Far, Far the Mountain Peak

by Arthur Clifford

  He handed over 200 dihrams.

  Saint Bloody George

  In triumph he returned to the others.

  ‘Great lad!’

  ‘Worra tell yer, lads! He’s Saint bloody George, him!’

  For a brief moment he wallowed in the applause. Yes, truly, John the wimp, John the shit-stabber, bashed up by Kev and laid out by Dobson, had been swallowed up by John the tough mountaineer and resourceful explorer!

  The girls were hoisted onto the donkeys along with their baggage. After two hours the group reached Imlil.

  ‘Bakshish! Bakshish!’ said one of the men.

  ‘I’d better give him something,’ sighed John.

  He rummaged in his rucksack and handed over his one and only spare shirt to one of the men.

  ‘Bakshish! Bakshish!’ chorused the other one aggressively.

  In desperation John handed over his spare pair of jeans. Apart from two pairs of socks and a pair of underpants, he now had no clothes except what he was wearing. Should he get wet or something, he was going to have problems. Of course, the Bible said you shouldn’t worry about what clothes you were going to wear. God was supposed to see to that, just as he looked after the sartorial needs of the sparrows. And after all this Christian generosity of his, God bloody well ought to provide something. Part of the bargain. But would the mingy old thing honour it? Probably not. However!

  ‘Right, team,’ he said. ‘Now let’s see about a bus to Marrakesh.’

  Happy Ending?

  But there was no bus to Marrakesh, not even a minibus.

  ‘Looks like we’re stuck here for the night,’ said Jim. ‘Where does we doss down, lads?’

  Just then John saw a lorry, with a group of rough, moustachioed characters climbing into the cab.

  ‘Hang on!’ he said, ‘I’ll try that lorry. Maybe they’ll give us a lift to Marrakesh.’

  He scampered over to it: ‘Excusez-moi monsieur, allez-vous à Marrakesh?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Combein pour transporter nous et notres baggages à Marrakesh?’

  ‘Cent dihrams.’

  He handed over a 100 dihram note and signalled to the others. ‘Problem solved, guys! They’ll take us to Marrakesh.’

  Helped by one of the men, they clambered into the back. With a roar of the engine and a grinding of gears, they lurched off amid clouds of dust.

  ‘Worra day! Worra set o’ adventures!’ said Jim as they bounced down the stony road.

  ‘Hang on!’ cried John. ‘ I’ve got one last shot in my camera. This’ll make a good ending!’

  Precariously trying to stand upright on the crazily vibrating platform, he managed to take the final picture and extract the film from the camera.

  ‘That’ll have to do until we get to Marrakesh.’

  ‘If we ever does get there,’ sighed Michael.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, we’re halfway there already!’

  ‘Ah mean, Ah divvent like the look o’ them blerks in the cab, me. Ah mean, what’s ter stop ’em pullin’ over and robbin’ us, like?’

  ‘We’ll ’ave a lot more ter worry aboot when we gets ter Marrakesh,’ said Maureen. ‘I mean, Joe’ll play war wi’ us, and why, Brian’ll bloody do wor!’

  ‘Not if Ah’ve got owt ter dee with it!’ said Jim, flashing his wicked leer, to which his pointy, fox-like face was well adapted.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Like what Ah said, Ah’ll just say Joe told us ter gan, like.’

  ‘But he didn’t, did he?’

  ‘Ah knaa he didn’t, but who’s ter prove it, like? It’ll be our word against his word. Ah mean, jus’ think. He’s gonna look pretty daft for lerrin’ us slip away without him noticin’ like, ain’t he? And then we can say he were pissed, an’ he can’t deny that! Pissed in charge of kids? He won’t want that to come oot, will he?’

  ‘Eeee, Jim lad! Yorra reet crook, ye!’

  The lorry bounced on.

  Soothed by the rush of cool air, John relapsed into a blissful torpor. He’d succeeded! What a tale to tell Bob! What a tale for his diary, and for the book he was going to write. ‘One day I’ll be famous.’ It was going to happen. Chris Bonnington had made the first British ascent of the North Face of the Eiger. John Denby had led the first Boldonbridge schoolboy ascent of the Jebel Toubkal. Slightly different in detail, perhaps, the difference was one of degree rather than of kind.

