Chapter XI: A Stirring Day on the Rosetta

Amongst the many rock scrambles in the neighbourhood of St Martino in the Dolomites of Tyrol, the Rosetta when ascended by the western face can be counted on to awaken an interest in the most stolid of climbers. I am indebted to the courtesy of a girl friend for the loan of her mountaineering diary, and permission to make extracts from its very interesting contents, of which her account of an ascent of the Rosetta will, I feel sure, be read with keen enjoyment by climbers and non-climbers alike. That a young English girl on her first visit to the mountains should carry out with such success so difficult an expedition, is much to the credit of both herself and her guides. Her brother accompanied her, and the climb took place on 10th August 1898.

_To face_ p. 182.]

"A cautious bang at my door, a faint 'Si!' from me, and steps departing. Then I lit a candle and dressed. But it was the critical moment when the dawn comes quickly, and I blew it out in five minutes and watched the blue light brighten on the dusky outlines of the white church and houses. The Cimone was growing pink as I got on my heavy hob-nailed boots, and, taking my tennis shoes also, I tramped softly down to breakfast. Bettega, our leading guide, was there, with his cordial smile and hand-shake, and G---- and Tavernaro soon appeared. We were off before long, taking with us a porter in addition to the two guides, and G---- and I let Bettega see plainly that we thought this a little superfluous, but later on we were glad we had him. I must admit that I never met such good-natured and thoughtful guides, nor such excellent ones. After passing through forest, we had to ascend up steep shingle, and as this steepened I reeled a little, my feet being not as yet well used to this sort of work. Bettega, however, put his hand behind him, I crooked my fingers into his, and that gave me all the balance I needed. Finally we crossed some snow, and sitting on a little platform under a towering rock, we perceived that the way we were to ascend the Rosetta would be a very different experience to the climb by the ordinary route.

"At this point I took off my skirt, and removed my boots, putting on tennis shoes instead. The rubber soles of these are far safer than nails on the smooth and slabby Dolomite rock.

"The guides jabbered between themselves; Bettega smiled sublimely and looked utterly in his element, but Tavernaro seemed rather subdued; he is under the moral influence of Bettega, for though Tavernaro may have more education and cleverness he rounds upon his comrade at times owing to his excitable disposition. But on the mountains he slinks at Bettega's elbow, as the two roll along with the peculiar mountaineer's bending stride on level ground, and Tavernaro never asks a price or arranges for an excursion without consulting Bettega. But, on the other hand, Bettega lives in fear of Tavernaro's lively tongue, so it is about balanced!

"Having finished our meal, we set off. I was roped to Bettega, who led. After about five minutes Bettega, who till then had held in his hand all the rope we were not using, dropped it in a big coil, and told me to 'Remain firm' where I was. He then climbed upwards for a few minutes, but I did not watch, for though my head had not swum at all as yet, I wasn't too sure of it, and the rock face was very sheer, so I neither looked up nor down, but sat with my cheek against the rock and held on! But all went merrily. Tavernaro occasionally placed one of my feet, which was placeless, and we got up the first _camino_, or rocky chimney, fairly well. 'Wait a moment, signorina,' said Bettega, and then he disappeared overhead--literally disappeared, for he was quite hidden when he cried cheerily, 'Come! Come!' I got up, and found a very small _posto_ or tiny platform on which to wait, with a disagreeably obtrusive precipice below it. Above was a second _camino_, which looked smooth and gloomy. I leant affectionately against the rock, pondering deeply of anything except 'empty space.' 'The signorina is all right there?' enquired Bettega solicitously. 'To be sure she is!' cried Tavernaro gaily, as he leant over me against the rock. Then up clomb Bettega, and G---- advanced slowly and surely from below. As the minutes went by I shut my eyes, and was gloomily thankful when the summons came from above. Looking up, I could just see Bettega's bushy black head and flannel cap couched amongst the rocks. Fifteen feet up the _camino_ a big stone was wedged, and between this and the back of the chimney one had to pass, emerging above at the top of the wall. G---- having now reached the _posto_, I began to go up, with Tavernaro closely following me. Bit by bit I climbed; a grab, a hoist, a foot tucked into a crevice on either side of the _camino_, a long reach with my arm, a steady pull--and likewise, it must be confessed, a pull from the rope!--and so up, up again. The rock wall was abominably straight and holeless. Under the stone, with the three members placed on ledges or in cracks, I in vain sought a point of rest for the fourth before hauling. 'Good heavens!' I exclaimed in melancholy undertones, and a gurgling chuckle from below showed that Tavernaro sympathised. 'Here you are, signorina,' he said, giving me his shoulder for a momentary foot-hold. With that instant of support I swung up on to the stone, and so to the next _posto sicuro_, or safe spot. G---- came up without help, but he assured me that it was a really hard place.

