load. He went to the cliff face and laid his hands on it, getting the feel of it. The stone was still hot from the sun and the texture was smooth, almost soapy, under his fingers.
Before the war, rock climbing had been one of his passions. He loved the risk, the terror of the open face and drop sucking at his heels. He had climbed in South America and Europe as well as on the Drakensberg and Mount Kenya. He had the requisite sense of balance and the strength in his fingers and arms. He could have been one of the top international climbers but for the intervention of the bush war. However, he had never attempted a climb like this before.
His boots were soft velskoen without reinforced toes. He had no ropes, no anchorman, no pitons or carabiner, and he would be opening this route in darkness, barely able to see the next hold above, following a pitch he had studied from a mile distant, going blind on red sandstone, the most treacherous of rock.
He stepped up onto the face and began to climb. He used his toes and his fingers, leaning back from the rock, keeping in fine balance, never stopping, never jerking or fighting the holds, flowing upward as smoothly as molten chocolate.
At first the holds were solid, the kind he called 'jug handles'; then the face leaned out slowly and the holds were mere flakes and indentations. He used them lightly and briefly. A touch of his fingers, a nudge of his toes and he was past, putting the minimum of weight on each but even then feeling the frailer flakes of stone grate and creak threateningly under his fingers-but he was gone before the hold could fail.
In places he could not see above his head and he climbed by instinct, reaching up in the darkness, his fingertips as sensitive as those of a pianist as they brushed the rock and then locked into it.
Without check or pause, he covered the first pitch and reached the ledge a hundred feet up from the base.
The ledge was narr*er than it had appeared through the binoculars, no more than nine inches wide. With the pack strapped on his back and the Afle protruding on each side of his shoulders, it was impossible for him to turn his back to the rock and use the ledge as a bench to sit upon.
He was forced to stand facing the cliff, his heels hanging over the edge and the weight of pack and rifle pulling on his shoulders, trying to drag him backward. He was less comfortable on the ledge than he had been on the face. He began to shuffle along it, spreading his arms like a crucifix to steady himself, his fingers groping for irregularities in the rock face, the sandstone an inch from the tip of his nose.
He went left along the ledge, seeking the vertical crack he had spotted through the binoculars. It had been his first choice of the M I two possible routes. Sean had the rock climber's instinctive distrust of roots and branches and tufts of grass. They were always unreliable, too treacherous to risk life on.
He counted his shuffling crablike paces along the ledge, and by the time he reached a hundred the ledge under his toes had narrowed dangerously and the muscles in his thighs were burning and qwv ering from the unnatural strain of counterbalancing the rifle and pack.
Twenty paces more and the cliff face was beginning to bulge out toward him, forcing him further backward. He had to thrust his hips forward to keep himself from toppling out over the sheer drop. It was only a hundred feet to the bottom, but it would crush and kill just as surely as a fall from the top of Eiger north face.
The strain on his legs was intolerable now. He thought of going back and trying the roots of the ficus, but he doubted he still had that choice. He wanted to stop, just to rest his legs a moment and gather himself, but he knew that would be the end of it. To stop on a pitch like this was defeat and certain death.
He made himself take another pace and then another. Now he was forced backward so his back was arched and his legs were numb to the ankles; he could feel them juddering under him, knew they were going. Then suddenly the fingers of his left hand touched the crack, and it was as though a syringeful of adrenaline had been squirted into one of his arteries.
His legs steadied under him, and he managed another pace. His fingers danced over the crack, exploring it swiftly. It was not wide enough to get his shoulder into it, and it narrowed quickly.
Sean thrust his hand into it as deep as it would go, then bunched his fist, jamming it securely into the crack. Now he could hang back on his arm and rest his back and his aching legs. His breathing hissed and sawed in his chest and the sweat was streaming down his body, soaking his shirt. Sweat melted the camouflage cream from his face and burned his eyes, blurring his vision.
He blinked rapidly and lifted his head. He was surprised to see that the cliff face above him was visible against the night sky and that he could make out the crack running vertically up its side.
