The City Cats Read online

  ‘We can’t huddle in a mass without food,’ they complained.

  ‘We need to fetch bedding,’ the pregnant females protested. ‘Something will have to be done.’

  ‘Nip must talk to the hunter again,’ they all decided. ‘He has the cat’s ear. Let him tell the animal we’re prepared to do whatever it wants. We must make it go.’

  At first Nip refused to put himself in the front line again. ‘It’s someone else’s turn to play this game,’ he grumbled. ‘Small thanks I got for my efforts.’

  But now the mice interrupted each other to lavish praise upon him for his bravery, his coolness, his diplomacy; they hadn’t appreciated before, in their initial disappointment just what he had achieved. In the end Nip relented and, urged on by the others, pattered back to his spy-hole.

  Sammy was in the warehouse, somewhat surprised that so far no mice had appeared, but readier than ever to pounce on the first one that did so. Nip watched him prowling for some moments. The tabby looked every inch the hunter and the old mouse was greatly comforted by the knowledge that not one member of the colony was contemplating breaking cover. In his rather quavery voice Nip began to call.

  ‘Cat! Tabby Cat, we have to talk. Can you hear me?’

  Sammy heard well enough. He approached the hole. ‘Changed your mind, have you?’ he crowed.

  Nip saw no reason to hedge. ‘Yes, we have,’ he confessed. ‘We want you to leave and we’ll do our best to put you on the right track. Where do you wish to go?’

  ‘To the canal,’ Sammy replied promptly.

  ‘The – what?’

  ‘The canal, the canal! Don’t be smart with me. I have to return to the long piece of water that’s called the canal.’

  ‘Ah, now I understand,’ Nip said with some relief. He had never heard the word ‘canal’ but he knew all about the ‘long piece of water’ and assumed that Sammy was talking about the river which was very close. ‘Yes, we can help you there. If that’s your destination, then there’s nothing simpler.’

  Sammy began to feel optimistic. ‘Well then?’ he urged.

  ‘Well, you won’t have a very long journey,’ Nip told him.

  ‘Yes, but the route, the route,’ Sammy prompted impatiently.

  ‘All in good time,’ said the mouse. ‘First you have to renew your promise not to attack any of us.’

  ‘Oh, you have it, you have it,’ Sammy answered with exasperation. ‘Must we discuss this all night?’

  ‘No. We’re as eager as you are for an end to this,’ Nip assured him. ‘I’ll go at once and give instructions for your exit to be completed.’

  Sammy resumed his prowling around the warehouse. However, this time he was prowling to use up the minutes rather than as a hunter. The rasping of incisor teeth was soon once more to be heard.

  The mice worked with a will and the task of enlarging their passage to the outside wall was soon accomplished. There now remained only the actual exit through the wall to be excavated, as well as making an entry point wide enough through the floor for Sammy to get into the tunnel. The latter presented no problem, since the mice were dealing merely with wooden floor-boards. But, try as they did with as many helpers as could be mustered at the wall, the mice just hadn’t sufficient strength to make any impression on brick. Work on Sammy’s entrance hole was stopped at once. The mice couldn’t risk allowing the tabby into their underground domain before his exit through the building wall was complete. The slaughter he had caused before would be as nothing to the mayhem he could unleash once inside their tunnels. The mice gathered around Nip, looking at each other in consternation.

  ‘We can’t move the brick,’ they chanted. ‘It’s too heavy. It won’t budge.’

  ‘But the bricks are loose, are they not?’ Nip queried anxiously.

  ‘Loose, but not loose enough for mice,’ came the reply. ‘What do we do now, Nip? The cat will be furious if it’s thwarted.’

  ‘Wait, let me think.’

  The mice milled around, all in a twitter. At last Nip spoke.

  ‘There’s only one solution,’ he said gravely, ‘and it’s one that alarms me considerably. We don’t know how far we can trust the cat and we will need to put a great deal of trust in him. Now, before you all create an uproar about what I’m going to say, let me tell you I’m only making such a suggestion because the alternative would be even worse.’

  The mice were agog. Many of them felt their fate was in the balance.