"Of course I don't pretend I did it all myself. Quite half a dozen times I doubt if I could have got up without material aid from the cord, or from Tavernaro below. Once, in a _camino_, the latter gave me a butt with his head, which made me reflect how great a man was lost to the game of football, while the way he placed my feet was a great help to one who, as a novice, had not yet learnt to study the foot-holds in advance.

"We now reached a place where a third _camino_ ran up above us, while an awkward traverse led to another on the right. Here I heard Tavernaro remonstrate with Bettega on the route he had taken, but the latter said, very decidedly, that he intended going straight on, so Tavernaro, as usual, subsided, but became very quiet. He had never before ascended this _camino_, which was a discovery of Bettega's, but no doubt he had heard about it.

"We began to climb it, Bettega first and I following him closely. It had rained heavily the previous day, and all the loose stones had been washed to the very edge of the ledges. Not having been cautioned about these, and intent on getting up, I let several fall. 'Hi! Gently with the stones!' gasped Tavernaro from below, and when he reached my side I saw that his knuckles were bleeding. 'Have you hurt yourself?' I enquired. 'No, it is you who have done it, and you've twice nearly killed your brother,' he replied, but G---- told me to tell Tavernaro he had sent down a much worse stone than any of mine, whereat he looked resigned, and remarked, 'Oh, yes, these things can't always be avoided.'

"'Stay quietly where you are, and wait till I tell you to come on,' Bettega now remarked. I crouched in a very narrow chimney for a little, watched not--a hundred pities--and heard Bettega go up beyond. Not more than three minutes elapsed before his deep voice sang out: 'Now, come up!' and though I replied: 'I'm coming,' I wondered how I was to do it. We were near the top of the chimney. Further up, it became too narrow for any human form to squeeze into. One had therefore to come out of it to the right and climb up and over a huge bulging mass of rock about 15 feet high, which overhung the precipice. This mass of gently bulging rock was worn smooth by rain and stones. There was no proper foot-hold, hardly the tiniest crack. _How_ had Bettega managed it? I got up the cold, damp chimney as far as I could, leant gasping against the rock, and felt near the end of my courage. Tavernaro was stowed away yards below, G---- also out of sight, Bettega invisible above. There was just the cord, pulling me away from the inhospitable rocks, and at my very heels an abyss of 2000 feet. I made one bold grab on the smooth wall, but speedily retired to the end of the _camino_, and feebly yelled, 'Wait! Ah, I can't do it!' 'All right! Catch hold of this cord!' came the answer, and a loop of rope was let slowly down. I seized it, contrived to get one foot on to a tiny, weeny point, came out of the chimney, and heard Bettega call, 'To the right, signorina!' 'To the right; that's all very well!' I muttered fiercely, and felt my hand slipping; my foot gave, my fingers ran down the rope, the cord round my waist tightened, I pushed my arm through the loop of the free rope with one last effort, and then finding no support of any kind for my feet, was ignominiously pulled, kicking, up the precipice by Bettega, who, firmly fixed with both feet against rocks, hauled me up most joyously hand over hand.

"'But, Michele, how did _you_ manage to get up?' I panted, as I sank on a ledge, and gazed in awed admiration at him. 'Well, not like that, signorina!' he said, with his honest laugh; 'I really came up by pressure. There are no hand-grips, so you have to do without.' 'It's marvellous! It's stupendous!' murmured I, really awed by the man's power. Then we both listened for Tavernaro's coming, and a proper little comedy, for us two at least, ensued. Of course one could see nothing, the rock bulged too much, but one could hear Tavernaro's voice some 20 feet below, as he groped about, swearing softly. Five minutes went by and all was still, so Bettega began haranguing him. 'More to the right, Tony; you must come out, don't go too high in the chimney!' Then--'Look out, Tony, I'll send you the rope-end!' But an ominous '_No_,' quickly answered this proposal. A guide's honour is very sensitive on this point. Another three or four minutes passed. 'How is Tavernaro getting on?' I whispered, and Bettega replied, smiling broadly, 'He wishes to try.'

