Battle Fleet (2007) by Paul Dowswell Page B

of his neck and pulled him away. Whether Bagley had fainted in terror or had been stunned by his fall I didn’t know. The tiger released its grip and sat on its haunches before him, as if wondering what to do next. Then it looked up at us. ‘What are YOU going to do about it?’ it seemed to be saying.
    Bagley came to, sat up, then shrieked in horror. The tiger merely batted him down with a magisterial swipe and he lay there with the beast’s paw on his back. ‘This is MINE.’ The tiger had its back to us, but I could seeBagley breathing, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He was too terrified to utter a sound.
    ‘What can we do?’ said Bel.
    I filled my lungs and yelled, ‘HEEELLPP!!!’ She joined me. Our cries echoed around the forest but there was no reply.
    I searched around frantically, looking for something to use as a weapon.
    ‘Sam, that creature will kill us both if we come down from this tree.’
    Bagley tried to get to his feet again. The tiger pressed down harder on his back and gave out a tree-rattling growl. That seemed to drain the will from Bagley’s limbs and he lay still.
    I made up my mind. I stood on the branch and squeezed past Bel. There was a stripling branch above my head, and I began to wrench it back and forth in an effort to break it off.
    ‘Are you mad?’ said Bel in disbelief.
    ‘I’m not going to watch him being eaten alive,’ I said. I felt desperately at odds with myself. Was I being stupid?
    ‘But Sam,’ said Bel, ‘what the hell are you going to do with that? Tickle him?’
    Close by was a palm tree, its slender trunk arching up to a pinnacle of dense foliage. Skittering up the trunk, we saw a monkey wearing a little necklace. It was such abizarre sight we both stared, mouths agape, almost forgetting the horror of the moment.
    The creature returned an instant later with a coconut clasped firmly in one hand. ‘Quick Bel, give me some of your fruit, let’s see if we can trade.’ She looked perplexed. ‘Would
you
like to get hit on the head with a coconut?’ I said.
    We both shouted over to the monkey and held out a couple of cherries. A monkey wearing a necklace would be used to humankind. Sure enough the animal stopped in its tracks and slowly ventured towards us. The closer it got, the stranger it looked.
    The creature was a brownish colour and the size of a small pig. Its expressive face was almost human and large eyes looked at us quizzically. Round its neck, twinkling in the light, was a beautiful string of precious stones. We held out some cherries and it edged towards us.
    ‘How do we get it to hand over the coconut?’ said Bel under her breath. ‘And not drop it neither.’
    We needn’t have worried. It simply held out the nut for us to take, then sat palm open, expecting our fruit in return.
    ‘He’s been trained to do this,’ whispered Bel.
    We gave him the fruit and he sat with us on the branch to eat it. I began to slowly make my way down to the forest floor. ‘Sam, don’t,’ said Bel. ‘Try and get him fromup here.’ I shook my head. There was only one way to do this, and that was right up close.
    Bel sounded desperate. ‘He’ll kill you,’ she whispered hoarsely, trying not to draw the tiger’s attention. ‘You’ll never get close enough. DON’T do it.’ She was getting angry now.
    The further down the tree I crept, the closer I was to mortal danger. Between me and the tiger lay maybe fifteen feet of forest floor. If I could make it over without breaking a twig or stumbling, then maybe the tiger would not hear me. I crept and crept, keenly aware of Bagley’s pleading eyes watching my every move. Soon I was close enough to smell the catty stench of the beast. I felt some ancient terror in my bones, a fear quite different from that of battle. This was an enemy that would not understand ‘I surrender’. Yet even now, as I crept towards it, watching its lean muscular back rise and fall with each slow breath, I could not help but admire