  ‘We need strength,’ Nip continued amid total silence, ‘far greater than mice-strength to dislodge those bricks. Now, the tabby cat, as we know to our cost, is a strong animal.’ He paused, waiting for his words to penetrate. ‘Supposing he were to use his greater strength on the bricks?’

  One old mouse, who had disputed with Nip before, asked drily, ‘And where will we all be whilst the cat is at the end of our tunnel tugging at the bricks?’

  ‘We’d have to keep out of his way as best we could,’ Nip replied quietly.

  The uproar he had expected now occurred. ‘Impossible!’ the mice cried. ‘We couldn’t hide ourselves, not the entire colony. If the cat couldn’t move the bricks there’d be a massacre. He’d be right in amongst us. There’d be no escape.’

  When Nip could make himself heard again he said, ‘Then the only alternative is to remain as we are, each of us running the gauntlet of his attacks night after night.’

  The colony was quick to appreciate that this was unthinkable. It might lead eventually to the extinction of the entire population. They began to see that the only way to proceed was Nip’s way.

  ‘We do have one thing in our favour to ensure he keeps his side of the bargain,’ the old mouse said encouragingly. ‘He wants to return to the river. He depends on us to tell him how to reach it. And we won’t do that until he’s outside the wall.’

  ‘And if he’s not strong enough to move the loose bricks?’ a voice piped up.

  ‘Then we’re all lost, whatever happens,’ Nip replied fatalistically. ‘But why think of the worst? Let’s keep our hopes up.’

  The others accepted they had no option.

  ‘Finish off the entry hole,’ Nip told them. ‘I’ll go and speak to the cat and tell him what he has to do.’

  Sammy hadn’t ceased to pace for a moment. He ran to the mouse hole at the first sound of Nip’s squeaking. He listened attentively.

  ‘You have my word, my hunting days are over here,’ he told Nip soberly. He was eager only for escape. ‘I long for nothing more than to be on the other side of the wall.’ He even agreed to wait for the vital directions to the waterside until he had gained the open air. Like the mice, Sammy realized there was no viable alternative to the plan.

  ‘Show me where I must enter,’ he bade Nip.

  Minutes later, after the mouse colony had had time to take what precautions it could, Sammy left the warehouse through a jagged hole in the floor which the mice had constructed for him. He found himself in a tunnel only just wide and deep enough to accommodate his body. His back scraped the floorboards above, his sides brushed unseen obstacles. He scrambled along in a half-crouch while his belly bumped the ground. It was easy to direct himself to the wall. The mouse-sized hole that already existed between the bricks let in enough light to guide him. He reached the exit and peered through the gap. Sure enough, he glimpsed the street outside. The mice, who had secreted themselves at the farthest point of their labyrinths, waited with bated breath. They heard the scrape of brick against brick as Sammy tugged with his paws to enlarge the hole. The tabby was filled with excitement. The fresh air of freedom was so close he could smell it. Any satisfaction he had felt honing his hunting techniques in this gloomy building was easily eclipsed by such a tantalising promise of liberty. He was absolutely determined he would get through this barrier. And, at last, the loose bricks shifted. Sammy’s head popped through the widened gap. Then, elongating his body in a wonderfully elastic feline movement, he slipped through to the street.

  Odours, fragrance
s – fresh clean smells of the night air – wafted to his nostrils. Sammy breathed deeply and gratefully. For the third time he had escaped from a prison. He turned and looked back through the hole in the wall. Pride and a little naiveté had led to his imprisonment this last time. Never, never would he trust another human.

  He had, however, trusted the mice he had so recently been hunting and they had trusted him. He called back to them. ‘I’m free and you’re safe. Come and give me my directions.’

  It was Nip, of course, who came running first. Some of the other mice followed him at a distance, suspicious to the end. Nip looked at the new hole and marvelled. He could hardly believe that a cat could have so shaped his body as to have got through such a narrow gap. But there was Sammy on the other side. In a flash Nip realized that if the tabby had got through once, he could get back again. The colony wasn’t safe quite yet. . . .

