Harry in the Wild: Astounding Stories of Adventure (Iron Pegasus Book 2)

  Harry in the Wild

  (Iron Pegasus #2)

  Steve Turnbull

  Harry in the Wild

  By Steve Turnbull

  Copyright © 2015 Steve Turnbull. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-1-910342-26-8

  This novella is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without permission of the publisher.

  Published by Tau Press Ltd.

  Cover art by Steven Novak (novakillustration.com)

  Edited by Karen Conlin (grammargeddon.com)

  Ebook Layout by Dave Higgins (Davetopia)

  For Ben.

  i

  Harry shifted her weight, trying to find a position on the boulder that was a little more comfortable. She was shaded from the morning sunshine by an ancient fir tree with a gnarled trunk. The air was still cold up here in the mountains and wouldn’t warm until the afternoon, but that didn’t stop the sun’s dazzling rays reflecting off the small lake.

  This was the hideaway she and Khuwelsa had found deep in the heart of the Usambara Mountains. It was what remained of a volcano. The eroded lip of its rim made a circle all around them and, except for the lake, it was filled with tall Christmas trees. It was strange to see them here, but they grew profusely on the upper slopes of the mountains.

  There was little in the way of animals, mostly wild goats that had probably become separated from their herds and made their way in here. The outer slopes were very steep, but mountain goats could climb anything. Birds did not need to climb; there were plenty of them here.

  And the Pegasus, of course. She did not have a problem coming over the rim, either. Harry glanced round at her air-plane perched on a small plateau of rock a few yards up the slope. Her wings folded in around her body, sitting there as if she were roosting. A thin trail of smoke drifted up from her chimney.

  A splash from the water brought Harry’s attention back to the glassy surface of the lake, reflecting a blurry image of the trees and cliff on the opposite bank. Khuwelsa swam into view using a strong over-arm stroke.

  Their tutor, if she were here, would have been horrified. Swimming was not something ladies did. Not to mention that swimming in the nude in a mountain lake, no matter how secluded, was scandalous.

  Khuwelsa steered towards the shore below where Harry was sitting and glided up to the bank. She pulled herself out of the water and shivered. Harry threw her one of the large towels they had stolen from the house. Khuwelsa rubbed herself down.

  “You should come in,” she said. “It’s lovely.”

  Harry shrugged. “Really not feeling like it.”

  “You’ve been moping around for weeks.”

  “I know.” Harry stood up on the rock and looked out across the water. “Just … well, you know.”

  Khuwelsa nodded and wrapped the towel about herself the way the native women wore their wraps, their kitenge. It always struck Harry as strange when her sister did that. Of course, she had been wearing one when their father had brought her home, so she must have put it on every day. It was second nature to her.

  “We haven’t done anything really naughty for ages,” said Khuwelsa.

  No, they hadn’t. After they had destroyed the four German Zeppelins they had been confined to the house for days. Mrs Hemingway had been apoplectic and retired to her bed with the vapours.

  Harry had not minded being kept at home, at least at first. After the reality of what the two of them had done hit her, she spent a week alternating being physically sick with nervous distraction. Men had died. She and Sellie had killed them.

  Things did not improve when her father returned home one day with the news that the official German report was that less than twenty had drowned in the end. It did not make Harry feel any better. Even one was bad enough. Sellie seemed to cope better, but they had bouts of mutual crying.

  “You did the right thing,” said her father. “Even though I would have forbidden it if I had known what you intended.”

  It was easy to rationalise: If they had not done it, many more British sailors and soldiers would have died—possibly even their father.

  But it made no difference.

  So for three long weeks she had moped around the house while Sellie tinkered with the Pegasus.

  Harry sighed, then blinked as a movement on the far side of the crater caught her eye. Something moved in the dark beneath the trees like a liquid shadow. She frowned. It faded into the background.

  “Did you see that?” she said.

  “What?”

  Khuwelsa looked where Harry pointed across the water. Khuwelsa raised her hand to shade her eyes, then shook her head. “Imagining things now?”

  “No, there was something.”

  Harry glanced around the edge of the lake to the left and right; she knew from experience that it was very difficult to get round. This small area was the only place with the magical combination of a not-too-steep slope and a landing spot.

  She started to strip.

  Khuwelsa harrumphed. “Oh right, so now you want to go in the water. Just when I’ve managed to get dry.”

  Harry wriggled out of her dress, leaving just her bloomers and chemise. She climbed down to the water’s edge and placed her toe in it. “It’s freezing.”

  Sellie shrugged. “You get used to it.” She gave no indication she intended follow. “You know, when you get back, you’ll have wet underthings.”

  Harry did not rise to her taunt. “Are you coming?”

  “No,” she said. “You go off and have your big adventure. I’m going to get dressed and read a book.”

  “Fine,” Harry said with annoyance. “Read your bloody book.”

  “Well, someone round here needs to acquire an academic education,” she said. “And it would be wasted on you.”

