The Monster Hunter Read online

  Kit Cox is an illustrator and actor who spends his life surrounded by monsters. His alter-ego, Major Jack Union, spends his time protecting the British Empire from monsters, and his exploits and hunting tips are recorded in How to Bag a Jabberwock (Book Guild, 2012). Kit lives in Maidstone, Kent.

  By the same author:

  How to Bag a Jabberwock (Book Guild, 2012)

  The Monster

  Hunter

  The Adventures of

  Benjamin Gaul

  KIT COX

  Book Guild Publishing

  Sussex, England

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by

  The Book Guild Ltd

  The Werks

  45 Church Road

  Hove BN3 2BE

  Copyright © Kit Cox 2014

  The right of Kit Cox to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by

  CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  A catalogue record for this book is available from

  The British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 909984 94 3

  ePub ISBN 978 1 910298 95 4

  Mobi ISBN 978 1 910298 96 1

  To my parents, who showed me the way, and my wife and children, who keep me on the path.

  Contents

  1

  Tea is for Terror

  2

  The First Step

  3

  The Long Journey

  4

  The Garden Orphanage

  5

  Cherries

  6

  Nanny Belle

  7

  The Gravel Pit

  8

  Rosalie

  9

  Hunters

  10

  The Chest

  11

  Knowledge

  12

  Protector

  13

  Moving On

  14

  Going Alone

  15

  Return

  16

  Bitter Fruit

  17

  Adventure’s End

  18

  Someone Watching

  Tea is for Terror

  It was said that the British Empire ran on tea, and if you stood at the bottom of the darkening hills of Noralia you could easily have believed that simple fact. As far as the eye could see, tiny bushes covered the rocky hillsides of the plantation. During the day the bushes would be tended by the many colourful crouching forms of the tea plantation workers, as they pinched the small three-leaved buds from the top of the bushes and passed them behind to the woven baskets on their strong backs. The fresh small leaves would be poured into large crates and at the end of the day would be taken from the hills to the factories to be dried and processed and sent to the tea drinkers of the world – with the hope that they wouldn’t end up at the bottom of some bay.

  The hillsides at night would become so cold that even the predators of Ceylon would leave their slopes for warmer areas. It would therefore be a surprise to anyone watching the hills to have seen a light bobbing slowly between the stunted bushes.

  The light was held by Benjamin Jackson Gaul as he climbed over the well-worn paths of the tea workers. He was a lad of around eleven years of age and, although he had the darker skin of the Sinhalese (the native people of Ceylon) and the willowy frame of the island’s youth, his features seemed to point more towards the flatter lands of Europe and Britain. He was dressed for the approaching night in heavy, layered fabrics, proving that he had not been left on the slopes after an ill-advised rest in the shade, away from the hot daytime sun, but instead that it was a planned adventure and one that he had prepared for, with all the inventiveness of a young boy. In his right hand he held the decorative bull’s-eye lamp given to him only that afternoon, an item that normally graced the officers’ veranda, while in his left hand he held a woven bag, borrowed from his mother without permission. With luck, by the end of his adventure, this bag would be filled with rich tea buds. In his pocket he had a stone that he had found about a week before and which he happened to really like in the way boys do, together with a big hunk of cheese wrapped in cloth just in case he got hungry.

  He stopped briefly to get his bearings. Before him lay the top of the steep hill with its single tall tree, already silhouetted against the failing light. As long as he kept this directly before him and the lights of the British hospital directly at his back, he would most certainly remain on track.

  The British hospital was a strange name for the building in which Benjamin worked. He knew the hospitals that the injured and ill of Ceylon would be sent to (if they were lucky enough) and they were places of sadness, with a heavy air of sickness. The British hospital, on the other hand, housed only the officers of the British Army, who would come to convalesce from bouts of malaria and fatigue. Their hospital was full of laughter and the air was thick with cigar smoke. Benjamin loved working there, and besides he could see his mother all day long, as he fetched and carried for the well-spoken, if slightly rude, patients. The hospital was not at all in keeping with the traditional houses of Ceylon and bore all the hallmarks of a colonial gentlemen’s club. Every private room had a balcony and the building had a sweeping veranda that ran the length of the back wall, allowing the patients to lounge around in wicker chairs and smoke pipes or wear cricket caps whether or not they were playing cricket. A local man was paid a decent wage to sit quietly behind them and operate a fan to prevent them from overheating. Ben’s mother was paid to wait on them as a maid, cook and occasional nurse.

  Benjamin’s mother was a rare beauty; her eyes were the deepest brown and her skin was as if she had been sculpted out of the same rich amber clay that had built the temples of Ceylon. She worked hard at the British hospital, treating the officers well so they were comforted by her presence, delighted by her exotic beauty and reassured by her faultless English, which she spoke as lyrically as her native Sinhalese. However, her heart was hard and so she turned men’s heads only on initial meeting; those attracted by her beauty soon turned away when they found she had no feelings for her fellow man beyond the duty called for her by her position. However, she was not cold and all the officers respected her professional nature and kind demeanour.

