The Classic Morpurgo Collection (six novels) by Michael Morpurgo
Following the Gulf War, a decade passed. But then, around 2002, the US began to focus again on Saddam Hussein. There were fears that he might use weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to attack Western countries – missiles that might, it was thought, have warheads containing poisonous gas or even nuclear explosives. Saddam Hussein had already used gas against the Kurds in Iraq. The US and the UK called for an invasion of Iraq, in order to destroy these weapons and prevent their use. The Iraq War began on March 20th, 2003 with the invasion of Iraq by a multinational force led by and composed almost entirely of troops from the US and the UK. It was an invasion not sanctioned by the United Nations.
Control of the country was taken very quickly from Saddam Hussein. He was captured, put on trial, found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging on December 30th 2006 in Baghdad, the Iraqi capital. But no WMDs were ever found. At the time of writing the British Army is withdrawing after six years in Iraq. The American and British governments hope that when the Iraqi army is able to take over responsibility for making the country safe, then the coalition forces can leave the country.
Iraqis voted for a new government in 2005. But some people in Iraq want all foreigners, particularly the soldiers, to leave straight away, and believe that by attacking them they will force them out. The conflict is still by no means over.
Deforestation
Indonesia is home to many famous endangered animals such as orang-utans, elephants and rhinos. Among relatively unknown endangered animals also living here are the clouded leopard, the sun bear and endemic Bornean gibbons. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and was once (around 1950) covered extensively with tropical rainforests, but the ever-increasing rate of deforestation over the last fifty years has rapidly shrunk the area of ancient Borneo’s forests. Forests are home to many different animal and plant species, but are being burned, logged and cleared, in order to make way for agricultural land. The main reason for such excessive deforestation is the palm oil plantations that have now replaced many ancient forest areas. Half the annual global tropical timber acquisition comes from this area. Huge forest fires in 1997 and 1998 were also responsible for significant loss of rainforest.
If the current rate of deforestation continues, many species will perish, some even before we have had the chance to study them. Forests are not only important because of the different species that use them as their habitats, but also because their trees absorb carbon dioxide, which is vital in the fight against global warming. Sadly, experts do not think that the current rate of deforestation will decrease, as the world population is constantly growing, and this will lead to even higher demands for agricultural land. Worldwide demand for palm oil is growing annually. Palm oil is found in hundreds of food and domestic products and has the potential to replace fossil fuels – for heating homes and fuelling cars, among other things.
Orang-utans
Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, Orang-utans are currently only found in the rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. A species of great ape known for their intelligence, they live largely in trees and are the largest living arboreal animal. They have longer arms than other great apes and their hair is reddish brown. They are ‘great apes’ as opposed to ‘monkeys’ (monkeys have generally got tails) and are closely related to humans, sharing some 97% of our DNA. The word orang-utan is derived from Malay and Indonesian words ‘orang’, meaning person, and ‘hutan’, meaning forest, thus ‘person of the forest’.
They are more solitary than other apes, with males and females generally only coming together to mate. Mothers stay with their babies until the offspring reach the age of six or seven. Although orang-utans are generally passive, aggression towards other orang-utans is very common, and they can be fiercely territorial. Unlike gorillas and chimpanzees, orang-utans are not true knuckle walkers and walk on the ground by shuffling on their palms with their fingers curved inwards.
The Sumatran species is critically endangered, with only 7,300 individuals left in the wild, while the Bornean orangutan is endangered, with an estimated population of 45,000–69,000 in the wild. The destruction of their habitat by logging, mining and forest fires, as well as fragmentation by roads, has increased rapidly during the last decade. Orang-utans are hunted for their meat and for the pet trade.
It is estimated that at the present rate of attrition it is unlikely there will be any orang-utans living in the wild by 2015.
Tsunami
A tsunami is a series of waves that is created when a large volume of a body of water, such as an ocean, is rapidly displaced. It is a Japanese word, and can be literally translated as ‘harbour wave’. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater explosions – such as detonations of nuclear devices at sea, landslides and other mass movements above or below water – all have the potential to generate a tsunami. A tsunami produces waves of water that move inland, giving the impression of an incredibly high tide. Tsunamis are sometimes referred to as ‘tidal waves’, but this is not technically correct as tsunamis have nothing to do with tides.
Due to the immense volumes of water and energy involved, the effects of tsunamis can be devastating. There is often no advance warning of an approaching tsunami, but some animals seem to have the ability to detect such natural phenomena.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea tremor that occurred on December 26th with its epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia, and the consequent tsunami is known as the Asian Tsunami or the Boxing Day Tsunami. Sri Lankan media sources claimed that elephants heard the sounds of the tsunami as it approached the coast and their reaction was to move inland, away from the approaching noise. Large numbers of children from fishing communities drowned in the tsunami, because when the sea was sucked away before the wave came in, they saw thousands of fish stranded on the seabed. They rushed out to catch them, only to be overwhelmed by the great wave.
