Or, if not a crash, then the cold could get me. Cold could defeat even the strongest of men. Franklin in the Arctic, Wilson and Bowers in the Antarctic, Mallory and Irvine lost on Everest. Like Scott, my boyhood hero, I would die stranded in a stark, unforgiving world. Unlike Scott, eleven days from base camp, nobody would come looking for me. Nobody knew where I was.

As I debated my situation, I became more aware of its irony. Here I was, facing the oblivion I’d flirted with the previous evening at the Tour du Castella. Yet less then twenty-four hours later, when fate itself stepped in to give me a hand, I no longer wanted to die.

‘I do not want to die.’

I said it aloud, surprising myself, and was astounded to discover it was true. Then another snap of lighting struck directly in front of me, illuminating a wooden signpost at the side of the road.

Like an idiot, I pulled at the handbrake. The front wheels locked. Fighting to keep control, I dragged down on the steering wheel, but too hard. I felt the tyres go from under me. I was skidding sideways, hurtling towards the sheer drop. Closer, closer towards the void. Then there was a sharp crack. I jerked at the wheel again, pulling down in the opposite direction, twisting the Austin 180 degrees. In that split second, I remember wondering how it was going to end.

Something on the underbelly of the car impaled itself like an anchor in the ragged surface of the road. It slowed me down, but it was not enough. I had too much forward momentum. I was still rushing towards the precipice.

This was it.

I threw up my hands. Felt the engine cut out, then a thud, and glass showered into my lap. Everything slowed, movement, momentum, sound. Fragments of life flashed, yes, into my mind and out. Broken images of my parents, snapshots of the girls I had tried to love. The way the November light struck the plaque commemorating the dead of the Royal Sussex Regiment in the chapel in Chichester Cathedral. Memories of George.

And I wondered if he had seen death, like a shadow, coming to meet him? Had he recognised the moment for what it was? Looking back, I am astonished at how these thoughts came, so gentle and so quiet, into my mind. No more panic or fear, only peace. I had the sensation of the light dimming and a downy softness, like black feathers, and I hoped that George had felt this obscure pleasure at the moment of his departing. No terror, most of all no pain. Just release. The sense of being welcomed home.

Then the present came rushing back, violent and bright and brutal. The Austin hit one of the boulders set along the edge of the road to warn travellers of the drop, striking it head on and with such force that the bonnet buckled. A spasm of pain shot up through me as my head snapped back, then jerked forward and hit the dashboard.

After that, nothing.

Whispering. I could hear whispering, voices slipping between the mountains.

‘I am the last, the last, the…’

Heard over the howling of the wind, sometimes far away, sometimes closer, so close I imagined I could feel breath upon my cheek.

‘The others have slipped away into darkness.’

‘Here,’ I tried to say, but no sound came.

Then the sound of sobbing, a desperate scratching of rock upon rock, and a terrible weeping. Piano, pianissimo, moriendo, like the final strains of a country bell ringing out for evensong.

‘Over here,’ I murmured. ‘Please. Help me.’

I can’t be sure how long I was in this state, neither conscious nor yet quite unconscious. The sensation was like drifting underwater at the lido, swimming slowly, slowly up through the deep green water, closer and closer to the surface and the light. Sight, touch, sound. The tips of my fingers, the whiteness behind my eyes, my toes within my boots.

Then I was choking, coughing. Not drowning, waking. I was coming round. I could feel the pump and hiss of my heart beneath my ribs, rattling like a snare drum. I swallowed hard. When I put my hand up to brush the snow from my cheek, I saw that the tips of my gloves were red. And when I looked down, the snow and glass and blood were mixed together in my lap, glittering and yet dull at the same time.

I let my shoulders fall back against the seat. Even that slight movement caused the car to tilt and I knew I had to get out. It was balanced for the time being, but how long it would remain so was anyone’s guess. Later, I learned that a shock absorber had snapped and the jagged metal had caught on the rocks beneath the snow.

I had a sense of the minutes counting down to some zero point. I looked at the clock on my dashboard. Last time I’d noticed, it had been coming up for two. Now the glass was shattered and the hands hung uselessly down at half-past six.

My head was throbbing. I steadied myself, then leaned forward and released the catch on the door. The gusting wind immediately surged through the gap and sent the door slamming back against the wing, making the car rock. Cautiously, I swung out one leg, then the other, vaguely aware of being relieved that I was able to do so. I propelled myself into a standing position, sending the remains of the windscreen showering from my lap, then staggered away from the car. The wind boxed my ears so hard that I struggled to keep my balance, but I managed finally to get the door shut.

Hunching my shoulders against the bitter cold, I ran my hand along the coachwork, trying to assess the level of damage. I’d bought the Austin earlier in the year with the modest legacy left to me after the death duties had been paid on Father’s estate. Its value was as much sentimental as financial. It was the last link between him and me.

The good news was that I was not seriously injured. And that the car had not gone over. The bad news that there was no possibility of getting it going again without assistance. Debris lay all around. Shards of glass crunched beneath the soles of my boots. The bonnet had buckled and the radiator had collapsed in on itself, like a broken ribcage. One of the front lamps had been snapped clean off and the other hung crooked, bashed up and attached to the body only by the thinnest of wires.

I knelt down in the snow. Metal and bits of pipe hung beneath the chassis. The torque tube had become detached and the running board stuck out at an angle, like a torn fingernail.

The cold was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was no longer snowing, but there was a swirling fog, growing thicker by the minute, that wrapped itself around me, insinuating itself into my nose, my mouth, my throat. It muffled all sound and distorted the landscape, giving the countryside a sinister character. Misshapen trees and rocks transformed themselves into mythical beasts.

I pulled my cap as low as I could on my head. Even so, the tips of my ears were raw. My tweeds below the hem of my overcoat were already damp and heavy against my calves. Fresh blood trickled down my cheek. I pulled out a handkerchief and held it to the cut, a starburst of red on the pale blue cotton. It didn’t hurt, but I knew from George that wounds rarely hurt straight away. Shock was Nature’s anaesthetic, he’d told me. Pain came later.

There was nothing I could do but leave the car and go for help. I couldn’t even risk trying to get things from my suitcase for fear of sending the car right over the edge.

I looked round to get my bearings. Where was I? Closer to Tarascon than Vicdessos? Visibility was down to a few feet in both directions. The route I’d driven had all but vanished in the fog, and the road ahead was swallowed up by a curve in the mountain.

Then I remembered noticing a wooden signpost by the side of the road, lit up by the final flash of lightning. Since I had passed no houses, and had no hope that I would find any if I went higher into the mountains, it seemed a sensible idea to try to find it. Perhaps it indicated a footpath, and a path had to lead somewhere. Even if it did not, it would be more sheltered in the trees than on the bare mountainside.