  Benjamin, however, felt the love of his mother and in their humble quarters within the British hospital she would teach him the histories of his two countries before she would softly sing him to sleep or read to him stories made popular by the Brothers Grimm or The Arabian Nights, translated by Sir Richard Burton, a famous British officer.

  Benjamin’s father had been a British officer (which accounted for Ben’s European features) who had not only fallen in love with Ben’s mother and sired a child but, against all convention and advice, married her, under both the faith of the Sinhalese and in the eyes of the Christian God. She didn’t speak much of Ben’s father, for if she did so her eyes would fill with tears, and Benjamin never pushed for answers as he could not bear to cause his mother further pain at the memory of him. However, he knew some of the truth and he knew that it was his mother who had run away from his father, not the other way around, and most certainly not because he had been a cruel man or a bad husband. It was simply because she couldn’t be part of his life and the Empire he served.

  What Ben could not kno
w was that she could not contain in a heart that was already so full of love, the desire to let her husband risk his life for the protection of an empire that she believed broken and corrupt. So when she had given birth to their son and he refused to change his work she ran, and ran far. She changed her name and that of their son: giving him the name of the captain of the ship that had brought her home from the embrace of England, and in her heart she already loved the name of Jackson more than she could ever tell her beloved boy, while their surname had been chosen by misspelling the port where they had first landed on their return. Under new names she had set up her little family in the British hospital. Even though it might be a penance to look after her husband’s fellow officers she had the distant hope that one day he, too, would walk through the door and they would be reunited.

  What Ben did know was that he loved being among the British officers. They thought of him like a mascot and he, in turn, saw them as surrogate fathers, taking their sage advice where it was offered. Benjamin’s official job was to fetch, carry and clean; he was also unofficially used to entertain and amuse the men. They would teach him army songs, making him promise never to sing them in the hearing of his mother, and get him to run little missions into the local town to pick up tobacco and liquor. The doctors had made these contraband in the hospital, though they always seemed to overlook the fact that every officer had some of each in his possession and partook of them openly.

  It was one of these missions on which Ben was now engaged – he was to obtain some of the freshest and most expensive tea that the nearby plantation grew, for why should the soldiers of the British Empire pay such high prices for the tea when they had a mascot they could instruct to go and pick some for them? Ben had convinced himself that it wasn’t theft as the buds would grow back and the risks were small once he had got past his mother’s watchful eyes, as neither man nor beast would risk the cold of the tea plantations at night.

  The top of the hill was cordoned off from the rest of the plantation, not by fences but by a ring of the purest white stones laid out in a path about a foot thick, circling the entire summit of the hill. The soil beyond was rich and the bushes grew lush and full with juicy leaves and gave off the most aromatic of scents. Only the most trusted and respected workers were allowed beyond the white path to pick the rich harvest. At the apex of the hill, an untouched bush had been allowed to grow into a twisted tea tree, where it gave protection to the workers from the hot sun of the day.

  Ben put down his lantern and bag and walked slowly towards the tree, running his small hands over the tops of the bushes, bringing the pungent fragrance into the night air. He pictured his mother as she turned it into the aromatic, amber brew the men enjoyed so much and he in return would be given rewards of chocolate and maybe a fold-away knife.

  As he reached the base of the old tea tree, he looked back at the magnificent view that was already darkening and to the cluster of lights below that made him feel as though he was above the stars, looking down on mankind. The magnificent crop caught in the beam of his lantern would easily fill his bag and win him the much needed praise of the British officers – as long as he kept it secret from his mother and he avoided the punishment that would inevitably ensue.

  Something big moved in the branches above him and he turned without fear to see whether he could make out the shape of roosting birds in the protective canopy, but already the branches were dark and so full of leaves that even the largest of herons could easily have hidden among its foliage unseen in the brightest of days.

  Ben retrieved his bag and worked his way along the bushes, carefully selecting the small leaves on the tips of the short, well-pruned branches. It wasn’t long before the inside of the bag was covered in a carpet of pale-green, heavily perfumed leaves. Ben felt he could easily fill the bag but he also knew that greed would be his downfall, as his light after a while would certainly attract attention – he must have been on the slope for close on an hour now and the night outside his beam of light was inky black. His hands were growing cold, too, so that he could barely pinch the sweet leaves away from the bushes. He decided to call it a night and shook the bag so that the stolen harvest bunched together in the bottom. He giggled to himself, and the unaccustomed noise seemed to disturb the birds in the old tea tree, for the branches rustled and moved in a way that was certainly not caused by the light wind that now played around the hillside and brought the cold air and translucent mist. Ben felt a shiver and pulled his clothes tighter around him as he stood watching the tree, as it loomed ominous and dark against the night sky, For some reason the sight began to take the music from his heart and fill it with fear.