  The Red Badge of Courage

  Suddenly the lorry lurched onto the side of the road and jerked to a halt. Four large, bristly-chinned and beefy men got out of the cab and approached them, signalling to them to climb down.

  ‘What’s all this?’ said Jim. ‘John, you berra talk yer frog and find out.’

  ‘Mais nous allons à Marrakesh…’

  There was no reply. Instead, one of the men climbed up and started flinging their rucksacks onto the ground.

  ‘Hey! What are you doing?’

  Then John was grabbed and bodily lifted over the side. The others were similarly bundled unceremoniously off the lorry. It all happened so quickly that there was no time to think. As they picked themselves up off the ground, one of the men grabbed Michael’s arm and wrenched off his watch.

  ‘You bloody thief!’ snarled Jim, brandishing his fists.

  Then he fell silent as he found himself facing a drawn pistol and at least three long, sharp knives.

  The temperature dropped 30 degrees. The bewildering reality sunk in. This was for real. Not play. They were being robbed.

  ‘Montres! Cameras! Argent!’

  ‘What the fuck’s gannin’ on, John?’

  ‘They want our watches and money and cameras.’

  ‘Well they’re not gerrin’ mine!’ said Rob grandiloquently as one of the men seized his arm.

  Immediately, another of the men grabbed him and pointed a long knife at his throat. Bigger and obviously stronger, he towered over him: an unequal contest.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake give it to him, Rob!’ cried John. ‘I mean, you can always buy a new watch, but you can’t get a new liver if he sticks that knife into you!’

  Crude reality triumphed over adolescent bravado. Reluctantly and shamefacedly, they handed over their watches. John handed over his camera and his remaining dihrams. Jim let them take the Trangia from his rucksack.

  John felt physically sick. This was the one thing that, above all else, he dreaded: crude physical strength ruthlessly applied against weakness. He felt himself go limp and soggy, that Greenhill feeling. Then his innards began to churn round. Any moment now he was going to shit himself. The shame of it! And in front of the girls, too! Despite himself, he began to tremble violently and visibly. Not the budding Chris Bonnington, but the pathetic little wimp who’d been done over by Kev in front of everybody and everything.

  One of the men seized Tracy’s arm and brutally wrenched off her bracelet. Suddenly John saw a chance for redemption. Redeem yourself! Like that soldier in the American Civil War, win the Red Badge of Courage. Damsel in distress! Ride to the rescue. Maybe they’ll stick a knife into you, but that’s better than shitting your pants. And if they kill you, you won’t have to worry about that, will you?

  So, wild Kamikaze charge. Mad. Crazy. ‘Leave her alone, you bastard!’

  Colossal thump. Flash of light. Searing pain. Second thump. Fierce pain in the stomach. Gasping for breath. Hurtling to the ground. Thump into the dust. Blind terror. Curl up into a ball like a small kid. Wait for the agony of the knife thrust. Eyes closed. Feeble body taking over completely. Oh God, I am shitting myself! Total squalid humiliation.

  A long silence. Slow emerging consciousness. How to handle this one?

  He opened his eyes. There was no sign of the men or the lorry. Wave of relief. He was safe. Looking up, he saw Tracy and the others standing in a circle around him.
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br />   ‘Are you OK, John?’

  ‘Yeah! Yeah! I think so.’ Play the wounded hero. Might get you a bit of street cred.

  ‘Eeeeee, John!’ exclaimed Tracy. ‘You’re ever so brave! Yorra knight in shinin’ armour what sacrificed hissell for ter save a lass!’

  So the hero act had retrieved something out of the disaster. But what to do about the disgusting – and expanding! – mess in the ‘nether regions’? Soon it’ll be horribly visible. That’s hardly very good for the St George image, is it?

  He got up: ‘Hang on guys, I’d better slip behind that rock. I think I’m going to spew. That punch in the guts, you know.’

  Luckily the rock in question was big and capacious enough to conceal him while he completed the emptying operation and embarked on the cleansing operation. He was able to remove and bury his disgusting underpants, and scrabbling round with his handkerchief, he managed to wipe himself down. Situation saved. Dignity intact. But, oh God, did this sort of thing happen to Hector when he fought Achilles? Or to Bonnington when he’d climbed the North Face of the Eiger? Or, indeed, to old Mekon when he’d won his military medal? Certainly not, because they were proper people, not dirty little shit-stabbers like John Denby. Message received: no, John Denby, you’re not a budding Chris Bonnington. Not by a long chalk!

