The Man who Missed the War (39 page)

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!’

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 pigmies 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 Antarctic winter was now setting in, and, although the climate did not seriously deteriorate, it gradually became colder as the days shortened. Philip made himself a rough but serviceable fishing rod with a reel, which enabled him to play and land much bigger fish in the lake than the pigmies could possibly catch with their primitive tackle. By fishing two or three days
a week he was able to leave presents of fish at most of the houses round about fairly frequently, and in return his neighbours now kept the Palace regularly supplied with llama’s meat, butter, milk, vegetables and other products from their farms. They no longer ran away when Philip or Gloria entered their houses, but they remained shy and could not be persuaded to come within reach.

It was Gloria who was responsible for finally overcoming their fears. One day early in June she was walking past the lake where two of the little men were fishing, just above the waterfall. It was early afternoon but darkness was already falling as at this season of the year the Antarctic world was lit by only a few hours of twilight each day. Suddenly there was a shout, and Gloria saw that one of the fishermen had over-balanced while trying to land a fish, and had fallen head first into the lake. She could not help laughing and stopped to see his friend pull him out. But, instead of helping, the friend only danced up and down in excited distress. Meanwhile, the unfortunate little man was being drawn further out by the current and seemed in danger of being swept over the waterfall. It was not until he went under that it flashed on Gloria that neither of them could swim.

Running to the bank she pulled off her skirt and went in after him. It was no small risk as she had to dive again and again before she succeeded in finding him, and she herself might easily have been swept over the waterfall, but her many months of daily bathing from the raft had made her a strong swimmer, and she managed to fish him out.