Bagley, Desmond - High Citadel

by High Citadel

  Had he been alone he could have moved much faster, but he deliberately reduced his pace to help Forester. Besides, it helped conserve his own energy, which was not inexhaustible, although he was in better condition than Forester. But then, he had not fallen over a cliff. Like Forester, he went forward bent almost double, the wind tearing at his clothing and the snow coating his hood with a thickening film of ice.

  After an hour they came to a slight dip where the slope eased and found that the ground became almost level. Here the snow had drifted and was very deep, getting deeper the farther they went on. Rohde raised his head and stared upwards, shielding his eyes with his hand and looking through the slits made by his fingers. There was nothing to be seen beyond the grey whirling world in which they were enclosed. He waited until Forester came abreast of bin and shouted. "Wait here; I will go ahead a little way."

  Forester nodded wearily and sank to the snow, turning his back to the gale and hunching himself into a foetus-like attitude. Rohde unfastened the rope around his waist and dropped it by Forester's side, then went on. He had gone a few paces when he turned to look back and saw the dim huddle of Forester and, between them, the broken crust of the snow. He was satisfied that he could find his way back by following his own trail, so he pressed on into the blizzard.

  Forester put another coca quid into his mouth and chewed it slowly. His gloved hand was clumsy and he pulled off the glove to pick up the quid from the palm of his hand. He was cold, numb to the bone, and his mouth was the only part of him that was pleasantly warm, a synthetic warmth induced by the coca. He had lost all sense of time; his watch had stopped long ago and he had no way of knowing how long they had been trudging up the mountain since scaling the ice wall. The cold seemed to have frozen his mind as well as his body, and he had the distinct impression that they had been going for several hours -- or perhaps it was only several minutes; he did not know. All he knew was that he did not care much. He felt he was condemned to walk and climb for ever in this cold and bleak mountain world.

  He lay apathetically in the snow for a long time and then, as the coca took effect, he roused himself and turned to look in the direction Rohde had gone. The wind flailed his face and he jerked and held up his hand, noticing absently that his knuckles had turned a scaly lizard-blue and that his fingers were cut in a myriad places by the wind-driven ice.

  There was no sign of Rohde and Forester turned away, feeling a little surge of panic in his belly. What if Rohde could not find him again? But his mind was too torpid, too drugged by the cold and the coca, to drive his body into any kind of constructive action, and he slumped down to the snow again, where Rohde found him when he came back.

  He was aroused by Rohde shaking him violently by the shoulder. "Move, man. You must not sit there and freeze. Rub your face and put on your glove."

  Mechanically he brought up his hand and dabbed ineffectually at his face. He could feel no contact at all, both hand and face were anaesthetised by the cold. Rhode struck his face twice with vigorous open hand slaps and Forester was annoyed. "All right," he croaked. "No need to hit me." He slapped his hands together until the circulation came back and then began to massage his face.

  Rohde shouted. "I went about two hundred metres -- the snow was waist-deep and getting deeper. We cannot go that way; we must go round."

  Forester felt a moment of despair. Would this never end? He staggered to his feet and waited while Rohde tied the rope, then followed him in a direction at right-angles to the course they had previously pursued. The wind was now striking at them from the side and, walking as they were across the slope, the buffeting gusts threatened to knock them off their feet and they had to lean into the wind to maintain a precarious balance.

  The route chosen by Rohde skirted the deep drifts, but he did not like the way they tended to lose altitude. Every so often he would move up again towards the pass, and every time was forced down again by deepening snow. At last he found a way upwards where the slope steepened and the snow cover was thinner, and once more they gained altitude in the teeth of the gale.

  Forester followed in a half-conscious stupor, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other in an endless lurching progression. From time to time as he cautiously raised his eyes he saw the dim snow-shrouded figure of Rohde ahead, and after a time his mind was wiped clean of all other considerations but that of keeping Rohde in sight and the rope slack. Occasionally he stumbled and fell forward and the rope would tighten and Rohde would wait patiently until he recovered his feet, and then they would go on again, and upwards -- always upwards.