  Helpless

  He returned to the group.

  ‘Well done, John,’ said Jim. ‘You were great.’

  ‘Sorry, team,’ he replied, ‘I shouldn’t have got that lorry. But how the fuck was I to know they were bloody bandits?’

  ‘Bloody Pakkies!’ snarled Jim viciously.

  ‘Hadaway!’ said Tracy. ‘They’re not all thieves, yer knaa. Ah mean, that man in the cafe, he were ever so kind him.’

  ‘Aye,’ added Maureen, ‘an’ warraboot Kev an’ them lot? It ain’t just the Pakkies what’s thieves, yer knaa.’

  Silence.

  ‘So whadder we do now?’ said Rob eventually.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to wait till a bus comes,’ replied John.

  ‘And how the fuck are we gonna pay the bus fare when we’ve no fuckin’ dosh?’ said Jim.

  Silence. John couldn’t answer that question. As the reality of their predicament slowly sunk in, a feeling of utter helplessness descended on him. How to get back to Marrakesh? How to explain this catastrophe to Morris? And when Dobson heard about it he would have a field day. So now what? Dreams of glory shattered.

  The Brotherhood of the Helpless

  The shadows deepened. Night fell. Darkness overwhelmed the rocky, barren land, pierced here and there by the flickering lights of distant villages. Above them the sky blazed out with its infinity of glittering stars. The moon rose and bathed the distant mountains in its soft ethereal light. The silent majesty of eternal verities, far removed from the forlorn little group huddled on the roadside.

  By way of compensation, John felt a sense of togetherness. That underlying cleavage of different accents and different backgrounds withered before the reality of their shared predicament. Here, stranded and penniless beside that empty road, they were all the same. Naked before the blunt facts of existence.

  Rescue

  Hours later a white minibus drew up beside them, dazzling them with its headlights. A neatly dressed and very modern-looking Moroccan got out.

  ‘Que faites-vous ici? Vous êtes tres jeunes. Êtes-vous Français?’

  Instinctively they cowered away. Christ, not another set of thieves?

  ‘Talk to him, John,’ said Jim eventually.

  ‘Non, nous sommes Anglais.’

  ‘Oh, you’re British!’ exclaimed the man breaking into fluent and well-pronounced English, ‘But you’re all very young. So what are you doing here at this time of night?’

  ‘We want to get to Marrakesh. That’s where our teachers are.’

  ‘It’s too late for buses now and it’s not safe to stay here at night, especially for girls.’

  ‘We know that,’ said John ruefully. ‘We were on a lorry, but the men held us up and robbed us. That’s why we are here. They took our watches and our money.’

  ‘And they obviously attacked you as well, by the look of you.’

  ‘Well, yes, but you see they were attacking the girls and, well, I had to come to their rescue.’

  ‘A word of advice, young man. Don’t ever try to resist. These thieves are far stronger than you are and they’re quite heartless. They’re perfectly capable of knifing you if it suits them.’ Pause. ‘Look,’ the man eventually said, ‘I’ll take you down to Marrakesh.’

  Bewildering Kindness

  A bizarre roller-coaster experience followed. They found themselves enveloped in kindness and generosity. Nothing was too good for them. They were taken down to Marrakesh and escorted into a neat modern house in the new town. There they were introduced to a very European family consisting of a mother, two small boys and a little girl. A vast meal was prepared for them and they were allowed to have a shower before being ushered into a large bedroom and bedded down for the night.

  The man and his wife were doctors who had worked in France and visited London. Before John joined the others in the bedroom, they carefully washed his bruised face for him.

  ‘You’re so kind,’ he said, as they examined his chest to see if he had any broken ribs.

  ‘God wants it,’ replied the man. ‘It is the tradition of Islam to welcome foreigners and protect young people.’

  The next morning he took them to a police station where they told the story of the robbery and got the necessary stamped certificate for their insurance claims. Then the man drove them to the Jemaa el-Fnaa and they parted amid effusive thank-yous and exchanging of addresses.

