“But if Sigl and his killers do come up that rope ladder tonight…,” I began. I was happy when the Deacon interrupted me; I really hated hearing my voice tremble the way it was.
The Deacon put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re too tired already, Jake. We’ve had almost no sleep for three days and nights at altitude. And sometime in the morning we’ll all have to start climbing again, no matter what the weather’s like. I say we sleep now and deal with the Germans in the morning, when they try to make it up here to the North Col.”
No one said anything for a moment, but then, one by one, each of us nodded. “Reggie, Dr. Pasang,” said the Deacon, “if you’d be so kind—drag one or two of those heavy loads across the Col top to Camp Four and please set out our sleeping bags there. We have extra bags in each load if you need them. The Unna cooker is in the load I chalk-marked Number One…we should get that out tonight and set it up in the vestibule of the tent, even if we wait till morning to use it. Pasang, perhaps you could coil and carry these hundreds of feet of rope from both the bicycle pulley and from the caver’s ladder railing. Just set it outside one of the tents at Camp Four, along with whatever load you can drag there.
“Jake, Jean-Claude,” he continued, “why don’t you come with me over to the wonderful bicycle-pulley-lifting thing and we’ll cut all the tie-downs and pull up all the anchors and stakes and lug that metal monstrosity over to this part of the ledge.”
“Why, Ree-shard? We have already cut and coiled the long rope that worked from the pulley. Why bring the bicycle machine here?”
“Because we don’t have any boiling oil handy,” said the Deacon.
10.
We slept relatively well, despite everyone’s headaches and the return of my terrible coughing. My guess is that none of us dreamt of Germans machine-gunning our tent with their Schmeissers. We should have, probably, but I don’t think any of us did. We were just too damned tired.
When I woke in the cold night, I would turn a valve, enjoy a little foot- and finger-warming oxygen, and drift back to sleep. The others were doing likewise, except for Pasang, who I believe slept straight through without any English air. I didn’t truly awaken until almost seven a.m. according to the watch my father had given me.
Pasang and Reggie were heating coffee and a pot of something to eat on the Unna cooker just outside the tent vestibule. The day was sunny. The air was cold but still. The sky above the North and North East ridges was a heart-stopping blue.
“Where are J.C. and the Deacon?” I asked, alarmed.
“They went to stand guard near the top of the rope ladder around four thirty this morning,” said Reggie. “Before it started getting light.”
“I’ll check in with them and then come back for coffee and breakfast,” I said between coughs. I was busy strapping my crampons on.
“Oh, the Deacon asked me to tell you to wear your Finch duvet jacket on the outside of everything else,” said Reggie. “If you must use the Shackleton anorak, he said to put it under the goose down jacket. Oh, and keep the goose down trousers I made for you on the outside as well, and, he said, keep your goose down hood up at all times.”
I noticed for the first time that both Reggie and Dr. Pasang were dressed that way, hoods up and tied tight. “Why?” I said.
“The Deacon says that we’re within range of the three rifles,” answered Pasang. “Especially his own Lee-Enfield with the telescopic sight. The balloon fabric on the Finch jackets is a dull white—harder to see against the snow of the North Col and the first part of the North Ridge than our gray Shackleton jackets.”
“Okay.” We were dressing in winter camouflage now. I wondered what other new wonders this day would bring.
“Here,” said Reggie. “Two thermoses of moderately hot coffee. You can share them with J.C. and Richard.”
The thermoses in the large pockets of my down jacket, long ice axe in hand, mini-Very pistol in my free hand, I hurried across the North Col to the ice ledge, remembering to keep my head down most of the time. It felt foolish to waddle along that way, but the idea of being a sniper’s target made my testicles want to crawl back up into my body.
J.C. and the Deacon weren’t on the ice ledge but were lying prone against a wall of snow and ice on the North Col proper about 40 feet from the head of the ladder. I plopped down beside them and handed out the thermoses.
“This is very welcome, thank you, Jake,” said the Deacon, accepting one thermos and setting it in the snow while his hand returned to steadying the large pair of binoculars. I’d forgotten to bring my own glasses from Camp IV. J.C. handed me his.
“They’ve been moving around since dawn,” Jean-Claude said. “Burying the dead and scattering or burying the ashes of the tents.”
“Burying the…,” I said and looked through the binoculars.
Down at the remnants of Camp III, eight men, their faces mostly hidden behind white scarves or handkerchiefs, all wearing white overparkas, were indeed dragging away the last bodies of our murdered Sherpas. Others were shoveling ashes and detritus from the previous night’s destruction onto large flat tarps.
“I would give a thousand pounds to have my ’scoped Lee-Enfield back right now,” whispered the Deacon.
“Why are they…,” I began.
“The Germans don’t know if another British Everest expedition might be coming next year or the year after that,” said the Deacon, finally putting his glasses down and unscrewing the lid on his thermos. Jean-Claude was already drinking his steaming coffee and had handed me the cup to share with him. “But they don’t want evidence of the slaughters,” continued the Deacon. “The Germans are usually very good about covering such things up.”
“Where are they burying them?” I whispered. I was trying to think of the names of all our Sherpas.
“Probably in that deep crevasse at the edge of the moraine on the west side, beyond the ice pinnacles there,” said the Deacon. “This coffee tastes good.”
“So when they finish with burying and dispersing the…evidence,” I said, “they’ll come up to get us?”
“Almost certainly,” said the Deacon.
I craned my neck to look at the blue sky and clear, still air. The North Face of Mount Everest loomed over us like some impossible stage prop. “We’ve lost the advantage of the wind and clouds.” I’d inadvertently said what I was thinking.
“Yes, we have,” said the Deacon. “But it’s a beautiful day for a summit attempt.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was joking. But I wasn’t amused.
“They have both of the hunting rifles we had at Base Camp plus your rifle,” I said. “And you said that your modified Lee-Enfield is effective up to five hundred and fifty yards, with a maximum range of more than a thousand yards.”
“Yes,” said the Deacon.
“Well, this North Col is only a thousand-some feet above them,” I said angrily. “Everything up here is well within the thousand-yard maximum range of the rifle. And so will we be if we try to climb up the North Ridge.”
The Deacon nodded. “But they don’t have a good angle on us, Jake. I suspect that the German with my sniper’s rifle is up on the glacier below Camp Three right now—at the highest point on the glacier, actually—trying to get a clear shot. But the North Col is just high enough that they can’t see us up here—especially when we stay back away from this edge. Not while they’re anywhere close to being within firing range. As long as we don’t poke our heads up along this ridgeline, I don’t think they’ll try to take a shot.”