and there had been no further signs of the Cat Fish. Whisker had slept until lunchtime and his rusty weapon had been scrounged from the cargo hold only minutes before the fight.
Win or lose, this was his chance to earn some respect. As he tightened his grip on the sword, he felt his nervousness turn to determination. He took a deep breath, steadied his tail and waited for the signal.
As the Quartermaster of the ship, Pencil Leg Pete began proceedings with a long-winded spiel. ‘The purpose of this fight is to determine the skill, speed and strength of the Pie Rat recruit …’
‘Yeah, yeah, enough of the boring banter,’ Horace yelled from the sidelines. ‘Jump to the fun bit where you say, fight!’
Whisker couldn’t imagine anything less fun than playing the role of a loser in a one-sided annihilation, but at least he was fighting Ruby and not one of the Cat Fish.
Pete glared at Horace and resumed, ‘Rule One: No intentional killing. Accidental death due to incompetence, excessive bleeding or drowning is excused. Rule Two: The fight ends when one rat either voluntarily surrenders, accidently dies or faces a fatal blow …’
As the rules were read out, Whisker’s feeling of determination shifted back to nervousness and then spiralled into fear. He doubted Ruby would show him any mercy if he was hanging off the side of the boat with a missing ear and dislocated tail.
Pete raised his paw. ‘Are the fighters ready?’
Before Whisker had time to answer, Pete swept his paw through the air with a cry of ‘FIGHT!’ and the battle was on.
Neither Whisker nor Ruby would strike first. Whisker thought a defensive approach would keep him in the contest for longer and Ruby clearly had her own strategy.
The fighters began circling each other in the centre of the deck. The tight space between the masts defined their battlefield. Only their feet moved. Whisker shuffled to his left, shifting his weight from foot to foot in sync with the rocking of the boat. Ruby was forced to follow. He hadn’t chosen this direction carelessly. He knew that by moving left, he was constantly stepping into the blind spot of Ruby’s eye patch. She couldn’t fight what she couldn’t see.
‘Get on with it, Ruby,’ Pete barked. ‘Go for his legs.’
‘Hold your ground, Whisker,’ Horace encouraged.
Fred began a chant of ‘Whisker – Whisker –’
‘You’re supposed to be on my side,’ Ruby snapped. ‘I’m representing the crew.’
‘It’s nothing personal,’ Horace called out. ‘Whisker just needs a little encouragement. We all know you’re the best swords-rat on the ship.’
Ruby flashed a devilish smile.
‘Now you tell me,’ Whisker muttered in annoyance. He considered launching an attack but restrained himself. The one thing he knew about fighting was that reacting in anger was the quickest way to end up flat on his back with his tail in the air. He had to play to his strengths. The problem was, he didn’t have any strengths. The only sword he’d ever touched belonged to a juggling jumbuck from the circus.
He summed up the situation. There were still only two options: attack or defend, and either choice would spell instant defeat and humiliation.
His tail trembled as he began to panic.
It was at this moment of desperation that an extraordinary thing happened to Whisker. A great feeling of peace swept over him and his mind began to drift into memories. At first he tried to fight it, but then he recalled – on the terrible night of the cyclone, as his body sank towards a watery grave, his mind did the very same thing, it drifted into his memories and it found him an answer: air.
Whisker let his wandering mind take over. His body remained on the deck, but his mind was somewhere else. He was sitting in the hull of his father’s half-built boat, in the middle of a dense forest …
‘Father,’ the young Whisker asked. ‘I’ve been wondering about something.’
His father put down his small wooden hammer.
‘What is it, Son?’ he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Have I put the rudder at the wrong end?’
‘No, Dad!’ the young Whisker laughed. ‘The boat itself is fine. The problem is the forest. There’s plenty of wood for building, but there are no rivers or beaches for miles. How will we get the boat to the ocean? It’s far too heavy to lift, even for an army of weightlifting walruses!’
His father smiled back at him without the least bit of concern. ‘You’re a bright lad, Wentworth. Much smarter than I ever was. But don’t worry, I have a plan. Your great-grandfather Anso once gave me a piece of advice. He told me that most sailors, when making an important decision, would select one of two clear options: the river or the beach, for example. But in some situations there was a third option, a hidden option. I didn’t choose this spot solely because of the forest. I chose it because in four months’ time when the summer rain comes, this forest will flood. That, my boy, is how we’ll get our boat to the ocean …’
Back on the Pie Rat ship, Whisker straightened his back and breathed deeply. He’d resisted the journey back from his memories. He still needed his third option. Flooded rivers weren’t about to help him now.
But his answer didn’t come from a distant memory. It was recent, very recent. Refocusing on his current surrounds, he knew exactly what to do.
A wary expression spread across Ruby’s face. Whatever he was planning, she didn’t like it. The young combatants continued circling; their tense bodies moving in and out of the long afternoon shadows cast by the sails.
Half a circle more, Whisker told himself, and then he would act.
Ruby’s fingers twitched on the handles of her swords.
She’s going to pounce, Whisker thought … only a few more steps …
He edged into the shadow of the mainmast and stopped. Ruby, trailing his every move, halted mid-step. Neither of them blinked.
Now for the bait … Whisker took a nervous step backwards, breaking Ruby’s gaze. At the same moment, he dropped his sword and it clanged noisily to the deck.
The crew gasped in horror and Ruby made her move. With both swords raised, she uttered a loud ‘AAAAARGH!’ and leapt towards him.
Her display would have terrified even the fiercest of cats, but the fear that gripped Whisker was his salvation. With lightning speed, his frenzied tail picked up the sword and swung it over his shoulder in the direction of the mast.
The sword sliced through the halyard rope, bouncing off the metal mast with a high pitched CLANG. In an instant, the giant coat hanger plummeted down.
Whisker jumped back as the sail cascaded onto the deck, smothering Ruby as she charged towards him. He grabbed his sword and scrambled over to the writhing lump under the sail. Part of him thought a few well-placed kicks to the backside were in order, but he wasn’t the type to kick a rat when she was down. Instead he put one foot on Ruby’s back and pinned her to the ground.
‘Get off me!’ she yelled, thrashing her arms wildly about in an
