“Of course,” responded Tiny sarcastically.
“We’re in Chile, right?” Sybilla asked suddenly.
“Yeah, by about twenty foot. We need to move on.”
“Okay, let’s do it!” said Sybilla decisively. “We’re right on the snow line, so from here on I can use the sled.”
She cleared the sled of bergens and skis and helped Tiny to get on, arranging him so that he was half lying on his right side, but with his right arm free, and with his good, left leg overhanging the front of the sled. Onto his left boot she clipped the single ski whilst she attached the other pair onto her own boots. After tying a bowline in the rope, she poked her right arm and her head through the loop so the weight of the sled would be taken on her back and down through her legs. Having paid out a short length of the rope, she secured it to the rear of the sled, carefully coiling the remainder and fixing it on with a length of twine. Tying Tiny’s bergen onto her own, she pulled them both onto her back. It looked so comical that Tiny couldn’t suppress a laugh.
“Ballast!” said Sybilla laughing. “I’m going to need all the weight I can get if I’m going to control the sled on this slope.”
After handing Tiny a ski pole for use with his right hand, Sybilla explained her strategy. “Your ski is the emergency brake. If I say ‘brake’, dig it sideways into the snow. The ski pole will help, and will also help with the steering. There are no passengers on this trip, big guy!”
Sybilla surveyed the landscape in front of her as she mentally prepared herself. “Okay, Tiny, which way?”
“Look half right, do you see the start of a wooded valley?” asked Tiny, pointing towards it with his ski pole.
Sybilla turned in the direction indicated. “I see it.”
“There’s a safety hut further down that valley. If the message I sent yesterday morning got through, there should be someone waiting for us.”
Sybilla looked at him askance. “As long as it’s not one of Herwig’s cronies.”
Tiny glanced behind at Sybilla. “We’re less than a mile from the cabin, but it’ll seem a long way for me and it’ll seem even longer for you. You sure you can make it?”
“Tiny, I’m a Viking.”
“Seriously, Billa, one option is you leave me here and go to the cabin for help. There should be one of ours there, then the two of you come back for me?”
Sybilla pondered for only a moment.
“One. How long will that take? Two. It would mean I would have to make the journey three times. Three. You would be left here on an exposed ledge within a few feet of the Argentinian border. God knows who or how many of Weber’s crew may be out looking for us. It wouldn’t take the brains of an archbishop to figure out which way we went. Four. What if your guy hasn’t shown up at the cabin?”
She paused, then added smiling, “Five. It wouldn’t be as much fun as the two of us doing this together!”
Tiny laughed. “Billa, you’re mad! Are all Vikings mad?”
“Every single last one of them.” With that, she gave the sled a push and sent it a couple of feet down the slope. The jerk as she took the strain nearly pulled her off her feet, but she had prepared herself and she was now almost parallel to the ground, her bulky bergen combination actually touching the snow, her skis across the slope and dug in sideways.
Sybilla experimented with stepping down the slope. She found that taking her lead leg about six inches down the slope, then crunching her ski back into the snow as a brake before following up with the rear leg, proved to be the safest and most effective way to descend. Very soon she was able to set up a rhythm, but it was hard work, particularly for her legs and back. After a hundred feet or so, she had to call for the ‘brake’. Tiny obliged, but she dared not rest for too long; she didn’t want to exhaust him. It was about two hundred feet to the start of the valley, but as well as descending, she had to traverse to line up with the head of the valley. Tiny helped with this, using his one ski and ski pole to keep the sled pointing in the right direction.
A hundred feet further on, Sybilla reached the point at which she had planned to have her next rest break, but as she passed it, she gritted her teeth and decided to keep going. She was desperately tired, but if they reached the trees she would have somewhere to secure the sled and take a longer break.
The distance to the trees was now only a hundred feet or so, but it seemed never ending. After what felt like an eternity, she was able to butt the front of the sled up against the base of one of the trees and secure the rope to another.
Sybilla fell onto her hands and knees, her chest heaving as she gasped in an attempt to draw as much of the thin air into her lungs as she could. The muscles in her legs were full of lactic acid and felt like jelly, and her whole body trembled uncontrollably. After a while she flopped onto her back, still breathing deeply.
“Tiny,” she managed to say between gasps, “if I was a horse in this condition, they would shoot me.”
Tiny shook his head. “I don’t know what to say, Billa.” He spoke very quietly. “I’m genuinely in awe.”
“Anyway,” he said after a pause, “the going will be easier now. You can use the machines to help!”
Nature Provides
Sybilla shot bolt upright. “Machines? What machines?”
“The ones all around you. Look about.”
Shuffling towards him on her knees, Sybilla placed a hand on Tiny’s brow. “Tiny, don’t crash out on me now. I need you conscious and alert.”
“I’m okay, Billa, I’m
