The Story of Jennie- or the Abandoned (32 page)

But Peter said-'Pooh! I know that trick. There isn't actually any more of you. It's nothing but wind, really,' and he began to blow and swell up himself until he too was Dempsey's size, and for a few moments they faced one another thus until Dempsey, looking a little nonplussed at being met at his own game, deflated, and Peter rather carelessly did the same, but without paying too much attention to where he was or in what position.

And in this, and also in rather underestimating his foe now that he saw him face to face and discovered that he was no super-cat, Peter made his mistake. He should have remembered at all times that Dempsey was the veteran and the victor in hundreds of battles, and that not for nothing does one win such a reputation as was his in one of the hardest neighbourhoods in all the world.

For quietly and cleverly, without in the least giving himself away, the cunning old champion had manoeuvred himself out along the pavement close to the gutter and away from the wall, putting Peter between him and the sheer, dark sides of the warehouse, cutting off one of the cardinal planes in which Peter needed to move. And the next instant, without another sound, threat, warning or battle cry, Dempsey launched his attack, and a few desperate moments later Peter found himself fighting for his life.

Lightning-fast as Dempsey had been, Peter had still anticipated the rush and accurately gauged its length and power. But, alas, when he went to give and roll with it to rob it of its initial force and sting, preparatory to launching his own counter, he found himself blocked by the wall just behind him. The shock of the contact with the object he had not realized was there or that he was so close to it, further distracted him, and Dempsey was in on him with two brutal, sweeping blows and a bite. Because the blows rocked Peter's head from side to side, the bite following too swiftly missed its mark of the throat, but sank deep into his shoulder.

Peter felt an agonizing pain as the bone snapped, followed by something, in the circumstances, much worse-a horrible numbness and loss of feeling. His own right paw and shoulder, his best weapon, was useless.

He was badly hurt and handicapped from the outset, and Dempsey knew it.

Now the attacks came with a dreadful and horrid insistence: tooth, nail and blow, bite, scratch, kick and buffet that yielded not a moment of respite. Gone were all of Peter's carefully laid and rehearsed plans of combat, of defence and attack, of clever duelling and manoeuvring. Battered, dizzied, panic close at hand, Peter could only reply weakly with a kind of despairing, scrambling, futile blows with his good paw that had no power behind them, weak evasions and ever more desperate twists and lurches, as pinned against the wall by the vicious and never-ending surge of Dempsey's attack he could feel his strength ebbing from him and knew that in a short time he must be done for.

There was blood in Peter's eyes now, blinding him, his flesh had been ripped in a dozen places, there was an injury to one of his hind legs as well, he could hardly breathe so raw and burning was the sensation in his chest; in less than a minute he had been all but destroyed, and still the relentless attacks continued without let-up.

And this then was to be the finish of the proud undertaking to protect and defend Jennie Baldrin from the tyrannical brute who had claimed her for his own. The end would be soon for him, he knew, but at least one could struggle and fight to the finish. And he was still fighting, he realized, not too effectively, and taking ten times more injury and punishment than he could mete out, and yet, even in his desperation, he had apparently accomplished something-for Dempsey also was now no longer whole or free from wounds. An eye was damaged, an ear further torn, one paw bitten through and bleeding heavily. These things Peter noted almost like flashes in a dream, the awful nightmare of what was happening to him. But they did serve to give him courage and he even then was able to win a moment's respite when, squirming and slipping down along the wall against which he was pinned, he managed to get on to his back, and when Dempsey hurled himself upon him, Peter raked him fore and aft with his one good hind leg and ripping at his head with his left paw, until at last it was so that Dempsey had enough of that and broke off the combat long enough to tear himself away from Peter's painful embrace.

But now it was the presence of that same wall that suddenly served to embarrass and distract Dempsey, and before the big Tom could quite recover himself to launch the final attack which would surely have spelled the end for his opponent, Peter managed to pull himself around and on to his feet, away from that deadly contact, and with his bared white teeth showing in an angry and menacing snarl, and left paw upraised, at least he stopped Dempsey for the moment and caused him to pause and study his adversary for his weakest points before again advancing to the kill.

