Reader\'s Digest Australia - 05.2019

May• 2019 | 47

He was free-climbing inside a crack
in the mountain, trying not to dwell
on the fact that one misstep would
send him tumbling to his death. In-
stead he concentrated
on getting to another
slab of ice that had
become lodged in the
crevasse about 15 me-
tres up.
Over the years, All
had found that he
functioned well in
dangerous situations.
He had a tattoo of a
black mamba on his
leg – a token of the time he had kicked
a two-metre-long poisonous snake in
Botswana before it could strike. He
tried to make the climb an academic
puzzle, a question of geometry. If he
could figure it out, he would live.
Stab, kick, shift, repeat. At times
the ice gave way beneath All’s cram-
pons, sending chunks of the wall
tumbling into the chasm, but his axe
held him tight.
After about half an hour, he’d
reached the slab of ice. He rested,
gratefully gulping the frigid cold air
into his lungs and listened to the
sound of his own jagged breath, as he
struggled to get enough oxygen, and
the cracking of the glacier – the mov-
ing mass of ice that surrounded him.
He knew that if he didn’t make his
way out, his body would probably
remain there for years. Perhaps fu-
ture generations would discover the

corpse in the windbreaker and won-

der who had been foolish enough to

climb alone.

He started moving again, his eyes

fixed on the next ice block. Sudden-

ly, a jolt of inexpressible pain struck.

He looked down and saw the void

beneath him, the cavern disappear-

ing into a black infinity.

Against his will, the thought

flashed through his mind:I’m going

to die. He thought of his 67-year-old

mother and imagined her sadness on

receiving the news. Then he gathered

himself again and forced himself on,

stabbing the axe back into the wall.

Now the edges of the crevasse

were narrowing, the surface of the

walls a tangle of icy protrusions and

fragile crystalline formations that

All scraped aside with his frozen

fingers. Slowly he began to climb

upwards, swinging his ice tools into

Above: The

passageway up

and out.

Lef t: A l l’s

battered face

from the fall