THE STINK OF THE SEA is overwhelming.
I shrink back into the darkness, still pulled by Violet, desperate, hoping it is Violet pulling me and not some flubbery, faceless horror from the deep.
“Quiet,” I hear her say, close to my ear.
It’s possible that I’m making some small whimpering sounds right now. I can’t, despite my best efforts, stop thinking that very soon the sea will surge back over the deck of the ship and fill this small dark space with water. What if we’re still here when that happens? What if the door slams shut? What if this is our tomb…?
“Herbie, seriously, be quiet!”
I clench my teeth firmly together.
It’s hard to distinguish any noise from outside now, beyond the whistle of the wind. But is that a footstep? Then there’s a clang of metal banging against metal, and suddenly, before we can do anything, there’s a blinding flash.
A head – it must be Eels – looks into the doorway, and his helmet torches fill the inside of the turret with brilliant light. I see the slimy, metal interior of the turret crawling with sea creatures in a moment of vivid awfulness, and then the light is gone, leaving me blinded, with the memory of those sea creatures swarming in my mind.
Amazingly, Eels doesn’t seem to have spotted us. We’re flat against one side of the turret, partly shielded by a curtain of seaweed. And he only glanced inside, anyway, perhaps thinking no one in their right mind would crawl into such a small and dismal hole.
“It’s not here,” we hear him call over the wind, somewhere outside on the deck. “We mustn’t waste time…”
Another sound cuts through his voice – a high roaring shriek, like sheet metal being rent in two. But it’s not really that. In the foetid dark, Violet and I look at each other as we recognize the cry of the malamander.
“Come on!” cries Eels, and we hear his boots thudding away across the deck. Soon we can hear nothing but the gusting of the wind outside.
“I need to get out of here,” I whisper, but Violet grabs my arm again.
“Wait, didn’t you notice it?” she says. “When he shone his light inside?”
“It?” I say, remembering the crawling, spiny, scaly creatures that call this watery hell their home. “Don’t you mean them? We need to get out of here, Violet. Now!”
But Violet turns on her torch and the inside of the turret is lit again. The creatures writhe, creeping over my shoes, and I kick them off frantically. But with a longer, more stable light, I also get a sense of the interior of the turret as a space where men once worked, manning the gun. It calms me a bit to think of that, and I manage to brush a lobster off my leg with only a small whimper. And then I notice that Violet is shining her torch on something specific.
It’s an opening in the floor of the turret. A round opening, with metal foot- and handholds descending down into the belly of the ship.
“It’s another way in,” she says, picking a shrimp out of her hair and releasing it into a pool. “We could use it to get ahead of Eels.”
“And then what?” I say. “Violet, we don’t have a plan for this part.”
“Something tells me my mum and dad didn’t have much of a plan either. But we have to stop Eels from getting the egg, or their sacrifice will have been for nothing.”
I groan. She always has an answer I can’t argue against. An image of Mrs Fossil’s cosy shop interior comes into my mind, complete with buttered scones and sweet tea, but I shake it away.
“Come on then,” I sigh.
“Thank you for coming with me, Herbie.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I say. “Just lead the way before we’re eaten alive by starfish or something.”
Violet ties her torch onto one of her coat buttons. With both her hands free, she begins her descent. I take out my own torch and do the same. Then I follow her down.
The iron rungs are freezing to the touch and my sense of claustrophobia grows sharper still as we climb down the metal tube. There’s a place where the iron is corroded to nothing, and I have to reach down beyond it with my foot to find the next secure rung. Inside the hole made by the corrosion, an octopus – vivid red-orange – slaps one tentacle against the wall, and fixes me with a watery black eye.
“Please tell me we’re nearly there,” I gasp down the tube to Vi.”
“Just a bit further,” she says.
And then my foot is dangling. I’ve reached the bottom rung, and I splash down into a corridor as quietly as I can.
We’re deep in the ship now, at the waterline. Our feet are submerged in the bone-freezing sea, and I curse the fact that no one in the Grand Nautilus Hotel has ever lost a pair of wellington boots, size six and with a nice fuzzy lining.
“Seventeen minutes till low tide,” I murmur to Vi, amazed that it’s only been ten minutes since I last looked at my watch. “At that point, there’ll be a bit of time when the water does nothing – they call it ‘slack water’ – and then it’ll be rushing back in here. We have to be gone by then.”
And that’s when we hear it again: the cry of the malamander – a piercing, shrieking, prehistoric sound that echoes through the dripping iron carcass of the battleship.
“That sounds close,” I gasp, clutching Violet’s arm.
“That’s because this is its home,” Vi whispers. “Eels might feel confident while the tide is out, with his harpoons and chain mail. But once this place fills with sea again, I don’t think he’ll stand much chance against a monstrous fish-man.”
“Neither will we,” I want to say, but don’t. What I say instead is, “We should go that way, where the water gets deeper.” And I point. “Somehow, I just know that’s where all the action will be.”
We edge forward, our feet labouring through the deepening water. I reach into my pockets, hoping to feel the last of the warmth of the hot pebbles, but they are as cold now as the metal all around. I dump them in the water and keep wading on. In the light of our torches, I can see we’re approaching a T-junction.
I’m about to make a comment about not losing our way when there’s a gentle, flippery sound somewhere behind us, and a soft throaty clicking.
I freeze and feel Violet do the same. Slowly, we turn, and bring our torches up.
There is something standing at the higher, drier end of the corridor. As our light hits it we catch the gleam of scales, and I think at first it is Sebastian Eels in his chain mail. But then it blinks, the something, with two enormous spotlight eyes, and I know with dread certainty that it’s not Eels. It drops into a low, menacing crouch, and double rows of webbed spines rise up along its back. Two long-fingered claws flex graspingly at us, and a mouth gapes open, edged with teeth like needles.
It’s the malamander.
And it takes a step forward.
I’m just about to shout a very bad word indeed and explode into a million terrified pieces, when Violet does something amazing.
She speaks!
“It’s OK,” she calls out, trying to hide the shock and fear in her voice with a soothing tone. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re friends, OK? Just friends. We mean you no harm.”
She’s holding her trembling hands out, showing one empty and the other holding the torch beam down.
The malamander stops, and tips its head to one side as if listening. It blinks again.
“It’s OK,” Violet says again, her voice growing calmer still as she gains confidence. “Everything’s OK. We’re here to help you.”
And I think, Bladderwracks, Vi is talking to it! To the malamander! This might actually work!
The creature lowers its claws and makes a low, purring burble.
But then, just as I’m beginning to dare to breathe, there’s a loud metallic clang! from somewhere else in the ship.
The malamander jolts its head up. It opens its cavernous, tooth-needle mouth and roars an ear-splitting, soul-tearing, nightmarish cry of saurian fury.
Then it charges at us.
