Author: Charlie Higson
Category: Horror
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/charlie-higson/page,8,49988-by_royal_command.html
‘It is something of a miracle,’ said the doctor. ‘You must be made of pretty strong stuff. We feared frostbite, exposure, God knows what. But apart from some minor skin damage, you seem to be in one piece.’
James sat up suddenly.
‘The other boy,’ he said anxiously. ‘Miles Langton-Herring? Is he all right?’
The doctor put a comforting hand on his arm.
‘Do not agitate yourself,’ she said. ‘He is alive. His leg is bad, but we have saved it.’
‘Thank God,’ said James, sinking back on to his pillows.
‘He will need to stay here for a while, though,’ said the doctor.
‘But I can leave?’ said James.
‘We would like to keep you in for observation. And we need to treat your skin. The cold can burn as badly as a fire. You have come to the right place, though. This clinic is the leading hospital for plastic surgery in Europe. We are high in the mountains here and the air is sterile.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ said James. ‘The next time I’m badly bashed about I’ll know where to come.’
The doctor laughed, and went on her way, seeing to the other patients.
James closed his eyes and was soon fast asleep once more.
He was woken by a noise. Someone was shouting. He was sure of it. But as he woke the sound ceased, so that he began to wonder if he had only dreamt it.
He tried to swallow and winced. His throat was raw and dry as dust. He felt like he was being strangled, and he had a raging thirst. The clock on the wall read four twenty-seven.
A dim night-light showed him that the jug and glass on his side table were both empty. His throat hurt too much to call out, and besides, he didn’t want to wake anyone up, so he climbed out of bed and slid his bare feet into a pair of felt slippers that had been left out for him. He winced as he stood up. His leg muscles felt stiff and his sore skin rubbed against his pyjamas. It was a pain he could deal with, though – at least it meant that he was alive.
He put on a dressing gown and shuffled down the gap between the beds, rolling his head and shoulders to loosen himself up. It was only when he was halfway down the ward that he properly noticed the state of the other patients. Most were heavily bandaged, though some showed horrific wounds on their faces and hands. James tried not to stare, but he still caught glimpses of skin covered in blisters, scars and deep gashes, or looking horribly like cooked bacon. There were men missing fingers, hands, legs; one had a hole in the middle of his face where his nose should have been.
James felt embarrassed to be here; there was really nothing wrong with him. He was a fake, an intruder. He kept his head down and carried on walking.
There was no sign of any nurses, but he spotted a notice pointing towards a bathroom and headed for it.
It was then that he heard the voice again, crying out from behind a half-open door. He looked to left and right but could still not see any hospital staff. He pushed the door open and went in.
There were two beds in here, and the bodies lying on them looked identical. They were both wrapped in so many bandages there was not an inch of skin showing. All that was visible of the men beneath were their eyes.
One of the patients was moving feebly, as if trying to sit up, and he was muttering and calling out, his voice slurred so that James found it hard to understand what he was saying. One phrase kept repeating though…
‘Mein Vetter Jürgen…’
My cousin Jürgen .
The man was raving. His eyes were staring mindlessly into the distance.
‘Are you all right?’ said James. ‘Can you hear me?’
The eyes still would not focus.
‘Mein Vetter Jürgen… Sie werden meinen Vetter Jürgen töten. Eine Donnerkugel. Es wird Donner geben. Es gibt einen mächtigen Knall… Schneeblind! Schneeblind!’
‘You’re dreaming,’ said James, trying to make sense of the garbled ranting. The man seemed convinced that someone was trying to kill his cousin, Jürgen . And there was something about thunder and being snow-blind.
‘Don’t worry,’ James said. ‘I’m sure your cousin is safe…’
He glanced over at the other bed, and saw that the man in it was watching him intently. His eyes were shining in the half-light, fixed on James, wide and staring.
‘I’ll go and get help,’ said James. ‘Don’t worry.’
As he turned to leave he found himself face to face with a very solid-looking man. He had the broad-shouldered build of a boxer, although he was carrying a lot of weight and some of his muscle had turned to fat. He was wearing a damp overcoat and hat, and had obviously just come in from outside. At first James thought he was wearing goggles, and then he realised that he had very heavy eyelids that were thick with puffy, scarred flesh. Like two black eyes but without the discoloration.
‘What are you doing here?’ he grunted, in Russian-accented German.
‘He was crying out,’ said James. ‘I thought he might be in some kind of trouble.’
‘He is all right,’ said the man, opening a leather attaché case and taking out a syringe. ‘I will look after him. I am his manservant. You should not be here.’
‘I was only trying to help,’ said James.
The man looked over to the other patient then quickly back at James.
‘Leave now,’ he said, raising the syringe and checking its contents.
James went out. As he turned to close the door he saw two pairs of eyes staring back at him. One pair hidden by swollen eyelids, the other by bandages.
The man who had been making all the noise lay still.
9
The Man Without a Face
‘It is my fault, James. I should never have tried to bring you all down the mountain on your skis that afternoon. The weather was too bad. We should have taken the cable-car.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
Hannes Oberhauser had come with Mr Merriot to collect James from the clinic in his horse and carriage. He calmed the horse as James climbed aboard, the carriage rocking from side to side.
