Ken McClure - Crisis

He was quite safe, he reasoned. He had fallen across the ridge, not off it. He had simply been winded hadn’t he? He inhaled slowly and cautiously to see if there was any associated pain that might indicate damaged ribs, but there was none; he was all right. He turned his head to the left to avoid a sharp piece of rock that had been cutting into his cheek and saw that the climber who had been coming up behind him was now at the start of the narrow section and was edging his way out towards him. Bannerman signalled with his hand that he was all right, in case the man thought he was in trouble, but the man kept coming anyway.

Bannerman pulled himself up into a kneeling position but kept his hands on the ground for stability until he felt well enough to continue. The other climber stopped a few metres from him and Bannerman yelled against the wind that he was OK. The other climber looked at him over his ski mask but as Bannerman got up into a crouching position he suddenly realized that the man was intent on passing him. There was clearly not enough room to allow this to happen.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ yelled Bannerman, but the other man just kept coming. Bannerman, still a bit unsteady, braced himself and prepared as best he could. There’s no room!’ he almost screamed, but the other man kept coming along the ridge as if there was nothing in his way. He barged into Bannerman, pushed him aside. Bannerman felt himself lose balance.

There was an awful moment when Bannerman felt himself topple over backwards in slow motion, losing all contact with the mountain. His hands reached up as if to grasp the clouds and a scream started to leave his lips, but it was short-lived as his head came down into contact with a rocky outcrop and he was knocked unconscious.

When he eventually opened his eyes, he was groggily surprised to find that he was still alive. He knew he was alive because he was in pain. His head felt as though it had played host to a nuclear explosion and his right arm was being pulled out of its socket. He was soaking wet and bitterly cold and his face was being grazed against sharp rock. His legs felt free, however. He looked down slowly and saw in one nightmarish moment that there was nothing below him! He was hanging over an abyss.

Bannerman closed his eyes, trying to shut out the nightmare, but he knew it was real. He turned his face slowly upwards to confirm what he now suspected and saw that his ice axe, attached by a loop round his wrist had caught in a crevice between two small rocks and prevented him from falling completely off the ridge. He was suspended over a fall of three thousand feet by a quirk of fate and a thin strap round his right wrist.

Bannerman could not see how secure the axe was but he had no choice; he had to move. He tried to turn his right hand to grip the handle of the axe but there was no feeling in it. He would have to try turning on his rocky fulcrum to attain some kind of hold with his other hand. Summoning up every precious ounce of energy he had left, he took a deep breath and turned over. He heard the metal axe move against rock above him and he froze, but it held firm. He was now able to grip it with his other hand. He pulled himself painfully up on to the outcrop and knelt there to take the strain off his arms. A sudden rush of fear made him vomit as he thought how close he had come to death.

He was still not out of danger. His life-saving outcrop was some thirty metres below the ridge and to get off the mountain he had to get back up on to it. He was faced with a climb he would not have relished on a sunny afternoon, let alone in a state of exhaustion in a rain storm. He rubbed at his right arm until the circulation was restored and flexed his fingers until he felt they could be trusted. He had to fight off an inner surge of panic that made him want to rush at the climb and get it over and done with. That was not the way, he reasoned. If he was to make it he would have to consider every single move and do everything slowly.

It took twenty minutes to get back up on to the ridge, but he did so without further incident. He made his way back to Meall Tarmachan and came down off the mountain with pained slowness. He felt ill but he knew that the light was fading fast. There was no question of resting.

Fear was replaced by anger when he thought about the man who had jostled him off the ridge. He thought it beyond belief that anyone could have been so stupid and thoughtless. Perhaps in time he might become charitable enough to believe that the man had been overcome by panic at being caught on the ridge in such atrocious weather and had barged through without considering the consequences. But for the moment Bannerman was furious. The clown should have realized that there hadn’t been enough room to get past.

When he reached the car, he tumbled his gear into the back in an ungainly heap. He got into the driving seat and closed the door, rejoicing that at last he was safe from the great outdoors. Right now the great indoors was all he ever wanted. He started the engine and made his way slowly along the shore road to the Ben Lawers Hotel. He hadn’t had the energy to change out of his boots and had to concentrate hard on the pedals. He made it to the car-park at the hotel and almost fell out of the car with exhaustion.

‘What on earth?’ exclaimed the owner, when she saw the state he was in.

‘I had a bit of an accident on the hill,’ said Bannerman weakly.

The woman called her son Euan to help Bannerman into the bar where there was a roaring fire. She herself went to run him a hot bath. Euan handed Bannerman a glass of whisky and smiled at his reaction to the burning sensation as the spirit trickled down his throat. Bannerman handed him the glass and nodded at the suggestion of another.

When he finally eased himself out of the bath water to towel himself down — somewhat less than vigorously, Bannerman felt the back of his head where it had struck the rock. There was a lump but nothing serious, he reckoned. Amazingly that seemed to be his only injury apart from a sore right arm and a weal on his right wrist where he had been suspended from the loop on the ice axe. He rubbed it gently, knowing that a few hours ago it had been his only link with the land of the living. He shuddered and put on dry clothes.

‘I really think we should call the doctor from Killin,’ said Vera, the owner, but Bannerman insisted that it was unnecessary, thanking her for her kindness. ‘All the treatment I need is in there,’ he smiled, nodding at the bar.

‘Well, if you’re sure …’

‘I’m sure,’ said Bannerman.

Bannerman had another whisky, then ate the biggest mixed grill he had ever seen. There were only two other guests staying at the hotel, an English couple from Carlisle who planned on climbing Ben Lawers on the following day.

‘I hear you had a rough day,’ said the man.

‘I had a fall,’ said Bannerman, his mind rebelling at how innocuous the words sounded. All that fear, all that terror, all that living nightmare, dismissed as ‘a fall’.

‘Happens to the best of us,’ said the man.

Bannerman smiled weakly and nodded. He didn’t want to continue the conversation. He left the dining-room and returned to the bar to sit down by the fire. Filled with warmth and well-being, he felt himself quickly become sleepy. After one more drink he thanked the owner and her son for their kindness and went up to bed. As he pulled the covers up round his ears he was aware that rain was battering off the window. He remembered the weather forecast for the day… fine settled weather. ‘Incompetent bastards,’ he murmured before drifting off into a deep sleep.

‘A deep depression centred off Iceland has moved south to bring rain and …’ Bannerman clicked off the car radio. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that it was raining cats and dogs as he headed for Kyle of Lochalsh and the ferry to Skye. Being on his own, he could indulge himself in the soothing sounds of Gregorian chant. The sonorous sound from the cassette player seemed appropriate for the forbidding darkness of the mountains and was only interrupted by the occasional slap of water against the floor pan as the Sierra’s wheels hit puddles at speed.