Night was creeping on. The snows turned dark and gloomy, still we were drawing near to the pass and had no sooner reached it than two burly figures rose up before us. They smiled, and laid hold of the guiding-rope which Ernest Marti, exhausted, threw to them. They had appeared in the nick of time to save us from spending the night up there. From that moment, turning to the north, we were able to continue to the top of the Sanetsch gorge without a stop.
The stars had long been glittering overhead when we were able to look down into the gorge across to Gsteig. The village was all agog. Lanterns were creeping about like glow-worms. Some appeared at time amid the woods, flitting from place to place like fire-flies. The other two men, ordered up by Victor Marti, now showed their lights quite near us. And then began the last stage in our salvage operations.
The Sanetsch gorge was as a vast, curved sheet of ice. Its northern exposure and the night air had done their work. It would not be possible to convey a man reclining on a stretcher down the steep windings of the mule path. The rescuing party soon hit upon the only practicable scheme. The patient was removed from his splints, poles, straps, and bindings, and set across the back of a powerful highland man. Ernest Marti took my Lucifer lamp and placed himself in front to light up the way. Two men stood immediately behind the human pack-mule. The group thus formed launched itself down into the gorge, each man depending for security upon the rough crampons driven into his shoe leather. All’s well that ends well. The doctor was found waiting at Gsteig.
It is now his turn to take up the cue, but we do not vouch that he will satisfy the reader’s curiosity, should we by any chance have left him with any curiosity to satisfy. I hope we may, because our third ascent of the Diablerets still awaits him.
This was not the first mountaineering misadventure I found myself mixed up with. Moreover, it was an accident, the memory of which I do not particularly relish. I am afraid I smarted visibly under it, and showed my personal disappointment. This may have conveyed to some the impression of some unfairness on my part.
Has the reader ever noticed how different is the attitude of the public mind towards accidents on land and on sea? Why should mountaineering accidents be less sympathetically received than those befalling sailors? It is, however, not unnatural that the sea should be more congenial, and command forgiveness by its grandeur. It teaches charity by the immensity in which it drops the cruel dramas enacted upon its surface.
When casualties occur in mountaineering, even those concerned appear to make efforts to single out somebody on whom to fasten the blame. Some people’s vanity is bent upon discerning the wisdom, or unwisdom, of one or another of their companions. If a boat goes down a respectful silence is allowed to dwell alike around the survivors and those lost. But shall we ever, for instance, hear the end of the merits or demerits of each concerned in the accident that befell the Whymper party, in 1865, on the Matterhorn?
When a climbing party comes to grief, it is as an additional course for the menu of the table d’hôtes: a dainty morsel for busybodies, quidnuncs, and experts alike. The critical spirit grows ungenerous in that atmosphere. The victims of the Alp were tempting Fate; one knows exactly what mistake they made; so-and-so was altogether foolish in ——, and so forth. With such more or less competent remarks, the fullest mead of admiration is blended. This, too, be it added with the utmost appreciation of a kind disposition, does not go without some admixture of silliness.
I should prefer, even now, to leave all accidents in an atmosphere of romance. It is best to meet with them when one is young. The tender spots in one’s nature are then nearer the surface, and the vein of chivalry more easily struck. The flutter and excitement of a rescue are then delightful. One would almost wish for accidents elsewhere than in day-dreams for the sake of dramatic emotion.
The accidents, however, arranged in the flights of my imagination were weak in one respect. They were egotistic. The brilliant part of a quixotic rescuer fell regularly to me. Let me give the reader an instance from real life before I take him for the third time up the Diablerets.