Philip hesitated only for a second. The request was not an unreasonable one. Ten days counted for little in the months it would take him to get back to England, but another ten days of rest coupled with monotony might make Gloria much more willing to join him in his bid to get home; and he was most loath to leave her behind. In fact, he had already made up his mind that, somehow or other, he simply must persuade her to come with him. So he replied: ‘Yes—by all means I’ll make the trip to the raft with you first.’
‘Good!’ laughed the Prince, his boisterous good humour restored. ‘That’s settled then.’
During the next two days he made no further reference to the projected trip, but he paid more attention than ever to Gloria with, so Philip supposed, the intention of dissuading her from accompanying him in any attempt to reach a whaling station.
In the evenings it had become more or less a habit for Gloria to announce when she was feeling like bed, upon which the two men would bid her good night and leave her in possession of the sitting-room; but sometimes the Russian made a move of his own accord and sometimes, if Philip felt bored by their exclusion of him from their conversation, he would get up and go off first. Two nights after his talk with the Prince he was both tired and bored. That day he had been for a long aimless walk, and at dinner the others had hardly addressed a word to him, so, having accompanied them across to the sitting-room, he allowed just enough time for the dining-room table to be cleared before he said: ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in.’
They both wished him a perfunctory good night, and he went back to the dining-room, where he found Gog and Magog preparing his bed of llama skins. By this time he had managed to pick up a few words of the little people’s language, so he was able to thank them when they left, but he did not start to undress. Instead, he sat down to think over again the problem which had been worrying him all day. How could he ensure that Gloria left the valley with him? The last thing he wished to do was to expose her to serious danger again, but, on the other hand, he had grown much too fond of her to leave her with anyone whom he distrusted as profoundly as he did their host.
Over an hour later he was still cogitating the same question when he thought he heard a muffled shout. Stiffening where he sat, he strained his ears to listen, and the shout came again from the direction of the sitting-room.
He had no doubt whatever that it was Gloria getting what she had asked for by setting her cap at the Prince—and not liking it. He had seen this coming for days and known that when it came it would mean a showdown between the Russian and himself, which would probably cost one of them their lives.
The cry came for a third time as he was hastily getting Eiderman’s pistol out of his haversack. Thrusting it into his pocket, he dashed from the room.
14
The Showdown
In a second Philip was across the enclosure. Flinging wide the door, he sprang into the sitting-room. Gloria was struggling on the great pile of skins, half-buried beneath the bulk of the Prince, who was holding her down. At the noise of the door being flung open, he let go of her, and they both sat up.
‘What the hell d’you think you’re up to?’ Philip angrily demanded of the Russian.
‘Get out!’ snarled the Prince in reply.
‘No!’ Gloria panted, as she hurriedly smoothed down her clothes. ‘Please stay—but there’s nothing to get excited about. ’Twas tickling me he was—and you know I can’t stand being tickled. That’s what made me shout.’
Solgorukin stood up. His dark eyes were glinting dangerously and his mouth twisted into an ugly sneer. For a moment it looked as if he meant to throw himself on Philip, but apparently he thought better of it, for he suddenly relaxed and said, with a shrug:
‘All right. Come in, if you wish. Gloria and I were having a romp, that’s all. But we shall find plenty of other opportunities when you’ve left us.’
‘Perhaps!’ said Philip drily. ‘Anyhow, I haven’t left you yet. Incidentally, one of the reasons for that is your own request that I should not go until I had accompanied you on a trip to collect some stuff from the raft; but you haven’t shown much keenness on the idea since I promised that I’d give you my help.’
Solgorukin toyed with his black beard for a moment, then he said: ‘All right, we will set out for the raft tomorrow, if you like.’
‘That’s O.K. by me,’ agreed Philip.
‘Good!’ The Prince turned to smile at Gloria. ‘Well, if there are to be no more romps tonight I’ll leave you now. Philip can retire to his couch with a quiet mind, or, if you prefer, remain here to amuse you in my stead.’ With a graceful bow to her and a casual nod to Philip, he marched out of the room swinging the door to behind him.
Philip was about to follow when Gloria said in a rather small voice: ‘Don’t go. Sit down for a few minutes and have a drink.’ Walking over to one of the chests on which a jug of fruit juice was always kept, she poured some into a mug and brought it to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the mug; but he did not drink from it and went on seriously: ‘You know, Gloria, you’ll be letting yourself in for a packet of trouble if you go on leading Solgorukin up the garden path like this.’
‘I know,’ she answered, turning away from him towards the fire and beginning to prod nervously at the logs with her foot.
‘Well,’ he went on, as he put down the unwanted drink. ‘Of course, it’s not my affair, but—’
‘Isn’t it?’ she burst out passionately. ‘Isn’t it your affair? Whose fault is it that I’m here at all? It’s two years and three months since we left New York. That’s a long time at my age. And will we ever get back? If we do I’ll probably be an old woman by then, and I don’t want to live like a nun all the days of me life!’
