It often happens that the rope does not play easily round the belay as we pass it from one hand to the other. We may have to free it and run a coil through quickly, or alter its lie round the belay. These shifts should never be made except when the man protected by the rope is momentarily at rest. Similarly we may have to take it off the belay for a second, to let it run out quickly enough for a rapid leader, who above all things must not be jerked. For these adjustments it is better to keep always a small margin of slack in the rope, which we continue to take up in the hands as they play the rope round the belay, until a suitable moment comes for making the readjustment we intend. This margin also leaves us a loose curl through which to twist wrist or arm, as an extra spring, in case of a fall on the rope.
As an extra precaution we may insert glove or cap or even earth between the rope and the knob, if we think it may reduce the friction or ease the passage.
We may not always be satisfied that we have rendered our belay classically indirect, but we can always prevent its being crudely direct. Our eye must learn to take instinctive offence at the sight of any active rope running direct from a moving man to a rigid rock.
Without Belays.
Belays and handholds are almost synonymous, for there is very little handhold which ingenuity cannot convert into some form of extra security for the rope. Where handholds fail us, belays fail us, and we have to fall back for our securing of the rope upon balance and the mechanics of our bodies. The nature of the stance suggests the position. The strongest holding attitude is that of the body turned somewhat sideways to the direction of the expected pull, and inclined slightly inwards over the inner bent leg; thus the strain is taken down the outer rigid leg to the rock. This leg is planted firmly on the foot, and sloped in the same line as the rope from the man ascending below us, or, alternatively, in the line which the rope from the man above us may be expected to take, supposing he were to fall. The sideways turn enables us to make a spring of the body; which we bend or straighten over the bent inner leg and behind our rigid leg, as we pull in or check the rope, without risk of being pulled off our stance. Whereas, if we face squarely outward, we cannot get behind both our legs, to pull, without sitting down; and any forward bend of the body, to meet a pull, risks the balance and the foothold.
We use any roughness of the surface as extra purchase for the outer, firm foot. Two such small holds, if only for the side-nails of the boots, give sufficient purchase, under a body in balance, to lift the whole weight of a heavy companion, or, less certainly, to check a considerable weight falling from above.
Sometimes it is best to bend the inner leg until the knee rests against the wall behind. If the rock above us projects, or is so steep that we cannot lean in behind our firm leg, the stance is not sound without some belay. But it is at times possible, if the stance is broad and the slope of the projection above allows it, to kneel on the inside knee, and belay the rope over the outside knee with both hands. A man with powerful legs can make this a secure spring for the rope. The centre of gravity is so low in this position that a heavy jerk from below can safely be taken. But it is useless, of course, without other hold, as a belay against a fall from above.
No stance is sound without a belay or anchor where we feel we need handhold for our balance, or where we feel we shall need it to resist the pull of a rope, from below or above as the case may be. No man, dependent upon handhold himself, is safe enough to secure the rope for another climber. He must either be able to convert his handhold into an anchor for himself or into some form of indirect belay for the climber, or else he must seek another stance.
The more we learn of the mechanics of climbing, the more we incline to use only free stances if we wish to assist or protect a man below; and free stances reinforced by anchors on the inactive rope to protect a leader above; and the less and less we get to like even indirect belays, for either, on the active rope. For a man below, it is of more assistance that we should be able to give him the immediate pull or steady with his active rope which a free stance or body belay allows us to do, and which will prevent him slipping at all, than that, when for lack of this instantaneous touch he has slipped, his active rope should be rock-belayed, and should be thus more stonily certain of stopping him in his further fall. For a leader above us, it is of more service that we should associate ourselves with his action, keep a free stance or a body or arm belay on his active rope, and, if he falls, be free to interpose all our human mechanism to ease the jar, than that we should seek to diminish our responsibility and risk, and increase his danger, by entrusting his active rope to the perilous rigidity of a rock belay. We must, indeed, always take an anchor for a leader on the inactive rope, if we can; because this strengthens our position in functioning as his human spring, and protects the rest of the party in case of our failure to save him by our interposition. And we should take it for a man below, on severe rock, whenever our free stance is not secure enough to safeguard ourselves and, consequently, those above us.
But the very human inclination which assails our novitiate upon all rock that tries our strength or imposes upon our nerves, to shove off our responsibility on to any rock point that presents itself, and to jam the active rope round it, regardless as to whether our position will allow us to interpose any effective human spring upon it in case of a slip, below or above us, must be sternly resisted and unlearned. Unless we can be certain that we can keep the belay an indirect one when the pull comes upon the rope, and not only while we are daintily handling its slack, we must not take the belay. If we cannot substitute for it a free stance or an anchor on the inactive rope, we must reject such a stance altogether, and move to another.