15
Subject: Re: Re: Well just to cheer you up
>>What’s happening with Flynn
and the others? How are they handling this?
Flynn tends to make the world very small and straightforward when things
are rough. It’s like being able to find the stillness to think about ‘right
now’ instead of ‘everything’. There’s so much conviction in his ‘I’m the only
thing you need to be paying attention to’ attitude that I find myself believing
him. Paul is Paul only more so, he’s been amazing. Riley calls this standard
brat stuff and is completely unstressed about it – to quote him, my work scares
him; this is normal. Jasper is also very unfreaked by it. This kind of thing
figures pretty strongly in his philosophy, it’s something you have a
responsibility to do and it’s good, it’s not something to worry about.
I’m stunned at how patient they’re being with this mess. It doesn’t matter.
They tell me that over and over again, it doesn’t matter, not to stress about
it, it’s all a part of getting where we want to go. In their perspective the
occasional disasters are just hiccups, nothing more significant. Gerry says the
same thing, that in mid disaster he’s always convinced this time the world is
ending and he finds himself avoiding Ash’s conviction that no it isn’t, this is
fine, this is just a problem we can plan for and deal with. It’s that ability
to keep your eyes on the big picture, not get lost in the moment. I do that all
too easily.
Gerry has joined Riley in agreeing mine is the total reversal of their
experience of being stressed out or in trouble, they both swear their chores
quadruple if they’re grounded. I use any kind of activity or distraction to
zone out and get further away, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to break
the habit of. Flynn and the others work in a similar way with clients, starting
them out in a very small structured routine and enlarging it gradually. There’s
a sort of pyramid of functionality, starting with eating well, sleeping well
and being able to be calm, and working upwards, in line with criteria for being
allowed to leave the house, leave the yard, work with someone, work alone, etc.
A few times I’ve reached the absolute bottom of the pyramid and been sent to
bed for a few hours to calm down, which also helps me keep in mind that calming
myself down is something I have to actively focus on and accept help with if I
want more rope. Watching the client and joining in monitoring his level of
functionality has given me a clearer understanding of my own experience of it.
I never would have tried reducing stimulation or deliberately managing my
stress in this way when I was at work or put any effort into figuring out why I
felt and why, I just used more and more distraction to block it out, sublimated
it, and I can see now why bad became worse. I don’t ever remember anyone
teaching me ‘this is how to calm yourself down’. ‘This is how to figure out
what your problem is and deal with it when you’re in a state’. Maybe I just
wasn’t paying attention on the day in school they taught everyone else.
I suspect Gerry is also on what Riley refers to as ‘a tight leash’, but is looking calmer and more relaxed than he was when he first arrived, certainly he’s smiling far more. I can see things being kept very deliberately calm in the house right now, there’s a team effort going on. Ash is working Gerry hard, they’ve been out with Flynn and Riley every day, and Ri is getting worked just as hard from what he says, and from the chores he and Flynn are dealing with before he comes in for dinner. Luath is going out with them too, and I suspect he’s pushing himself as much as Ash is pushing
Gerry, and the same way Jasper pushes the client. Exercise,
organisation, things to do, and tired enough to be relaxed and to sleep well:
it’s a plan I know. There was something in one of Flynn’s papers on
neurological regulation, sensory organisation and activation of the frontal
lobe via exercise and physical tasks, I need to get his papers out and re read
them more thoroughly. I distinctly remember thinking when I first came to the
ranch that they had hit on an extremely useful excuse for a free source of
labour.
>>Are you able to let them handle it?
Yes. They’re making it as easy as possible, we’re talking more about it than is at all comfortable, and now of course they’re taking no crap about it either, which was the aim but sometimes is easier to cope with than others. Breakfast time didn’t go too well a couple of days ago and Paul and Flynn both walked with me out as far as the pasture and out of earshot of the house, where I tried to explain some of it, which didn’t go well, and Paul as soon as he got the gist, went straight to what I actually meant. Try standing in a wet pasture in the rain at seven am in the morning, politely stammering out that it’s somewhat discomfiting having a crisis in front of witnesses with Paul interpreting by yelling at the top of his voice with dramatic emphasis. It’s difficult to stay stressed once someone’s made you laugh like that, and hard to feel like an idiot when Paul’s cheerfully acting a far bigger one. The morning did get better.
