Continuing with David Yates’ serialisation of The Last Bullfighter, today and tomorrow we bring you chapter two. If you missed chapter one, follow the links for Part One and Part Two published last weekend. Ed
DICKIE BIRD AND MUCKY DUCK
Whacker Payne had had a very rough night in Gibraltar. His head spun and his brain throbbed like a jungle drum. Able Seaman Whacker Payne of Her Majesty’s Ship Slinger was hungover – again. He lay on the upper deck by the flag locker, just aft of the midships radar screen.
Although the Mediterranean sun beat down and scorched his bare arms and legs, his whole body shivered. He clutched a bundle of rags, and a black plastic bucket of warm soapy water lay by his side – his cleaning excuse in case anyone in authority stumbled upon him so high up in the ship’s superstructure.
Whacker slowly dragged his left arm up to his red, glazed eyes and peered down at the digital display on his wristwatch.
“Blast,” he muttered, as his eyes focused on the numbers 09:47. “Must clear out of here soon before the Gunnery Officer catches me loafing on his morning walk round.”
He raised his left arm again, and wiped his dripping brow with the rag in his hand.
“Cor blimey, what a place that Gibraltar is. Too many bars, and too much cheap booze. I’m never going ashore there again.”
Whacker rolled onto his side and tried to raise himself slowly into a sitting position, but the effort proved too much. His face went green, then white, before a great ‘urkkk’ belched from his rounded stomach and he dived headfirst into the soapy bucket to rid his fat belly of last night’s beer and chinese takeaway.
Things were not going too well this morning for Able Seaman Whacker Payne. First of all he’d been ten minutes adrift – late for work – and the ship had been under sailing orders. Then he’d almost fallen over the side when the gangway was being lifted out of position. Finally, the Navigator had shouted at him for laying out the wrong charts.
“No, not those charts Payne, we’re leaving Gibraltar harbour – not New York!”
The thought of another telling off for spewing in a bucket when he should have been using it to clean the flag locker was too much for Whacker. He lifted his head slowly, thinking, ‘Surely things can’t get any worse.’ But they did.
Wee-ker-thud, wee-ker-thud, wee-ker-thud. Three swallows whistled out of the sky and smacked Whacker on the back of the head in quick succession, bouncing his face back into the soapy spew with each strike.
“Bruuuuurck,” he spluttered, spitting bits of last night’s prawn curry from his foaming mouth. “What the flippin’ heck was that?”
Whacker’s hangover was gone, in its place he now had three nasty red lumps on the back of his head – and three crumpled swallows lay bleeding in a heap on his bundle of rags.
“Cor blimey! Where did you lot come from? Are you okay little shipmates? Wait a minute, you’ve all been shot! What nasty beggar did that to you eh?
If the swallows could have spoken to Whacker, they’d have told him the story of how they’d been heading north from Africa when they were shot out of the sky by a long row of men with guns on a beach far below. The swallows just lay there, gazing up at the strange face, wondering if he had a gun too.
Whacker carefully lifted the birds one at a time, wiped away the dripping blood, bandaged their legs and wings with rags, and stuffed them gently inside his shirt. With all three birds safely inside his makeshift pouch, he pulled the front of the shirt away from his chest and whispered,
“You’ll be all right little shipmates. Your old mate Whacker will look after you, and we’ll soon have you flyin’ around like good-un’s again.”
“What are you up to Payne,” a voice growled from the opposite side of the flag deck. “What have you got stuffed inside your shirt, and what are all those feathers doing on the deck?”
“Oh, er, nothing Sir,” replied the surprised Whacker, as he turned to see the Gunnery Officer standing in front of him – off to start his morning walk round of the upper deck.
“I was-er, just clearing up this mess I found Sir. It looks like one of those clumsy Stewards has burst one of your officer’s pillows on the way down to the laundry. I was just cleaning it up when you arrived Sir.”
“Oh, well done Payne. Jolly good show. I thought for one moment you’d caught a couple of seagulls and were taking them down your mess to keep them as pets. You know you’re not allowed to keep pets on board don’t you Payne?”
Whacker bid his farewells to the Gunnery Officer, and cleared away the bucket and rags. As he walked down the maze of ladders and passageways to his mess, he wondered what on earth he could do with the three injured birds. Own up and let the Gunnery Officer know about them? No way Jose. He’d probably stick them on the guardrail and use them for rifle practice. No, he knew he’d have to find a better answer than that, and the answer came to him when he saw one of the chefs coming out of the galley carrying some old wooden boxes to break up and throw in the rubbish compactor.
“Pissst! Hey, Knocker,” he whispered, “Don’t break up all them boxes matey. I’ll take one of those and,” looking into the galley, “a few of those leftover ship’s biscuits, and a can of that evaporated milk on the shelf over there. Cheers matey, I’ll buy you a couple of tins of beer later on.”
Whacker continued walking towards the front of the ship, his extended belly moving strangely inside his shirt, an old wooden cauliflower box stuffed under one arm, a clutch of ship’s biscuits in his right hand pocket, and a can of evaporated milk sticking out of the other. Knocker remained standing at the galley door, shouting to another chef.
“What’s that flippin’ idiot up to with that lot Topsy? Has he been watching Blue Peter or summat?”
Apart from working on the upper deck as an Able Seaman, Whacker’s other part of the ship was up forward in the 4.5″ magazine. Whenever this gun was fired, his job was to load the shells onto the hoist and clean all the rubbish up afterwards. Right now seemed to be a good time to do some cleaning down of the magazine.
The smell of ammunition and stale cordite hung in the air as Whacker locked the door behind him. He was very familiar with the internal layout of this compartment, from the number of times he’d been locked down here during firing exercises. Nice cushy number sometimes, but very noisy when the gun was actually firing. ‘Now then,’ he thought, ‘where can I keep these birds so my Petty Officer won’t find them? I know, behind that locker in the corner. He’ll never suspect anything in there.’
Whacker laid the box on the deck of the compartment and made a mattress of rags inside it, then carefully lifted the birds out of his shirt and placed them inside. There they lay, as Whacker rummaged through a metal first aid box hanging on a wall. Returning with tweezers, disinfectant and bandages, he set about treating each bird in turn. Slowly he unwound the rags, looked for traces of blood and felt for lead pellets, before prising out any that he could find, and finished by gently cleaning the wounds, and re-bandaging them.
Unfortunately, one of the swallows was beyond help. It had died soon after being lifted into the box. Whacker doubted if the other birds would survive very long either, but knew that their best chance was to be left alone in the warm in peace and quiet with just a little food. So he crumbled up some ship’s biscuits, soaked them in a saucer of evaporated milk, placed it inside the box and shut the lid.
The swallows were too weak and afraid to worry about the man who’d touched their wounds and bound them up in these strange white strips of cloth.
“Looks like we’re next on the menu for this guy’s supper,’ croaked the veteran swallow to his friend, as Whacker lifted the box one last time and slid it behind the locker. Whacker had left the light on, but they could see no sky – no sun or moon to let them know where they were, or where they were heading. They felt the strange motion of being at sea though, and it made them feel sick.
Hours seemed to pass as the birds drifted in and out of painful sleep, but at least the light-headed feeling they’d felt as they plummeted from the sky had disappeared. Their stomachs were empty and they wondered what the strange mixture was in the bowl that the man had placed in the corner of the cage.
“Mmmm, not bad. Here, try some of this.”
Check back tomorrow for part two of chapter two
