CASTORP. SENIOR SPEAR, SENIOR RUBY, AND SENIOR SCAN COM INTEL SOURCES INDICATE THAT THE CHINESE SOLDIERS AT THE SANCTUARY POSITION YOU DESCRIBED IN YOUR LAST MESSAGE ARE INDEED PEOPLe’s ARMY SOLDIERS. ALTHOUGH THEIR PRESENCE IN NEPAL IS TECHNICALLY ILLEGAL, THEIR PURPOSE WOULD APPEAR TO BE THE CAPTURE AND APPREHENSION OF GENUINE DESERTERS FROM SAME ARMY, AND TO THIS EXTENT SUCH MINOR INCURSIONS ARE QUITE USUAL. THEY ARE TOLERATED BY THE NEPALESE GOVERNMENT, WHO HAVE NO WISH TO UPSET THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES NOR TO ENCOURAGE ILLEGAL EMIGRATION TO THEIR ALREADY POOR COUNTRY. AS A RESULT, THERE IS NO NECESSITY TO TAKE ANY ACTION AS YOUR MISSION IS NOT COMPROMISED BY THEIR PRESENCE. HUSTLER.
When Swift and Jack got back to Camp One, exhausted and ravenously hungry, it was already dusk. Mac and Jameson had prepared them a meal of beef stew and rice pudding with canned fruit. Wrapped up warm in their sleeping bags, Mac and Jameson smoked cigarettes and drank whisky, listening as the pair wolfed down their food and related the events of the day.
‘And you reckon the yetis just jumped nine metres straight over the edge?’
‘No doubt about it,’ Swift said. ‘There were tracks all over the shelf.’
‘That’s what I call a bloody leap of faith,’ said Mac.
‘The shelf goes straight up and into the mountain. It’s the best kind of trail we could have. I mean, there are no tracks to blow away. We just follow the shelf to the end. What do you say. Jack?’
Jack nodded. ‘But we’ll need one of Boyd’s survival suits. It gets pretty cold inside a crevasse.’
‘Don’t remind me,’ Swift shivered. ‘It was like a tomb in there.’
‘Very nearly was, by the sound of it,’ said Mac. He unzipped his sleeping bag and crawled toward the door of the tent.
‘I’m just going outside,’ he announced with mock solemnity. ‘I may be some time.’
Jack nodded at the bottle of scotch near Jameson. ‘I could use a drink.’
‘Of course.’ Jameson reached to pour him a drink. ‘Swift?’
‘No thanks. Haven’t you had enough?’
‘You don’t understand,’ smiled Jameson. ‘There’s a reason why we’re drinking.’
‘Who needs reasons?’ said Jack.
‘It’s because we’re so close to the rock face.’ Jameson lowered his voice. ‘Mac thinks that we’re right in the way of an avalanche. Sorry, a bloody avalanche. He says that if we’re engulfed, he doesn’t want to know anything about it.’
Jack shrugged and sipped his whisky. ‘Maybe he’s right. And it tastes a lot better than a Seconal.’
‘Well, I certainly won’t need a Seconal to put me to sleep tonight,’ said Swift. ‘Avalanche or not, I could sleep on the point of a sword.’
Removing only her boots and her storm-proof outer shell. Swift crawled into her sleeping bag and zipped up. Mac came back into the tent with the news that it had started to snow.
‘Just what we bloody need,’ he said. ‘More bloody snow. If you ask me, the weather’s closing in a bit. I wouldn’t be at all surprised—’
Jameson’s radio interrupted him, sounding like the tent’s forgotten guest.
‘Hello, Jack. This is Link. Come in, please. Over.’
‘About time they bloody called,’ grumbled Mac.
Jack picked up the radio and pressed the call button.
‘Hello ABC, this is Jack at Machhapuchhare Camp One. You’re loud and clear. Over.’
He waited a moment and then heard Link’s voice again.
‘How’s things?’
‘Fine. Link? Did Hurké make it back all right?’
‘Affirmative. Jutta’s given him something to help him sleep. He seemed badly shaken up. Won’t say much about it though. Says he doesn’t want to scare the rest of the boys.’
‘Good thinking. How’d they take it? The loss of those men this morning?’
‘Not good. But nothing, I don’t think, that can’t be fixed.’
‘Good. Is Jon Boyd there?’