  ‘Benjamin Jackson Gaul!’

  It was the voice of his mother, and for all the primeval fear his heart had felt as he had gazed at the old tree, right now it was replaced with the unique fear you can only get from your parents uttering your full name. You knew no amount of talking or tears would get you out of the trouble you were about to find yourself in. His name had been shouted with the wonderful English accent his mother had picked up when she had been with his father, presumably living in the great city of London, but the anger soon washed that away as she continued in her native Sinhalese.

  ‘You’re stealing now?’ She practically screeched her words, so full of anger and disappointment. She wasn’t dressed for the cold weather and the light silks she wore seemed to billow and cling to her in equal measure, making her appear like some vengeful spirit summoned from beyond the grave.

  Ben tried to burble his excuse but all that came out was a confused jumble of statements that crashed together in an excuse of sound.

  ‘For those men?’ His mother pointed back down the hill towards the lights of the hospital. ‘Men who can afford to pay vast riches for the goods they need but for too long have just taken what they want for free!’

  ‘I only took a small amount; it won’t be missed and it will grow back before season’s end,’ he finally blurted.

  His mother’s expression turned black. ‘A small amount to them, and to the owner of the plantation perhaps, but to the workers who are paid by the load and depend on every bud … everything! You are taking food from their mouths … from the mouths of their families. I didn’t raise a thief and I certainly didn’t raise a fool!’

  The last words stung so deeply that Ben felt his eyes sparkle with tears.

  ‘No one saw,’ he spluttered, still fighting his losing corner. He stepped forward, opening the bag to show what now felt like the purloined Crown Jewels, and crossed the white path to his mother, in the hope he would be forgiven.

  ‘No one saw! …’ she started to say but was cut short as a loud thump sounded on the ground up on the hill behind her disgraced son. Her face twisted from anger to surprise and then to open fear. She held out her hand to her son, wide eyes never leaving the spot beyond his left shoulder.

  Ben started to turn, wondering with every fibre of his body what lay back in the direction of her stare, but, as he turned, his mother rushed past him, crossing the white pebble border and knocking over the lamp that had sat undisturbed on the rocky ground, sending it flying down the steep hill bouncing as it went, illuminating the scene that unfolded before Ben’s eyes in a series of brief horrific moments.

  At first he thought it was a man, possibly a guard who had sat uncomfortably in the tree protecting the crop, but as it ran down the slope towards his mother he could see its limbs appeared to be twisted branches, dried and weathered by the shifting sun and winds. Its head was a carved block, hideous to behold with a screaming mouth from which issued no sound and with eyes that gave off no shine of life. It was dressed, if the sparse covering of torn fragments could be called dressed, and it moved like no creature he had ever seen.

  In the infrequent illumination, the movement was unsettling – a mixture of rapid, methodical jerks that were often like a man’s but sometimes like a beast’s. At first Ben thought it was somehow screaming but he quickly realised that it was
his own terrified voice making the sound, for, although his mother stood in the way, its inhuman eyes were focused on him, and on him alone.

  However, a mother is a protective beast, be she a lioness or a maid, and Ben’s mother’s blood was already boiling because of her son’s misdemeanour. Before the creature could finish its charge towards the screaming boy; it was halted by the hands of Ben’s beautiful protector. The women of Ceylon are no strangers to defending themselves, be it against the unwanted advances of men or the intrusions of the wild into their homes. Ben’s mother grasped the grotesque head in both hands and swung herself on to its back, never letting her grip ease its vice-like hold. The terrible carved head sat on a neck of five thick branches, swivelled to a position no head should reach outside that of the owl kingdom, and now facing its aggressor, stared into the determined eyes of the protective mother. In one swift movement, Ben’s mother forced the horrific, carved head backwards towards its chest, and the branches shattered in a spray of dry splinters and a crack that could be heard even above Ben’s own screams, stopping them dead in his throat. The creature fell to the hard earth but Ben’s mother did not still her attack. She stood quickly, her silk dress torn into strips by the claws of the strange creature and a trickle of crimson blood running freely from a deep cut on her cheek. She was the embodiment of the Sinhalese warrior women whose carved images adorned so many temples from Noralia to Kandy. The fallen beast seemed about to stir but with a swift kick she removed its misshapen head, now attached only by the most delicate of strands, and the monstrous appendage disappeared among the tea bushes and could be heard bouncing down the steep incline.

  Ben fell backwards on to his bottom with a painful thump as his mother adjusted her clothes for modesty and her hair for vanity and then approached him, her eyes afire. He could see that the anger she had expressed about his petty act of theft had died and that she was burning now with the exhilaration of the conflict that had ended so quickly. For a moment his mother was strangely illuminated like a goddess, all around her the endless night and a myriad of stars.