Cuttlefish - By Dave Freer Page 0,1

as controlled as the ship's master. It quavered slightly. But he didn't scream. He didn't say, “My mam. I need to go back to the tunnels to see if she's all right,” although those were the words that wanted out, and his fear dried his mouth and made it hard to speak.

“Good lad, Barnabas,” said the captain, as if this was something that happened every day. “Get down to Chief Barstone in the engine room. He'll have work for an extra greaser if he's going to keep the engines running at this speed.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Tim did his best to salute without bumping any of the brass instruments that protruded into the small bridge space.

He turned to leave. “Barnabas.” The captain's voice halted him.

“Sir.” Tim halted.

“The Underpeople have more tunnels, and locks, and secret ways than the king's men know about, boy,” the captain said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder gently but firmly. “It's our home, our territory; we know it. It's not the first time Duke Malcolm's had a go at us. And it won't be the last. Now get along with you.”

Tim swallowed. Nodded. He couldn't actually say anything, because his voice was too choked up. He turned away before the captain could see the tears starting, and hurried along the narrow gangway, and then down the ladder to the lower deck. At the base of it he nearly ran smash into something that had no place on a submarine.

A girl. A girl in a flouncy dress with silly little puff sleeves. Honestly! Where did she think she was? On a pleasure barge cruising along Pall Mall Canal?

“Hi, hold on,” she said, grabbing his arm as he tried to squirm past. Her blue eyes were bright and wide with excitement, and one of her pale blonde plaits had come undone. She brushed the fine hair away from her eyes, “What's going on?” she asked, smiling at him.

“I'm busy,” he said gruffly, hoping that he'd wiped all trace of the tears away. “Got to get to the engine room.”

“Oh, it's so important that you are,” she said, teasingly. “Just tell me what the bang was?”

“The Inniskillens blowing up my home,” he said fiercely as he pulled his arm free and blundered on, blinded by the tears again, down the passage.

Clara Calland stared after him. She nearly ran after him too, to ask him what he meant. But…horrible snotty London boy. He'd looked nice, with a bit of a grin on his brownish face, when she'd seen him earlier, bringing their two small valises to the cabin. And he'd helped to carry Mother's book trunk. When you considered the size of the cabin, maybe it was just as well they'd had to leave everything behind.

She considered going up the ladder to find someone else to ask. But…it sounded like trouble. More trouble. She'd been so relieved when they had finally got out of the smelly, wet tunnels under London, and into this strange submarine. The whole idea just fascinated her. Of course, submarines were something she'd heard stories about, and hadn't ever expected to really experience. They were illegal, banned in all civilized countries. Yet…everyone knew they existed. One of the girls from school, one of the Cashel sisters, claimed that she'd once seen one in Tralee Bay. Which was possible…anything could happen down in Kerry. It was crock full of rebels, down there, like Cork used to be before most of the city got drowned. She swallowed. Daddy had once let slip that his trips away had taken him to Kerry. She'd said that she hoped he was safe from those rebel scum. He'd just tousled her hair and laughed. That was before the men from Scotland Yard had come and taken him to the New East Barracks military prison, to be detained indefinitely at His Majesty's pleasure.

She stared blindly down the narrow little passage. She didn't want to be here. She wanted her old, familiar life back again. Mother and Dad together again, home and school and…

That was where it broke down. Clara, who always tried to be honest with herself, had to admit that she did not want her school life back. Nor did she want to go back to the tall, cold house on Redmond Street that they'd been living in when her life had suddenly turned upside down.

So, instead, she went back through the narrow little steel door and climbed up onto her bunk in their broom-cupboard-sized cabin. On the bed below, her mother