Tsunamis are not rare, with at least twenty-five occurring in the last century. Many of these were recorded in the Asia-Pacific region. The Boxing Day Tsunami caused approximately 350,000 deaths and many more injuries. It is not possible to prevent a tsunami. However, in some tsunami-prone countries, some earthquake engineering measures have been taken to reduce the damage caused on shore by the use of floodgates, channels and walls. Early warning is the only protection.
Tyger Tyger
And lastly, here is ‘The Tyger’ by William Blake, the poem that first inspired this story.
TYGER, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet
What the hammer, what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Acknowledgements
My thanks to Durrell, on Jersey, for all the help they gave me while researching this book
—Michael Morpurgo
To Lula Léa and Clare, who helped make this book with me.
Contents
Dedication
Part One: The Story of Arthur Hobhouse
Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening
Three Red Funnels and an Orches
Kookaburras, Cockatoos and Kangaroos
Cooper’s Station and Piggy Bacon and God’s Work
Suffer Little Children
Wes Snarkey’s Revenge
Saints and Sinners
Mrs Piggy to Ida
“Only One Way Out”
“Did We Have the Children Here for This?”
“Just Watch Me”
“For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow”
Wide as the Ocean
“Couple of Raggedy Little Scarecrows”
Henry’s Horrible Hat Hole
I Must Go Down to the Sea
Scrambled Eggs and Baked Beans
“You’re my Boys, Aren’t You?”
Freddie Dodds
One January Night
An Orphan Just the Same
Things Fall Apart
The Centre Will Not Hold
Oh Lucky Man!
Kitty Four
Part Two: The Voyage of the Kitty Four
What Goes Around, Comes Around
Two Send-offs, and an Albatross
Jelly Blobbers and Red Hot Chili Peppers
And Now the Storm Blast Came
Just Staying Alive
“Hey Ho Little Fish Don’t Cry, Don’t Cry”
Around the Horn, and with Dolphins Too!
Dr Marc Topolski
“One Small Step for Man”
Alone on a Wide Wide Sea
“London Bridge is Falling Down”
Now you’ve read the book
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Part One
The Story of Arthur Hobhouse
Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening
I should begin at the beginning, I know that. But the trouble is that I don’t know the beginning. I wish I did. I do know my name, Arthur Hobhouse. Arthur Hobhouse had a beginning, that’s for certain. I had a father and a mother too, but God only knows who they were, and maybe even he doesn’t know for sure. I mean, God can’t be looking everywhere all at once, can he? So where the name Arthur Hobhouse comes from and who gave it to me I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s my real name. I don’t know the date and place of my birth either, only that it was probably in Bermondsey, London, sometime in about 1940.
The earliest memories I have are all confused somehow, and out of focus. For instance, I’ve always known I had a sister, an older sister. All my life she’s been somewhere in the deepest recesses either of my memory or my imagination – sometimes I can’t really be sure which – and she was called Kitty. When they sent me away, she wasn’t with me. I wish I knew why. I try to picture her, and sometimes I can. I see a pale delicate face with deep dark eyes that are filled with tears. She is giving me a small key, but I don’t remember what the key is for. It’s on a piece of string. She hangs it round my neck, and tells me I’m to wear it always. And then sometimes I hear her laugh, an infectious giggle that winds itself up into a joyous cackle. My sister cackles like a kookaburra. She comes skipping into my dreams sometimes, singing London Bridge is Falling Down, and I try to talk to her, but she never seems to be able to hear me. Somehow we’re always just out of reach of one another.
All my earliest memories are very like dreams. I know that none of them are proper memories, none that I could really call my own anyway. I feel I’ve come out of half-forgotten, half-remembered times, and I’m sure I’ve often filled the half-forgotten times with made-up memories. Perhaps it’s my mind trying to make some sense of the unknown. So I can’t know for certain where the made-up ones end and the real ones begin. All the earliest childhood memories must be like that for everyone I suppose, but maybe mine are more blurred than most, and maybe that’s because I have no family stories to support them, no hard facts, no real evidence, no certificates, not a single photograph. It’s almost as if I wasn’t born at all, that I just happened. Arthur Hobhouse is a happening. I’ve been a happening for sixty-five years, or thereabouts, and the time has come now for me to put my life down on paper. For me this will be the birth certificate I never had. It’s to prove to me and to anyone else who reads it that at least I was here, that I happened.
