Travel

Up the airy mountain

Matthew Parris

Peru 'There were three of us: Louisa (an I. Italian lady interpretess from Luxem- bourg), a male friend, and myself. I could guarantee my friend's anonymity by re- vealing only that he was the SDP Euro- candidate for Hampshire Central, but as he emerges from the episode with credit, he can be named: Francis Jacobs.

We had had a long day's march. Follow- ing the little Rio Tigre towards its source, and gaining altitude all the time, loaded down with tents and stoves and sleeping- bags, we had passed through many tiny Andean villages, been mobbed by swarms of Indian children, but finally sensed, as the air grew thinner and the villages scarcer, cares lifting from our shoulders and a pleasant weariness descending.

Before dusk we reached a rather strange Indian settlement called Jajachaca. Its mud huts were mean and nobody approached but three hideous old men. They blocked our path, more than usually far-gone on coca, remnants of the leaves of which were hanging from their teeth, and begged for money. We noticed that the llamas looked in better condition than their owners. 'Probably llama-rustlers,' joked Francis.

It was getting dark so, with the village behind us and our path clinging to the edge of a high, steep gorge, we clambered down the side to the banks of the river, a hundred feet beneath. It felt enclosed, safe; and the tents were soon up, and supper on the boil.

In the fading light we thought we saw a man halted on the path above us, staring for some minutes and then moving off: but we were not much disconcerted.

Louisa was tired but by now quite thrilled with camping. Francis had offered assistance with her bedi all in that 'Happy, darling?' way they do in the movies. I could ruin his prospects in the Alliance by saying that he planned to share her tent . . . or rescue my career in the Conserva- tive Party by saying she planned to share mine. . . but I shall say nothing.

Louise retired to the tent. Francis and I stayed up a little, talking. After an argu- ment about the financing of London Trans- port, he started telling me a funny story about his last trip to Haiti. We laughed together, lapsed into silence. Suddenly, there was a man's voice shouting. It seemed to come from the path above high and hysterical and in no language we could understand.

I shouted back in Spanish, 'What do you want?' The response was immediate, unin- telligible but enraged.

'Come down,' Francis shouted, 'and talk to us.'

That was no doubt the SDP training: a call for dialogue. For myself I asked myself (as one always does) 'What would Mrs Thatcher do?' The answer was clear. 'Let's go for them with our penknife!' I said to Francis. He must mentally have consulted Shirley Williams: 'No. We'd better find out how many of them there are, and whether they're armed.' I'm glad it is to the SDP side of the Alliance, and not the Liberal, that Francis inclines. Had David Steel been his mentor, he would have been off joining the bandits before Louisa and I had time to run.

The shouting only got worse, and we realised it was in Quechua — the Indian language. We shouted back. Then it gave way to singing — of a strange, wild kind: it filled us with unease. 'We mustn't show we're worried,' Francis said. 'Let's try John Brown's Body in reply.' So we did a lusty rendering.

A great rock whistled past my ear, missing me by inches and thudding into my tent. It would have put me right out of action. I shouted angrily back. More rocks and stones rained down as we ran for the cover of the undergrowth. Louisa was out of the tent by now, and terrified. We all were. There was some- thing nightmarish about being trapped in a gorge, beneath your enemy and unable to see him. We crouched behind boulders and bushes, the river rushing behind us and rocks hailing down from the mountain-face before us.

I saw that the moon was about to rise and remembered that it was a full moon. All my life I have been a little afraid of darkness. Now it seemed to be our friend. 'Quickly,' I said, 'let's get out of here. Not all together or we'll be an easy target. You go one way, Francis: you take off your white windcheater, Louisa — it's too easy to see — and follow me.'

She did. We crept from bush to bush, zig-zagging out of the moonlight, up to- wards a stretch of path away from the shouting. We got separated from Francis and dared not call. Reaching the path, I handed Louisa the penknife and torch. 'Run back to the village. Stay there or bring help.' She hesitated, then ran.

Freed from a feeling of responsibility for anyone else, I began to enjoy myself. I wanted to size up our enemy, so scrambled a little above the path, then slid along the mountainside, in the direction of the shout- ing, until I reached a cockpit of boulders perched just above the source of the noise.

