Page 47 of Valour

“As do I, Marjorie, as do I,” Hester murmured, shaking her head. “So he hasn’t…done his business on your pillow?”

“Heavens! Of course not!” Charlotte said, laughing.

“Well,” Hester huffed, folding her arms and looking a little put out, “that ungrateful little toad.”

“What do you want with him?” Charlotte asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Hester said, grinning like a devil and making her way out of the galley behind the rest of the crew. Charlotte left last, following Arnold, Peggy, Valerie and Fliss out onto the icy deck and buttoning up her fur coat. The wind was bitter, and the cloudless sky meant even colder temperatures. It was an effort not to slip on the deck.

Valerie stopped by the compass and took up the sextant. “I’ll be with you shortly. I just need to record today’s magnetic variation.”

Charlotte had helped often enough with this daily task, the data stacking up in the logbooks alongside the meteorological recordings and sea-ice movement. She left Valerie to her instruments and then made her way over to the ramp that Winston had made, herding the dogs down it.

“How shall we go about this, then?” Peggy asked, surveying the area around the Valour.

“Perhaps we can use the wood from the store boxes, cut some ice, and then sort of…pack snow over the top?” Fliss suggested with a shrug.

Arnold nodded slowly. “That could work.” He marched back up the ramp to collect the required tools.

“I’m going to make Sailor such a fine house,” Peggy said, the dog in question sitting at her feet and wagging as she said his name. She danced around him and he got up, prancing too. “Yes, my little man! I am!”

Charlotte smiled. This was going to be fun.

Hester had the most devious plan up her sleeve.

With a box under her arm, she opened the door to Charlotte’s cabin and poked her head inside. There sat Satan, like a little loaf of ginger cake.

Hester narrowed her eyes and slipped through the door, shutting it behind her. She leapt on the cat, slamming the box over him before he knew what was happening.

Hissing and spitting came from within, and Hester cawed with glee at the ease of his capture. She had expected to have to attend to at least a few bloody scratches. Sweeping the box the right way up, she snapped the lid closed on the enraged tom.

She knew she was going to plant the cat on board the Intrepid, but she couldn’t decide who to target, Septimus or Victor. The thought of Satan scratching Victor’s eyes out was one that gave Hester tremendous satisfaction, but she also didn’t want to waste such a fine trick on the likes of his good-for-nothing ass. And she had a craving she hardly knew what to do with. A craving to be chased by Septimus, like he used to do in Havenport.

So that settled it.

She stowed the box under her arm and headed for the deck, then down the rope ladder on the opposite side of the ship to where Charlotte and company were building the dogloos, cursing as Satan rattled the box and yowled his fury.

Once at the bottom of the ladder, Hester ran across the ice, clutching the box to her side. She had dressed in her white hunting overall in an attempt to camouflage herself, and dodged between the icy hummocks that littered the short distance between the Valour and the Intrepid, her eyes saved from the dazzling brilliance by the snow goggles.

“Hush now, you scurvy cur,” Hester muttered to the box, hefting it higher under her arm as she pressed against the side of the Intrepid. It wouldn’t do to be discovered. She set the box on the ice and tucked her hair under her woollen hat, then pulled the hood of the overall over that. It was possible she would pass as one of the Intrepid’s crew if she ran into anyone. The engineer was a scrawny enough man.

She picked the box up, then shuffled along the side of the ship, staying in the shadow cast by the morning sun. She climbed the ladder with difficulty, then raced across the deck and hid under a tarpaulin. Her heartbeat quickened deliciously as she closed her eyes and imagined Septimus’s rage when she unleashed Satan in his cabin. She shivered with delight and snapped her eyes open, then pulled the drawstring of the hood tight. With only her goggled eyes showing, Hester crept out from her hiding place.

Down the companionway she went, every step making her giddier and giddier until she could barely contain herself. Her fingers tightened on the box as footsteps approached, and she darted into a shadowy nook just as Emlyn stalked past, grumbling to himself. Hester let out the breath she’d been holding, then continued towards Septimus’s cabin.

She flattened herself against the wall next to his door. Should she knock? Or just fling the door open and set the cat loose? Would he be inside? She hoped he was.

She rapped on the door and waited a few beats. There was no answer, no sound of movement. How disappointing. She opened the door with a soft creak of the hinges and slipped inside, closing it behind her. It would have been much more satisfying if he’d been inside. She would have to lie in wait for him to return. Hester set the box on the bed and gave it a pat.

The door opened behind her.

Charlotte stood back, admiring her handiwork. They had built ten dogloos already, and Valerie had improved their design by pouring water over the top, which froze to make the structures even more sturdy. Peggy had even built a church spire for Sailor’s dogloo, singing to herself as she fashioned the roof higher and higher.

“The others will be jealous,” Valerie said, grinning and leaning against a shovel, her coat discarded on the pile of wooden crates they were using.

Charlotte wiped sweat from her brow. “I shall miss them being on the ship.”

“I won’t,” Fliss huffed. “I slipped on frozen dog urine two days ago and my back hasn’t been the same since.”