The Abandoned, page 14
“Oh, no,” Jennie replied. “I was taken in a basket. And then of course, being brought up there, one gets used to things being—well, different. But one does like to come back.”
“. . .and put on airs,” concluded the Maltese unpleasantly. “But they say that’s what the family is coming to. Our side of it always found Glasgow good enough for them.”
Jennie said: “Well, I guess we’d better be going.”
“Never mind,” said the Maltese, but not at all graciously. “You may bide awhile. I was just going myself. At any rate, you haven’t lost your manners in London, which is something, though I can’t say as much for your friend. Good day to you,” and she rose and left.
It was just in time, for Jennie’s tail was lashing and waving violently.
“Oh,” she cried, “what a thoroughly odious person! If that’s what my relatives are like, I shan’t be wanting any more of them. And did you hear her—‘what’s London got that we haven’t twice better?’ And she dared to talk about someone being provincial. Of course she isn’t really Scotch at all, with all that Italian blood in her. The Scotch are kind and hospitable, once they get to know you.”
The words “kind” and “hospitable” suddenly made Peter feel very sad, for, truth to tell, he was missing the friendly companionship of the weird crew of the Countess of Greenock, and even though he was learning to look after himself and had Jennie constantly by his side for company, he knew that there was something lacking and that cats were not meant to live as they were living.
And besides it was cold, wet, and drizzly, and in spite of their being beneath the arch of the huge bridge where the rain could not get at them for the moment, the wind was blowing the damp in from the water and they had had bad luck and had not eaten for the last twelve hours. Peter began to think not of home and his mother and father and Nanny, oddly enough, but of what it would be like to belong to someone who had a nice cozy place by the fireside for him, who would rub his head and stroke his back and scratch him under the chin, feed him regularly, and let him sleep on a cushion, someone who would love him and whom he could love.
“Jennie! I wish—oh, I wish we belonged to somebody.” The words came out in spite of himself, even knowing how Jennie felt about people and having anything to do with them. But oddly enough she did not become angry with him; she only gave him a long and searching look. She opened her mouth as though about to speak, and then, apparently thinking better of it, closed it again without uttering a sound.
Encouraged, Peter was just about to say: “Jennie, don’t you think you might try just once more?” when without a moment of warning, baying, barking, and slavering, three dogs burst upon them from out of the gloom round the stone and steel abutment of the suspension bridge and were almost upon them before they could move.
There was a snap of teeth and a shrill scream from Jennie. “Peter! Run! They’re killers!” and he saw her flash upwards, a giant pit bull at her heels, and the next moment, gripped by absolute terror and panic, he saw the other two bearing down upon him. Long after, he could remember only the horrible burly effect of them made by their massive chests and the small, long, snakelike heads with the cropped ears and slanted eyes, now blazing with the quarry in sight. Their jaws were open, tongues lolling, white saber teeth shining, and the sound of their feet and toenails scrabbling and pounding on the stone was horrid. And then he was off, running for his very life, around the stone abutment in which was set the tall steel south tower of the Suspension Bridge.
What had become of Jennie he did not know, nor in his panic could he so much as even think, but he knew her warning to be a supreme effort on her part to save him. For if the dogs once caught them, they would destroy them as cleanly and as quickly as he and Jennie had killed their rats and mice. A snap, a wrench, a toss, and it would be all over.
Never was there a sound so horrible as the hoarse, throaty growl, a murderous cry if ever there was one, and it was coming nearer as with each stride the long-legged, powerful brutes gained on Peter. There was a snick and something touched one of his hind feet, yet still managed to miss a hold. He felt their horrible breath as they closed in.
And thereafter Peter could remember nothing but going up, up, up, straight up into the air. His feet, urged on by panic, touched stone and steel, first rough, then slippery and knobbed, slanted and crossed and riveted, a network of iron as it were, rising to the clouds, and as fast as his paws touched, they were up and away, giving him new impetus, ever higher and higher, so that he did not seem to be climbing, but rather flying up and ever upwards.