Suddenly she swung round and faced him. ‘Oh, Boy, I know I was beastly to you about what happened before. And maybe I’ve been wasting my time trying to make you jealous. But if you don’t want me I’m going to him! I’m going to him now, this very moment!’
As she stamped her foot Philip seized her by the arms and pulled her violently towards him. Next second she was sobbing her heart out on his shoulder, while his cheek pressed tight against her burnished curls.
It was moments later before they could even stammer at each other between kisses, and at first Philip could only say:
‘Oh, Gloria, my darling Gloria! Gloria, my love, my love!’
‘I—I won’t expect you to … to marry me, if—if we do get back,’ she said between her sobs.
‘But, of course, I shall marry you,’ he declared. ‘You’re the only girl I’ve ever really cared for, and I couldn’t possibly live with anybody else. It’s having been separated from you that has made me so desperately unhappy these past two weeks.’
‘Yes, me too. We’d kind of grown together, hadn’t we? But really I’ve been loving you in me heart from the very day I first set eyes on you!’
Philip laughed then and held her away from him to smile down into her face. ‘You adorable little liar! You hated my very guts.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. I thought you were an awful old stodge. But I admired your courage and I liked your looks. They say, too, that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Just think of the trouble I’ve taken to get out of using Bowery slang and the way I’ve soft-pedalled my Irish accent—simply because I wanted to talk more like you.’
‘Oh, darling, please! You make me feel the most awful snob, and I was an absolute brute to you in lots of ways.’
‘ ’Tis meself is the snob and you weren’t a brute at all. The way I plagued you it’s a miracle you didn’t throw me overboard, and I’ve no wonder at all that you took a great hate to me.’
‘No, no, my sweet, I never hated you. I swear I didn’t,’ Philip protested vehemently. ‘It’s true enough that I used to worry myself quite a bit about what you’d be up to next, but I thought you had tremendous guts and you never once let me down when we were in trouble. Then you are such a marvell
ous companion, and from the very first I used to love to watch your face light up when you became excited about something, and just to look at you as you moved about the launch or sat around on deck.’
‘Oh, Boy, stop now, or I’ll hardly believe it all. In a moment you’ll be going back on what you’ve always said and telling me I’m pretty.’
‘But you are; and I’ve never said otherwise except just once when I wanted to get my own back over that libellous portrait you did of me. You’re beautiful, darling. You’re beautiful with the real beauty that grows on one until one comes to realise that there is nothing to equal it in the whole world.’
With shining eyes she lifted her lips to his again, and their mouths met in a long sweet kiss.
‘Why … why didn’t you tell me all this before?’ she gasped when at last she could speak again.
‘Because I’ve been a coward and a fool,’ he admitted. ‘While we were alone together there were scores of times when I ached to take you in my arms, but I simply didn’t dare. Then, these past three weeks since the Prince came on the scene, I’ve come to realise how desperately I love you; but I thought it was too late. I’ve been going through positive hell in the belief that you’d fallen for him.’
‘Fallen for that mountebank!’ Gloria exclaimed.
‘Well, you admitted just now that you’d been doing your best to make me jealous and you certainly succeeded. Still, that makes it all the pleasanter to hear you call him a mountebank.’
‘He’s something much worse that that,’ said Gloria, lowering her voice. ‘Of course, he’s amusing and makes one laugh, but he’s the king of all the liars that ever were, and I wouldn’t trust him with a ten-cent piece. He’s treacherous, Boy, and as cruel as a snake, so that it’s really frightened of him I am at times. Frightened for you, I mean, if you should cross him. You’ll be careful, won’t you? I beg you to for my sake.’
‘Let’s not talk of anything unpleasant tonight,’ smiled Philip, and picking her up he laid her gently down on the soft bed of skins, and kissing her took her once more into his arms.
Yet, eight hours later, when the first glimmer of dawn began to show through the little horn panes of the windows, they perforce reverted to the subject of the Prince, as it was essential that they should decide the line of policy they meant to adopt towards him.
Philip favoured an announcement and proposed saying straight out at the earliest opportunity: ‘You may remember, Prince, that on the night of our arrival here you remarked to Gloria and myself that, in view of our quite exceptional circumstances during the past two years, it would not be the least surprising if we had come to regard each other as husband and wife. Well, I am delighted to tell you that we intend to regard each other in that way for the future.’ But Gloria would not hear of it.
‘Please, Boy, do no such thing,’ she pleaded. ‘He has the very devil of a temper and it hangs only by a hair. If he lost it the Saints alone know what he’d do to both of us. I’m sure you’re right about his murderin’ that last wife of his, poor woman, and if he thought that I was in love with you I believe he’d shoot you without a second thought.’
‘But hang it all!’ demurred Philip. ‘I must say something. You know jolly well that having no idea of what was going to happen later on last night I let myself in for setting out with him this morning to go and fetch stores from the raft. What other excuse can I possibly make for not going? And I’m hanged if I’ll start off on a ten days’ trip just when we’ve—er—found each other.’
