The wind was only blowing at about 10 mph, a pleasant change from the 80 mph winds of the previous two days, but its wind chill factor lowered the sub-zero temperatures even further. The snow had not abated until about an hour ago, reducing visibility but covering their tracks whilst it had fallen. Working in the shadow of the overhang he had removed his tinted goggles in order to better see what he was doing, but the cold and wind made his eyes water, causing his lashes to freeze into brittle whiteness. The only weapon he carried was an M4, the shortened version of the M16, hanging vertically down his back by the butt strapped between his shoulder blades, the weapons harness crossed over his shoulders and added to the weight he already carried and restricted his movements, but it was a necessity of the job.
Pulling on the piton’s quickdraw with one hand he drew himself closer to the overhang, giving himself enough slack at that end to unclip himself from it with his free hand. It was that moment of truth which always made life interesting whilst climbing, discovering if the single SLCD was up to the task of supporting him above the abyss. Letting go of the piton’s quickdraw he swung away from the vertical face to hang suspended below the overhang, 400 feet above the valley floor.
Lt Garfield Brooks and six of the soldiers were still far below on the valley floor, forming a perimeter and guarding the kit that would be hauled up, pitch by pitch. They were the only ones still wearing white camouflage clothing; the remainder had stuffed them inside camouflage jackets that more easily blended with the buff tones of the rock face until the snow line five hundred feet above.
Garfield lay on his back peering up at Richard Dewar through his binoculars, admiring the almost effortless ease with which the Royal Marine repeated the high trapeze act a further six times to reach the lip of the overhang. No records existed of any climbs here and in all probability no one had ever scaled the rock face before them. It seemed to Garfield however, that Dewar had climbed it a dozen times, so confident and assured were his moves. The climber’s term for such a skilful climb up a virgin face is ‘A Vue’, a clean ascent first try, with no prior knowledge of the route.
The American lieutenant from Florida had never climbed anything more challenging than the trees in the family’s backyard, before joining the service. Like every one of the Americans he had since gone through the courses run by the US Army Northern Warfare Training Centre at Fort Wainwright, Alaska. He’d frozen his butt off on the Black Rapids training area completing his CWLC, the Cold Weather Leaders Course, but it was nowhere close to the — 40° he was currently working in. He had performed assault climbs in Alaska on the Gulkana Glacier, in Vermont and the Rockies, but Dewar on the other hand had hiked to both the north and south poles, climbed Everest three times, once without oxygen, and had two tries at K2, amongst other less well known expeditions to his credit. Any doubts Garfield felt about a Brit leading this operation had been dispelled within hours of their landing in China, the Royal Marine Commando wasn’t just competent, he was quite expert at working in sub-zero climes and on rock faces.
Garfield remembered the first time he had come up against an overhang of similar proportions; he had shaken his head in a very negative manner as his brain took in the near impossibility of negotiating it. His instructor, a Ranger of many years’ experience had climbed up beside him.
“Mr Brooks, sir…you ever hear of a guy called Winston Spencer Churchill?” and Garfield had frowned at the strange question.
“Do you mean the old wartime British PM?”
“Yessir that’s him, he was a good soldier before he was a politician, and he had a saying that the three hardest things to do in life are to climb a wall leaning towards you, kiss a girl leaning away from you, and to make an after dinner speech…now I know you got a girlfriend and as an officer you know how to make speeches, which just leaves the leaning wall thing for you to do…now git your butt in gear and get it done before I kick your pansy ass off my mountain, sir!”
The advice had been absolutely useless in helping him conquer the problem, but it served to remind him that defeatism was not acceptable in the eyes of the army.
He now shifted his gaze upwards, looking at the eighty or so feet of chimney that ended abruptly where snow and ice capped it sixty feet from the top. They had been socked in for two days by the storm that had blown straight across the valley, coating the rock face, which they had descended that morning with snow that had been wind blasted into ice. Rappelling, or abseiling as the Brits called it, down from the top of the ridge in four pitches had seen them all safely down on the canyon floor, before crossing the exposed area in groups, one group moving whilst the remainder covered them
The route the major had chosen, initially went straight up for about a hundred feet of un-technical climbing, that is to say without the need for pitons and artificial aids. From there came a traverse, up and to the left for another hundred and fifty, rounding a corner two thirds of the way along. From the traverse it once more went vertical until reaching a narrow ledge, which varied in depth from a foot and a half to mere inches. Above the ledge, the rock was as smooth and seamless as if a team of giant plasterers had prepared it for painting, and below it to the top of the traverse was as equally unhelpful. The major had used pitons to secure runners to the face from the traverse to the ledge, and then along the ledge to below the overhang. Theoretically they could simply have gone straight up, in a technical climb all the way to the top, but they did not have the time to spare to hammer in pitons every few feet, even if they had that many with them, which they did not. They had lost time due to the storm and could not afford to hang about any longer.
Garfield lifted his over-white top and undid his ‘yukes’ jacket or extreme cold weather clothing system, in storeman speak, and replaced the binoculars before rolling back onto his front. In the entire time they had been on the ground in China they had seen no trace of another human being, it was as if they were on another planet. He checked that his small mix of troops from two countries and three different units, were still alert and on the ball, covering their assigned arcs. It was odd, he thought, that whereas his guys mixed well with the Brits of both units, there was coolness between the M&AW Cadre, Royal Marines and the SAS Mountain Troop guys. ‘The Cadre’ didn’t consider themselves to be ‘special forces’ but they definitely looked down on the mountain troop soldiers.