  ‘I’m going to give you the best help I can,’ Nip told the tabby cautiously, ‘but you’ll understand I have to cover every loophole. I must request that you first close up the gap in the bricks, just in case another hunter comes snooping.’

  Sammy wasn’t fooled for a moment. He knew the mouse was, in reality, thinking of him. He grinned a cat grin and, without a word, leant his strong shoulder against the loosened brickwork. The gap closed in a trice. Nip squeaked his delight.

  ‘Now, Mouse,’ said Sammy.

  ‘Now, Cat. Look towards the end of the street. Take that direction. Eventually you will smell fish. When the smell is at its strongest, look up. You’ll see a low wall – low for you, at any rate. Mice would need to climb that wall; you can jump it. You will then be out of the street and in a dark alley narrow for men. There is a gutter, usually full of good mouse food. Follow the gutter, it runs downhill. At the end of the gutter you will see and hear and smell the river. It is not a long journey for a cat, but beware of the rats.’

  ‘The river? The river?’ Sammy repeated.

  ‘Yes, the long water.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I leave you,’ said Nip, and scuttled away.

  Sammy cast a last glance at Penstemon Buildings and, with the mouse’s instructions still ringing in his head, headed for the end of the street.

  11

  The heart of London

  THE NIGHT WAS quiet as Sammy walked along Peascod Street, sniffing vigorously for that first whiff of fish. He paused once or twice, not quite sure whether he had located it or not. After a hundred metres or so the aroma was unmistakable. It was fried fish he could smell from the fish and chip shop at the end of the street. Sammy looked up.

  ‘“A low wall”,’ he quoted. And there it was – barely a wall at all, but he supposed to a mouse it would appear to be one. He vaulted over it and was at once plunged into greater darkness as he entered the alley between two buildings. It was a collection area for dustbins and rubbish bags. Litter and garbage lay underfoot. Sammy wrinkled his nose distastefully. Food for mice and rats it may be, but these sour rotting smells were of no attraction to him. A drainage gutter ran down the centre of the alley. Sammy followed it along. It began to dip downward. His anticipation grew. At any moment he expected to see the canal again. He was buoyant. The injury no longer troubled him in the slightest; and he was on his way back to Pinkie.

  And then he saw the water. He began to run. He couldn’t believe his eyes. This vast, wide, moving expanse lit by a mass of reflected light was no canal. He jumped on to a parapet of the river wall and watched. It flowed endlessly past like a monstrous living thing, surging forward on its own secret purpose. This watercourse was greater even than the river he had discovered in the neighbourhood of his old home in Quartermile Field. Sammy was overawed; then his thoughts turned to the Penstemon mice and he was angry. They had fooled him and now he was lost. How could he ever find Pinkie again? He jumped to the ground and started to run back up the alley. He’d show those mice the consequences of not keeping their side of the bargain!

  He thought he saw movement ahead. He stopped. He recalled the warning about rats. He crept forward. ‘What are rats to me?’ he scoffed. ‘I’ve caught and killed rats before. They may frighten mice but –’ Suddenly he was surrounded and almost bowled over by what seemed like a tide of moving bodies. A horde of brown rats, out scavenging for whatever they could find, had rushed towards him. Sammy leapt clear and landed on top of a pile of rubbish bags. It was these bags that had been the rats’ target. They gathered around them, systematically ripping out the contents with their sharp teeth and claws. Sammy teetered as the pile began to collapse.

  ‘Get out of our way!’ some of the rats cried viciously. They knew they were in no danger of attack from a cat while they so outnumbered him.

  Sammy could see that anything would be fair game to this horde. They looked murderous. All the time, more were arriving to swell the numbers. They were coming from underneath the road surface, squeezing between the gratings and squealing to each other in their determination to get to the food source before their fellows. Sammy poised himself for a great jump, aiming to land clear of this brown sea of scavengers.

  He jumped and landed in their midst but the rats, intent on their goal, rushed past him. Sammy took to his feet and fled blindly back up the alley. He didn’t stop until he had regained Peascod Street. Outside the fish and chip shop a skinny black and white cat was eating something off the pavement. Sammy perked up. It was a long time since he had seen one of his own kind and this cat, moreover, was a female. He forgot all about the rats as he approached her, intending to be friendly.

