Conquistadors of the Useless (23 page)

We journeyed to the Oberland democratically by train. Our patience was rudely tested by the uneventful hours as we rolled through the Swiss countryside, and Lachenal in particular found them interminable. Having no taste for reading, unlike myself, he just sat there puffing away at innumerable cigarettes. Although we produced our guide's cards they refused to give us the normal discount on the Scheidegg rack-railway, which was a black mark for the much-proclaimed Swiss hospitality. We finally got to Kleine Scheidegg at ten o'clock in the morning on 14th July, and there opposite us was the north wall of the Eiger, sombre and majestic.

After having pored over so many photographs I had expected the face to look quite familiar, but in practice it was so much more formidable than anything I had imagined that I hardly recognised it. A shiver passed through me. As we scrutinised its colossal walls we began to exchange impressions. I could only mutter stupidly:

‘It looks impossible from here. We'll have to go and get a closer look.'

Lachenal, who had already seen the face in winter, seemed disagreeably impressed by its bare, Dolomitic summer appearance. Scratching his chin in a way he had, he whimpered comically:

‘Nasty! Nasty! It's as smooth as my arse! If only my mother could see that!'

After a while the first impression began to wear off, and our habit of weighing up the difficulties objectively reasserted itself. We noticed a swarm of details and had no trouble in tracing the line of the first ascent: the Hinterstoisser traverse, the first and second ice fields, the Ramp, the Spider. The sky was radiantly blue and only a few wisps of vapour clung to the sides of the mountain. Everything seemed set for a spell of fine weather. The face itself, however, did not look in such good condition. There was new snow higher up, and the walls were streaming with moisture. It would really have been prudent to wait a day or two so that the face could have the chance to dry out a bit in the heat, but we did not want to waste a moment of the perfect weather and decided to stick to our original plan by attacking the same day.

Our only guide was an account by Heckmair which had appeared in the magazine
Alpinisme
, plus a few contradictory snippets picked up here and there. We had not therefore been able to form any very precise idea of what awaited us, but for lack of anything better we had been forced to base our plans on what we had. It appeared that the lower part of the face was easy up to the Hinterstoisser traverse, after which the difficulties were mainly on ice as far as the pitches leading from the Ramp to the Spider, that these would be the crux of the climb, and that the final slopes ought once more to be relatively easy.

Supposing these details to be correct, we decided to start in the early afternoon and bivouac just after the Hinterstoisser traverse, leaving a rope fixed across it so that we could retreat in the event of a change in the weather. Because of our abilities on ice, we reckoned we could get from there to the top of the Ramp towards the end of the following morning, after which it should be possible to reach the summit the same day, climbing the last part in the dark if necessary. A timetable of a day and a half like this would be quite normal today, but in 1947 it was highly unconventional for a face still shrouded in mystery and legend which had killed its first eight suitors, and which had called for three days of desperate effort on the first ascent.

Having come to our decision, we got on the rack railway again to go up to Eigergletscher Station, the best point of departure for the Eigerwand. There we proceeded to put away a large picnic we had brought with us from France, partly for reasons of indigence, partly on account of language difficulties. We then deposited a sack containing dry clothes and food against our return, together with a letter of explanation which we asked the cloakroom attendant to open if we did not reclaim it in three days. This done, we resolutely turned our backs on the world of men.

After walking along the foot of the face on a disagreeable slope of small scree, we eventually found a good point to attack it. The climb began at five minutes past one. The difficulties were not of a very high order, and for the time being the rope could remain in the sack. Since we did not intend going very high the first day there seemed no point in tiring ourselves out with unnecessary haste.