It was only one man! He seemed to be wearing a light-coloured poncho and was standing with his back to me, screaming at the tents and loosing off rocks. From time to time he would dance a swaying dance, holding a stone in each hand and clicking them together violently. Then he would hurl them, with some accuracy, at the campsite. He thought we were still in it. I could have surprised him by leaping on him from behind but I am not a good grappler and Louisa had the knife. I remember contemplating this and then chuckling to myself at the recollection of a correspond- ence I had left unfinished in England. It was with Edward Du Cann about my wish to assemble an All Party Civil Liberties Group.

Abruptly, and to my dismay, the man stopped his noise and loped off — in the direction of the village where I had sent Louisa. Francis emerged. Should we go after her? Before we could decide we heard her coming back. She was sobbing. Her face and arms were grazed.

She had been locked out of every hut. The village had barred its doors and extinguished its lamps. She had set out back to us. Then, on the path, she had run into our enemy, who knocked her down and dragged her along the path. She had struggled free, shouting intercessions to Jesus and the Virgin Mary (which seemed to frighten him), and escaped. He had not followed.

After a hasty conference we decided we could not stay in our tents. The site was too vulnerable: what if he should come back with reinforcements? Nor could we break camp in the dark and move on. Along the path we would be an easy target. We

decided to leave our tents and move our belongings up to the cockpit of boulders I had discovered, above the path. There we could see without being seen. One could keep watch while the others slept. We would have the advantage of height over any assailant.

I helped Francis and Louisa with their rucksacks and sleeping bags, and installed them in our new lookout. Then I prepared to clamber back down to the tents to fetch my own things. Just as I started, I saw something moving in the moonlight, 300 yards away. It was six men approaching silently along the path from the village. I knew they could not see me and dropped back into the bushes. Louisa and Francis were in the boulders behind me. I hissed to them: `He's coming back. Hide! There are six. They're spreading out along the path.' (silence) 'They're throwing rocks!' (si- lence) 'They're shouting at us. They think we're in there.' (silence) 'Fire! They're setting fire to the bushes around the camp. Let's go!'

Instinctively we ran, clambering, under cover, up the mountain. We stopped to re-form, panting. At 12,000 feet, oxygen is short, and we lay there gasping for breath. In the panic Louisa had left her rucksack at the boulders. 'Hide, and wait with Fran- cis,' I said. 'I'll get it.' I clambered down, back to our old hideout. Flames were leaping up from the campsite towards me and I could hear shouting and see men running. Afraid of being seen, I grabbed Louisa's things and scrambled back to- wards the others. Where were they? At last hissed whispers brought a response from a large bush, and the three of us huddled down together.

It was no good going back to the path. One way led back to the enemy village, the other led farther into the mountains with no return. The only way was up — straight up our mountainside. What we did not know was that the mountain rose to 17,000 feet. Yet the top never seemed more than 500 feet above us. So we just kept climbing. By now, the altitude was affecting us badly. The slope could only be tackled on all fours and sometimes on our stomachs. Our handholds were sharp rocks and vicious cacti which cut our hands badly. We grew shorter and shorter of breath. Louisa was the weakest so I carried her shoulder-bags and Francis's rucksack, leaving Francis to help pull her up the worst parts. We were spurred on by the sound of distant, thin whistles and shouts, coming up from the valley far below. Once we looked back and saw the opposite side of the valley lit by a great red flickering glow. We realised with horror that it was the reflection of bush fires around our camp- site. We heard more whistles and they seemed closer. Louisa's nerve cracked momentarily and she started to cry. I tried to comfort her.

Up and up we scrambled, breathless to the point of nausea. We didn't know it, but we had climbed nearly 3,000 feet and it was by now many hours since we had left our campsite. What was worse, the rocks were becoming steeper and what appeared to be a cliff face rose before us. To left and right was impossibly precipitous. Behind and beneath us lay the valley of bandits. Upwards was still the only way.

We caught our breath as Louisa screamed. She had momentarily lost her footing. Quickly she regained control. But in the silence that followed we heard something from the valley below. It seemed to answer Louisa's scream. It was a thin, high song played on the Quena — the Indian flute — distant but clear on the mountain air. We seemed to hear in it the chilling message: `We know where you are. We have heard you. We are in no hurry.' Louisa started crying again. She and Fran- cis were exhausted.