  The female saw Sammy and mistook his intention. She snatched up the food – a discarded fried fishtail – and began to run.

  ‘Wait! Wait!’ Sammy called. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  The other cat paused and looked back, her eyes full of alarm. She was ready to bolt in a second.

  ‘I’m not after your food,’ Sammy assured her, although he was in fact extremely hungry. ‘I need your help.’

  The black and white cat gulped down the morsel of food. ‘Help. From me?’ she asked cynically. ‘How on earth should I be able to help anyone?’ She had a rough voice.

  ‘Because you must know this area,’ said Sammy, ‘and I want to know if you’ve ever heard of the canal?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Sammy tried to explain, comparing it with what he had just seen.

  ‘Nothing like that around here. There’s only the river.’

  ‘Is that where I’ve just been?’

  ‘Sounds like it. Look, what is all this?’

  ‘I’m trying to find my home,’ Sammy told her. He stopped himself from mentioning Pinkie; he didn’t know why. ‘I’m lost, you see.’ He described how he had been captured by Elsie.

  The female cat was inclined to be sympathetic. ‘Perhaps what you’re looking for is on the other side of the river.’

  ‘The other side? Well then, I’m beaten,’ Sammy replied morosely. ‘No animal could swim across that great –’

  ‘Don’t be stupid!’ the female cat said sharply. ‘There are bridges. You can walk over.’

  ‘Where? Where? Oh tell me, please.’

  ‘Look, I’ve enough to do finding sufficient to eat without guiding strange cats around the place.’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t mean to . . . Hey! I know what.’ Sammy brightened. ‘I’m a good hunter. I’ll find us both food; I’m pretty near starving myself. When we’ve eaten, maybe you could show me this bridge?’

  The female cat calculated. ‘There’s precious little except rats to hunt around here,’ she remarked dourly. But she rather liked the idea of teaming up with a good hunter. She could never get enough to eat.

  ‘Wait here,’ Sammy said and, on an impulse, turned and entered the dark alley again.

  Rats, their jaws crammed with stinking provisions, were scattering, scurrying for the drain-holes through which they returned to the sanctuary of the sewer system. Some were still bickering, fighting for
a greater share of the garbage. Sammy took one of these unawares and despatched the animal quickly. The other rats were oblivious. Sammy carried the rat carefully back to the female cat. He had no taste for the thing himself.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘It’s the best I can do at the moment.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said in her rough voice. ‘What do I call you?’

  ‘Sammy. And you?’

  ‘Phoebe.’ She fell on the rat, tearing at it, devouring it without compunction. Sammy felt chastened. What was his hunger compared to this? He returned for another kill.

  A little later Sammy and Phoebe sat looking at the skin and bone of two rat carcasses.

  ‘Why didn’t you eat some if you’re hungry?’ she enquired.

  ‘Oh, I – er – I’m just eager to get to that bridge,’ Sammy waffled.

  Phoebe licked her chops. ‘I’m almost persuaded to come with you,’ she said pensively. ‘You are a good hunter.’

  Sammy was pleased by her remark. He had been solitary for a long time. But what about Pinkie? It could be awkward. ‘It’s for you to decide,’ he replied, avoiding direct encouragement.

  ‘Follow me,’ said the black and white cat. ‘We need to cross the bridge in darkness.’ She took the direction of Penstemon Buildings. Evidently the way to the bridge was not the same as the way to the river.

  She trotted along briskly. Sammy kept by her side. They maintained silence, passing Penstemon Buildings and arriving at the opposite end of Peascod Street. Now Phoebe’s knowledge of the streets and lanes came into its own. She headed for the bridge by the safest route. They crossed some public gardens and came to a broad riverside walk, at the end of which was a long flight of steps. Phoebe led Sammy up these to the bridge. To Sammy it seemed like a broad avenue. There were pavements on either side.

  ‘We’re crossing the river,’ Phoebe informed him as she ran on, eager to reach a less exposed spot. There were only a few people and vehicles about. Daylight was beginning to appear. Sammy was in the very heart of London, on Westminster Bridge.