Philip would have liked to think that, but was prevented from doing so by his memory of the Prince’s references to the great chain of mountains to the south and the strange things that could be done with human blood on the first evening, when they had gazed together from the barren plateau down into the fertile valley.
Yet, once he was able to hop about on his crutch without enduring a spasm of agony every time he jarred his injured leg, he had little time for such speculations. The desertion by the Palace staff had left its occupants with only limited stocks of food and other necessities such as rushlights and wood for the fires. A very limited diet was all they could have managed in any case for some days after their return, and, although Philip would have liked more milk for Gloria, they existed fairly well on the things that had been left; but now the time had come when fresh supplies positively had to be obtained.
If he could have spoken the little people’s language he would have gone out and explained to some of them that all men from the outer world were not as selfish and brutal as their late King, and that, if only they would give him their trust and help, he would find many ways of repaying them; but, as this was out of the question, he intended to try to make his actions speak for him. The only items of any quantity in the Palace which were suitable for barter were the llama skin rugs, and of these there were at least a hundred.
Rolling one of them up Philip put it in a basket and hobbled off to the nearest farm. The little wrinkled-faced good-wife saw him coming through the open door of the kitchen, and fled with a squeak of alarm. Philip went in, helped himself to some chopped meat that was on the kitchen table, vegetables, milk and butter, and left the llama skin lying there in exchange.
As he came out of the house a stone whizzed past his ear, and as he went down the lane he was pelted for some little distance from behind the hedge; but only one stone hit him and that not hard enough to inflict more than a momentary hurt.
The following day he tried another cottage, but this time in exchange for a skin he took a baby llama from the yard and carried it back with him under his free arm to the Palace enclosure. He wanted to start breeding llamas in due course, so that in time he would have his own supplies of all their products and no longer have to extract them from the poor little peasants by threats, as the Russian had done.
It was now December. Gloria, although still too weak to get up, was improving daily and, with Philip’s help, was able each morning to get out into the enclosure and spend the day in the bright sunshine. She was also able to dress his leg for him and, although the wound was now healing, it remained a nasty sight, as the lower leg where the bone had splintered remained as thick as his knee. Whether he would ever be able to walk on it again still remained doubtful, and it looked as if several months must elapse before it would even be fit to hobble on. This alone put out of court for that winter any prospect of getting to the whaling station they knew now to be on the MacKenzie Sea. In consequence, they determined to make themselves as comfortable in the Palace as they could.
By Christmas Day Gloria was able to get up and take on the light work of the house, including feeding the young llamas, of which they now had four. Philip meanwhile was able to get a little further afield and so to spread his requisitioning in exchange for llama skins over a greater area. He had hoped that after a bit the pigmies would come to realise that he was paying for the things he took in the only way he could, and begin to bring their surplus produce to the Palace in exchange for skins, or at least show some signs of friendliness. But they did neither, possibly because they never traded among themselves and were still too undeveloped to comprehend the intention of barter. They still fled at his approach, and occasionally the more truculent among them threw stones at him.
By Christmas, although it should have been the hottest season of the year, the temperature had perceptibly declined again, owing to increases in the cloud formations which shrouded the mountain tops and, at times, swelled to such dimensions that they met over the valley and shut out the sun. Then, on Boxing Day they had another electric storm which was followed by cloudless skies and the warmest sunshine they had so far experienced there; the good spell lasting well into the New Year of 1942.
There was a third electric storm on January the 23rd, and on their working it out it seemed that these storms occurred quite regularly once every twenty-eight days; so Philip formed the theory that they had something to do with the New Moon.
Gloria was now quite recovered, and Philip’s leg was as good as it was likely to be for some months to come. He still could not bear to put his foot to the ground for more than two or three steps at a time, but it no longer pained him if he put no strain upon it, except for a dull rheumatic ache which bothered him during periods of damp weather or just before an electric storm was due.
A thing that now began to worry him was that his barter system looked like breaking down, and he wanted to keep it up even if the pigmies did not appreciate it. He was down to fifty skins; he did not wish to part with more, and his own llamas were still far too young to give the supplies he needed.
It was now the harvest season, and he would have done a day’s work on each of the nearest farms, had his leg permitted, but he was still almost helpless without his crutch. This wish to do something in return for the goods he commandeered decided him to put into operation a plan that he had conceived before going to the raft, when it had looked as if he would spend some weeks at least honeymooning with Gloria in the valley before they made any attempt to reach the whaling station. But for this scheme he needed the tools that he had abandoned with all the other supplies up in the gorge.
In consequence, he and Gloria determined to make an expedition to the gorge for the purpose of recovering all the gear that had been left behind. They took supplies for five days, as with Philip’s bad leg they reckoned it would take them two days to get up there with the sledge. The other two days were spent in getting all the things first across the plateau to the cliff-top, and then down to the Palace. Even in four days it proved hard work, but they were delighted when it was done as the stores gave them many luxuries for special occasions, and the tools and utensils would, they knew, prove invaluable.
