by Paul Gallico
`When and how will it be when he comes?' Peter asked.
`At night,' Jennie replied. `At night of the third day. He will come and call to me at the mouth of the iron pipe from the street. He will be angry and impatient for me to come. Anything or anyone who gets in his way at that moment he will try to kill.'
'Ah,' said Peter, 'I see. You won't come out, but I will. There's room in the street …'
`That will be in Dempsey's favour,' Jennie said, `he's the greatest street-fighter ever seen in this neighbourhood for generations back. But that can't be helped. He's too experienced an old campaigner to be lured in here. Otherwise you could try to ambush him in the tunnel and kill him there.'
Peter stared for an instant in astonishment at his friend and companion, and then said-`But that wouldn't be fair. I couldn't do that.'
Jennie said: `Oh, Peter, in this kind of battle there is no such thing as fair and unfair. There is only life and death, the vanquished and the survivor. Rest assured that Dempsey won't trouble about being "fair" …'
`Well,' said Peter, 'I don't care about him. I shall.'
Jennie emitted a great sigh. There were certain things in Peter, certain facets of being human that she could never learn to understand. They just had to be accepted.
`Very well,' she said, `let's go into the gymnasium and begin …'
The gymnasium proved to be a large and wholly empty storage bin about five down from where they had their home, and to which they repaired at once.
`Now,' Jennie said, withdrawing a slight distance from him, 'I'm coming at you. Give a little with the charge, and stop me with claws out. Hit hard, Peter!' She flew at him like a small cannonball of furred fury.
Peter yielded ground as she had directed, but he countered her attack with no more than a gentle play– pat, a buffet only half delivered with all talons sheathed. He on his part suddenly felt a sharp stab of pain in his right flank and a stinging in his nose. He backed away, blinking. His tender nose was scratched, and when he turned his head to look, a small fleck of red was already showing near his shoulder where Jennie's claws had dug.
Jennie was standing a few feet away from him, her eyes narrowed down to slits, her tail bushed and lashing. `I warned you!' she said. And then, only for an instant, and the last time, she softened and the love-sound was in her throat. 'Oh, my Peter,' she said, `you must…. It's for YOUR sake . . .' Then she cried-'
'Ware!' and charged in again.
This time Peter defended himself with tooth and claw.
Then began what was a kind of nightmare to Peter—three days of grim and bitter lessons in the art of self-preservation and other-destruction. From the lore of cats from time immemorial culled from jungle, rocky mountain caves and desert, Jennie brought up her memories of every trick of attack and defence, augmented by her deep knowledge and experience of the seamy side of London and the hard-bitten customers to be encountered there.
It was not that Peter could not take it, but when he first saw the telltale flecks of crimson on Jennie's white throat and sweet muzzle and mask, for which he knew he was responsible, he came close to breaking down and weeping because so deeply and tenderly did he love her that he could not bear to hurt her.
But she was as hard as steel, and far more tough than he at that moment, for she knew that her own skin was of no account at this time and that he needed the training if he was to survive the battle to come. And she was merciless to him, too: she made him protect his vital spots, or suffer the consequences. Herself, her own person, she offered to the augmenting of his skill in combat almost as a sacrifice to ensure his victory. Since she could not by their Law enter the fray and battle at his side, she took her hurts in this manner and cherished them, because each drop she shed, each nick or bite, cut or scratch she suffered for him and thus it was no suffering at all.
At night they lay down side by side on the great Napoleon bed and washed and licked one another's wounds so that they would be clean and healed by the next day when the horrid lessons were resumed, and Peter, learning quickly, now improved by leaps and bounds in speed, deadliness and agility, … And if he noticed that he was less injured now during the training affrays, while Jennie's face and body was a mass of bites, cuts, scars and bruises, he said nothing, for she had likewise managed to instill in him a feeling of the danger and the deadly earnestness of the fight into which he was going. Time was so short, and it would be for her happiness as well as his that he would be doing battle.
