Part 11
Biner broke to us the news that there was another party besides ourselves of three “gentlemen” going to start over the Strahlegg that afternoon. We were quite disappointed at this, for we wanted the club hut to ourselves, and the scenery, too, for that matter, and had supposed that so late in the season there would be no trouble about it. However, it was the fortune of war, and it seemed foolish to wait over another day and risk bad weather to escape them. Biner seemed to be rather pleased at the prospect. He said it would make it much easier and safer for us to join forces with the other party and all be roped together for the next day’s climb. We reserved decision on this point.
Shortly after lunch we started forth, so as not to be hurried. The other party were ahead of us. Our way led over glacier débris and along a moraine, stony, scrambly, but presenting no difficulties. We seemed to be charging directly at the Finsteraarhorn. The “Infant Aar” had been lost to sight in the great glaciers that gave it birth. We were approaching the heart of the High Alps at last.
By way of acquiring information, I asked Biner as we walked along of what nationality the gentlemen might be who belonged to the other party. The question visibly embarrassed him. “They are Swiss,” he said. “But—well, they are _not_ gentlemen. They are employees of the Grimsel hotel, which is about to close for the season, and they are going home this way for pleasure. They are all good mountaineers, so they will be very useful to us.” A little more questioning elicited the fact that they were the chief cook, the barber, and a stableman who often served as porter to climbing parties and hoped some day to be a guide. We were rather relieved than otherwise by this information. Tourists, if underbred, might have proved annoying in such close quarters, but these people would doubtless be entirely unobtrusive.
The Dollfus Pavilion is a thick-walled stone hut built on a cliff overhanging the glacier. The altitude is 7850 feet. By the time we reached it, the evening winds were holding high and chilly carnival around it and the clouds were closing down.
As we opened the door of the hut, we stepped into an atmosphere almost unbreathable with wood smoke from the stove combined with liquor fumes from a steaming kettle. Half-choking, we beat a hasty retreat into the open air. The occupants of the hut rushed out with exuberant hospitality, begging us to come in and get warm and partake of the “tea” they were brewing. The smoke would soon be gone. The fire had been hard to start, but was all right now. We thanked them, but said we preferred the outer air for the present. These self-effacing hotel employees did not seem to be turning out exactly as we had expected. We had not reckoned on the cognac.
It was cold outside and getting colder. Snowflakes began sifting down on us. Had there been any possibility of getting back to the Grimsel we certainly would have done so. But it was out of the question at that time. Presently Biner came out and said our supper was ready. He had had nothing to prepare except the coffee.
The smoke had cleared away, so we could see the room, its furniture and occupants. There was a long deal table with a bench at each side, set with enamel ware cups and plates. There was a small but energetic stove and a simple outfit of cooking utensils. These were all furnished by the Alpine Club. Printed notices on the wall requested those availing themselves of the hut to leave everything clean and in order. An open door showed us the hut’s other room. It contained a raised platform heaped high with straw, long enough for a dozen people to sleep on in a row. On a cord above were hung a generous supply of gray blankets.
Considerably to our disgust, we found that the other party’s supper and ours were to be celebrated simultaneously. But in this refuge provided for all alike, we clearly had no right to object, if their own sense did not show them the desirability of keeping to themselves. Our guide, on the other hand, positively declined to sit down at the table with us, whether to set his fellow-countrymen a good example or simply because he was on duty (which they were not), I do not know.
We gave Belle Soeur the protected seat in the middle. Frater had the barber next to him, and the stable man was next to me, the cook beyond.
Let me now state that the cook was, so far as we were concerned, an entirely respectable and unobjectionable member of society. If he drank too much of their precious tea and cognac mixture, he did not show it, and he did not obtrude himself on us in any way.
The barber did not show any signs of intoxication at this time, but he was an unthinkably unpleasant little beast, curled, powdered, perfumed, dressed in a flamboyant tourist costume which included plaid golf stockings and knickerbockers, and possessed of a most colossal nerve. He evidently regarded himself as a lady-killer. He knew a few words of English, and armed with them he proceeded to be polite to Belle Soeur. Belle Soeur can be pretty chilly when she likes and Frater’s snubs were of the knockdown variety, but nothing seemed to make any impression on the barber’s cuticle. He had a camera along and offered to take our pictures in the morning. This was finally declined so that he understood it, but it took a battle-ship’s broadside to do it. He appeared to be sure that our feet must be cold and wet and that we were too timid to avail ourselves of the fleece-lined wooden shoes which are part of the outfit of an Alpine hut. From the time of our arrival at the front door to our retiring for the night, he urged these shoes upon us at fifteen-minute intervals.
During supper the barber and the stableman vied with each other in pressing upon us each and every article of their rather elaborate menu.
