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to Trim, not so rats and mice. Trim ran a strictly rodent-free regime, retaining only a few rats and a handful of mice for purposes which will be explained at a later time. Those small whiskered creatures who formed the vermin community and, by virtue of cunning and good luck, managed to survive, lived for the day the ship would reach dry land. It was an accepted part of the ship’s lore that when the vessel commanded by Captain Trim Flinders came into port, any rats and mice that had somehow survived the voyage would pack their bags in the dead of night and tiptoe across the deck down the gangplank to seek a berth on another ship under the command of a less ferocious cat.
    If Trim was in a playful mood, which was quite often, he’d jump over a sailor’s extended arm or perform all manner of tricks taught to him as a kitten. He could do somersaults and backflips, fly through a small hoop held high above a sailor’s head, climb up anything, cling to a fiercely flapping sail in a breeze that would rip the canvas from a seaman’s grasp, and balance majestically on a most precarious perch or atop a mast that swung through thirty degrees in a stiff ocean breeze.
    There was one trick in which every man on board hoped he might at some time participate. Perhaps not really a trick, for in Trim’s mind it was clearly not intended to amuse or entertain. It was a manoeuvre entirely of Trim’s own invention and it only ever took place if the ship was entering a harbour preparatory to docking or putting down anchor.
    With not so much as a by your leave, Trim would leap onto the back of a sailor’s neck. His front paws, claws sheathed, would grip about the seaman’s forehead while his rear end placed itself squarely at the base of the sailor’s neck, which was flanked on either side by the hind legs to form a furry black collar, with their white tips forming a snowy clasp over the sailor’s Adam’s apple.
    With his ears fully foxed, and his head held well above that of his human perch, Trim would observe the approaching landfall or quay and immediately commence to issue a series of meowing instructions. With his tail flicking to indicate port or starboard, Trim Flinders guided the ship to a safe berthing or anchorage.
    The crew agreed among themselves that Trim Flinders was a very practical seaman. They would point out that he could as easily have found a sufficiently convenient lookout amongst the rigging but that this would have prohibited them from hearing his instructions or observing his tail. Like any good ship’s master, he preferred to remain among the men. This, they insisted, was an indication that he thought of himself as one of the crew, albeit always their superior.
    Bringing the ship alongside was clearly a procedure Trim was convinced could not be achieved without his personal supervision. His frequent meowing and tailed instructions would persist until the vessel was safely moored and the gangplank about to be lowered. At this point, with a rope secured to a bollard on shore, he would leap from the shoulders of his moving platform and make a dash for the foredeck where he would hop onto the ship’s rail and immediately place a front paw on one of the ship’s hawsers. With the grace and confidence of a seasoned tightrope-walker, he’d run along the rope spanning the gap between ship and shore so as to be the first to put a foot on dry land.
    It may be that all cats, given the opportunity, could be taught to do all these things, although the most seasoned seamen aboard would swear that they had never witnessed the likes of Trim Flinders among all the ships’ cats with whom they’d had the pleasure or otherwise to sail.
    Seamen are experts at the business of a seagoing cat’s behaviour. Unlike the average household tabby, which leads a secretive life its owners may only guess at, a ship’s cat has nowhere to hide. A domestic tomcat is fortunate enough to possess his own backyard as well as any other vacant