A NIGHT ON AN ICE-SLOPE
At the base of the rocks there was a narrow ledge on which, huddled
together, the three men could sit side by side. Garratt Skinner began to
clear the snow from the ledge with his ice-ax; but Walter Hine sank down
at once and Pierre Delouvain, who might have shown a better spirit,
promptly followed his example.
"What is the use?" he whispered. "We shall all die to-night.... I have a
wife and family.... Let us eat what there is to eat and then die," and
drowsily repeating his words, he fell asleep. Garratt Skinner, however,
roused him, and drowsily he helped to clear the ledge. Then Walter Hine
was placed in the middle that he might get what warmth and shelter was
to be had, the rope was hitched over a spike of rock behind, so that if
any one fell asleep he might not fall off, and Delouvain and Skinner
took their places. By this time darkness had come. They sat upon the
narrow ledge with their backs to the rock and the steep snow-slopes
falling away at their feet. Far down a light or two glimmered in the
chalets of La Brenva.
Garratt Skinner emptied the _Rücksack_ on his knees.
"Let us see what food we have," he said. "We made a mistake in not
bringing more. But Pierre was so certain that we should reach Chamonix
to-night."
"We shall die to-night," said Pierre.
"Nonsense," said Garratt Skinner. "We are not the first party which has
been caught by the night."
Their stock of food was certainly low. It consisted of a little bread, a
tin of sardines, a small pot of jam, some cold bacon, a bag of
acid-drops, a couple of cakes of chocolate, and a few biscuits.
"We must keep some for the morning," he said. "Don't fall asleep, Wallie!
You had better take off your boots and muffle your feet in the
_Rücksack_. It will keep them warmer and save you from frost-bite. You
might as well squeeze the water out of your stockings too."
Garratt Skinner waked Hine from his drowsiness and insisted that his
advice should be followed. It would be advisable that it should be known
afterward in Courmayeur that he had taken every precaution to preserve
his companion's life. He took off his own stockings and squeezed the
water out, replaced them, and laced on his boots. For to him, too, the
night would bring some risk. Then the three men ate their supper. A very
little wine was left in the gourd which Garratt Skinner had carried on
his back, and he filled it up with snow and thrust it inside his shirt
that it might melt the sooner.
"You have your brandy flask, Wallie, but be sparing of it. Brandy will
warm you for the moment, but it leaves you more sensitive to the cold
than you were before. That's a known fact. And don't drink too much of
this snow-water. It may make you burn inside. At least so I have been
told," he added.
Hine drank and passed the bottle to Pierre, who took it with his
reiterated moan: "What's the use? We shall all die to-night. Why should a
poor guide with a wife and family be tempted to ascend mountains. I will
tell you something, monsieur," he cried suddenly across Walter Hine. "I
am not fond of the mountains. No, I am not fond of them!" and he leaned
back and fell asleep.
"Better not follow his example, Wallie. Keep awake! Slap your limbs!"
Above the three men the stars came out very clear and bright; the tiny
lights in the chalets far below disappeared one by one; the cold became
intense. At times Garratt Skinner roused his companions, and holding each
other by the arm, they rose simultaneously to their feet and stamped upon
the ledge. But every movement hurt them, and after a while Walter Hine
would not.
"Leave me alone," he said. "To move tortures me!"
Garratt Skinner had his pipe and some tobacco. He lit, shading the match
with his coat; and then he looked at his watch.
"What time is it? Is it near morning?" asked Hine, in a voice which was
very feeble.
"A little longer to wait," said Garratt Skinner, cheerfully.
The hands marked a quarter to ten.
And afterward they grew very silent, except for the noise which they made
in shivering. Their teeth chattered with the chill, they shook in fits
which lasted for minutes, Walter Hine moaned feebly. All about them the
world was bound in frost; the cold stars glittered overhead; the
mountains took their toll of pain that night. Yet there was one among
those three perched high on a narrow ledge of rock amongst the desolate
heights, who did not regret. Just for a night like this Garratt Skinner
had hoped. Walter Hine, weak of frame and with little stamina, was
exposed to the rigors of a long Alpine night, thirteen thousand feet
above the level of the sea, with hardly any food, and no hope of rescue
for yet another day and yet another night. There could be but one end to
it. Not until to-morrow would any alarm at their disappearance be
awakened either at Chamonix or at Courmayeur. It would need a second
night before help reached them--so Garratt Skinner had planned it out.
There could be but one end to it. Walter Hine would die. There was a risk
that he himself might suffer the same fate--he was not blind to it. He
had taken the risk knowingly, and with a certain indifference. It was the
best plan, since, if he escaped alive, suspicion could not fall on him.
