The White Mountains (The Tripods) Page 4

  I said, “I came to you. If I had not …”

  “I would have found you. I have some skill in discovering the right kind of boy. But you can help me now. Is there any other in these parts that you think might be worth the tackling?”

  I shook my head. “No, no one.”

  He stood up, stretching his legs and rubbing his knee.

  “Then tomorrow I will move on. Give me a week before you leave, so that no one suspects a link between us.”

  “Before you go …”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did they not destroy men altogether, instead of Capping them?”

  He shrugged. “We can’t read their minds. There are many possible reasons. Part of the food you grow here goes to men who work underground, mining metals for the Tripods. And in some places, there are hunts.”

  “Hunts?”

  “The Tripods hunt men, as men hunt foxes.” I shivered. “And they take men and women into their cities, for reasons at which we can only guess.”

  “They have cities, then?”

  “Not on this side of the sea. I have not seen one, but I know those who have. Towers and spires of metal, it is said, behind a great encircling wall. Gleaming ugly places.”

  I said, “Do you know how long it has been?”

  “That the Tripods have ruled? More than a hundred years. But to the Capped, it is the same as ten thousand.” He gave me his hand. “Do your best, Will.”

  “Yes,” I said. His grasp was firm.

  “I will hope to meet you again, in the White Mountains.”

  The next day, as he had said, he was gone. I set about making my preparations. There was a loose stone in the back wall of the den, with a hiding place behind it. Only Jack knew of it, and Jack would not come here again. I put things there—food, a spare shirt, a pair of shoes—ready for my journey. I took the food a little at a time, choosing what would keep best—salt beef and ham, a whole small cheese, oats and such. I think my mother noticed some of the things were missing, and was puzzled.

  I was sorry at the thought of leaving her, and my father, and of their unhappiness when they found me gone. The Caps offered no remedy for human grief. But I could not stay, any more than a sheep could walk through a slaughterhouse door, once it knew what lay beyond. And I knew that I would rather die than wear a Cap.

  Two things made me wait longer than a week before I set out. The first was that the moon was new, no more than a sliver of light, and I was reckoning to travel by night. I needed a half-moon at least for that. The other was something I had not expected: Henry’s mother died.

  She and my mother were sisters. She had been ill for a long time, but her actual death was sudden. My mother took charge of things, and the first thing she did was to bring Henry over to our house and put up a bed for him in my room. This was not welcome, from any point of view, but naturally I could not object to it. My sympathy was coldly offered, and coldly received, and after that we kept to ourselves, as far as was possible for two boys sharing a not very large room.

  It was a nuisance, I decided, but not really important. The nights were not yet light enough for me to travel, and I presumed that he would be going back home after the funeral. But when, on the morning of the funeral, I said something of this to my mother, I found to my horror that I was wrong.

  She said, “Henry’s staying with us.”

  “For how long?”

  “For good. Until you have both been Capped, anyway. Your Uncle Ralph has too much to do on the farm to be able to look after a boy, and he doesn’t want to leave him in the care of servants all day.”

  I did not say anything, but my expression must have been revealing. She said, with unusual sternness, “And I will not have you sulking about it! He has lost his mother, and you should have the decency to show some compassion.”

  I said, “Can’t I have my own room, at least? There’s the apple room spare.”

  “I would have given you your room back, but for the way you’ve behaved. In less than a year, you will be a man. You must learn to act like a man, not a sullen child.”

  “But …”

  “I will not discuss it with you,” she said angrily. “If you say another word, I shall speak to your father.”

  With which she left the room, her skirt sweeping imperiously round the door. Thinking about it, I decided that it made small difference. If I hid my clothes in the mill room, I could sneak out after he was asleep and change there. I was determined to leave, as planned, on the half-moon.

