Hannes was a small, tanned man in his thirties, with a cheerful, open face and short fair hair. James had noticed that he walked with a distinct limp, but once he put his skis on he moved freely over the snow as if they were a part of him.
‘We have a new boy with us today,’ he said, when everyone was ready. ‘So I will need to spend a little time alone with him to get him started. The rest of you, practise your stems.’
The other boys moved clumsily off down the gentle slope, their knees bent and knocking into each other, their skis turned in at the tips.
‘I don’t think any of them will ever be world-class skiers,’ said Hannes with a smile. ‘But that is not the point. The point is to enjoy yourself. Yes? And to do that you must learn the basics.’ His English was good, with only a light accent. He explained to James that he had taken classes, as most of his pupils were from England.
‘I will teach you to ski with safety and with style,’ he went on. ‘I have seen young people like you take to skiing quickly and shoot off down the slopes with very little practice, but they are only pretending to ski. I call them ski-savages. They do not have control and go wherever their skis take them – people like that will never become really good skiers. You must learn to be master of your own skis, and ultimately master of the mountain. It may seem boring and slow at first but, like anything, if you do not do the groundwork, you will only ever progress so far.
‘The first thing you must master is the snowplough, the horror of every beginner. It is not only for slowing yourself down and gaining control, it is also the basis of every turn except for those at high speed. You have watched the other boys, now you try it. Make a V-shape with your skis, the tips almost touching, the back ends as wide apart as possible. Press the knees forward and keep your heels flat and the skis very slightly on their inner edges. Don’t dig them in too much, though, merely caress the snow with them.’
James did as he was told and gingerly moved off down the slope. He felt ridiculous and clumsy, trying to keep his legs in the right position to control the skis, which had a mind of their own, but he slowly got the hang of it. The trick was to use just the right mount of edging. Too much and each ski pulled in the direction they were pointing until they crossed over one another; too little and the skis tended to drift apart until he was doing a painful splits.
‘Very good!’ Hannes shouted, whizzing down to James where he had stopped at the bottom. The other boys were waiting there, chatting, and Hannes ordered them back to the top. James watched as they side-stepped up the hill with little chopping movements. He soon found that getting back up the slope was almost harder than coming down it.
‘Skiing is not so difficult a sport, really,’ Hannes said to James as they struggled up. ‘For sure, there are special techniques to learn, but mainly you will need courage, a sense of balance, a desire to practise and a great deal of patience. A sense of humour will come in useful as well, because to start with you will find yourself spending more time on the ground than on your skis.’
He was right. In the first ten minutes James fell over sixteen times. But he kept at it, and in the next ten minutes he fell over only half that number of times. After an hour he felt fairly confident and the gaps between falls were getting longer and longer.
Along the way he learnt that the most important law of skiing was that you must lean forward, so that your body was at least at a right angle to the slope. This was known as vorlage. There were many German terms to learn. Like abstemmen, to brake, or its opposite, schuss, to go straight down the slope. Something he was warned against trying just yet by Hannes.
‘Look at the slope,’ he explained. ‘It is not man-made; it is a natural thing, full of curves and bumps and holes and hazards. You must learn to choose the right line. The most direct route down a slope, the steepest line, is known as the fall line. Nine times out of ten you will not take the fall line, but you will curve gracefully from side to side and come down in a long series of sweeping S shapes.’
Another thing James learnt about was the Hocke. ‘The famous Arlberg crouch,’ as Hannes described it. ‘A most misunderstood term. You will need to bend the knees, but not so far that you are sitting on your skis as some people seem to think. The crouch must be combined with a forward leaning, the vorlage. Now you try. Cross the slope from one side to the other with your skis parallel. When you wish to stop simply pull them into the snowplough…’
James dug his sticks in and pushed off. This felt much more satisfying than the awkward snowplough. He cut through the powdery snow in a clean straight line, angling slightly downhill. Oberhauser stayed at his side, shouting out instructions.
‘Keep your weight on the lower ski and the upper ski advanced. Lean away from the slope with your upper shoulder forward. If you find yourself falling, don’t fight it, go with it, relax and fall smoothly.’
This was easier said than done, thought James, as he felt his skis slip out from under him and he was sent tumbling into an untidy heap, arms and legs going in all directions.
Hannes laughed and helped him up.
‘You will get there with practice. You must develop a feeling for the snow. But you are learning fast. After lunch you will join in with the others.’
Lunch was soup followed by spicy German sausage with bread and cheese, taken on benches outside a chalet restaurant that sat to one side of the slope. James realised just how tiring the morning had been. There were aches and strains all over his body, and his knees and ankles felt as if they had been kicked by a mule. His boots were caked with snow, and sat like heavy blocks of ice round his feet. He had to stamp some feeling back into his toes. But the food restored his energy and by the time they returned to the slope he was raring to go again.
His progress was slower in the afternoon, though, as he had lost his one-to-one tuition and was now simply part of the group. There was so much to take in and most of it went straight out of James’s head once he started skiing. What with the tension and the concentration and the noise of the skis sliding over the snow he was deaf to Oberhauser’s shouts. His muscles seemed to find the right shape, though. His upper body settled into a comfortably upright position, leaning forward with his back slightly bowed, his arms relaxed and held in front.
