It took twenty minutes to get back up on to the ridge, but he did so without further incident. He made his way back to Meall Tarmachan and came down off the mountain with pained slowness. He felt ill but he knew that the light was fading fast. There was no question of resting.
Fear was replaced by anger when he thought about the man who had jostled him off the ridge. He thought it beyond belief that anyone could have been so stupid and thoughtless. Perhaps in time he might become charitable enough to believe that the man had been overcome by panic at being caught on the ridge in such atrocious weather and had barged through without considering the consequences. But for the moment Bannerman was furious. The clown should have realized that there hadn’t been enough room to get past.
When he reached the car, he tumbled his gear into the back in an ungainly heap. He got into the driving seat and closed the door, rejoicing that at last he was safe from the great outdoors. Right now the great indoors was all he ever wanted. He started the engine and made his way slowly along the shore road to the Ben Lawers Hotel. He hadn’t had the energy to change out of his boots and had to concentrate hard on the pedals. He made it to the car-park at the hotel and almost fell out of the car with exhaustion.
‘What on earth?’ exclaimed the owner, when she saw the state he was in.
‘I had a bit of an accident on the hill,’ said Bannerman weakly.
The woman called her son Euan to help Bannerman into the bar where there was a roaring fire. She herself went to run him a hot bath. Euan handed Bannerman a glass of whisky and smiled at his reaction to the burning sensation as the spirit trickled down his throat. Bannerman handed him the glass and nodded at the suggestion of another.
When he finally eased himself out of the bath water to towel himself down — somewhat less than vigorously, Bannerman felt the back of his head where it had struck the rock. There was a lump but nothing serious, he reckoned. Amazingly that seemed to be his only injury apart from a sore right arm and a weal on his right wrist where he had been suspended from the loop on the ice axe. He rubbed it gently, knowing that a few hours ago it had been his only link with the land of the living. He shuddered and put on dry clothes.
‘I really think we should call the doctor from Killin,’ said Vera, the owner, but Bannerman insisted that it was unnecessary, thanking her for her kindness. ‘All the treatment I need is in there,’ he smiled, nodding at the bar.
‘Well, if you’re sure …’
‘I’m sure,’ said Bannerman.
Bannerman had another whisky, then ate the biggest mixed grill he had ever seen. There were only two other guests staying at the hotel, an English couple from Carlisle who planned on climbing Ben Lawers on the following day.
‘I hear you had a rough day,’ said the man.
‘I had a fall,’ said Bannerman, his mind rebelling at how innocuous the words sounded. All that fear, all that terror, all that living nightmare, dismissed as ‘a fall’.
‘Happens to the best of us,’ said the man.
Bannerman smiled weakly and nodded. He didn’t want to continue the conversation. He left the dining-room and returned to the bar to sit down by the fire. Filled with warmth and well-being, he felt himself quickly become sleepy. After one more drink he thanked the owner and her son for their kindness and went up to bed. As he pulled the covers up round his ears he was aware that rain was battering off the window. He remembered the weather forecast for the day… fine settled weather. ‘Incompetent bastards,’ he murmured before drifting off into a deep sleep.
‘A deep depression centred off Iceland has moved south to bring rain and …’ Bannerman clicked off the car radio. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that it was raining cats and dogs as he headed for Kyle of Lochalsh and the ferry to Skye. Being on his own, he could indulge himself in the soothing sounds of Gregorian chant. The sonorous sound from the cassette player seemed appropriate for the forbidding darkness of the mountains and was only interrupted by the occasional slap of water against the floor pan as the Sierra’s wheels hit puddles at speed.
There was only one unscheduled interruption in the journey, when traffic was held up by a landslide near Glen Garry for about forty minutes. Eventually, lumbering yellow mechanical diggers cleared the road and policemen, wearing fluorescent waistcoats, waved the traffic on.
Bannerman constantly found himself thinking back to what had happened up on the Tarmachan ridge. The fact that he had neither reported the affair to the police nor consulted a doctor afterwards had acted in a positive sense to minimize the seriousness of the incident in his subconscious, but he still felt the need to analyse it in terms of his personal behaviour. Very few people are tested to the limit in their lives. Consequently, many die without ever finding out how they would behave under extreme pressure. Bannerman found himself examining his behaviour in relationship to the very reason for his getting away from the hospital for a while. He had been worried about his performance under stress.
When seen in this light, he found that he had reason to be pleased. True, he had been physically sick with fear but this had happened after he had coped with the situation, not during it. This in turn reminded him that the shake in his hands at the hospital had happened after he had made his decision on the emergency section, not before it. Maybe his mental condition was better than he feared.
It was six in the evening when he reached the village of Ralsay on North Uist. He had crossed on the ferry from the Kyle of Lochalsh to Kyleakin on Skye and caught another from Uig, in the north of the island, to Lochmaddy on North Uist. An ancient saloon car, masquerading as a taxi, had brought him to Ralsay.
‘Can you drop me at the hotel?’ Bannerman asked the driver.
There’s no hotel,’ said the driver.
The pub then.’
‘No pub,’ said the driver.
‘Where do visitors stay in Ralsay then?’
They don’t get many.’
Bannerman, who was tired after a long journey, found himself irritated at the driver’s unhelpful attitude. There must be somebody who takes in visitors,’ he ventured.
‘You could try Mistress Ferguson along there on the left,’ said the driver, who had decided that, as far as he was concerned, the journey was over.
‘On the left?’
The house has lions at the door,’ said the driver, holding out his hand. Bannerman had a mind not to tip him but relented and gave him an extra pound. ‘Have a drink on me,’ he said. The driver smiled wanly and drove off. ‘And please God it chokes you,’ added Bannerman. He walked along the dark street until he came to the door with the lions. There was a sign saying ‘Accommodation’ in the window. It was a welcome sight.
‘Eleven pounds fifty including breakfast,’ said the severe woman who answered the door. ‘One pound extra if you want tea and biscuits at bed time.’
‘Sounds like heaven,’ smiled Bannerman.
The woman looked at him as if he had blasphemed. ‘Does that mean you will be wanting tea and biscuits?’ she asked.
‘Yes please,’ answered Bannerman meekly. He followed the woman up a narrow flight of stairs and into a room where the slope of the roof prevented him standing upright anywhere other than on a one-metre wide strip of carpet at the foot of an old brass bed. The room felt cold and smelt musty, but it was a landlord’s market. Bannerman said it would be fine.
‘In advance,’ said the woman holding out her hand.
‘Of course,’ smiled Bannerman getting out his wallet and paying her. The woman examined the English ten pound note with a look of mild disdain.