No more pitiful figure could be imagined than Peter, slashed from head to foot, his fur stained and matted, back on his haunches, shaking and trembling, one paw out of commission but the other still upraised to do battle. And it was to make an end of him that Dempsey now advanced for the last time.

His brain clearing for a moment, Peter saw him coming, his narrow, slanted eyes slitted with hatred, his moustache pushed forward, and for an instant he was struck by the strange resemblance that Dempsey looked not at all like a cat but like a rat. And he thought of the rat that he, Peter, had fought so well and successfully deep down in the bowels of the Countess of Greenock, and what he had done, and with his last remaining strength, as Dempsey charged him, he leaped into the air, twisted his body around and came down squarely on Dempsey's back.

And as he did so, he buried his teeth deep into the back of Dempsey's neck, and with all his might and main strove to reach the same vital spot in the spine that had spelled the finish for the rat.

Dempsey gave a shattering cry of anguish and fright, for in all of his hundreds of battles he had never once been attacked in this fashion before. Then he began to struggle madly to dislodge Peter. Right and left he leaped, up and down. He rolled over. He smashed himself up against the wall. He stood clawing and screaming on his hind legs. And always deeper and deeper Peter pressed his jaws, searching, probing, clinging with might and main, dizzied and sickened by the battering he was receiving, for Dempsey was many times stronger than the rat had been and there were times when he felt he must be flung off, and that he had not one ounce of strength left to hang on. And just at those times he became stubborn, and where his strength lacked, his courage and spirit did not.

And quite suddenly, and even unexpectedly, he found bone and nerve and gave a crunch, and Dempsey without another struggle fell over on his side, limp. His legs and tail twitched once, and after that he never moved again.

Peter had won. But at what a cost. For, stretched out now across Dempsey's still and rigid body, bleeding from a hundred wounds, Peter knew that his own course had but a short time to run. He had triumphed and saved Jennie, but his own end was only a matter of minutes. He had been too badly bitten and mauled to survive. Wherever it was that his enemy had preceded him, he, Peter, would not be long in following. Victor and vanquished would soon be lying side by side upon the same dust heap.

Nor did Peter find that he minded particularly. He was so tired and hurt in so many places. When death came there would surely be rest and an end to pain. But before it happened he wanted to see Jennie Baldrin just once more to say good-bye.

With a supreme effort, he lifted himself up from his still and fallen foe, and for the last time looked down upon one who had named himself his enemy and had dealt with him so harshly. He was filled with the pity that the soldier who has triumphed in battle feels for his vanquished enemy who has fought valiantly and to the death, a pity which to Peter's surprise was almost akin to love. The poor, still form that had been so handsomely alive with shining eyes and vibrant muscles rippling beneath the tawny pelt was now a grotesque sack of skin and bones, and Peter, looking at his work, felt the strong wish for an instant that somehow he might undo it and bring him back to life again. Then he remembered that he too must die because of this quarrel, and so with what little remained of his ebbing strength he commenced the long, tortuous crawl in through the pipe and along the dark tunnel to their home.

Because his right shoulder was broken and his left hind leg injured, Peter could no longer stand, but had painfully to drag himself inch by inch through the dirt and dust and cobwebs across the floor of the tunnel until he came to the hole in the baseboard. He wondered why Jennie did not come to help him, until he remembered that under the Law of Fair Combat she must not, but was constrained to remain where she was until one or the other of them came to fetch her.

Besides, he knew he was too weak even to cry out to her. He inched forward down the dark and gloomy aisles until finally after what seemed like many hours he came to the bin that had been their home, and with the goal in sight he now summoned his last reserve of strength, and squeezing through the slats he pulled himself up on to the bed and collapsed over on to his side to the edge as Jennie rushed to him crying-'Peter! Peter! Oh my poor, poor Peter! What has been done to you?'

Then she was washing and licking his wounds, ministering, gentling and crying over him.