"Some gasps from the direction of the chimney were now heard, and Bettega again expostulated gently. 'Look here, Tony, we are old friends; take the rope!' '_No_' in gloomy defiance. 'Oh, if we were alone it would be different, but we must not keep the rest of the party waiting, and the signorina may take cold.' This was all in _patois_, but I caught some of it, and here struck in quickly, 'Oh, not at all!' Bettega looked surprised, and resumed more energetically his exhortations to Tony to pocket his pride and accept the loop of rope. At last Tony, who must have been within 10 feet of the top and so at the worst spot, suddenly jerked on to the proffered cord, and was up the next moment, hatless, with huge beads of sweat on his forehead and his black hair as straight as matches. There was a great rent in the side of one of his hands, which bled profusely. What struck me most, however, was the expression of suffering and shaken confidence on his face. Tavernaro ranks only second to Bettega and Zecchini, and was asked to go to the Caucasus and other distant mountains. He just stumbled to a safe spot, wrung his left hand, and panted out, 'Jesu Maria! it was cruel!' I fear that Bettega's smile was more triumphant than sympathetic. Nevertheless, he enquired kindly for Tavernaro's hand, but for fully two minutes the latter's loquaciousness was lost. The look of anguish on his face meant, I think, that he had seen death pretty near to him. He told us that he went far too much into the crack on the left, and had remained sticking in it till his hands got so cold he feared he would lose his grip. If he had, he was lost, and probably G---- also, so he had actually held on with his head and left his cap jammed in the crack. I called to G---- to hook the rope over a point of rock in case Tavernaro fell, and this he had done, but even so the frightful jerk might have torn him down, and in any case Tavernaro must have been either killed or frightfully hurt, as he had, I should think, about 30 feet of rope out.

"While I was in the throes of the difficult part, Papa's cap fell off my head, but Tavernaro caught it and brought it up. He was in an awful state of mind about his own cap, which had his guide's badge, etc., on it, and begged me to call down to my brother about it. I did so, but G---- replied several times with some asperity that he had enough to do to get himself up. 'Why can't he bring it up in his mouth?' cried Tavernaro excitedly, and, in the end, G---- brought it in his belt.

"My opinion is that both G---- and Tavernaro ran a great risk, and that Tavernaro was fully aware of it, and, for a few minutes after, was not a little shaken.

"After half an hour at this notable spot Bettega resumed the ascent. 'I hope we shall have nothing more so difficult,' I said eagerly, and Bettega replied soothingly that it became 'much less arduous,' but the chimney we were now in was gloomy and slippery, at best very sheer. The guides had resumed their coats, which they had taken off for the bad bit. At the end of the chimney we came to a high overhanging wall, at the foot of which Tavernaro and I reposed, while Bettega climbed over it and disappeared. 'Come!' and I rose wearily. Bettega kept that cord very tight on me, and it certainly, as Tavernaro afterwards said, inclined to pull me to the right, away from the best holds, for the wall was comparatively easy, though perpendicular, and I ought not to have swung out quite free from it! But that is what I did. As I rose from the second grip with the right hand, my muscles suddenly relaxed, I lost hold, gave a sigh to signify 'It's no good!' and swung clear out, dangling over 2000 feet of precipice on a single cord which nearly cut me in two. G---- and Tavernaro were much excited below, suddenly seeing me appear hurtling overhead. Of course, in a moment, I swung in again, grabbed afresh, and with terrific tightening of the rope from Bettega, got up in no time. As I swung in the air, I remember G----, in a curiously calm voice, asking, 'Are you all right?' and Tavernaro crying, 'Don't be afraid, signorina, it's all right!'

"Five minutes later we left the huge iron walls of rock, and emerged suddenly on to the flat. Here one realised what breadth and width meant, as opposed to height and profundity. In two seconds Bettega and I romped to the top, where the cairn of stones marking the highest point rose, and shaking hands heartily I gasped with intense feeling, 'O Michele, how grateful I am to you! Twice to-day I owe you my life!' a debt he utterly disclaimed, remarking that whatever he had done was merely in the day's work, and that on him rested the responsibility of bringing us up that way; as of course it did. Our porter was waiting for us on the summit, and we sat down there, while Bettega and Tavernaro, still looking impressed, knelt attentively to take off our light shoes and put on our nailed boots instead."

The party descended by the ordinary route, a pleasant change after all the difficult work they had accomplished during the upward climb.

The foregoing account gives what is rare amongst the descriptions beginners usually furnish of anything particularly hard they may have undertaken, for the writer has obviously jotted down, within a few hours of her return, an exact impression of how things struck her during the day. It is refreshing to find some one who admits that at certain points her courage nearly gave out, and at others that her guide had to assist her with the rope, for we know that while the very best climbers have had to train their nerves and muscles before they became what they are, some of the very worst are most ready to exclaim that they never felt fear or accepted assistance, and that a certain mountain up which they were heaved like sacks of corn and let down like buckets in a well is "a perfect swindle; any fool could go up it!" Unluckily, every fool does, and each one prepares the way for an appallingly increasing death-roll.

The ascent of the Rosetta by the western face must not be condemned as an imprudent expedition on the occasion just mentioned. True, there was a novice in the party, but she was the only inexperienced member of it. They had ample guiding power, they were properly equipped, and they had good weather. Tavernaro had an offer of help at the critical moment, and availed himself of it when he saw there was real danger. It will be noticed that the four climbers were on two separate ropes. This is usual in the Dolomites, but the majority of experienced mountaineers condemn the practice even on rocks, while on snow it is positive madness. It was owing to this, that, as related in the foregoing narrative, the lady's brother and Tavernaro ran a greater risk than was at all necessary.

_To face p. 195._]