Mission Survival 8 Read online

  Ian and Beck climbed easily into theirs, and then had to help James get his straightened out.

  Beck felt James trembling as he looked down the slope they were about to descend. ‘’s OK,’ he murmured. ‘We can do this together, right?’

  James shot him a nervous glance.

  ‘Together,’ Beck repeated.

  Meanwhile Ian was laying out the rope, freeing any tangles that had crept in while it was in his bergen. He tied the ends of the two coils together with a deft, smooth flick of the wrist. From the bottom of the bergen he produced two metal bolts and a small metal hammer. He began to walk along the ledge, eyes scanning the rock at his feet. Then he dropped down abruptly by a small crack and used the hammer to drive the bolts into the rock.

  ‘Beck, talk James through how abseiling works. I’m guessing you’ve done this before.’

  ‘Yeah, once or twice . . .’

  Beck delved into the small bag and held up a steel loop. One side of it was hinged so that he could snap it open and shut with his thumb. ‘This is a carabiner, and it goes here.’ He snapped it onto a buckle at the front of James’s harness. Then he held up a piece of metal like a figure of eight – two solid loops stuck together, one larger than the other. ‘And this is a descender.’ He snapped it onto the carabiner and then screwed a small metal sleeve over the carabiner’s hinge to lock it tight. He proceeded to demonstrate by sticking his fingers through the loops of the descender. ‘The rope goes through these loops, and that creates friction, which slows you down. You hold the rope above the descender with your right hand. That’s your guide hand. Your left hand is your brake hand. I’ll also tie an autoblock for you. That’s a knot that wraps around the rope below the descender. You keep your brake hand on the autoblock. If you accidentally let go of it, it automatically wraps tight around the rope and holds it fast. That means you stop.’

  ‘So,’ James said slowly, ‘I’m trusting my life to one thin rope?’

  Beck grinned. ‘Yup!’

  ‘That’ll take some getting used to . . .’

  Chapter 6

  Ian had hammered both bolts securely into the rock. He attached a carabiner to each one, then ran the doubled-up rope through them. A couple of sharp tugs satisfied him that the bolts weren’t going to budge. He fastened a descender to his own harness and threaded the double strands of the rope through the loops, as Beck had described to James. Beck watched as he tied on his own autoblock. It was a thin loop of red nylon cord, which Ian wrapped four or five times around the rope. He spoke as he was doing this:

  ‘I’ll go first. James comes second, so Beck can check his knots for him and I can look out for him from below. Beck comes down last. Once we’re all down, I’ll give the rope a tug, it’ll slide through and come down after us. Then we do the next stretch.’

  He arranged the autoblock carefully so that all the wraps on the rope were neatly stacked, one on top of the other, and not tangled or criss-crossing. Then he clipped both ends of the remaining cord to a second carabiner on his harness.

  ‘Questions?’

  ‘Uh . . .’ Beck glanced at the bolts and the carabiners in them. ‘We won’t be coming back this way?’

  ‘Don’t plan to. Why?’

  ‘So we don’t come back for the bolts?’

  On climbing routes that were frequently used, it was quite usual to leave bolts attached for the next climbers. But when it came to climbing on fresh rock that had never been used before, like here, Beck had always been taught that you tidied up after yourself. In his eyes, leaving those metal bolts was almost like littering. His Green Force upbringing just made him want to say no!

  Ian didn’t seem to understand his concern. ‘We’ve got enough bolts and carabiners for four descents, and that’ll put us right where we’re meant to be. We’ll be on a route that’ll take us straight to Lumos without anyone seeing us.’

  Four descents, Beck thought. The two ropes together, doubled up, were fifty metres. So, four descents of fifty metres was 200 metres. Quite a drop. But they were still a lot more than 200 metres above the valley floor. He remembered what James had said about Ian maybe being lost . . .

  He pushed the thought away. He had even less idea of where they were than Ian did. He just had to trust the man.

