The Ice Soldier (19 page)
“Careful,” I said. “It's loaded.”
“I know it's loaded!” he shouted, still brandishing the gun. “That's the problem!” Then he began trying to wrench the gun apart so he could remove the bullets.
“No,” I said, as he twisted the gun first one way and then another. “It doesn't go like that. Give it to me and I'll show you.”
“I'm not giving this to you,” he grunted.
“Look, you're going to hurt someone.”
He glared at me. “And you aren't? To hell with you!”
I held out my hand. “Just give me the gun, Stan.”
He was breathing hard, his eyes wild. Suddenly he set the barrel of the gun against his temple.
I stood up, chair skidding back across the floor. “Put ⦠that ⦠down ⦠right ⦠now!” I shouted, punching each word from my lungs.
“See how it feels?” he asked, still not lowering the gun. “How dare you even think of checking out and leaving me to clean up the mess. You bloody coward! First my uncle and now you! You're both bloody cowards.”
I breathed in slowly. “I think all three of us are cowards, Stan, in one way or another. Now you've made your point so put the bloody gun down before ⦔ I fumbled for the words.
“Yes?” asked Stanley. He was smiling, and it would have been a less demented-looking smile if he hadn't kept the gun against his head.
“ ⦠before I tell Miss Paradise about our nonexistent Himalayan expedition!”
He blinked. “You wouldn't.”
“Try me,” I said.
Looking a little dazed, he at last set the gun down on the table.
I retrieved my chair and sat down. Then I reached across, took hold of the gun, opened the barrel forward, and tipped the bullets out on the table. I scooped the bullets into my hand and put them in my pocket. When that was done, I set the gun in front of me.
“What the hell happened to you up in those mountains,” asked Stanley, “that simply being reminded of it should ⦠?”
“You know what happened,” I said. “The mission was a failure. Some of our friends died.”
“But what
happened
? You've never told me.”
happened
? You've never told me.”
I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't. There had been a moment, years before at one of our binges in the Montague, when he'd asked me if I wanted to talk to him about the deaths of Forbes and Armstrong and Whistler, and the failure of the mission in general. But I had guessed from the halting way in which he'd asked the question that he was asking only because he felt he ought to.
I never did discuss it with him. Since he hadn't been there himself, I simply didn't think he'd understand. Until this moment, the subject had never resurfaced. But now I realized that even if I wanted to talk about it, I could not find the words.
Instead, I just sat there.
“It must have been terrible,” he said quietly.
At the sound of his voice, tears spilled down my face.
“I didn't mean to call you a coward.”
“It's all right.” I knuckled the tears from my eyes. “I called you one as well.”
“But I am one,” said Stanley. “Otherwise I would be going on this crazy expedition my uncle planned out for us.”
I cleared my throat. “You aren't a coward,” I told him, “because you are going on it. And so am I.”
He looked at me for a long time. It was the way you would look at a stranger. “What?” he asked eventually.
“You heard me,” I said.
“Would you mind telling me why?” His forehead was creased with confusion.
“Because your uncle loved you, even if he pretended that he didn't. And you loved him too, no matter how much you might try to deny it. And if you honestly do love Helen Paradise, you'll do it for her. And I hate to say this, but you're bloody well going to do it for me as well.”
He looked at me with his chin stuck out defiantly. “You bastard,” he said. “You rotten bastard.”
“You can call me whatever you like, but you'll do this for your uncle, and for Helen and for me because we're the only people on earth who haven't given up on you!”
At first, Stanley made no reply. He got up and, with an expressionless face, walked across the room and lowered himself into a chair by the window. It was the one where I marked student papers on Sunday evenings, and I never sat in it at any other time. The tired old cushions sighed as Stanley settled into them. Then he smiled at some private joke playing out inside his head.
“What's so funny?” I asked.
He wafted his hand dismissively in the air. “All those years,” he muttered.
“All what years?”
“The years my uncle spent trying to get me to take up mountaineering again. And just when I thought he was finally
through pestering me, he comes back from the grave and wins his little battle after all!”
through pestering me, he comes back from the grave and wins his little battle after all!”
“So you'll come?”
He shrugged carelessly, as if none of this mattered to him. But his eyes gave him away. His gaze roamed around the room, and he appeared to be looking for an escape route. “Doesn't seem as if I have much choice, does it?”
“Think of it,” I told him, “as one last piece of Nitty Gritty.”
He coughed out a sarcastic laugh. “I always was the Nitty Gritty Man,” he said. Then suddenly he breathed in, slapped his knees, and stood up. “Right,” he announced loudly. “Let's go!”
“Well, I'm glad to hear you say that,” I told him, rising to my feet. “But we can't just leave. There's a lot of preparation to be done first.”
He laughed. “Not to the Alps, silly! To meet Helen for dinner. We're going to that Greek place Sugden talked about.”
“The one where they serve testicles?”
“Exactly.” He threw me my coat.
“What better meal,” I said, “to celebrate the official disbanding of the Society of Former Mountaineers?”
We were halfway out the door when something occurred to me. “I'll have to meet you there,” I told him. “I've got something I have to do first.”
