Read Online The Winter Pony by Iain Lawrence - Free Book Online

looked long abandoned and now was stuffed full of snow and ice because someone had left a window open. But there was still food on the table, and more on the shelves, and signs of men all around, as if they’d heard us coming and run away to hide. Patrick found a tin of gingerbread that was crisp and sweet. Captain Scott discovered dinner rolls that had been put down half finished, and still had teeth marks in them.
    I could tell that Captain Scott had been there before, that he had lived in the hut for a while. But other people had come and gone since he’d left it, and he was angry at things they had done. It made him sad and silent as he stood in the doorway, as if he was looking at ghosts.
    On the sheltered side of the hut were footprints in the snow, where the wind had not swept them away. I snuffled around, wondering if I might find forgotten biscuits, or apples frozen solid. Instead, I found the marks of pony hooves pressed deeply into old drifts.
    That was a curious thing. Disturbing. I didn’t like to think that other ponies had been to this frozen world and now had disappeared. I wished the men would tell me who had brought them, and what had happened in the end. But no one did.

    It was late when we left the lonely hut with our first loads, heading south again. We struggled up to the Barrier, that huge, vast plain of snow and ice. It stretched farther than I could see, and its barren whiteness scared me. I kept looking sideways at the mountains on my right, glad they were nearby but afraid they would soon fade away. The men marked our path by building cairns of snow.
    We traveled just half a mile more until Captain Scott blew on a whistle, and the man in the lead swung to the side with his pony. The rest of us followed, all turning out to the left, till we stood in a line sideways to our trail. As men set up their tents, our handlers stretched a picket line between two sledges and tied us to it with our tethers. They gave us food and blankets before they went away to their meals.
    This was our first camp on the Barrier, and what a very cold place it was. I stood with my tail to the wind, watching Patrick’s tent. I never took my eyes away from it until he emerged in the morning.
    The second day was worse. We went back with our empty sledges and brought more supplies up onto the Barrier. It was fine until we pushed past our old camp. Then we came into a big patch of soft snow, and I sank right into it. For half a mile, all of us floundered along. But I had the worst time of it, andthe other ponies passed me. When the snow grew solid again, I tried too hard to catch up. I tripped and sprained an ankle.
    It was sudden. A jolt of pain burned through my leg and I fell forward onto my chest. Patrick, beside me, looked startled. “James, what’s wrong?” he said.
    I didn’t want him to see that I was hurt. An injured pony was a dead pony; I had seen it a hundred times. So I clambered up and stood wobbling for a moment, trying not to cry out as I waited for the pain to go away. I ate some snow, though it chilled me right through. Then I pulled at the traces and tugged the sledge forward, hoping no one would notice my lameness.
    But Patrick looked at me strangely. “You’re limping,” he said.
    I tried to keep going, but he wouldn’t let me. He held my halter and called out loudly, “Captain Oates!”
    His voice drifted away across the Barrier, soaked up by the snow and the sky. He shouted again, “Sir, my pony can’t walk!”
    Far ahead, leading Punch, Mr. Oates stopped and looked back. Patrick waved to him with wide sweeps of his arm.
    As much as I wanted to go on, it was a relief to stop walking. Big Uncle Bill was nearly a quarter of a mile ahead by then. He turned his head to see me. So did Weary Willy—much closer. So did Blucher and Guts and Blossom. But they all kept hauling through the snow. I didn’t expect them to stop, because there was nothing they could do. We had known all of our lives—or