Gloria bubbled with laughter and pulled his head down to hers so that she could kiss him, before she murmured: ‘Found each other! What a lovely way to put it, Boy, when it’s almost cheek to cheek we’ve been living all these months.’
‘Well, you know what I mean. After all, even if we’re stuck out here almost at the South Pole, that’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a honeymoon—and I don’t see why we should allow the convenience of that blasted Russian to interfere with our taking it when we want to, either.’
‘No, no, we’ll not let him do that,’ Gloria said soothingly. ‘All the same, I’m not saying that the most convenient time for us is right now. For one thing we must go carefully, Boy, we really must. He might spoil everything for us if we sprung it on him. I’ll be looking forward to our honeymoon every bit as much as you, but I’m sure it would be best if you went off with him, as you have arranged to do, this morning.’
‘What? And leave you? Within a few hours of all this? I simply couldn’t. And why on earth should I?’
‘So that while you’re away I’ll have the chance to do a wee bit of thinking. By the time you get back I’ll have made a sweet little plot for getting him to accept the situation.’
‘But I’ll be away for ten days—more perhaps.’
Gloria gave him a steady look. ‘Wasn’t I just saying that the best time for us might be thereabouts? I’m sure I caught a chill yesterday. I can feel it coming on, and I may not be feeling up to much for the best part of a week.’
‘Oh, well, in that case, darling—still, I just hate to leave you, and I’d far rather have it out with Solgorukin here and now.’
‘But you’re not going to, darling. Instead, you’ll be giving me the biggest kiss ever yet, then be getting back to your own room before Gog or Magog is about. And no kissing me good-bye in front of himself, either. I’d be scared into a fit if I thought you were going off with him and him suspecting something; so be good now, and I’ll have thought of a way to fix things by the time you get back.’
‘I don’t much like the idea of leaving you alone with these queer little men, though,’ Philip protested.
‘Oh, I’ll be all right. They’ll never dare to harm me.’
Philip produced his gun and handed it to her.
‘Anyhow, I’d be happier if you’d take this, just in case they cut up rough. I shan’t need it till I get back, and I hope not then.’
They lingered together for another half-hour, then she positively drove him from her; and he had not been back on his own couch in the dining-room for more than ten minutes before Magog came to call him.
When they assembled for breakfast an hour later Philip was in hopes that the Prince might have forgotten all about the expedition, or for some reason of his own produce an excuse for putting it off; but this did not prove to be the case. They had hardly exchanged good-mornings before he announced that he had given Gog orders to get out the sledge and pack up a good supply of dried llama’s meat and other things to go on it. He added that the meat was very sustaining and that a handful of it with a little honey would keep one going for a whole day. He also announced that he needed no coverings other than his furs, but he suggested that Philip should carry the bivouac which had served as a hammock for Gloria, so that he could sleep under it at nights.
These preparations were so simple that they were very soon completed. To his fury Philip had time only to squeeze Gloria’s hand while the Prince turned his back for a moment to take his furs from Gog; then, with as little fuss as if they were going for an ordinary walk, except that the Prince was carrying his repeating rifle and Philip was pulling the sledge, the two of them said good-bye to her and set off towards the plateau.
Both of them looked back and waved from time to time as they climbed the slope, but by eleven o’clock they had reached its edge, and, after a last wave, the two now tiny figures disappeared from her view.
They did not stop for a long break at midday and halted with military precision, for only ten minutes in every hour; so they were down through the pass and out on to the still crisp snow of the plain by late afternoon. Here they set a course several degrees more to the eastward than that which they had followed on coming to the valley, and pressed on for a further three hours before picking out a spot sheltered from the wind by a fold in a glacier, in which to camp for the night.
It was nearly a month since Philip and Gloria had left the raft, and now mid-November; so the weather was very much better and th
e days lengthening with the advance of the Antarctic summer. Apart from having to make a few detours round patches of soft snow in which they sank nearly up to their knees, and one really bad day when it took them eight hours to cross a mile of broken ice, they met with no setbacks; and on the fifth day they reached the coast.
For a little they were uncertain which way to turn, but Philip felt sure that he recognised a cone of black basalt that crowned a nearby headland, which meant that he must have passed it when trekking west towards the MacKenzie Sea, so they turned right, and after a further five-mile trudge entered the small bay in which the raft lay.
Philip found everything much as he had left it. The raft was still frozen in, but beyond the bay the ice had now broken up, and some of the floes showed signs of disintegration.
The Prince was intensely interested in the whole contraption and expressed such open admiration for the thought that had gone to planning it all that Philip found it difficult to continue feeling hostile towards him. They dug out all sorts of good things to eat and spent quite a merry evening.
First thing next morning they made a careful selection of the items they meant to take back, and among them Philip insisted on including a number of his most useful carpenters’ tools. During his stay in the valley he had thought of several things for which they might come in handy, and now that he meant to honeymoon with Gloria it looked as if there would be time to carry some of them out before undertaking the attempt to reach a whaling station. The Prince at first protested about the extra weight, but agreed to humour him, and they set out on their return journey, both now pulling the fully loaded sledge.
The Man who Missed the War Page 27