Submarine Spies and the Unspeakable Thing

By Dan Anthony

When Caitlin discovers a dog on the banks of Wales’ most sneaky river, she enters a world of spying, double-talk and mystery. Can Caitlin, who isn’t very old, save the world, help the dog and rescue parrots, pigeons and people from an indescribably dangerous threat? As Christmas approaches and the decorations go up in her mum and dad’s café, will Caitlin be able to keep her own secrets?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gomer
• Release date: Oct 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781785623622

Dan Anthony

Dan Anthony is an experienced scriptwriter and short story writer, having written and directed many radio programmes for BBC Radio Wales, and scripted plays for BBC Radio 4. He has written widely for children, working as a scriptwriter on CBBC's Story of Tracy Beaker and S4C's The Baaas. He lives in Penarth, Cardiff has an MA in The Teaching And Practice of Creative Writing from Cardiff University. He is the author of the popular Rugby Zombies trilogy and The Bus Stop at the End of the World.

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book coverSubmarine Spies and the Unspeakable ThingDan AnthonyGomer

First published in 2020 by Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion SA44 4JL

ISBN 978-1-78562-362-2

A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library.

© Dan Anthony, 2020

Dan Anthony asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission in writing from the above publishers.

This book is published with the financial support of the Welsh Books Council.

Printed and bound in Wales at Gomer Press, Llandysul, Ceredigion

www.gomer.co.uk

E-book conversion by Almon.

Chapter 1

The Vets

The thing about animals, thought Caitlin, was that nobody loved them enough. People were nice to them most of the time, but she’d noticed in school that when anybody brought an animal in to stay, quite often it died. Insects could come in over the weekend. But it wasn’t unusual to find that on Monday, when they did Circle Time with Miss Williams, the first announcement would be that Milo’s praying mantis had got out of its box, or that Catrin’s ant farm had been accidentally hoovered. Mammals – rabbits, gerbils and mice – weren’t allowed to stay overnight in school, but they could go for sleepovers. Often it turned out that, although everybody in the class liked cuddling the new mammals when they first arrived at home, they soon lost interest. Lots of mammals escaped from their sleepover homes and were never seen again.

Once, Caitlin had been allowed to look after Rhiannon Minton’s chinchilla because the Mintons were going to Portugal for a holiday. It was only for a week, but Caitlin’s mum and dad said they would never let it happen again. Caitlin stayed up all night watching over the chinchilla cage. She’d read that chinchillas don’t like change and that human beings can sense when they’re unhappy. She’d been to the vets in Johnstown as well, to ask them how to prepare for a chinchilla. The vets in Johnstown was her favourite place. When Caitlin grew up, she wanted to be a vet.

Everybody in the vets at Johnstown knew Caitlin. She was always popping in to see what was going on and if anyone wanted a helping hand. She knew both vets, Dewi the farm vet and Hera the pet vet. She knew the nurses Nadia and Ken too. She helped them feed any animals they’d kept in overnight in the recovery room, and she always brought seeds for Big Nose, the old grey parrot they kept there to talk to the sick animals and stop them from getting bored. She knew most of the patients too: Pluma, the border collie who had to take special pills for her nerves; Emmental, the tabby cat who only ate cheese and had to collect vitamins; Eric, the French bulldog with one ear missing. And she knew all the owners: Mrs Evans with the three-legged greyhound; Mrs Pitman with the rheumatic lurcher; Mr Constantinou, his son, Tom, and their snakes. Caitlin was always visiting the vets because she kept finding animals in need of help. When she went to ask about chinchillas she already knew that they were endangered in the wild, that they come from South America and that some people say that the last wild chinchilla that lived in Bolivia was discovered on somebody’s plate at dinnertime.

‘Typical,’ said Caitlin. ‘That’s how nice people really are to animals’.

The advice from Kev was clear. ‘Chinchillas don’t like to get wet; it makes their fur go manky. They expect things not too hot and not too cold. And they love to roll around in the dust to keep clean.’

So Caitlin stayed up all night to make sure that Rhiannon Minton’s chinchilla didn’t get wet, remained warm and had plenty of dust to roll around in. When she took Santiago back to school, Caitlin had black rings around her eyes and she fell asleep during Maths. She’d slept by the chinchilla cage for the whole week.

About a month after Santiago had gone, Caitlin was walking along the path that went under the railway bridge, out to the riverbank, through the water meadow, into the woods and up to Johnstown. She was going quite slowly, with the toggles of new her red duffel coat undone because it was a warm, bright late-October afternoon and she was on the lookout for animals to help. She stopped and gazed out across the fast, wide, deep, beer-brown river, almost brimful to the top of its banks. Autumn rains and high tides had filled the River Sleidy and whole trees that looked like cracks in the water slid past her, floating down to the sea and out of sight.

Caitlin saw a couple of swans on the opposite bank. They wouldn’t be doing any swimming today because the current was too strong. Nearby some ducks, almost completely camouflaged in the sandy-coloured rushes that stretched out across the flat land for miles, snuggled down for the day. They were too smart to try swimming in a flood like this too.

‘The other thing about animals,’ said Caitlin to herself as she marched along the path towards the vets, ‘is that they are clever.’