The day following their return Philip started on his great idea, which was nothing less than the making of a watermill to grind the valley’s corn. With Gloria’s help he built a large wheel down below the lake, and with his expert engineering knowledge it was simple, once the wheel was placed and turning, to harness it to the small crude mill which he had also made. It took five weeks to complete, and the next business of the King and Queen of this strange land was to convey to their subjects the use of the contraption they had made.
This was accomplished during the following days by the simple process of taking the farmers’ corn from their bins, grinding it for them and putting it back. Where the attempt to barter had proved a complete failure the mill produced results within a week. Six days after the first corn-grinding had taken place Gloria opened her door in the morning to find that one of her subjects had placed a bucket of llama’s milk and a big pat of butter there during the night.
They were naturally delighted at this, and if Philip could have danced at all he would have danced for joy. Even during the time that they were laid low they had not been altogether miserable because they were together, and each day of their recovery had brought a new delight from their well-tried companionship which was now crowned with love. For a time, at all events, thoughts of the outer world had receded into the background because they were so busily occupied in finding new joys in each other. It only needed this resumption of friendly relations with the little people to complete their happiness.
During the last weeks of March numerous other gifts arrived at their front door, and it seemed that they had entered upon a halcyon period of honeymoon contentment. It was, therefore, all the more of a shock when one night, at the end of the month, just as they were going to sleep, Philip heard an unfamiliar sound. Sitting up, he
exclaimed:
‘What’s that?’
Gloria gripped him quickly by the arm, and her voice was a frightened whisper. ‘ ’Tis a sort of … of baying sound.’
‘You’re right!’ he cried. ‘Oh, God, you’re right! It’s the barking of a dog!’
16
The White Man’s Burden
For a moment they sat quite still, then the sound came again Gloria was right: it was not the yapping bark of a small dog but the deep baying of a hound.
Even in daytime the valley was far quieter than any ordinary countryside. There was no traffic on the roads, no rattle of farm machines, no crowing of cocks or lowing of cattle, and at night when even the occasional clink of a bucket or the clatter of a churn had ceased, it was deathly still. There could therefore be no mistake about the noise they heard, yet, although they could hear it so clearly, it was difficult to judge the distance of the beast making it, owing to that very stillness that gripped the night-enshrouded valley.
‘What the devil can it be?’ muttered Philip, reaching for his crutches. ‘Anyhow, I think I’ll go out and have a look; just to see if I can see anything.’
‘Must you, Boy?’ Gloria asked a trifle hesitantly.
‘Yes, I’d better, if only to see that the gates in the stockade are shut.’
‘All right then. I’ll come with you.’
While they pulled on their clothes the loud barking continued and seemed to be coming nearer. Then came the sound of a beast galloping along the track. It halted outside the Palace enclosure, and there was a scuffling noise as if a mastiff or something even bigger was worrying its way round the edge of the stockade trying to find a way in.
Gloria put her arms round Philip and clung to him. His heart was pounding in his chest. It seemed sheer madness to go out, unarmed as they were, and risk being attacked, solely to satisfy their curiosity about this probably savage brute; so they stayed where they were, within the protection of the little house.
The beast snuffled, whined, then began to bay again and cantered off up the hill. Philip undid the door and they went outside. A sickle moon bathed the valley in a faint, sinister light. Both gates to the enclosure were shut, and, as Philip made certain of the fastenings on the big main gate, he said:
‘I’ve often wondered why the Prince went to the trouble of having such a stout palisade put up. He had too much contempt for the pigmies even to contemplate their ever rising in force against him, but now we know. It must have been to keep out this mysterious beast.’
Gloria shivered. ‘Where can it possibly come from, Boy? And how would even a big dog be able to cross the miles of frozen lands outside the valley all on its own?’
‘Goodness knows! From the little Solgorukin, the inference is that it comes from that great chain of mountains to the south. There may be other valleys like these for all we know but with quite different types of people and animals living in them. But that’s ten days’ march away at least. No ordinary dog could go that length of time without food and be fit enough to canter about afterwards.’
‘Maybe it’s not an ordinary dog.’
‘Yes, perhaps it’s some beast that lives in a cave up in the mountains above the valley here and comes down into it only occasionally. It might be an Abominable Snowman.’
‘What in the world would that be?’
‘That’s the native name for an animal that lives high above the snowline in the Himalayas. It’s thought to be a kind of bear. No European has ever seen it, but parties climbing Mount Everest have come across its tracks in the snow. They say it has a footprint like that of a huge man, and from the length of its stride they calculate that it must be at least seven feet in height.’
‘There’s lots of queer things in the world that the wiseacres don’t know about yet,’ said Gloria, not wanting the conversation to lapse.
They were standing together hand in hand near the stockade. Both of them were feeling extremely nervous, and they were talking only to keep up their courage while they listened intently to the baleful baying that continued to make the night hideous further up the valley.