  Suddenly Rohde halted and Forester shuffled to his side. There was a hint of desperation in Rohde's voice as he pointed forward with the ice-axe. "Rock," he said slowly. "We have come upon rock again." He struck the ice-glazed outcrop with the axe and the ice shattered. He struck again at the bare rock and it crumbled, flakes falling away to dirty the white purity of the snow. "The rock is rotten," said Rohde. "It is most dangerous. And there is the verglas."

  Forester forced his lagging brain into action. "How far up do you think it extends?"

  "Who knows?" said Rhode. He turned and squatted with his back to the wind and Forester followed his example. "We cannot climb this. It was bad enough on the other side of the glacier yesterday when we were fresh and there was no wind. To attempt this now would be madness." He beat his hands together.

  "Maybe it's just an isolated outcrop," suggested Forester. "We can't see very far, you know."

  Rohde grasped the ice-axe. "Wait here. I will find out." Once again he left Forester and scrambled upwards. Forester heard the steady chipping of the axe above the noise of the wind and pieces of ice and flakes of rock fell down out of the grey obscurity. He paid out rope as Rohde tugged and the hood about his head flapped loose and the wind stung his cheeks smartly.

  He had just lifted his hand to wrap the hood about his face when Rohde fell. Forester heard the faint shout and saw the shapeless figure hurtling towards him from above out of the screaming turmoil. He grabbed the rope, turned and dug his heels into the snow ready to take the shock. Rohde tumbled past him in an uncontrollable fall and slid down the slope until he was brought up sharply on the end of the rope by a jerk which almost pulled Forester off his feet.

  Forester hung on until he was sure that Rohde would go no farther down the slope. He saw him stir and then roll over to sit up and rub his leg. He shouted. "Miguel, are you okay?" then began to descend.

  Rohde turned his face upwards and Forester saw that each hair of his beard stubble was coated with rime. "My leg," he said. "I've hurt my leg."

  Forester bent over him and straightened the leg, probing with his fingers. The trouser-leg was torn and, as Forester put his hand inside, he felt the sticky wetness of blood. After a while he said. "It's not broken, but you've scraped it badly."

  "It is impossible up there," said Rohde, his face twisted in pain. "No man could climb that -- even in good weather."

  "How far does the rock go?"

  "As far as I could see, but that was not far." He paused. "We must go back and try the other side."

  Forester was appalled. "But the glacier is on the other side; we can't cross the glacier in this weather."

  "Perhaps there is a good way up this side of the glacier," said Rohde. He turned his head and looked up towards the rocks from which he had fallen. "One thing is certain -- that way is impossible."

  "We want something to bind this trouser-leg together," said Forester. "I don't know much about it, but I don't think it would be a good thing if this torn flesh became frostbitten."

  "The pack," said Rohde. "Help me with the pack."

  Forester helped him take off the pack and he emptied the contents into the snow and tore up the blanket material into strips which he bound tightly round Rohde's leg. He said wryly. "Our equipment gets less and less. I can put some of this stuff into my pocket, but not much."

  "Take the Primus," said Rohde. "And some kerosene. If we have to go a
s far as the glacier perhaps we can find a place beneath an ice fall that is sheltered from the wind, where we can make a hot drink."

  Forester put the bottle of kerosene and a handful of bouillon cubes in to his pocket and slung the pressure stove over his shoulder suspended by a length of electric wire. As he did so, Rhode sat up suddenly and winced as he put unexpected pressure on his leg. He groped in the snow with scrabbling fingers. "The ice-axe," he said frantically. "The ice-axe -- where is it?"

  "I didn't see it," said Forester.

  They both looked into the whirling grey darkness down the slope and Rohde felt an empty sensation in the pit of his stomach. The ice-axe had been invaluable; without it they could not have come as far as they had, and without it he doubted if they could get to the top of the pass. He looked down and saw that his hands were shaking uncontrollably and he knew he was coming to the end of his strength -- physical and mental.

