The Ice Soldier

by Paul Watkins

  The cab, its once-black paint now coated with a shimmering layer of khaki dust, came to a stop in the village square, beside a fountain where a small statue of a rearing bronze horse spouted water from its mouth.

  I recognized it from the photo back in Carton’s apartment. This was where he had stood after coming down off the glacier.

  My eyes were drawn beyond Palladino’s clustered rooftops, no two of which appeared to stand at the same height, to the flower-strewn green of the fields above the town. From where I stood, I could make out the little wood, the Pineta di San Rafaele, and the meadow where I’d parachuted in. Above it, etched like a lightning bolt into the rocky hillside, was the old customs house road. Beyond the ridge where the road leveled out, I could see only the eggshell whites of clouds.

  The San Rafaele woods looked dark and cold. I was glad to know we would be spending our first few nights here in a hotel, while we bought provisions, acquired the most up-to-date maps, and squared away things with our guides.

  But the San Rafaele woods were exactly where Stanley and I ended up, six hours later, having been rejected from the only lodging place in town.

  Stanley and I sat exhausted outside our tent. Beside us, the Rocket’s polished sides reflected the shadows of the trees. On the breeze, we could hear music coming from a café in Palladino. Then the wind changed direction and the music disappeared, leaving us with only the whisper of wind in the tops of the pines.

  Both Stanley and I were still in shock at what had happened. We had not made reservations, partly because there had been so little time and also because it was so early in the summer that I was sure there would be places to stay. Arriving in this sleepy little village, I was still confident that I had made the right choice.

  But when the manager of the Caffè Falterona told us there were no vacancies, despite the fact that he had two empty rooms above the bar, I felt I deserved an explanation.

  The café owner seemed ill at ease. He pulled at his gray mustache and kept clearing his throat. “It is the coffin,” he said. “There is a law against it.”

  “Against a coffin?” I asked, looking around the dimly lit space, at its walls patched with pictures of soccer teams torn out of magazines, and rickety-legged tables bearing heavy metal ashtrays.

  “This is an old law,” said the man. “There is nothing I can do.”

  “But the coffin is sealed,” I told him. “It can be kept in a storage room if you prefer.”

  “Sir.” He held up one hand. “It is not possible. Perhaps you should speak to the police. There is a mortuary in Domodossola. You might be welcome there.”

  “But that’s down at the other end of the valley!” I protested.

  “It took us all day just to get here!” added Stanley.

  The manager shrugged and turned away.

  After this, Stanley and I stood outside, hands in pockets, trying to figure out what to do next.

  The sounds of children’s voices echoed from the narrow alleyway behind us. Above our heads, a woman was hanging up laundry on a line attached to the opposite building by a pulley. The woman’s mouth bristled with wooden laundry legs. Expertly, she pulled the pegs from between her teeth, pinning socks and shirts to the line. As she completed each task, she gave the laundry line a tug, which caused the pulley at the other end to squeak. The shirts, with arms dangling, edged out jerkily across the alley, like a row of clumsy puppets.

  Meanwhile the cabdriver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and steadily made his way through a pack of cigarettes. He no longer wore a look of cheerful efficiency. Instead, he had begun eyeing us suspiciously, no doubt wondering if we lacked the funds to pay him.

  “Well?” asked Stanley.

  I was looking up at the dark expanse of the San Rafaele woods, already sunk in the half-light of the evening.

  Stanley followed my gaze. “Oh, no,” he said. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It won’t be that bad,” I told him. “Remember those days when we camped in the Erikawald above Zermatt? Once we get settled, it’ll be cozy.”

  Stanley gazed forlornly at a board posted outside the café, on which was scrawled a dinner menu of pasta carbonara, potatoes with rosemary and olive oil, and tiramisu. Then he turned and glared at me. “And what will we be having for dinner?” he demanded in a loud voice.

  What we had for dinner was a mug of tea, the water heated over my smoky old camp stove, some bruised apples, and a bar of chocolate each, since the grocery store in town was already closed.