  ‘Odd folk, these Pakkies,’ said Jim as they strolled down the narrow alley towards the pension. ‘Cheatin’ yers and muggin’ yers one minute, and being right decent the next. I doubt if yer’d find a blerk as canny as that back home! Don’t make no sense.’

  ‘But we doesn’t make that much sense, neither,’ said Maureen. ‘Ah mean, we’ve got Bob what’s great, and Kev what’s a bastard.’

  Michael shook his head dismissively. ‘Hadaway lass, it’s just folk, yer knaa.’

  A Teacher at the Mercy of his Pupils

  They reached the door of the pension.

  ‘Now forrit!’ chortled Jim, ‘Ready for the explosion, lads? And Jonnie me boy, you jus’ leave all this ter me an’ Rob. Gerrit?’

  They ran into Morris in the courtyard. John felt he could actually read the emotions that flashed through the man’s mind, almost as if they were being displayed on a big television screen.

  First was immense relief: a tidal wave of tsunami proportions. ‘Thank God you’re back! I’ve been so worried about you!’

  Second was blind fury, a whole pile of rage that had been accumulating, bit by fiery bit during each of the past four days. ‘But where the bloody hell have you been?’

  ‘But,’ replied Jim, flashing his evil leer, ‘we left yers a note. Didn’t yer read it, like?’

  The dam burst and the pent-up torrent of rage poured out. ‘Sneaking off like that without permission! Appallingly irresponsible behaviour! Downright criminal! God alone knows what might have happened to you! No end of worry…’

  Eventually the torrent dwindled into an exhausted trickle. ‘Well, when Brian comes back I’ll have you all sent home.’

  Exhausted silence.

  ‘But,’ said a calm and still leering Jim, ‘Yer did give us permission ter gan. Yer said it were a great exercise in self-management, didn’t yer?’

  ‘No, I did not and you know it!’

  Jim’s leer deepened. He was hugely enjoying this. He’d felt upstaged by John’s ability to talk French. Now was his chance to even the score. Like a seasoned barrister in court, he delivered his punch line. ‘Oh yes, yer did. Didn’t he,
Rob, you was there, you heard him?’

  ‘Aye, Ah did so.’

  ‘And John, you was there. Ye heard him ’an all?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Yer see, old man,’ said Jim, ‘it’s us against ye. Our words agin thine. Six against one. In a court o’ law that’s what counts, like. There’s nowt yer can dee aboorit.’

  Morris’s rage and frustrated resentment turned on John. ‘I knew you’d be mixed up in this business, Denby! You should never have been allowed to come on this expedition. You’ve been nothing but trouble.’

  ‘Aw belt up yer rotten bastard!’ shrieked Tracy. ‘Wor John’s a loverly lad, him. He’s a knight in shinin’ armour what sacrificed hissell for ter save us lasses!’

  With that she hugged and kissed him.

  ‘Don’t you dare to speak to me like that!’ spluttered Morris.

  ‘Look, Joe,’ said Jim, adopting a calm and gentle voice, ‘let’s sort this out like grown men an’ not like liddell kids shoutin’ an’ that.’

  ‘There’s nothing to sort out. Just you wait till Brian comes back!’

  ‘Yeah, just you bloody wait, Joe Morris! Brian’ll ’ave yer balls for breakfast. Lerrin’ us gan away without ye noticing it! An’ we can tell ’im that you was drunk an’ all. Drunk in charge o’ kids? That won’t go down that well with the Committee or whatever it is back home, will it, like?’

  ‘Now look here, young man —’

  ‘But Brian’s in the shit an’ all, ain’t he? Lerrin’ Kev and them lot buy drugs an’ that, and him not noticing.’

  ‘That’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Oh yes it is! What’s the Committee back ’ome gannin’ ter say if they learns that we never climbed no mountains an’ that despite all the nikker they doshed oot? Yers all gannin’ ter look reet daft, ain’t yers?’

  John observed the unequal contest with a bemused awe. Coarse, philistine and horribly ignorant of many things: Jim was all of this. Yet he was clever too, and bold with it! He’d never have dared to speak to a teacher like this. Talk about being streetwise! Jim would go far. He felt humbled before abilities that he, John Denby, just didn’t have. But, at the same time, he began to feel sorry for Morris. Poor bloke! He was a decent man at heart, but he really had landed in it. Between them, Jim and Dobson had him on a skewer.