  Ian picked up the rope as Beck had described to James – right hand above the descender, left hand at waist level holding the autoblock below. He turned his back on the sheer drop and walked backwards to the edge.

  ‘Be seeing you!’

  And then he was gone. The rope tugged and jerked in its bolts under Ian’s weight. Thirty seconds later it went limp.

  ‘OK,’ came the call from below. Beck pulled the rope up for James to use.

  ‘Don’t look down,’ James was muttering. ‘Don’t look down . . .’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Keep a wide stance and be confident. Trust gravity!’ Beck grinned.

  ‘Do not mention gravity to me ever again,’ James muttered.

  Beck winked as he ran the rope through James’s descender and tied an autoblock for him.

  James went on, ‘I can’t believe I’m about to do this. You know, I’d never thought about the expression “thin air” before. What’s so thin about air? I’ll tell you: it can’t support any weight, that’s what, and I’m going down through it . . .’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Beck said again. ‘The bolts are solid, the rope’s solid, the autoblock is your back-up – it’s impossible to fall.’

  ‘Did you know that the laws of physics say it’s impossible for a bumblebee to fly?’ James said. ‘Problem is, no one ever told the bumblebees . . .’

  But for all his grumbling, James was doing as he was told and getting into position.

  Beck knew from experience that grumbling and muttering were his friend’s way of mustering courage. ‘Let the rope run smoothly through your brake hand as you go . . .’

  ‘And grip tight to stop. Got it. Supposing the friction burns my fingers?’

  ‘Then you’re going too fast,’ Beck said with a smile.

  ‘Ha ha. OK, here goes nothing.’

  James went down with a lot less grace than Ian, stepping backwards slowly and working his way nervously down the cliff. Beck craned his neck over to follow his progress. ‘Good job, James. Looking strong,’ he called reassuringly.

  After a couple of minutes the rope went limp again. The call came from below for Beck to come down. He pulled the rope back up, fastened it to his descender and kicked himself away from the cliff.

  Chapter 7

  The rope ran smoothly through Beck’s fingers. The rock face ran up past his eyes as though he was going down in an elevator. Thirty seconds later he was on a ledge with James and Ian.

  It was much smaller than the last one – barely five metres in length and as wide as a man’s outstretched arms. James was standing well away from the edge, his back pressed to the rock. In front was nothing but thin air, and then the sheer rock of the mountains on the other side of the valley.

  Beck winced when he saw that Ian was already hammering in a fresh set of bolts.

  ‘Get the rope down, Beck?’

  The rope was doubled up. Beck pulled on one strand. The other end ran up and out of sight above them. It passed through the bolts on the ledge they had come from, and a moment later came tumbling down again. Beck began to coil it up while Ian got ready for the next stage. He was checking his GPS against his bit of paper again.

  ‘Bang on course,’ he announced gruffly.

  ‘Good,’ James said. He tilted his head back and looked up the way they had come. ‘’Cos I’d hate to have to climb back up.’

  Ian put the GPS and paper away. ‘Three more descents and we’re on a track that we can just walk down. We’ve shaved a whole day off our journey, coming this way.’

  Beck peered over the edge. The rock bulged out below them, so it was impossible to see what lay underneath. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked. He couldn’t see what was ahead, and that made him nerv
ous. He liked to know what he was getting into.

  Ian scowled as he began to fit the rope to his descender. ‘Positive. Right, same as before – me, James, Beck. You getting the hang of it, James?’

  James beamed. ‘Yeah. Prepared. Set.’

  ‘Then here we go . . .’

  Ian backed his way down the bulge of rock, rope running between his fingers, and dropped out of sight. The boys waited for the sign that he had reached the next level below them.

  And waited.

  And waited some more.

  They exchanged glances. Beck checked the rope. It was still rigid, so Ian’s weight was still on the other end. And it was still quivering, which meant that Ian was moving about below. But surely he must have made the maximum fifty metres by now . . .

