By Royal Command (4 page)

‘You must turn off your brain and let your body guide you,’ Hannes said to them at the end of the day as they were taking off their skis. ‘Skiing, when it is done well, is ballet dancing to imaginary music.’

Over the next few days, James worked hard. The trickiest skill to master was turning, which was much more difficult than he had imagined. Instead of leaning into the curve you had to lean away from it or the skis would not behave. The problem was that they were long and straight and rigid, and weren’t designed for turning corners. Oberhauser explained that in order to change the direction of the skis you had to lift them from the snow or they would simply run straight ahead as if on rails.

‘When you need to make a turn you use an up and down movement.’ He illustrated this by bobbing up and down quickly.

‘You will be surprised, but if you stand on a set of weighing scales and crouch down suddenly, you will become lighter for a moment. It is that fraction of a moment of weightlessness you must use to lift your skis from the snow and turn them.’

James practised, combining the up and down movement with a body swing, and one afternoon he suddenly cracked it and found himself carving an elegant S in the snow with his skis as he sped down the slope. This gave him immense satisfaction, as most of the other boys were still clumsily shuffling about on the snow in nervous snowploughs.

As he was taking off his skis at the end of the day, the sun passed behind the Kitzbühler Horn and an icy wind came whistling up from nowhere. He shivered and looked up towards the peak of the Hahnenkamm. They had had a jolly day playing on its flank, but he understood only too well how quickly the mood of a mountain could change. There had been a bleak memory lurking at the back of his mind since he had arrived here and now it fought its way into his thoughts.

His parents had died in the Alps, west of here, near Chamonix in France. It was true they had not been skiing at the time, but climbing. All the same, they had clearly underestimated the power of the mountains and they had paid with their lives. James knew he would have to be careful here. Only last year four masters from Eton had died climbing on Piz Roseg in the Swiss Alps. And they were not the first.

As James watched a group of boys throwing snowballs at each other and laughing, he wondered if everyone else was as aware of the dangers as he was.

5

You’re Going the Wrong Way!

The weather held for the next few days, with fresh snowfalls during the nights and bright sun during the days. The conditions remained perfect for skiing and James progressed fast. He loved to learn new things, and he loved to keep active. There was no better feeling at the end of the day than to have tired, sore muscles and an inner glow of warmth. And, by throwing himself into the skiing and keeping busy, he managed to banish all dark thoughts about his parents. He grew to love the mountain and he missed it when he was back at the hotel.

So his days were spent swishing down the lower slopes and in the evenings, after a huge stodgy meal, he would go up to bed early and almost instantly fall into a deep, untroubled sleep. The only sour note was sounded by Miles Langton-Herring, who would often wake James by noisily blundering around their room when he came up later, presumably to take his revenge for being woken early that first morning. Once he was sure James was awake he would start to talk. This was the most annoying part. Miles was a show-off. He would boast about both his prowess on the ski slopes and his seemingly bottomless well of knowledge. The worst thing about him was that while he appeared to know more facts than could be contained in the world’s largest encyclopaedia, he seemed not to know the most important fact of all – that nobody was remotely interested in a word he had to say. He was a bore, and like all bores he didn’t realise it. Long after everyone else had finished a conversation Miles would still be barking away, like a dog locked out in a yard by its owners. James soon learnt to tune him out, as if he was an unwanted radio station, but it made it very difficult to have a conversation with anyone else while he was around.

Miles was in a more advanced skiing group, so at least during the days James didn’t have to listen to his loud, fruity, donkey bray of a voice. By the end of the week, though, Hannes reckoned James was good enough to join the more experienced skiers on the upper slopes of the Hahnenkamm.

‘We are going to ski all the way down from the top of the mountain,’ he explained. ‘There is a fairly easy run which will be perfect to test the abilities of a skier like yourself.’

So it was that on Saturday morning James found himself climbing aboard a gondola on the Hahnenkamm-Bahn for the 1,500-metre ascent to the summit. He was with Hannes, a master called Mr Eastfield and a group of ten of boys. They stood in the narrow gondola clutching their skis and chatting excitedly.

The car latched itself on to the moving cable and they jolted out of the lower station and lurched up the slope. They passed through the outskirts of town and up over the tops of the houses, their roofs covered with thick white snow. There was no sound apart from a low bass hum punctuated by the occasional rattle as they went over one of the supporting towers. Soon they were climbing much more steeply between impossibly tall pine trees that shot straight up towards the sky.