‘If anyone is to blame,’ said James, settling on to a bench opposite Mr Merriot and arranging a blanket over his knees, ‘it’s Miles Langton-Herring. If I hadn’t gone after him, I wouldn’t have ended up in the clinic.’
‘If you hadn’t gone after him, he would probably be dead right now,’ said Merriot, puffing out a cloud of smoke from his pipe. He very rarely lit it and James wondered if it was offering him some small warmth on this bitterly cold morning.
‘Who knows,’ said James. ‘But it’s not going to help anyone handing out blame left right and centre. I don’t really blame Miles and I certainly don’t blame you, Hannes. Everyone else got safely down and it was you that led the search party that rescued me and Miles. So I think we’re quits.’
Hannes smiled, took his seat and shook the reins. The horse walked slowly forward, placing his hooves carefully on the slippery road. The sturdy open carriage jingled and rattled.
‘Nevertheless,’ said Hannes, once they were under way, ‘I feel responsible, James, and I would like to make it up to you. We have spoken about it, Herr Merriot and I, and I would like to offer you my hospitality.’
‘What do you mean?’ said James, his breath coming out as a white fog.
‘As you know, the doctors were not happy to let you out of the clinic so soon –’
‘Oh, but I’m quite all right,’ James interrupted. ‘If I’d spent another day in there I would have –’
‘Let him finish,’ said Mr Merriot.
‘They asked if there might be someone who could look after you for a few days,’ Hannes went on. ‘Until we are all sure that you are not suffering any after-effects from your adventure.’
‘As I say,’ James insisted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘Hannes is offering to put you up at his house,’ said Merriot. ‘Just for a few days. It was the only way we could prise you out of the doctors’ claws.’
‘I could give you some extra
help with your skiing,’ said Hannes. ‘That is, if you can face getting back on the snow.’
‘I can’t wait,’ said James. ‘But really, I don’t want to be any bother.’
‘It will not be any trouble,’ said Hannes, urging the sure-footed horse down the narrow road. ‘It will be my great pleasure. My wife, Helga, is dying to meet you.’
The Oberhausers’ farm lay on the lower slopes of the Hahnenkamm. They had an orchard and twenty cows, which were laid up for the winter in a large barn underneath the back of the house. They were kept warm there, and in turn warmed the house. Hannes explained that in the summer Helga looked after the cows while he made a good living as a mountain guide for the many walkers and climbers who came to the area.
The farmhouse was built into the side of the mountain and had a raised veranda at the front reached by wooden steps. It was entirely built of pine, stained almost black by preservatives, and cut into pretty shapes around the doors and windows and along the eaves. There was more wood for the fire neatly stacked along one side beneath the wide, pitched roof.
Inside it was cosy and warm. Two wood-burning stoves heated the main living area that was filled with blankets and rugs and painted, pine furniture. When James arrived there was a big pot of stew bubbling on the range in the kitchen and it filled the house with delicious cooking smells.
Helga was a jolly, plump woman, who greeted James with two shy toddlers clutching her skirts and a tiny baby in her arms. Once she realised that James spoke German she bombarded him with questions as she busied herself about the place.
There were more questions over supper and James felt finally that he was thawing. It was as if he’d been turned into a solid block of ice and was only now beginning to melt. He felt his tight muscles relax, his breathing slow and deepen, the knotted tension in his spine work loose.
He found himself opening up to these kind, honest people more than he had opened up to anyone since his parents had died. He wondered if it was because he was using a different language; it was almost like being a different person. He talked about his life, his Aunt Charmian, his friends, his problems at school, the fact that all his trousers were getting too short for him, how nice the food was – all the ordinary little things that he normally never bothered with.
This must be what it’s like, he thought. This must be what it’s like to have a mother and father. He had to force himself not to cry. It wasn’t the sad things that made him emotional, or the hurtful, and it certainly wasn’t fear… it was simple kindness. It was the decency in the hearts of ordinary people.
After supper they played cards and chatted until James felt his eyelids growing heavy.
Helga showed him up to his room, which was at the back of the house, tucked up under the roof. It reminded him of his room at Eton, which also had a sloping ceiling. But this was much more welcoming.
He smiled as he slipped under the fresh clean sheets. He was going to like it here.
As he drifted into sleep however, a voice came back to him, crying in the darkness…
‘Schneeblind! Sie werden meinen Vetter Jürgen töten…’
Snow-blind! They are trying to kill my cousin Jürgen…
The rest of the week passed without incident. There was skiing during the days and supper and cards with the Oberhausers, or a meal in town with the boys, in the evenings. In a way James preferred the calmness and solitude at the Oberhausers. They never pried or probed too deeply if they felt that James didn’t want to talk about something. With the boys it was different. All they wanted to discuss was James’s escapade with Miles.
James was miserly with his responses. He would rather forget all about it. He hated being the centre of attention and felt, in a way, that he had failed. He wasn’t a hero.
Far from it.
The truth was that they had got lost, Miles had broken his leg and James had failed to get him safely down off the mountain.