  Finally the call came from below: ‘OK . . .’ Beck strained his ears. Did Ian actually sound uncertain? That wasn’t like him.

  But what else could ‘OK’ mean? The rope was limp; Beck could now get James fastened up.

  ‘See you on the other side!’ James said with a grin, and kicked his way backwards off the ledge with a new-found confidence.

  Almost immediately Beck heard his panicked yelp:

  ‘Whoa! No! Oops. Help!’

  Beck tried to look over the jutting lip of rock, but it obscured the two figures. He strained to listen. It sounded like Ian was shouting encouragement or instructions from below. Beck tried to tell himself that James must have hit the sort of trouble that any newbie could get into. Probably managed to get himself upside down. Ian seemed to be sorting it out.

  After an eternity, the call came for Beck to follow. Beck fastened himself onto the rope and backed over the bulge.

  He saw immediately why James had been having issues. The bulge was an overhang. He was dangling vertically and his feet had nothing to push against. James had been trying to walk down the rock face, like he had the first time. That was why he had got into difficulties. He wasn’t experienced enough to do what Beck now did – which was just let himself run down the rope. He didn’t make any contact with the rock until his boots touched down next to his companions.

  But where he stopped wasn’t a ledge. It was just the top of another rocky bulge. All three of them had to brace to avoid sliding down the slope. Anything they put down would just roll away over the edge.

  James was staring at Beck; he looked slightly green. Ian’s face was set and hard, the way it went when he had to share bad news.

  Beck frowned. ‘What?’

  Ian actually swallowed and coughed. ‘I, uh, miscalculated. But only a little.’

  ‘Look at the next descent,’ James said faintly.

  Cautiously Beck leaned out and looked down. His heart turned to ice.

  He was looking down a sheer drop. There had to be 200 metres of air between them and the next rocky slope. There were no ledges anywhere in between. Nowhere to rest for three abseilers with fifty metres of rope – or even 100 metres, if they used the full length.

  Beck felt anger surge up inside him. ‘You let us climb down when you knew we were just getting into a dead end?’

  Climbing back up that overhang would be next to impossible. A skilled climber could potentially do it, with the right equipment and a degree of luck. He, Beck, could maybe do it. Someone like James would never get up there.

  ‘So what do we do?’ James asked, almost in a whisper. He craned his neck to look back the way they had come.

  A thousand tons of rock hung over them. They had climbed themselves down into a death trap.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Can we climb back up?’ James asked in panicky tones.

  ‘Of course we don’t climb up,’ Ian said irritably. ‘I wouldn’t have let you both come down if we were doing that. We climb along.’

  ‘Along?’ Beck asked.

  Ian edged a little further along the bulge where they stood and pointed. The slope grew steeper, but it wasn’t as sheer as the drop below. No one could walk on it, but someone clinging on with both hands and feet could make their way along it. Most of it.

  After about fifty metres, the slope curved away out of sight round the mountain. Below it, Beck couldn’t help noticing, the drop was just as vertical.

  ‘We can climb along there,’ Ian said. ‘Just a bit further round the corner, and then it’ll be flat enough to climb back up.’

  ‘So, uh, why didn’t we come down that way in the first place?’ James asked. He flushed when Ian shot him a sharp look, but didn’t look away. Even James was asking Ian questions, Beck thought – the situation had to be bad.

  ‘Because, there, I knew that, if we came down that way, we would end up over a sharp drop,’ Ian said through gritted teeth. ‘Here, I thought we would make it. I was wrong. I’m sorry. Hey, don’t worry. We’ll be tied together.’

  ‘Why?’ James muttered. ‘So if one of us falls, we all fall?’

  ‘So if one of us falls there’s two people holding him, anchored to the rock,’ Ian corrected. He turned back to Beck. ‘Spring-loaded cams, three of ’em, bottom right pocket.’

  Beck delved into Ian’s bergen and produced a handful of gadgets the size of his wrist. James looked at them with interest. They looked like random collections of semicircular blades joined together.