Thus he argued, as he smoked his pipe with his back to the rock and
waited for the morning.
At one o'clock Walter Hine began to ramble. He took Garratt Skinner and
Pierre Delouvain for Captain Barstow and Archie Parminter, and complained
that it was ridiculous to sit up playing poker on so cold a night; and
while in his delirium he rambled and moaned, the morning began to break.
But with the morning came a wind from the north, whirling the snow like
smoke about the mountain-tops, and bitingly cold. Garratt Skinner with
great difficulty stood up, slowly and with pain stretched himself to his
full height, slapped his thighs, stamped with his feet, and then looked
for a long while at his victim, without remorse, and without
satisfaction. He stooped and sought to lift him. But Hine was too stiff
and numbed with the cold to be able to move. In a little while Pierre
Delouvain, who had fallen asleep, woke up. The day was upon them now,
cold and lowering.
"We must wait for the sun," said Garratt Skinner. "Until that has risen
and thawed us it will not be safe to move."
Pierre Delouvain looked about him, worked the stiffened muscles of his
limbs and groaned.
"There will be little sun to-day," he said. "We shall all die here."
Garratt Skinner sat down again and waited. The sun rose over the rocks
of Mont Maudit, but weak, and yellow as a guinea. Garratt Skinner then
tied his coat to his ice-ax, and standing out upon a rock waved it this
way and that.
"No one will see it," whimpered Pierre; and indeed Garratt Skinner would
never have waved that signal had he not thought the same.
"Perhaps--one never knows," he said. "We must take all precautions, for
the day looks bad."
The sunlight, indeed, only stayed upon the mountain-side long enough to
tantalize them with vain hopes of warmth. Gray clouds swept up low over
the crest of Mont Blanc and blotted it out. The wind moaned wildly
along the slopes. The day frowned upon them sullen and cold with a sky
full of snow.
"We will wait a little longer," said Garratt Skinner, "then we
must move."
He looked at the sky. It seemed to him now very probable that he would
lose the desperate game which he had been playing. He had staked his life
upon it. Let the snow come and the mists, he would surely lose his stake.
Nevertheless he set himself to the task of rousing Walter Hine.
"Leave me alone," moaned Walter Hine, and he struck feebly at his
companions as they lifted him on to his feet.
"Stamp your feet, Wallie," said Garratt Skinner. "You will feel better in
a few moments."
They held him up, but he repeated his cry. "Leave me alone!" and the
moment they let him go he sank down again upon the ledge. He was overcome
with drowsiness, the slightest movement tortured him.
Garratt Skinner looked up at the leaden sky.
"We must wait till help comes," he said,
Delouvain shook his head.
"It will not come to-day. We shall all die here. It was wrong, monsieur,
to try the Brenva ridge. Yes, we shall die here"; and he fell to
blubbering like a child.
"Could you go down alone?" Garratt Skinner asked.
"There is the glacier to cross, monsieur."
"I know. That is the risk. But it is cold and there is no sun. The
snow-bridges may hold."
Pierre Delouvain hesitated. Here it seemed to him was certain death. But
if he climbed down the ice-arête, the snow-slopes, and the rocks below,
if the snow-bridges held upon the glacier, there would be life for one of
the three. Pierre Delouvain had little in common with that loyal race of
Alpine guides who hold it as their most sacred tradition not to return
home without their patrons.
"Yes, it is our one hope," he said; and untying himself with awkward
fumbling fingers from the kinked rope, and coiling the spare rope about
his shoulders, he went down the slope. During the night the steps had
frozen and in many places it was necessary to recut them. He too was
stiff with the long vigil. He moved slowly, with numbed and frozen limbs.
But as his ax rose and fell, the blood began to burn in the tips of his
fingers, to flow within his veins; he went more and more firmly. For a
long way Garratt Skinner held him in sight. Then he turned back to Walter
Hine upon the ledge, and sat beside him. Garratt Skinner's strength had
stood him in good stead. He filled his pipe and lit it, and watched
beside his victim. The day wore on slowly. At times Garratt Skinner
rubbed Hine's limbs and stamped about the ledge to keep some warmth
within himself. Walter Hine grew weaker and weaker. At times he was
delirious; at times he came to his senses.
"You leave me," he whispered once. "You have been a good friend to me.
You can do no more. Just leave me here, and save yourself."
Garratt Skinner made no answer. He just looked at Hine curiously--that
was all. That was all. It was a curious thing to him that Hine should
display an unexpected manliness--almost a heroism. It could not be
pleasant even to contemplate being left alone upon these windy and
sunless heights to die. But actually to wish it!
"How did you come by so much fortitude?" he asked; and to his
astonishment, Walter Hine replied:
"I learnt it from you, old man."