  We persuaded the cabdriver to transport us up towards the San Rafaele woods. At the point where the paved road turned to dirt, the cabdriver jammed on the brakes and got out. At first, we thought he’d gotten stuck, but then he opened the door and stood waiting for us to join him on the muddy track, and indicated that he would go no farther.

  His face showed undisguised relief when Stanley hauled out a fist-sized wad of Italian bills, which we had procured at a bank back in London. After that, his sunken shoulders straightened and he insisted on helping us unload the Rocket from his roof. “After all,” he said, “it is only a coffin. We will all be in one soon enough.” He shook our hands and wished us good luck, but even as he did this, he glanced over our shoulders at the gloom of crowding trees and could not hide a shudder.

  The cab backed away down the muddy lane, since there was no place for it to turn around.

  For a long time, Stanley and I listened to the whine of its engine in reverse. Then, having at last found a place to turn, the cabbie clanked through the gears, heading away down the valley.

  “What that man said about the coffin … ,” said Stanley.

  “Yes?”

  “Was he trying to make us feel better or worse?”

  I did not know, and so did not reply.

  We looked at the Rocket. Tiny beads of rain were gathering on its smooth and angled sides.

  Stanley gave it a kick. “He knew this would happen,” he said. Then he glared at me. “He knew!”

  With our packs shouldered, we each took hold of a brass carrying handle and began to drag the coffin up towards the woods.

  “I’ll be glad when we get those guides sorted out,” said Stanley.

  “We’ll see them tomorrow,” I said. “I have an address in the village where we are supposed to meet them. As soon as we have bought provisions and divided up the gear, we’ll head out.”

  A rickety wooden gate separated the lane from the entrance to the woods. The gate was closed with a chain and padlock, but there was a turnstile over which we were able, with some difficulty, to haul the Rocket. Once we were through, we moved in under the canopy of trees down a path even more muddy than the lane.

  The wood was empty and damp. Clusters of greasy-looking mushrooms patched the pine-needled ground. I thought about the coarse nobility of our encampments in the Erikawald, which had made life down in the town of Zermatt seem so soft and decadent by comparison. When we’d come into town, we’d look dismissively at the tourists at the outdoor cafés, sweating in their loden coats, moleskin trousers, and hobnailed hiking boots. Few of them would climb above the tree line, fewer still across the glaciers, and none of them looked as if they would survive an actual trek in the mountains. But now I was older than some of those I’d sneered at, and the anticipated comfort of a hotel room in Palladino filled me alternately with longing and with guilt.

  By the time Stanley and I pitched our tent at the edge of the wood, we were covered in sweat and had no prospects of a bath. But once the tent was up, the bedrolls laid out, and the water boiling for tea, I saw the first grudging smile on Stanley’s face as he sat on the coffin, one leg crossed over the other, carefully munching the last of our English chocolate.

  A sound of sheep bells reached us from pastures down in the valley.

  I was just finishing up my tea when I noticed a solitary figure walking up the lane towards us.

  Stanley saw him, too. “It’s probably just some old codger out for an evenin
g stroll,” he said hopefully.

  “Unless he’s come to turf us out of the wood,” I said.

  “If he has come to move us along,” declared Stanley, “he can bloody well save his breath because I’m not going.”

  Grimly we watched the old man. Now and then, we heard the metal tip of his cane click against a stone. There seemed to be something almost cruel in his leisurely pace. The man reached the turnstile and carefully climbed over it. Then he began to make his way down the main trail that ran through the woods.

  I dreaded the thought of packing up the tent and trudging out to find another campsite, but as the old man turned off the main trail and began making his way towards us across the pine-needled ground, I resigned myself to the possibility.

  Stanley and I both stood as the old man arrived at our camp.

  “Good evening,” said Stanley.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he replied, his face hidden under the brim of his hat.

  We were surprised that he spoke perfect English.

  “We are here,” began Stanley, “in order to transport—”

  “I know why you are here,” he said, “and also who you are.” He raised his stick and pointed it at the coffin. “And who is in there, too. I expected you to know me as well.” I looked at Stanley and he looked at me.

