by Desmond Cory
Eventually Biel’s arm rose above the brittle edge of the chasm, his right hand swung for the last time, and, he was levering himself over the top of the ledge; slowly, stiffly, uncomfortably. His hand came down to assist Johnny, gripping him firmly just below the biceps; and Johnny found himself rolling on the ice, suddenly lost and bewildered at the experience of having solid ice beneath him, instead of extended vertically beside him. Martin and then Gruber heaved themselves on to the ledge, wriggling like stranded fish on the slippery surface; and for some time there was no sound from them but that of deep breathing and little self-congratulatory gasps.
The ice was too cold and too hard to make lying prone upon it a really pleasant form of relaxation; besides, it was dangerously stiffening; and, after a few moments, Johnny sat up and rested his body against his ice-pick as the others were doing… He blinked curiously about him. The ledge on which he and his companions were now crouching was a good eight feet wide and, far to the right, even wider; though it was pocked and pitted as though by shell-fire. Anyway, it was safe, and that was all Johnny wanted to know. He looked back towards the others and at once met Biel’s eye.
“Quite a climb,” said Biel softly. “Really quite a climb.” He had pulled off his goggles, and his eyes were flabby white circles in a face blistered by the ice to the colour of raw beef. Johnny wondered if his own face could possibly look as bad as that; raised his hand to his cheek and felt the touch like the sting of a whip.
He winced, and pulled off his goggles with a sharp jerk.
“… Quite a climb,” said Biel again. “Martin… You really did this climb before, you and a friend? Just the two of you?”
Martin nodded.
“Well, it was quite a feat; that’s all. A really good climb.” Biel turned back to Johnny; who saw that his eyes were glistening chips of blue, glistening with excitement and pleasure. Incredible as it seemed, Biel was enjoying this.
“Herr Videl – you’ve done remarkably well. I mean it. This has been a stiffish morning’s exercise. And it will be something to boast of, when you return to France… that you are one of the few men who have climbed the Lovers at Oberneusl. You should be a proud man when we reach the top.”
“How much farther?” asked Johnny.
Biel looked at Martin, who said promptly, “Not much more than two hundred metres.”
“Not more than…? Then we are doing well, we are making wonderful time. No need to worry, Herr Videl, no need at all. How are you feeling, by the way?”
“Not too bad on the whole. There was just that moment at the top of the chimney; I managed better after that.”
“Oh, yes,” said Martin. “I had meant to speak to you about that. If you should be sick again, it would be best to give me a word of warning. The wind blows it down, you see – it did not matter on that occasion, but it would have been awkward if any of it had smeared my goggles.”
Johnny nodded. “I’ll remember. But I have an idea you’ve received all there is, for the time being.”
Gruber, sitting cross-kneed on the extreme edge of the ledge, extended his hand towards Johnny, holding in it a small flask. “Try some of this, Herr Videl. A little. It will warm you.”
“What is it?”
“Brandy.”
“Good Lord!…”
“Oh, a little will not harm you. It will do you good.”
“Yes, I should have some,” agreed Biel. “We may as well rest here for ten minutes or so. And it’s easy for the stomach to become chilled when the muscles are not in use.”
Johnny tilted the flask and let a mouthful of liquid glide to the back of his throat, where it suddenly bit like a tiger. He coughed and handed the brandy to Biel, who wiped the neck of the flask hygienically on his cuff before testing the contents.
“Ah!… That’s better, much better. Tell me, Herr Videl,” he said, handing the flask on to Martin without a moment’s hesitation, “I am rather interested. What do you think of mountain-climbing? I know you’re afraid; that is natural; we all are, only we are a little more used to the sensation than you. But – are you finding it exciting? Thrilling?”
“My only objection to those terms,” said Johnny politely, “is that they’re grossly inadequate.”
“I knew it! You too will be a climber, Herr Videl; I always knew it. In fact, as I have said, when we return from here you will be a much-envied man… Are you not conscious of something else, though?… Of a curious sense of power?”
