Dinner is at 8.30.’

We stood a while at the window. The night was clear and our heads felt clear and cold as the air. We smelled the odour of the ground in the spring after rain and behind us the wood smoke of the pine fire in our room, and we were content. For these are the odours of nostalgia, spring mist and wood smoke, and never the scent of a woman or of food.

We were alone in the inn save for one old man who had returned there to die. His hair was white but his face and bearing were still those of a mountaineer, though he must have been a great age. He never spoke, but appeared regularly at meals to take his place at a table tight-pressed against the window, alone with his wine and his memories. We thought him rather fine.

In the morning we set off early, warmed by a rare spring sun which soon dried the dew from the heather. We had decided on Bruach-na-Free, one of the easier peaks, but it was lunch-time before we reached the base of the first stiff climb and the muscles in our thighs were already taut. We rested and ate our sandwiches and drank from a mountain stream. The water was achingly cold. Then we started to climb. In the morning we had taken our time and talked, now we moved fast and said nothing. With feet and hands we forced our way up the lower grey crumbling rock to the wet black smooth surface, mist-clouded above. There was no friendship in that climb: neither of us had spoken, but each knew that the other meant to reach the top first. Once I slipped and dropped back several feet, cutting open my hand. Noel did not stop; he did not even turn his head. I would not have forgiven him if he had. Gradually I brought him back. Nothing disturbed that great stillness but the occasional crash of a loose stone and the sobbing of our breath. We were no longer going up and around the face of the mountain but climbing straight. We could see nothing in the mist, but my thigh muscles were twitching with the strain and my arms were on fire. Then I felt a cold breeze blowing down on my upturned face and knew we were near the top. I practically threw myself up the last few yards, but Noel hung on to his advantage and hauled himself up the last ledge with a gasp of relief, a second or two before me. We lay on our backs, and felt the black wet rock cold against us, felt the deep mist damp against our faces, felt the sweat as it trickled into our eyes, felt the air in deep gulps within our lungs. The war was far away and life was very good.

We could see nothing below us, but started off down, jumping and slithering on the avalanche of rocks that cascaded beside us, making a great thunder of noise in that deep stillness. We soon felt again the sun, warm on our faces, and saw below us the bed of a mountain stream leading away into the distance, and scarcely visible, a mere speck at the far end, the inn. We did not hesitate to follow the stream, as it was running low, and we made quite good time until we came to a drop of some twelve feet where the water fell in a small torrent. This we managed to negotiate without getting too wet, only to be met a few yards further on with a sheer drop of some twenty feet. The stream had become a river and dropped down into a shallow pool some two feet deep. It was impossible to go back and there was only one way of going on.