‘You must turn off your brain and let your body guide you,’ Hannes said to them at the end of the day as they were taking off their skis. ‘Skiing, when it is done well, is ballet dancing to imaginary music.’
Over the next few days, James worked hard. The trickiest skill to master was turning, which was much more difficult than he had imagined. Instead of leaning into the curve you had to lean away from it or the skis would not behave. The problem was that they were long and straight and rigid, and weren’t designed for turning corners. Oberhauser explained that in order to change the direction of the skis you had to lift them from the snow or they would simply run straight ahead as if on rails.
‘When you need to make a turn you use an up and down movement.’ He illustrated this by bobbing up and down quickly.
‘You will be surprised, but if you stand on a set of weighing scales and crouch down suddenly, you will become lighter for a moment. It is that fraction of a moment of weightlessness you must use to lift your skis from the snow and turn them.’
James practised, combining the up and down movement with a body swing, and one afternoon he suddenly cracked it and found himself carving an elegant S in the snow with his skis as he sped down the slope. This gave him immense satisfaction, as most of the other boys were still clumsily shuffling about on the snow in nervous snowploughs.
As he was taking off his skis at the end of the day, the sun passed behind the Kitzbühler Horn and an icy wind came whistling up from nowhere. He shivered and looked up towards the peak of the Hahnenkamm. They had had a jolly day playing on its flank, but he understood only too well how quickly the mood of a mountain could change. There had been a bleak memory lurking at the back of his mind since he had arrived here and now it fou
ght its way into his thoughts.
His parents had died in the Alps, west of here, near Chamonix in France. It was true they had not been skiing at the time, but climbing. All the same, they had clearly underestimated the power of the mountains and they had paid with their lives. James knew he would have to be careful here. Only last year four masters from Eton had died climbing on Piz Roseg in the Swiss Alps. And they were not the first.
As James watched a group of boys throwing snowballs at each other and laughing, he wondered if everyone else was as aware of the dangers as he was.
5
You’re Going the Wrong Way!
The weather held for the next few days, with fresh snowfalls during the nights and bright sun during the days. The conditions remained perfect for skiing and James progressed fast. He loved to learn new things, and he loved to keep active. There was no better feeling at the end of the day than to have tired, sore muscles and an inner glow of warmth. And, by throwing himself into the skiing and keeping busy, he managed to banish all dark thoughts about his parents. He grew to love the mountain and he missed it when he was back at the hotel.
So his days were spent swishing down the lower slopes and in the evenings, after a huge stodgy meal, he would go up to bed early and almost instantly fall into a deep, untroubled sleep. The only sour note was sounded by Miles Langton-Herring, who would often wake James by noisily blundering around their room when he came up later, presumably to take his revenge for being woken early that first morning. Once he was sure James was awake he would start to talk. This was the most annoying part. Miles was a show-off. He would boast about both his prowess on the ski slopes and his seemingly bottomless well of knowledge. The worst thing about him was that while he appeared to know more facts than could be contained in the world’s largest encyclopaedia, he seemed not to know the most important fact of all – that nobody was remotely interested in a word he had to say. He was a bore, and like all bores he didn’t realise it. Long after everyone else had finished a conversation Miles would still be barking away, like a dog locked out in a yard by its owners. James soon learnt to tune him out, as if he was an unwanted radio station, but it made it very difficult to have a conversation with anyone else while he was around.
Miles was in a more advanced skiing group, so at least during the days James didn’t have to listen to his loud, fruity, donkey bray of a voice. By the end of the week, though, Hannes reckoned James was good enough to join the more experienced skiers on the upper slopes of the Hahnenkamm.
‘We are going to ski all the way down from the top of the mountain,’ he explained. ‘There is a fairly easy run which will be perfect to test the abilities of a skier like yourself.’
So it was that on Saturday morning James found himself climbing aboard a gondola on the Hahnenkamm-Bahn for the 1,500-metre ascent to the summit. He was with Hannes, a master called Mr Eastfield and a group of ten of boys. They stood in the narrow gondola clutching their skis and chatting excitedly.
The car latched itself on to the moving cable and they jolted out of the lower station and lurched up the slope. They passed through the outskirts of town and up over the tops of the houses, their roofs covered with thick white snow. There was no sound apart from a low bass hum punctuated by the occasional rattle as they went over one of the supporting towers. Soon they were climbing much more steeply between impossibly tall pine trees that shot straight up towards the sky.
‘Every year there is a famous race down the mountain,’ Hannes told James. ‘The Hahnenkammrennen. Perhaps the most important skiing race in the world. It is a very tough course, and very dangerous, but don’t worry: it is not the course we will be taking today. It will be great fun.’
‘I can’t wait,’ said James.
‘You know,’ said Hannes, ‘you have it in you to be a really first-class skier, James. I have never known anyone take to it as quickly as you. Most beginners would have taken six weeks at least to become as good as you. You have natural balance, you listen well and you seem to have no fear at all.’
