The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (16 page)

"The Englishmen! Where are those accursed Englishmen who stopped the
bullfighting?—Hang them to a lamp-post!—Throw them in the sea! The
Englishmen!—We want the Englishmen!"

After that we didn't waste any time, you may be sure. Bumpo grabbed the
Spanish cab-driver and explained to him in signs that if he didn't drive
down to the harbor as fast as he knew how and keep his mouth shut the
whole way, he would choke the life out of him. Then we jumped into the
cab on top of the food, slammed the door, pulled down the blinds and
away we went.

"We won't get a chance to pawn the jewelry now," said Polynesia, as we
bumped over the cobbly streets. "But never mind—it may come in handy
later on. And anyway we've got two-thousand five-hundred pesetas left
out of the bet. Don't give the cabby more than two pesetas fifty, Bumpo.
That's the right fare, I know."

Well, we reached the harbor all right and we were mighty glad to find
that the Doctor had sent Chee-Chee back with the row-boat to wait for us
at the landing-wall.

Unfortunately while we were in the middle of loading the supplies from
the cab into the boat, the angry mob arrived upon the wharf and made
a rush for us. Bumpo snatched up a big beam of wood that lay near
and swung it round and round his head, letting out dreadful African
battle-yells the while. This kept the crowd off while Chee-Chee and I
hustled the last of the stores into the boat and clambered in ourselves.
Bumpo threw his beam of wood into the thick of the Spaniards and leapt
in after us. Then we pushed off and rowed like mad for the Curlew.

The mob upon the wall howled with rage, shook their fists and hurled
stones and all manner of things after us. Poor old Bumpo got hit on the
head with a bottle. But as he had a very strong head it only raised a
small bump while the bottle smashed into a thousand pieces.

When we reached the ship's side the Doctor had the anchor drawn up and
the sails set and everything in readiness to get away. Looking back we
saw boats coming out from the harbor-wall after us, filled with angry,
shouting men. So we didn't bother to unload our rowboat but just tied it
on to the ship's stern with a rope and jumped aboard.

It only took a moment more to swing the Curlew round into the wind; and
soon we were speeding out of the harbor on our way to Brazil.

"Ha!" sighed Polynesia, as we all flopped down on the deck to take a
rest and get our breath. "That wasn't a bad adventure—quite reminds me
of my old seafaring days when I sailed with the smugglers—Golly, that
was the life!—Never mind your head, Bumpo. It will be all right when
the Doctor puts a little arnica on it. Think what we got out of the
scrap: a boat-load of ship's stores, pockets full of jewelry and
thousands of pesetas. Not bad, you know—not bad."

MIRANDA, the Purple Bird-of-Paradise had prophesied rightly when she had
foretold a good spell of weather. For three weeks the good ship Curlew
plowed her way through smiling seas before a steady powerful wind.

I suppose most real sailors would have found this part of the voyage
dull. But not I. As we got further South and further West the face
of the sea seemed different every day. And all the little things of
a voyage which an old hand would have hardly bothered to notice were
matters of great interest for my eager eyes.

We did not pass many ships. When we did see one, the Doctor would get
out his telescope and we would all take a look at it. Sometimes he would
signal to it, asking for news, by hauling up little colored flags upon
the mast; and the ship would signal back to us in the same way. The
meaning of all the signals was printed in a book which the Doctor kept
in the cabin. He told me it was the language of the sea and that all
ships could understand it whether they be English, Dutch, or French.

Our greatest happening during those first weeks was passing an iceberg.
When the sun shone on it it burst into a hundred colors, sparkling like
a jeweled palace in a fairy-story. Through the telescope we saw a mother
polar bear with a cub sitting on it, watching us. The Doctor recognized
her as one of the bears who had spoken to him when he was discovering
the North Pole. So he sailed the ship up close and offered to take her
and her baby on to the Curlew if she wished it. But she only shook her
head, thanking him; she said it would be far too hot for the cub on the
deck of our ship, with no ice to keep his feet cool. It had been indeed
a very hot day; but the nearness of that great mountain of ice made us
all turn up our coat-collars and shiver with the cold.

