Dan Wild gives us a glimpse into the mind of an overused, undervalued, and unsympathetic No.6 nut.

Revenge of the Six

Oh brilliant. He's reaching for us. Go on then, you've tried just about everything else I suppose. Christ it was, what, 3 or 4 minutes he spent fiddling with those cams? Trying to force the poor buggers into the square hole he's found. This is all I need. He was pretty bloody confident when he was talking to his belayer earlier, while the rest of us sat in the darkness of his rucksack, catching muffled phrases through the fabric. "Looks pretty well protected". Yeah, right. Those of us who were present for his 'Storm' debacle know better than to trust that. Once again our great, wise master has dragged us all up his latest conquest to be and now he's stuck. How predictable.

Yeowch! No need to be so bloody grabby. He takes a fistful of us with a sweaty, trembling hand and shoves us into his mouth. Yuck. Why couldn't it have been the offsets? They always manage to get out of this, the smug bastards, they know he's not smart enough to understand how to place them. I can practically hear them sniggering from the gear loops, their racking wiregate as fresh as the day he bought them. I hope there's still bird shit left on me from Aberdour last weekend. Wouldn't it be great if he got avian flu. A nut can dream…

Out we come, the sun blinding us after the darkness of his fat gob, upside down and dangling in front of his puzzled, straining face, as he studies us one by one. He clumsily selects one of the no. 7s and thrusts him towards the crack in front of him. No. 7 refuses to pass the retaining walls; I can see him struggling to make himself as big as possible - a cheap move if I ever saw one. It's paid off though, as master relents and declares in his infinite wisdom, "too big". What a f**king moron. No. 7 rejoins us in our inverted position, silently gloating. There's no honour amongst runners.

He's got to go for the other no. 6, with his shiny red coat and unblemished faces: it's about time he got some use. All day yesterday he'd been shoving me into cracks and runnels - he even tried to force me into a borehole to no avail. All the while shiny new boy sat dumbfounded on the gear loop, too stupid to understand how lucky he was. Why couldn't it be raining.

He picks me out with his fat fingers and moves me up to the crack. This is so unfair. I catch a glimpse of the others hanging below; if there was any sense of pity they didn't f**king show it. Well, let's get a close up look at this placement. I guess it can't be as bad as yesterday's wobbly chockstone. Oh, you've got to be f**king kidding me. He spins me through 180° and offers me up to a crack as shallow as a bloody leisure centre footbath. And it's flared. What the f**k is he playing at? If you're gonna place me at least put me somewhere I can work with.

He plonks me in and gives me a tug from below. I always hate this bit. The discomfort as he squeezes me further down the constriction fills my strands with pain and rubs just that bit more colouring off my arse end. Now what? I sit eye to eye with him, his beady gaze assessing me. You're really happy with this are you? This is actually the best you can fi- oh for f**k sake he's going for the draw. 

What's the point in arguing, let's just get on with it. I can practically feel myself moving with the gentle breeze because there's approximately shit all of me in contact with the rock. And here comes one of the long ones. God I hate the long ones. They're always so la-di-da about everything: "oo look at me I'm a trad draw, I get to go on all the mountain routes". Pretentious tw*ts. Our master snaps the draw on to my loop and clips the rope into us, really believing that I have any chance of arresting a fall. One final look at us and he deems himself safe. Sure, go on then, climb ahead, see if I care.

He huffs and puffs his way past, grunting and panting as he tackles the 'oh so difficult' moves above me. They don't look that hard, you melodramatic arsehole. All the while the rope feeds through my colleague, jerking and jolting, pushing and shoving me from below. Isn't the whole point of a long draw to prevent all of this? Oh what does he care - he just has to sit there looking shiny, he never gets his hands dirty like we do. It's a sorry life for a poorly placed nut, getting rattled around through no fault of your own, shoved into all manner of cracks with no regard for your comfort. Don't get me started on when he got into winter climbing; oh we took a beating then. Well maybe I'm not gonna take it anymore. 

Hm. He is getting quite scared. I wonder what we could do here. If I can maybe just- ooh- aah- there we go. One moore- and away we go! 

As I slide away down the rope, freed from my imposed constraints, I think to myself about my master. How he would have heard the clink of my release, how he would be placed into mortal danger, how the fear and panic would be setting in as he grips onto the rock for dear life. Good. I hope he falls and f**king dies.