  • • •

  There was heavy rain during the next two days, but after that it cleared, and a blazing hot afternoon dried up most of the mud. Everything went well. Before going to bed, I had hidden my clothes and pack, and a couple of big loaves with them. After that it was only a matter of staying awake, and, keyed up as I was, it did not prove difficult. Eventually Henry’s breathing, on the far side of the room, became deep and even in sleep. I lay and thought about the journey: the sea, the strange lands beyond, the Great Lake, and the mountains on which snow lay all summer through. Even without what I had learned of the Tripods and the Caps, the idea was exciting.

  The moon rose above the level of my window, and I slipped out of bed. Carefully I opened the bedroom door, and carefully closed it after me. The house was very quiet. The stairs creaked a little under my feet, but no one would pay attention even if they heard it. It was an old wooden house, and creakings at night were not unusual. I went through the big door to the mill room, found my clothes, and dressed quickly. Then out through the door by the river. The wheel was motionless, and the water gurgled and splashed, black streaked with silver, all around it.

  Once across the bridge, I felt much safer. In a few minutes I would be clear of the village. A cat tiptoed delicately across the cobbles, and another, on a doorstep, licked its moon-bright fur. A dog barked, hearing me, perhaps, and suspicious, but not near enough to be alarming. With the Widow Ingold’s cottage behind me, I broke into a run. I arrived at the den panting and out of breath, but pleased with myself for having got away undetected.

  With flint and steel and an oil-soaked rag, I lit a candle, and set about filling my pack. I had overestimated the amount of space at my disposal; after several reshufflings I still could not get one loaf in. Well, I could carry it for now, and I proposed to stop and eat at dawn. There would be room after that. I had a last look around the den, making sure I had left nothing I would need, doused the candle and slipped it into my pocket, and went out.

  It was a good night to be going. The sky bright with stars—all suns, like our own?—and the half-moon rising, the air gentle. I picked up my pack, to put it on. As I did, a voice spoke from the shadows, a few feet away. Henry’s voice.

  He said, “I heard you go out, and I followed you.”

  I could not see his face, but I thought there was a mocking tone in his voice. I may have been wrong—it may have been no more than nervousness—but just then I thought he was crowing over having tracked me down. I felt blind anger at this and, dropping my pack, rushed at him. Blind anger was no help. He knocked me down, and I got up, and he knocked me down again. In a short time I was on the ground, and he was sitting on me, pinioning my wrists with his hands. I struggled and sweated and heaved, but it was no good. He had me quite firmly.

  “Listen,” he said, “I want to tell you something. I know you’re running away. You must be, with that pack. What I’m saying is, I want to come with you.”

  For answer, I made a quick jerk and twist, but his body rolled with mine, and kept me fastened. He said, panting a little, “I want to come with you. There’s nothing for me here, now.”

  His mother, my Aunt Ada, had been a quick, lively, warm-hearted woman, even during the long months of illness. My Uncle Ralph, on the other hand, was a gloomy and taciturn man, who had been willing—perhaps relieved—to let his son go to another’s home. I saw what Henry meant.

  There was something else, too, of more practical importance. If I had
beaten him in the fight—what then? Leave him here, with the risk of his raising the alarm? There was nothing else I could have done. Whereas if he were to come with me … I could give him the slip before we reached the port, and Captain Curtis. I had no intention of taking him there with me. I still disliked him, and even if I had not, I would have been reluctant to share the secrets I had had from Ozymandias.

  I had stopped struggling. I said, “Let me up.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Yes.”

  He allowed me to get up. I dusted myself, and we stared at each other in the moonlight. I said, “You haven’t brought any food, of course. We’ll have to share what I’ve got.”

  A couple of days would see us within reach of the port, and I had enough for two for that time.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’d better get started.”

  • • •

  We made good progress through bright moonlight and, when dawn came, were well clear of familiar country. I called a brief halt, and we rested, and ate half of one of the loaves with cheese, and drank water from a stream. Then we continued, more and more tired as the day wore on and the sun scorched its way up through a dry blue sky.

