The mountain guide

An original fiction passage set in the nineteenth century.

Before daylight, Borel inspected every buckle on my pack and drew the climbing rope twice through his hands. He counted its knots twice and answered my questions not at all. I had paid for a guide, not a gaoler, yet he took the silver flask from my coat and placed it in his own pack.

“You will want a clear head above the snow-line,” he said.

His words fell like stones, each one closing a path of argument. When he fastened the rope between us, I felt myself reduced to a parcel that he meant to deliver, undamaged and obedient.

By noon, cloud had erased the valley. Borel shortened the rope and ordered me to step only where he stepped. I was preparing a reply when the shelf beneath my left boot broke away. The rope bit under my arms. Borel dropped to one knee and held me against the white emptiness until I found the rock again.

“Stand,” he said. “The rest may follow.”

There was no comfort in his voice. Only when we reached firmer ground did I see the torn cloth at his knee and the blood darkening one glove. He hid the hand before tightening my buckle once more.

At the inn, he returned the flask with its seal unbroken. “You may cloud your head now,” he said, turning away to coil the rope. I thanked him, though so quietly that I cannot be certain he heard. The rope’s wet length still looked severe as he wound it round his arm; yet I watched him secure every loop before I raised the flask.

Analyse how the writer uses language and structure to present the narrator’s changing judgement of Borel. In your answer, consider whether the ending shows a complete change in the narrator’s view. Support your answer with references to the passage.