“Don't be too late.” Then he shook a finger in my face. “And I haven't said I'll go. Not yet. I'm still thinking about it.”
I smiled and pushed him gently out the door.
When Stanley had left, I put the Webley in the pocket of my coat. Then I went out to the street and caught a bus to Waterloo Bridge.
It was evening.
I walked out to the middle of the bridge.
People walked past on their way home from work. None of them saw as I drew the gun from my pocket and let it slip from my hand into the dark and swirling water.
I thought of the Webley sliding down into the blackness, and the silent blossoming of silt as it landed in the mud. I thought of the battle-axes of the Vikings and the swords of Roman legionnaires, who had survived their wars in this country but found that they could not endure the peace that followed. So they had thrown away their weapons, rather than turn the blades upon themselves. And somewhere down there, too, was Stanley's polished badge, which had been, in its way, no less of a burden than those tools of war which lay around it in their tombs of mud.
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FOR SOME REASON, the Feast of the Gods had been removed from the menu at the Greek restaurant.
“A shortage of testicles,” suggested Stanley.
I was relieved to make do with a meal of stuffed peppers and avgolemono sauce.
We did not speak of making the trip.
All through the meal, I kept my eye on Stanley, trying to read his thoughts in case my attempt to persuade him had not worked after all.
But his expression gave nothing away.
After the plates had been cleared, we sat back with little glasses of ouzo.
Stanley drank his quickly, wincing at the fire it ignited in his belly. Then he announced that he was going to find the manager and sort out whether or not Sugden really had eaten those testicles.
“You're obsessed,” I told him.
He winked at me and wandered off.
“I think it's marvelous,” said Helen, “what you and Stanley are doing for his uncle.”
“What's that?” I asked cautiously.
She sat back. Her hand slid away. “Going to the Alps, silly!”
“Oh,” I said. “So we
are
going.”
are
going.”
She looked confused. “Well, Stanley seems to think you are. He told me all about it before you got here.”
I nodded. “He hadn't been exactly clear about it when we talked.”
“Well, anyway,” said Helen, sipping at the ouzo, “I think it's very grand.”
“Why don't you come with us?” I asked. It seemed like a good idea.
She smiled and shook her head. “I'd love to, but I can't.”
“Why on earth not?”
She turned the little ouzo glass around in circles. “Because I never was a member of the Society of Former Mountaineers.”
“But that was just a thing we called ourselves! It didn't exist.”
“It did exist,” she said, “and in many ways it was more important than that other club you both belong to.”
I saw what she was saying.
“And you've got to undo what it was,” she continued, “each of you for your own reasons. It's a pity, really.”
“It is?”
“Yes. That you won't be going to the Himalayas.”
I gritted my teeth and nodded.
She started to laugh.
“What is it?” I asked nervously, knowing this must be at my expense.
Now she laughed even harder. “I knew you weren't actually going.”
“You did?” My voice rose almost to a squeak. “But how?”
“Carton told me. He said I ought not to judge Stanley too harshly.”
“Well, I wish you had let me in on the joke a little earlier.”
“I wanted to see how you'd get out of it.” She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh again.
“Getting out of it was Stanley's job,” I told her, “seeing as he got us into it.”
“I suppose I should be angry,” said Helen, “but I'm not.”
“Because you know, as I do, that Stanley said the stuff about the Himalayas because he wanted you to like him. And I happen to know that he likes you very much. In fact, he's completely mad about you. You're why he's going to the Alps.”
“Me and the inheritance.”
“No,” I said. “He wants his inheritance all right, but not enough to climb this mountain. The reason he's going is you.”
She turned her head to one side and rested her chin in the palm of her hand. “I suppose I was afraid of that.”
“Why be afraid of it?” I asked, thinking that she looked more beautiful than ever.
For a moment, she seemed lost in thought. Then she turned to face me again, and her eyes burned into my head. “What if he gets hurt? Or you?”
“I have my own reasons, for going.”
“Well, I hope they are good reasons,” said Helen, “and I hope you've got a lot of luck stored away someplace, because you're both going to need it.”
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THAT NIGHT, I put in a call to Webb. I told him it was settled. We would go.
It was quiet for a long time on the other end.
I thought we had been disconnected. “Are you still there?” I asked. “Dr. Webb?”
“This comes as a surprise.” Webb's voice returned, his heavy breaths reaching me through the static like the rumble of breaking waves. “I had been led to believe you'd be turning down the offer. And Stanley, too, for that matter.”
“On the contrary,” I told him. “Stanley and I will be leaving as soon as we can. I'll need to draw funds. A few hundred pounds to start with. We'll need to get some gear together and book passage to the Alps.”
“Of course. Whatever you need. I'll have three hundred sent over tomorrow.” He held his hand partway over the receiver and coughed. “The funeral reception is the day after tomorrow at the Climbers' Club. I assume you will be there.”
“Of course.”
“Do you really think it can be done?” asked Webb. “The climb, I mean.”
“I don't know,” I replied.
“The press will have to be told. There's no way to keep this quiet. Very soon, I expect, the whole world will be watching what you do.”
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