"From me?"
"Yes."
Garratt Skinner gave him some of the brandy and listened to a portrait of
himself, described in broken words, which he was at some pains to
recognize. Walter Hine had been seeking to model himself upon an
imaginary Garratt Skinner, and thus, strangely enough, had arrived at an
actual heroism. Thus would Garratt Skinner have bidden his friends leave
him, only in tones less tremulous, and very likely with a laugh, turning
back, as it were, to snap his fingers as he stepped out of the world.
Thus, therefore, Walter Hine sought to bear himself.
"Curious," said Garratt Skinner with interest, but with no stronger
feeling at all. "Are you in pain, Wallie?"
"Dreadful pain."
"We must wait. Perhaps help will come!"
The day wore on, but what the time was Garratt Skinner could not tell.
His watch and Hine's had both stopped with the cold, and the dull,
clouded sky gave him no clue. The last of the food was eaten, the last
drop of the brandy drunk. It was bitterly cold. If only the snow would
hold off till morning! Garratt Skinner had only to wait. The night would
come and during the night Walter Hine would die. And even while the
thought was in his mind, he heard voices. To his amazement, to his alarm,
he heard voices! Then he laughed. He was growing light-headed.
Exhaustion, cold and hunger were telling their tale upon him. He was not
so young as he had been twenty years before. But to make sure he rose to
his knees and peered down the slope. He had been mistaken. The steep
snow-slopes stretched downward, wild and empty. Here and there black
rocks jutted from them; a long way down four black stones were spaced;
there was no living thing in that solitude. He sank back relieved. No
living thing except himself, and perhaps his companion. He looked at Hine
closely, shook him, and Hine groaned. Yes, he still lived--for a little
time he still would live. Garratt Skinner gathered in his numbed palm the
last pipeful of tobacco in his pouch and, spilling the half of it--his
hands so shook with cold, his fingers were so clumsy--he pressed it into
his pipe and lit it. Perhaps before it was all smoked out--he thought.
And then his hallucination returned to him. Again he heard voices, very
faint, and distant, in a lull of the wind.
It was weakness, of course, but he started up again, this time to his
feet, and as he stood up his head and shoulders showed clear against the
white snow behind him. He heard a shout--yes, an undoubted shout. He
stared down the slope and then he saw. The four black stones had moved,
were nearer to him--they were four men ascending. Garratt Skinner turned
swiftly toward Walter Hine, reached for his ice-ax, grasped it and raised
it, Walter Hine looked at him with staring, stupid eyes, but raised no
hand, made no movement. He, too, was conscious of an hallucination. It
seemed to him that his friend stood over him with a convulsed and
murderous face, in which rage strove with bitter disappointment, but that
he held his ax by the end with the adz-head swung back above his head to
give greater force to the blow, and that while he poised it there came a
cry from the confines of the world, and that upon that cry his friend
dropped the ax, and stooping down to him murmured: "There's help quite
close, Wallie!"
Certainly those words were spoken--that at all events was no
hallucination. Walter Hine understood it clearly. For Garratt Skinner
suddenly stripped off his coat, passed it round Hine's shoulders and
then, baring his own breast, clasped Hine to it that he might impart to
him some warmth from his own body.
Thus they were found by the rescue party; and the story of Garratt
Skinner's great self-sacrifice was long remembered in Courmayeur.
Garratt Skinner watched the men mounting and wondered who they were. He
recognized his own guide, Pierre Delouvain, but who were the others, how
did they come there on a morning so forbidding? Who was the tall man who
walked last but one? And as the party drew nearer, he saw and understood.
But he did not change from his attitude. He waited until they were close.
Then he and Hilary Chayne exchanged a look.
"You?" said Garratt Skinner.
"Yes--" Chayne paused. "Yes, Mr. Strood," he said.
And in those words all was said. Garratt Skinner knew that his plan was
not merely foiled, but also understood. He stood up and looked about him,
and even to Chayne's eyes there was a dignity in his quiet manner, his
patience under defeat. For Garratt Skinner, rogue though he was, the
mountains had their message. All through that long night, while he sat by
the side of his victim, they had been whispering it. Whether bound in
frost beneath the stars, or sparkling to the sun, or gray under a sky of
clouds, or buried deep in flakes of whirling snow, they spoke to him
always of the grandeur of their indifference. They might be traversed and
scaled, but they were unconquered always because they were indifferent.
The climber might lie in wait through the bad weather at the base of the
peak, seize upon his chance and stand upon the summit with a cry of
triumph and derision. The mountains were indifferent. As they endured
success, so they inflicted defeat--with a sublime indifference, lifting
their foreheads to the stars as though wrapt in some high communion.
