MADMAN'S TOUR
By Philip Gribbon
THERE was silence in the murk, but they shouted again into the dampness of the night. Big Shade fanned the lightbeam across the mist, and the falling rain glinted in streaks that sparkled in the blankness of the corrie. The Professor scowled inwardly, and huddled down further into the lee shelter of the big boulder. The east wind flung the rain untidily over their shoulders.
'ere, where's 'e gawrn?' Custard spoke in a tone of mock sur-prise and slouched lower, stamping his feet impatiently into the snow.
'Och, no. I'm fed up with this,' groaned the Professor, blowing through his wet fingers and running the back of his hand across his nostrils.
'Don't tell me we've lost 'im again.'
Big Shade said nothing, and switched out the torch.
It shouldn't end like this. We oughtn't to have left him, thought the Professor to himself, while he untied the drawstring of his ruck-sack, and digging in under the rope tangle he felt clammy-fingered through the gear to get his private store of food scraps. Waiting was perfect. Returning to search the hill was another matter. Don't drop the sticky fragments for they're all I've got for dinner....
Incessant bad weather had not convinced him of its inevitable continuity. The slanting sun at morning banished all memories of the earlier storms. A new day inspired big things without a care for the future. It was better that way. None the less, what was his duvet doing lying in the tent? Or the lower half of his Helly-Hansen waterproofs, left behind in unjustified optimism to contribute to the litter of the desolate campsite? The rainwater trickled off his upper half and soaked into his breeches. He shivered when it trickled too far.
Last night had promised stability: a clean washed speckled night, stained green with the shimmering auroral bands, with the half moon on an upward ecliptic path through the stars, a night that followed the rosebowl of serrated pinnacles sharp in sunset, with the Fang flushed with fire. Tonight promised little, save more dis-comfort.
If they had started off with inadequate time, then they deserved all the darkness they had got. Who would have predicted that the ridge would not have the usual obstacles and snecks? Every mountain had provided something unexpected, and it was useless to imagine that it would not happen again. Too complacent, that's what we were, thought the Professor, too blasted carefree....
'Hell's teeth!' he swore. 'It ain't good enough.'
Custard nudged him with his elbow and scowled,
'ere, mate. You want to watch it. That's no sort o' talk.'
The torch beam snapped on, and outlined the expressionless faces frozen in its glow, faces that glistened in the streams of rain.
'What are we going to do about it?' asked Big Shade with a wide grin.
'Eh?' The Professor hesitated, and became evasive. 'I ... I've been thinkin'....
The other two remained silent, impassive. What could be done, except to wait?
'Let's give 'im a yell.' The Professor was impatient, and cold. 'He must be within distance.'
One, two, three.. They shouted together, their voices more a snarl of derision taunting the hidden cliffs as much as a call of support to their lost companion.
'Curr-rr-ris!'
'There y' are. Nothing!'
It was if he didn't care about their predicament, he seemed so self-righteous. He peered along the line of the torch that tunnelled into the white curtain.
'Must 'ave fallen asleep. Jist....'
'Listen. Quiet a second.' Big Shade commanded obedience. They all heard the faint answering cry, somewhere high in the boulders. He must have completed the traverse shove the cliffs. That was one hazard out of his way.
'He sounded a bit strange,' said Big Shade as he weighed up the information carried in the cry. 'Are .. yooo .. all .. right? He shouted slowly.
Down the scree, the answer came faintly. It was tinged with pity. It was precise and far from encouraging. It was negative.
'F .. ff.., whistled the Professor through his teeth.
'I'll go,' said Big Shade quietly.
The wall of mist swallowed up his long lanky figure, until only a glimmer marked his course as he climbed steadily uphill.
It's in my fingertips, mused the Professor to himself. Everything is going fine. No panic. It's all right. It always was, wasn't it? Of course, the sands run out, the chop comes.... Tonight is not the time, tomorrow is another day.... He began to hum a pop tune that ran into his head, and clicked his wet fingers over each other. Custard regarded him doubtfully. It was very quiet in the corrie.
Up on the ridge the wild wind scurried through the stones, calling to itself in every corner and whispering under the overhangs. Steadily the driven rain spattered on the lichened rocks in flurries of staccato wetness, creeping in flowing films into every recess. The black glutinous fronds of the rock tripe shuddered in the gusts eddying over the crest, and the tufted heads of the highland fleabane bent weakly into the turf under the impact of the storm.
How long, he thought, would the faint traces of the only people to climb along the ridge remain in the years to come? Footsteps, sweet papers, abseil loops, and then there were the two cairns at each end: the first cairn constructed under the threaded, spiralling summit bobbin where they had stopped to eat while the thin stratus
cloud spread over the shrinking sun, and the other cairn perched hurriedly on the cleft cap of the last tower as they raced against the cloak of night. The cairns would remain till the summits shattered, but the poly-bags would fray and rust corrode the tin that contained their names, recorded in their unique moment of time. Huh, he grunted, all irrelevant gesture of supreme egoists written in their fading second of self-fulfilment, and that mattered to no one.... except us.
Aye, he thought sadly, even the footsteps that they had so care-fully kicked out along the steep snowbank would by now have melted in the rain. Ice-axe holes prodded regularly into the snow beside their trail would have lasted better, but they had neglected to carry axes on a rock ridge. The experience of their absence had been useful. For what? Oh, the way in which the thin slices of the greasy chimney had tumbled out like dinnerplates and spun down past the last man.... the last....
Soon he should appear, the Professor reminded himself, and raising his head over the top of the boulder he saw the pinpoint of the torch moving erratically down the mountainside.
The two figures came weaving and shuffling down the snow, wasting no time in their run for cover. They looked well, but something was wrong. In a flash of the torch he saw the fresh oiled gleam of gore over the hand.
'What 'appened?' the Professor enquired in a tone of impersonal sympathy.
He answered emphatically with a sarcastic tone of disgust,
'A bluidy great stone ran o'er mah 'and: I fell again on scree, an' then it got me from behind.'
Big Shade grabbed his wrist. He brought the torch nearer to have a closer inspection.
It needs a guid bandage.'
This was obvious, and then with a sideways glance and a grin he added,
'It's your toorn to provide it.' The Professor's principle of democratic involvement for everyone on the expedition was being queried by his companion.
'Och, sure,' he grumbled, but dug into his rucksack to look for his personal first aid kit. 'Help yoursel'. In a good cause.'
The rain ran red into the snow. Four faces, pale in haggard lines, surrounded the glow of the torch as they worked on the hand. Custard held the beam steady. The Professor and Big Shade busied themselves in winding the bandage round his hand and wrist. The victim accepted these attentions glumly.
'Reeal good job ... we're doin' on th doc, 'ere, confided the Professor to Big Shade. 'This's the sort-o' thing that, oh, adds spice to the day. Sure, just think, we might'a bin stuck out all night on the big ledge. It would'a been ruddy awful. Instead ....’ and he threw up his hands in glee, 'We've an epic gully descent in the dark. All good classic stuff.'
Big Shade laughed and nodded his head in agreement,
'Aye, most enjoyable. It's bin one o' th' best days o' th' trip.'
They meant completely what they said. Custard nodded his head in feigned disbelief. The last man was more forthright. He pulled his dressed hand away, and shook it at their faces.
`Bluidy madmen!'
Perhaps he was right....
This article first appeared in the 1972 Journal of the Scottish Mountaineering Club - Vol 30, No 163, pp 15-19
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