A NIGHT OF FLOOD AND FIRE.
By Anthony Toole.
Saturday began dry, but the sky was heavily overcast and rain threatened to wash the Borrowdale valley before the morning ended. One of the low-lying crags would have to do. John suggested Black Crag and Mike agreed.
This day, the crag lived up to its name. It was covered with a thick carpet of black moss that oozed moisture and made climbing treacherous. By the time they were half way up the climb, the rain had begun. They carried on, hoping that the shower might pass, but with every minute, the rain grew heavier, and by the time they had climbed a further hundred feet, their clothes were as wet as the moss.
An hour later, they pulled over onto the grassy summit, more than a little relieved at their success. They slithered down the muddy track at the side of the crag and packed their ropes back into the rucksacks.
The walk to Keswick was miserable. No one was going to pick up a couple of hitch-hikers in their condition. They cheered themselves up somewhat by laughing at the few hardy individuals who still clung to the rocks of Shepherd’s Crag. The bus passed them at Castle Head, but they did not stop it. It was hardly worth it for the short distance that remained.
They left their rucksacks outside the café and finding a suitable table, threw their anoraks onto the ground and sat down to order a meal. This, together with the several cups of coffee they drank helped to pass an hour-or-so, until they felt morally obliged to move elsewhere. They wandered around the wet streets and sat talking in a bus shelter until the pubs were due to open. They debated whether to go home that night, as it seemed as though the weather would preclude the possibility of climbing on Sunday. Eventually, they agreed to take a chance on an improvement and strolled along to the pub.
As the evening wore on, a few familiar faces appeared, and the conversation slowly developed along its usual lines. John began to notice that a number of the regular crowd were missing.
“Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Castle Crag,” said Bill Morris.
“Till this hour? What are they doing up there?”
“Spending the night there.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Several of the lads are going to the Alps next week, so we all thought we’d have a bit of an orgy before they went.”
“Some orgy, in this rain.”
“We’ve got a cave up there. One of the relics of the old slate quarry.” Bill paused and took a long drink. “We’ve been up there most of the day, chopping down trees for a bonfire.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It should be. Want to come?”
John glanced at Mike. “What do you think?”
“Sounds okay. Might as well go.”
“Good,” said Bill. “Join the party. I came down to Keswick to show everyone the way up.”
With the prospect of an unusual evening raising their spirits, John and Mike silently congratulated themselves on not having decided to go home.
As ten o’clock approached, Bill suggested that they all prepare to leave. Drinks were finished and anoraks or waterproofs donned. Some decided not to go, because of the weather, but after a brief discussion, a group of six men and four women slowly made their way to the Moot Hall to await the Borrowdale bus.
At Grange, they began the trudge to Castle Crag. Bill led the way, with the rest of the party strolling along in his wake, trusting that he knew where he was taking them.
The rain came down in fashion unique to Borrowdale. It fell in torrents from the black sky, and seeped through every seam and stitch in clothing until no more could be held. Then it oozed outward again, trickled down the legs and filled the boots, so that each step was accompanied by an audible squelch. The track was no longer visible, but had become the main conduit of water to the Derwent river. Tiny tributaries, newly created that day, fed it every few yards with an increasing supply from the hillsides, until it ran to depths varying from a few inches to more than a foot.
Stoically, the group walked on, not knowing whether its efforts would be rewarded by a night of comfort or one of misery. The path began to lead uphill. “Not much farther to go,” was the consolation each offered.
Then they came to a gate.
“That shouldn’t be there,” said a mystified Bill.
“What do you mean?” asked a chorus.
“It wasn’t here this afternoon.”
“You’ve brought us the wrong way.”
“Does anyone know where we are?”
“Well,” said John, “it this is the gate I think it is, then Castle Crag is over there on the left.”
“It should be on the right,” said Bill.
“What do we do then?”
“We’ll have to go back a bit.” Bill turned and led the way back down the hill.
The thick woods, which grew on either side of the track, combined with the rain and the inky blackness of the night to obscure any landmarks that might have been of assistance.
After much searching, a second track was found, but this soon disappeared into the swollen river. Anticipating the wrath of his companions, which was tending to condemn him to a watery grave, Bill ran off into the trees, shouting, “Just wait there for a minute. I think I know where we are.”
He returned before long with the news that at last, he had found the right way.
“It had better be,” threatened Mike. “We’ve got a rope and plenty of trees for a lynching.”
This time, Bill was right. After ten minutes, a slight flicker of light broke through the trees. Sounds of raucous voices, only just audible above the roar of wind and rain, carried to the ears of the weary walkers.
They continued up for a few more yards, and turned a bend in the track to witness a scene that could have come from a painting by Bosch. The trees spread apart to reveal an enormous cavern in the hillside. At the mouth of this, just sheltered from the rain by the overhangs above the roof, was a fire of proportions not seen in Britain since the coming of the Armada. Huge flames filled the cave entrance and licked out over the roof to scorch the vegetation above. Adding to the diabolic imagery were a number of seated figures, many of them semi-naked, weirdly illuminated so as to resemble cannibals at a midnight feast.
