After marching about a farmyard in a snowstorm most of the night, guarding sundry articles, mainly broken spades, I had retired to the guard-room and was endeavouring to make myself comfortable on a bed of ammunition boxes. Alas! the goddess of sleep, discouraged by the hard circumstances, fled from me. By chance, I observed a magazine lying near, and on opening same was charmed to find a climbing story among its contents. Speedily I was engrossed in its thrilling episodes and entranced by the vistas opened up of new climbing possibilities.
It really was a most wonderful tale and may be summarized as follows. (May I say that I have tried to make this summary as veracious as possible and have erred rather on the side of understatement than the reverse). The party consisted of five, led by a Swiss guide named Fritz who spoke English with any amount of local colour, and was completed by two men and two girls; the scene being laid in the Rockies.
Swiftly are we plunged “in medias res.” They are “doing rock work,” and are attached to a rope, twelve feet between each couple, they are descending and come to a steep slab, as I took it to be, with a profound precipice beneath. There are no holds. What to do? Obvious solution of difficulty - to slide. The guide slides, the hero slides, they all slide, the guide first because he is leading, the heroine last because she is the weak member of the party; but according to the illustration she is attached to a rope fore and aft, so that the suggestion occurs to me that they may have roped down this obviously difficult place without knowing it. Horrors! She slides badly and is just going over the edge when the hero seizes her, by the leg, and she is saved. Strange to say though, she is annoyed because she considers the hero too masterful.
However, after a few words they proceed. Thrill follows thrill, the rope behaves badly and makes at one point a most dastardly attempt to belay the leader, but with great presence of mind and at great personal risk the heroine removes it and another danger is averted. But worse is to follow; the rope, evidently annoyed at being thwarted, gives all its attention to doing the heroine in. A second time it is foiled, this time by the hero, who again seizes the heroine, by the leg, who is thus saved from being thrown over another precipice by the now thoroughly infuriated rope.
We breathe again, but it is a cunning as well as a determined rope and alters its tactics. This time it saws itself against a convenient rock and breaks between the heroine and the person above her with the awful result that the portion of the party above her proceeds in blissful ignorance of this fact and eventually reaches the top of the mountain before the broken rope trailing behind is discovered, while hero and heroine are left an embarrassed couple, so embarrassed in fact that the idea of shouting does not seem to have occurred to them (a weak point in an otherwise convincing narrative).
I mentioned that the lady was previously a bit fed up with the hero, and now a trial of willpower ensues. She refuses to be led and repeatedly tries to advance but is as often foiled by her companion who seizes her each time, by the leg, and pulls her back. In the end he leads, but the result is hardly satisfactory as after overcoming countless difficulties, such as crossing a slope of shale just above the usual fathomless abyss, and dodging several avalanches, an unclimbable slab appears. No real attempt is made to climb it but no holds can be found, and the hero, upset by an incessant stream of sarcastic comments from the girl, breaks down and weeps. The scene is an affecting one “I wish I could die to save you,” sobs he, and she weeps too, whereupon he calls her his darling and they embrace. “I wish I could die too” cries she , a wish which seems likely to be gratified. However, mutual endearments follow, apparently for several hours.
“But” says the author, “do they die?” Sly dog, he knew all the time. No! is the joyful answer. At this point I paused and indulged a while in contemplation, wondering how the author would extricate them from their perilous position. Perchance some great airman would fling them a rope and drag them to safety, the hero holding the rope in his teeth and the heroine in his arms; or an avalanche falling upwards might take them over the mauvais pas.
But the solution proved commonplace. Suddenly a cheery face peers over the top of the impossible slab, it is the face of Fritz, the Swiss guide. He points out to them “invisible crevices in the rock by means of which they may climb up.” This they do, and reach the top of the mountain. And so this remarkable tale draws to a triumphant and happy conclusion with their marriage on safely getting to the bottom again.
References
Text was originally published by C F Holland as “Another climbing story: a MS from ‘Somewhere in France’” in The Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District, War Issue, vol 3, no 2, November 1915 – this issue is also of interest to meizanologists as it contains a report on “Two climbs in the Japanese Alps” by the Rev. Walter Weston, MA, FRGS, AC.
The image is from an illustration (for an advertisement, detail) by Ernst Platz in Bergsteigermaler: Ernst Platz by Maike Trentin-Mayer, published by the Deutscher Alpenverein, Bruckmann, 1997.
However, after a few words they proceed. Thrill follows thrill, the rope behaves badly and makes at one point a most dastardly attempt to belay the leader, but with great presence of mind and at great personal risk the heroine removes it and another danger is averted. But worse is to follow; the rope, evidently annoyed at being thwarted, gives all its attention to doing the heroine in. A second time it is foiled, this time by the hero, who again seizes the heroine, by the leg, who is thus saved from being thrown over another precipice by the now thoroughly infuriated rope.
We breathe again, but it is a cunning as well as a determined rope and alters its tactics. This time it saws itself against a convenient rock and breaks between the heroine and the person above her with the awful result that the portion of the party above her proceeds in blissful ignorance of this fact and eventually reaches the top of the mountain before the broken rope trailing behind is discovered, while hero and heroine are left an embarrassed couple, so embarrassed in fact that the idea of shouting does not seem to have occurred to them (a weak point in an otherwise convincing narrative).
I mentioned that the lady was previously a bit fed up with the hero, and now a trial of willpower ensues. She refuses to be led and repeatedly tries to advance but is as often foiled by her companion who seizes her each time, by the leg, and pulls her back. In the end he leads, but the result is hardly satisfactory as after overcoming countless difficulties, such as crossing a slope of shale just above the usual fathomless abyss, and dodging several avalanches, an unclimbable slab appears. No real attempt is made to climb it but no holds can be found, and the hero, upset by an incessant stream of sarcastic comments from the girl, breaks down and weeps. The scene is an affecting one “I wish I could die to save you,” sobs he, and she weeps too, whereupon he calls her his darling and they embrace. “I wish I could die too” cries she , a wish which seems likely to be gratified. However, mutual endearments follow, apparently for several hours.
“But” says the author, “do they die?” Sly dog, he knew all the time. No! is the joyful answer. At this point I paused and indulged a while in contemplation, wondering how the author would extricate them from their perilous position. Perchance some great airman would fling them a rope and drag them to safety, the hero holding the rope in his teeth and the heroine in his arms; or an avalanche falling upwards might take them over the mauvais pas.
But the solution proved commonplace. Suddenly a cheery face peers over the top of the impossible slab, it is the face of Fritz, the Swiss guide. He points out to them “invisible crevices in the rock by means of which they may climb up.” This they do, and reach the top of the mountain. And so this remarkable tale draws to a triumphant and happy conclusion with their marriage on safely getting to the bottom again.
References
Text was originally published by C F Holland as “Another climbing story: a MS from ‘Somewhere in France’” in The Journal of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club of the English Lake District, War Issue, vol 3, no 2, November 1915 – this issue is also of interest to meizanologists as it contains a report on “Two climbs in the Japanese Alps” by the Rev. Walter Weston, MA, FRGS, AC.
The image is from an illustration (for an advertisement, detail) by Ernst Platz in Bergsteigermaler: Ernst Platz by Maike Trentin-Mayer, published by the Deutscher Alpenverein, Bruckmann, 1997.
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