Something of their patience had entered into Garratt Skinner. He did not
deny his name, he asked no question, he accepted failure and he looked
anxiously to the sky.
"It will snow, I think."
They made some tea, mixed it with wine and gave it first of all to Walter
Hine. Then they all breakfasted, and set off on their homeward journey,
letting Hine down with the rope from step to step.
Gradually Hine regained a little strength. His numbed limbs began to come
painfully to life. He began to move slowly of his own accord, supported
by his rescuers. They reached the ice-ridge. It had no terrors now for
Walter Hine.
"He had better be tied close between Pierre and myself," said Garratt
Skinner. "We came up that way."
"Between Simond and Droz," said Chayne, quietly.
"As you will," said Garratt Skinner with a shrug of the shoulders.
Along the ice-ridge the party moved slowly and safely, carrying Hine
between them. As they passed behind the great rock tower at the lower
end, the threatened snow began to fall in light flakes.
"Quickly," said Chayne. "We must reach the chalets to-night."
They raced along the snow-slopes on the crest of the buttress and turned
to the right down the gullies and the ledges on the face of the rock. In
desperate haste they descended lowering Walter Hine from man to man, they
crawled down the slabs, dropped from shelf to shelf, wound themselves
down the gullies of ice. Somehow without injury the snow-slopes at the
foot of the rocks were reached. The snow still held off; only now and
then a few flakes fell. But over the mountain the wind was rising, it
swept down in fierce swift eddies, and drew back with a roar like the sea
upon shingle.
"We must get off the glacier before night comes," cried Chayne, and led
by Simond the rescue party went down into the ice-fall. They stopped at
the first glacier pool and made Hine wash his hands and feet in the
water, to save himself from frost-bite; and thereafter for a little time
they rested. They went on again, but they were tired men, and before the
rocks were reached upon which two nights before Garratt Skinner had
bivouacked, darkness had come. Then Simond justified the praise of Michel
Revailloud. With the help of a folding lantern which Chayne had carried
in his pocket, he led the way through that bewildering labyrinth with
unerring judgment. Great séracs loomed up through the darkness, magnified
in size and distorted in shape. Simond went over and round them and under
them, steadily, and the rescue party followed. Now he disappeared over
the edge of a cliff into space, and in a few seconds his voice rang
upward cheerily.
"Follow! It is safe."
And his ice-ax rang with no less cheeriness. He led them boldly to the
brink of abysses which were merely channels in the ice, and amid towering
pinnacles which seen, close at hand, were mere blocks shoulder high. And
at last the guide at the tail of the rope heard from far away ahead
Simond's voice raised in a triumphant shout.
"The rocks! The rocks!"
With one accord they flung themselves, tired and panting, on the
sheltered level of the bivouac. Some sticks were found, a fire was
lighted, tea was once more made. Walter Hine began to take heart; and as
the flames blazed up, the six men gathered about it, crouching, kneeling,
sitting, and the rocks resounded with their laughter.
"Only a little further, Wallie!" said Garratt Skinner, still true
to his part.
They descended from the rocks, crossed a level field of ice and struck
the rock path along the slope of the Mont de la Brenva.
"Keep on the rope," said Garratt Skinner. "Hine slipped at a corner as we
came up"; and Chayne glanced quickly at him. There were one or two
awkward corners above the lower glacier where rough footsteps had been
hewn. On one of these Walter Hine had slipped, and Garratt Skinner had
saved him--had undoubtedly saved him. At the very beginning of the climb,
the object for which it was undertaken was almost fulfilled, and would
have been fulfilled but that instinct overpowered Garratt Skinner, and
since the accident was unexpected, before he had had time to think he had
reached out his hand and saved the life which he intended to destroy.
Along that path Hine was carefully brought to the chalets of La Brenva.
The peasants made him as comfortable as they could.
"He will recover," said Simond. "Oh yes, he will recover. Two of us will
stay with him."
"No need for that," replied Garratt Skinner. "Thank you very much, but
that is my duty since Hine is my friend."
"I think not," said Chayne, standing quietly in front of Garratt Skinner.
"Walter Hine will be safe enough in Simond's hands. I want you to return
with me to Courmayeur. My wife is there and anxious."
"Your wife?"
"Yes, Sylvia."
Garratt Skinner nodded his head.
"I see," he said, slowly. "Yes."
He looked round the hut. Simond was going to watch by Hine's side. He
was defeated utterly, and recognized it. Then he looked at Chayne, and
smiled grimly.
"On the whole, I am not sorry that you have married my daughter," he
said. "I will come down to Courmayeur. It will be pleasant to sleep
in a bed."
And together they walked down to Courmayeur, which they reached soon
after midnight.