shift and roll like five in a bed, trying to find comfort on the rocks.

I grabbed the bag of oil and hoisted it up. I toppled it into the higher room and clambered after as the bats swarmed around me. From above came a burst of flames, a blast of air, and the flow of fire quickened.

Passages that I hadn't seen before suddenly opened on every side. I saw a pile of metal that I knew at once to be a heap of convict irons. I saw the clasps, the chains and heavy balls. Nearby was a mound of black cloth, and beside it lay a hat—the sort of low-crowned one worn by a priest.