`You stay here,' I said, 'and look after all our stuff. I'll go on and see if I can find a way round or up this cliff.' There did seem to be a way round. I was soon alone, out of sight of the others, and climbing. Without luggage and without dependent compan- ions, all my fear dropped away from me again, as it had while I had been shadowing the man in the poncho. I felt exhilarated and free, climbed quickly, gaining some 500 feet among the broken, rocky cliffs, dogged only by the thought that it would be hard for the others to follow. Then I came to a rock face which seemed imposs- ible. I stared at it for a while and at the precipices to each side: then tried a couple of footholds.

There was a way up. I reckoned I had a good chance of doing it without falling, though a fall would have been fatal: but I knew the others could not make it. It was one of those ethical choices that my Moral Sciences tutor at Cambridge had told me do not occur in real life. I looked at it from all sides and followed each possible choice through to its range of possible outcomes. The last of these reflections was: 'What will I say to Francis's mother?' That was what clinched it. I have always suspected she is a Conservative. 'No,' I decided. 'Back you go.'

Francis and Louisa were huddled under a rock. 'We're more or less trapped,' I told them. There seemed to be little choice: we would try to sleep until first light, then spy out the land and consider whether and how to return. A bitter wind had got up. It was too steep, and we were too tired to find 'anywhere sheltered or level, but I wedged myself against a cactus, wrapped in a llama-wool blanket (a souvenir), and slept. The others couldn't. They lay there, listening for sounds of attack — but all noise from the valley had ceased.

Before dawn, we clambered down the mountain. Headstrong as ever, I led Fran- cis and Louisa over a small cliff. We managed a controlled tumble. No one was hurt, but Francis ripped his trousers in a rather final way, at the back. Perched a thousand feet above our campsite, we waited for sunrise.

Agonisingly slowly, the light crept over the snowy ridge of the Andes. It appeared that our campsite was deserted. The hill- side was blackened and smouldering, but the tents were still there. With sunrise, our confidence returned. We could bypass the campsite and return to the homeward track but we could not avoid the enemy village.

It seemed such a waste to leave the tents behind — but what if an ambush awaited us? I decided to go down alone, ready to run at the first hint of danger. Louisa handed me the penknife!

It was difficult descending into that valley. When I reached the campsite I had

to stop, momentarily, to summon the courage to search it. The rushing river drowned all other noise, so no approach could be heard. I tried to keep watch in all directions at once, while searching. The hardest thing was to go into the tents which they had tried, unsuccessfully, to burn.

There was nothing and no one there. Everything had gone. Luckily we had kept money and documents with us. Francis and Louisa had lost little, but my rucksack was gone — sentimental value at least — with all its contents, including a book, Cases on Civil Liberties. I hope the bandits find it useful.

Personally I would gladly have razed their little straw huts to the ground, careless of their civil liberties.

As 1 called the others down, I thought I saw the disappearing silhouette of an old

woman on the skyline. Anxiously, we packed the tents. There was nothing for it but to go back, and we could not avoid passing the village. I would go through first, unladen, ready to sprint, while the others observed my fate from the path.

People withdrew into their houses as I approached but nobody challenged me. Two snowy-white llamas, shampooed and back-combed, with scarlet tassles in their ears, raised their heads and stared at me with ill-grace as I passed. I signalled to the others that all was well. As they left the village, an old crone, looking like one of the witches in Macbeth, stepped out of the shadows and hailed them in broken Spanish: `How are you today?' she cackled. Fran- cis and Louisa answered that they were in

less than fine spirits. 'Oh dear! What a shame! Tell me, which side of the moun- tain did you go up? We were wonder- ing. . . .' They made no reply. 'Oh well — the night is past. You are safe now. Goodbye!'

When I got to Lake Titicaca, I sent the Chief Whip a postcard. Francis has not told David Owen. He does not think he would be interested. Francis is very modest. Louisa has not told her father as he would be angry. He lives in Milan. I hope they don't take the Spectator there.

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Matthew Parris is Conservative MP far Derbyshire West.