  “Actually, sir,” I told him, “we have no idea.”

  Clearly irritated by our ignorance, the man took off his hat, revealing shaggy hair which had been tamped down by his hat into a strange gray helmet.

  We recognized him instantly.

  “Pringle!” said Stanley, the word having escaped his mouth only a fraction of a second before it left my own.

  “That’s right,” he said, replacing the hat, then tilting his head back so he could fix us with his piggy and suspicious eyes.

  Now I remembered what Stanley had said about Pringle spending his summers in the Alps. I wondered how on earth he had found us.

  He jabbed the steel spike of his walking stick towards the rooftops of Palladino. “I hear you’ve had some trouble with accommodations.”

  “We’ve done all right,” I said.

  “Ah, but not as all right as you had hoped, judging from your time at the café this afternoon, which I must admit I watched with some hilarity from a bench across the street.” The lips stretched tight across his teeth.

  “How kind of you,” said Stanley.

  Pringle’s hand clenched around his walking stick. “There’s no kindness about it, as you well know, but the reason I’m here now is to offer you some good advice.”

  Wind sifted through the trees. It had begun to rain. The air beyond the woods turned smoky gray. Raindrops which had filtered through the branches tapped against the fabric of our tent.

  “I’m here to reason with you,” said Pringle, “and to make you see that you have been sent on a fool’s errand. It is a needless risk of life. And for what? For him!” Once more, the walking stick, like a magician’s wand, was aimed at Carton’s coffin. “That man, who tried to ruin my life, is now doing his best to ruin yours. It’s just one more stunt in a lifetime of stunts, and I have had to sit back and watch him misinform the public, humiliate me with his cruel impersonations, and generally bring disgrace to the science of mountaineering.” He stepped towards us, which forced him to tilt his head back even farther in order to look us in the eye. “But this time, if we can all just agree on the facts, then logic can prevail over the madness in which we now find ourselves.”

  It was strange to hear this man speak of Stanley and me and himself as if we were all united in some common struggle against Carton.

  “As soon as I heard he had died,” continued Pringle, “and that he wished his body to be brought to that mountain he has claimed as his own, I knew you would be passing through Palladino. So I made sure I got here first and took the liberty of informing the café owner of a regulation that I found in the bylaws of the town, to the effect that no person who is deceased may be brought inside a public place of lodging. It’s all there in black and white in the mayor’s office, which also happens to be the grocery store. You can go and see it for yourselves if you don’t believe me. The important thing is, the mayor believes me. And that is why you are here, instead of down in Palladino.”

  “I’m having a bit of trouble seeing where logic fits into all this,” said Stanley.

  “Yes,” I added, “unless it involves tying you up and rolling you back into town like an old pudding.”

  Pringle gasped and shuffled backwards. The walking stick was raised yet again. “You had better reconsider your language, since you might not have noticed that my stick has a sharp pointy bit at the end!”

  “It’s not all that pointy,” said Stanley.

  “It’s sort of a medium pointy,” I added.

  “It’s pointy enough!” Pringle shouted.

  “Not for what you have in mind,” I told him.

  “Quiet!” he shouted. “It’s all a joke to you, isn’t it? But people die up there in the mountains, and you might join them before long if you don’t listen to me.”

  “Mr. Pringle,” I said. “We make jokes not in spite of the fact that people die but because they die, and because, as you have pointed out, we might soon be among them. We make jokes to remind ourselves that we are still alive.”

  Slowly, he lowered the stick. “The fact remains that you should abandon this journey at once, before you are forced to endure any further humiliation. You owe him nothing! Even to have brought him this far is more than he deserves!”

  The rain fell harder now and the last particles of daylight were effervescing into darkness.

  “Well?” asked Pringle. “Will you give me an answer?”

  All he got in return was our silence and the sound of the rain, through which he would soon be walking back to Palladino.

