A NIGHT AT THE HIGH DALE HUT.

By Anthony Toole.

The High Dale Hut was not much in excess of six miles from Keswick, but scarcely more than half that distance could be undertaken on a surfaced road. The remainder of the journey was along a track of such roughness that nothing less accustomed to hard travel than a Land-Rover could negotiate it, and even that not all of the way. Of course the track was not designed for cars, but for horse-drawn wagons and beasts of burden carrying the galena down from the mines, which cut their way into the crags, high on the hillsides. Through generations of use, and later, neglect, it had become rutted and partly overgrown, with here and there a gorse bush or heather clump, where once wheels had rolled. The occasional slide of scree, during the deluge that occurred every few years, had obliterated it in parts, so that by now the only sure way of reaching the hut was on foot.

In years past, the hut itself had also been part of the mining complex, but, like the dark tunnels, it had long been abandoned to the stewardship of Nature. This is not to say that Nature was left to accomplish alone its slow but relentless process of destroying what men had built. It was assisted in its work by a group of climbers, who had acquired the hut as a base from which to organize assaults on the many rocky bastions clinging to the summits above.

In the main, they were youths and young men; there were no more than two or three over the age of twenty-five, and at least half were under twenty. But they were a tough bunch, and quite amoral, with the stoicism and irresponsibility characteristic of their time of life. During the transitional period between leaving behind the uncertainties of adolescence and assuming the maturity of manhood, they overcame their frustrations by taking to the hills each weekend, and spending a few days in rough and riotous living.

They came, most of them, from various parts of Cumberland, with one or two outsiders from Lancashire and the North-East. But they all found, in the hut, and the valley which enclosed it, a perfect refuge from the restrictions imposed by family and employer.

Summer days and nights spent there were the nearest possible thing to a Heaven on Earth. Rising with the dawn, these young men would slog up the steep hillsides, weighed down with their rucksacks, and do battle, for hours on end, with the towering rock-faces. Tired, but happy, they would return in the late evening, cook their sole meal of the day, and retire to the sleep of the just.

Winter, however, was something different. And by winter I do not just mean those cold, grey days in December, when the sun rises at nine and sets by four. Those days were not greatly different from the summer ones, except in their length. I refer to the days on which the snow was knee-deep along the track, and the hut buried in a drift up to the second-floor windows. On days such as these, it was a rare and hardy individual who attempted to make the journey. It was much easier to find a barn near Keswick, or to throw a sleeping bag down for the night on the platform of the railway station, and someone always knew of a half-built house that could easily be invaded. I only spent one real winter’s night at the hut, I cannot yet think why I went there.

In fact, about ten or a dozen of us in all made the trip. I think the suggestion that we should go there was made around closing-time, one Saturday night in mid-January. To our alcohol-pickled brains, it must have seemed a good idea at the time, for we piled into three cars, without giving a second thought to any problems we might encounter, and headed out of Keswick.

I had the misfortune to be in the leading car, which was driven by George Blake. He had seemed quite sober when we left the pub, but once behind the wheel of the car he let the beer do the driving.

The road was covered in snow, which had been tightly packed by the weight of the few cars that had passed over it since the blizzard of the previous day. On his first skid, George discovered that the roadside drifts cushioned the vehicle against the consequences of a collision with the dry-stone walls. Accordingly, he accelerated into each bend thereafter, and sent the car sliding sideways into the drifts, amid great cheers from his passengers. After all, it was his car, so if he wanted to smash it up the rest of us didn’t object, as we saw little likelihood of our being hurt. In retrospect, however, I can only thank God that other motorists were prudent enough not to use the road that night.

As a result of our rapid progress, we reached the gate to the track a good ten minutes before the others. I suppose we were all relieved to find that we had arrived. I was beginning to feel a little queazy, and a couple of bladders were becoming uncomfortably distended. We piled out of the car, and Alf passed round his cigarettes, which we all accepted.

“I hope somebody’s got some more,” he said, regretting his rash generosity. “I’ve only got two left.”

“Hard bloody luck,” commented George, lighting up.

“Are we going to wait for the others ?“ I asked.

“I dunno. Got a torch ?“

“No. Haven’t you ?“

“No. Hey, who’s got a torch ?“

“I haven’t.”

“Neither have I.”

“Aw Hell.”

We felt around in the car for our rucksacks, arguing in the dark over who owned which, and decided to stroll on as far as we could until the others caught up with us.

With the car lights switched off, we were in total darkness. Peering about me, my eyelids stretched far apart, I could see nothing for several seconds. Then, a few dark patches began to take shape against a marginally paler background. I saw my three companions moving slowly toward what must have been the gate-posts. I followed silently, feeling for the barbed-wire of the fence, lest it tear my duvet.

