The Collective Confidence.
At the same time, no matter what the crisis or his private doubts, he must never appear, if he can possibly help it, to have called out his last reserves, or to be feeling any diminished confidence in his own ability, or in that of his party, to force a successful issue. He must, too, avoid mystery. Nothing is more nerve-trying in critical moments, to men whose experience cannot measure the extent of a crisis, than tense silence or too obvious self-control on the part of those who can. It is better, if the situation is genuinely serious, to bring it down to a human level by blowing off a few words of violent commonplace expletive, than to leave it in that daunting remoteness of gravity for which words are inadequate. The more crucial the occasion, the more does the nerve of the party centre in the leader. Their confidence in his confidence is a more important asset than their confidence in his skill. The combined ability of a party, each one confident in the others and relieved of individual responsibility by his sense of the general confidence, goes further towards success in the solution of difficulties or the repulse of danger than the brilliant independent success which any one individual in it could achieve by reliance on his single skill and nerve.
For this confidence the leader is the focus, and an important decision, such as the resolve to advance or retreat in a given crisis, should be guided by his estimate of the amount of confident capacity represented by the party at the moment, and not merely by his opinion as to his own power to force the passage as an individual.
If he decides to turn back on a climb, he should take the odium of the decision without fear of later criticism. He knew or felt what the collective ability of the party was at the time in relation to the effort demanded, and it is unimportant what an individual may afterwards think might have been his own chances of overcoming the particular difficulty “had he been allowed to try.” If he continues the climb, with the same consciousness advising him, it must be his object to better the chances of success by stimulating the existing confidence into that cheerful humour in which men do their skill most justice.
Keeping Touch.
To keep in touch with every one of a party of friends, so as to continue aware of the way in which their minds and their bodies are being affected by the circumstances, is not easy. On severe climbs it is all but impossible to prevent the rear men, separated by lengths of rope and interruptions of difficult ground, from remaining in ignorance of what is being done in front, or of what is guiding the choice of problems which they are expected in their turn to surmount. For this reason it is helpful to break the habit of silence which falls upon men dealing with serious work,—and which, like the inclination to whisper in a dark room, seems to have behind it some primitive feeling of fear of provoking further attention from unseen but very present forces,—and talk down the rope occasionally, passing question and answer up and down, and cheering the tail with a renewed feeling of unity and confidence drawn from the confidence of the leader. With the same object in view, wherever the climb allows it, the party should be allowed to collect for a moment and forget in talk the depression or doubt inevitable to solitude, before the leaders start again.
Guides are great offenders in this respect. They have no conception of the extra force given by a single united consciousness to a party, of the means to keep in touch with it, or of the help they themselves may draw from it. They climb absorbedly ahead lost in the sense of their own responsibility. Consequently they often turn back, from a doubt of their party or a lack of confidence to carry a climb through on their single responsibility, on occasions where a good amateur leader, with or without guides, can feel himself justified in proceeding. He is in a position to take the even chance of a turn of weather, of the possibility of a return at a later and more unpleasant stage, of the crossing of an exposed couloir or the ascent of a snow or ice slope down which there may be no safe return, because he is confident in his knowledge of the condition of his party, of their concerted action and reserves of strength and cheerfulness, and feels that these are sufficient to carry them over the possible chances of worse weather or more trying conditions, and to lead them through a longer day to a later descent even by another line.
He has to earn his right to his more confident decision in thus matching his men against the mountain by supplementing his single mountaineering experience and instinct firstly by his precautionary care for their condition and humour, and secondly by his ability to keep in close touch with their collective capacity at any and every moment. His reward will be their increasing confidence in themselves, in him, and in their united strength, and the increasing power which this brings with it.
Temper.
A mountaineering party, when in action, is dependent for its good-humoured and hearty co-operation on more than the external interests of the climbs, however well selected beforehand and sustained, on more even than its good health and food, however well cared for. It has to be welded into a fine instrument: its temper is its strength; and its temper has to be kept at just the right heat. Hot words on occasions will do it little harm. Men in a state of primitive well-being are apt to become elemental in temper. A sudden crisis sets off a shower of sparks of language. These do no harm. No experienced man looks upon them as personally directed, or remembers them when the crisis is past. What has really to be guarded against is the effect of monotony in any form, even the irritating repetition of some small unconscious personal trick. Slight resentments become magnified grotesquely during the long hours of silent effort, especially of monotonous effort, on snow, glaciers or path. Any ordinary mountaineer will probably remember occasions when some trifling habit of a good friend, some unintentional or momentary lack of consideration, has taken advantage of the dull ending of a strenuous day to come back upon him irresistibly, and fill him unaccountably with sullen growing resentment. He may realize its foolishness, but, like the similar insistence of the refrain of some silly comic song, it becomes part of the mechanical movement in which his whole being is for the time absorbed.