  It was about midday and we were hot and sweating when, reaching the crest of a rise, we looked down into a saucer-shaped valley. The land was well-cultivated. There was a village and other dwellings dotted about, with the ant-like figures of men working in the fields. The road ran through the valley and the village. Henry clutched my arm, pointing.

  “Look!”

  Four men on horseback were making for the village. It could have been any errand. On the other hand, it could have been a search party, looking for us.

  I came to a decision. We had been skirting a wood. I said, “We’ll stay in the wood till evening. We can get some sleep, and be fresh for the night.”

  “Do you think traveling by night is the best way?” Henry asked. “I know we’re less likely to be seen, but we can’t see as well ourselves. We could work around the top of the ridge—there’s no one up here.”

  I said, “You do as you like. I’m lying up.”

  He shrugged. “We’ll stay here, if you say so.”

  His easy acquiescence did not soothe me. I had the uneasy feeling that what he had said was not unreasonable. I made my way in silence into the wood, and Henry followed. We found a place, deep in the brush, where we were not likely to be noticed even by someone passing quite close, and stretched out. I must have fallen asleep almost at once.

  When I awoke, it was nearly dark. I saw Henry asleep beside me. If I were to get up quietly, I might be able to sneak away without waking him. The idea was tempting. It seemed unfair, though, to leave him here, in a wood, with night coming on. I put my hand out to shake him, and noticed something as I did so: he had looped the strap of my pack around his arm, so that I could not have taken it without disturbing him. The possibility had occurred to him, too!

  He woke at my touch. We had the rest of the loaf, and a chunk of ham, before moving off. The trees were dense, and we did not see much of the sky until we came out. I realized then that the gloom was not simply due to the near approach of night: it had clouded over while we slept, and I felt an occasional heavy drop of rain on my bare arms and face. The half-moon was not going to be much help behind that cover.

  In fading light, we made our way down into the valley, and up the slope beyond. Lamps were lit in the windows of houses, enabling us to give them a wide berth. There was a flurry of rain, but the evening was warm and it dried on us as we walked. At the top we looked down at the clustering lights of the village, and then went on to the southeast. Darkness fell rapidly after that. We were on rolling upland, mainly of close-cropped grass. At one point we came across a ramshackle hut, plainly deserted, and Henry suggested staying there till the light improved, but I would not have it, and he plodded on behind me.

  It was some time before either of us spoke. Then Henry said, “Listen.”

  In some annoyance, I said, “What is it now?”

  “I think someone’s coming after us.”

  I heard it myself: the sound of feet on the grass behind us. And more than one pair of feet. We could have been seen by people in the village, warned to watch out for us by the four horsemen. And they could have come up the hill after us, and could now be quietly closing in. I whispered, “Run for it!”

  Without waiting for him, I started pelting through the night’s blackness. I could hear Henry running nearby, and I thought I could also hear our pursuers. I put on a fresh spurt. As I did, a stone turned under my right foot. There was a jolt of pain and I fell, gasping as the air was forced from my lungs.

  Henry had heard my fall. He checked, and said, “Where are you? Are you all right?”

  The moment I tried to put weight on my right ankle, I felt sick with pain. Henry tried to lift me, and I groaned in protest.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “My ankle … I think it’s broken. You’d better get on. They’ll be here any moment.”

  He said, in an odd voice, “I think they’re here now.”

  “What?”

  There was warm breath on my cheek. I put my hand out and touched something woolly, which immediately backed away.

  “Sheep!”

  Henry said, “I suppose they were curious. They do that sort of thing sometimes.”

  “You stupid fool!” I said. “You’ve had us running from a flock of sheep, and now look what’s happened.”

  He did not say anything, but knelt beside me and started feeling my ankle. I winced, and bit my lip to avoid crying out.

  He said, “I don’t think it’s a break. Probably a sprain, or something. But you’ll have to rest up a day or two.”

  I said savagely, “That sounds fine.”

