Why? because the mountaineer believes in his Creator and looks upon His work as a good piece of work, the quality of which the creature has to justify in itself. So in the end should the mountaineer perish at the hands of the forces of Nature which he has, by right of spiritual conquest, transformed into moral values for the world, with him it is a case of invicto animo vicit moles.
While I was thus trimming the lamp of my thoughts Mr. B. contrived sundry little amusements for himself. He brought out of his bag an extremely smart dressing-gown and bedroom slippers. He arrayed himself in the former and dressed his feet in the latter. Then he smoked the few cigarettes he found in his pockets. Then we shared the frozen sandwiches that were left over for our evening meal. When those occupations were exhausted, it might almost be described as a fortunate factor in the situation that his thirst would not depart from him. How to slake it became the main concern that whiled away the long hours of the night for the sleepless Londoner.
The problem was as follows: being given snow ad infinitum and a very fair quantity of ground coffee beans, how to produce a refreshing and fortifying beverage whose supreme quality consists in being black, hot, pure, and strong:—
“Noir comme le diable,
Chaud comme l’enfer,
Pur comme un ange,
Fort comme l’amour;”
but which, under the circumstances, would be valued principally for its quantity.
The improvised cook looked about him for a coffee-pot. He found nothing in his bag that would do. But there was in mine a small tin pot which had resided there from time immemorial. It was somewhat dented with age, and bore many signs of the hardness of its lot, though its office was of a quite amiable description. It carried about my smoked glasses and sundry silk veils. I liked to have these by me—though I personally never use them—because they often came in conveniently to relieve from the glare of the sun those tender-skinned representatives of the fair sex who insist on not making sufficient preparations to go over glaciers. The pot contained also some cotton wadding, tintacks, pins, and such like necessaries of hut life. With regret I poured these forth upon a dry patch of ground, and committed the pot to the mercies—whatever they might be—of the would-be cook.
Some time later our camping ground was wrapped in a sheet of light. I looked round. My friend had done wonders. He had scooped a nice square hole in the snow and planted in it our lantern, in which he had stuck and lit one of our tapers. The light from the taper had suddenly flashed upon the scene through the transparent wall of snow. Then some of the coffee was poured into my tin pot, and this was placed on the top of the lantern and lumps of snow were heaped upon the coffee.