One night the boys were sitting in a coffee house on the Hinterstadt in Kitzbühel, once again discussing what had happened. They were drinking creamy hot chocolate and all shouting at once and laughing noisily.
‘You should have left mouthy Miles up there,’ said Teddy Mackereth. ‘It’s been blessedly, blissfully, beautifully quiet since he’s been in hospital.’
Miles was still in the clinic. His leg had been very badly broken, and his parents would be arriving the next day to take him home to England.
‘You should have broken his other leg,’ said Gordon Latimer.
‘He’s not so bad,’ said James, forced to defend the boy, even though he, too, had found him intensely irritating.
‘He thinks he knows it all, but he didn’t know enough to come the right way down the mountain,’ said Teddy. ‘We all managed to get down in one piece, why couldn’t he?’
‘Keep it under your hat,’ said James, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. ‘But he was drunk.’
‘No?’
‘Yes.’
The boys all burst out laughing, and their noise grew noticeably louder.
The events were already fading into a bad memory and James could see the funny side. He hadn’t mentioned Miles’s drinking to anyone else before. He reckoned the poor boy had enough on his plate. Obviously his two cronies knew what had happened – they had shared the schnapps after all – but until now James had thought it best not to say anything about it. He trusted the other boys not to blab to any masters, though, so Miles shouldn’t get into any trouble over it.
When the boys left the coffee house in a rowdy gaggle they passed a darkened archway that led to the Sport Hotel. Had they looked down it they would have seen a man in a trilby writing something in a notebook. And, had they looked in that notebook, they would have found a record of exactly what James had been up to since he had left the hospital. Provided, of course, that they were able to decipher the code it was written in.
It was all there in minute detail. The precise times James had left the Oberhausers’ chalet in the mornings, where he went skiing and for how long, what he did at the end of each day, who he spoke to, who he seemed friends with, who he avoided. The man hadn’t missed a thing. And he had stayed hidden all the while. Hanging back. Keeping his distance. Watching.
It was only on those few occasions when James was by himself that the man had moved closer, becoming even more alert and cautious.
One time James had visited the shops to look out a gift for his Aunt Charmian. The man had never been more than a few feet away from him the whole time, waiting to see if James strayed into a deserted part of town. But James had stayed on the brightly lit main shopping street.
On nights like this James would walk back to the Oberhausers’ and the man would shadow him every step of the way, watching him like a cat watches a mouse. The boy always looked so innocent, so careless of danger, so unaware of what might be lurking in the night.
For now, the man’s orders were to watch.
He didn’t mind watching, though. It was his job after all, what he had been trained to do. He was patient. He knew that in the end all this careful waiting would pay off. There would come a time when he would make his move, and make it count.
That night James talked to Hannes about leaving. The holiday was nearly over and soon James would be on his way back to England. Hannes insisted that he must return some time, and some time soon.
‘But don’t wait until the winter,’ he said. ‘The Alps are beautiful in summer. There is walking, climbing, swimming in the Schwarzsee.’
‘I do like it here,’ said James. ‘And I should love to see the mountains all covered in green. I don’t know if my aunt has plans for the summer holidays, though.’
‘You must both come,’ said Hannes. ‘I have grown very fond of you since you have been here. There will always be a bed for you in Kitzbühel, and if there is ever any way I can help you then do not hesitate to ask.’
‘You are much too kind,’ said James. ‘You and Helga. I shall definitely return one day.’<
br />
‘See that you do.’
The next morning Andrew Carlton met James as he came out of the farmhouse. They had arranged to say goodbye to Miles and see him off. The weather had turned. It was warmer and the snow was beginning to melt. There was still some skiing to be had on the upper slopes, but the season would soon be over. The roads were all open, so Andrew had arrived in a taxi to take them up to the clinic.
There was a greyness to the day, a light drizzle was speeding the thaw and the snow in the valleys was changing to slush. It was piled up at the edges of the roads in dirty heaps. The car sent up a fine spray as it hissed along.
‘We’ll soon be back at school,’ said Andrew glumly, writing his name on the steamed-up taxi window.
‘It won’t be so bad,’ said James. ‘I’m looking forward to catching up with old friends.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ said Andrew. ‘You missed the entire last half. Some of us were chained to our desks.’
‘At least summer is coming,’ said James. ‘Things always seem better in the sunshine. Eton in winter is pretty grim.’
‘Well, that’s just it,’ said Andrew. ‘Summer may be coming, but autumn will follow summer, and winter will follow autumn, on and on forever and ever, amen.’
‘You’re sounding like an old man,’ said James with a laugh. ‘Boys aren’t supposed to think that far ahead.’
‘I know,’ said Andrew, ‘but can you really imagine all the long years of your life you’re going to be spending at Eton?’
‘I’m not like you,’ said James. ‘I don’t look much past next weekend. I try to enjoy today and not worry about what tomorrow might bring.’
‘I wish it were that simple,’ said Andrew. ‘But I’m afraid my father has my whole life already mapped out for me. Eton, then Cambridge, study hard, but not too hard, leave plenty of time for rowing, maybe a blue, then I’m to join the family firm, settle down with a nice little wife and start breeding the next generation of Carltons so that they can do the same thing all over again.’