ā CHAPTER I ā
The two men had left Courmayeur that morning at the hour when the dew rises in blue wisps from the stone-tiled roofs. They walked quickly up the road to EntrĆØves and passed the little mountain village still asleep in its green hollow. The track to the Col du GĆ©ant goes up from there, tacking up the hillside between low stone walls, its erratic course dictated by the layout of the fields.
At this early hour, the cattle were coming out of the barns, horns up, muzzles steaming, and all their bells a-tinkle. A few peasants were already at work in the tiny fields that dot the stony slopes: they paused for a moment as the two strangers passed, glanced up and, doubled over their tools, took a good look at the travellers who greeted them with a civil āGood morning.ā āMorning,ā answered the peasants. Soon the checkerboard of tiled fields gave way to larches. The valley looked wider now, and the murmur of the Dora down below could be heard more clearly. At the first zigzag, where the path begins to attack the slope in earnest, the two climbers halted. The younger was first to stop ā a strapping young fellow who up till then had walked jauntily enough, jumping up on the stone walls, mowing down the nettles in his path with a sweep of his ice-axe, stopping suddenly to look back at the village perched in the angle of the two mountain walls, the peaceful valley, and the distant landscape shimmering blue under a sapphire sky. A few yards behind came the older man, who had walked up at a slow rhythmical pace, bending his knee slightly at each step as if trying to feel the earth under his thick nailed soles.
āThatās enough larking, Pierre, my boy,ā he grunted as he joined the other. āLetās put our sacks down and have a breather.ā
They slipped their huge guidesā rucksacks off their shoulders: they were made of solid Valais leather, marked by sun and air, scratched and worn by the rub of rock. Then, sitting on the bank by the side of the path, legs apart and elbows on knees, they rested for a moment and got back their breath. The silence was broken by the young man:
āHow long from here to the Col, Uncle?ā
āSix hours. Two from here to the Mont FrĆ©ty inn,ā the old man counted them off on his fingers, āfrom Mont FrĆ©ty to the foot of the rocks, an hour and a half; from there to the hut on the Col, you have to reckon three hours, with heavy sacks ā and itās going to be hot, so Iād best go in front and set the pace. Youād walk your legs off at the rate youāre going ā and Iām sixty years old. Mercy on us, sixty years old, and they want to make me retire! As if my strength didnāt count for something! Look at these hands, young fella-me-lad: do you think they canāt get a proper grip? Mark me, these hands of Red Josephās have never let go, never, I tell you, not even on the Pic Sans Nom that day when half a ton of rock came down and I took the whole weight of the rope in my fists.ā
āThere arenāt any hands to touch yours in all the valley, Uncle; with them, youāre as firm as a rock ā Iāve seen that very well for myself these last few days. But what can you do about it, these are the regulations and weāve got to put up with them. Anyway, you wonāt need to leave the mountains, the president of the Club Alpine FranƧais offered to make you warden of the Couvercle hut.ā
āDonāt say another word about it, my boy. Itās a dreary way of ending my days, waking people up in the small hours and getting tea ready for parties setting off on a climb.ā
āSorry, Uncle, I hadnāt meant to hurt you.ā
āTake your pack, and get a move on.ā
Joseph Ravanat, generally known as Red Joseph, was one of the heroes of the French Alps; he had been called the guide of kings and the king of guides. This was the end of his last big expedition. According to the rules of the Chamonix Corps of Guides he had to go on the retired list at sixty, and take no further engagements. Even though he could still keep the title of guide, he had no longer the right to keep his name on the books of the Guidesā Office and take his turn on the roster. This is the inexorable law of the mountains, which demand for their service men in the prime of life and health. And Ravanat, still at the top of his form, cursed and grumbled, as cross as any old salt forcibly barred from the sea, and wished that the end of his climbing career had come in hot blood with a fall, on one of those many first ascents that starred his record.
The two men started up again in silence. Ravanat walked in front, back bowed, leaning on his ice-axe, his left hand hitched into the strap of his rucksack to take some of the weight off his shoulders. Pierre Servettaz followed, adapting his stride to the older manās, in the knowledge that at this rate they would reach the hut without undue effort and before nightfall. A newcomer to the Alps noticing the general deliberateness of their progress would have been surprised at the lightness with which the two mountaineers put their feet down on the loose stones of the path. Not a pebble moved, and their bootnails bit evenly into the ground.
The old man climbed without a word, his eyes fixed on the path ahead, careful not to break the rhythm of his stride. His face ā burned by the sun, battered by storms and worn by years of hardy and strenuous life ā was wrinkled and dried up: years ago he had stopped having anything to sweat off. He was an odd sight, this old guide with his brick-red complexion and twinkling lively eyes, deep-set under bushy red eyebrows that were always twitching, as if theyād been stuck on; and the wonderful pirateās moustache that he was always absentmindedly stroking, did nothing to lessen his general air of Saracen ancestry. His long, bony frame was rough-hewn, his hands were like flails, knotty, freckled and covered with hair ā red-brown like the rest ā and the fingertips were all worn and cracked by the rocks. Hands, as he liked to point out, that never let go their grip.