  ‘You talk him through using these while I get the rope ready,’ Ian instructed.

  Beck held up one of the devices and pressed his thumb against a switch. James recoiled as the blades suddenly sprang apart.

  ‘Each of us will have one of these,’ Beck said. ‘It’ll be attached to our harnesses. You jam it into a crack in the rock and press the switch. The blades open up like that and they hold firm. So you can’t fall.’

  ‘I’ll go first,’ Ian said as he fastened the rope to his harness, then to James’s, then to Beck’s. There was about fifteen metres of rope between each of them. The rest of it was coiled around Ian’s shoulder. ‘I’ll go out as far as I can and use my cam to hold on. James, you come out to join me and hold on with yours. I go a bit further. Then Beck comes out to join you, then you move . . . and so on. At any point, two of us will be fastened to the rock and we’ll all be tied together.’ He pinched James’s pale cheek. ‘See? Safe!’

  And James would be in the middle, supported at either end by two experienced climbers, Beck thought. It was a good plan. And it was their only hope.

  Chapter 9

  James mumbled something like ‘’Kay.’

  Beck helped him to find a good place to stick his cam into the rock. Then Ian sidled across the sharp slope, swiftly and confidently. He got out about ten metres and called over for James.

  ‘Remember what I said?’ Beck reminded him. ‘Only move one limb at a time. Keep the others firmly planted.’

  ‘If I don’t leave finger holes in the rock, it’ll be a miracle,’ James promised.

  Beck showed him how to disengage his cam one final time, and made sure that his own was securely fastened. Then James began fumbling his way out towards Ian. James was a lot slower. He felt his way with his feet, rather than looking down to place them. Looking down would have meant taking in the abyss beneath him. Beck could see his legs shaking, but James was biting his lip and forcing himself to go on. It took about five minutes for him to reach Ian.

  Ian patted him on the shoulder. ‘Way to go. That gap there – see? Stick your cam in there . . .’

  Beck heard the comforting snick of a cam opening.

  ‘That’s it. Right, I’ll go on a bit more, then Beck comes out to join us. You can’t fall . . .’

  Ian detached his own cam and continued across, leaving James stranded like a fly clinging to a wall. James kept his eyes fixed firmly on the rock a few centimetres in front of him. Ian climbed along to the full extent of his rope and latched himself onto the rock again. Now it was Beck’s turn to detach his cam and climb out to join James. There was something final about it, he thought. All three of them were now clinging to the rock over the sheer 200-metre drop.

  �
��Hi there,’ he said conversationally as he approached. He jammed his cam into the rock next to James’s. ‘Haven’t we met somewhere before?’

  ‘Yeah, the face is familiar.’ James’s chin was quivering but he forced a brave smile.

  ‘The name’s Beck. I’d shake hands but, you know . . .’ Beck rolled his eyes. ‘Climbing.’

  James actually laughed, though it was more like a sharp expulsion of breath.

  Beck peered past him. ‘You know, there’s a guy over there – bad-tempered ex-Para sort – I think he’d really like you to go and join him.’

  ‘Oh, well, if he insists. I’d love to stay and chat but, you know . . .’ James forced a smile.

  ‘I understand. My Uncle Al says we should always respect our elders and betters.’

  James set off towards Ian. He was moving a lot better now, Beck noted.

  And so the three of them made their way, one by one, across the cliff face. Beck was pleased by James’s increasing sureness. He still kept a close eye on his friend to check that he wasn’t getting too confident. That was how mistakes got made. He could tell that Ian was doing the same from the other side.

  They had climbed round the curve of the mountain now. The ledge they had abseiled down to was out of sight. Ahead, past James and Ian, Beck could see a spur of rock jutting out. Above it the slope was much less steep. They were almost there – they could get onto that spur, make their way back to the top, and find another way down.

  Beck and James were both fastened to the rock and it was Ian’s turn to go. He was about five metres from the spur when they heard a crack and a rumble from above. All three of them jerked their heads up.