At the new year Ashley drove south and took a cottage on the Pembrokeshire coast. He spent dawn and dusk in fevered sprints along the shore, striding on sand and water and glimmering sea foam, racing the seagulls spiraling above him. He would lift his head as he dashed in ever-longer strides, the birds above wheeling and diving, then soaring with one flap of their wings ten yards beyond him, always just beyond, Ashley chasing with deeper gasping breaths until he had to stop, wheezing, a thousand yards down the strand. He sucked in the air. The cold waves broke over his shins, the gulls floating above him.
Ashley would race anything. He raced the sailboats half a league offshore; he raced the breeze and his own shadow. He raced against Price and Somervell and all of the strongest climbers in Europe, chasing them in a dead heat up some imagined alpine ridge, or picturing with fury how Price would overtake him on Everest’s North Col, were he to betray an inch of slackness. Later Ashley decided none of these men was fast enough, so he sprinted against Paavo Nurmi or Eric Liddell, or any runner he heard accounts of on the wireless.
But most of all he would run for the idea of her, or the agony it drove him to, for pride and pain were equally ruthless horsemen. He raced against imagined rivals for her affection, faceless specters always faster than he, tall and lean athletes supple of limb and muscle. These Ashley could beat only through sheer force of will, for he knew his will was stronger even as his body was weaker, and on his better days Ashley let himself triumph. For he wanted her more than they did. He wanted the mountain nearly as much.
— So it is you.
Price taps Ashley on the shoulder and pulls out the opposite chair. He hangs his attaché case from a hook beneath the table.
— Sorry I’m late, Price adds. Had another row with Hinks.
— What about?
— Money, as usual. The man imagines I can use all the same kit from two years ago, and risk my neck with it. What are you having? Bitter?
Price goes to the bar and returns with two glasses of ale.
— It’s strange to see you in England, Ashley. You do look well. Where are you staying?
— I’ve taken some rooms just around the corner.
— Then you’re finally settling here?
— No. Ashley smiles. Not quite.
— Too much to hope, I suppose. How was Wales? I heard about your training. You’ve grown serious in your old age. Is it true you hired a coach? Farrar told me—
— It’s not true, Ashley interrupts. But I’m fitter than ever.
— Grand. You’ll need everything you’ve got.
— I know.
Price claps Ashley on the back.
— I say, it is good to see you in Blighty. How’s it been treating you?
— Not bad. Feel a bit out of sorts.
— That’s to be expected. You’ve been away a long time. But the committee’s certainly confident about you. In fact, this year’s climbing party is leagues ahead of the last show. All the old fools agree Everest’s a sure bet this time.
— What do you think?
Price hesitates. He takes a long draft of beer.
— You know, I was hoping they wouldn’t let me go. The syndicate, the committee, I wished for any damned thing that would get in the way of going back.
— You could have refused.
— I could have, Price admits. But Everest is not so easy to give up, once she’s taken hold of you.
Price frowns, scratching the woodgrain of the table with his fingernail. He looks up at Ashley.
— You must see the mountain for yourself. Then you’ll understand. The Himalaya are not the Alps. It isn’t as if Everest is Mont Blanc, only thirteen thousand feet taller. That’s what chaps like Hinks will never understand. We shan’t be starting off from a comfortable hotel, fat as schoolchildren with pink cheeks. The march across Tibet is horrid. Half of us will be poorly by the time we reach the base camp. And the altitude. It’s impossible to say precisely how ill one will be, but it’s generally somewhere between nausea and death. Finally the climbing. The colonel has one notion of how we ought to get up, I’ve another. We’re meant to work it out as we cross the plateau. But neither of us really knows what’s at the top.
Price pauses, his face clouded with misgiving.
— I’m telling you things you already know.
— I know enough to be scared.
Price raises his eyebrows. — Scared? You’re scared? Half the reason the committee didn’t want you last time was they thought you’d lead your party into some catastrophe. They say you’re too fearless to have any judgment—
— I know what they say, Ashley breaks in. But I’m scared anyway. As you say, it’s not the Alps, I’ve never been there. No matter how much I read about Everest or the Himalaya, it’s all a great mystery to me. It’s not only the height. Everything’s different up there. The way the glaciers run—
— You’ll work it out. You’ve always had the instinct for it.
— There’s something else, Ashley adds. I’ve been having dreams about the mountain.
Price waves his hand dismissively.
— Everyone has those dreams.
— Perhaps they do. Only tell me something, Hugh. I know why I’m going, but why are you? Why go back if you don’t want to? Why go back if it’s so ghastly?
Price takes another drink. He shrugs.
— Wait until you’ve been there. Then you’ll know.
They have a second round of beer, then Price says he must be going. The two men shake hands on the pavement. When Price’s taxi has left, Ashley goes back into the saloon and orders a double measure of Vat 69. Although the barman cannot see Ashley’s face, he has recognized his voice or clothing, for as he pours the whisky he says, — Couldn’t stay away, sir?
— I suppose not.
Ashley unfolds his newspaper on the bar. As the barman sets the drink before him, Ashley pushes a panel in the screen above the bar; a square is opened and Ashley looks the barman in the eye. He is an older man, bald with a bushy gray mustache and a stout red neck. The barman’s collar has been unfastened, his necktie loosened.
— You know, Ashley says, tonight was the first I’d been to a public house in five years.
— Then I’d say you’re entitled to make up for lost time.
The barman is polishing glasses with a white cloth. Through the open square Ashley glimpses the customers in the public bar, men in flat caps or bareheaded, their backs turned to him. There is a woman’s voice coming from the other end, but Ashley cannot see her face. He turns the page of his newspaper, noticing an article in a boxed column.
POST FROM THE PEAK OF EVEREST HOW TO RECEIVE LETTERS FROM THE SUMMITSPECIAL STAMPS
An avalanche of an entirely new character threatens members of the Mount Everest Expedition which leaves England next Friday. They have a beautiful stamp of special design printed, and I am authorized to announce that anyone desiring to possess one from the top of Mount Everest may do so for a couple of pennies. The postal avalanche has already begun. Capt J.B.L. Noel, the special photographer of the expedition, gives the following details of the plan –