  Which is what Mrs Hemingway always said about Khuwelsa. The woman did not like teaching Sellie; an education was wasted on a black girl. Not that she thought an education was a great deal of use to a white one either, since a woman’s sole purpose in life was to marry and have children.

  Harry stepped out onto a submerged boulder and shivered as the cold seeped into her calves. She crouched down and pushed off into the water. The numbing cold stole the warmth from her skin, but it was invigorating. As she moved out from the shade the sun beat down on her head and back.

  She was more comfortable with the breast stroke because it allowed her to watch the opposite bank as she moved smoothly across the lake. Nothing unusual presented itself: just the pine trees and, on the higher slopes, small groups of goats. Their occasional bleating echoed round the caldera.

  It took her a few minutes to reach the other side, the last few yards through a surface covered in floating pine cones. On this side there were no boulders or convenient shore line. The crater’s slope emerged directly out of the water and climbed at a sharp angle. The trees were perched precariously, but they, too, were old and had not fallen yet.

  Harry peered into the pine-scented dark. She heard a low growl. Not threatening, it reminded her of the sound the family cats made when they were tearing a rat to pieces.

  Then she saw it. The dappled colouring of the cheetah merged perfectly with the half light of the wood. It was ea
ting something. Probably a goat it had brought down. Then she heard the clink of metal against stone. Again. And again.

  Grabbing hold of a tree root that thrust out into the water, she hauled herself up onto the slope. The floor was covered in pine needles. It meant she moved quietly but every now and then one would stick into the water-softened sole of her foot. She had to clamp her mouth down on the unladylike words she wanted to utter.

  She looked back across the water. The Pegasus gleamed in the sunshine, and next to it in one of the deck chairs they had brought sat Khuwelsa, her attention thoroughly on the book.

  Harry turned back to the slope. She climbed around the tree and pushed herself up towards the next. The sounds of eating stopped, and she peered forward. A few yards up the slope the cheetah’s eyes glowed silver as it studied her. She was still unable to make out what it was eating.

  She grabbed a branch of the next tree and climbed closer. The cheetah growled a warning. The cat was not planning on letting this meal go if he could help it. She entirely appreciated his position but was not about to be put off.

  There was no handy branch lying about but many pine cones. She gathered up a handful, took aim, and threw the first. Throwing uphill as she was, she did not get close. The cheetah followed the pine cone’s path through the air until it landed and rolled back. Turning its attention back on Harry, it lashed its tail.

  This was not going so well, Harry thought. She needed to get more aggressive.

  She gathered a large pile of cones on the slope in front of her, and with her back against a tree threw them one after the other, using both hands to maintain the barrage. And she shouted. “Get out. Get lost. Run away!” Again and again.

  Under the onslaught the cheetah held its ground for almost twenty seconds, but as Harry’s supply of cones was running down it decided to find its dinner elsewhere and loped off up the slope.

  Relieved by the big cat’s capitulation Harry climbed to the next tree. And then stared down at the dead man in a military uniform lying on the ground in front of her.

  ii

  Harry recognised the uniform. This was a deckhand from a German military airship. It was as if one of the men whose deaths she had caused had returned to haunt her. The man had not been lying here long; the cheetah had had a go at his hand but apart from a few scrapes and scratches he was in one piece. Only the flies were interested.

  His clothing had a sprinkling of pine needles across it, which suggested he had rolled when he hit the ground. He had come to rest against the tree above her on the slope.

  Probably just an accident, she thought. Nothing to get excited about.

  The simplest course of action would be to leave him. Let the cheetah and other wildlife eat the evidence. In a few weeks there would be nothing left except bone, cloth, and metal.

  His face was turned to look down the slope towards the water and his eyes were open. He wasn’t much older than her, just a few years at most. She should just leave him. Except she would always know he was lying here, rotting away. She and Khuwelsa could never come back if he remained.

  She knew what Khuwelsa would say: He has a family somewhere. Because she had a family somewhere, her real family. Her abduction from her tribe was the one thing she would never talk about. She said she didn’t remember but Harry knew she was lying.

  Harry sighed. No two ways about it; she would have to do the right thing.

  She clambered up the slope until she was above him. There was no elegant way she could do this on her own. She grabbed his legs and lifted. The body was stiff which, she understood, happened for a few hours after someone died. So he had been here since before she had arrived.

  She had not seen any other flyers when they approached, but she hadn’t been looking hard. This area was not on any regular route.

  Heavy as he was, she managed to twist his body until it was no longer being blocked by the tree and in the process she turned him face up. She hung on to his trousers and dug her bare heels into the ground as his weight dragged them both down the slope towards the water’s edge.

  She held on tight and cringed every time his head hit a root or a rock. As they reached the shoreline she twisted him once more until another tree and its roots supported his weight. Sweating with the exertion, she sat on the root by his head to rest.