‘Every year there is a famous race down the mountain,’ Hannes told James. ‘The
Hahnenkammrennen
. Perhaps the most important skiing race in the world. It is a very tough course, and very dangerous, but don’t worry: it is not the course we will be taking today. It will be great fun.’

‘I can’t wait,’ said James.

‘You know,’ said Hannes, ‘you have it in you to be a really first-class skier, James. I have never known anyone take to it as quickly as you. Most beginners would have taken six weeks at least to become as good as you. You have natural balance, you listen well and you seem to have no fear at all.’

‘I’m really enjoying it,’ said James. ‘I should love to be as good as you one day.’

Hannes smiled. ‘If you are really serious about it,’ he said, ‘you should go to Hannes Schneider’s school at St Anton in the Arlberg. It is where I learnt to ski, and where I was taught to become an instructor. St Anton has become the university of skiing, the Mecca for all those who love to ski. There is a man there called Fuchs who could make you a world-beater. I only usually teach novices and tourists. My real passion is for climbing.’

James looked out to see that they were now so high they were above the tops of the pine trees, which clung to the almost sheer side of the mountain, sprouting from between the jagged rocks. Looking out through the rear windows it was easy to imagine that they were thousands of feet in the air, as if the gondola was airborne and flying up the slope like a glider. Below them Kitzbühel had become a toy town. Unfortunately the weather had changed this morning, though, and the sky was grey. It had the effect of turning the view into a black and white photograph. All colour seemed to have been drained from the scenery. The pretty doll’s houses of Kitzbühel looked grey, the snow was white and the pine trees a dense black.

A gust of wind whined through the windows and the steel cable zinged as they passed an empty gondola coming down the other way.

A few minutes later they cleared the top of the slope and left the trees behind. The land flattened out into rolling pillows of snow, criss-crossed by animal tracks, probably left by chamois, the mountain goat native to the Alps. And then they arrived at the top station and there was a flurry of activity as they clambered off and carried their skis out into the daylight. It was noticeably colder at this altitude. James felt the wind bite into him. He arranged his black cotton scarf in such a way that it partially covered his face, and tucked it carefully round his collar so that no icy fingers of draught could snake down his neck.

It was another world up here. The top of the Hahnenkamm was flattened so that there was a panoramic view of mountains all around – the Kitzbühler Horn, Resterhohe, Pengelstein, Gaisberg. It was breathtaking. James stood for a moment just taking it all in. He felt like God on the first day of creation looking out over his handiwork.

‘We will spend the morning skiing up here,’ Hannes announced. ‘There will be a lot of walking involved, I am afraid, but there are some good fast runs to test you. Now let us put on our skis and go!’

As they were strapping on their bindings James noticed Miles Langton-Herring in an excited huddle with three older boys. They were sniggering and keeping well away from the adults.

‘What are they up to?’ he asked Andrew Carlton who was next to him.

‘Drinking,’ Andrew said flatly.

‘Alcohol?’ said James.

‘They have a flask of schnapps that someone at the hotel got for them,’ said Andrew. ‘They think they’re being terribly grown up.’

James laughed. ‘I know in Switzerland they send those big St Bernard dogs to rescue people in the mountains with barrels of brandy round their necks, but I didn’t know you were supposed to get drunk before you set off.’

‘They’re idiots,’ said Andrew. ‘If they
do
get drunk, then they probably
will
need rescuing.’

Hannes came over to give James a pair of snow goggles.

‘This will be very different from the nursery slopes,’ he said as James put the goggles on. ‘You will have to make quick decisions. Up to a certain point you can use your brain, but at speed you have to rely on muscles and human instinct. Pay attention to the ground in front of you. Slopes change from convex to concave, from steep to gentle, all the time. There are waves and bumps and holes to look out for; they will all affect your speed. Keep ahead of your skis like I have taught you. And most important of all – enjoy yourself!’

When they were all ready they set off. This was indeed very different from anything James had experienced before. They were moving fast down a track with a wall of snow on one side and a frightening drop on the other. If he lost control, he would find himself going down the mountain rather more quickly than he was hoping. They followed each other in a long snaking line. Some boys cried out with the thrill of it; others had their teeth gritted as they went down in grim silence.

James’s heart was hammering against his ribs, but he soon managed to relax and after a few minutes had forgotten the danger and was simply enjoying himself, a wide grin hidden behind his scarf.

