‘Your helmet,’ she said. ‘Put your helmet on.’
We’d brought our hard hats with our other climbing gear, and she opened one of the bags and fished it out. Looking at the waves crashing against the rocky sides to the platform I thought it good advice, and wished I had knee and elbow pads too. I fixed the strap of my helmet and turned to say goodbye, and was startled when she grabbed me and planted a salty kiss on my mouth. ‘Take care,’ she said, in a tone that suggested these might be our last words.
‘Yeah, no worries,’ I muttered and jumped in.
The thought of sharks is a great accelerant in the water, I’ve found, and despite the heavy swell I crossed those twenty metres faster than in any pool. The sea was rising and falling half a dozen metres against the rocks, and it seemed to me I should try to time my approach so that it lifted me up to the top, where I’d have to grab the rock and clamber out of harm’s way before the wave rose again to suck me back down. That was the theory. The first time I tried it I was just too late, and the crest of the wave crashed back on top of me as I tried to clutch at solid matter, tipping me backwards and tangling me in the rope. I had to swim back out, clear the rope, then try again. This time it worked; I reached high up to a ledge as the wave peaked, and hauled myself up the rock face. In a few seconds I was lying panting and shivering on the platform, waving at Anna.
When I’d recovered, I loosened the rope from my waist and tied its two ends together, so that we now had a rope loop from boat to shore. Anna tied the first bag to the rope and I began to pull it across the gap. By the third load we were getting into the rhythm, hauling away like old sea hands. The fourth and final bag went over the side and came bobbing towards me. But then it began to feel heavier than the others, dipping deep under the waves as if maybe it was leaking and filling with water. I dragged on the rope as hard as I could until I saw the bag’s dark form in the water below me, then a wave crashed over it and the rope went abruptly slack, almost toppling me back onto the rock. I hauled it in, the fourth bag gone.
There was nothing I could do. We worked the knot in the rope back to Anna, and she unfastened it and tied one end to the boat, while I pulled the other ashore and secured it around a jutting rock.
‘Okay!’ I shouted. She stood for a moment in the bow of the pitching boat, in her swimsuit and helmet, then threw herself into the sea. I lost sight of her for one minute, then another, and was beginning to panic when her head broke through a wave and she came soaring in towards me on its crest. It slammed her against the rock, but she managed to perform a remarkably athletic recovery, scrambling up to my waiting hand.
When she was safe we stood for a moment, laughing with relief, then stared up at the spine of rock rising above us. Our teeth were chattering, we were bruised and scraped, but we’d made it. ‘That’s the main thing,’ I yelled. ‘We’re over safe and sound.’ In the euphoria of that moment we forgot about the boat, now being swept around the point on the end of its line. I got a sharp reminder when the taut rope suddenly caught my leg and yanked me against the rock. I yelped, pulled my leg free and turned around, just in time to see the boat disappear behind an outcrop. We ran to the edge of the platform and looked down. It had vanished. We pulled on the rope, which now ran directly into the waves beneath us, and hauled out a good length before it suddenly jerked tight. We tugged and heaved, but couldn’t free it. In disbelief we gazed down at the empty foaming water, then at each other. Carmel’s boat had sunk, crushed against the rock beneath our feet. I dropped to my knees, refusing to accept that this had really happened. Didn’t boats have flotation panels or something? Behind me I heard Anna moan through the sound of the crashing waves, ‘Oh my God!’ I slumped back on the cold rock and we stared at each other, our euphoria at getting there in one piece abruptly gone.
Finally the freezing wind forced us into action. Severely chastened, we pulled on our clothes and began to get ourselves organised. My climbing shoes felt stiff and old, like me. It was a long time since Frenchmans Cap, longer still since I’d broken them in on the climbing wall. I stared up at that intimidating ridge rearing high above us against the morning sky and felt an overwhelming sense of dismay. Technically it didn’t look as hard as Frenchmans Cap, with plenty of cracks and ledges on the fractured and eroded surface, but this was completely unknown territory. With our backpacks and climbing belts firmly strapped, Anna led the first pitch. We climbed slowly and carefully, not wanting to take risks with no help available, and my legs and arms were soon aching. Along the way we found hammered into the rock several ancient bolts that looked old enough to have been placed by the first climbers forty years before.
I led the final pitch that took us onto Gannet Green, a steep unstable-looking slope with scattered patches of wind-scoured grass, and I made my way across to a stunted clump of melaleuca shrubs and collapsed against the rock face with a groan. Anna had more energy, and began to explore the shelf. She returned after twenty minutes, shaking her head. There was no sign that Luce or the others had been there.
‘What now?’
I said. ‘Do you think they’ll come looking for us today?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. They’re not likely to notice we’ve gone.’ That had been our intention, after all. We couldn’t see Lord Howe from this end of the Pyramid, but there had been no sign of a boat all morning. My throat felt parched and I reached into my pack to check our diminished supplies. We had one small bottle of water each. With the loss of that fourth bag, our food store, scrounged from the kitchen as we were leaving, was now just as inadequate-a few crackers, a lump of cheese and an apple. The adrenaline and lack of sleep were getting to me, and I felt dazed.
Anna was scanning the ridge above our heads, and she suddenly frowned, pointing. ‘What’s that?’
I eased stiffly to my feet and looked. Something glinted in the sun. ‘No idea.’
‘I’ll take a look.’ She scrambled up the broken rock, sending small fragments skittering down behind her. All around, seabirds squealed in protest at our intrusion.
‘Come and see,’ she called over her shoulder.
I groaned as my legs flexed to push me up. Every muscle ached. I was definitely not fit. When I reached her she pointed to a stainless steel ring-bolt embedded in the rock. It looked very recent, different from the rusted mild steel aids we’d noted on the way up. You could see the lip of the epoxy resin that had been used to glue it in place.
‘It’s theirs, isn’t it?’ She was looking up the rock face. ‘They must have gone further. Come on.’
‘Do you think we should?’ I looked behind me. The water already looked far below.
‘Not much point hanging around here.’ She sounded like my old gym teacher, annoyingly positive. She was holding up a lot better than I was. ‘Might as well use the time we’ve got,’ she went on. ‘If we were picked up now we’d have achieved nothing anyway.’
We found another ring-bolt further up the ridge, then nothing more, and I just concentrated on each new step. We were giddyingly high now, with wide views across the ocean, though Lord Howe was still masked by the bulk of the peaks ahead. Huge numbers of birds wheeled and dived around us, filling the air with their forlorn cries. At one point we spotted a fishing boat some distance off to the north-east, but too far to try to attract its attention. As the afternoon wore on my pace became slower and slower. I had to keep stopping to rest my swollen fingers and aching knees, and my movements had become clumsy with fatigue. Finally I looked up and saw Winklestein’s Steeple towering impossibly high above us. I called up to Anna, waiting at the top of the next pitch, that I was buggered and couldn’t go on.