Десмонд Бэгли - High Citadel

‘What time is it?’

‘Midnight. How do you feel?’

Forester had his arms crossed over his chest. ‘Goddam cold.’

‘And your ribs — how are they?’

‘Can’t feel a thing.’

Rohde was concerned. ‘That is bad. Move, my friend; move yourself. You must not allow yourself to freeze.’ He began to slap and pummel Forester until he howled for mercy and could feel the pain in his chest again.

Just after two in the morning the snow cornice over the cave collapsed. Both Rohde and Forester had become dangerously moribund, relapsing into a half-world of cold and numbness. Rohde heard the preliminary creaking and stirred feebly, then sagged back weakly. There was a noise as of a bomb exploding as the cornice broke and a cloud of dry, powdery snow was driven into the shelter, choking and cold.

Rohde struggled against it, waving his arms in swimming motions as the tide of snow covered his legs and crept up to his chest. He yelled to Forester, ‘Keep a space clear for yourself.’

Forester moaned in protest and waved his hands ineffectually, and luckily the snow stopped its advance, leaving them buried to their shoulders. After a long, dying rumble which seemed to come from an immense distance they became aware that it was unnaturally quiet; the noise of the blizzard which had battered at their ears for so long that they had ceased to be aware of it had gone, and the silence was loud and ear-splitting.

‘What’s happened?’ mumbled Forester. Something was holding his arms imprisoned and he could not get them free. In a panic he began to struggle wildly until Rohde shouted, ‘Keep still.’ His voice was very loud in the confined space.

For a while they lay still, then Rohde began to move cautiously, feeling for his ice-axe. The snow in which he was embedded was fluffy and uncompacted, and he found he could move his arms upwards. When he freed them he began to push the snow away from his face and to plaster and compress it against the wall of the cave. He told Forester to do the same and it was not long before they had scooped out enough space in which to move. Rohde groped in his pocket for matches and tried to strike one, but they were all wet, the soggy ends crumbling against the box.

Forester said painfully, ‘I’ve got a lighter,’ and Rohde heard a click and saw a bright point of blinding light. He averted his eyes from the flame and looked about him. The flame burned quite still without flickering and he knew that they were buried. In front, where the opening to the cave had been, was an unbroken wall of compacted snow.

He said, ‘We must make a hole or suffocate,’ and groped in the snow for the small axe. It took him a long time to find it and his fingers encountered several other items of their inadequate equipment before he succeeded. These he put carefully to one side — everything would be important from now on.

He took the axe and, sitting up with his legs weighed down with snow, he began to hew at the wall before him. Although it was compacted it was not as hard to cut as the ice from which he had chopped the cave and he made good progress. But he did not know how much snow he had to go through before he broke through to the other side. Perhaps the fall extended right across the ledge between the ice wall and the cliff edge and he would come out upon a dizzying drop.

He put the thought out of his mind and diligently worked with the axe, cutting a hole only of such size as he needed to work in. Forester took the snow as it was scooped out of the hole and packed it to one side, observing after a while, ‘We’re not going to have much room if this goes on much longer.’

Rohde kept silent, cutting away in the dark, for he had blown out the small flame. He worked by sense of touch and at last he had penetrated as far as he could with the small axe, thrusting his arm right up to the shoulder into the hole he had made. He had still not come to the other side of the snow fall, and said abruptly, ‘The ice-axe.’

Forester handed it to him and Rohde thrust it into the hole, driving vigorously. There was no room to cut with this long axe, so he pushed, forcing it through by sheer muscle power. To his relief, something suddenly gave and there was a welcome draught of cold air. It was only then he realized how foetid the atmosphere had become. He collapsed, half on top of Forester, panting with his exertions and taking deep breaths of air.

Forester pushed him and he rolled away. After a while he said, ‘The fall is about two metres thick — we should have no trouble in getting through.’

‘We’d better get at it, then,’ said Forester.

Rohde considered the proposition and decided against it. ‘This might be the best thing for us. It is warmer in here now, the snow is shielding us from the wind. All we have to do is to keep that hole clear. And there will not be another fall.’

‘Okay,’ said Forester. ‘You’re the boss.’

Warmth was a relative term. Cutting the hole had made Rohde sweat freely and now he could feel the sweat freezing to ice on his body under his clothing. Awkwardly he began to strip and had Forester rub his body all over. Forester gave a low chuckle as he massaged, and said, ‘A low-temperature Turkish bath — I’ll have to introduce it to New York. We’ll make a mint of money.’

Rohde dressed again and asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Goddam cold,’ said Forester. ‘But otherwise okay.’

‘That shock did us good,’ said Rohde. ‘We were sinking fast — we must not let that happen again. We have another three hours to go before dawn — let us talk and sing.’

So they sang lustily, the sound reverberating from the hard and narrow confines of the ice cave, making them sound, as Forester put it, ‘like a pair of goddam bathroom Carusos.’

Half an hour before dawn Rohde began to cut their way out and he emerged into a grey world of blustery wind and driving snow. Forester was shocked at the conditions outside the cave. Although it was daylight, visibility was restricted to less than ten yards and the wind seemed to pierce right through him. He put his lips to Rohde’s ear and shouted, ‘Draughty, isn’t it?’

Rohde turned, his lips curled back in a fierce grin. ‘How is your chest?’

Forester’s chest hurt abominably, but his smile was amiable. ‘Okay. I’ll follow where you go.’ He knew they could not survive another night on the mountain — they had to get over the pass this day or they would die.

Rohde pointed upward with the ice-axe. ‘The cornice is forming again, but it is not too bad; we can go up here. Get the packs together.’ He stepped to the ice wall and began to cut steps skilfully, while Forester repacked their equipment. There was not much — some had been lost, buried under the snow fall, and some Rohde had discarded as being unnecessary deadweight to carry on this last desperate dash. They were stripped down to essentials.

Rohde cut steps in the fifteen-foot ice wall as high as he could reach while standing on reasonably firm ground, then climbed up and roped himself to pitons and stood in the steps he had already cut, chopping vigorously. He cut the steps very deep, having Forester in mind, and it took him nearly an hour before he was satisfied that Forester could climb the wall safely.

The packs were hauled up on a rope and then Forester began the climb, roped to Rohde. It was the most difficult task he had faced in his life. Normally he could have almost run up the broad and deep steps that Rohde had cut but now the bare ice burned his hands, even through the gloves, his chest ached and stabbing pains pierced him as he lifted his arms above his head, and he felt weak and tired as though the very breath of life had been drained from him. But he made it and collapsed at Rohde’s feet.