He turned his head and saw that while he had been climbing the moon had cleared the horizon in the east. Its beams had turned the forest below to a frosty silver.
He could not wait any longer. He had to keep moving. He reached up with his free hand, thrust it into the rock crack above the other, and made another jam-hold. Then he twisted his foot and pressed the toe into the crack three feet up from the ledge; b( straightened his foot and it wedged securely. He put his weight on it and, with the other foot, stepped up and repeated the action.
Hand over hand, foot over foot, he walked up the crack, hanging back from the rock face, once more in balance, the strain removed from his legs and back and his weight evenly distributed.
He could see the top of the cliff now, only a hundred feet above his head. Then he felt the crack begin to open wider; his fists and feet were no longer finding secure jams. One of his feet slipped under him, rasping harshly over the rock until it caught again.
He turned his body, trying to wedge his shoulder into the crack, but the barrel of the rifle clanged against the face, blocking his turn. He hung there for a few seconds before he could force himself back into balance on his legs and then groped above his head, searching the depth of the crack for another secure hold. He found only smooth sandstone, and he knew he was stuck.
He had about fifteen seconds before his legs gave way under him. He understood clearly what he had to do, but it went contrary to all his instincts.
'Do it,' his voice grated in his own ears. 'Do it or die.'
He reached down and opened the quick-release buckle on the waistband of his backpack. Then he straightened one arm and reached backward and downward; the carrying strap slid off his shoulder and down his arm, catching in the crook of his elbow.
The altered weight of the pack and the rifle slewed his whole body around, and he had to fight to stay on the cliff face.
He thrust his head into the crack, trying to hook onto the rock with his chin and the back of his head, the strap of the backpack locking his arm behind him. His head jammed in the crack, he gathered all his strength, braced his neck muscles, and let go. Now he was held only by his head and feet, and he straightened both arms behind him. For an aching moment the strap caught on a fold of his bush jacket, thevlt slipped down over his arm.
The pack dropped4 off his back and fell away into the darkness.
Relieved of the weight, Sean tottered and swayed. Then, with both arms free, he grabbed wildly at the edges of the rock crack and managed to keep himself from plunging after his pack into the abyss.
He clung to the rock and listened to the pack striking the cliff as it fell, the steel of his rifle barrel ringing like a bronze bell off the rock, waking the echoes and sending them bounding from kopJe to cliff, a terrifing sound in the night. Long after the pack and rifle had come to rest at the base of the Cliff, the echoes still reverberated against the hills.
Sean swung himself sideways and was able at last to wedge his shoulder into the crack. He rested like that, panting wildly, the terror of death for the moment unnerving him. Then slowly his breathing eased and his terror was replaced by the familiar glow of adrenaline in his blood. Suddenly it felt very good still to be alive.
'Right to the very edge,' he whispered hoarsely. 'You have been there again, boyo.' The greater the terror, the more intense the thrill. He no longer amazed himself, but here he was again gloating at just how close he could get without going over the edge.
The thrill was too fleeting. Within seconds it began to fade, replaced by a realization of his position. His pack was gone. The rifle, water bottles, sleeping bag, food, all gone, All that remained were the contents of his pockets and the tiny emergency pack and hunting knife looped to his belt.
He whispered, 'We'll worry about that when we get to the top.'
He began to climb again. With one shoulder wedged into the crack, he was able to push and drag himself upward an inch at a time, paying for it with skin from his knuckles and bare knees.
Gradually the crack continued to open wider, until it became a full chimney and he could get his whole body into it and double one leg under him to propel himself upward more swiftly At the op the chimney had eroded and crumbled. One side wall of the chimney had broken away, but it had left a narrow buttress with a flat top. Sean was able to transfer his weight across the chimney utntil he was standing on this precarious pinnacle.
The top of the cliff was still ten feet above his head. When he reached up to the full stretch of his arms, standing on the tips of Ms toes, the ledge was stiff just out of reach. The chimney wall had broken away clearly,