“I’m much more conscious of a curious sense of insecurity.”
“Yes, quite. But mixed in with all that… Look out over there, out across the country beneath us.” Johnny thoughtlessly did so, and closed his eyes hurriedly. “Do you not feel a sense of… power is the best word… at having all that country, all that beautiful scenery, spread out before you?”
“I’d sooner see it from an aeroplane,” said Johnny. “And feel safe.”
“But that would not be the same,” insisted Biel. And Gruber said quietly,
“It is one’s fear that makes it beautiful. Beauty’s nothing but the beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear.”
Johnny turned to stare at him. “That sounded like a quotation, Herr Gruber.”
“Yes, it was. Rilke. Our great Austrian poet.” And Gruber, as though regretting his excursion into the intricacies of conversation, closed up again; so emphatically as to give an impression of slamming himself shut.
“It’s true,” said Biel, considering it. “And the greater the terror, the greater the beauty. Rilke knew his mountains well, one feels.”
“Um,” said Johnny, who privately thought that this interchange was developing an uncomfortably philosophic turn. “There may be something in it.”
He rested his head on the cold edge of his ice-pick, and closed his eyes. Hundreds of feet above his head the summit of the Lovers beetled over in its final cruel overhang; and above that, not far above that, almost close above that, great wispy banners of cloud were floating towards the Old Man.
Below him, the mists still waited.
“…We have rested ten minutes,” said Biel. “Let us continue.”
Johnny opened one eye and regarded him balefully.
“It is best. Waiting for more than ten minutes is bad physically and is bad psychologically. One gets cold and stiff; one tries to hurry to make up for lost time, and hurry is fatal. It is best to go on.”
Johnny grunted, and levered himself up on to his feet. And he knew that what Biel had said was true; already his limbs seemed reluctant to obey him. He stamped fiercely on the ice, trying to dispel his lethargy.
“Good,” said Biel cheerfully. “Are you ready, Martin? And you, Herr… Why are you unroping, Herr Gruber?”
“It is my turn to lead,” said Gruber expressionlessly.
“It is not necessary; I am quite prepared to continue.”
“It is customary.”
Biel nodded. “Very well.” He loosened the bowline from his waist and trudged back towards Gruber; who had already freed himself and was throwing the unused length of the forty-yard rope into neat, slim coils… They changed places; Gruber moved towards the cliff face once more, tested it for a moment with the head of his pick and then struck the first blow…
And they were off once more.
… Johnny felt very much more comfortable than before, though he would have been hard put to it to explain why. The going was certainly no easier, and the distance to fall was, of course, increasing with every passing minute; though the point was long since past when any increase in height could have influenced at all the final result of the drop. Perhaps it was due to Johnny’s growing familiarity with ice technique; he was no longer clinging to the cliff like a limpet, but was leaning well outwards as the others did, relying on his handholds to balance his body and letting the main weight of his body be transferred through his legs to the cliff itself, instead of to the base of the notch.
Certainly, Gruber was somehow a more reassuring lead
er than Biel. It was not that he was better; he had not the other’s smooth effortless action and machine-like regularity, although the steps he cut were as deep and as correctly-angled as the other’s and were made at a pace very little slower. Perhaps it was merely that Johnny had learnt to associate Biel’s movements with the literally sickening terror that had gripped him as they left the chimney and started up the ice sheet proper; so that the two things would now, maybe, be for ever linked in his mind. Well, the reasons for his new confidence were uncertain and did not really matter. He was feeling better; that was the essential thing.
Gradually, as they worked their way up the cliff, step after hard-fought step, Gruber’s movements too became ineradicably etched on Johnny’s mind; the slight twitch of his right shoulder as the pick came down for the first blow, the tensening of the whole right leg as he wrenched the blade free again, the occasional quick but unflurried glance upwards with which he estimated his direction. He never looked back or down, and only rarely upwards… And they mounted as slowly and as steadily as before, leaving the ledge where they had rested far below in a thin haze of vapour.
