The War of the Ring (16 page)

A couple of weeks with care.

Let us sleep.

Suspicion of Gollum that night. They work northward.

Next day footfalls on the rock. Frodo sends Sam ahead and hides behind a rock using ring.(3) Gollum appears. Frodo overcome with sudden fear flies, but Gollum pursues. They come to a cliff rather lower and less sheer than that behind. In dread of Gollum they begin to climb down.

Here my father abandoned this draft, and (as I think) followed at once with a new opening (B), in which the text of TT is closely approached at almost all points (but the hills are still named Sarn Gebir, and the time is 'the [struck out: fourth or] fifth evening since they had fled from the Company'). With Sam's longing for bread and beer this manuscript ends, not at the foot of a page; and it is, I feel .

sure, the abandoned opening of the chapter to which my father referred.(4) When it was written, in relation to the work on Book III, there seems no way of telling.(5)

'A few pages for a lot of sweat,' my father said in his letter of 5 April 1944 (see p. 78), in which he told me of his turning again to the adventures of Sam and Frodo; and 45 years later one can feel it, reading these pages in which he struggled (in increasingly impossible handwriting) to discover just how Sam and Frodo did in the end get down out of the twisted hills into the horrible lands below.

When he took the chapter up again in 1944, he did not rewrite the original opening (which survives with little change into TT), but taking a new sheet began: 'The sun was caught into clouds and night came suddenly' (cf. TT p. 210). This text, which I will call 'C', soon degenerates into a terrible scrawl and at the end becomes in part altogether illegible.

The sun was caught into clouds and night came suddenly.

They slept in turns, as best they could, in a hollow of the rocks, sheltered from the easterly wind.

'Did you see them again, Mr Frodo?' asked Sam, as they sat,, stiff and chilled, munching wafers of lembas in the cold grey of early morning.

'Yes, once,' said Frodo. 'But I heard the snuffling several times, and it came nearer than it has before.'

'Ah!' said Sam. 'Growing bolder, it seems. I heard him, too, though I saw no eyes. He's after us still: can't shake him off nohow. Curse the slinking varmint. Gollum! I'd give him gollum if I could get my hands on his neck. As if we hadn't enough trouble in front, without him hanging on behind.'

'If only I dared use the Ring,' muttered Frodo, 'maybe I could catch him then.'

'Don't you do that, master!' said Sam. 'Not out up here! He'd see you - not meaning Gollum either. I feel all naked on the east side, if you understand me, stuck up here on the skyline with nought but a big flat bog between us and that shadow over yonder.'(6) He looked hurriedly over his shoulder towards the East. 'We've got to get down off it,' he said, 'and today we're going to get down off it somehow.'

But that day too wore towards its end, and found them still scrambling along the ridge. Often they heard the following footsteps, and yet however quick they turned they could not catch sight of the pursuer. Once or twice they lay in wait behind a boulder. But after a moment the flip-flap of the footsteps would halt, and all went silent: only the wind sighing over stones seemed to remind them of faint breathing through sharp teeth.

Toward evening Frodo and Sam were brought to a halt. They came to a place where they had at last only two choices: to go back or to climb down. They were on the outer eastward ridge of the Emyn Muil,(7) that fell away sheerly on their right.

For many miles it had been falling lower towards the wet lands beyond; here after tending northwards it reared suddenly up again many fathoms in a single leap and went on again on a high level far above their heads. They were at the foot of a cliff facing S.W., cut down as if with a knife-stroke. There was no going further that way. But they were also at the top of another cliff facing east.

Frodo looked over the edge. 'It's easier to get down than up,'

he said.

'Yes, you can always jump or fall, even if you can't fly,' said Sam.

'But look, Sam!' said Frodo. 'Either the ridge has sunk or the lands at its feet have swelled up - we are not nearly so high up as we were yesterday: about 30 fathoms,(8) not much more.'

'And that's enough,' said Sam. 'Ugh! How I do hate looking down from a height, and that's not so bad as climbing.'

