The White Mountains (The Tripods) by John Christopher Read Free Book Online Page A

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 acouple 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