As well as a selection of modified air pistols for the general use of members of the expedition, he had brought two pairs of Palmer Cap-Chur projector guns up from Chitwan. The first pair were two long-range rifles powered by compressed carbon dioxide, with a range of thirty-five yards. But it was to the second pair of guns that Jameson was trusting the most: these were two extra-long-range Zuluarms rifles, each utilizing a modified over-and-under combination of .22-calibre rifle and twenty-eight-gauge shotgun, powered by percussion caps and accurate up to seventy-five metres. The Zuluarms rifle fired a special Cap-Chur aluminium-bodied syringe similar to the kind Jameson used in his Ecuadorian blowpipe.
The choice of chemical restraint was more problematic. Liquid injected with excessive pressure could tear muscle. Worse, it was often fifteen or twenty minutes before complete immobilization was effected — perhaps longer in the freezing conditions of the Himalayas — by which time an animal could be lost and, unassisted, might even die from respiratory depression. Most complicated of all was the calculation of a safe but effective dose for an animal that Jameson had neither seen nor knew anything about.
With great apes in the L.A. Zoo, he had always favoured the use of Ketamine Hydrochloride. The one side effect of Ketamine was the hallucinations it induced, of which Jameson had personal experience, having once accidentally injected himself with a dose intended for a chimpanzee.
Ketamine dosage in great apes was 2–3 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Miles had little alternative but to guess the weight of the creature as in the neighbourhood of two hundred to hundred and and twenty-five kilos based on the descriptions given by Jack and the sirdar of a yeti as being about a third larger than a big silverback gorilla. But following the sirdar’s examination of the tracks and his pronounced opinion that this was a smaller yeti they were tracking, he had also prepared a Cap-Chur syringe containing a much weaker dose.
Before leaving ABC, Jameson checked the massive squeeze cage he and some Sherpas had assembled the previous day. If they were lucky enough to capture a live specimen this was where it would be kept. Transporting it there, on a stretcher, would be rather less simple, and he thought that, weather permitting, they might just have to call in the helicopter.
Jameson selected the Zuluarms, inserted a percussion cap into the rifle barrel, and a weaker-strength Cap-Chur syringe into the shotgun barrel. Then he slipped the safety catch on, pocketed a couple of spare syringes, which were plugged at the tip, collected his binoculars, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and went up the ladder of the lodge to find Swift and the sirdar.
Twelve
‘The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.’
The yeti, or whatever animal it was, had headed straight down the valley toward the site of what in summer was MBC — Machhapuchhare Base Camp — where, at the foot of Shiva’s special mountain, two or three lodges were also buried under several metres of snow. Four hundred and twenty-five metres lower down than ABC, it was a trek of about one and a half hours. The tracks were easy to follow and seemed almost human in their apparent single-mindedness, observing an almost straight line until, after over an hour of walking, the sirdar pointed to some marks in the snow where the creature had apparently sat down on a rock.
‘Yeti, him get tired,’ he laughed.
‘I know just how he feels,’ Swift said wearily.
‘Are you okay, memsahib?’
‘Nothing I can’t handle, Hurké.’
‘Maybe he stopped for a cigarette,’ Jameson suggested, lighting one for himself and shaking the packet at the sirdar.
‘Yeti is Marlboro man too, eh?’ He shook his head at the offered cigarette. ‘But better no time to waste, Jameson sahib. Weather will change soon I think. Not good for us. Not good for trail. Only good for yeti.’
He pointed up the valley from where they had just come.
‘Jesus,’ said Swift. ‘I didn’t notice that.’
When they had started walking, the sky had been bright blue. Only fifteen minutes before, she had looked up and seen a few clouds beginning to surround the sun like grey wolves drawn to the heat of a camp-fire. Now she saw a mist following them down so that it was impossible to see more than a hundred metres back up the trail. The effect was eerie, almost as if the mist was trailing them, just as they themselves were trailing the mysterious creature.
‘Weather change very quick in Himalaya,’ said the sirdar, and started walking again.
Another thirty minutes of walking took them past Machhapuchhare.
‘Perhaps the yeti knows that it’s forbidden to climb Machhapuchhare,’ laughed Miles Jameson. ‘Just like the rest of us.’
‘I had the same thought,’ smiled Swift.
‘I’m just glad we don’t have to start climbing again. I don’t think we’d have got very far up that mountain today.’
The trail soon brought them to the Sanctuary’s exit, and crossing several streams that flowed too fast to freeze, they passed through a gully that ran alongside a sparse wood. Sometimes Swift lost sight of the tracks altogether as the creature jumped over streams or used yak ledges inside the gully, yet somehow the sirdar always managed to divine where the tracks were to be found. But finally, as the mist engulfed them like a cold shroud and they could scarcely see each other, even he lost the trail.
‘Ek chhin, ek chhin,’ he muttered as his keen Gurkha’s eyes hunted across the snow-covered ground. ‘One moment please, sahibs. Kun dishaa? Kun dishaa?’
‘What direction?’ said Jameson, translating for Swift’s benefit.
‘Huncha,’ said the sirdar, straightening to face them once again. ‘You wait here please. I look around... maybe ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Try find trail then come back here, huncha?’
‘Huncha,’ nodded Jameson.
The sirdar placed the palms of his woollen-gloved hands together in front of his face, as if to pray.
‘Namaskaar,’ he said.
‘Namaste,’ said Jameson, returning the gesture.
The sirdar walked quickly away.
‘Please do not wander off, sahibs,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Sherpa know country, even in fog, even in whiteout. But dangerous for sahibs.’
A second later, he had disappeared like a ghost.
Jameson lit another cigarette and kicked uncertainly at the snow beneath his feet. Swift blew her nose and then shivered.
‘I guess he knows what he’s doing,’ said Swift.
‘He’s a good man,’ said Jameson, and unslung the rifle.
‘I must say, I wouldn’t fancy trying to get back up to ABC without him.’ She looked around uncomfortably. ‘This weather’s pure... Wilkie Collins.’
‘English writer, is that?’
Swift nodded.
‘It’s a bastard, isn’t it? Chances are that if we do stumble across a yeti, we’ll be too close for me to use the rifle. Anything closer than twenty metres and the whole syringe might cause a fracture, or even drive straight through its body. I wish I’d thought to bring along one of the pistols.’