The Man who Missed the War (34 page)

Gloria noticed that all laughter ceased among these white pigmies directly they became aware that the Prince was in the vicinity, and it was clear that he was very much feared. She was intensely interested in the women, but found to her disappointment
that they were almost as ugly as the men. They all seemed very fat, but that was largely due to the great amount of clothing they wore. They all had the same type of knitted bodice and skirt of brown wool with alternate dark and light stripes, which billowed out owing to the thick garments beneath it and almost touched the ground.

Through the centre of the valley ran a stream, and at one place it broadened out into a lake, below which cascaded an eighteen-foot waterfall. On the banks of the lake two of the pigmies were fishing with primitive rods without reels.

‘I suppose they catch something sometimes or they wouldn’t do it,’ remarked Philip.

‘Oh yes,’ Solgorukin replied. ‘As a matter of fact, they are surprisingly good considering the wretched rods they have to use; and the fish here are very well worth catching. We have types of mullet, trout and salmon.’

After two hours’ walk they climbed the hill again towards the Palace. As they approached the front entrance of the stockade, Philip’s horrified attention was caught by a thing that neither he nor Gloria had noticed that morning when they came out. There was a fair sprinkling of trees in the valley and several quite large patches of woodland, but none of the trees were very tall. One of the tallest they had so far seen was a medium-sized oak standing a few yards to the left of the entrance of the Palace courtyard. From one of the lower branches dangled the body of one of the little men. As he did not wish to attract Gloria’s attention to such a sinister spectacle Philip refrained from remarking on it, but next moment the limp body was swung round a fraction by a puff of wind, and catching sight of it she came to a sudden halt, exclaiming:

‘Holy Saint Bridget! What’s that?’

‘I regret that it should offend your bright eyes,’ the Prince replied lightly, ‘but I have found that discipline is best maintained by leaving the body of the last offender against it hanging as an example to other would-be mutineers. You will be glad to hear, though, that it is now several months since I have been compelled to execute anyone.’

‘What did the poor little wretch do?’ asked Philip.

‘When I was out one day he got hold of my rifle and tried to
shoot me. Fortunately it proved much too big and unwieldy for him, but one cannot allow a thing like that to go unpunished.’

‘You must have done something to provoke him,’ Gloria said, as she walked on again. ‘Otherwise, why would he be wantin’ to kill you?’

‘Oh, he had a grudge, of course. During the previous week I had killed one of his llamas for my larder. Naturally, they hate losing their beasts, but I and my small staff at the Palace must have a reasonable amount of meat, and I spread my demands as evenly as possible over the countryside, so that no individual peasant is expected to provide more than one animal a year.’

Both Philip and Gloria thought it hard that the poor little peasant should have been hanged for his futile attempt to revenge himself after being robbed of his property; yet it was difficult to argue against the Prince’s contention. He and his staff must somehow be fed. It was pointless to say that as an interloper he was not entitled to any food at all and that by his creation of the Palace he had placed a burden on the people that they had not had to bear before. The fact was that he had established himself as the supreme ruler of the place, and like all other rulers, whether kings, priests or presidents, he expected his people to provide for himself and his retainers.

During the next few days they made similar excursions to other parts of the valley, but they saw little, except certain vegetables and a few modest flowers, that they had not already seen. At first, Philip enjoyed the change and relaxation. It is true that the life on board the raft had, in the main, been a lazy one, but there always had been something to do—the vagaries of the weather needed watching, and from time to time unexpected emergencies had to be coped with. Here, on the other hand, he had no work of any kind, no responsibilities, and, even if the moderately warm spring-like weather gave place overnight to a storm, it could no longer materially affect him. Yet, after a week of eating more than was good for him and going for aimless walks, he became bored and irritable.

Gloria’s behaviour was to a large extent responsible for his short temper. She quite obviously preferred the Prince’s company to his own, and he felt that, after all this time, it was most unkind of her to show her preference so openly. He admitted to
himself that the Prince was a handsome and amusing person, but he felt that anyone with the least discernment should also be able to see that he was an unscrupulous rogue with the most unpleasant streak of cruelty in his nature. Yet, to Philip’s intense annoyance, he found that Gloria bore out all he had ever read about the queerness of women in such matters, and their frequent disregard of man-made moral standards. Whenever they were alone she would not hear a word against the Russian, and she even seemed to approve of his brutally selfish behaviour in many of the episodes which he recounted with such gusto from his unsavoury past.