The fog and the rain shrouded him in so that he could see neither where he had come from nor the next few yards higher, yet he kept on, driven by the fear that would not permit him to stop, until gradually he became aware of the fact that the terrible growling and barking were no longer in his ears, nor the sound of the pursuing feet, nor, for that matter, any sound whatsoever but the distant hooting of boats somewhere and far, far in the distance the roar of traffic.
Only then did he dare to slow down to listen. For safety’s sake he gave a couple of more spasmodic leaps still higher and then came to rest at last, but trembling from head to foot. There was no more pursuit, no dogs, nothing of anything.
He seemed to be wedged into a kind of angle of several short lengths of riveted steel that came zigzagging up out of the swirling mists and vanished into the thicker fog above. There was a penetrating wind all about him too that seemed to pluck at him. Peter realized that he did not have the faintest idea where on earth or in heaven or between the two, perhaps, he was, or how he had got there. He wedged himself more closely into the angle of the steel and clung there with all four feet.
LOST IN THE CLOUDS
TIME WENT BY; how much, Peter could not tell. In the distance he heard at last a clock striking six and then another and another, almost as though for some reason he could suddenly hear all the clocks in the world announcing the hour. But whether it was in the evening or in the morning he had no way of telling, for the shock of the sudden attack and escape had frightened him completely out of his wits.
Now they were beginning to return to him, however. Whatever the hour, the gloom of darkness, fog, and rain was still impenetrable and he was aware that there was nothing for him to do but remain perched where he was until he should be able to determine where it was he had got to in his frantic rush of panic.
At that moment he heard a faint call, a dear and well-remembered voice coming from out of the darkness, apparently a little below him. He shouted: “Jennie! Jennie, where are you? Are you all right?”
She replied at once, and although Peter could not see her, he could hear the relief trembling in her voice. “Peter! Oh, I am so glad I could cry. I was frightened to death they had caught you. Are you sure you aren’t hurt?”
“Not at all,” he replied, “except that I got terribly scared. But where are you? And, for that matter, where am I? I want to come to you.”
There was a moment of silence and then Jennie’s voice came through the fog, quite tense. “Don’t stir, Peter. We’re up in the towers of the Suspension Bridge. ’Way up high, I think.”
“Up in the towers,” Peter repeated in amazement. “Why, I don’t remember anything but just running—yes, for a moment I did seem to be flying. I say, how exciting!”
“Peter—” Jennie’s voice was a little plaintive now.
“Can you forgive me for leaving you that way? I couldn’t help it. It’s the one time when cats just don’t think.” And then before he could reply, she continued: “It’s all my fault—being so upset over that foolish Maltese, with all her talk about Turks and Knights of St. John and Lord Nelson. Of course, she doesn’t come from the island of Malta at all. Trying to pull the wool over my eyes with her grand ways. They just call those short-haired grays Maltese. And then the way she talked about you. But even so, I should have smelled those dogs long before they got close enough to surprise us, and we could have taken steps, except that I haven’t been myself these past days at all. Oh, Peter, I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve brought to you.”
“Trouble!” Peter repeated in amazement. “But, Jennie, you haven’t.”
“Peter,” she cried, her voice full of despair this time, “you don’t know what I’ve done. Everything is my fault.”
Peter didn’t know and, what was more, couldn’t even think what she meant except that something was troubling her about which she had not yet told him. When she did not speak to him further, he thought it best to remain quiet himself, and he settled down on the narrow, slanting piece of steel and clung there, cramped, cold, and shivering.
An hour or so later the rain stopped, a breeze sprang up, and the fog about Peter began to swirl and thin, drifting in wisps, shredding, permitting him almost to see and then closing in again, only at last to be pierced by the yellow rays of the mounting sun. Then the blue sky appeared overhead, the last patches of mist were dissolved, and he could see everything. Jennie had been quite right. They were up in the towers of the Clarke Street Suspension Bridge.