  Pringle stalked away towards the trail. After only a few paces, he turned and raised his voice to us again. “This work you do,” he said, “is the work of the devil!” His teeth were so clenched with rage that he could barely speak.

  Briefly, we saw his dark shape disappearing down the lane before his black clothes merged with the darkness. Below, the cheerful lights of Palladino flickered like the embers of a fire.

  Stanley returned to his tree-stump seat and picked up his cold mug of tea. “That does it. I’m going to finish this job if it’s the last bloody thing I do.” He spoke the way his uncle talked, tearing his words from the air.

  “I think that’s the point Pringle was trying to make,” I replied.

  Stanley ignored me. “If he thinks he can put us off just by making sure we don’t get a bed to sleep in, he’s got another thing coming.”

  Unfortunately for Stanley and me, we were the ones who had another thing coming.

  TEN

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, in preparation for a trip into town to meet up with our guides, we made the first of many modifications to our coffin-hauling technique.

  Although it probably would have been safe to leave the coffin at our camp in the San Rafaele woods, we did not dare to after the visit from Mr. Pringle.

  By fastening lengths of rope around our shoulders and through the carrying loops, we were able not only to drag the coffin forward but also to stop it from sliding too quickly downhill. For the sake of the already scarred runners, I hoped we wouldn’t have to drag the coffin around too much before we set out across the ice.

  Now and then, as we moved along, we would hear a thump from inside the coffin, as Carton’s body slumped from one side to the other. The idea of him embalmed beneath the plates of zinc seemed too abstract to be horrifying or sad. The coffin wasn’t particularly heavy, which got me to thinking about the whole process of embalming. I seemed to recall something about Egyptian mummies having their insides removed, and their brains pulled out through their noses with the use of hooks. I wished I had asked Webb about it, but such questions had seemed too morbid at the time.

  When we reached the st
reets of Palladino, the scraping of our runners soon attracted the attention of people whose houses overlooked a street called the Via Capozza. As soon as they discovered what was making all the noise, they crowded into their doorways. Unfriendly-looking women in headscarves and faded dresses held back their wide-eyed and whimpering children.

  Our destination that morning was the Cooperativo di Palladino,which I gathered was some kind of communal storage space for goods moving in and out of the town. The cooperativo was a small tarred-wood building with green-shuttered windows. As with most of the buildings in town, the roof was made from irregularly shaped flat stones, on which grew luminous patches of emerald or sulphur-colored lichen. Beyond the Via Capozza, a few narrow, muddy side streets trailed down towards the river or wandered up towards the San Rafaele woods. Aside from a modern sign for Pirelli beer in the window of the café and concrete-pillared telegraph poles lining the road out of town, the place seemed lost in an earlier time. Even the rusty-fendered car parked next to the fountain seemed more out of place than the donkey-pulled cart tied up to a tree on the opposite side of the street.

  We came to a halt outside the cooperativo, where Stanley made himself comfortable on a bench, feet up on the coffin, morning sunlight warm against his face.

  Leaving Stanley with the Rocket, I went to sort out our guides. As I walked inside the building, I felt that the worst of our troubles would soon be behind us. Much work lay ahead, but from now on we would have the help of experienced climbers. With their strength added to our own, the placing of the coffin on Carton’s Rock seemed less of a dream and more of a certainty. Before the war, Stanley and I and the others had usually gone without guides. They were too expensive for us, and their presence took away some of the challenge. But this time, we needed all the help we could get.

  The building was larger inside than it appeared from out on the street. Boxes lined the pine walls, reaching all the way up to the ceiling. Some were cases of wine, others of beer, others of canned foods like tomatoes and beans. There were also sacks of flour, large wicker-wrapped glass jars of olive oil, and wheels of Reggiano cheese. In between the various stacks was a walkway which led down to a booth, rather like a large ticket booth, behind which sat a man in a heavy woolen sweater, with a wild beard and dark curly hair almost down to his shoulders. Behind him was another storage area, containing racks of hunting rifles, shotguns, and brown metal cans of ammunition with military markings done in yellow paint.