Read Online By Royal Command by Charlie Higson - Free Book Online Page B

Perhaps the weather will have cleared by the morning. There’s some kind of sledge here, large enough to take a man. I could take you down on that tomorrow. I assume there must be a fairly easy route from here.’
    ‘Should we not go now?’
    ‘No.’ James went to the window and looked out. A fresh snowstorm had settled in and thick flakes swirled in the air. The sky was completely blotted out by heavy clouds and it looked for all the world as if it was the middle of the night.
    ‘I’m shattered,’ he said. ‘And you’re in no fit state to be stumbling around out there in the dark.’
    ‘My leg hurts like the devil,’ said Miles, and James noticed that he still couldn’t bear to look at it.
    ‘I’ll see if there’s anything here to take the pain away,’ he said, and rummaged through the cabinets and storage boxes. He eventually found a first aid box that contained, among other items, a tin with the Bayer trademark on it. Inside the tin was a packet of aspirin. He gave two to Miles.
    By this time the kettle had boiled and James made two mugs of beef tea.
    When Miles took his tin mug, he was shaking all over, and, despite being wrapped in two blankets, he complained of being freezing cold. James realised that he was cold too. He stripped off his damp outer layers and hung them to dry on a chair back. His boots were soaked as well. He didn’t want to risk taking them off, in case he couldn’t get them back on again, so he propped his feet up on a stool near the stove and watched the sodden leather gently steam.
    He closed his eyes. His head felt heavy as a cannon ball. It tipped forward and he was out like a light.
    The next thing he knew he was being shaken awake by Miles.
    ‘What is it?’ said James, momentarily confused. ‘What’s the matter?’
    Miles looked wild-eyed and feverish. He was using a broom for a crutch and had taken half his clothes off. He was running with sweat.
    ‘My leg,’ he said. ‘It’s burning up. I’m in agony. I don’t think I can stand it any longer. You have to get me down from here; you have to get me to a doctor.’
    ‘That would be crazy,’ said James, glancing at the window. It was pitch dark outside. The panes of glass might just as well have been coated with black paint. ‘You’ll be all right in the morning…’
    ‘No.’ Miles grabbed James and shook him roughly. ‘I’ve heard of cases, people with broken limbs, they get infected. I might lose my leg. I might die. I can’t bear the pain any more. I want to chew my leg off.’
    James stood up stiffly and struggled over to the window. It seemed to have stopped snowing at least, but there were no stars visible in the sky.
    ‘If we go out there,’ he said, ‘the likelihood is that you will only come to more harm.’
    ‘Y-you said there was a sledge,’ Miles stammered. ‘Put me on it. Get me down from here, or I swear I shall die.’
    James stared out of the window into the blackness.
    What should he do?
    Miles was becoming more agitated by the second. James didn’t want to risk being cooped up in this cabin with a mad person, and there was no way that Miles could get down the mountain by himself.
    But to go out there? Into the night. With the temperature below freezing.
    How many people had died on this mountain, he wondered. And what bitter irony it would be to die in the same way as his parents.
    Miles groaned like a trapped animal and when James turned round he saw that he was struggling to get dressed.
    ‘It’s madness,’ said James.
    ‘I’m going,’ said Miles. ‘Whether you like it or not.’
    James realised there was no arguing with him.
    James dressed quickly in his damp clothes and found a torch, some climbing equipment and a rope. He lifted the sledge down from where it was hanging on the wall, took it outside and laid it on the ground. It felt bitterly cold out here after being inside the cosy little hut and James would have given anything to go back indoors, lie down under a pile of