Free Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer Page A

it was 4:30 P.M . He focused the telescope on the Grand Mulets refuge in case the climbing party was ahead of schedule, but there was still no sign of any activity. He moved the telescope slowly up the mountain, hoping to see three specks appear in the lens.
    “Dear God, no!” he exclaimed as the waiter poured him a second glass of punch.
    “Una problema, signore?” inquired the waiter.
    “An avalanche,” replied Odell.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    G EORGE HEARD THE unmistakable roar behind him, but didn’t have time to turn around.
    The snow hit him like a giant wave, sweeping all before it. He tried desperately to remain the right way up, making firm breaststrokes with his arms in the hope of keeping a pocket of air in front of his face so that he could buy some time, just as the safety manual recommended. But when the second wave hit him, he knew he was going to die. The third and final wave tossed him like a loose pebble, down and down and down.
    His last thoughts were of his mother, who had always dreaded this moment, then of his father who never spoke of it, and finally of his brother and sisters, who would all outlive him. Was this hell? And then he came to a sudden halt. He lay still for a moment, trying to convince himself that he was still alive, and to take in his immediate surroundings. He had landed at the bottom of a crevasse, cast into an Aladdin’s cave of ice, the beauty of which he might have appreciated in any other circumstances. What did the manual recommend? Quickly work out which way is up and which is down so that you can at least start heading in the right direction. He spotted a shaft of murky gray light thirty, perhaps forty feet above him.
    He recalled the manual’s next instruction: Find out if anything is broken. He wiggled the fingers and thumb of his right hand; he’d still got five. His left hand was very cold, but at least there was some movement there too. He stretched his right leg, and tentatively raised it off the ground. He had one leg. He raised his left leg—two. He placed his hands by his side and pushed himself up slowly, very slowly. His fingers were beginning to freeze. He looked for his gloves; they were nowhere to be seen. He must have lost them during his fall.
    The cave was lined with ridges of ice protruding from every side, making several natural ladders to the roof; but were they safe? He crawled across the soft snow to the far side of his prison, and kicked at the ice with the toe of his hobnailed boot. It made no impression. The ice had taken a hundred years, perhaps even longer, to grow to that thickness, and wasn’t going to be budged easily. George became a little more confident, but kept reminding himself to abide by the rules, not to hurry, and not to take any unnecessary risks. He spent some time trying to work out which rungs of the ladder he should mount. It looked as if the best route was on the far side of the cave, so he crawled back on his hands and knees and grabbed at the bottom rung. He prayed. When you’re in danger, you need to believe there is a God.
    He placed a foot tentatively on a ridge of ice a few inches above the ground, then gripped another above it with his bare fingers, now numb with cold, and pulled himself slowly up. He risked placing his full weight on the lower ridge, because if it broke off, he would only have a short fall into the soft snow. It didn’t, which gave him the confidence to climb onto the next rung of his Jacob’s ladder, and find out if he was about to join the angels or his fellow humans.
    He was about halfway up, feeling more confident with each move, when a piece of ice broke off in his hand. His feet immediately slithered off the ice below, leaving him dangling by one hand, some thirty feet above the floor. George began to sweat in a crevasse that must have been minus forty degrees. He swung slowly backward and forward, certain that the Gods above him had simply decided to extend his life by a few minutes, and at any