The greatest alpine faces are not necessarily more difficult technically than any of the others – on the contrary, some shorter but steeper climbs may in fact call for more extreme gymnastics. What gives routes like the Walker and the Eigerwand their superior value is their great length and the time required to do them, placing the climber very much at the mercy of the weather. Once a certain point is passed retreat becomes highly problematical in the event of storm, to such an extent that most people prefer to forge on for the top whatever the cost. While experience has shown that men faced with the imminent prospect of death often save themselves by the calling out of hidden reserves due to the instinct of preservation, the risk of bad weather on the great walls remains a real one. This is why, at least until the science of meteorology is sufficiently developed to predict conditions reliably for a day or two ahead, only the hardiest spirits among technically proficient climbers will adventure themselves on ascents of this sort.

But that day it seemed set fair. The sky was blue, a light breeze was blowing from the north, and there seemed no reason to fear a change. This time, luck was on our side. And so we climbed light-heartedly upwards into the highest and most murderous face in the whole of the Alps.

We chatted away to each other as we climbed. From our position low on the cliff, due to foreshortening, the slopes ahead did not look particularly steep, and their relief was so much emphasised that they began to look almost easy. I remarked jokingly:

‘It's all getting so reasonable that I'm a bit scared of reaching the top this evening.'

Despite our optimism, however, we were a little disturbed by the quality of the rock, and especially by the constant rattle of falling stones. The rock was a smooth, compact limestone, forming a succession of short walls and ledges. At present the lowness of the walls made the going quite easy, but it could be seen that higher up, where the ledges grew narrower and the walls longer, we should come up against some delicate ground quite different in style from our own Chamonix granite, and we wondered if we should find ourselves all at sixes and sevens on it.

The falling stones were much more worrying. For the moment they were no more than isolated pebbles, and it was; easy to protect ourselves by leaning against the rock whenever we heard them coming. Yet undeniably their presence began to build up a certain nervous tension, and their continual clacking reminded us that at any moment the face might be raked by an avalanche of boulders which it might not be so easy to dodge. As we got closer to the Rote Fluh we suddenly heard detonations above our heads and some large blocks thundered past, shattering themselves to smithereens fifty yards below us and covering us with dust. The acrid, powder-like smell was the scent of battle.

Presently we found the first signs of human passage in the form of a torn hat and some rags: had they belonged to those who had given their lives for the conquest of this useless world of stone? The sadness that could be evoked by such cast-offs was indescribable. Everything I had read about the early adventures on the face ran through my head, and I pictured the heroes with glowing eyes who had passed through their last agonies on this spot. Beside these traces of men who died reasserting their humanity in a world where the machine had become master it was ironical to find numerous bits of scrap-iron from the construction of the Jungfraujoch railway. We looked around for the Stollenloch from which they had been ejected, and from which the rescue party had later set out to try and save Kurz and his companions, but all we could see was two huge pitons cemented into the rock.

After a vertical section more prolonged than any that preceded it we came up against a real pitch, down which hung an ancient, blackened rope, swinging idly in the breeze. It: was time for us to tie on. A few feet of delicate climbing brought Lachenal to an overhang, which looked as though it was going to be difficult. It was tempting to use the old fixed rope, but it was too dilapidated and he preferred to climb free. The smoothness of the limestone with its small, infrequent holds made it quite a problem, but happily three old pitons were already in place and made a lot of difference. With a heavy sack I found the overhang most awkward when my turn came.

Shortly afterwards we came to the Hinterstoisser traverse on our left. This pitch receives a lot of water from the slopes above, and the several old ropes we found dangling there were in such a state of decomposition that we didn't dare touch them for a moment. It looked delicate and exposed, and Lachenal decided to take off his sack. Once he had launched out, however, he found plenty of pitons in place, and moved quickly in spite of the waterfall that poured around him. Our rope annoyingly turned out to be too short, so that we had to take a stance part of the way across. I tied the end of the rope we had brought with us to leave here to a piton, and began to climb with both rucksacks on my back. The straps were too short and hurt abominably, cutting off the circulation in my arms. I had all the trouble in the world reaching my partner, but this was only the beginning. Next came a sort of vertical chimney in which I positively sweated blood, and it was a real relief to pull out on to the wide ledge where Lachenal, cigarette in lips, greeted me with a comic face and the words:

‘Well, Mr Guide, what do you think of our bedroom?'