But the third day there was no training, nor would Jennie let Peter eat anything, for she knew that one fought best on an empty stomach. But all day long she made him sleep, curled up and relaxed on their bed, and when he showed signs of being fretful or restless as the hour approached she soothed him with washing and massage until he slept again.
And so the sun girded that part of the hemisphere and the light faded away from the broken pane of glass in the tiny window in their bin and Peter slept, calmly and deeply, the sleep that repairs all ravages to mind and body and brings renewed strength.
It was shortly before Dempsey came and called that Peter roused out of the depths of his sleep at once, and awake all over, alive and clear-headed and tingling in every nerve and muscle. It was pitch dark, but the light of a single star that came in through the broken pane was enough for his cat-sensitive eyes to orient themselves. Jennie was nearby. He felt her presence rather than saw her. He stretched once, and then crouched and listened.
Then he heard it, muffled by its passage through the walls and windings of the warehouse, via the tunnel and aisles, but unmistakably the voice of Dempsey. Peter remembered it now. He would have known it anywhere. And it was calling to Jennie. `Come out . . . Jennie come aaaaaaout naaaaow! Naaaaaaaow Jennie come aaaaaaout …'
A low, deep, nearly inaudible growl formed itself in Peter's throat. He flattened himself almost on to his stomach and began to slink forward. The last thing he heard was Jennie's deep sigh from the bed, and he felt rather than heard her wish to him-`Good hunting, oh, my Peter. . .'
Then, he was down from the bed, and with the fur from his belly almost brushing the floor, every movement controlled so that he seemed to flow along the ground, he went down the dark aisle of the warehouse in the direction of the tunnel from whence came that call that raised every hackle and hair on his body
`Jennie, come aaaaaaaaaout naaaaaaow, come aaaaaaout, come aaaaaaaaaaout!'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: The Last Fight
MY Jennie come aaaaaaaout! Naaaaaaow naaaaaaow come aaaaaout!'
The low-pitched, insistent cry from the street penetrated the pitch-black tunnel where Peter was crawling slowly but steadily towards the exit orifice. And now that the moment was so close at hand when he must face Dempsey, Peter knew that he was very lonely and very much afraid. Nevertheless, he kept on.
When he had been together with Jennie, in the safety and security of their home, he had had the comfort and aid of her presence to keep him from dwelling too long in his mind or imagination upon the consequences of the encounter that lay ahead of him. Also, for the world he would not have let Jennie see that he perhaps might be worried or apprehensive.
But here in the dark of the tunnel, by himself, with no one to see him, with none for whom to put up the front of bravery and careless courage, he could yield to being horribly afraid. He was frightened of what awaited him on the outside in the street, Nevertheless, he kept on moving in that direction.
He felt fear of everything that might be about to happen, the lacerating pains of bite and tear, the dizzying buffets and crushing holds, the indignities of the assaults about to be launched upon his person as well as his own loss of humanity in that in a few moments he would be trying his best to destroy the life of a fellow. He did not realize it at the moment that these were quite human thoughts, for in spite of his cat body and keen eyes and ears, sharp claws and teeth, he was still Peter, and it was really a boy who would some day become a man, and not a cat at all, who was preparing to go in
to a fight. But even had he so realized, it would not have helped him very much, or minimized the dangers, or the awful figure of Dempsey that loomed up in his mind.
For there in the darkness, creeping ever nearer to his enemy, Peter found himself magnifying the powers and proportions of Dempsey beyond all bounds. In his mind he became as large as the lion he had seen at the fun fair, with claws of steel, curved and as long and sharp as surgeons' knives, and with terrible yellow fangs dripping poison. Dempsey's eyes were larger around than dinner plates, and devastating lightnings flashed there-from. Nevertheless, without ever for a moment halting, or even contemplating turning back, Peter continued to move steadily onward in that wonderfully controlled slow-motion approach that Jennie had taught him when there was something to stalk, and always closer to the battleground where the horrible apparition he was thinking up for himself awaited him.
Thus he came from the tunnel behind the baseboard to the hole where the intake pipe was rusted through, and thence into the pipe itself where a few feet ahead he could see the exit into the street illuminated by the pale rays from the lamp a little down the block.
