Ben was woken by a terrible racket. It seemed to come from just above his head. There was a howling gale rushing round him. Suddenly he was nearly blinded by a piercing light which seemed to be glaring at him from only a couple of yards away. For a few seconds he was shocked and disorientated, not realising where he was.
A voice shouted at him. It was difficult to make out what was said above the noise and the wind.
“What did you say?” he yelled back.
Ben began to feel the aches and stiffness in his muscles. Now he knew where he was. What the hell was going on?
The voice shouted again, “Are you English?” He could make out the Italian accent.
“Yes.”
“The others? Are they alive?”
“I don’t know.” He began to feel Toni’s frozen hands to try and find a pulse – to get a reaction some sort - of any sort.
There was a long pause while the dreadful noise and buffeting downdraught from the helicopter continued. Ben continued to massage Toni’s hands, partly to get some feeling back into his own cramped limbs.
The voice shouted again out of the darkness. “Do not fear. We will land at the top and climb down to you.”
The hovering roar moved away and darkness returned to their enclosed little world. Ben carried on with his exploration of Toni’s body. He unzipped his anorak and was rewarded by feeling some warmth. Surely his friend was still alive. He did up the zip and felt around the young man’s throat. He was almost sure he could detect a pulse. How long could Toni last?
“For God’s sake hurry up,” he muttered to himself.
It seemed ages later when the helicopter came back. It hovered further away this time and he could see the light shining on the cliff face above him. A scrabbling and the scattering of little rock slivers away to his left told him that the rescuers were getting closer.
Ben lifted his watch in front of his nose and stared at the face. He thought it said five o’clock. It would soon be light. He must have slept for several hours.
In fact a glimmer of dawn was seeping into the eastern sky when the first climber reached the top of their private little chimney. The man eased down beside Ben and shook his hand. The warmth of his handshake made Ben want to cling on to him.
“I am doctor,” the man announced. “Here – drink this.”
He undid the top of a small metal flask and handed it to Ben who took a swig and gasped as the fiery liquid burned into his stomach. A feeling of warmth and false-wellbeing spread through him.
“How did you find us?”
The doctor grinned. “When you dropped heater – it started fire in bushes.” He laughed at the younger man’s expression. “Do not fear. Only small. Soon put out.”
Ben could only look at him in amazement.
“You all right?” the man asked. “You break any bones?”
Ben shook his head and cleared his throat. “I’m not sure about Toni though.”
The doctor turned his attention to Ben’s companion. His practiced hands felt their way round his body. He pulled a face. “Nothing is broken. But I do not like it. He is very cold. He must move soon.” He grinned at Ben. “You wait, so he go first?”
“Yes. That’s no problem.”
He tried to hand back the flask but the doctor stopped him. “You finish – a little at a time. Is good for you.”
The man leaned out and shouted some instructions up the precipice. Five minutes later a small flexible stretcher was lowered into the chimney and the task began of strapping Toni into it. Then he was lowered gently to a group of rescuers waiting at the foot of the giant cliff.
It was fully light before Ben was able to follow him. As he was going down he saw Carlos. The man’s body was bent almost double as it hung from the end of the rope tied round his waist. The sight of it made the sweat break out all over Ben’s body. He shut his eyes tight until he was safely in the arms of his rescuers at the bottom of the scree, standing amidst the scorched scrub where the gas canister had exploded.
They left him there while they concentrated on getting Carlos’ body down. Toni had been airlifted to hospital by the helicopter. Ben wrapped himself in a blanket and stumbled down the steep hillside to the blessed stability of the vineyard at the foot of the mountain. He couldn’t bring himself to look back at what was going on far above his head. He just sat and waited in a shocked, semi-alcoholic haze.
At the mountaineering centre in Tortorro much later they were full of praise for him. He was the man who had saved young Toni. That was some compensation. But Ben couldn’t forget Carlos’ bent corpse.
“I just didn’t have the strength to get him up to the chimney,” he admitted.
“Don’t worry about that.” The doctor had made himself Ben’s translator. “That one was dead as soon as he hit the cliff-face.”
But it was many months before the picture of the snapped and dangling body, gyrating slowly in the wind, ceased to torment his dreams. And it was a great deal later when he had to face the consequences of that foolish climb.