The Abandoned (Jennie)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: The Last Fight

MY Jennie come aaaaaaaout! Naaaaaaow naaaaaaow come aaaaaout!'

The low-pitched, insistent cry from the street penetrated the pitch-black tunnel where Peter was crawling slowly but steadily towards the exit orifice. And now that the moment was so close at hand when he must face Dempsey, Peter knew that he was very lonely and very much afraid. Nevertheless, he kept on.

When he had been together with Jennie, in the safety and security of their home, he had had the comfort and aid of her presence to keep him from dwelling too long in his mind or imagination upon the consequences of the encounter that lay ahead of him. Also, for the world he would not have let Jennie see that he perhaps might be worried or apprehensive.

But here in the dark of the tunnel, by himself, with no one to see him, with none for whom to put up the front of bravery and careless courage, he could yield to being horribly afraid. He was frightened of what awaited him on the outside in the street, Nevertheless, he kept on moving in that direction.

He felt fear of everything that might be about to happen, the lacerating pains of bite and tear, the dizzying buffets and crushing holds, the indignities of the assaults about to be launched upon his person as well as his own loss of humanity in that in a few moments he would be trying his best to destroy the life of a fellow. He did not realize it at the moment that these were quite human thoughts, for in spite of his cat body and keen eyes and ears, sharp claws and teeth, he was still Peter, and it was really a boy who would some day become a man, and not a cat at all, who was preparing to go into a fight. But even had he so realized, it would not have helped him very much, or minimized the dangers, or the awful figure of Dempsey that loomed up in his mind.

For there in the darkness, creeping ever nearer to his enemy, Peter found himself magnifying the powers and proportions of Dempsey beyond all bounds. In his mind he became as large as the lion he had seen at the fun fair, with claws of steel, curved and as long and sharp as surgeons' knives, and with terrible yellow fangs dripping poison. Dempsey's eyes were larger around than dinner plates, and devastating lightnings flashed there-from. Nevertheless, without ever for a moment halting, or even contemplating turning back, Peter continued to move steadily onward in that wonderfully controlled slow-motion approach that Jennie had taught him when there was something to stalk, and always closer to the battleground where the horrible apparition he was thinking up for himself awaited him.

Thus he came from the tunnel behind the baseboard to the hole where the intake pipe was rusted through, and thence into the pipe itself where a few feet ahead he could see the exit into the street illuminated by the pale rays from the lamp a little down the block.

And at this point, quite suddenly he ceased to be afraid, or rather, to be more accurate, he stopped bothering about it, for now he had other and more important things on his mindwhich was to make his exit on to the street and face Dempsey without being caught at a disadvantage. He contemplated what might happen if Dempsey suddenly took a notion to stick

his head into the entrance of the pipe to see whether or not Jennie was coming, and he had a momentary vision of the entire diameter of the pipe filled with the huge, square, scarred, sneering face. But then he remembered Jennie's assurance that Dempsey was too old and experienced a customer to go sticking his head into anything he did not know, particularly at night, and besides at that moment he heard the old fighter's cry again-'Come aaaaaaout, Jennie …'

Peter, therefore, as he had been taught to do, settled down almost at the mouth of the pipe to sniff things out and receive through the ends of his whiskers all the messages of where and how things were and what were the conditions on the battleground-to-be.

The church-tower clock of St. Dunstan's began to chime and Peter counted the strokes almost automatically. 'Six-seven. eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve.' Midnight, then. He twitched his sensitive moustaches and felt the presence of Dempsey, but not in the immediate vicinity of the exit from the warehouse. He could not tell exactly how far, but he felt sure that his enemy was squatted some little distance away from the aperture, at least a few yards.

His whiskers told him there was not a human in the street, and not another animal, dog or cat, or sleeping sparrow.

There was no footfall. No vehicle moved. The sky was overcast with the stars and the waning moon hidden, and there was a hint of rain to come.

`Come aaaaaaout naaaaaaaaaow, my Jennie, come-'

Peter stepped out into the street and Dempsey's call was cut off as though someone had slipped a noose around his throat. He was sitting several yards from the mouth of the hole leading into the warehouse. He did not look as big as a lion. He did not look like anything but what he was, a strong, compactly-built tomcat with a broad, flat head and powerful shoulders. He did not look any larger or stronger than Peter himself, for in the days of his vagabondage and travels with Jennie Peter had grown, filled out and strengthened.

There he sat, the street lamp showing up his dirty yellow colour and the scar that ran across his nose, and the battle-torn ears, lean and rakish and sinister enough, but at that moment frozen into immobility by sheer surprise. And for that brief second Peter had the advantage and should have hurled himself across the intervening space straight at Dempsey's throat before he could recover from his astonishment, or even realize that a battle was impending. But this Peter could not bring himself to do. Instead he said-'Jennie isn't coming. But I'm here .. .

The growl of rage and hatred that came from the throat of Dempsey as he arose and backed away from the wall sounded almost infeline in its quivering depth, passion and intensity. Then hoarsely he inquired– –'You! Who are YOU?'

Peter was not at all afraid any more. At the moment Dempsey was nothing more than a rather ordinary– looking alley cat put considerably out of countenance. Peter had seen bigger cats on his travels. He said to him: `Look again. You ought to remember me after doing me the dirty as you did. I'm taking care of Jennie Baldrin now.'

Another terrible growl, more fiend than feline, issued from Dempsey's throat, and he spat: `Oh … YOU! I remember you now! My warehouse. Trespassing. I warned you then if ever you crossed my path again I would kill you. I'm going to kill you now!' And with that he began to go crooked, bush his tail and swell up until he really did begin to look enormous, menacing and twice his size.

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 ..'