Reginald Hill: Fell of Dark

We stopped for a rest. Ahead towered the immense crags of Great End, above us to the right was the stony sharpness of Great Gable. Welay back and looked behind us down into Borrowdale. Far below I could see the minute figures of half a dozen other walkers. A bird sang violently overhead for a minute, then was silent.

Peter stood up and peered down the slope, shading his eyes with one of his extraordinarily large hands.

‘Can’t you rest?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said, and moved between me and the sun. For a second he seemed strangely menacing. Then quite close I heard the sound of boot on stone. Peter swung round. Approaching us were the blond-headed boy and his friends. They passed quite close.

‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘Warm enough for you?’

‘Yes indeed,’ he said.

Peter said nothing and watched them out of sight. He obviously wasn’t going to settle, so I stood up and put my knapsack on.

‘Come on,’ I said.

We didn’t stop again till we reached the top of the Hause (the top, as far as we were concerned, being the lowest point at which we could cross!), where we rested again before the descent which I knew could be more strenuous than climbing up. Peter regarded it as a kind of bonus, however, and let out little cries of excitement as he rushed away in front of me, carried on by his own weight and momentum.

I shouted at him to be careful, then laughed at myself for sounding like an old woman.

But when he got out of sight and I hadn’t caught up with him a few minutes later, I began to shout again.

‘Over here,’ came a voice from my left.

There was still no sign of Peter and a faint stirring of worry began in my stomach, and suddenly it churned violently as I caught sight of his knapsack, abandoned on the ground.

I ran up to it. It was near the edge of a deep, narrow, precipitous gully with a dried-up stream bed at the bottom. From about thirty feet down, Peter’s face looked back up at me. For a second I thought he had fallen, but almost immediately realized what he was doing. Just below him, apparently wedged in a crack in the rock-face was a sheep, its trapped legs bent at an angle that made me sick to see. It rolled its head up at Peter and let out a rattling bleat.

‘For God’s sake, Peter!’ I said. ‘Come back up! We’ll tell someone when we get down the valley.’

He looked undecided, then turned as if to start climbing. The sheep, disturbed perhaps by the movement – though I must say it looked horrifyingly like a start of protest against our leaving – twisted sharply, half freed itself and fell outwards, its hideously broken foreleg now revealed plainly, dangling like a broken branch held only by the bark.

I turned away. When I looked back Peter was beside the animal, bending over it with a thick-bladed bowie-knife (the object of much amusement earlier) in his hand.

‘For God’s sake, Peter!’ I called again.

‘I can’t just leave it!’ he snarled and stabbed down. The beast struggled violently, a great spurt of blood jetted out and ran up Peter’s arm, then it went dreadfully slack.

‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ said Peter, leaning back against the rockface and taking great gulps of air.

‘Now, please, Peter, please come up.’

He turned without demur and began to climb towards me, his face white and set. Most of the strength seemed to have left his limbs and by the time he reached the slight overhang at the top of the gully, I began seriously to doubt whether he could make it without help.

I lay down, leaned forward, took one of his hands in mine and began to pull. He seemed a dead weight.

I was so immersed in what I was doing that when a voice spoke in my ear I almost let go.

‘Hello,’ it said. ‘Want a hand?’

I turned my head and my nose almost brushed against a remarkably fine pair of breasts. Or the nearer one at least. They were covered only by a flimsy bra over which they strained voluptuously.

The girl reached over the edge of the gully and seized Peter’s other hand.

‘Heave ho!’ she said.

Whether it was the extra pulling power of the girl’s hands or the attraction of the rest of her, I don’t know, but Peter popped up like a jack-in-the-box.

He sat there, getting his breath back, and I stood up to thank our helper. But surprises were not over. There were two of them. I realized at once they were the foreign girls whose seats we had taken in the bar the previous night. But their legs were no longer the eye-catching feature. Above their mini-shorts, all they wore were their bras. They had a small haversack with them and I could see their blouses tucked through the straps.

They both wore their hair long and might almost have been twins. The only instant way I saw of separating them was that Peter’s saviour wore a white bra and the other a deep blue one.

I must have stared too hard at the difference for suddenly White-bra giggled and put her hands up to her breasts. She was obviously nearer sixteen than the twenty-five her figure could have claimed. I noticed with a start her right hand had blood on it. From the sheep by the way of Peter, whose left arm was caked with a dusty red.

He stood up now.

‘Are you all right?’ the girl asked sympathetically.

‘Yes, thank you, dear,’ said Peter. ‘It was very gracious of you to help.’

He solemnly kissed her hand. White-bra giggled again and said something to Blue-bra in the language I had heard the previous night. Blue-bra giggled back.

I must have looked puzzled.

‘Olga’s my pen-friend, from Sweden,’ White-bra explained.

‘A fine country,’ said Peter, who had never been anywhere near it. ‘Thank you both again, for the help you have given me, and the spiritual stimulus you have given this old gentleman here.’

Well, you’re fully recovered, I thought, and set about dragging him away before his whimsy took him too far. He saw what I was at and strode ahead with a broad grin on his face. I murmured my own thanks and set off after him. After fifty yards or so, I glanced back and waved.

They waved back, two arms over four circles; two blue, two white.

I smiled at the thought of the odd impression they must have of us, and hoped we wouldn’t meet them again.

It was a hope the realization of which was never to give me any pleasure.

We stopped twice more on our descent into Eskdale, the first time to eat the stringy ham sandwiches Stirling had probably picked personally to go into our packed lunch. To wash them down I had a super-sized flask which I had filled with iced lager by courtesy of Peter’s waiter. I mentioned this.

‘Clive?’ he said. ‘That was nice of him especially when we were in such disgrace.’

We laughed once more at the memory. Peter seemed to have recovered completely from the episode with the sheep.

Our second halt was in the valley. We had diverted slightly to have a look at Cam Spout as it poured down from Mickledore and had followed the stream down to Esk Falls where it mingled with another which came trickling down from Bowfell. Here the track levelled out and we were able to take our ease after the exertions of the steep descent. Eventually we reached a spot where the waters broadened into a pool about a dozen feet across. Peter decided he wanted to bathe. There was no one around, but I don’t think it would have mattered if there had been. Quite unselfconsciously he took off his clothes and stepped in.

‘Come on in,’ he said. ‘The water’s lovely.’

Prudence, or prudery, made me hesitate a moment. Then my clothes were off and I leapt in beside him.

Peter flung a handful of water at me with a laugh and next minute we were engaged in a splashing match which soon degenerated into a wrestling match. Eventually, half drowned, we relaxed again and let the sun warm all that was uncovered by the water. My eyes were closed, but suddenly I sensed a shadow on my skin and looking up I saw a man standing on the bank. He was dressed for walking and looked an imposing figure as he tood there, my angle of view making him seem taller than he was. His broad sunburnt face and thick grey-red beard added to the general impression of forcefulness and power. I was sure I had seen him before.