The Man who Missed the War

by Dennis Wheatley

  Philip let him get within ten feet then suddenly sat up, grabbed the pistol, levelled it and fired. Solgorukin’s dark eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. The knife fell from his mouth and tinkled on the stony bed of the ravine. A long, low moan issued from his lips, and like a great ship sinking he slowly crumpled to the earth.

  The strain and effort had temporarily exhausted Philip. Relaxing, he flopped back against a rock and remained quite still for a while. It was a movement from Gloria that next roused him. She had opened her eyes and was trying to sit up, but she slipped back with a groan.

  ‘Steady, darling!’ He found that his words came with difficulty. His mouth was dry and parched. Taking her hand he pressed it.

  ‘Me head!’ she moaned. ‘Oh, me head!’

  Picking up the torch, he gently lifted her head and saw something that he had missed before. There was blood on her hair. Evidently, when she fell backwards she had either cut her scalp or fractured her skull; but the bleeding had stopped and her curls were so thick that he felt fairly confident that, however badly her head might be aching at the moment, the injury was not a serious one.

  He began to talk to her, telling her that the Russian was dead and that everything would be all right; that they would have to stick out there for the night, but that, somehow, they would get back to the valley in the morning. But she did not respond, and soon he realised that she was only semi-conscious. From time to time she muttered a little, but the only words that he could catch were: ‘ ’Tis so cold, ‘tis so cold!’

  Now that it was some time since Philip had exerted himself he was beginning to feel seriously affected by the cold himself. The ravine was near enough to the valley to benefit to some extent from its freak climate, so, although they were far above the normal snowline, there was no snow on the ground, but every inch of rock was dripping wet with the unceasing thaw which always seemed to be in progress on the plateau and in its vicinity. This damp cold was much more penetrating than a moderate degree of frost would have been, and Philip felt that, unless ague and rheumatic fever were to be added to their sufferings, he must do something to counteract it.

  With Gloria seriously wounded and his own leg broken, he knew that any attempt to get as far as the valley would prove absolutely hopeless while darkness lasted, so the only relief from the bitter searching cold lay in securing further coverings. The sledge with the supplies from the raft, among which was a quantity of bed and table linen, was well over fifty yards away—a long and exhausting crawl for a man with a broken leg—and it suddenly occurred to Philip that there was extra clothing within ten feet of him—on the Prince’s body.

  Getting out his torch he crawled over to the Russian and, fixing the light to shine upon him, began to undo his fur coat preparatory to pulling it off. To his utter horror Solgorukin’s eyes suddenly opened. He was not yet dead, and his black eyes were hard and unforgiving. In a harsh, rasping voice he started to speak.

  ‘You can make the weather you want with human blood … if you know how. That is the secret … the secret of… of the Lords of the Mountain. I hope … they get you. I… I should like to see you taken by the … the Dog.’

  As he ceased speaking a rattle started in his throat. The horrible sound continued for nearly two minutes. When it stopped he suddenly went limp, and Philip knew that this time his enemy was really dead.

  Philip was shivering now, and it was only with difficulty that he could prevent his teeth from chattering; so without the least compunction he set about stripping the still warm body of the Prince. His useless leg hampered him considerably, and such garments as he could not get off fairly easily he cut away with the Russian’s knife.

  When he had done he took the whole bundle in his arms and crawled over to Gloria. Some of the Prince’s underclothes he used as extra bandages for her wound and his own. Then he wrapped her in the big fur coat, pulled on the dead man’s furlined trousers and lay down beside her. She had either fainted again or was asleep, but her body was warm to the touch and her breathing fairly regular. He now felt utterly exhausted, and even the dull throbbing in his leg formed only a part of a nightmare that he seemed to have been experiencing for hours on end. In another few moments he had fallen into a fitful sleep.

