Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [145]
Sweat poured off them and their muscles shrieked for mercy; the icy wind on the exposed parts of their faces felt like a thousand pinpricks. Beth didn’t dare look anywhere but where she was placing her feet, for one slip could be fatal, and her back ached, bent into such an unnatural position. She counted the steps at first, but gave up after five hundred. Above the sound of the whistling wind there was a continuous, communal low groan, the sound of a couple of hundred souls all stretched to the limits of human endurance.
One man high above Beth and the boys keeled over sideways and slid back down the mountain, screaming, but no one even looked round, let alone broke their step to try to help him. It could be said they would have been risking their own lives and those of all who came behind to do so, yet all the same it seemed barbaric to ignore him. But the climb was far too hard for anyone even to waste breath on a comment. Beth felt Jack touch her back lightly as if to communicate that he felt impotent too.
On and on they went, not daring to look behind or even above them. The universal groan was growing louder, mingled with the sound of rasping breath.
It began to snow again, and suddenly Beth could see nothing more than Sam’s boots just above her. Agony was mingled with terror now for she couldn’t imagine how they could pitch a tent when they got to the top, and if they had no shelter they would surely die of cold.
‘You can keep going, Beth,’ Jack said from behind her, his voice eerie in the strange white world. ‘We’ll be fine, we’re nearly there. Just think of that tea we’ll make. Keep going.’
She heard a strangled cry from well below them and she guessed someone else had fallen. Then a yelp came from Theo.
Beth involuntarily turned her head, but she could see nothing but a snow-covered shape which she knew to be Jack. ‘Hold on to the sledge,’ she heard him say to Theo. ‘I’ll help pull you up.’
It was a grey-white world, in which she could see no further than two feet and sound became distorted. Surely the Scottish accent she’d heard a couple of hours earlier had come from above her? Now it seemed to be below. But Jack’s voice steadied her, reminding her they were nearly there, that Theo was holding on, and that Sam was just in front of her.
A woman screamed out that she could go no further, and a male voice urged her on, but their voices seemed to be coming from Beth’s right and confused her still more.
‘Just concentrate on the next step,’ Jack called out as she faltered. ‘It’s not much further.’
Finally they reached the top to find themselves in what looked at first like a white city. The buildings were towering, snow-covered piles of goods, the streets the narrow corridors left between them.
Jack uttered an anguished oath on realizing that to find their goods would be a tall order. They had given their packers a long pole trimmed with a few bright ribbons to mark them, but they hadn’t reckoned on the snow obliterating everything. Men were up on the heaps digging frantically with their shovels, and they heard one man claim he’d been digging for three days already.
There was nowhere to pitch the tent. The only shelter was within this ‘city’ and Jack led them through the winding streets until he found a place where they could rig up a tarpaulin for a roof over their heads.
It was warmer without the icy wind they’d struggled through all morning, and they sank down gratefully on to their sledges and once again made tea in their volcano kettle. All four were silent, and Beth had no doubt that they were all thinking the same as her, that they should have waited for spring. Darkness was already closing in, and the prospect of a night huddled here, perhaps many more too if they couldn’t find their kit, was too terrible