Page 231 - The Rifles Bugle Autumn 2019

get to our resting place for the night unscathed. The guide’s seriousness subtlety stepped up a notch as they nurtured the group onwards and skywards over more boulder fields to an high pass that looked down on a stone building that was in fact larger than it seemed and our resting place for the night. It looked so near but it was in fact far off and after approx. another 11⁄2 hour’s knee breaking descent through more boulder fields we reached the comfort of the Cabane de Estagnous.
This was indeed comfort (we had beds, albeit... communal) and yet again I was able to find another mountain lake where I washed and soothed aches and pains which ice cold water literally made vanish. We had supper, a few drinks and a fitful night’s sleep.
The next morning we were of course all looking forward to ‘summiting’ and crossing over into Spain and in addition to make matters even better, someone had told me that the Spanish send their Bombero, local firemen, to welcome us... nice touch!
The last day was in some ways also a sad one; we were going to reach a point at which so many before me had made it to freedom but after an huge amount of sacrifice and effort and the mood of the whole group was somewhat contemplative. We walked down from our overnight stop to a shadowy mountain lake, Etang Rong, large and deep and very dark blue. We climbed up the other side and had to hang onto metal rails to stop us falling off a sheer drop for about 1⁄4 mile and again I don’t know how those that crossed during the Second World War did it in the conditions they crossed in. We stopped for a break next to Lac (Etang) Long, a sunnier mountain lake and re grouped before what we knew would be our pass into Spain. The only thing between us and ‘freedom’ was the mile-long glacier (Col de Clauere) and again the guides provided some quite serious care, instruction and monitoring to ensure that we safely traversed in each other’s footsteps from side to side to side slowly and upwards. 100 yards before the crossing the glacier ended and we were again in rocky pasture with beautiful mountain flowers carpeting our route, encouraging us onwards into the arms of the Bomberos and then we were in Spain. One by one we lined the 3 foot wide flat pass point and spent a good 20 minutes in different states of reflection. My self, 2 retired soldiers and 2 retired RAF servicemen laid a wreath alongside
serving French Military SF Officer. All servicemen, regardless of nationality gathered round. It was for sure a time to remember and to reflect but also a time to celebrate and as we looked into Spain the mood lightened and we began our descent. We followed the river Clavera downhill to the bottom of the valley. It was burning hot and all of a sudden, we were in the land of the living again. We were joined by those that had left us in Seix who walked with us for the final half hour and I was sad to have come to the end of our trip. We reached the road where we were ferried to the town of Esterri d’Aneau by
I THOUGHT OF ALL THOSE JEWS WHO HAD BEEN BRAVE AND WISE ENOUGH TO MAKE A RUN FOR IT, OUT OF THEIR COMFORT ZONE AND INTO THE UN KNOWN
Chemin de Liberte a typical rough stretch
Chemin de Liberte up up and away
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