The Cloud of Unknowing
Gerald Macdonaldson, youth group leader, finds his own mapreading leads him into confusion. [fiction: 1300 words, 5 min
"Self belief," Gerald Macdonaldson says to the children. "Believe in yourself and make it happen. Your teachers have told you that, I'm sure. Well, when it comes to navigation on the mountain, your teachers have got it wrong. Don't believe in yourself, believe in your map."
Some of the children are listening, and some of them aren't. Those twins with the red hair, they are whispering to each other, curly heads leaning together under their rain hoods.
"And finally, girls and boys. Before you set off on this exciting hike today. There's one particular tendency to warn you about. No, not that tendency!"
What's the matter with these children? That one always used to rouse a guilty snigger out of 'em.
“Don’t bend the world to make it look like what you’re expecting to see. In the mist, I mean. You identify something on the map, a bend in the ridge or a little bump. You'll look around you, the mist dripping off your dear little eyebrows. And you'll see a grey bit in the mist and go ah yes, that’s the little bump that’s right here on my map. Don't do it! Don't twist the ground around you to make it match your map."
The valley below is in damp, hazy sunlight. But high up on the green ridge behind them cloud is forming, good, the two chattering twins will be coming down into the wrong valley. A long cold wait in the rain, that'll be educational for them.
"And don't do that other thing that I didn't mention either!"
The children look at him, wondering why he's stopped talking.
The green ridgelines run up to the striated sandstone plateau. The warm red of the sandstone has turned under the rain to dreary brown. Between the two summits, the scarp plateau sags out of the cloud like a wet washing line.
The young people trail off up the ridge in threes and fours. Some with maps in their hands, some not, rucksacks trailing over one shoulder.
The cloud's lowering a bit more. And Gerald is going to play a little trick. He's going to fly to the top of the mountain, as if by magic, and when they get there they'll find him leaning against the cairn, smoking his little tobacco pipe. Not really magic, of course. He goes up the slightly lower hill next door, goes up it at a good solid speed, then links across along the connecting ridge.
Always goes down well, Gerald's little trick. Makes an impression on the little blighters.
Illustrations are from my ‘Hillwalking Bible’, out 22nd May1
The first summit cairn looms out of the mist, water dripping off its flat brown stones. One minute slower than last year, well that's old age for you. Hands are cold in the flying rain. He stores the compass safely in his pocket, zips up the pocket (always a zipped pocket, children!) sets off down the linking ridge.
George died six years ago now. George left him some money, and when he made his generous donation to the youth club, the youth club came to appreciate his, Gerald's, life knowledge and all he, Gerald, had to offer, so that now he was showing these youngsters a bit of hill wisdom. Like here, the top of the linking ridge not entirely obvious, takes a bit of skill in navigation. But he's been here before, and he can see – sensing it rather than seeing it in the mist now – the spur crest, a darker grey line against the pale grey cloud. As he goes down, the cold rainwater is seeping through his trousers. He edges round left towards the descending spurline.
One of them had that silly hat with the earflaps and the dangly strings. George used to have one like that. Impractical, those hats. She'll find out. Now it's started to rain, she'll find out all right. Flat cap is what you need, waterproof tweed, here you go.
A paler patch in the mist below him now. A little lochan or tarn. It must be pretty small to not show up on the map. Strange thing, how cloud distorts sizes. Because already the pool doesn't look so big, and as he passes it's a mere puddle, no more than three metres across. The wind makes little patterns in its surface, and rain runs down the stalks of the grass.
Fell country is consoling, when you're on your own. More than that. With a compass, and a map, and the skill to use them: finding the way in life, it turns out, is a mere matter of finding a way across the fells, navigating by the fall line and the curve of the contours, from one small local summit to the next one. In life as on the misty hilltops.
And in his sixtieth year, he's ready to pass on his life skills to the new generation. Now where's this ridgeline? He eases up left a bit to find the spur.
The cloud should have been higher on this side of the hill. But in fact the cloud's even thicker, and the saddle point's a bit further down than he remembers. He's not going to be there ahead of them to smoke his little pipe. Never mind. They'll be dithering at their summit, gazing into the cloud, hoping for something to happen. He'll arrive up the wrong ridgeline, not give them any answers, make them work it out. Not harsh, not cruel. Let them walk down the wrong way, twenty minutes, then turn them around up into the rain again. A bit of discomfort, purely for educational purposes.
The map shows a small cliff on the left at this point, should be coming into sight. Yes, this is it, not really a cliff, more of an outcrop, they're very free with their crag marks these map people. It would be so easy to miss it in the mist, mist it in the missed, something like that.
Now where's the ridgeline? Round left a little, still.
A sound in the wind, people, lost in the mist, is that the quiet moaning of people in the mist who don't know where they are? No, it's just the wind itself, the wind among the small rocks and the patches of sedge.
But here's something a bit odd, this small rocky tor on the ridgeline just below him. He looks at the map. No, no tor on this ridgeline, that can't be right. When he looks up, though, there's a waft of mist, the tor dissolves in the mist and as he comes down past it there's just the smooth ridgeline. He knew that couldn't be a tor, not on this ridge.
The cloud is patchy now, thinning. Good, it will be helpful to see the ridgeline, the saddle point might be just slightly off to one side, still a little bit up to the left.
Mist is thinning, but the landscape below is still cloudy grey. He squints, to make out the hill shapes, the contour curves. There don't seem to be any hill shapes. The cloud clears, and he's walking down into a landscape he's never seen. A grey place of fine gravel, and no trees at all, and no grass. He looks to the left where the lake should be. There's no lake, and when he looks back the gravel under his feet is textureless and smooth, a blur as if at the bottom of a stream.
He reaches to his zipped pocket for his compass. But his hand finds no compass. No zipped pocket –
Gerald Macdonaldson walks through a formless landscape, a country without contours.
After a while, Gerald's feet sink into the grey blur. And then his knees.
Illustration 1: a Harvey Superwalker map with my compass; Illustration 2, summit ridge of Blencathra; Illustration 3, descending towards Loch Ossian