The stableman was in the maudlin and verbose stage. He assured us that among the eternal snows of the upper Alpine regions all social distinctions are obliterated, and high and low, rich and poor, meet on a plane of equality. (This in explanation of their sharing the table and benches with us, I suppose.) I said unresponsively that there could be no objection to anyone’s poverty and lowliness so long as he was sober and respectable. At this he almost dissolved into tears and confided to me that he knew he had drunk too much, that it was a very bad thing to do, that he was very sorry, but what would you? After a summer’s hard work, the first day of freedom, etc.
Meanwhile, Frater, who could not follow the German, was wanting to know whether my neighbor was saying anything sufficiently objectionable to merit personal chastisement. I reassured him, and we tried to keep up the conversation among ourselves, ignoring our neighbors. But they declined to stay ignored and kept offering this, that, and the other article of food or drink. They seemed unable to believe that our declining these overtures was prompted by anything but shyness. “The High Alps are not like cities,” the stableman explained. “In the High Alps all men are brothers and share all things equally. No one feels any hesitation in either giving or receiving. We are so small and helpless in the hands of God! We must do all we can to help one another.”
Shall I ever forget that hideous meal? We got through as quickly as possible and left the table. It was snowing too hard and was too bitterly cold to go outdoors again. We went through into the other room and shut the door and held a council of war. Should we sit up all night? That would involve returning next day to the Grimsel. We clearly could not sit up all night and take the trip over the Strahlegg, too.
It had seemed a matter of course to Belle Soeur and me at the Nieder Rawyl cheese-hut to roll up in blankets and go to sleep in an apartment shared by our escorts and two cowherds. It was physically uncomfortable, but not in the least morally so. But the thought of dividing that hay-heaped sleeping-shelf with those drunken animals in the next room was revolting to the point of nausea. It was impossible.
Biner joined us for a few minutes and came to our rescue with a suggestion. We could curtain off a portion of the shelf for Belle Soeur and me with blankets. No sooner said than done. We chose our end, and in front and on the unprotected side hung blankets. It was arranged that Frater was to sleep immediately outside and Biner next to him, so that the precious trio of fellow-Alpinists would be kept at as great a distance as possible.
When we had completed our arrangements, we sat down and tried to distract our minds by playing cards. It was one of the saddest games I ever indulged in. In the next room, free from the restraint of our presence, the revelry waxed more and more boisterous as the cognac tea circulated. I was a bit worse off than the others for catching a word here and there of the talk. It did not make me happier to realize that they were talking about _us_. I learned afterwards that they were arranging the order in which the combined parties were to be roped next day. But the fragments that I caught had a singularly unpleasant sound. I did not wish to be a sensationalist and I knew the limitations of my German, so I did not say anything to the others about it, but I am afraid my game of cards was _distrait_.
This was my birthday. I had spent the previous ones in very various quarters of the world and in very various company—but never anything like this before, and may the like never be my lot again!
Belle Soeur and I now retired to our tent, which, after all, gave us as much privacy as one gets in a sleeping-car, and Frater rolled himself along our only unprotected boundary. Naturally, we did not sleep. Aside from our nervousness, the men in the next room were making too much noise. I have no means of knowing how late they kept it up, but it must have been till after midnight. There were moments when they seemed to be quarreling violently, and we half-hoped they would wind things up neatly by cutting each others’ throats. At other times they were merely hilarious.
All at once the door opened, and they rolled in, still noisy, and bringing with them such a smell of concentrated liquor as I never imagined. They paused and gazed at the blanket-wrapped form of Frater. “_Ist das der Herr?_” whispered the barber to one of his companions. From the depths of the blankets I heard my brother’s voice growl in disgusted English, “No, you thundering fool, I’m the two ladies.”
The revelers now disposed themselves for slumber, but for another hour or two we heard their giggles and whispers, and the alcohol fumes in the close air were unspeakably nauseating. From time to time Frater pressed my hand under the blanket curtain to reassure me, and I did as much for Belle Soeur.
We were of course in no physical danger. Not only could Frater and the guide have easily handled the trio, but Frater could have done it, I doubt not, single-handed. But the unpleasantness of it was beyond words. We felt as if a month of spiritual Turkish baths would hardly make us clean.
I have told this somewhat unsavory story in all its unsavoriness as a warning to others, the moral being that a party including ladies should never plan for a night in an Alpine Club hut unless they are assured of having it to themselves. Mountaineering is not _all_ poetry, and there might be terrors encountered beside which crevasses and avalanches become attractive.
XXII
Their over-night celebration did not prevent our fellow-travelers from getting up about four o’clock so as to get a good start over the pass. We told Biner we would arise later and that he need not serve our breakfast till after the others had gone. They finished their breakfast, but still did not start. At last it dawned upon us that they were waiting for _us_.