During those quiet peaceful days I improved my reading and writing a
great deal with the Doctor's help. I got on so well that he let me keep
the ship's log. This is a big book kept on every ship, a kind of diary,
in which the number of miles run, the direction of your course and
everything else that happens is written down.

The Doctor too, in what spare time he had, was nearly always writing—in
his note-books. I used to peep into these sometimes, now that I could
read, but I found it hard work to make out the Doctor's handwriting.
Many of these note-books seemed to be about sea things. There were six
thick ones filled full with notes and sketches of different seaweeds;
and there were others on sea birds; others on sea worms; others on
seashells. They were all some day to be re-written, printed and bound
like regular books.

One afternoon we saw, floating around us, great quantities of stuff that
looked like dead grass. The Doctor told me this was gulf-weed. A little
further on it became so thick that it covered all the water as far as
the eye could reach; it made the Curlew look as though she were moving
across a meadow instead of sailing the Atlantic.

Crawling about upon this weed, many crabs were to be seen. And the sight
of them reminded the Doctor of his dream of learning the language of the
shellfish. He fished several of these crabs up with a net and put them
in his listening-tank to see if he could understand them. Among the
crabs he also caught a strange-looking, chubby, little fish which he
told me was called a Silver Fidgit.

After he had listened to the crabs for a while with no success, he put
the fidgit into the tank and began to listen to that. I had to leave
him at this moment to go and attend to some duties on the deck. But
presently I heard him below shouting for me to come down again.

"Stubbins," he cried as soon as he saw me—"a most extraordinary
thing—Quite unbelievable—I'm not sure whether I'm dreaming—Can't
believe my own senses. I—I—I—"

"Why, Doctor," I said, "what is it?—What's the matter?"

"The fidgit," he whispered, pointing with a trembling finger to the
listening-tank in which the little round fish was still swimming
quietly, "he talks English! And—and—and HE WHISTLES TUNES—English
tunes!"

"Talks English!" I cried—"Whistles!—Why, it's impossible."

"It's a fact," said the Doctor, white in the face with excitement. "It's
only a few words, scattered, with no particular sense to them—all mixed
up with his own language which I can't make out yet. But they're English
words, unless there's something very wrong with my hearing—And the tune
he whistles, it's as plain as anything—always, the same tune. Now you
listen and tell me what you make of it. Tell me everything you hear.
Don't miss a word."

I went to the glass tank upon the table while the Doctor grabbed
a note-book and a pencil. Undoing my collar I stood upon the empty
packing-case he had been using for a stand and put my right ear down
under the water.

For some moments I detected nothing at all—except, with my dry ear, the
heavy breathing of the Doctor as he waited, all stiff and anxious, for
me to say something. At last from within the water, sounding like a
child singing miles and miles away, I heard an unbelievably thin, small
voice.

"Ah!" I said.

"What is it?" asked the Doctor in a hoarse, trembly whisper. "What does
he say?"

"I can't quite make it out," I said. "It's mostly in some strange fish
language—Oh, but wait a minute!—Yes, now I get it—'No smoking'....
'My, here's a queer one!' 'Popcorn and picture postcards here.... This
way out.... Don't spit'—What funny things to say, Doctor!—Oh, but
wait!—Now he's whistling the tune."

"What tune is it?" gasped the Doctor.

"John Peel."

"Ah hah," cried the Doctor, "that's what I made it out to be." And he
wrote furiously in his note-book.

I went on listening.

"This is most extraordinary," the Doctor kept muttering to himself
as his pencil went wiggling over the page—"Most extraordinary—but
frightfully thrilling. I wonder where he—"

"Here's some more," I cried—"some more English.... 'THE BIG TANK NEEDS
CLEANING'.... That's all. Now he's talking fish-talk again."

"The big tank!" the Doctor murmured frowning in a puzzled kind of way.
"I wonder where on earth he learned—"

Then he bounded up out of his chair.