I am a story as well as a happening, and I want my story to be known, for Kitty to know it – if she’s still alive. I want her to know what sort of a brother she had. I want Zita to know it too, although she knows me well enough already, I reckon, warts and all. Most of all I want Allie to know it, and for her children to know it, when they come along, and her children’s children too. I want them all to know who I was, that I was a happening and I was a story too. This way I’ll live on in them. I’ll be part of their story, and I won’t be entirely forgotten when I go. That’s important to me. I think that’s the only kind of immortality we can have, that we stay alive only as long as our story goes on being told. So I’m going to sit here by the window for as long as it takes and tell it all just as I remember it.
They say you can’t begin a story without knowing the end. Until recently I didn’t know the end, but now I do. So I can begin, and I’ll begin from the very first day I can be sure I really remember. I’d have been about six years old. Strange that the memories of youth linger long, stay vivid, perhaps because we live our young lives more intensely. Everything is fresh and for the first time, and unforgettable. And we have more time just to stand and stare. Strange too that events of my more recent years, my adult years, are more clouded, less distinct. Time gathers speed as we get older. Life flashes by all too fast, and is over all too soon.
Three Red Funnels and an Orchestra
There were dozens of us on the ship, all ages, boys and girls, and we were all up on deck for the leaving of Liverpool, gulls wheeling and crying over our heads, calling goodbye. I thought they were waving goodbye. None of us spoke. It was a grey day with drizzle in the air, the great sad cranes bowing to the ship from the docks as we steamed past. That’s all I remember of England.
The deck shuddered under our feet. The engines thundered and throbbed as the great ship turned slowly and made for the open sea ahead, the mist rolling in from the horizon. The nuns had told us we were off to Australia, but it might as well have been to the moon. I had no idea where Australia was. All I knew at the time was that the ship was taking me away, somewhere far away over the ocean. The ship’s siren sounded again and again, deafening me even though I had my hands over my ears. When it was over I clutched the key around my neck, the key Kitty had given me, and I promised myself and promised her I’d come back home one day. I felt in me at that moment a sadness so deep that it has never left me since. But I felt too that just so long as I had Kitty’s key, it would be lucky for me, and I would be all right.
I suppose we must have gone by way of the Suez Canal. I know that most of the great liners bound for Australia did in those days. But I can’t say I remember it. There’s a lot I do remember though: the three pillar-box-red funnels, the sound of the orchestra playing from first class where we weren’t allowed to go – once they even played London Bridge is Falling Down and I loved that because it always made me happy when I heard it. I remember mountainous waves, higher than the deck of the ship, green or grey, or the deepest blue some days, schools of silver dancing dolphins, and always, even in the stormiest weather, seabirds skimming the waves, or floating high above the funnels. And there was the wide wide sea all around us going on it seemed to me for ever and ever, as wide as the sky itself. It was the wideness of it all I remember, and the stars at night, the millions of stars. But best of all I saw my first albatross. He flew out of a shining wave one day, came right over my head and looked down deep into my eyes. I’ve never forgotten that.
The ship was, in a way, my first home, because it was the first home I can remember. We slept two to a bunk, a dozen or more of us packed into each cabin, deep down in the bowels of the ship, close to the pounding rhythm of the engines. It was cramped and hot down there and reeked of diesel and damp clothes, and there was often the stench of vomit too, a lot if it mine. I
I was in trouble almost from the start. They called me a “softie” because I’d rock myself to sleep at night, humming London Bridge is Falling Down, and because I cried sometimes. Once one of them found out I wet my bed too, they never let me forget it. They gave me a hard time, a lot of grief. They’d thump me with pillows, hide my clothes, hide my shoes. But sending me to Coventry was the worst, just refusing to speak to me, not even acknowledging my existence. I really hated them for that. They reserved this particular punishment for when I was at my most miserable, when I’d been sick in the cabin.
Sea-sickness was my chief dread. It came upon me often and violently. To begin with I’d do what everyone else seemed to do, I’d vomit over the rail – if I could get there in time. It was while I was doing this one day that I first met Marty. We were vomiting together side by side, caught one another’s eye, and shared each other’s wretchedness. I could see in his eyes that it was just as bad for him. It helped somehow to know that. That was how our friendship began. Some kindly sailor came along and took pity on us both. He gave us some advice: when it gets rough, he told us, you should go below, as far down as you can go. It’s the best place, because down there you don’t feel the roll of the ship so much. So that’s what we did, and it worked – mostly. Marty came down to my cabin, or I’d go to his. But sometimes I’d get caught out and find myself having to be sick on the cabin floor. I’d clean it up, but I couldn’t clean up the smell of it, so if I’d done it in my cabin they’d send me to Coventry again. It was to avoid having to face them that I sought out Marty’s company more and more. I think it was because I felt safe with him. He was a fair bit older than me, about ten he was, older even than the boys in my cabin and taller too – the tallest of all of us, and tall was important. I never asked him to protect me, not as such. But I knew somehow he might, and as it turned out, he did.