"Christopher, John - The White Mountains" - читать интересную книгу автора (Christopher John)

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 go 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.
"I don't think it's a break," he said. "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 several hours earlier that 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 with 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, bopping [SIC] 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 and 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 long-standing 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.
He said, "It was because of the Capping that I really wanted to get away. I didn't have any place in mind, of course, but I thought I might be able to hide, for a time, at any rate."
I remembered Ozymandias asking me if there was anyone else who might be willing to go south, and my reply. I put my fingers down inside the lining of my jacket.
"This is the map," I said.


4

Beanpole



We came into Rumney in the early evening of a day that had been alternately bright and stormy; we were wet and tired, and my ankle was aching. No one paid us any attention. For one thing, of course, it was a town. and people in a town did not expect to be able to identify everyone as local or a foreigner, as they would in a village. And this was a port, also-a place of comings and goings, quite unlike the easy familiar round [SIC] of the country. There was an exciting bustle of activity, the glimpse of sea at the end of a long street, men in blue jerseys sucking on pipes, a few tardy sea gulls grabbing out of the air for food. And all the smells: tobacco, tar, spices, the smell of the sea itself.
Dusk was thickening by the time we reached the harbor. There were dozens of boats of all sizes tied up, and others standing out in the harbor, sails close reefed on their masts. We wandered along the quay, reading their names. The Maybelle [SIC], the Black Swan, Venturer, the day [SIC] Cordon ... but no Orion.
"She might be at sea," I said.
"What do you think we should do?"
"Well have to find somewhere to sleep."
Henry said, "I wouldn't mind finding some food as well."