At one point, they struck what everybody but Johnny had been dreading; Johnny, of course, was in blissful ignorance of the phenomenon until it was pointed out to him. They ran into soft ice; not the watery surface that they had encountered at the commencement of their climb – which but for Martin’s chimney would have made the climb impossible – but what was even worse; powdery, flaky ice that crumbled as soon as the slightest weight was placed upon it, ice the colour of brand-new china and treacherous as sin. It took some time to bypass that patch; some time, and a great deal of tricky manoeuvring which Johnny accomplished very creditably… Then the line straightened out and the long, slanting diagonal continued, up and up and up…
… Time passed. Time of a kind that had no meaning. For every step was exactly like the one before, every minute exactly like the one preceding it; there was nothing to distinguish between them, so that one could no more estimate the passing of time than establish one’s position in a landscape completely devoid of landmarks. But time passed; maybe two hours, maybe four; maybe even six. And eventually, at a moment rescued from oblivion by just that slight change in routine, Gruber paused and, for the first time since he had started to lead, looked back at Johnny.
And he said,
“Well, here it is. This is the overhang.”
Johnny looked up, and instantly cowered. For a second, he had the illusion that the cliff was coming down on top of him. It wasn’t, of course; but it was as though it had been frozen into immobility in the very act of doing so. It towered over him as if it were about to strike downwards and hurl him spinning miles to the base of the mountain… “Lieber Gott,” said Johnny faintly.
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Gruber remained cheerful. “I shall have to cut the steps at a much deeper angle, so tread very gently. And remember to keep your body well away from the ice face… trust your feet… then you’ll be all right.”
Johnny swallowed once or twice, and nodded. The saliva was a hard ball at the back of his throat. Gruber turned back and swung himself up another twenty-one inches… Then another, and another… and the gradient slowly swung past the vertical. Very little past, never more than a degree; but the sensation was thoroughly unpleasant. Johnny was intensely aware of the enormous weight of his rucksack and of the miserable inadequacy of his fingers as a lever; for now it seemed as if the handholds alone held him pinned to the cliff…
But Gruber was moving upwards at only a slightly slower pace, accepting each new grip without hesitation; his self-confidence was very reassuring. And after all, thought Johnny, if he can hold his position with one hand and cut steps with the other, surely it shouldn’t be too difficult for me to follow him, with both hands free. And there can’t be far to go now, there can’t be much farther to go… He risked disturbing his centre of gravity by throwing his head back to peer upwards; and realised with a sudden shock of delight that the end was far nearer than he had realised. Gruber was now not twenty-five feet from the top, perhaps not even twenty.
Johnny resumed his climbing position, tested his next foothold carefully, and lifted himself up to it. And at that moment, it happened.
The only intimation he had of disaster was a sudden sharp exhalation of breath from Martin, not five feet to his rear, and a sudden angry scuttering of splitting ice; and his experience was far too limited to guide him in that emergency. Stupefied, he saw Gruber instantly let go with both hands and, in the second’s grace allowed him before he fell away from the cliff, drive the thin blade of the ice-pick deep into the ice above his head; simultaneously, his left hand grabbed at his waist and plucked in the slack of the rope. And even as Gruber’s pick smacked into the ice, the rope around Johnny’s waist jerked suddenly and whipped him away as though a giant had flicked at him with his forefinger.
The mouth of the Lovers gulped open in a confusion of swirling grey, and he plunged downwards into its gullet; his own mouth torn open in a grimace of unbelieving dismay. Then there was a violent, painful twist at his stomach as the rope brought him up; stopped him and – miraculously – held. Straight in front of his stunned eyes, Martin swung helplessly close to the cliff, the rope like an umbilical cord stretched taut between them; the image was so absurd and yet so realistic that Johnny gave a little yap of semi-hysterical laughter. He and Martin were strung like beads on a necklace, suspended over a horrible death; the twin anchors of Gruber and Biel above their heads; and beneath them, nothing. Nothing for over two thousand feet.