  But Forester felt a renewed access of spirit. He said, "Well, what of it? This goddam mountain has done its best to kill us and it hasn't succeeded yet -- and my guess is that it won't. If we've come this far we can go the rest of the way. It's only another five hundred feet to the top -- five hundred lousy feet -- do you hear that, Miguel?"

  Rohde smiled wearily. "But we have to go down again."

  "So what? It's just another way of getting up speed. I'll lead off this time. I can follow our tracks back to where we turned off."

  And it wag in this spirit of unreasonable and unreasoning optimism that Forester led the way down with Rohde limping behind. He found it fairly easy to follow their tracks and followed them faithfully, even when they wavered where Rohde had diverged. He had not the same faith in his own wilderness path-finding that he had in Rohde's, and he 1 knew that if he got off track in this blizzard he would never j| find it again. As it was, when they reached where they had turned off to the right and struck across the slope, the track was so faint as to be almost indistinguishable, the wind having nearly obliterated it with drifting snow.

  He stopped and let Rohde catch up. "How's the leg?"

  Rohde's grin was a snarl. "The pain has stopped. It is numb with the cold -- and very stiff."

  "I'll break trail then," said Forester. "You'd better take it easy for a while." He smiled and felt the stiffness of his cheeks. "You can use the rope like a rein to guide me -- one tug to go left, two tugs to go right."

  Rohde nodded without speaking, and they pressed on again. Forester found the going harder in the unbroken snow, especially as he did not have the ice-axe to test the way ahead. It's not so bad here, he thought; there are no crevasses -- but it'll be goddam tricky if we have to cross the glacier. In spite of the hard going, he was better mentally than he had been; the task of leadership kept him alert and forced his creaking brain to work.

  It seemed to him that the wind was not as strong and he hoped it was dropping. From time to time he swerved to the right under instruction from Rohde, but each time came to deep drifts and had to return to the general line of march. They came to the jumbled ice columns of the glacier without finding a good route up to the pass.

  Forester dropped to his knees in the snow and felt tears of frustration squeeze out on to his cheeks. "What now?" he asked -- not that he expected a good answer.

  Rohde fell beside him, half-sitting, half-lying, his stiff kg jutting out before him. "We go into the glacier a little way to find shelter. The wind will not be as bad in there." He looked at his watch then held it to his ear. "It is two o'clock -- four hours to nightfall; we cannot spare the time but we must drink something hot, even if it is only hot water."

  "Two o'clock," said Forester bitterly. "I feel as though I've been wandering round this mountain for a hundred years, and made personal acquaintance with every goddam snow-flake."

  They pushed on into the tangled ice maze of the glacier and Forester was deathly afraid of hidden crevasses. Twice he plunged to his armpits in deep snow and was hauled out with difficulty by Rohde. At last they found what they were looking for -- a small cranny in the ice sheltered from the wind -- and they sank into the snow with relief, glad to be out of the cutting blast.

  Rohde assembled the Primus and lit it and then melted some snow. As before, they found the rich meaty taste of the bouillon nauseating and had to content themselves with hot water. Forester felt the heat radiating from his belly and was curiously content. He said. "How far to the top from here?"

  "Seven hundred feet, maybe," said Rohde.

  "Yes, we slipped about two hundred feet by coming back." Forester yawned. "Christ, it's good to be out of the wind; I feel a good hundred per cent warmer -- which brings me up to freezing-point." He pulled the jacket closer about him and regarded Rohde through half-closed eyes. Rohde was looking vacantly at the flaring Primus, his eyes glazed with fatigue.

  Thus they lay in their ice shelter while the wind howled about them and flurries of driven snow eddied in small whirlpools in that haven of quiet.

  iv

  Rohde dreamed.

  He dreamed, curiously enough, that he was asleep -- asleep in a vast feather bed into which he sank with voluptuous enjoyment. The bed enfolded him in soft comfort, seeming to support his tired body and to let him sink at the same time. Both he and the bed were falling slowly into a great chasm, drifting down and down and down, and suddenly he knew to his horror that this was the comfort of death and that when he reached the bottom of the pit he would die.