  As it was now getting towards the end of November the nights were becoming very short, and Philip roused himself as soon as the morning light began to filter into the ravine where they lay. His sleep had done him little good, and he was feeling ghastly, but he knew that somehow he had to make a stupendous effort and get Gloria back to the valley. Her face was now flushed with fever, and she was muttering deliriously. Directly he moved, his leg gave him such a spasm that he almost cried out, but he fought down the pain and crawled along the ravine till he was back in the gorge and had reached the sledge.

  Having eaten some chocolate and biscuits, he put more in his pocket, had a long drink of water and filled his flask. Next, he broke the tentpole in half and made a rough splint with it for the lower part of his leg, and, as he knelt, lifted it a little behind him by strapping his ankle to the back of his belt, so that the leg should no longer drag behind him and send a twinge of pain through him every time his foot bumped on the ground. Then he converted two table-cloths into thick knee-pads and taking up a sheet returned with it to Gloria.

  After forcing some water from the flask between her parched lips, he folded the sheet lengthwise until it was a long narrow band. Laying the centre of this across her chest, he pushed the ends under her arms and turned her over sideways. Then he lay down back to back with her, drew the ends of the sheet under his own arms and tied them as tightly as he could on his chest. When he knelt up again he had her strapped to his back with her legs dangling behind him on his left-hand side, away from his injured leg. He then began to shuffle forwards on his hands and knees. In this way he got her as far as the sledge. Having unloaded the stores he tied her, now raving with delirium again, to the sledge, and by using another folded sheet as a kind of breast harness for himself, he began to drag the sledge slowly up the gorge.

  It took him an hour to reach the entrance to the plateau, and three to cross it. The strain of covering such a distance on all fours while dragging such a weight was tremendous, and all the time his smashed leg was throbbing and burning as if it were on fire. On reaching the edge of the cliff he fainted.

  When he came to again he knew from the position of the sun that it well was past midday, so he must have been out for some time; but the enforced rest had had the effect of restoring some of his strength. After he had eaten some of the chocolate and biscuits and had a drink of water he felt up to attempting the descent to the valley, which, although difficult and tricky, would at least be downhill.

  He was in hopes that he would not have to drag Gloria all the way to the Palace unaided, as he was almost certain to pass fields in which some of the pigmies were working, and he meant to call upon them to provide stretcher parties.

  For another hour he stumbled and wormed his way grimly down the track until he came to the region of the terraced plots; then, after a short rest, he cupped his hands and began to shout.

  As there was no result he struggled on for another quarter of mile and repeated the process. This time, after about five minutes, two of the little brown-clad farmers came running up the path, but directly they saw him they stopped dead in their tracks and, in spite of his beckonings and callings, refused to come any nearer.

  Grimy, sweating, red-eyed, he wearily crawled towards them, but, to his disgust and fury, they turned and ran away. Another ten minutes’ plodding on his aching knees brought him to the next corner. They were both lurking there behind the angle of a low wall, and one of them had secured a short pitchfork. Suddenly he darted out and made a nervous stab with it at Philip’s face.

  Philip dodged the thrust, and his roar of astonished anger sent the two little men scampering to safety a dozen yards away. But, in spite of his surprise and fatigue, he was quick to realise that this new development
might prove exceedingly serious. Knowing that he would need every ounce of his strength to carry Gloria, he had left both his pistol and the Prince’s rifle behind in the gorge, so he was completely unarmed.

  Of course, the explanation for the attack was simple. He and Gloria were covered with dried blood, and it was obvious that they were both badly wounded; while the fact that she was wearing the Prince’s blood-stained furs was a fair indication that the latter was either dead or lying somewhere up in the mountains too badly wounded even to crawl. The little people had no cause to love their king, and, not unnaturally, they had associated his two guests with all his doings. Now, seeing their opportunity, they were out for revenge.

  Even wounded and crawling as he was, Philip felt that he could prove a match for two or three of them; but the thought which almost brought panic to his mind was that the example of the little brute who had first thought of fetching his pitchfork might be followed by others. If a dozen or more of them launched an attack with such weapons, Philip knew that he and Gloria would be stabbed to death in no time. If ever there was a case of making a swift example this was it.