Beyond the gate, the. snow was knee-deep. We trudged through it in single file, our direction governed only by our instinct, and a knowledge of where the track ought to be.

Suddenly, there was a yell from George, who was in the lead. This was followed by a few muffled thuds, and a stream of curses from Alf. Jeff and I stopped in our tracks, thereby avoiding a similar fate.

“Bloody boulder,” said George.

“We must be off track,” I concluded.

The headlights of the other two cars came into view. George and Alf picked themselves up and dusted the snow from their clothes. We agreed to wait for the rest, in the hope that one of them would have a torch. We were lucky. They had three. The battery of one was well down, but the other two seemed all right.

All together now, we plodded on, in merry mood, through the deep snow. It was cold, but seemingly not as cold as it had been through the day. The biting wind had subsided, and a thick cloud layer rested like a blanket over the mountain tops. Occasionally a silver crack would appear in the uniform cover of the sky, only to disappear as quickly, while the moon remained hidden. The valley, which should have been sleeping in a deathly hush, rang with an exchange of jokes and songs which grew more bawdy as the night and the odyssey wore on.

After about an hour, the hut loomed up in front of us, surrounded by the ghostly silhouettes of the scrawny pines. Seven of these had been planted generations ago, in the environs of the hut, but whether their purpose was practical or aesthetic, no one knew. Their branches cropped and stunted by the winds, they wore a haggard appearance and afforded little shelter from the weather. When gales blew up the valley, they creaked and groaned threateningly. Now, however, they merely whispered a welcome to us.

“Who’s got the key, then ?“ queried a voice from the front.

“Jeff’s got it,” replied another.

“He hasn’t,” corrected Jeff.

The joviality suddenly ceased. The mood of a lynch-mob poised over us for a few seconds. Then a voice rang out:

“All right, I’ve got it. It’s a good job somebody has his head screwed on tonight.”

The door was unlocked, and we filed into the hut. It was soon illuminated by the two oil lamps kept there for the purpose. One long wooden table stood in the centre of the floor, surrounded by half-a-dozen chairs of various shapes and sizes. These provided the only furniture on the lower floor. Cooking was done on four primus stoves which stood in a line on the floor, alongside the wall through which the door led. Opposite the door, the staircase led to the single first-floor room. The boards of this were completely covered with a two-inch thick layer of polymer foam. This was the bedroom.

The rucksacks were dumped on the bare stone floor, and one or two of the company began to boil water for coffee. Wood and paper, carried there months previously in an act of selfless dedication, were thrown into the pot-bellied stove in the corner, and ignited. As the sticks crackled, coke was piled onto them, and soon a warm glow spread through the hut, bringing with it at least a psychological sense of comfort. It did not, even remotely, resemble what our mothers would have considered essential to our well-being, but, for that night, it was home to us.

We talked into the early hours of the morning, until, very tired, we agreed en masse to retire to our sleeping bags.

The heat from the stove had penetrated to the upper room and, before long, the warmth and the fatigue of our bodies combined to lull us to a deep sleep. The hut fell silent, and only the swaying pines broke the stillness of the valley outside.

But, as we were to discover to our dismay in the morning, the valley outside was not quite lifeless.

We rose from our slumber, in ones and twos, and staggered lethargically down the stairs. It was late by the clock, but the heavy cast of cloud over the valley ensured that darkness would be long in lifting. There would be another heavy snow shower before midday. The stove still gave out a little heat, and an inspection revealed a few red embers remaining in the grate. More wood and coke was put in, and soon the encroaching cold was pushed back once again.

George came in from outside, rubbing his hands and blowing with puffed-out cheeks.

“Ooh! It’s cold out there,” he commented.

“It looks like it,” I agreed, gazing through the window at the drab grey and white scene.

“Thank God I wasn’t camping last night.”

‘‘I don’t suppose many were.”

“There were a few tents in Borrowdale yesterday,” he assured me. “God! It must have been freezing.”

Three more of our number came down the stairs, tousle-haired and water-eyed.

George nudged me again. “Hey!” he said, “Can you remember the trip here last night ?“

I looked at him in amazement. “Most of it,” I said.

“I can’t.” He shook his head and grinned sheepishly. “I remember leaving the pub and sitting in here, but not much in between.”

“Not even the drive?” I asked.

“A little. I seem to remember a skid or two.”

“Oh boy.” I turned away, shaking my head.

A few more came down to join us. Pans were filled with snow and balanced on the primus stoves to make coffee. What little food had been brought was bartered for, and finally shared unselfishly. Within half-an-hour of the first man rising, all were gathered round the table, eating, drinking, or merely talking amiably. The atmosphere was one of friendliness and contentment.

Then Joe Moss looked round the room, and asked casually, “Where the hell’s Billy ?“

“Billy who ?“ asked another voice.