‘Wait a second.’
‘Hi, Jack. This is Jon.’
‘Jon. Those SCE suits you were talking about. I’d like to try one of them out tomorrow. Can you get some of the boys to carry one up first thing tomorrow? Plus the rest of the Camp One gear.’
‘Sure thing.’
‘And plenty of rope too.’
‘Going climbing?’
‘Not exactly. I’m going down a crevasse. And it gets very cold and dark in there.’
‘You going after those Sherpa bodies?’
‘No. I’m going to follow the yeti trail. That’s where they went.’
‘Okay, Jack. Well, you’ll find all the instructions for use of the suit in the box. Just like a kid’s toy. Try and remember one thing though: Your environment lasts twelve hours and no more. After that, no heat, no light, no voice comms, nothin’. You copy?’
‘Yes. I’ve got that.’
‘Hey, I nearly forgot to tell you. The B team found another expedition in the Sanctuary. Bunch of Chinese meteorologists. Only Ang Tsering reckons they might be Chinese army deserters.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Cody wants to drop by and say hello again.’
‘Tell him to be careful. How’s the weather station looking? It’s started to snow up here.’
‘We’re clear down here. Temperature’s dropping like a stone. But the pressure looks not too bad. Set to continue fine, I’d say.’
‘Good. Well that’s all from us, I guess. Say hello to everyone.’
‘For sure.’
‘Over and out.’
Jack tossed the radio on to the groundsheet.
‘Chinese army, eh?’ he said. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘I’d say Tsering was probably right,’ said Jameson.
‘I wonder,’ said Jack.
Jameson finished his drink and then lit another cigarette. He studied the smoking end for a moment and then said:
‘What do you make of this, then, chaps? I’ve noticed that the physical process of smoking seems to make breathing easier up here. My theory is that the general lack of oxygen makes you think about breathing, which normally is an involuntary process, and that the thinking about it consequently engenders a slight feeling of suffocation. Back down at sea level, breathing seems to be effortless because carbon dioxide stimulates the nerve centres that only make it seem that way. Okay? But as well as the lack of oxygen at altitude, there is also a lack of carbon dioxide. This is the clever part: Somehow the cigarette smoke is able to substitute for carbon dioxide normally present in the human body and therefore stimulate involuntary breathing in the normal way. I have noticed that the effect of one cigarette can last as long as a couple of hours.’
Mac laughed with obvious delight.
‘That would also explain why nearly all of the Sherpas smoke like bloody chimneys,’ said the Scotsman.
‘Precisely, Mac.’
‘Who knows? Maybe the bloody yetis smoke too,’ said Mac. ‘It might explain why they’re so quick up these bloody hillsides.’ He cackled loudly. ‘When you’re next looking for a sponsor to bring us all back here, you’ll just have to ask the lads at Philip Morris. What do you think of that, eh. Swift?’
But Swift was already fast asleep.
In the moonlight, CASTORP stood looking through a pair of night-vision binoculars at the Chinese encampment. It all looked innocent enough: a huddle of heavy canvas storm tents, a pile of stores (respectably civilian) and the satellite dish. Soldiers hunting deserters hardly needed to bring along a satellite dish. Snow began to give way beneath him, obliging him to shift his stance. It felt uncertain underfoot. Dangerous even. He had an idea.
CASTORP returned the binoculars to his rucksack and, unfolding an entrenching tool, started to dig a pit as deep as the surface layer of snow with a vertical back wall. He straightened for a moment, catching his breath. It had been quite a hike down from ABC in the dark. Then he cut away a chimney about thirty centimetres deep on one side of the wall before adding a V-shaped slot on the other side, exposing an isolated block of snow about thirty centimetres wide. Lastly he thrust his shovel down the back of the block and pulled gently outward, using only a small amount of leverage. The block suddenly sheared away along the contact face, and immediately he stopped pulling. The shearing block of snow indicated that the slope was in a very unstable condition. He wondered if the Chinese soldiers had even bothered to make the same rudimentary field test as he had done, and decided they couldn’t have. They would hardly have pitched their camp there if they had. On the other hand, maybe they’d been there for a while. It was a smaller valley than at ABC, and there had been quite a bit of snow of late. Still, he thought, there was no point in leaving it to chance. And it wasn’t as if HUSTLER had expressly forbidden him to take any action.