For a moment the baying ceased. Suddenly there was a shrill scream, then dead silence.
‘It… it’s got one of the Little People,’ faltered Gloria.
‘I know,’ muttered Philip miserably, wondering if there was anything that he could possibly do about it.
A moment later they heard the swift padding of feet again. The brute was approaching at a gallop. Instinctively they drew back, but they could still see the track through the openings between the big spiked stakes of which the stockade was formed.
Holding their breaths and tightly gripping each other’s hands, they watched. The distant padding became a heavy drumming on the earth, and the great brute raced by, but they both saw it quite distinctly. It was a dog, but one of the biggest that they had ever seen, and it looked like a very large bloodhound or a prize Great Dane. There was nothing strange or supernatural about it, although it looked a most formidable brute, but the thing that kept them rooted to the spot with horror was that the body of one of the pigmies was dangling from the great slobbering mouth.
‘I must get the rifle,’ muttered Philip, releasing Gloria’s hand.
‘ ‘Tis no good,’ she said swiftly. ‘You’ve never found the time to clean it yet, so ‘tis still all rusted up.’
‘Then I must take my pistol—I cleaned that.’
She grabbed him by the arm. ‘You’ll do no such thing. I won’t let you go out there.’
‘God knows I don’t want to!’ he declared quite honestly. ‘But we simply can’t stand by and see these poor little wretches hunted to death.’
‘It’s happened before. It must have, otherwise the Prince wouldn’t have known about the beast. And why should you give your life trying to stop something that’s probably been going on for centuries?’
‘With a little luck I might shoot the brute if I could get near enough to have a pot at it.’
‘And what chance would you have if you wounded it and yourself with only one good leg? No, Boy. I’ll not be left here on my own. What’ll I do if you’re killed, and me about to have baby?’
‘You’re what!’ exclaimed Philip. ‘Good God—when?’
She buried her face against his shoulder. ‘I wasn’t meaning to say anything yet, though I’ve known for quite a while. It’ll be some time in November.’
For Philip this stupendous news seemed to put a new complexion on the situation, and now that he was crippled was glad enough to have an excuse not to go out to fight a dangerous beast in the middle of the night.
They returned to the house and made up the fire instead of attempting to get to sleep. That was quite out of the question so long as the hideous barking of the great dog echoed through the valley. It continued far into the night, sometimes within a stone’s throw and sometimes so distant as to be very faint, but with few intervals; and, on several occasions, these were preceded by a thin cry which suggested that others among the Little People were falling victims to the beast.
In order to try to keep their minds off the horrors that the bestial visitant might be perpetrating outside, they talked of their coming child; suggesting names for it, planning how it would be dressed and educated and where it should sleep and play, just as young people all over the world do when they are expecting their first baby. But even this enthralling subject could not hold their full attention, and when, at last, at about half past four in the morning, the howling of the dog ceased they went wearily to bed and fell into a heavy sleep.
They awoke late, had a quick breakfast and, arming themselves with the automatic and a pitchfork, sallied forth to try to ascertain the extent of the damage done by their midnight visitor.
The brute’s tracks were clear enough in the dirt of the road, and as Philip and Gloria progressed along the valley they saw that it must have raced backwards and forwards through the twisting lanes and up to the doors of nearly every cottage. None of the pigmie
s were working in the fields that day, but a variety of sounds coming from their houses showed that most of those who lived in the vicinity of the Palace were still alive; and it might well be that they were mourning others who had been taken by the dog, so it seemed kinder not to disturb them in their grief.
In spite of the most careful scrutiny Philip could see no traces of blood upon the ground, and they came across no torn or mangled corpses. It seemed more as if the mastiff acted as a huge retriever and carried its victims off to its lair. By comparison to the pigmies’ average height of three foot six it stood as high as a medium-sized horse to a normal man, and it had a far more powerful head and neck than a pony of the same size; so it was perfectly possible for the brute to carry humans the size of the Little People in its mouth for a considerable distance.
After a few days the normal life of the countryside was restored, and the inhabitants of the Palace renewed their efforts to achieve a better relationship with their subjects. The pigmies had no carts or barrows of any kind but always carried their produce in panniers, very nearly as big as themselves, on their backs, so Philip made a child’s wheelbarrow.
As he could not secure an audience before which to demonstrate its use he just dumped a light load of his nearest neighbour’s vegetables in it, then Gloria wheeled it down to the lake where numbers of the population often gathered in the evenings to stare in wonder at the watermill. Leaving it there, she and Philip retired to a distance, hid behind a hedge and watched to see what would happen. The farmer whose vegetables had been taken soon arrived, and, transferring them to his pannier, carried them home again; but a little later several other small people began to play with the barrow, and one of them being pushed over by accident into it got a ride. This resulted in rides in the wheelbarrow becoming a favourite evening sport, but it was months before they could be induced to save themselves labour by using the barrow, and others like it which Philip made for them, for any other purpose.
The Man who Missed the War Page 30