The qualities required for a good second man are all but as important to a rope as those of the leader, and are more rarely found in their perfection. A few ‘born’ leaders, who have learned their business by long experience, are independent of actual help and advice; but all leaders are, consciously or not, much influenced in their standard of the day, by the feeling of the spirit or the experience that is backing them immediately behind. A first man capable of rock work of the high modern standard must possess a ‘temperament.’ He is often a man of moods. The limit of physical possibility is so constantly approached on rock, that only men capable of high nervous concentration, able to call out their full strength and borrow again from their vitality and will, can keep their standard of performance securely up to the level demanded. In such performance the faintest doubt in the leader’s mind of the confidence or capacity of the man behind, the merest suspicion that his second man is not absolutely sure of his own stance or confident in his, the first man’s, leading, may lower a sensitive leader’s ability twenty or thirty per cent. The leader’s mind is distracted; his concentration on the single effort is dissipated. Even good, sound climbers, who take the important second place on the rope without knowing its duties, may retreat day after day to the inn speculating with their friends why their leader has so suddenly ‘gone off’: quite unconscious that they themselves are alone responsible. The leader himself may be, crossly, unaware of the reason. Not infrequently in such cases, in a vexed reaction from constant turnings back, he loses his better judgment and forces himself to attempt something reckless the next time he goes out. This will do him no good; nor will anything, until he changes his party or finds reason for better confidence in his second man.
Backing up, metaphysically.
A great university stroke used to say that, give him a good ‘seven,’ and he didn’t care how the rest of the boat was manned. Almost to the same extent, a good second makes a rope. He should be strong, able to give a shoulder, arm or hand, and to carry his leader’s sack as well as his own. He must be a fine enough climber to be able to follow up a step or two in the most awkward places, and thence to spare a hand to rest the leader’s strength or give him a fresh start. He must be equable in temper, optimistic, and, whatever his private thoughts, never less than cheerful. Above all, he must have the knack of transmitting his own feeling of confidence, so that the leader may feel a comfortable current of reassurance coming from his second’s secure stance to his own precarious advance. If his leader is of the highly strung, nervous class from which many great leaders are drawn, he must learn to gauge him exactly, know what form he is in, and decide whether he is up to doing the particular problem, so far as his climbing powers are concerned. If he decides he can, he must lay himself out to give just the quiet encouragement that will put his leader in the right state of mind to use his powers at their best. As to how he effects this, much must depend on the personality of the leader. Many a leader objects to being talked to. Conversation is generally waste of climbing time. He may take council how to do a place beforehand, but once he has started it will only disturb or distract him to hear advice or be asked anxious questions. None the less he is often quickly aware of the ‘atmosphere’ behind him; and he becomes conscious, without words, if his second’s attention wanders or if his confidence is wavering.
For this reason it is bad form, as well as a sign of inattentive mountaineering, for men to chatter to one another while the leader is doing something that requires all his skill. Much of his individual power is drawn from their sympathy, that should be then centred upon him alone. And this applies not only to the climbing of the leader. It is quite as bad form for him, when he is safely up, to exchange airy jokes across the head of another climber in the throes of a passage. A word or movement heard, or still worse, half heard, takes off the climber’s attention and dissipates the concentration necessary for a delicate balance or a supreme hoist.
Some leaders like asking questions about their difficulties, to which they expect answers, without any intention of attending to them. Others let off steam by declaring that it ‘won’t go,’ or they’re ‘coming down.’ Protest or argument will irritate them; what they are really asking for, unconsciously, is the confidence note in the voice behind them, the sense of a human sympathy that realizes their difficulty but yet feels them equal to it. It helps them greatly to be assured, by the tone more than by the words, of another expert’s complete belief in their ability to proceed. The second man gives his leader not only the support of his own faith: he is the funnel to the leader of the united spirit, the mutual support, which are pooled by the party, and upon which each draws again for his individual efforts. In his more dangerous and isolated work the leader, who needs it most, is most separated from its atmosphere, and it is the second man’s duty to keep him in touch with it, to control, as it were, the signals and air-pipes that keep the diver in touch with humanity and reassure him in his work.
At the same time, the second man should relieve the leader in difficult climbing, as far as possible, of all unnecessary physical labour: for instance, avoid asking help for himself with the rope; relieve him of pulling up the rest of the party; carry the sacks; and so on. He must be able, at times, to manage the leader’s rope and that of the man behind himself simultaneously. He has at such times to control the movement of the party, and determine when it is proper for the next man to start. He must decide where it is safe to let his leader run out his rope, with no more attention than will suffice to prevent it catching, and where, on the other hand, his rope will require every attention. His rope, belay and stance technique must be as practised as his judgment. If he decides that the passage is beyond the leader on his standard of the day, he should take the responsibility of saying so definitely, and share the vexatious responsibility of turning back. If a leader has been ‘all out’ on a pitch and yet failed, his judgment will be for the moment disturbed, and his decision as to whether he will try again or turn may not be a considered one. But if he has learned to trust his second, he will take his opinion in preference to his own, even though he might be himself considered normally the manager of the party. If it be to go forward, in spite of preceding failure, then he will renew his attempt with redoubled confidence; if it be to turn back, he will have the consolation of feeling that his second man was in the best position to watch the original effort, and was therefore better able to judge if a new attempt could succeed under any circumstances.
The second man has thus a most responsible position. While the leader is converting himself into a motor engine to get the party up the climb, the second man, even if he be not accepted as such already, becomes the temporary manager or mind of the party, conscious of it in all its mechanism, and not only of its dynamic leader. In severe rock climbing so much of the leader’s energy and time is spent on the physical struggle and in isolated situations, that the position of second may become for hours together the really vital one on the rope. His selection and education should be the first consideration for a party of ambition or merit.
Backing up, physically.
In discussing the order on the rope, we said that on all exacting rock the second man without exception backs up his leader, behind him going up, in front of him going down. On easier passages he may either lead the rope on a descent, or come between two weaker climbers on an ascent or descent.
The duties involved in backing up depend upon the situation. If the passage of descent to be made is long and holdless, and the leader, after letting the rest down, is unable to make use of the double rope, his second should remain as close as possible to him. A good second, from very sketchy stances, can often give just that touch of help or direction which makes the last man’s descent less solitary and precarious, and is of more use to him than much anchoring of his rope upon remote platforms below.