Page 82 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

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GERTRUDE BELL
with a cloak for a pillow, packed as ‘tight as herrings’ between an
Englishman, two Germans and the guide Rodier. They went to
bed at 8 and at midnight they went down to the river and bathed.
‘It was a perfectly clear night, clear stars and the moon not yet
over the hills.’ They made their way to the first climb at i a.m.,
finding their way by lantern, arriving at the glacier at 1.30 when
they all harnessed their ropes, in Gertrude’s case for the first
time. The first three hours of the climb was up ‘very nice’ rock. ‘I
had been in high feather for it was so easy, but ere long my hopes
were dashed.’ There followed a difficult and tiring two and a half
hours and at some points she had to be lifted up by her rope like a
parcel. ‘The first half-hour I gave myself up for lost. It didn’t
seem possible that I could get up all that wall without ever
making a slip. You see I had practically never been on a rock be­
fore. However, I didn’t let on ... ’ Soon she found it quite natural
to be hanging on by her eyelids over an abyss. ‘ ... We passed
over the Pas du Chat, the difficulty of which is much exagger­
ated ... ’ They were at the foot of the Pyramide Duhamel and
they went on until they sighted the Glacier Carre where they
rested at 7.45 in the morning. At 8.45 they were at the top of
their first ascent between the Pic du Glacier Carre and the Grand
Pic de la Meije. They left at 9 a.m. and reached the summit at
10.10 encountering only one really difficult stretch at the Cheval
Rouge, an almost perpendicular and flat red stone. ‘We stayed
on the summit until 11. It was gorgeous ... I went to sleep for
half-an-hour.’
The way down was more testing than the ascent. At one stage
she clung to a rock, suspended in mid-air for ten minutes with
La Grave beneath her. They took three hours to complete their
passage down to the Pic Central, spending a final hour negotiating
ice and rock until finally they came to the Glacier Tabuchet, at
which camp Gertrude had left her clothes. She changed from
her climbing trousers back into a skirt for her reappearance at
her hotel at 6.30 on the Sunday evening.
‘I’m really not tired but my shoulders and neck and arms feel
rather sore and stiff and my knees are awfully bruised,’ she told
her father. ‘Dearest Papa!’ she concluded, ‘I shan’t have nearly
enough money! I suppose I may draw large cheques? ... Oh, I’m
going to become a member of the German and Austrian Alpine
Club!’ Her letter had begun on a less lighthearted note. Florence
had sent her a batch of correspondence relating to the family