And at this point, quite suddenly he ceased to be afraid, or rather, to be more accurate, he stopped bothering about it, for now he had other and more important things on his mindwhich was to make his exit on to the street and face Dempsey without being caught at a disadvantage. He contemplated what might happen if Dempsey suddenly took a notion to stick
his head into the entrance of the pipe to see whether or not Jennie was coming, and he had a momentary vision of the entire diameter of the pipe filled with the huge, square, scarred, sneering face. But then he remembered Jennie's assurance that Dempsey was too old and experienced a customer to go sticking his head into anything he did not know, particularly at night, and besides at that moment he heard the old fighter's cry again-'Come aaaaaaout, Jennie …'
Peter, therefore, as he had been taught to do, settled down almost at the mouth of the pipe to sniff things out and receive through the ends of his whiskers all the messages of where and how things were and what were the conditions on the battleground-to-be.
The church-tower clock of St. Dunstan's began to chime and Peter counted the strokes almost automatically. 'Six-seven. eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve.' Midnight, then. He twitched his sensitive moustaches and felt the presence of Dempsey, but not in the immediate vicinity of the exit from the warehouse. He could not tell exactly how far, but he felt sure that his enemy was squatted some little distance away from the aperture, at least a few yards.
His whiskers told him there was not a human in the street, and not another animal, dog or cat, or sleeping sparrow.
There was no footfall. No vehicle moved. The sky was overcast with the stars and the waning moon hidden, and there was a hint of rain to come.
`Come aaaaaaout naaaaaaaaaow, my Jennie, come-'
Peter stepped out into the street and Dempsey's call was cut off as though someone had slipped a noose around his throat. He was sitting several yards from the mouth of the hole leading into the warehouse. He did not look as big as a lion. He did not look like anything but what he was, a strong, compactly-built tomcat with a broad, flat head and powerful shoulders. He did not look any larger or stronger than Peter himself, for in the days of his vagabondage and travels with Jennie Peter had grown, filled out and strengthened.
There he sat, the street lamp showing up his dirty yellow colour and the scar that ran across his nose, and the battle-torn ears, lean and rakish and sinister enough, but at that moment frozen into immobility by sheer surprise. And for that brief second Peter had the advantage and should have hurled himself across the intervening space straight at Dempsey's throat before he could recover from his astonishment, or even realize that a battle was impending. But this Peter could not bring himself to do. Instead he said-'Jennie isn't coming. But I'm here .. .
The growl of rage and hatred that came from the throat of Dempsey as he arose and backed away from the wall sounded almost infeline in its quivering depth, passion and intensity. Then hoarsely he inquired– –'You! Who are YOU?'
Peter was not at all afraid any more. At the moment Dempsey was nothing more than a rather ordinary– looking alley cat put considerably out of countenance. Peter had seen bigger cats on his travels. He said to him: `Look again. You ought to remember me after doing me the dirty as you did. I'm taking care of Jennie Baldrin now.'
Another terrible growl, more fiend than feline, issued from Dempsey's throat, and he spat: `Oh … YOU! I remember you now! My warehouse. Trespassing. I warned you then if ever you crossed my path again I would kill you. I'm going to kill you now!' And with that he began to go crooked, bush his tail and swell up until he really did begin to look enormous, menacing and twice his size.
But Peter said-'Pooh! I know that trick. There isn't actually any more of you. It's nothing but wind, really,' and he began to blow and swell up himself until he too was Dempsey's size, and for a few moments they faced one another thus until Dempsey, looking a little nonplussed at being met at his own game, deflated, and Peter rather carelessly did the same, but without paying too much attention to where he was or in what position.
And in this, and also in rather underestimating his foe now that he saw him face to face and discovered that he was no super-cat, Peter made his mistake. He should have remembered at all times that Dempsey was the veteran and the victor in hundreds of battles, and that not for nothing does one win such a reputation as was his in one of the hardest neighbourhoods in all the world.