  With a plan already forming in his brain, he began to advance again, while the little men warily keeping this distance, backed away before him. Gradually he slowed down his pace, then put his hand to his head as though he were about to faint, swayed for a moment and fell forward on his face.

  He was careful to let his head roll sideways, so that he could watch his adversaries through his eyelashes. Within a moment of his staging his pretended collapse the man with the pitchfork ran at him. In one swift movement Philip grabbed the fork and tore it from the pigmy’s hand. Next moment he brought its butt-end cracking down on the little devil’s head.

  With a yelp of pain and fright the victim fled screaming, his small friend close on his heels.

  Now being armed, and having shown that he still had some teeth left with which to bite, Philip felt a trifle more sanguine about facing further attacks; but the effort to deal with such a situation while he still tugged the dead weight of Gloria had prove almost too much for him.

  For a long time past she had been delirious, and he, too, was now running a high temperature. Yet, he knew that he must not give up until he reached the shelter of the Palace. After ten minutes’ rest and another drink he set off again.

  The last two miles were unadulterated hell. His leg was a red-hot flame behind him, his hands were blistered and bleeding, his knees torn even through the pads, the sweat was pouring off him, and he could hardly see out of eyes that were rimmed with dust and sunken right back in his head. At last, panting, gasping, trembling, he lurched across the compound of the Palace, pushed open the door of the sitting-room and flopped down inside it, with Gloria babbling incoherently on the sledge just behind him.

  How long he lay there he had no idea. He blacked out, came to through a haze of pain, managed to undo the cloth that bound Gloria to the sledge and get her on to the pile of skins, then fainted again.

  When he fully regained consciousness it was the middle of the night. Gloria had ceased her raving and was sleeping. The fire had gone out, and the room was in complete darkness. His leg now was just a dull, throbbing ache. He knew that there were all sorts of things he ought to do; but the darkness was an almost impossible handicap, so he lay there until the grey light of morning percolated through the small windows.

  Moving cautiously so as not to disturb Gloria, he left the room and made his way to the servants’ quarters, hoping against hope that the cooks and scullions, or at least Gog and Magog, had remained at their posts; but the whole place was deserted. Fortunately they had not sacked the larder before leaving, and in it he found a good supply of food and blaeberry juice.

  Having lit the kitchen fire, he put some water on it to heat and undid the bandages to look at his leg. It was a horrid sight, and he thought that, had he received such a wound on the battlefield, an Army surgeon would have had his leg off below the knee. He felt that it ought to come off, as otherwise there was a grave risk of gangrene from it killing him within the next few days; but, although he had heard of people amputating their own legs in such circumstances, he decided that such a job was absolutely beyond him; the best he could hope to do was to cauterise the wound.

  He put a poker in the fire to heat, washed his leg carefully with soap and warm water, and applied the red-hot iron first to the edges of the wound, then, with an effort that took all his will, to its centre. He had expected that this would make him faint, but it did not. The pain was hideous and made him sweat, but it was just bearable. After a rest to regain his breath, he put clean bandages round the wound, rested his foot in a sling he had made for it while the poker was heating, and, using a broom as a crutch, tried moving about upright for the first time since he had been shot.

  It proved a bit tricky at first, but he thought that after adjusting the height of the crutch and the length of the sling he would be able to get about fairly well. Putting some soup, llama’s milk and blaeberry juice in a basket, he hopped back to Gloria. She was still asleep, so he lay down near her. He felt terribly tired now, and he wondered how, seeing that this morning’s effort had proved so exhausting, he had conceivably managed to drag Gloria all that way the day before.

