Chapter 37
Chapter 37
S truan wasn’t sure what woke him, but the first thing he noticed was that it was cold. Very very cold. And something felt odd. The condensation inside the tent was forming into ice. He grabbed his phone and turned on the flashlight. Skellan—who had, in fact, shaken Struan awake in passing—was no longer there. Struan rubbed his eyes, grabbed the water bottle by his bed, and took a long pull—the water was absolutely freezing. When he unzipped the tent, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The wind was roaring, he realized; the flakes were a total white-out. They’d been expecting rain but this was something else altogether. There was a larger, better flashlight there and he swapped out his phone for it; there was no signal anyway.
He grabbed his jacket, put on his gloves, and headed out.
Outside was a maelstrom. Standing up in the full path of the wind was extraordinary; they weren’t quite exposed to the northern flank, which was funneling snow straight down from the poles at high speeds, but even so, it was very unnerving. He felt like Captain Scott.
He turned toward the mountainside. Already, the tents were racketing and bucketing in the wind. Struan panicked, wondering if there were children inside, but, as his eyes adjusted, he could make out all the pinpricks of light—they were all huddling in the cave, squeezed in together, with Skellan and Denise.
He made his way over to it and the children’s delight turned to dismay as they realized it was just him, rather than someone arrived to get them out of there.
“Hey!” he said. “This isn’t a bit of rain!”
There were very weak smiles. He decided to play it up for all he was worth.
“Well,” he said. “Maybe it’ll blow away my guitar and that will be one good thing.”
More weak smiles.
“Are we going to be all right, sir?”
Skellan stood forward. “Of course you are,” he said quickly. “I’m going to pile you under all the sleeping bags together.”
“I’m no’ going near the boys—yuk,” said Bronte, and Denise pointed out that that was going to be very chilly otherwise and Bronte asked if they would stop farting and Jimmy Gaskell said he would not, and demonstrated thusly, and Struan was slightly heartened.
“... and keep us warm, and the snow will stop and then we’ll have a big snowball fight and run around and have a great time,” finished Skellan.
“Can we maybe just go home?” said Khalid, his voice a little shaky and several people agreed with him.
“Well, let’s see,” said Skellan. “Now, who wants an energy bar?”
Denise was bringing all the sleeping bags from the tents.
“We’ll use them to line the cave,” she explained. “Keep the drafts out.”
Struan frowned.
“You really think it’s going to get that cold?”
Denise shrugged. “Och, just when you think the mountains have thrown all there is to throw at you...” Her voice trailed off. “You can never predict it,” she said. “That’s the mountains for you.”