The run ended in an exhilarating sprint down a wide steep slope into a small valley. The boys swished to a halt at the bottom and compared notes.

Then it was skis off and a long tramp up a snowy track to the top of the next run.

This was the pattern for the rest of the morning. A few brief minutes of wild excitement and then a good hour’s climb back up again.

James was surprised to find that there were one or two buildings up here, including a restaurant that served good hot food, which all had to be delivered by cable-car.

The weather lifted as they ate lunch, the sun came out and the glorious scenery was lit up, shining and crisp.

It didn’t last, though – when they were ready to ski again the sun had disappeared and the sky was heavy with cloud.

It seemed to take ages for everyone to get ready. James was in his skis and leaning on his sticks a long time before most of the other boys, and he was getting impatient as they fussed about and chatted and pushed each other over in the snow. He noticed that Miles and his gang were among the last to be ready, and their faces were flushed.

Mr Eastfield addressed the unruly rabble.

‘We’ve had a good morning,’ he shouted, banging his gloved hands together for warmth. ‘But I’ve been talking to Herr Oberhauser and he fears that the weather is closing in. We should be all right if we set off soon, but please be extra careful this afternoon.’

James looked over at the Wilder Kaiser. A thick, flat, grey streak of cloud had obliterated the tops of the peaks, as if a frustrated painter had smeared a dirty brush across the top.

They had to ski some way to get to the top of the run down into Kitzbühel, and there was a deal more walking involved. By the time they arrived, thin wisps of cloud were scudding by, and the peak of the Kitzbühler Horn on the far side of the valley was hidden in a murky haze that was creeping down its flanks towards the town.

The mountain looked incredibly steep here and James felt a flutter of fear. Was he really good enough to cope with this run?

‘The weather can change very quickly,’ said Hannes once they were all lined up. ‘So we stay together and observe all the safety rules. The more dangerous parts are marked off with rope, so stay on the right track. I will lead and Mister Eastfield will follow behind.’

Hannes zipped over the snow to James, smiling broadly.

‘If you can make it down here in one piece,’ he said, ‘then you can call yourself a skier. Some of the run is very steep indeed. Just remember: the steeper the slope, the faster you go, the more you must lean. You must constantly adjust your angle, like the needle of a compass, as the slope changes. Air resistance is nothing at slow speeds, but when you are travelling fast it is a very strong force, so you must lean well into it, until finally with great speed you will feel as if you are lying against the air.’

He winked at James, shouted some encouragement to the others, then dug his sticks into the snow and pushed off down the slope. James was relieved to see that he didn’t
schuss
straight down, but cut across, then swished round in a long elegant curve and went back the other way. The more confident skiers were right behind him and the rest followed in ones and twos, keeping to the same path the instructor had taken.

Now it was James’s turn – he could hold it off no longer. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes, leant forward and shunted himself on to the slope.

He grinned as his skis rattled over the newly compacted snow. Gravity would take hold now and convey him all the way to the foot of the mountain. All he had to do was try not to fall over.

For several minutes their progress was steady and straightforward, then they hit a narrow section of the run where turning was harder and they were forced to take a steeper path. They speeded up and James felt his heart race faster with his skis. He passed a couple of boys who had taken tumbles and was feeling like he was king of the mountain before his brief moment of elation came to an abrupt halt. Five boys had collided and fallen in a tangle of bodies and skis amidst much laughter.

The whole party had to stop. The bindings had come away from one of the boy’s skis and Hannes set about trying to fix it. Everyone else sat around, and gradually their high spirits turned to moans and grumbles. Muttered complaints started to be levelled at the boys who had crashed.

‘You’ve held us all up now.’

‘Just when it was getting exciting.’

‘You’re really wasting our time.’

‘Back to the nursery slopes for you saps.’

While Hannes was busy, and before anyone knew what was happening, thick cloud descended on them. Almost instantly the view was wiped out and all anyone could see was a milky whiteness. The cloud was cold and damp, and it muffled all sound. With white snow carpeting the ground, there was a ghostly, dreamlike quality to the scene.

Hannes found Mr Eastwood.

‘We will have to sit it out,’ he explained. ‘It is too dangerous to ski in this fog.’

‘Should we not make our way back up to the cable-car?’ Eastwood asked.

‘It could take an hour, perhaps two. It may stop running before we get there and even walking back up might be dangerous. It is best to stay here and wait for a gap in the clouds. We will be all right.’