‘I’m really enjoying it,’ said James. ‘I should love to be as good as you one day.’
Hannes smiled. ‘If you are really serious about it,’ he said, ‘you should go to Hannes Schneider’s school at St Anton in the Arlberg. It is where I learnt to ski, and where I was taught to become an instructor. St Anton has become the university of skiing, the Mecca for all those who love to ski. There is a man there called Fuchs who could make you a world-beater. I only usually teach novices and tourists. My real passion is for climbing.’
James looked out to see that they were now so high they were above the tops of the pine trees, which clung to the almost sheer side of the mountain, sprouting from between the jagged rocks. Looking out through the rear windows it was easy to imagine that they were thousands of feet in the air, as if the gondola was airborne and flying up the slope like a glider. Below them Kitzbühel had become a toy town. Unfortunately the weather had changed this morning, though, and the sky was grey. It had the effect of turning the view into a black and white photograph. All colour seemed to have been drained from the scenery. The pretty doll’s houses of Kitzbühel looked grey, the snow was white and the pine trees a dense black.
A gust of wind whined through the windows and the steel cable zinged as they passed an empty gondola coming down the other way.
A few minutes later they cleared the top of the slope and left the trees behind. The land flattened out into rolling pillows of snow, criss-crossed by animal tracks, probably left by chamois, the mountain goat native to the Alps. And then they arrived at the top station and there was a flurry of activity as they clambered off and carried their skis out into the daylight. It was noticeably colder at this altitude. James felt the wind bite into him. He arranged his black cotton scarf in such a way that it partially covered his face, and tucked it carefully round his collar so that no icy fingers of draught could snake down his neck.
It was another world up here. The top of the Hahnenkamm was flattened so that there was a panoramic view of mountains all around – the Kitzbühler Horn, Resterhohe, Pengelstein, Gaisberg. It was breathtaking. James stood for a moment just taking it all in. He felt like God on the first day of creation looking out over his handiwork.
‘We will spend the morning skiing up here,’ Hannes announced. ‘There will be a lot of walking involved, I am afraid, but there are some good fast runs to test you. Now let us put on our skis and go!’
As they were strapping on their bindings James noticed Miles Langton-Herring in an excited huddle with three older boys. They were sniggering and keeping well away from the adults.
‘What are they up to?’ he asked Andrew Carlton who was next to him.
‘Drinking,’ Andrew said flatly.
‘Alcohol?’ said James.
‘They have a flask of schnapps that someone at the hotel got for them,’ said Andrew. ‘They think they’re being terribly grown up.’
James laughed. ‘I know in Switzerland they send those big St Bernard dogs to rescue people in the mountains with barrels of brandy round their necks, but I didn’t know you were supposed to get drunk before you set off.’
‘They’re idiots,’ said Andrew. ‘If they do get drunk, then they probably will need rescuing.’
Hannes came over to give James a pair of snow goggles.
‘This will be very different from the nursery slopes,’ he said as James put the goggles on. ‘You will have to make quick decisions. Up to a certain point you can use your brain, but at speed you have to rely on muscles and human instinct. Pay attention to the ground in front of you. Slopes change from convex to concave, from steep to gentle, all the time. There are waves and bumps and holes to look out for; they will all affect your speed. Keep ahead of your skis like I have taught you. And most important of all – enjoy yourself!’
When they were all ready they set off. This was indeed very different from anything James had experienced before. They were moving fast down a track with a w
all of snow on one side and a frightening drop on the other. If he lost control, he would find himself going down the mountain rather more quickly than he was hoping. They followed each other in a long snaking line. Some boys cried out with the thrill of it; others had their teeth gritted as they went down in grim silence.
James’s heart was hammering against his ribs, but he soon managed to relax and after a few minutes had forgotten the danger and was simply enjoying himself, a wide grin hidden behind his scarf.
The run ended in an exhilarating sprint down a wide steep slope into a small valley. The boys swished to a halt at the bottom and compared notes.
Then it was skis off and a long tramp up a snowy track to the top of the next run.
This was the pattern for the rest of the morning. A few brief minutes of wild excitement and then a good hour’s climb back up again.
James was surprised to find that there were one or two buildings up here, including a restaurant that served good hot food, which all had to be delivered by cable-car.
The weather lifted as they ate lunch, the sun came out and the glorious scenery was lit up, shining and crisp.
It didn’t last, though – when they were ready to ski again the sun had disappeared and the sky was heavy with cloud.
It seemed to take ages for everyone to get ready. James was in his skis and leaning on his sticks a long time before most of the other boys, and he was getting impatient as they fussed about and chatted and pushed each other over in the snow. He noticed that Miles and his gang were among the last to be ready, and their faces were flushed.
Mr Eastfield addressed the unruly rabble.
‘We’ve had a good morning,’ he shouted, banging his gloved hands together for warmth. ‘But I’ve been talking to Herr Oberhauser and he fears that the weather is closing in. We should be all right if we set off soon, but please be extra careful this afternoon.’