  “We’d better get you back to the hut. I’ll give you a fireman’s lift.”

  I had felt odd spots of rain again. Now it started coming down heavily—enough to dampen my inclination to reply angrily and refuse his help. He heaved me up on his back. It was a nightmarish journey. He had difficulty getting a proper hold, and I think I was heavier than he had bargained for. He had to keep putting me down and resting. It was pitch black, and the rain was sluicing out of the heavens. Every time he put me down, the pain stabbed my foot. As time went on, I began to think that he had taken the wrong direction and missed the hut in the dark; it would have been easy enough to do so.

  But at last it loomed up, out of the night, and the door opened when he lifted the latch. There was a scampering, probably of rats, and he carried me the last few feet and set me down, with a sigh of exhaustion. Stumbling about, he found a pile of straw in a corner, and I crawled over to it. My foot was throbbing, and I was soaked and miserable. Moreover, we had slept much of the previous day. It took me a long time to get to sleep.

  When I awoke it was daylight, and the rain had stopped. The deep blue sky of early morning was framed by a glassless window. The hut was furnished only by a bench and a trestle table, with an old saucepan and kettle and a couple of china mugs hanging on hooks against one wall. There was a fireplace with a stack of wood, and the heap of straw that we were lying on. We? Henry was not there: the straw was empty where he had been lying. I called and, after a moment, called again. There was no answer. I dragged myself up, wincing with pain, and edged to the door, hopping and hanging on to the wall.

  There was no sign of Henry. Then I saw that the pack was not on the floor, where I had dropped it the night before.

  I hobbled out, and sat against the stone wall of the hut. The first horizontal rays of the sun warmed me, while I thought about my situation. Henry, it seemed clear, had abandoned me, and taken the rest of the food with him. After wishing himself on me, he had left me here, helpless and—the more so as I thought about it—hungry. It was no good trying to think clearly. Anger was irresistible, and I found myself wallowing in it. At least it helped me forget my throbbing foot, and the empty void of my stomach. />
  Even when I was calm enough to start working things out, it did not improve matters much. I was a couple of miles at least from the nearest dwelling. I supposed I could crawl that distance, though it was not likely to be enjoyable. Or perhaps someone—a shepherd, maybe—would come up within hailing distance during the day. Either way it meant being carted back to Wherton in disgrace. Altogether, a miserable and humiliating end to the adventure. I started to feel sorry for myself.

  I was at a low point when I heard someone on the far side of the hut and, a moment later, Henry’s voice:

  “Where are you, Will?”

  I answered, and he came around. I said, “I thought you’d pushed off. You took the pack.”

  “Well, I needed it to carry things.”

  “What things?”

  “It will be a couple of days before you can move. I thought it best to get hold of stuff while I could.”

  He opened the pack, and showed me a loaf, a hunk of cold roast beef, and a pork pie.

  “I got it from a farmhouse down the hill,” he said. “The larder window was open. Not a very big one—I thought I’d got stuck at one stage.”

  I felt immensely relieved, but at the same time resentful. He looked at me, grinning, waiting to be praised for his resourcefulness. I said sharply, “What about the food that was in the pack already?”

  Henry stared at me. “I stuck it on the shelf. Didn’t you see?”

  I hadn’t, of course, because I hadn’t looked.

  • • •

  It was three days before my ankle was strong enough to travel. We stayed in the hut, and twice more Henry went down into the valley and foraged for food. I had time on my hands: time to think. Henry, it was true, had raised the false alarm over the sheep, but only because he had keener hearing: I had been as much deceived. And it was I who had insisted on traveling by night, with no moon, while he had wanted to lie up. And now I was dependent on him. Misgivings remained—one does not overcome as longstanding a hostility as ours in a few days, especially when under an obligation—but I did not see how I could carry out my plan of losing him before I reached Rumney. In the end, I told him it all—where I was heading, what I had learned from Ozymandias.