The Island of Whispers Read Online Free PDF Page B

The squirming ceased abruptly as life went out of the
creature.
    ‘ Here, boy!’ called Tam. ‘Up here, wee boy!’
    Nipper carried
the prize up to the roof, dropped it at Tam’s feet, and then danced
and yelped with delight.
    ‘ Good boy, Nipper,’ said Tam as he stooped down and picked up
the limp rat by its tail.
    He peered at
the body. Black, he remarked to himself. Not like the local ones.
Better fed, too. Probably from some ship that’s been to foreign
parts. West Africa, maybe, or the Mediterranean. A visitor, right
enough. With a sudden heave, he tossed the rat far out into the
sea.
    Tam chuckled
as he set about his next task. ‘Hundreds o’ rats!’ he laughed.
    He knelt down
and selected four traps from the bag, together with the biscuit
tin. Warning the dog to stay back, he placed the traps at intervals
along the roof. He returned to each trap, priming it with a chunk
of pungent offal and carefully setting its stiff shutter. Carrying
the bag in one hand and the tin of bait in the other, he left the
roof and entered the gun emplacement. Nipper followed him, but kept
at a discrete distance.
    Tam crouched
down again, placing both bag and tin on the ground. He pulled the
heavy torch from the bag and snapped it on. The solid beam cut
through the darkness, revealing rubble, cobwebs, dried bird
droppings, some feathers, but little else. Tam nodded. The absence
of a nest confirmed his theory about the rats’ origins. He tossed
the last piece of offal into the centre of the building and then
covered it with the contents of a box of poison pellets.
    With the torch
and bait tin stowed away, and with the bag slung back on his
shoulder, Tam stepped out of the gloom.
    ‘ That’ll do it for the now,’ he said to the waiting
dog.
    The
rat-catcher re-lit his pipe, stood puffing for some moments and
then returned slowly to the jetty. The tiny dog pranced playfully
at his heels.
    As the noise
of the rat-catcher’s boat became a distant drone, the Watchers at
the top of the island relaxed only slightly. Danger still lurked in
the rocks below. The Scavengers were well concealed down there, but
they could re-emerge at any moment.
    Twisted Foot
and Long Ears had left the underworld at dawn. Shortly afterwards,
they had watched the events unfold at the gun emplacement, this
time without the noisy accompaniment of the Two-Legs on the bridge.
With its resounding cry and strange, mottled coat, the Four-Legs
held them mesmerised. Neither had seen a creature like it before.
The ferocity of its attack on the slave-rat was something that they
would not forget easily.
    The Watchers
now tried to concentrate on the lower part of the slope leading to
the gun emplacement, but the tantalising smell of offal, carried up
to them on the wind, kept drawing their attention back to the
building’s roof. The food left by the Two-Legs puzzled them.
Whatever its purpose, though, however enticing it seemed, they
regarded its presence with significant mistrust.
    The Scavengers
were not so sceptical. One by one, lured by the pungent scent,
their small dark heads appeared above the rocks. All four moved
forward stealthily until they crouched together on the edge of the
roof. After some moments of hesitation, the bravest (or greediest)
of them darted to the first of the traps and snatched at the bait.
The bait would not give. The Scavenger tugged again. This time the
trap’s shutter hammered down with a loud, sharp crack, crushing the
Scavenger’s neck and driving a steel spike through the back of its
brain. The others fled from the roof. It was not long, though,
before they were back again, first devouring the offal that had
eluded their dead companion and then moving on to examine the next
trap. In seconds, another victim had been claimed, and the process
began again. On this occasion, despite the more cautious, joint
approach of the two survivors, a swift double-kill was scored by
the snapping shutter.
    The young
Watchers had flinched each time a