Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

seated in the deep hole he had dug in the slope, with his legs braced hard into the snow. He held the belay plate locked off with the rope to me taut between us.
    ‘Yes. Now take it steady. If anything slips, yell.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I will. If you can’t hear me when the knot comes up, I’ll tug the ropes three times.’ ‘Right.’
    I lay on my chest immediately beneath Simon, and edged down until all my weight was on the rope. Initially I couldn’t commit myself to letting my feet hang free of the snow. If the seat crumbled straight away we would be falling instantaneously. Simon nodded at me and grinned. Encouraged by his confidence I lifted my feet and began to slide down. It worked!
    He let the rope out smoothly in a steady descent. I lay against the snow holding an axe in each hand ready to dig them in the moment I felt a fall begin. Occasionally the crampons on my right boot snagged in the snow and jarred my leg. I tried not to cry out but failed. I didn’t want Simon to stop. In a surprisingly short time he did stop. I looked up and saw that he had receded far from me, and I could make out only his head and shoulders leaning out from the seat in the snow. He shouted something but I couldn’t make it out until three sharp tugs explained it. After the endless time traversing the rise I was astounded at the speed at which I had descended 150 feet. Astounded and pleased as punch, I wanted to giggle. In so short a time my mood had swung from despair to wild optimism, and death rushed back to being a vague possibility rather than the inevitable fact. The rope went slack as I hopped up on to my good leg. I was acutely aware that while Simon was changing the knot over we were at our most vulnerable. If I fell, I would drop a whole rope’s length before it came tight on to him, and he would be whipped off the mountain by the impact. I dug my axes in and stayed motionless. I could see the col below and to my right, already a lot closer. More tugs on the rope and I carefully leant my body down the slope as the second half of the lower began. I waved up at the distant red and blue dot above me and saw him stand up out of the seat. He turned and faced into the slope and began kicking his feet into the snow. The rope curled down past me. Simon was on his way down. I turned and started to excavate another seat. I dug deep into the slope, making a hole that he could sit completely inside. I curved the back wall and the floor so that it rose up to the lip of the hole. When satisfied, I looked back up to see Simon back-climbing quickly towards me.
    The next lowering was much quicker. We had adopted an efficient system. One shadow lay over our building optimism—the weather. It had deteriorated rapidly, clouds flitting across the col, and a great mass of cloud boiling up in the east. The wind was increasing steadily, blowing powder snow across the slope. I could see plumes of snow streaming horizontally out over the West Face. As the wind grew, so the temperature dropped. I could feel it burning into my face, numbing my chin and nose. My fingers began to freeze.
    Simon joined me at the end of the second lowering. We were almost level with the col but there was a horizontal traverse to be made to get to its edge.
    ‘I’ll go ahead and make a trench.’
    He didn’t wait for an answer, and I felt exposed as I watched him move away from me. It looked a long way to the col. I wondered whether to unrope. I didn’t want to, even though logic told me the rope wouldn’t save me now. If I fell I would take Simon with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to dispense with the comforting reassurance of the rope. I glanced at Simon. I couldn’t believe it! He had reached the col yet he was only about eighty feet from me. The late-afternoon light had disguised the distance.
    ‘Come on!’ he shouted above the wind. ‘I’ve got the rope.’
    There was a gentle tug at my waist. He had taken in the remaining slack and intended belaying