Two cyclists zoomed past Caitlin, their tyres making a swooshing sound on the dry, pebbly path. Caitlin looked at the concrete. Had they disturbed any sleeping grass snakes? Any field mice? She really wanted to find a sick animal to take to the vet.

Then Caitlin heard something unusual. She looked around. She’d already passed under the spooky, old, grey metal railway bridge and she was at the point in the journey when her path was as far from the woods and the houses behind them as it could be. She was right next to the gurgling, painty-brown river and everything around her was flat, covered in grass, reeds or water. There was nothing to be seen that could make a noise like this. She concentrated on the sound. It sounded like a train, or an engine at least, but she was much too far away from the tracks for it to be connected to the line. It was an almost gentle roaring, clanking, humming sound, a bit like a washing machine when it speeds up. It wasn’t scary. It was deep and it seemed to rise up from the earth beneath Caitlin’s feet. She looked down at her white trainers on the grey concrete. The ground seemed to shake slightly. She bent down and rested the palms of her hands on the path to make sure that it wasn’t an earthquake. She could see little dimples in the brown skin on the backs of her hands. But her hands were still.

The ducks heard it. They soared into the air. The swans felt it. They started honking and squabbling, flapping their huge white wings like beach towels. Flocks of starlings rose up from the reeds and, in the distance, the crows from the woods spilt into the sky, chattering like a crackling fire. Then the noise slipped away, almost as if the river carried it away like an old log. The birds returned to their roosts and Caitlin continued her journey, stopping at the gate where the path crosses from the water meadow to the forest. This was where she found what she’d been looking for - a pigeon with a broken wing.

* * *

Caitlin stepped into the brightly lit vets’ waiting room. Apart from Kev at the counter in his purple uniform, there were just two patients. Ollie, a tabby cat who had to be kept in his cage because he was very scratchy, and Mable, a very old Labrador who was almost too sleepy to walk. The owners sat patiently next to their animals. They smiled at Caitlin who placed the pigeon on the counter, holding it in place with both hands.

‘Broken wing, I think,’ she said.

Kev lifted his eyes from his computer screen. He smiled at Caitlin as he stood. Then, when he saw the bird, he slipped on his special gloves and picked it up. The pigeon nestled in his hands, twisting its grey head round, blinking its red-rimmed eyes. It already seemed to know it was safe.

‘It was trying to get away,’ said Caitlin.

‘You weren’t chasing it?’ asked Kev, pushing his black hair out of his eyes as he looked down at Caitlin.

‘There was a funny noise,’ said Caitlin. ‘He probably hit a tree when he took off. Pigeons are less agile than crows. I found him on the ground by the gate to the forest.’

‘It’s just that … well, you did bring a cat that belonged to one of our customers in last week. You told us it had cat flu.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Caitlin. ‘She was lying on the side of the road. I thought she looked hot.’

‘She was sleeping outside her front door – that’s normal for cats. Especially in a sleepy village like Johnstown,’ said Kev, gently feeling the bird’s wings.

The pigeon made a low grumbling sound.

Hera hurried into the room. As usual she looked busy.

‘Hi Caitlin,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘Mrs Burton, please. So sorry about the delay. We’re running a little late today.’

The lady with the dozing Labrador slowly rose to her feet. She had thick ankles and was wearing red slippers with sheepskin trim.

‘Nadia, I’m going to need a little help here,’ said Hera loudly so that her voice could be heard around the building.

A young nurse dressed in the same purple uniform as Kev hurried in. She had long, straight, browny-blonde hair, and a thermometer and pen poking out from her breast pocket. Caitlin liked Nadia’s shoes; they were the ones that nurses seem to prefer with tough, flat soles and strong, rounded toes. Caitlin wanted to be just like Nadia.

‘Tell you what, I’ll give it an X-ray,’ whispered Kev as he swung the pigeon out of view behind the counter. ‘Don’t tell. They don’t like me doing this sort of thing for free.’

Whilst Hera helped Mrs Burton towards the consulting room, Nadia coaxed the old dog to its feet and, slowly, they all made their way out of the reception area.

‘Hi, Caitlin,’ chirped, Nadia. ‘Too busy to talk today. Next time you come in we’ll have a proper catch up.’

Caitlin nodded. She felt really important when Nadia spoke to her like that. Nadia made her feel as if she already was a vet.

‘He’s probably stunned,’ said Kev. ‘I’ll make sure he’s released into the wild properly if the results are OK. You’d better get a move on, Caitlin. You don’t want to be late.’

* * *

Under normal circumstances Caitlin kept her eyes and ears open as she walked along the long concrete path that led from the vets, through the forest, out onto the water meadow, underneath the railway bridge and back to her café in town. This time she buttoned up her red duffel coat and ran because she didn’t want to be late. Her mum and dad didn’t mind her going out, but she had to be home before dark and already the sky was more purple than blue. She ran through the dark forest where huge gnarled trees with roots in the river mud were mixed up with blackberry bushes, wild garlic and ferns. She rushed past the gate where she’d found the stunned pigeon, out into the water meadow, hardly noticing that the river was even deeper than before, trickling over its banks and filling little pools and gullies with salty river water, half of it from the sea, half from the mountains. She ran towards