Then, slowly but surely, the significance of Joe’s question seeped into every brain in the hut. The talk stopped. Spoons and forks fell to the table. Cups were frozen in the process of being raised to lips. Every man in the room stared at the man nearest him, and met a wide-eyed, open-mouthed gaze. The heads turned slowly, searching the room for a face that should have been there but was not. Indeed, not only was the face not there now, but as was quickly realized, it had not been there the previous night.

“He must have been here,” asserted one voice.

“He wasn’t,” the rest of us agreed.

Worried minds began to search into the half-remembered alcoholic haze of the night before, trying to catch some glimpse of the missing Billy.

“I know he left the pub with us,” said someone.

“Of course he did,” came a reply, “I sat in the back of Tom’s car with him.”

This statement was corroborated, as were other reports of Billy’s progress along the track. But he had certainly not reached the hut. Of that we were all certain. Not a single person could claim to have seen him inside the building.

The enormity of Billy’s likely fate cast its macabre shadow over our gathering. We all cursed the amount of drink we had consumed, and some of us prayed silently that he might have found his way to safety. But we all knew that he had drunk more than any of us, and would have found difficulty in negotiating his own living room. All in all, we feared the worst.

“Well,” concluded Joe, in a shaky voice, “we’ll have to go and look for him.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Boots, sweaters, anoraks, duvet jackets were donned in great haste, and we all filed out of the hut.

The air was cold, and crept through our clothing as we stood shivering amid the

clouds of vapour which hung about our heads. Some snow had fallen in the night, but our tracks were not completely obliterated. We spread out in a line, so as to cover twenty or thirty yards on either side of the track, and slowly marched down the valley.

We were silent, studying the snow for some trace of Billy’s passage. Each suspicious-looking hump was approached and uncovered with trepidation. But no trace of Billy could we see.

Then, after about half-a-mile, we were called to a halt. The two members of the party in the middle of the line had come across something, right on the track itself.

We all gathered round, and stood, dumbfounded, before the heap on the ground. The blue of a duvet jacket could be seen through the snow, and the shape of the heap was unmistakably human. For a few seconds, nobody knew what to do.

I slowly knelt down and brushed the snow from the head. The hood was pulled tightly shut, so that the face was invisible.

“Is he dead ?“ asked a voice behind me. I could not answer, but only brushed away more snow.

The head moved slightly, and I saw an eye glinting from within the hood. A voice broke the expectant silence.

“Which of you inconsiderate bastards left me to freeze to death ?” It was Billy’s voice.

Instantly, the tension was released. Everyone jostled around, trying to help him to his feet.

“Are you all right?” asked several voices in unison.

“I’m bloody freezing,” answered Billy, his hood still pulled tightly round his face, “but I’m alive, no thanks to you lot.”

“What happened to you?” asked the chorus.

“I was hoping some of you might answer that. I can’t remember a thing.” Billy withdrew his feet from inside his rucksack. He seemed little the worse for his ordeal. “I can remember falling down in the snow, but when I got up again there was nobody around.”

“Didn’t you shout?”

“Yelled my head off, but there wasn’t anyone about. I suppose I must have fallen asleep.”

“Did you not know where you were?”

“I hadn’t a bloody clue. It was pitch dark and snowing hard. I didn’t know whether it was Christmas or Tuesday. So I pulled my sack over my feet and decided to stay here till daylight.”

“Why didn’t you walk ?”

“Where to? I could have been anywhere for all I knew.”

We listened, incredulous, as he told us his tale. In our relief, we began hurling good-natured abuse at Billy, and expressed our mock regrets at finding him still alive. In reality, we thought his survival near miraculous.

We ushered him back to the hut, sat him in front of the stove and plied him with hot coffee.

While this was going on, we tried to work out what it was that had saved him from perishing in the snow: his warm clothing; his duvet jacket; the lack of much wind; the snowy blanket which covered him? All of these may have contributed, but Billy himself had only one answer:

“A good skinful of beer.”

Perhaps this was true as well, but there was no doubt that it was also the principal cause of his predicament.

Everything slowly returned to normal, and we temporarily forgot about Billy’s cold night. Snow was beginning to fall again, and the sky grew darker by the minute. We packed our equipment and, in twos and threes, set off down the valley once again, this time in more jovial mood. The hut was locked up, not likely to be revisited for a couple of months.

Billy’s parents probably never heard the full details of that night, but it remained a frequent topic in our conversations for a long time afterwards, and was always discussed with much mirth.

We received a poignant reminder of the incident some three-and-a-half years later, not long after Billy’s twenty-first birthday. Somewhere near the summit of Mont Blanc, Billy tried to repeat his performance. This time, however, he did not have a skinful of beer.

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