‘2nd Class,’ Finchin interrupted.
‘The Boy, 2nd Class,’ Brown repeated. ‘I had a thought about how she – I mean, he – might be helpful, sir.’
‘You had a thought?’ Finchin enquired. ‘I don’t recall that we pay you to have thoughts, Brown.’
‘It’s a good one, though, sir.’ Brown cleared his throat and addressed the Commander. The words that followed gave the impression that he had practised them many times over. ‘I’ve always been a good worker, and been proud to be on every voyage you’ve taken for the Admiralty. You’ve got us into some fair old scrapes, Commander, but you’ve always got us out again. But when I sign up for your missions, sir, I sign up as an Able Seaman. With respect, sir, I do not sign up for the chopping of meat for the dogs and the changing of straw in the dogs’ crate.’
‘Ah,’ Finchin commented. ‘Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.’
‘All right, Finchin,’ Commander Denham said. ‘Let’s hear the man out.’
‘I was wonderin’ if, sir . . .’
‘You want another member of the crew to take over some of your duties?’
Marina’s heart jumped. ‘Oh, Father!’ she gasped. ‘I mean, Commander, sir. Do please let me.’
Her father gave the request some thought. ‘What do you think, Finchin?’
‘It might work, sir. And it’s better to have the crew working well together. And we don’t seem to have found any way of harnessing the young seaman’s, uh, talents.’
‘Well, Boy, 2nd Class. You’ve always wanted an occupation. Now you’ve got one. You can look after those eight dogs. They need to be kept in good condition, mind. They need fresh straw and clean water every day. And exercise. They will need to run for eighteen hours at a stretch once I reach the ice. And they will be dragging a sledge. So you can’t fuss over them. They are working animals, not pets. I can’t stress enough just how important those animals are to the success of my mission. I could lose almost anything on this boat. But without those dogs . . .’
‘I’ll do a good job, sir. I will! Just watch me! I won’t let you down.’
Marina jumped down the steps into the hold.
‘Greetings, subjects,’ she laughed. She struck what she hoped was a regal pose. ‘I am now your queen and you must swear your allegiance to me. I’ll have no traitors here! You must all do my bidding!’
If by ‘bidding’ she meant tail-thumping and yowling, then the dogs were happy to oblige.
She knelt down next to the crate. The dogs barked fit to burst and tried to push their faces through the bars. She took a deep breath and put her hand out to let them all sniff her. She laughed at their cold noses, their warm breath and their daft enthusiasm.
‘I’ll have to give you names,’ she said, ‘otherwise this is going to get very complicated.’
But what names should she choose? The kings of the Old Testament? That strutting grey one could be Nebuchadnezzar. But she was stuck, then, because she couldn’t remember any more. Perhaps they could be named after Greek heroes. ‘You can be Achilles,’ she said, pointing at the one with the grey patch on his face. ‘And you can be Milo.’ But then she felt bad because those heroes never seemed to come to a decent end. She didn’t like to think of Achilles’ fluffy paw with a spear in it. Or Milo’s body torn apart by wolves. No! As she looked into each kind, intelligent dog’s face, she thought she would give them the names of friends she might have made if she had gone to Edward’s school.
‘You are Gerald,’ she said to one with startling blue eyes. ‘No point barking like that: you are definitely a Gerald.’ She pointed at the next fluffy head. ‘You’re a George, and no mistake. You have to be Jeremy.’ The dog howled his approval. ‘You! Don’t turn your head away! You’re Richard.’ She stopped for a moment, frowning. What other names would suit these dogs? ‘Oscar, William, Monty.’ She laughed at the last one, because he really did suit that name. ‘And you . . .’ She looked at the dog with the odd-coloured eyes. ‘You look like you are in charge, so you can be called Patrick,’ she whispered, tapping him on the nose. He put his head on one side and observed her with one sky-blue eye and one brown. ‘But I will call you Paddy.’
She let them out of their crate and watched them run around in the hold. They sniffed and investigated and busied about. But she knew she would have to find a better way to exercise such powerful creatures if they were to be used to pull a loaded sledge in freezing conditions for hours at a time.
Marina forked the dogs’ dirty straw into a net, just as she had seen Brown do. Then she took it up on deck and emptied it over the side into the sea. She spread clean straw for them. ‘Doesn’t that smell nice?’ she told them.
She sat in her hammock, watching them. Paddy went to the bottom of the steps and yowled. ‘Do you want to go out?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’
Perhaps she could run the dogs round the deck? That should keep them fit and ready for their mission.
She took her length of rope out of the pocket of her oilskins. Paddy came and sat at her feet and watched as she undid the knots. ‘Do you see? This one is very difficult. It won’t take a second . . .’ (It took rather longer and involved Marina’s teeth.) ‘Now, I’m going to invent a knot that is very good for tying round dogs’ necks,’ she told him. She made something like a loose slipknot and pushed it over Paddy’s ears. ‘It will be called the Paddy knot and it will go down in history as the best knot ever invented!’
She put the rest of the dogs in the crate and told them