Peter raised his head and gasped, `I've killed Dempsey. But I think he has killed me too. Good-bye, Jennie.'

And then a little later he said, `Jennie … Jennie … where are you? I can't see you …'

For the bed, the room, the piled-up furniture, the canopy, everything began to turn and spin about him and lose clarity. He seemed to go shuddering off into a kind of groaning darkness from which he tried to fight his way back just once more to see the love and tenderness glowing in Jennie's tear-filled eyes.

Then the darkness wholly engulfed him, but even though he could no longer see her, he heard her anguished, frightened, pleading voice reaching through the heavy, swimming murk, calling him back to her, begging him not to go away.. .

`Peter, my Peter, don't leave me! Don't leave me now, Peter ..'

PETER! Peter my darling! Don't leave me. Don't leave me now…'

Through the darkness Peter heard Jennie Baldrin calling to him again. Or was it Jennie? The words of the pleading cry seemed still to be hers and yet the voice somehow sounded different, though no less filled with love and heartbreak. And never before had she called him her darling….

`Peter! Peter darling! Cannot you hear me?'

How tenuous the thread of her voice trying to hold him. It was so much easier to drift off into the soothing darkness and the mists where there was no longer any pain, nor battles, hunger or thirst, or the wet, shivering misery of homeless nights. To let this friendly blackness enfold him for ever in eternal sleep was what he most desired. He was so tired. But again the voice penetrated to him, calling him to return.

`Peter … Peter…. Come back to me …'

Someone was sobbing, but it was not like Jennie's gentle lament that used so to touch his heart. These sounds were filled with deep pain and suffering that told him of someone who was desperately unhappy, unhappier even than he had been. He opened his eyes to see who it was.

The room was spinning about him, the white, bright ceiling, lights, faces, people and, for an instant, it seemed that he saw his mother.

He lowered his lids momentarily to escape from the dazzling brightness, and when he looked again found that he was indeed gazing into his mother's eyes. How soft, liquid and deeply tender they were, and as loving as Jennie's when she gazed at him. Now they were filled with tears too, as Jennie's had been….

`Peter! My darling, my darling! You do know me . . .' This was his mother's voice And there was an odd kind of murmuring that reached his ears, for there seemed to be others in the room as well, and for a moment he thought he saw his father.

But if it was so and he was back with them again, how were they able to recognize him when he was not Peter at all, but a cat? It was certain that he had not changed, because now that he was looking about and had somewhat accustomed himself to the light he could see his white forelegs and paws on the counterpane. It was all so very confusing.

He was still a cat, then, but somehow they seemed to have found him and brought him to wherever he was and put him to bed, and his mother knew him again and was crying over him. Sudden panic gripped him. Where was Jennie Baldrin? Why had they not brought her too? Or was this vision of his mother's face gazing down at him only a part of another dream from which he would awake to find Jennie once more at his side? If this was a fantasy, it was a most vivid one, for Peter felt two of the tears falling from her eyes strike gently on his cheek. He shut his eyes quickly again to give the dream a chance to change and bring his Jennie back to him.

This time the mists were only grey and luminous, and nowhere could he find Jennie. But then a curious thing happened to him. He was unable to see through the pale void in which momentarily he seemed to be suspended, nor was it penetrated by any sound. And yet all of it and him as well appeared suddenly to be permeated with Jennie Baldrin. He could not find her face or form, or any longer hear her voice, and yet, unseen, unheard, she was so strongly felt that it was almost as though the greyness enveloping him was Jennie, or she a part of it, that he was somehow inside of her and then again it would appear to him that Jennie was all locked away within himself. For a moment he gave himself up to the enthralling sweetness of the emotion. Jennie . . Jennie….

But the other dream would persist, and when he returned to it again by opening his eyes once more he saw that strangers were bending over him, a woman in starchy white with a white cap on her head and a man in a linen coat. Why, it must be a doctor and a nurse. This seemed quite clear. He had been injured in his fight with Dempsey, and of course they were attending him. He remembered now. He could not move his left hind leg, or front right paw, because Dempsey had bitten them through and broken them.