They were high up too, almost at the top, with Jennie a few yards lower than he, stretched out on one of the upward-slanting girders of the twin neighboring tower that paralleled the one he was on. Below them like a map lay all Glasgow, threaded by the gray ribbon of the Clyde and marked with the ugly patches of the Central and St. Enoch stations with their lines of railroad tracks emerging from them like strands of spaghetti from a package.
Here, Peter thought, was the perfect bird’s-eye, or, to be more modern, airplane pilot’s eye view of the great gray city. To the east lay the pleasant emerald gem of Glasgow Green, to the west the broadening river, the docks, and the shipping, among which he could even make out the shabby but loved lines of the Countess of Greenock, and he saw that there was black smoke again pouring from her thin funnel, which meant that she must be getting ready to sail. On and on his eyes traveled, as if glancing over a page in a geography book. There were blue mountains and lakes in the misty north, and he was certain that he could see storied Ben Lomond rising among them.
To his surprise, he found that the height made him neither dizzy nor frightened, and he could enjoy the view and the surroundings as long as he did not try to move. It was when he did so, as he wished to descend at least to Jennie’s level, that he found himself in difficulties. He discovered that he could go neither up nor down.
Peter called over to his friend: “Jennie, I’m all right. But how do we get down from here? I’m sure the dogs have left by now. If you go first, I’ll try to follow you.” He thought perhaps if he saw the way she did it, he might be able to take heart, or copy her, the way he had in so many other things.
It was some time before she replied, and in the ensuing silence he could see her looking up at him with an odd kind of despair in her eyes. Finally she called to him: “Peter, I’m sorry, but I can’t. It’s something that happens to cats sometimes. We get up onto high places and lose our way and can’t get down—even from trees or telegraph poles where we might manage to get a grip with our claws. But this horrible, slippery steel—ugh! I just can’t think of it. I’m terrified. Don’t bother about me, Peter. Try to get down.”
“I wouldn’t leave you even if I could, Jennie,” Peter said, “but I can’t. I understand what you mean. I’m the same way. I couldn’t move an inch. What will happen to us?”
Jennie looked quite grim and averted her eyes. “We’re for it, Peter. We stay up here until we starve to death or fall off and are dashed to pieces below. Oh, I wish I were dead already, I’m so miserable. I don’t care about myself, but when I think of what I have done to you, my poor Peter. . .”
Peter found that his immediate concern was less with the dangerous situation in which they found themselves than with Jennie. For assuredly this was not the old, brave, self-possessed friend he had known who had a solution to every difficulty and the right answer to every question. Obviously something was troubling her deeply and robbing her of her courage and ability to think and act in emergencies. He could not imagine what it was, but since it was so, it was his place to assume the burden of leadership and at least try to support her as she had him so often. He said:
“Oh, come. At least we’re still alive, and we have each other, and that’s all that matters.”
His immediate reward was a faint smile and a small, soft purr. Jennie said wanly: “I love you for that, Peter.”
“And besides,” Peter continued stoutly, “Sooner or later someone is bound to see us marooned up here and come to fetch us down.”
Jennie made a little sound of despair in her throat. “Oh! People! My Peter, you don’t know them as—”
“But I do,” Peter insisted. “At least, I know one is always seeing pictures in the papers of people gathered round and firemen climbing ladders to fetch cats down out of trees.”
“Trees perhaps,” Jennie said, “but they’d never bother about us ’way up here.”
“Well,” said Peter, even though he did not feel at all certain that anyone would trouble to help them even if they were seen, “I’m for trying at least to attract somebody’s attention,” and filling his lungs full of air he emitted a long, mournful siren howl, in which from time to time Jennie joined him even though she did not believe it would do much good.