'But here I almost think we could climb,' said Frodo. 'The rock is different here.' The cliff was indeed no longer sheer, but sloped somewhat backward, and the rock was of such a kind that great flat slabs seemed to have split away and fallen. It looked rather as if they were sitting on the eaves of a great roof of thin stone-shingles or tiles that had tipped over leaving their rough edges upwards.

'Well,' said Sam, standing up and tightening his belt. 'What about trying it? It'll give that flapping footpad something to think about anyway.'

'If we are going to try today we had better try at once,' said Frodo. 'It's getting dark early. I think there's a storm coming.'

The dark smudge of the mountains in the East was lost in a deeper blackness, that was already sending out great arms towards them. There was a distant rumble of thunder. 'There's no shelter at all down there,' said Frodo. 'Still, come on!' He stepped towards the brink.

'Nay, Mr Frodo, me first!' cried Sam.

'Why so eager?' said Frodo. 'Do you want to show me the way?'

'Not me,' said Sam. 'But it's only sense. Have the one most like to slip lowest. I don't want to slip, but I don't want to slip and come down atop of you and knock you off.'

'But [?I'd] do the same to you.'

'Then you'll have something soft to fall on,' said Sam, throwing his legs over the edge, and turning his face to the wall..

His toes found a ledge and he grunted. 'Now where do we put our hands next?' he muttered.

'There's a much wider ledge about twice your height below you,' said Frodo from above, 'if you can slide down to it.' 'If!'

said Sam. 'And what then?' 'Come, I'll get alongside and try it, and then we need not quarrel about first or second.' Frodo slid quickly down till he stood splayed against the cliff a yard or two to the right of Sam. But he could find no handhold between the cliff-top and the narrow ledge at his toes, and though the slope lean[t] forwards (9) he had not the skill nor the head to make the passage to the wider foothold below.

From about this point the text becomes increasingly rough and increasingly difficult to read: I reproduce a leaf of the manuscript on p. 90 (for the text of this leaf as best as I can interpret it see p. 91).

'Hm!' grunted Sam. 'Here we are side by side, like flies on a fly-paper.'

'But we can at least still get back,' said Frodo. 'At least I can.

There's a hold just above my head.'

'Then you'd best get back,' said Sam. 'I can't manage this, and my toes are aching cruel already.'

Frodo hauled himself back with some difficulty, but he found that he could not help Sam. When he leaned down as far as he dared Sam's upstretched hand was just out of reach.

'Lor, this is a pickle I am in,' said poor Sam, and his voice began to quaver. The eastern sky grew black as night. The thunder rolled nearer.

'Hold up, Sam,' said Frodo. 'Just wait till I get my belt off.'

He lowered it buckle first. 'Can you grasp it?'

'Aye,' said Sam. 'A bit lower till I get my two hands on it.'

'But now I haven't enough to hold myself, and anyway I can't lean back or get my foot against a stop,' said Frodo. 'You'll just pull me over, or pull the belt out of my hands. 0 for a rope.'

'Rope,' said Sam. 'I just deserve to hang here all night, I do.

You're nobbut a ninnyhammer Sam Gamgee: that's what the Gaffer said to me many a time, that being a word of his. Rope.

There is one of those grey ropes in my pack. You know, that one we got with the boats in Lorien. I took a fancy to it and stowed it away.'

'But the pack's on your back,' said Frodo, 'and I can't reach it, and you can't toss it up.'

'It did ought to be but it ain't,' said Sam. 'You've got my pack,' said Sam.

[?'How's that?'].....

'Now do make haste, Mr Frodo, or my toes'll break,' said Sam. 'The rope's my only chance.' It did not take Frodo long to tip up the pack, and there indeed at the bottom was a long coil of silk[en] grey rope. In a moment Sam [?tied] an end round his waist and ... clutched ... above his head [?with].(10) Frodo ran back from the brink and braced his foot against a crevice. Half hauled, half scrambling Sam came puffing and blowing up the few feet of cliff that had baffled him. He sat down and stroked his toes.

