Monster Mission

‘Find it,’ he ordered, and the bodyguard and the secretary and the housekeeper ran all over the house trying to follow the sound.

It was Mr Sprott who reached it just as it was about to stop ringing. It was under a pile of monogrammed underpants in his chest of drawers.

‘Hello!’ he shouted. He was a man who always shouted into telephones. There were some strange noises; a sort of gulping sound followed by a gabble. ‘Speak up, damn you. I can’t hear you!’

‘It’s me, Daddy. It’s Lambert. I’ve been kidnapped! You’ve got to come and get me!’ More gulping, more tears. What a cry-baby the boy was!

‘All right, Lambert. I’ll come and get you, but where are you? Speak clearly.’

‘I’m on an island. It’s an awful place—’

‘What island? Where is it?’

‘It’s in the sea.’

Stanley Sprott rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, Lambert, islands are usually in the sea. But where? Which sea?’

‘I dunno—they won’t tell me—but it’s cold. There aren’t any coconuts. I’ve been phoning and phoning you every day.’ He broke off, gulping again. ‘My battery is running out.’

‘Lambert, please think. Are there any other islands near by?’

‘There’s a couple on one side.’

‘What side. East? West? North? South?’

‘I dunno. The sun comes up behind them, I think. It’s awful here—it’s weird. There’s these aunts; they’re mad and they give me drugged food. You’ve got to come, you’ve got to! There’s one after me now!’

The line went dead. Mr Sprott stood for a while thinking. An isolated island with two islands to the east of it. And—unbelievably—a posse of aunts.

He gave his orders. ‘I want the Hurricane made ready. I’ll pick her up at London docks. Get a couple of armed men aboard and see there’s plenty of ammunition. Pick them carefully; this mission is secret!’

The Hurricane was his yacht—a converted patrol boat and his pride and joy.

It was only then that he went to the police. He would not trust them to find Lambert—that job he would do by himself without telling anybody—but he might as well find out if there were any other clues.

That evening a third picture appeared on the walls of the police station, and in bus shelters and public libraries. This was of Aunt Myrtle, as remembered by the housekeeper and the man who fed the seals in London Zoo. It was even more peculiar than the other two pictures. Aunt Myrtle seemed to be standing in a high wind with her mouth open, and once again no one came forward to say they had seen her.

But Stanley Sprott’s team of researchers were already marking down all the islands in the North Sea and the Atlantic with two islands to the east of them. And the Hurricane, with a full complement of arms on board, lay ready at the docks.

Chapter Ten

He seemed to be swimming quite slowly and peacefully, though the swell he left as he moved through the water could be felt on shores a thousand miles away.

Above him, the air was filled with flocks of birds which circled him, and the sea creatures ringed him down below. The sky was a hazy gold and the sunsets were glorious and lingering, as though the sun could not bear to go down on such a sight, and the sea glittered and glistened.

As he swam, the kraken hummed, but not all the time. Sometimes he stopped and turned his head to speak to someone who was swimming close beside him and when he did that, the birds in the air fell silent and the underwater creatures moved their fins and flippers carefully, so as not to make a splash. Because the person who was swimming beside the kraken was important, and they wanted to make sure that he understood what the kraken was telling him.

Strange things happened as the kraken moved south from his Arctic hideout. He came level with an oil rig where men were working the night shift. The lights of the rig were only distant specks to the kraken but he paused and changed his Hum to a deeper one, and on the rig a man called Dave O’Hara said:

‘I’m going to shut off the waste pipe.’

His mates put down their beer mugs and stared at him.

‘Why? What’s got into you? It’s always on at night.’ This was true. The outlet pipe spilled its filthy sludge into the water night and day.

‘I dunno,’ said Dave, ‘but I’m shutting it off.’ And he did so … and the kraken swam on.

On the Island, Herbert was the first to know.

His mother had come out of the sea a few days before and had tried to nag him again.

‘You must make up your mind, Herbert,’ she had said in the selkie language they spoke when they were alone. ‘You’re not young any more; and I won’t be around for ever. If you’re going to stop being a seal and start being a man you must do it now.’

For a while, Herbert only looked at her. Then: ‘Listen!’ he said in his quiet and serious voice.

She had listened, and she had heard it because selkies are famous for the sharpness of their ears. Not the Great Hum with which the kraken sent out long-distance messages, but the quiet, thrumming noise he made when he was patrolling the ocean.

‘This is not the time to be human, Mother. I shall greet him in the water, and proudly, as a seal.’