And Gruber’s calm voice reached his ears, seeming to come from a vast distance, arriving just in time to check a wild, unreasoning panic.
“It’s all right. Quite all right, just keep your head. We can hold you quite comfortably for a while. Keep calm and don’t wriggle; keep perfectly still.”
Johnny ceased to wriggle. He kept perfectly still. He would not have moved now for the von Huysen diamonds or, indeed, for anything in this world.
“Good; that’s the idea. Now get hold of your ice-pick and cut yourself a handhold in front of your left shoulder; then a foothold by your right knee. Take your time.”
Johnny’s pick was dangling from his wrist by its safety strap. He fumbled for it with numbed fingers, found it; steadied himself against the cliff with straddled feet, and hacked a ragged chunk out of the ice directly in front of him. He worked his left hand to it – owing to the overhang above, he had to reach out at full arm’s length – grasped it firmly and slashed his foothold with three rapid strokes; he was surprised to find how easy it was. The next moment he was once again clinging to the cliff, his ribs no longer burning from the ruthless pressure of the rope.
“Good,” said Gruber again. “Very good. Now work your way up to where you were before, cutting your steps as I’ve been doing. It’s quite easy. But be cautious.”
That last statement was, Johnny felt, highly supererogatory. He started to pick his way upwards – literally – and had gained some seven or eight feet when Gruber said warningly, “Wait one moment, Herr Videl. You’ve taken up all the slack between yourself and Martin. You must wait for him to catch up or you will pull each other off balance.”
“Oh,” said Johnny. “Sorry.” He paused. He could see that he was in a position to utilise one of the footholds Gruber had cut as a safe handhold – it was, in fact, the step in which his own foot had rested, at the time of Martin’s slip – and he did so. He was just glancing back to note Martin’s progress when there was a sudden unpleasant slither and Gruber’s left-hand foothold disappeared in front of his eyes.
“Tck,” said Gruber. “You must come up and cut a new foothold for me, when Martin is nearer. I find I can’t free my own pick, it’s stuck. And, er… don’t take too long about it.”
Johnny raised his weapon and cut a step that permitted him to resume his former position in Gruber’s tracks. Gruber was now some four yards away from him and less than five
feet higher; and, as Johnny took his next upwards step, Gruber’s other foothold went, dissolving in an unpleasant mixture of powdered ice and spray. Gruber was left supported solely by his ice-axe, the helve of which was slowly turning downwards; and Johnny’s stomach went as cold and heavy as lead.
Gruber’s face turned to look down at him, and the blue eyes behind his goggles were mildly amused. “It doesn’t seem to be stuck as firmly as I had thought,” he said. “You cannot possibly reach me in time. Cut the rope.”
Johnny set his teeth, took another step upwards, and was instantly brought up by the rope; Martin had not progressed so fast as he, and was not in fact yet returned to his original position.
“For Heaven’s sake,” said Gruber, “do what I say and cut the rope. You don’t know how to take the strain when I fall; I will pull you with me. Martin will certainly not be able to hold us both, and Herr Biel cannot possibly check the three of us. Cut the rope – or you’ll kill them as well as yourself.”
The ice-pick creaked, and moved a clear two inches.
Johnny glanced desperately back at Martin, raised himself another foot, and was immediately halted again – indeed, almost pulled backwards. There was a faint sound of protest from Martin, who was screened by Johnny from Gruber and had not realised the situation…
The Old Man’s mouth was open again now, open wider than ever before.
Gruber was six feet away, and the handle of his ice-pick was now almost touching the cliff. Johnny changed his own pick to his left hand, took a deep breath and drove it into the ice with all his force, as Gruber had done. Then he reached out with his right hand as far towards Gruber as he could reach… Gruber instantly reached out to his left…