And, indeed, it appeared as though her pessimism was justified. Far below, the busy city came to life. Traffic began to flow through the streets, from which arose a kind of muted and distant roar, which drifted up to the two fixed to their precarious perches, tending to drown out the cries by which they sought to draw attention to themselves. On the suspension bridge footwalkers crossed in a steady stream between Portland Street and St. Enoch’s. People walked along the embankment and in the busy side streets. But no eyes turned upwards toward the sky and the tops of the towers. Not any time that whole long day.
And all through that next night Peter called down words of courage to Jennie and comforted her to try to keep her spirits up. But by the following morning both he and Jennie were perceptibly weaker. Their voices were nearly gone from shouting, and Peter felt that his grip on his girder was not as strong and secure as it had been. Nevertheless he refused to give up and said to Jennie: “Look here, we must make some kind of an attempt. I’ll go first and you watch what I do and follow me.”
But Jennie moaned: “No! No! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I’d rather have the dogs get me. I can’t bear coming down from high places. I won’t even try.”
Peter knew then that there was nothing to do but stay there until the end. He closed his eyes, determined to rest and conserve his strength for as long as he could.
He must have fallen asleep, for it was many hours later when he was suddenly awakened by a confused shouting and cries from below and the sound of engines and sirens and the clanging of bells. There was a crowd gathered on the south bank of the river on the square giving entrance to the bridge, people swarming like ants about trucks and wagons glistening with brass and gear and machinery, and new apparatus kept arriving, fire engines dashing along Portland Place and police cars and equipment lorries from the light and telephone and bridge-maintenance companies.
“Jennie! Jennie!” Peter called. “Look down. Look below you and see what is happening.”
She did and her reply came floating back to him faintly: “What is it? There must have been some kind of an accident on the bridge. What difference does it make?”
And now that she looked more carefully, she could indeed see that all the white faces in the dark mass of the huge crowd that had gathered were turned upwards, that fingers were pointing up at them and men running about and policemen trying to clear a space about the bridge abutment from which rose the twin steel towers; ladders were bring raised and apparatus hauled into place.
“There, you see?” Peter crowed. “It’s all for us. Oh, I say, but we are important! Look, they have quite everybody come out to try to rescue us.”
Jennie stirred on her girder, and the look that she sent up to him was absolutely worshipful. “Oh, Peter,” she said, “you are wonderful. It’s all your doing. If it hadn’t been for you we both should have perished here and all because of me.”
Peter enjoyed being admired by Jennie, though he did feel that she was allowing him rather too much territory, since he had done nothing but say, or hope, that they might eventually be rescued. Before he could reply, however, there was a rush and a roar, and a small airplane dove at them out of the sky and, just as it seemed about to crash into them, wheeled upwards again, over and away, revealing a young man leaning out of the fuselage pointing a box at them. The next moment it was gone.
Jennie gave a small scream. “Oh! What was that?”
“Taking our pictures for the papers, no doubt,” Peter explained, thrilled to death.
“Oh dear,” Jennie said, “and me a perfect fright, just when one ought to look one’s best. Do you suppose he’ll come back?” and as far as she could without disturbing her balance, she commenced to wash.
But Peter was far too excited and fascinated by the rescue operations to devote even a moment to this function at such a time.
First the electric-light and telephone wagons tried it, but their towers weren’t nearly tall enough to reach Peter and Jennie, even when they were cranked as high as they would go.
The maintenance wagons were moved away with a good deal of noise and shouting, and the fire laddies were let at it next. They raised their tallest rescue ladder as well as the water tower and sent up two firemen, the sun glinting handsomely on their brass helmets and belt buckles, as well as a large, red-faced police constable in a blue uniform.
But firemen and constable both remained stuck a good twenty feet below Peter and Jennie, for their equipment did not reach either and Jennie was just about to despair when Peter, who really was having the time of his life, pointed out that now in the center of the throng still further preparations were going forward.