  Harry noticed a “V” of ripples in the lake, which converged on Khuwelsa’s head. A little distance out she trod water and spotted Harry sitting with the corpse. The sunlight glistened on her wet black hair.

  “Are you all right?”

  Harry shrugged. “Better than him.” She gestured at the head beside her.

  Khuwelsa squinted. “What are you—” She stopped and peered into the dark shadow. “What have you done, Harry?”

  “Done?” said Harry in annoyance. “Oh well, I flapped my arms, flew up to the nearest Zeppelin, coshed this lad over the head, brought him back, and then killed him. You know, like all the others.”

  Khuwelsa swam to the shore, clearing a path through the floating pine cones. She came in under the shadow of the trees and grabbed on to a root below Harry. She studied the man’s face.

  “Is he what you saw moving in the trees?”

  “No,” said Harry. “That was a cheetah planning to make a meal of him. I chased it off, found him. He’s been dead a few hours, I think.”

  “You thinking of getting him back to the Pegasus?”

  Harry nodded. “Can’t leave him here, but I’m not sure how to get him across.”

  Khuwelsa made a face. “Dead bodies fill up with gas like a balloon pretty quick.”

  “Well, if he doesn’t float I suppose the fish will eat him and we can say we tried.”

  As Harry spoke she saw a far-away look in Khuwelsa’s eyes, the one that meant she was having an idea. “Fill his pockets with pine cones and shove more of them inside his shirt.”

  “You expect me to touch him?” said Harry.

  “You already have.”

  Harry didn’t bother arguing. She got to her feet and clambered round to the other side of the body. Khuwelsa picked the least-waterlogged pine cones from the water and tossed them up to her. Eventually they had his clothes packed with as many as Harry could find space for, and she called a halt.

  Harry grabbed his legs once more and moved him round the tree. With the extra weight he slipped from her fingers, slid with barely a splash into the lake, and disappeared beneath the surface.

  “Oh,” said Khuwelsa, staring at the eddying surface where he disappeared. Although the water in the lake was perfectly clear, the sun reflecting on it prevented them seeing into its depths.

  “We did what we could.” Harry was about to speak again but was distracted by a disturbance in the water about ten feet out. The body surfaced. It drifted towards the opposite bank at a sedate pace.

  Khuwelsa pushed off to catch it. Harry clambered down and let herself into the cold water. She caught up with Khuwelsa, who was holding on to an arm and sculling towards the opposite shore. Harry took the other and they propelled him across the lake.

  Working together they pulled the dead man up on to the further bank and removed the pine cones.

  “If we let him drain and dry in the sun for a while, he’ll be easier to move,” said Khuwelsa. “And it’ll give time for your clothes to dry, too.”

  “Well, I’m not taking them off with him here,” said Harry.

  “Seriously?” said Khuwelsa. “Your body is the last thing he’s interested in.”

  “Well, you obviously don’t care,” said Harry referring to Khuwelsa’s undressed state. “It’s the principle.”

  Khuwelsa laughed. “Whatever you like. I’m going to put my dry clothes on and read a bit longer.”

  Harry watched her go, then turned her attention back to the dead German. Now that the water had washed him clean she could see a dark, round bruise about three inches in diameter on his close-shaven head where the skull looked unnaturally flat. She sighed and hoped he had not
suffered. Well, no more than anyone would suffer falling out of a flying machine.

  Perhaps it was true what they said, that one died of fright before hitting the ground. It would be a comfort if that were true. There was a badge sewn into his lapel. Harry leaned over to get closer. Wings denoted an air service but they were attached to a round shape with criss-crossed lines. It meant nothing to her.

  The sun was warm on her back. Their governess was constantly warning Harry about being out in the sun. But the worst that had happened to Harry was an increase in the number of her freckles. Khuwelsa thought her freckles were interesting, and that was good enough for Harry.

  His right hand caught her attention. It was clenched as if he was holding something.

  She glanced up at Khuwelsa engrossed in her book. The man’s fingers would not move; the body’s stiffness included those muscles. She studied the fist. He was definitely holding something white. She poked at it, squeezing her little finger into the gap. Her nail hit something hard. It wasn’t metal, nor was it wood.

  Her curiosity got the better of her and she prised the fingers apart until they opened with a crack. She glanced at Khuwelsa guiltily, and mouthed an apology to the body.

  After a few minutes of rooting around with a stick she managed to retrieve the object from the gap between the boulders where it had fallen. It was roughly two inches long, off-white and slightly marbled on the outside, with a curved pyramidal shape. Holding it up to the light she could see it wasn’t smooth but had ridges running along its length. The sawn-off side revealed concentric rings that went from white on the outside to slightly greenish in the middle.

  What it most resembled was a large tooth.

  iii

  “Where shall we go?” Harry said.

  The Pegasus was still perched on the plateau overlooking the lake. Steam was up, the body wrapped in a blanket and tied down out of the way behind the pilot’s chair. Harry was ready to go but was not sure where.