I need not have worried. We were in for trouble all right, although not of any kind which I could ever have expected or foreseen.
Only over one thing did I get my way at the beginning of the trip. I was determined that it should kick off in comfort, so I had booked us in for the first night at the airport hotel near Glasgow. We did not get to it by air, of course, but I guessed that, however luxurious the place turned out to be, travellers would not be expected to dress for dinner. Indoor shoes, however, we did carry with us, nailed boots being regarded askance when worn on the polished or carpeted floors of the youth hostels and hotels in which we were to spend our nights.
I had booked separate rooms under our separate names at the airport hotel, and we met in the bar for cocktails at a quarter to seven. The train journey from London had been a long one and it was good to find that every bedroom had its bathroom and that the hot water was unlimited.
‘I’m not sure this makes the most sensible start for the kind of holiday we’ve planned, but I must say it’s very pleasant,’ said Hera. She had changed her trousers and sweater for a rather slinky little frock and (not for the first time) I regretted the single rooms and a bed to which I knew I should not be admitted.
In the bar we made brief and inauspicious acquaintance with a man of whom we were to see more later. He stumbled as he passed us on his way from the bar to a small table and spilt some of his drink, for it was a glass of sherry and, as is the idiotic habit of bartenders, whether men or maids, it was full to the very brim, instead, after measurement, of being tipped into a larger glass, as I always request. Luckily, only the merest drop fell on to Hera’s arm and that was bare, so no harm was done and my handkerchief soon did its job of mopping up. The fellow, a tall, rather good-looking chap, apologised and wanted to buy our drinks for us, but when I had refused this offer, Hera added, looking sweetly at him, ‘Please don’t bother. Some people can’t help having two left feet.’
‘I say, that was a bit strong, wasn’t it?’ I asked, when we reached our own little table.
‘What was?’
‘That crack of yours about two left feet. He apologised, and he didn’t trip up on purpose.’
‘That’s where the two left feet came in. Don’t be silly, Comrie. He was determined to speak to me.’
‘But why? It wasn’t as though you were here on your own.’
‘I don’t know why. He was on the train, you know.’
‘Well, so were lots of other people.’
‘He tried to get into conversation with me in the corridor. Oh, never mind him. Finish your drink. I’m starving.’
The dinner was a good one and I wished I had booked the hotel for at least one more night, but we were due to spend the next night at the youth hostel in the centre of the city. However, we had breakfast and lunch at the hotel and then took a bus. We had not enough luggage to warrant a taxi.
The youth hostel came under the Grade 1 category. It was open all the year round, had one hundred and twenty beds, was on the telephone and had a members’ kitchen where hostellers could cook their own food. It also provided food for those who did not want to do their own cooking. It comprised two very large three-storey houses with a flight of steps up to the front door and was in a quiet street only a few minutes’ walk from the bus stop.
Although we had been told that the peak months at the hostel were July and August, even in early June the place was pretty full. We had not been in the common-room half an hour when we were faced with the prospect of being urged to join the largest party present. A fellow of about my own age approached us and asked whether we were going along The Way.
‘I’m afraid we haven’t any religious convictions,’ I said.
He laughed in the hearty, unconvincing way these muscling-in types affect and said, ‘Nothing like that, old boy, old boy! I meant, are you doing the footslog to Fort William — the West Highland Way, you know?’
‘Heavens, no! ’ said Hera, before I could answer. ‘We are merely butterflying hither and yon.’
‘Oh, what a pity! I’m trying to rope everybody in who is doing The Way. Much jollier in a big party and we can all get together in the evenings and make whoopee, what!’
He seemed to have begun as he meant to go on, for, when we came in, he had been chaffing other hostellers (among whom I recognised our acquaintance of the cocktail bar) and shouting with mirth at his own witticisms. A fellow to be avoided at all costs, I thought.
‘Sorry. We are only doing bits of this and that. We are not seasoned walkers,’ I said, ‘and we have to respect our limitations.’
‘Oh, well, anyway, come and meet the gang. There are eleven of us, all told. Not bad, eh, considering I set out on my tod? But I always reckon to pick up a mate or two at the hostels who will be going my way. After all, it’s a case of fellow-travellers, isn’t it? And I don’t mean the nasty political kind. No, no. The more the merrier, that’s what I always say.’
‘Eleven of you?’ said Hera. ‘A good thing we can’t join you, then, isn’t it?’
‘How come, fair one?’
‘Because it would make the number up to thirteen and you wouldn’t want that, I’m sure.’
‘Oh, I don’t go for that sort of bunk. Come and get matey, do.’
We could not get out of it without being boorish, although a certain restlessness in the atmosphere indicated that some of the company were not too happy, any more than we were, at being roped in by this hot-gospeller of togetherness. He introduced himself as Neville Carbridge, but invited us to call him Nel. ‘Only one “1”, of course, old boy, old boy!’ The only lone wolf was the fellow who had approached Hera on the train and then slopped drink on her at the airport hotel. I could see that Hera was not overjoyed at meeting him again. He was introduced to us as Barney Todd.
‘Not Sweeney?’ asked Hera, with the innocence she always displays when she looses off a barbed shaft.
‘Now, now, fair one! ’ shouted the idiotic Carbridge. ‘I thought of it first! You’re not the only joker in the pack. Besides, I doubled up. I said, “Sweeney” and then I said, “I’m on my tod, too, so why don’t we mingle, eh, old boy, old boy?” And now he’s going to be the life and soul of the party, just like hot toddy! I say, I say! That’s a good one, boys and girls! That’s a jolly good one. See? Todd, toddy. Damme, I go from strength to strength, dashed if I don’t. There’s no holding me when I’m in the mood. Mind you, Todd is one of his aliases. He’s got hot Spanish blood in his veins.’
One or two of the girls giggled, but I noticed that Todd himself was not amused. Personally I wondered whether I could restrain myself from assaulting Carbridge if he called Hera ‘fair one’ just once more. There was no stopping him on the subject of Todd, however. He put his hands to his forehead in the shape of horns and curvetted about, shouting, ‘My name is Toro! Bring on the matadors! Toro! Toro! Bring on the toddy, for the toro, el toro grande! Ole! Ole!’
Todd took it calmly, but I don’t think he liked being the butt of Carbridge’s joking, or listening to the giggles of the girls. Apart from Carbridge and Todd, there were four other men. One, called James Minch, was accompanied by his sister Jane. Another rather cluttered-up chap seemed to be acting as bearleader to four students, two men called Lucius Trickett and Freddie Brown, and two girls. Their leader’s name was Andrew Perth, and it seemed to me that already he had the harassed look of a schoolmaster in charge of a pack of unruly children on a school outing.
It turned out that the students were from a London polytechnic and were ‘doing’ The Way as part of a course in geology. Perth had been hired by the college as an experienced guide who had a detailed knowledge of the countryside through which the walk would take his party, so that accounted for his being with the four youngsters and looking somewhat disconsolate.