"I have it," he yelled, "this fish has escaped from an aquarium. Why,
of course! Look at the kind of things he has learned: 'Picture
postcards'—they always sell them in aquariums; 'Don't spit'; 'No
smoking'; 'This way out'—the things the attendants say. And then, 'My,
here's a queer one!' That's the kind of thing that people exclaim
when they look into the tanks. It all fits. There's no doubt about it,
Stubbins: we have here a fish who has escaped from captivity. And it's
quite possible—not certain, by any means, but quite possible—that
I may now, through him, be able to establish communication with the
shellfish. This is a great piece of luck."

WELL, now that he was started once more upon his old hobby of the
shellfish languages, there was no stopping the Doctor. He worked right
through the night.

A little after midnight I fell asleep in a chair; about two in the
morning Bumpo fell asleep at the wheel; and for five hours the Curlew
was allowed to drift where she liked. But still John Dolittle worked on,
trying his hardest to understand the fidgit's language, struggling to
make the fidgit understand him.

When I woke up it was broad daylight again. The Doctor was still
standing at the listening-tank, looking as tired as an owl and
dreadfully wet. But on his face there was a proud and happy smile.

"Stubbins," he said as soon as he saw me stir, "I've done it. I've
got the key to the fidgit's language. It's a frightfully difficult
language—quite different from anything I ever heard. The only thing it
reminds me of—slightly—is ancient Hebrew. It isn't shellfish; but it's
a big step towards it. Now, the next thing, I want you to take a pencil
and a fresh notebook and write down everything I say. The fidgit has
promised to tell me the story of his life. I will translate it into
English and you put it down in the book. Are you ready?"

Once more the Doctor lowered his ear beneath the level of the water; and
as he began to speak, I started to write. And this is the story that the
fidgit told us.

"I was born in the Pacific Ocean, close to the coast of Chile. I was one
of a family of two-thousand five-hundred and ten. Soon after our mother
and father left us, we youngsters got scattered. The family was broken
up—by a herd of whales who chased us. I and my sister, Clippa (she was
my favorite sister) had a very narrow escape for our lives. As a rule,
whales are not very hard to get away from if you are good at dodging—if
you've only got a quick swerve. But this one that came after Clippa and
myself was a very mean whale, Every time he lost us under a stone or
something he'd come back and hunt and hunt till he routed us out into
the open again. I never saw such a nasty, persevering brute.

"Well, we shook him at last—though not before he had worried us for
hundreds of miles northward, up the west coast of South America. But
luck was against us that day. While we were resting and trying to get
our breath, another family of fidgits came rushing by, shouting, 'Come
on! Swim for your lives! The dog-fish are coming!'

"Now dog-fish are particularly fond of fidgits. We are, you might say,
their favorite food—and for that reason we always keep away from deep,
muddy waters. What's more, dog-fish are not easy to escape from; they
are terribly fast and clever hunters. So up we had to jump and on again.

"After we had gone a few more hundred miles we looked back and saw that
the dog-fish were gaining on us. So we turned into a harbor. It happened
to be one on the west coast of the United States. Here we guessed, and
hoped, the dog-fish would not be likely to follow us. As it happened,
they didn't even see us turn in, but dashed on northward and we never
saw them again. I hope they froze to death in the Arctic Seas.

"But, as I said, luck was against us that day. While I and my sister
were cruising gently round the ships anchored in the harbor looking for
orange-peels, a great delicacy with us—SWOOP! BANG!—we were caught in
a net.

"We struggled for all we were worth; but it was no use. The net was
small-meshed and strongly made. Kicking and flipping we were hauled
up the side of the ship and dumped down on the deck, high and dry in a
blazing noon-day sun.

"Here a couple of old men in whiskers and spectacles leant over us,
making strange sounds. Some codling had got caught in the net the same
time as we were. These the old men threw back into the sea; but us they
seemed to think very precious. They put us carefully into a large
jar and after they had taken us on shore they went to a big house and
changed us from the jar into glass boxes full of water. This house was
on the edge of the harbor; and a small stream of sea-water was made to
flow through the glass tank so we could breathe properly. Of course
we had never lived inside glass walls before; and at first we kept on
trying to swim through them and got our noses awfully sore bumping the
glass at full speed.