'Numbpate and Ninnyhammer,' he repeated. 'How long's that rope, I wonder.' Frodo wound it [?round his] elbows. '10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 hobbit-ells,' he said. 'Who'd have thought it.'

'Ah, who would,' said Sam. 'A bit thin, but it seems mighty tough. Soft to the hand as milk. 80 ells.(11) Well, one of us can get down, seemingly, or near enough, if your guess weren't far out.'

'That would not be much good,' said Frodo. 'You down and me up, or the other way. Is there nothing to make an end fast to up here?'

'What,' said Sam, 'and leave all handy for that Gollum!'

'Well,' said Frodo after some thought. 'I am going down with the rope on, and you're going to hold on to the end up here. But I am only going to use the rope for a precaution. I am going to (A page from the first manuscript of 'The Taming of Smeagol'.) see if I can find a way down that I can use without a rope. Then I climb up with your help, and then you go down with the rope and I follow. How's that?'

Sam scratched his head. 'I don't like it, Mr Frodo,' he said,

'but it seems the only thing to do. Pity we didn't think out this rock-climbing business before we started. I'll have to stand down there [?staring] and waiting to catch you. Do you be careful.'

Frodo went to the edge again. A few yards from the brink he thought he saw a better point for a descent. 'I am going to try here,' he said. 'Get a purchase somewhere Sam for your foot, but don't let the rope [?saw] over a [?sharp... edge]. It may be elf-spun, but I shouldn't try it too far.' He stepped over the brink ... There was a ledge for his feet before he had gone his full height down: it sloped gently downward to the right. 'Don't pull on the rope unless I shout,' he said, and he had disappeared.

* The rope lay slack for a long while as Sam stared at it.

Suddenly it drew taut, and nearly caught him at unawares. He braced his feet, and wondering [read wondered] what had happened and whether his master was now dangling in mid-air at the far rope's end, but not [read no] cry came, and the rope went slack again. After a long while as it seemed he thought he heard a faint hail. He listened, it came again, and cautiously he crawled to the brink taking in the slack as he went. The darkness was drawing nearer - and it seemed dim below; but in his grey cloak Frodo if he was there was quite invisible. But something white fluttered and the shout came up clear now. 'It's all right, not too difficult at all except in one place. I'm down.

[?I've] 3 ells of rope to spare. Slowly [?to take] my weight ...

I'm coming up and shall use the rope.'

In about 10 mins. he reappeared over the edge and threw himself down by Sam. 'That's that,' he said. 'I'll be glad of a short rest. Down you go now - he described the route as best he could and direct[ed] Sam to hail when he came to the bad place.

'I slipped there,' he said, 'and [?should have gone] but for the rope, a little over halfway down, quite a drop [?start to finish].

But I think I can just ... you.(12) Pay it out slowly and take the weight off on any ledge you come on. Good luck.'

(* At this point the text of the manuscript page reproduced on p. 90 begins, and continues to the end of the second paragraph.) With a grim face Sam went to the edge, [?turned], and found the first ledge. 'Good luck,' said Frodo.

... [?time to time] the rope went slack as Sam found some ledge to rest ..., but for the most part his weight was taken by the rope. It was ..... minutes before Frodo heard his call.

First he lowered his pack by the rope, then he cast it loose. He was left alone at the top. At that moment there was a great clap of dry thunder overhead and the sky grew dark. The storm was coming up the Emyn Muil on its way to Rohan and to the Hornburg far away where the riders were at bay.(13) He heard Sam cry from below, but could not make out the words, nor see Sam's pointing hands. But something made him look back.

There not far away on a rock behind and overlooking him was a black figure [?whose glimmer(ing)] eyes like distant lamps were fixed on him. Unreasoning fear seized him for a moment - for after all it was Gollum there, it was not a whole.........., and he had Sting at his belt and mithril beneath his jacket: but he did not stop to think of these things. He stepped over the edge, which for the moment frightened him less, and began to climb down. Haste seemed to aid him, and all went well until he came to the bad place.