A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Eric Newby
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There’s still the food.’
‘What food?’ He looked quite alarmed.
‘Six cases of Army ration, compo. in fibre boxes. It’s arriving tomorrow.’
‘We can always leave it in England. I don’t know about you but food doesn’t interest me. We can always live off the country.’
I remembered von Dückelmann, that hardy Austrian forester without an ounce of spare flesh on him, who had lost twelve pounds in a fortnight in Nuristan.
‘Whatever else we leave behind it won’t be the food.’
‘Well, I suppose we can always give it away.’ He sounded almost shocked, as if for the first time he had detected in me a grave moral defect. It was an historic moment.
With unconcealed joy my wife watched us load some of the mountaineering equipment into the machine.
‘We’d better not take all of it,’ said Hugh. ‘They might wonder why we’ve got so much stuff if we don’t know how to use it.’
Over the last weeks the same thought had occurred to me constantly.
‘What about the tent?’
The tent had arrived that morning. It had been described to me by the makers as being suitable for what they called ‘the final assault’. With its sewn-in ground-sheet, special flaps so that it could be weighed down with boulders, it convinced me, more than any other single item of equipment, that we were going, as the books have it, ‘high’. It had been specially constructed for the curious climatic conditions we were likely to encounter in the Hindu Kush.
‘I shouldn’t take that, if I were you,’ said my wife with sinister emphasis. ‘The children tried to put it up in the garden after lunch. Whoever made it forgot to make holes for the poles.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure. You know it’s got those poles shaped like a V, that you slip into a sort of pocket in the material. Well, they haven’t made any pockets, so you can’t put it up.’
‘It’s lucky you found out. We should have looked pretty silly on Mir Samir.’
‘You’re going to look pretty silly at any rate. I shouldn’t be surprised if they’ve done the same thing to your sleeping-bags.’
‘Have you telephoned the makers?’
‘That’s no use. If you send it back to them, you’ll never see it again. I’ve sent for the little woman who makes my dresses. She’s coming tomorrow morning.’
We continued to discuss what we should take to Wales.
‘I should take your Folboat,’ said Hugh. ‘There’s bound to be a lake near the inn. It will be a good chance of testing it BEFORE YOU PASS THROUGH THE GORGES. The current is tremendously swift.’
I had never had any intention of being either drowned or ritually mutilated in Mahsud Territory. I told him that I hadn’t got a Folboat.
‘I was almost certain I wrote to you about getting a Folboat. It’s a pity. There’s not much time now.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘there isn’t.’
It was nearly midnight when we left London. Our destination was an inn situated in the wilds of Caernarvonshire. Hugh had telephoned the proprietor and explained to him the peculiar state of ignorance in which we found ourselves. It was useless to dissemble: Hugh had told him everything. He was not only an experienced mountaineer, but was also the head of the mountain rescue service. It is to his eternal credit that he agreed to help us rather than tell us, as a more conventional man might have done, that his rooms were all booked.
We arrived at six o’clock the following morning, having driven all night, but already a spiral of smoke was issuing from a chimney at the back of the premises.
The first thing that confronted us when we entered the hotel was a door on the left. On it was written EVEREST ROOM. Inside it was a facsimile of an Alpine hut, done out in pine wood, with massive benches round the walls. On every side was evidence of the presence of the great ones of the mountain world. Their belongings in the shape of ropes, rucksacks, favourite jackets and boots were everywhere, ready for the off. It was not a museum. It was more like the Royal Enclosure. Sir John and Sir Edmund might appear at any moment. They were probably on the premises.
‘Whatever else we do I don’t think we shall spend much time in the Everest Room,’ said Hugh, as we reverently closed the door. ‘For the first time I’m beginning to feel that we really do know damn all.’
‘EXACTLY.’
At this moment we were confronted by a remarkably healthy-looking girl.
‘Most people have had breakfast but it’s still going on,’ she said.
The only other occupant of the breakfast room was a compact man of about forty-five, who was eating his way through the sort of breakfast I hadn’t been able to stomach for ten years. He was wearing a magnificent sweater that was the product of peasant industry. He was obviously a climber. With an hysterical attempt at humour, like soldiers before an attack, we tried to turn him into a figure of fun, speaking in whispers. This proved difficult, as he wasn’t at all comic, just plainly competent.
‘He looks desperately healthy.’ (His face was the colour of old furniture.)
‘Everyone looks healthy here, except us.’
‘I don’t think it’s real tan.’
‘Perhaps he’s making a film about mountain rescue.’
‘How very appropriate.’
‘Perhaps he’ll let us stand-in, as corpses.’
After breakfast the proprietor introduced us to the mystery man. We immediately felt ashamed of ourselves.
‘This is Dr Richardson,’ he said. ‘He’s very kindly agreed to take you out and teach you the rudiments of climbing.’
‘Have you ever done any?’ asked the Doctor.
It seemed no time to bring up my scrambles in the Dolomites, nor even Hugh’s adventures at the base of Mir Samir.
‘No,’ I said firmly, ‘neither of us knows the first thing about it.’
We had arrived at seven; by nine o’clock we were back in the station wagon, this time bound for the north face of the mountain called Tryfan.
‘Stop here,’ said the Doctor. Hugh parked the car by a milestone that read ‘Bangor X Miles’. Rearing up above the road was a formidable-looking chunk of rock, the Milestone Buttress.
‘That’s what you’re going to climb,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s got practically everything you need at this stage.’
It seemed impossible. In a daze we followed him over a rough wall and into the bracken. A flock of mountain sheep watched us go, making noises that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Finally we reached the foot of it. Close-to it didn’t seem so formidable. The whole face was scarred by the nailed boots of countless climbers.
‘This thing is like a by-pass,’ said the Doctor. ‘Later in the season you’d have to queue up to climb it. We’re lucky to have it to ourselves.’
‘If there’s one thing we don’t need it’s an audience.’
‘First of all you’ve got to learn about the rope. Without a rope climbing is suicide. It’s the only thing that justifies it. Chris told me what you’re planning to do. If anything happens on that mountain, it may not get into the papers, and at least no one else will have to risk their necks to get you off if anything goes wrong. If I thought that you were the sort of people who would take risks, I wouldn’t have come with you today.’
He showed us how to rope ourselves together,