We called Biner and expressed our sentiments. We thought we had been sufficiently emphatic before, but we left no doubt in his mind this time that no earthly consideration would induce us to make the trip in such company and that if he felt unable to take us over the pass in safety alone as he had agreed to do, we would give up the trip and return to the Grimsel.
He started to tell us that the men were entirely sober this morning, and were excellent mountaineers, but I cut him off with a “_Ganz und gar unmöglich_.” We added that the weather was more than doubtful and that last night’s fall of snow would make the trip more dangerous and more difficult. In that case, we said, we would wait over till the next day and see if conditions improved. Biner sighed and returned to the next room, where he made known our decision, and the trio of objectionables started, the irrepressible barber being the only one who had the nerve to bid us farewell.
We now emerged and had our breakfast. We had pretty much decided to stay at the Pavilion till next day, sending Biner back to the Grimsel for firewood and provisions. It had stopped snowing, but the sky was black and the clouds hung low. However, about eight o’clock it lightened up a bit, and Biner said he thought it would do to start. It was late, but there was always the Schwarzegg hut in case we could not make Grindelwald.
We were glad enough to escape a day of inaction. So we bundled ourselves up and started. My costume included winter flannels, heavy shoes, high gaiters, corduroy jacket and skirt, a flannel shirtwaist, a jersey of Frater’s, buckskin gloves, and my broad-brimmed felt hat tied down over my ears with a veil. This had the double advantage of keeping it from blowing away in some precarious spot where I could not use my hands and of keeping my ears from freezing. My costume, however, was inadequate. I should have had woolen or fur-lined gloves and fleece-lined shoes. My fingers, toes, cheeks, and nose were all frost-bitten before the day was over, and the suffering caused by the cold was intense.
Biner was the only one who had woolen gloves, and he shared them with us, keeping one hand gloved in order to have the use of it, the other glove circulating among us three. I do not think we could have kept the use of our hands through the day had it not been for this periodical thawing out of one hand at a time. But how it did hurt! Biner should of course have seen that we were provided with these things before starting, but I fancy he credited us with more knowledge of mountaineering than we had.
A short distance from the hut we were roped, Biner first, I next, as interpreter, Frater next and Belle Soeur bringing up the rear. We walked up the Unteraar Glacier to its origin, where the Lauteraar Glacier and Finsteraar Glacier come together, then followed this latter to the outlet of the Strahlegg Firn, up which we turned.
The snowfall of the night before made it necessary for Biner to sound each step ahead of him with his ice-pick. It happened several times that the pick encountered no resistance, and Biner, kicking aside the loose snow would uncover a fissure or air-hole in the ice which had been completely covered. This delayed us somewhat, but the air was so cold and thin, and we were in such poor condition, comparatively, after our almost sleepless night, that I doubt if we could have gone much faster had the surface of the ice been clear.
The Strahlegg Firn is a great snow pile, very steep of surface, flowing between huge walls of rock, on the right the Lauteraarhörner, on the left the Finsteraarhorn and Fiescherhorn. Down this gully, as we turned up it, swept a bitter icy wind that almost took our breath away. We had been ascending rapidly since leaving the Dollfus Pavilion and were now not far from the ten-thousand foot level. The thinness of the air made it seem almost impossible to get enough oxygen to walk with. Each breath was a labor, each step forward a triumph of mind over matter. And it seemed each minute as if that terrible wind would blow our flickering life-force out like a candle flame.
It would have been sensible, of course, to turn around and go back. But who likes to accept defeat? And we kept hoping, with baseless optimism, that we had done the worst and would soon strike something easier.
At noon we had climbed nearly to the top of the firn and stopped in the shelter of a big bowlder for lunch. Ahead of us loomed a perpendicular rock wall eight hundred feet high, as we subsequently learned from one of Tyndall’s Alpine books. It looked higher. At its summit was the alleged Strahlegg Pass, which we knew lacked just five feet of eleven thousand. There was no sign of a path or any way of getting up, but we knew human beings went over there quite frequently, and we supposed that on nearer approach some sort of a trail would disclose itself. We did not question the guide about it. The atmosphere did not lend itself to extended conversation. We kept our breath for the serious business of life.
It was a great relief to get out of the wind, but the snowdrift we sat down in was by no means warm, and our feet were by now extremely painful. Just here Belle Soeur had an attack of mountain sickness and had to lie down flat in the snow and couldn’t eat her share of the bread and cheese. If she was going to do it, though, it was mighty fortunate she chose lunch-time rather than a little later. The luxury of this meal did not tempt us to linger long, and we were soon under way again. We had not even unroped.