  He realised now that he had been delirious a good part of the time and remembered that people suffering from delirium are said to have superhuman strength. His head felt very heavy, and a little pulse in his temple was beating in time to the throbbing of his leg. His temperature was mounting again, and the burning pains from the cauterisation were now beginning to give him hell. For hours he lay there moaning and twisting, and only the gradual darkening of the room told him that evening had come.

  Making an effort he crawled over and lit two of the rushlights. It was only then he noticed that Gloria was no longer asleep. Her blue eyes were open and, looking abnormally large in her white face, stared up at him. As he knelt beside her couch her pale lips framed the one word: ‘Boy?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and he noticed that his own voice was harsh and cracked, even as he smiled and tried to make a joke by adding: ‘It’s all right, my sweet. He’s dead. I’m the King here now, and you’re the Queen.’

  Her eyes just moved as though she understood, but she was obviously too weak to talk. Having kissed her lightly and held her hand for a little, he took up his crutch and hobbled over to the kitchen to heat some water with which to wash her wound. Unlike his own, it had been fully protected from the dust and dirt of the hard journey from the pass, and when he examined it there were none of the blue edges to the ragged flesh which had so frightened him about his leg. The bullet had gone through her side and out of it, so there seemed no reason why in healthy flesh like hers the wound should not heal up, and his impression was that her weakness and delirium were mainly caused by shock and loss of blood.

  After attending to her, he tried to settle down for the short night, but his leg pained him so that he would have given much to be able to cut it off, and he did not get to sleep until the long dawn twilight of this season had begun.

  The week that followed was a nightmare time of hopes and fears. After that first recovery of consciousness Gloria lapsed into a coma, broken by periodical bouts of delirium; and for several days she could keep nothing down. Philip’s fever subsided after forty-eight hours, but he was alarmed to see the lower part of the larger of his two wounds, where the bullet had emerged from his leg after smashing the bone, was going a bluish-purple colour, so he had to cauterise it again. This time, having been even more drastic with himself, he did faint, and the shock of the burning set him back by making him feverish once more. But, eight days after their desperate encounter in the gorge, neither of them was any longer running a temperature. Gloria was not strong enough to move, but she could talk a little and Philip knew that, although he would limp for the rest of his life, the danger of his wound going gangrenous and killing him was past.

  In the latter part of the week there
occurred an unexpected and startling phenomenon in the shape of a violent electric storm. There was no rain but deafening peals of thunder rolled round and round the mountains that enclosed the valley, and the most terrifying forked lightning zigzagged up and down without ceasing for the best part of two hours. At the time Philip and Gloria were in no state to give their full attention to this mighty spectacle, but, on thinking about it afterwards, Philip came to the conclusion that this great electric disturbance had something to do with the amazing fact that the valley enjoyed a temperate climate, although it was situated well within the Antarctic circle.

  His reason for this assumption was that, whereas it had been pleasantly warm when he first arrived in the valley, the weather had gradually declined up to the time of his departure for the raft, and ten days later, when he had carried Gloria in, it had actually been quite chilly, with clouds obscuring the sun and a cold mist rising at night from the lake in the valley bottom; yet, after the electric storm, the late Prince Solgorukin’s kingdom was within an hour restored to the enjoyment of the equitable and balmy climate which had been its most staggering feature when its monarchs to be arrived there just on a month before.

  During his long hours of compulsory inaction, Philip had thought a good deal about the Prince’s last cryptic utterances. He had said quite distinctly that you could make the weather you wanted with human blood, that the secret of doing so belonged to the Lords of the Mountains—whoever they might be—and finally that he would like to see Philip taken by ‘The Dog’. But where to? And what Dog? There were no dogs in the valley or any animal even remotely resembling them. Perhaps he had been speaking of metaphysical things and referring to the passage in the Book of Revelations which speaks of ‘the power of the Dog’ as a synonym for the Evil One and had simply meant: ‘I’d like to see the Devil fly away with you!’ Or perhaps these seemingly mysterious pronouncements were no more than the nonsensical ravings of a dying man.