“I poked my head in to wake them all,” continues the Deacon. “Reggie’s been up for a while, working on a stove that won’t bring water to boil. Evidently this morning’s giving them some insomnia, headaches, breathing problems, cold toes, sore throats, and sour thoughts.”
The Deacon shows white teeth through the icicles still dangling from his new beard. “I think this beautiful bitch of a mountain has already declared war on us, my friends. God or the gods or destiny or chance grant that we be worthy of the challenge.” Suddenly he pulls off his inner mitten and silk glove and thrusts his bare, bluish right hand toward me. “Jake, I apologize sincerely and completely and without reservation for my idiocy in taking and tossing your book last night. There’s no excuse for such behavior. I shall buy you a new copy—perhaps get Bridges to autograph it for you—as soon as we get back from this adventure.”
Since Robert Bridges has been the Poet Laureate of England since 1913, I consider that one hell of a decent offer.
I don’t know what to say, so I just shake his offered hand. It’s like grasping a slab of frozen beef.
Reggie comes in and laces the tent flaps behind her. She’s wearing every bit of goose down outerwear we had available. The only thing that would prevent her from climbing the mountain dressed as she is now is the high Laplander furred boots that several of us prefer to wear in camp while our mountain boots dry. The Laplander boots have relatively soft soles that won’t work on near-vertical snow, rock, and ice.
“Tenzing Bothia’s sick,” she says without greeting or prelude. “He’s been vomiting the last six or seven hours. We need to get him down…at least to Camp Three but preferably lower.”
The Deacon sighs. We have a tough decision pending. If we stay here at Camp IV on the Col, we get weaker by the hour, but we’re in a good position to make a break for Camp V high on the North Ridge if the weather moderates. Then again, that may not happen for a week or more. But if we all go down, there’ll be hell to pay in terms of logistics. Camp III at the bottom of the ice wall is already overflowing with Sherpas, every tent filled. Some of them are probably already suffering from mountain lassitude and also may have to be evacuated down the mountain to Base Camp. Our loads—meant for Camps V and VI and our search for Percival up there—are spread out between Camps I and IV, with the carefully planned schedule of alternating Sherpa carries now shot to hell.
I know that every Everest expedition so far—all three of them—has run into this same problem, no matter how careful the planning or how large the number of porters, but that’s little solace to us now as we huddle in this flapping Whymper tent at 23,500 feet.
“I’ll take Tenzing down,” says Jean-Claude. “And I’ll take Tejbir Norgay with me.”
“Tejbir’s feeling all right,” says Reggie. “Just tired.”
“But he can help me with Tenzing on the ropes,” says J.C. “And the two of us can help him down to Camp Two or One if we have to go that far.”
The Deacon thinks a moment and nods. “If we all go down now, we’ll be bumping six Sherpas out of the tents at Camp Three.”
“We’ll only have three of your jumars left for descending or ascending fixed ropes if we have to follow you or fix ropes higher,” I say. My mind feels like it’s been wrapped in fuzzy wool.
“I still know how to rig a friction knot,” says Reggie.
I want to slap my forehead. How quickly we get addicted to new devices. A friction knot on the fixed ropes is probably safer during descent than the mechanical doohickey that J.C. has built. Not as convenient, but surefire.
“Well, the three of us—Jake, Lady Bromley-Montfort, and I—still have to decide how long we should stay up here,” says the Deacon through iced whiskers. “We’re using the oxygen tanks for sleep and to help us when we feel seedy at night, but it’s a losing game just to stay here using up the English air. It’ll just mean more O-two rigs will have to be portered up for our real work at Camps Five and Six…not to mention any chance at a summit bid or for a sustained search for Lord Percival and Meyer…and we have only so many in reserve. Any thoughts about what we three do next?”
I’m actively surprised that the Deacon is putting this to a vote, or seeming to. Both his military background and personality usually lead him to take charge in any situation. And in Darjeeling we’d all agreed—even Reggie—that he’d be in charge when it came to the climbing part of the expedition.
Into the brief silence Jean-Claude says, “I think I can get Tenzing as low as he needs to be today and still climb back up here to Camp Four before nightfall. I can also relay orders to Pasang and everyone else as to who carries what up in relays as soon as the weather clears a little.”
“You can do all that descending and re-climbing,” says Reggie, “in this blizzard? In this wind? In this cold?”
Jean-Claude shrugs. “I believe so. I’ve done similar trips in similar weather in the Alps…and without the fixed ropes that we have in place now on both the ice wall and glacier. I’ll get new batteries for my Welsh miner’s lamp for the last part up here in the dark.”
“All right,” says the Deacon. “I suggest we follow Jean-Claude’s plan, get Tenzing as low as he needs to be today, move Tejbir down so we have some extra space for the next group of Sherpas carrying from here to Camp Five. But only for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours—the four of us shouldn’t stay here longer than that. What do you all think?”
Again I’m surprised he’s putting it to a vote. I tell myself that it shows how much the Deacon respects our opinion.
“I agree,” says Reggie. “It’s Saturday morning. If this wind and snow haven’t disappeared or died down sufficiently by Monday morning, I vote we all go down—at least as low as Camp Two. The Sherpas can just damned well make room for us or go down to Base Camp.”
“Tomorrow, Sunday, is the seventeenth of May,” Jean-Claude says in a small voice.
The Deacon only stares at him.
“The day you designated as our summit day, Ree-shard.”
The Deacon’s only response is to run his bare hand through his wet beard. Much of the ice has remained there, but some has melted.
J.C. begins pulling on his outer layers. “I’ll go get Tenzing and Tejbir and start down now. Reggie, it’s your choice, but I suggest that you move into the Whymper here until we get more people back up the mountain to the Col. Every little bit of body heat helps the cause. When I get back, it will be four of us here. The Sherpas I bring can have the other tent.”
“I agree,” she says. “I’ll go get my things and let Tenzing and Tejbir know they’re going with you, Jean-Claude. I’ll be back in a minute and…oh…I’m bringing a book to read…Dickens’s Bleak House. I presume that it will be safe from search or seizure?”
The Deacon only smiles ruefully and scratches at his wet beard.
I awaken the next morning at 3:30 a.m. to the tripping of the little brass watch hammer vibrating over my heart. Immediately I become aware that there’s something missing…something wrong.
The wind has died away. Not a sound except the rasp of the others breathing. The tent walls are lined with the frost from our breath, but those walls aren’t moving. The air is very, very cold. I listen harder but can hear neither wind nor the previously constant background noise of blowing snow hitting canvas.
I pull on my boots and down jacket as quietly as I can, slither out of my bag, and try to slip out the door without waking anyone. Jean-Claude had returned after dark, at almost ten p.m. He reported that he’d delivered Tenzing to four Sherpas at Camp II to be brought down to Base Camp with no difficulty, and then he drank nearly two full thermoses of water we’d set aside for him and fell asleep almost before he was in his bag.