In the midst of this primeval solitude we suddenly saw a human being. Nothing could have surprised us more. It was a little black speck of a man appearing on the upper brink of the rock wall and starting to climb down. Was it one of the party who had gone on ahead of us, turning back to seek help after an accident? Biner said not. Biner also said that unless he was a professional guide, it was very foolhardy of him to try to get over alone, and that no guide who knew the route would ever try to come down where he was starting to make the descent. Presently his interest increased to the point of saying that the man would infallibly be killed if he didn’t turn around and go back. We were horrified. But it was impossible to warn the man at such a distance, even by gesture.
It shows how absorbing our own peril soon became that we presently forgot all about him, and when we thought of him some hours later could only _hope_ he got through all right. As we heard nothing subsequently of a fatal accident or of anybody’s disappearing, though we made numerous inquiries, I suppose he escaped.
He made things unpleasant for us for a time by detaching stones and rock fragments in his climbing which hurtled downwards with destructive force. We made quite a detour to the right to get out of the danger zone.
We were now at the foot of our rock wall, and there was no path, no trail, no ledge, no deviation from the vertical. Still we might have turned back, but we did not. The very preposterousness of the thing held us. It was _impossible_ that there shouldn’t be some way of getting up this cliff, which was not yet apparent!
We started. Biner felt above his head with the point of his ice-pick till he found a crack which held it firm. Then, with surprising agility for a man of his age and build, he drew himself up till he could reach it with his fingers, having previously located some little protuberance or incision where he could rest his toe. Keeping his grip with one hand, he leaned over and helped me up with the other. Frater climbed to the place I had just vacated and pulled Belle Soeur up as Biner had pulled me. By the time we realized the horror of it, we went on because it seemed on the whole easier than to go back.
All the way up that eight hundred feet of rock wall, there was never a ledge large enough to rest on with the entire two feet at once! I had read of such things in mountaineering books, but had cheerfully supposed the descriptions exaggerated. And we had believed the Strahlegg Pass was hardly full-fledged mountaineering anyhow—just something a little more strenuous than the Gries or Rawyl.
I don’t know what thoughts passed through the minds of the others, but mine beat a sort of tattoo in my head like this: “You fool—_fool_—Fool! You’ve got two little children in Grindelwald and a husband in the Philippines. And you are going to break your neck within the next ten minutes. And you aren’t accomplishing anything under heaven by it. It’s just sheer futile idiocy.”
The numbness of my hands was so great that my control over them was most uncertain. My life and that of my companions depended on the grip I should keep with those cramped, aching fingers, but though I concentrated my will-power on them I felt no certainty that the next minute they would not become rigid and refuse to obey me.
Every once in a while the distance from ledge to ledge would be too great for me to reach, and Biner would lift me by the rope around my waist. During those instants, when I had loosened my own hold of hand and foot and swung clear into space with nothing but an inch of manila hemp and a man’s grip on it between me and a horrible death, I thought of the daily Alpine accidents I had been reading about in the papers, I thought of the frequency with which the rope parts at the critical moment, I thought of my children in Grindelwald—and I called myself names. The faculty to do a very extensive amount of thinking seemed to be concentrated in those instants, the phenomenon probably being akin to that so often chronicled of the last moment of consciousness by those resuscitated from apparent drowning.
I am more particularly relating here my own sensations because I am most familiar with them. Those of the others, with the possible exception of Biner, were undoubtedly equally vivid. Each of us was perfectly conscious that if any one of us slipped, all four would go down. In the nature of things, we had none of us a grip or foothold sufficiently secure to resist a sudden jerk such as would come if one were to fall.
After the first few minutes, I never looked downward. I was not inclined to dizziness, but the drop was too appalling. The others told me afterwards that they also abstained from looking down. We concentrated eyes and thoughts on the few feet of rock immediately around and above us.
Several times on the way up, puffs of biting wind would come down the face of the cliff which it seemed must surely blow us loose. At such moments we stopped climbing and flattened ourselves against the rock, clinging as we loved our lives.
Once we got all four on a little ledge not as wide as the length of our feet, but solid enough to stand on without balancing. We paused there to take breath, and somebody said “Cognac.” Now our experience in the Alpine hut the night before had nearly made teetotalers of us. But at this moment we decided that stimulants _might_ have a legitimate use. Frater produced his silver pocket flask and handed it around. We took a swallow in turn, and it was like liquid life running down our throats. I never experienced anything so magical. (Here I am describing my own sensations again!) I was at the very last point of endurance. I had lost faith in ever reaching the summit of the cliff. I had no more physical force with which to lift my sagging weight upward. I had lost the will-power that lashes on an exhausted body. My numb hands were stiffening. My lungs were choked and laboring. I could neither go on nor go back. Then those two teaspoonfuls, or thereabouts, of fiery cognac that burned down my throat sufficed to give me back my grip on myself, physical and mental. I moved my cramped fingers, and they answered. I took a deep, long breath and felt strengthened. A hope, almost a confidence, crept into my heart, that with God’s help we might reach the top alive.