As the newcomers entered the circle of light, they were hailed with shouts of welcome, and room was made for them around the blaze. They stripped off to their underwear, and within seconds, great clouds of steam rose from the piles of clothing they laid out near the fire.
John looked back into the cave. The roof was no more than twenty feet high, but it rose as it receded into the depths of the mountain, and ended at some unseen distance in the blackness.
He turned to face the company, and immediately had a slab of bread, of doorstep thickness, thrust into one hand and two sizzling sausages into the other. Close to the fire, resting on a flat piece of slate, were three paraffin stoves, each holding a pan half full of bubbling fat. Into these were thrown, every so often, a handful of sausages or a few slices of bacon. When one of these appeared cooked, a greasy hand, oblivious of the heat, reached into the seething mass and plucked it out. No sooner was this done than the empty space in the pan was refilled with another hideous object for consumption.
The company seated around the fire fell into three groups. That nearest the blaze was intent on enjoying the party spirit to the maximum, and its members were eating and drinking as much as possible. The cave echoed to the noise of their voices as they yelled the many songs that are always heard when any large group of men are together.
The second group sat in a semicircle, a little farther from the flames, and was occupied with the more serious business of planning the climbs to be attempted shortly in the Alps.
At the periphery, close enough to the fire to feel its warmth, yet hiding from its light, was the third group, which included most of the female members of the party. This group was split into pairs, each of which occupied a dark corner behind a boulder, or in a recess in the wall of the cave.
Between members of the first two groups there passed sporadic bouts of communication, but those in the third group remained isolated, each individual sharing his or her thoughts only with the other occupant of the same shadow.
As the night advanced and the fire began to die down, the noise and joviality responded by subsiding also. The clear divisions between the groups became blurred as all moved closer to the centre of the circle. The atmosphere became quieter and more introspective. Smaller gatherings of four or five persons formed and the conversation grew hushed and orderly.
A few figures wearily stood up, fumbled for torches and disappeared toward the back of the cave. Soon, only a handful, resisting the pressures of fatigue, remained huddled around the dying embers, but before long, they too succumbed. The flickering light yielded to the darkness, leaving the fire to breathe its last gasps in silence and solitude, witnessed only by the night itself.
When John awoke on his bed of heather and bracken, he found himself facing the entrance to the cave, which was illuminated by the most brilliant sunshine. Around him lay the sleeping figures of his companions and their girl friends. Some lay on beds similar to his own, others on rubber air mattresses, while a few were content with the hard slate.
The only sounds to be heard came from the dripping of water from the cave roof.
John looked at his watch and was surprised to see the time at nearly nine o’clock. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, trying not to waken the others, pulled on his clothes and tip-toed to the mouth of the cave. The smouldering ruins of the fire emitted a smoky odour, but showed no other evidence of its former glory.
Outside, the scene was beautiful. The sun shone on a valley washed to a lush green by the heavy rain. No semblance of haze or mist diffused the clarity of the surrounding mountains. A few clouds were ominously rolling in over the summit of Glaramara, but they did not yet dominate the blue of the sky. At that moment, the sun was king, and appeared to look down benevolently on its realm. As if to assert royalty, it cast beams onto the many craglets that peeped through the resplendent verdure, and saw dripping rocks scatter the light to points hidden from the direct rays. The moisture in the air could be felt but not seen, as it rose back to its source in the coming clouds. It carried with it a sickly-sweet smell, compounded of decay and summer blossoms. There was no wind, and the silence was broken only by birdsong and the steady drip of water from the trees.
John sat for a long time, absorbing and absorbed by the tranquillity of the scene. The shadows of the clouds passed silently over the wooded hillsides, slowly increasing in area, until only a few isolated patches of sunlight remained. Then these also disappeared as the first splashes of rain began to fall.
Sounds of movement drifted from the cave, and a few bleary-eyed figures emerged, their hair and clothes crumpled and covered with bracken and feathers. They sneered at the rain, shrugged shoulders and vanished again into the cave.
The noise and bustle of activity increased as more stirred from their beds, and soon the sizzling of cooking breakfasts vied for attention with the voices of the well-rested climbers.
John and Mike had brought no food with them. Nor had a number of the others. This group slowly donned anoraks and rucksacks and set off on the walk back to Keswick in the by now torrential rain.
The walk took over two hours, but the hardiness and joviality of the climbers made it seem less. They made straight for the public house and seated themselves around a table, to enjoy pies washed down by liberal quantities of beer. Their appetites satisfied, they split up and departed to their respective homes, refreshed and ready to tackle another week of work.
As they travelled, some no more than a few miles, others to Lancashire, or across the Pennines to Tyneside, the events of the weekend passed from their minds and their thoughts turned to the future.
As John boarded his bus, he turned to Mike. “See you next weekend?”
“Yeah. Maybe we can do something good then.”
“The weather’s bound to be better.”