For quietly and cleverly, without in the least giving himself away, the cunning old champion had manoeuvred himself out along the pavement close to the gutter and away from the wall, putting Peter between him and the sheer, dark sides of the warehouse, cutting off one of the cardinal planes in which Peter needed to move. And the next instant, without another sound, threat, warning or battle cry, Dempsey launched his attack, and a few desperate moments later Peter found himself fighting for his life.
Lightning-fast as Dempsey had been, Peter had still anticipated the rush and accurately gauged its length and power. But, alas, when he went to give and roll with it to rob it of its initial force and sting, preparatory to launching his own counter, he found himself blocked by the wall just behind him. The shock of the contact with the object he had not realized was there or that he was so close to it, further distracted him, and Dempsey was in on him with two brutal, sweeping blows and a bite. Because the blows rocked Peter's head from side to side, the bite following too swiftly missed its mark of the throat, but sank deep into his shoulder.
Peter felt an agonizing pain as the bone snapped, followed by something, in the circumstances, much worse-a horrible numbness and loss of feeling. His own right paw and shoulder, his best weapon, was useless.
He was badly hurt and handicapped from the outset, and Dempsey knew it.
Now the attacks came with a dreadful and horrid insistence: tooth, nail and blow, bite, scratch, kick and buffet that yielded not a moment of respite. Gone were all of Peter's carefully laid and rehearsed plans of combat, of defence and attack, of clever duelling and manoeuvring. Battered, dizzied, panic close at hand, Peter could only reply weakly with a kind of despairing, scrambling, futile blows with his good paw that had no power behind them, weak evasions and ever more desperate twists and lurches, as pinned against the wall by the vicious and never-ending surge of Dempsey's attack he could feel his strength ebbing from him and knew that in a short time he must be done for.
There was blood in Peter's eyes now, blinding him, his flesh had been ripped in a dozen places, there was an injury to one of his hind legs as well, he could hardly breathe so raw and burning was the sensation in his chest; in less than a minute he had been all but destroyed, and still the relentless attacks continued without let-up.
And this then was to be the finish of the proud undertaking to protect and defend Jennie Baldrin from the tyrannical brute who had claimed her for his own. The end would be soon
for him, he knew, but at least one could struggle and fight to the finish. And he was still fighting, he realized, not too effectively, and taking ten times more injury and punishment than he could mete out, and yet, even in his desperation, he had apparently accomplished something-for Dempsey also was now no longer whole or free from wounds. An eye was damaged, an ear further torn, one paw bitten through and bleeding heavily. These things Peter noted almost like flashes in a dream, the awful nightmare of what was happening to him. But they did serve to give him courage and he even then was able to win a moment's respite when, squirming and slipping down along the wall against which he was pinned, he managed to get on to his back, and when Dempsey hurled himself upon him, Peter raked him fore and aft with his one good hind leg and ripping at his head with his left paw, until at last it was so that Dempsey had enough of that and broke off the combat long enough to tear himself away from Peter's painful embrace.
But now it was the presence of that same wall that suddenly served to embarrass and distract Dempsey, and before the big Tom could quite recover himself to launch the final attack which would surely have spelled the end for his opponent, Peter managed to pull himself around and on to his feet, away from that deadly contact, and with his bared white teeth showing in an angry and menacing snarl, and left paw upraised, at least he stopped Dempsey for the moment and caused him to pause and study his adversary for his weakest points before again advancing to the kill.
No more pitiful figure could be imagined than Peter, slashed from head to foot, his fur stained and matted, back on his haunches, shaking and trembling, one paw out of commission but the other still upraised to do battle. And it was to make an end of him that Dempsey now advanced for the last time.
His brain clearing for a moment, Peter saw him coming, his narrow, slanted eyes slitted with hatred, his moustache pushed forward, and for an instant he was struck by the strange resemblance that Dempsey looked not at all like a cat but like a rat. And he thought of the rat that he, Peter, had fought so well and successfully deep down in the bowels of the Countess of Greenock, and what he had done, and with his last remaining strength, as Dempsey charged him, he leaped into the air, twisted his body around and came down squarely on Dempsey's back.