One could not have thought otherwise of it than well. It was large enough for us both to stretch out full length, its floor had been carefully smoothed out by previous occupants, and most important of all an overhang protected it from stones or rain. In such a situation nothing better could have been hoped for; our eagle's nest seemed a real little palace.

It was now 6 p.m. Clouds had come up from the valley and enveloped us even while we were on the Hinterstoisser, but it was fine-weather cumulus and, far from disquieting us, it filled us with renewed optimism. In the cool of the evening these clouds were ravelling out into rosy wisps of vapour, and after a while they evaporated altogether. We prepared our bivouac without haste. First of all we had to tidy up the curious bric-à-brac that littered the ground: rotting garments, tins of sardines and meat, pitons of all shapes and sizes left here by those who had climbed up in the mad hope of forcing the bastion which towered above us. How many of them had crouched here soaked and shivering in the bitterness of defeat? How many had paid for their ambitions with their lives?

In one corner we found a carefully fastened metal box containing various inscriptions in German, and added to them a piece of paper mentioning our visit together with one or two rude messages to the Parisian climbers who would probably soon be following us. We had taken the trouble to carry up ample food and slid into our bivouac gear feeling quite replete. We had with us quilted jackets, waterproof capes and doubled potato sacks, a most unusual luxury to protect our legs. These new-style ‘pieds d'éléphants' were intended to ensure our comfort for the one night only, after which we would dump them and carry on as light as possible.

The mist had now cleared completely, and the night was marvellously clear. We leant back against the face with our feet dangling and savoured the strange poetry of the place, feeling as calm as though we were on an ordinary climb. The sky was full of stars, and I thought of the lonely shepherds all over the world who must also be looking at them at this moment. Had I not dreamed of becoming a shepherd and sleeping out under the stars? Other lights below us recalled the presence of men, so near and so remote, almost within earshot. The peasants would be ending a long day down there in their wooden chalets, dwellings out of the past. Some would still be milking cows whose bellies were distended with fresh grass, others would already be leaning over their own plates slowly munching a primitive meal. Farther down to the right in the bottom of the valley were the solemn, spacious hotels of Grindelwald in which tourists would be sitting in fashionable boredom, or giving themselves up to the hearty pleasures of taverns and nightspots. Occasionally we caught the sound of a horn, a dog barking, or the shout of a herdsman.

But there were other noises to tear us back from these rural maunderings to the realisation of the hostile world around us. The mountain echoed with rumblings and crashings, and from somewhere to our right came the roar of a torrent. Salvoes of stones whirred and banged in the darkness. We sat without speaking, overawed by our surroundings. Even Lachenal had lost his normal exuberance and smoked silently, and for once in my life I also lit a cigarette. Before long we began to feel drowsy and slept like children, huddled up against each other.

Our cooker was alight by four o'clock. It was still dark and the mountain had grown silent. It occurred to me for a moment how our light must intrigue anyone down there who might chance to glance up at the Eiger, but I realised at once how unlikely it was that anybody should be looking towards us or thinking about us at such an hour. Suddenly I was oppressed by our utter loneliness. The hostility of our surroundings and the insanity of our actions appeared horrifyingly plain. Why go on with the whole crazy business? There was still time to express my horror of these frozen rocks, to recall Lachenal to reason, to flee towards human warmth and life. But in fact I said nothing. A mysterious force kept the words in, and I knew in my heart that it was too late for such thoughts. The die was cast, we must win through or die.

Light came back slowly into a radiant world, and we were soon ready. A few slabs thinly coated in black ice led across to the first ice field, which we mounted quickly until we came up against the cliff separating it from the second field above. The solution to this lay in a narrow ice gully over on our right which looked anything but tempting, and would certainly require a long bout of cutting steps. It seemed at first to be the only way, for the rocks above us were without a fault, but then we noticed a shallow corner on the left of the gully which might perhaps be hiding a possibility.