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HarperCollins Children’s Books An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
Text copyright © Michael Morpurgo 2008. Illustrations copyright © Michael Forman 2008
Cover photographs © Masterfile (cat); Shutterstock (sea and sky). Illustrations by Michael Foreman. Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2009.
Micahel Morpurgo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007267002
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007385935
Version: 2016-11-02
For all the good and kind people at The Savoy who looked after us so well.
MM.
For my brother Pud, a North Sea fisher-man and boy.
MF.
Contents
“We’ve Only Gone and Hit A Flaming Iceberg”
Prince Kaspar Kandinsky first came to the Savoy Hotel in a basket. I know because I was the one who carried him in. I carried all the Countess’ luggage that morning, and I can tell you, she had an awful lot of it.
But I was a bell-boy so that was my job: to carry luggage, to open doors, to say good morning to every guest I met, to see to their every need, from polishing their boots to bringing them their telegrams. In whatever I did I had to smile at them very politely, but the smile had to be more respectful than friendly. And I had to remember all their names and titles too, which was not at all easy, because there were always new guests arriving. Most importantly though, as a bell-boy – which, by the way, was just about the lowest of the low at the hotel – I had to do whatever the guests asked me to, and right away. In fact I was at almost everyone’s beck and call. It was “jump to it, Johnny”, or “be sharp about it, boy”, do this “lickedysplit”, do that “jaldi, jaldi”. They’d click their fingers at me, and I’d jump to it lickedysplit, I can tell you, particularly if Mrs Blaise, the head housekeeper, was on the prowl.
We could always hear her coming, because she rattled like a skeleton on the move. This was on account of the huge bunch of keys that hung from her waist. She had a voice as loud as a trombone when she was angry, and she was often angry. We lived in constant fear of her. Mrs Blaise liked to be called “Madame”, but on the servants corridor at the top of the hotel where we all lived – bell-boys, chamber maids, kitchen staff – we all called her Skullface, because she didn’t just rattle like a skeleton, she looked a lot like one too. We did our very best to keep out of her way.
To her any misdemeanour, however minor, was a dreadful crime – slouching, untidy hair, dirty fingernails. Yawning on duty was the worst crime of all. And that’s just what Skullface had caught me doing that morning just before the Countess arrived. She’d just