Another thing that worried Philip was the future. It was owing to his dream in which the Canon had urged him to attempt to return to the raft that he had met the Prince. This had most probably saved Gloria from freezing to death in the snow and resulted in their having reached a safe and comfortable refuge. In consequence, the outcome of the dream had aroused all his old memories of his vision and revived his faith in it. When the Canon appeared during the storm he had definitely said that if Philip proved equal to the burden that had been laid upon him, no man of his generation would have done more to help bring about the defeat of Germany; and it was transparently clear to Philip that he would come no nearer even to learning what form his mission would take so long as he remained in the valley of the pigmies. By the time he had been there ten days he was beginning to wonder how by hook or by crook he could reach the nearest outpost of civilisation and so make his way home.

When he spoke to Gloria about it she proved far from enthusiastic. They had, she pointed out, been faced with dangers and difficulties for an almost interminable time, yet with the help of the Virgin Mary and all the Saints they had been spared to come to a land of peace and plenty; so why should they not enjoy their blessings?

Faced with the question as to whether she would be content to remain there all her life, she replied:

‘I’ll not say I wouldn’t. There are worse places by far, though I’m thinking I’d be heartsick for a change after a year or two. But where would you be going, Boy, should himself raise no objection—which I’ve a feeling he would?

‘To hell with that!’ exclaimed Philip, knowing that by ‘himself’ she meant the Prince. ‘If I want to leave this valley, it will take more than him to stop me. The place to head for, of course, is the MacKenzie Sea, a bit further west than we should have struck it. I’m dead certain there’s a whaling station there. He as good as admitted it to start with. Then he went back on what he said, because he’s anxious to preserve the secret of his “kingdom”, as he calls it. The night we arrived he spun that yarn about his captain having put him ashore for a twelve days’ holiday. As though any captain would be such a fool as to let his second mate go joy-riding ashore while he was still manoeuvring his ship in an ice-infested sea!’

‘Oh, he’s a lovely liar!’ smiled Gloria. ‘But he’s an ill man to cross, Boy; so best watch your step.’

On the following day Philip tackled the Russian as tactfully as he could. ‘Please don’t think I’m ungrateful,’ he began, ‘but I can’t possibly settle down here indefinitely. So far as we know, the war is still going on at home, and I shall feel ashamed of myself for the rest of my days if I don’t manage to get back and take some sort of a hand in it before it’s all over.’

‘While no such mad desire to immolate myself on the altar of my country is ever likely to cloud my own judgment,’ replied the Prince, ‘I can understand it doing so in others. But how, pray, do you propose to set about getting back to civilisation?’

‘We shall head for——’

‘
We?
’ interrupted Solgorukin sharply. ‘Surely you don’t propose that Gloria should share your crazy attempt to break out of the Antarctic?’

‘Well,’ Philip hesitated, ‘I shall certainly take her with me if she wishes to come; but at the moment I’m not quite certain what she means to do.’

‘Let us not concern ourselves with her for the time being then. You were saying that you meant to head for …?’

‘The whaling station on the MacKenzie Sea.’

‘I have already told you there is no whaling station there.’ The Prince’s voice was icy.

‘All right then. What whaling station did the ship that you sailed in put into?’

‘We were hunting in these waters, but our base was in the South Shetlands, which are thousands of miles from here.’

‘In that case I shall go to the MacKenzie Sea, then march west along the coast until I find one.’

‘You are mad!’ said the Prince angrily. ‘And in no circumstances will I permit you to take Gloria with you. She remains here with me!’

‘That is for her to say. Anyhow, I take it you won’t put any obstacle in my way and will not object to my taking all the food I can carry?’

The Russian remained silent for a moment with his dark eyes half-closed, then he said slowly: ‘A week or two can make little difference to you, and there was something I had in mind for which I should like your help before you go.’

‘What is it?’ inquired Philip non-committally.

‘As you may be aware, neither threats nor promises will induce my miserable little subjects to put one foot outside their valley. In consequence, any expeditions that I make to the coast have to be made alone. That greatly limits the number of penguins’ eggs or seal meat that I can bring back. Now, I understand that you had by no means exhausted all the provisions on your raft; and many of them would be great luxuries to me. The place where the raft is beached cannot be very much further in a straight line from here than the place where I found you, so one should be able to get there and back easily in ten days. Would you be willing to accompany me on a trip to the raft before making your attempt to reach a whaling station?’

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.

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: