Chapter 43
Chapter 43
I t was eerie, descending from the plane into a deserted world; snow muffling all sound and, out of the worst of the wind, the sudden silence was odd and slightly unnerving. There was nobody there; Gertie found Skellan in the little hut, looking white. They took a view, supported by Skellan, to strap up his ankle until they could get him back, turned on the electric heater that was attached to the generator, and set him in front of it with paracetamol and a large glass of whisky, precisely the opposite of what the manual said but under the circumstances, and provided he drank lots of water, they figured it was all right.
They radioed up to Denise, who sounded her usual unflustered self, even when she heard about the cliff and Skellan. “But,” she broke in, “it would be rather better if we could evacuate now rather than tonight,” which, in Denise language meant, “Get us the hell out of here ASAP.”
U P ON THE ridge, Struan was cheerfully unaware of any of this. He was rather enjoying, in fact, huddling everyone together, getting them to jump up and down, and distributing some of the bounty of the packages—neither Denise nor he thought there was any point in rationing; surely they’d be down today, now they knew the plane could drop packages. They had even seen it circling and then vanish, low down, from sight, as opposed to soaring into the sky, which meant the grown-ups were fairly confident they were on their way home pretty soon.
Struan was cheerfully going through the bag like Father Christmas.
There were warm socks and hats and scarves that he immediately bundled the children up in. The removal of wet socks in particular was incredibly useful. Denise was privately worried about how blue the children’s feet looked, and very grateful indeed for the foot and hand warmers, particularly for some of the children in trainers.
There was chocolate and water and bananas, bashed from the fall, though that didn’t worry anyone. They still couldn’t get the fire going outside the cave, but Denise was going to seriously consider doing it inside, choking or no choking. A hot drink would do them all the world of good. The problem was, it is one thing to play out in the snow for a little while, then come back in to hot chocolate and a cozy fire. It is quite another to be out in it all day, with little hope of shelter except a dank, dripping cave. Still there were firelighters, and fuel-burning logs. So Denise would give it a shot. Mrs. McGinty had fully retreated to the cave.
Denise was technically meant to look for Mrs. McGinty with the news from the radio, but took one look at her and told Skellan instead.
They had twelve children to get down an eighteen-foot solid wall of ice. They didn’t have the fixed abseiling ropes any more, and Skellan had not been crazy about the fixing hook left on top of the climb. It was very slippery and dangerous, and the children were not particularly fit.
But the longer they stayed up there, the greater the risk of exposure. Frostbite was entirely possible. The temperature was zero degrees Celsius, with the windchill making it considerably colder. Some children were already refusing food, the first sign that the cold was setting deep into their bones. They had four logs for the fire, now spluttering inside the cave, which made it incredibly unpleasant. Each log would burn for an hour. After that they were in serious trouble. The helicopter was just about ready to go out again, but they couldn’t get over till midnight, earliest. RAF Lossiemouth was out on the rigs, evacuating men.
On the plus side, the three airline crew were willing to help, and whilst Skellan couldn’t come, he could tell them what to do. And there was equipment down the mountain. They just had to get up and get moving.
Denise made her mind up. They were going to make a go of it.
She explained her reasoning to Struan, who agreed.
“It has to be a game,” she said. “It has to be fun. If they’re frightened, it’s not going to work.”
He nodded, fully on board. Meanwhile, Mrs. McGinty burst into tears.
B ACK AT THE base, Skellan was talking through what they had to do, and showing them the ropes.
“Does anyone know knots?” he said.
“We’re pilots, not sailors,” said Morag, faintly irritated.
“Uhm,” said Gertie. “Well, I kind of do.”
Skellan beamed. “Oh thank goodness.”
Gertie shrugged modestly as he talked them through it. They had a rescue truss, that needed to be tied up in a certain way, with a certain number of people to winch up and down and that would work for the cliff. Morag glanced at Ranald, unsure if the older man would be up to going out in a snowstorm. She immediately realized this was a ridiculous state of mind to be in. His jaw was set like granite. He was delighted by the challenge and obviously very up for it.
They dressed in every mad piece of outdoor gear they could find in the clubhouse, plus large and serious walking boots, and, with full packs on their backs, left behind the comfort and safety of the little hut and set out up the snow-covered terrifying mountain on their own: people with a mission.
I T HAD BEEN very hard work to boil the kettle with the melted snow, and mixed with chocolate it was still not very nice, with gritty bits in it, and nobody got very much, but also nobody complained. A worry in itself.
“Now!” said Denise, keeping the same children’s TV presenter voice—the best defense she had.
“What we’re going to do now is head back down!!”
There was a silence.
“In this?” came Anna-Lise’s voice, finally.
“It’s fine,” said Struan. “It’ll be fun! This is part of the bravery challenge.”
“I don’t want the bravery challenge,” said Khalid decisively. “I am fine without the bravery challenge.”
“There are medals,” said Struan, on a whim.
There was some interest in this and Anne-Marie’s face popped up. “For everyone or just some people?”
“For everyone who comes on the bravery challenge,” said Struan, crossing his fingers.
“Down the hill in the snow?” said Jimmy. “Nae bother.” And for once, Struan was glad of Jimmy’s bravado. It was a massive help.
“Yeah, you talk crud though,” said Wee Shugs. “We’ve had that proved.”
And then Struan was annoyed he’d called him out on it, about the climbing.
“Is the bravery challenge just walking down the mountain in this snow?” said Oksana finally.
Struan nodded.
Oksana shrugged. “I have done worse,” she said.
And nobody argued with that.
T HEY EVEN MADE a show of tidying up the camp, partly because Denise was trying to stall, waiting to hear the airline crew were at the cliff edge, and partly because she wanted to make the children think that this was all perfectly normal and nothing out of the ordinary was happening, rather than dash away in a panic. But in the end everyone—including Mrs. McGinty, whom Denise was slightly more worried about than the others—followed Oksana down, while Struan kept them singing, and told them stories of Shackleton, then stopped before he got to the bit about them killing seals and spending a year living in the ice and snow.
D ENISE WOULDN’T HAVE admitted it in a million years, how relieved she was when the radio crackled and it was Morag, Ranald, and their stewardess, in position at the bottom of the cliff.
Gertie had found the entire thing astonishing. She was a child of the Highlands—familiar with long winters and the cold bite of the windy air—the bending over of the rushes and the thick grass; the bliss of going indoors to the warmth of home and the local fires burning.
But this was new. And strange. Like the weather was happening at a time out of control. Rain or snow or sunshine, the supermarket was always the same. As was the tin shed, to be fair, in that it was always cold. But this was something else. This was the world trying to harm you. Actively, the wind was whipping around the Mermaid’s Spyglass tearing, screaming, “You don’t belong here.” Even wrapped up properly, two pairs of gloves, goggles, two hats. Even with everything they had, it was still very clearly saying to her: “Go. You have no place here,” the wind shrieking like a banshee chorus.
She kept moving, Ranald in the lead, the two women behind. The switchback where they hit the north side was almost unbearable; completely blinded by the white-out, they clung to the rock walls and inched their way around, each thinking, but not saying, how difficult it was going to be to get the children down from there.
One thing at a time though. They plowed on, and up, for ninety minutes, until Gertie’s world meant nothing more than snow and roaring; although she had no clear idea how long they’d been out there. The light did not change; the swirling snowflakes bounced and could not settle hither or thither because of the strong winds. Between the soft white of the flakes and the misty gray of the sky it was very difficult to see anything much.
But then, finally, they were there, at the base of the cliff.
Gertie felt the sudden rush of adrenaline as she spied, staring up the icy expanse of cliff, a face carefully peering back at her. It was such a long way down.
Struan was keeping all the children back from the cliff edge, excited though they were. There were a few tears now, and even the perkiest were looking very cold and unhappy.
Morag pulled the harness out of the bag, and they put it together the way they’d been shown. It was effectively a seat winched up on a strong rope by the adults on both ends. Simple, but effective. As long as everyone was calm enough to keep their heads and not panic. Carefully, Gertie got on Ranald’s shoulders until she could get high enough to throw it to Denise, leaning downward. It took a while but they managed with a great whoop, Ranald only wincing a little.
Denise, Struan, and Mrs. McGinty topside, then the rest of them below, to gather the children in. Although they would have to be careful turning round the cliff on the way back down, the rest of it they could more or less just clamber down, if they were careful. Once this bit was over. The difficult bit. Just as long as nobody...
“I can’t do it. I CAN’T!”
A T THE BOTTOM of the cliff, Gertie finalized her knots. They were as neat and tidy as one could wish for and Morag checked them over; they looked exactly like the sketches in the guide card Skellan had given them. She gave her a thumbs-up; it was hard to talk in the howling gale.
U P ON TOP of the cliff, Struan had gone to get Mrs. McGinty. She was standing in a small alcove in the mountain, trying to protect herself from the wind.
“We’re going to get the children down the cliff,” he’d said. She kept staring at the rock.
“It’s not safe,” she kept saying. “It’s not safe!”
“It’ll be fine,” said Struan, unwilling to reassure her that it was perfectly safe when it clearly wasn’t. “Come on. The children need us. You’re upsetting them.”
“Can’t they send a helicopter?”
“They’ve sent a plane,” said Struan. “Here.”
He held up a beautiful rose-colored scarf from the package. “Wrap this around you, keep you warm.”
Mrs. McGinty shook her head furiously. “I’m NOT going!”
Struan looked at her, then glanced back at Denise, who had her hands full keeping the children from the cliff edge.
“I’m afraid... you’re going to have to,” he said. Mrs. McGinty shook her head mutinously, like a much younger child than the ones queueing up carefully outside.
Morag and Gertie had successfully managed to send the harness up the ropes that Denise had secured rather more carefully and successfully than Skellan had managed in his rush. They sent down a full rucksack first to make sure it would hold, which it did, quite comfortably, Struan and Denise controlling it from the top; but that was light. Some of the children were on the large side and they had themselves to get down too.
Denise expected to be able to make it down last by climbing herself, so they were keeping the lightest children to the end when one person could feed the rope through. But that wouldn’t really help them if Mrs. McGinty was still recalcitrant.
Nonetheless, against the weather, they all tried to keep up the jolliest of veneers to their voices; something children would, of course, have seen through right away, if those children hadn’t also been so desperate to believe in the grown-ups; hadn’t themselves been so desperate to believe everything was going to be okay that they could be fooled by a lilt in the voice, a singsong twist.
Oksana—bless her—came forward first, again massively cheered on by her classmates, her face set in stone. Struan felt briefly so unhappy that it had to be this way, before being proud of her once again. She put her newly mittened hands on the rope, clasped it hard, and, hearteningly, waved at her classmates.
Gradually and carefully they winched her down, and Morag and Gertie grabbed her at the other end, happy to see her and delighted she was okay.
Everyone was cheery. Except it had taken over six minutes to get her down safely, plus they then had to check the ropes and carefully send them back up again. And there were twelve children. Which meant, at the absolute bare minimum, it would take ninety minutes. They were located on a completely exposed part of the mountain; no caves to shelter in, just the wind whipping past. If Skellan had been there he could have started ushering them down to safety, but he wasn’t.
“Stand by the wall,” said Morag, but they were chilled themselves and it was clear to see how frozen and exhausted Oksana was. It wasn’t ideal.
“Can we hurry it up?” she said into the radio.
Denise and Struan toiled all they could; geeing up the children, carefully strapping them in, getting them to cheer, up or down, even as the cheers grew more ragged and exhausted, and Gertie grew more concerned. It was very tiring up there. Struan was strong but even so, some of the ten- and eleven-year-olds were on the larger side and they had to hold the rope absolutely as straight as they could manage against the wind so it didn’t flap about too much. It was hard work and they were getting slower: Gertie did not like the look of the children, all huddled together. They were trembling hard.
“Come ON!” Morag shouted through the radio. “Come on. We have to get them moving.”
“Yeah,” said Denise. “We’ve got all the kids. But there’s a problem.”
Indeed there was. Mrs. McGinty was still refusing to get on the winch.
It was no use. Struan tried gentle persuasion; Denise was rather more forthright. Nothing would fetch her. No way was she getting into the harness. None at all. In vain they tried reason, but she was insistent she would break it; she was too big for it. She couldn’t hear them telling her she was fine, not big at all, that it was designed to take down a large man; she simply couldn’t listen.
M ORAG WAS INCREASINGLY worried about the very cold and still children down below and wanted to take them back alone, but was also concerned about the path and the scree, particularly shepherding them round the north face. It had been hard enough when it was just the three adults doing it themselves. Gertie looked at her, wondering. Then it came to her.
“I’ll go up,” said Gertie suddenly. “If I go up and help Struan, then Denise can come down. She can lead the children down, with your help. And then we adults can get down on our own.”
Morag looked at her, then at the children.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“Yes,” said Gertie. “You can get down and sort out the plane and get it ready to take off. I can’t do that. We’ll be right behind you. I can knot the rope properly and climb down it—you know I can. We’ll tether it to the top and I can do it with Struan on the bottom.”
This was a very bold claim for Gertie to make.
Morag glanced at Ranald who wouldn’t have admitted it in a million years but was also feeling absolutely worn out.
She radioed Denise, who looked at Struan. He hadn’t set a foot wrong; he’d been useful and calm and knew exactly what they were doing.
“You get McGinty down from here if you have to throw her,” she said quietly.
“She’ll be better when we aren’t pressuring her,” said Struan, which was a compelling argument. And the number-one prior ity at this point was the children—so much less able to survive in extreme temperatures.
Denise nodded, finally. “Okay.”
G ERTIE HAD NEVER, in her whole life, thought of herself as brave. She had always felt quite the opposite: cowardly, overlooked. Not an important person in anyone’s eyes—barely in the eyes of her own mother. She kept herself safe and lived in her daydreams, which were so much nicer than her real life.
From the moment Morag and Nalitha had burst into her shop, though, nothing had been like that.
She’d tried being brave, she thought. With Calum. And look how that had turned out.
Then it occurred to her that perhaps being brave was something you had to practice. Something, maybe, you got better at. Getting slowly deeper in the water instead of jumping in all at once. Or the first time you tried cabling.
“Okay,” she said, her voice barely perceptible above the roar. “Strap me in.”
Ranald did so.
“It is an honor,” he said as he did so. “To fly with you.”
She gave him a half-hearted grin and thumbs-up, as Morag gave the line two tugs and the children did their best to give a half-hearted cheer, even though they were drowsy and confused as to what was happening. Slowly, Gertie lurched up into the freezing air.
She gasped in surprise; as she drew higher, the scale of the whipping snowflakes and harsh ice became broader, stretching out, on every side, into utter darkness, only the far-below flash of the lighthouse and the tiniest gleam of the landing lights to show you which way was even up. She felt, suddenly, even more than she usually did, like the tiniest dot in a vast universe, pressed down by the weight of a huge sky full of snow.
But normally, feeling small in the world was not a good feeling. It made you feel like nothing you did mattered, that you could shout into the void—as, indeed, Gertie could right now—and nobody would hear you; nobody would care. She was a minuscule unimportant speck. And this was not a dream. This was as real as real could be. She froze, staring out into the maelstrom, seriously wondering for a moment if, truly, it mattered. If she disappeared altogether, slipped free from the harness, launched herself into the wind... It wasn’t a suicidal impulse, more the dreadful thrill that sometimes takes over you on a train platform, that you might suddenly do something ridiculous and step off.
And then she heard a voice above her.