  Frantically he struggled to get up, but the bed would not let him go and held him back in cloying folds and he heard a quiet maniacal tittering of high-pitched voices laughing at him. He discovered that his hand held a long, sharp knife and he stabbed at the bed with repeated plunges of his arm, ripping the fabric and releasing a fountain of feathers which whirled in the air before his eyes.

  He started and screamed and opened his eyes. The scream came out as a dismal croak and he saw that the feathers were snowflakes dancing in the wind and beyond was the wilderness of the glacier. He was benumbed with the cold and he knew that if he slept he would not wake again.

  There was something strange about the scene that he could not place and he forced himself to analyse what it was, and suddenly he knew -- the wind had dropped. He got up stiffly and with difficulty and looked at the sky; the mist was clearing rapidly and through the dissipating wreaths he saw a faint patch of blue sky.

  He turned to Forester who was lying prostrate, his head on one side and his cheek touching the ice, and wondered if he was dead. He leaned over him and shook him and Forester's head flopped down on to his chest. "Wake up," said Rohde, the words coming rustily to his throat. "Wake up -- come on, wake up."

  He took Forester by the shoulder and shook him and Forester's head lolled about, almost as though his neck was broken. Rohde seized his wrist and felt for the pulse; there was a faint fluttering beneath the cold skin and he knew that Forester was still alive -- but only just.

  The Primus stove was empty -- he had fallen asleep with it still burning -- but there was a drain of kerosene left in the bottle. He poured it into the Primus and heated some water with which he bathed Forester's head, hoping that the warmth would penetrate somehow and unfreeze his brain. After a while Forester stirred weakly and mumbled something incoherently.

  Rohde slapped his face. "Wake up; you cannot give in now." He dragged Forester to his feet and he promptly collapsed. Again Rohde hauled him up and supported him. "You must walk," he said. "You must not sleep." He felt in his pocket and found one last coca quid which he forced into Forester's mouth. "Chew," he shouted. "Chew and walk."

  Gradually Forester came round -- never fully conscious but able to use his legs in an automatic manner, and Rohde walked him to-and-fro in an effort to get the blood circulating again. He talked all the time, not because he thought Forester could understand him, but to break the deathly silence that held the mountain now that the wind had gone. "Two hours to nightfall," he said. "It will be dark in two hours. We must get to the top before then --
long before then. Here, stand still while I fasten the rope."

  Forester obediently stood still, swaying slightly on his feet, and Rohde fastened the rope around his waist. "Can you follow me? Can you?"

  Forester nodded slowly, his eyes half open.

  "Good," said Rohde. "Then come on."

  He led the way out of the glacier and on to the mountain slopes. The mist had now gone and he could see right to the top of the pass, and it seemed but a step away -- a long step. Below, there was an unbroken sea of white cloud, illumined by the late afternoon sun into a blinding glare. It seemed solid and firm enough to walk on.

  He looked at the snow slopes ahead and immediately saw what they had missed in the darkness of the blizzard -- a definite ridge running right to the top of the pass. The snow cover would be thin there and would make for easy travel. He twitched on the rope and plunged forward, then glanced back at Forester to see how he was doing.

  Forester was in the middle of a cold nightmare. He had been so warm, so cosily and beautiful warm, until Rohde had so rudely brought him back to the mountains. What the devil was the matter with the guy? Why couldn't he let a man sleep when he wanted to instead of pulling him up a mountain? But Rohde was a good joe, so he'd do what he said -- but why was he doing it? Why was he on this mountain? He tried to think but the reason eluded him. He dimly remembered a fall over a cliff and that this guy Rohde had saved his life. Hell, that was enough, wasn't it? If a guy saves your life he was entitled to push you around a little afterwards. He didn't know what he wanted, but he was with him all the way.

  And so Forester shambled on, not knowing where or why, but content to follow where Rohde led. He kept falling because his legs were rubbery and he could not make them do precisely what he wanted, and every time he fell Rohde would return the length of the rope and help him to his feet. Once he started to slide and Rohde almost lost his balance and they both nearly tumbled down the slope, but Rohde managed to dig his heels into the snow and so stopped them.