How are you handling anything with Jake when you’re under canvas and around other people all the time? That’s pure curiosity and an extremely personal question, I don’t expect an answer, and Riley has said before that you and Jake are often with or around teams of people you’re guiding, so this is probably something you’re very used to. I’m not sure on reflection how I would cope being anywhere with the others where they weren’t free to react as they usually do. I rely on it too much, especially at times when I’m not very together. But then this is still fairly new to me, and I live in a household where there’s no time or activity off limits. No one’s worried about what the client hears or sees unless things get fully physical, as he’s participating in the same standards and values, just in a different role and to a different degree to me and to Riley.
Where are you on the mountain? I know a climb up to camp three was next on the schedule.
Thinking of you
Dale.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Subject: Oh for God’s sake change the subject line
occasionally
>> with Paul yelling at the top of his
voice with dramatic emphasis ...........
are you serious?! How do you stand still in front of
that? Jake wouldn’t dare, I’d change my name and emigrate. The whole thought of
it makes me want to go for a long, long walk. Argh. In Inja’s sunny clime where I used
to spend my time, etcetera etcetera, and
you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.
We’re still in base camp. I made Jake take a few days rest to be sure he’d got over the altitude sickness, and the weather turned and it’s been rough high up for the last 24 hours. There are two teams at camp three right now, and according to the radio they’ve dug in and not been able to move. It’s proving to be a changeable year, with unpredictable weather slots. The trouble with that is that as soon as there is a clear slot identified, a lot of teams will grab it and try to go up together, and some of the teams are large and very slow moving. The next plan we need to make is an expedition to camp 3, which will be the longest expedition so far, and after that we’ll take a few rest days in base camp and get ready for for the final expedition to camp 4 and the summit attempt.
How we handle stuff up here and in public. I’m not a lines or essays or corners sort of person, I never have been. There aren’t that many corners in your average jungle. There was a certain amount of thought on my part early on that I probably should pull myself together and/or be made to do it, but Jake’s useless at stressing about anything and just said it wasn’t for us. We live pretty un-material lives too, so there isn’t much that can be withdrawn. I don’t deal well with limited space, and it isn’t usually about issues that can wait, so it is almost always physical. We’d most usually use a paddle, but we tried out a few things for the times when discretion’s the better part of valour and settled on some martinet thing Jake had as part of his Mounties kit for dusting dress uniform, which is allegedly French traditional although I’ve told him it looks downright kinky to me. It is practically silent and it hasn’t drawn attention, and here most people are more interested in trying to sleep or get warm than care what anyone else is doing in their tents, and while it’s probably something that Gerry et al would frown on we’ve worked on the principle of what people don’t know won’t upset them.
What’s the significance of activating the frontal lobe? Regulation? If exercise does it, we ought to be regulated to the nth degree up here but no one’s looking that regulated to me. Possibly cold and low oxygen undoes the effect somewhat. The household sounds under a tight regime right now, which I admit sounds quite interesting. How is the train robbery investigation going?
Look after yourself
Tom
~
* ~
From:
Gerry
8.23am
To:
Bigbear, Niall, Darcy, Wade
Ok,
wtf is going on? I’m in hospital
you
know? Being operated on? I’m sitting here in a gown with no back to it and no
dignity and you lot have started world war three and I have no idea what’s
going on! Will someone explain the three thousand emails in my box?
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Darcy
8.26am
To:
Gerry
THERE
you are! Thank God, are you ok? When is the surgery? How have you got hold of
your phone???
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Gerry
8.30
am
To:
Darcy
We
just got here. Don’t want to talk about it. Ash had to go fill in forms, he
just gave me my phone for the first time in days, what is going on????
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Darcy
8.33
am
To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Some
witch queen has been badmouthing Jake’s expedition in the press. Her son, who
sounds a complete ass, is on the expedition and blogging from there. We’ve been
commenting on her column and his blog, Niall’s been doing it with all his
initials and rank in full and so has Wade, and now other bigwigs have seen it
because of Niall’s commenting and some of my clients saw it too on my Twitter
feed and started commenting and it kind of exploded, the downside is she’s
loving the publicity. Btw, you’ll have a letter from Jake’s solicitor on your
doormat when you get home, you’re going to want to get rid. Quick.
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Gerry
8.35
am
To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Why
have I got a letter from Jake’s solicitor?? I’ve been on the ranch for weeks
being utterly innocent, I haven’t been this good in years!
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Darcy
8.39
am
To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Yeah
what was the Top/brat ratio in the house again? 5:3?
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Gerry
9.41am
To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Shuddup.
It was 1:1, Dale counts as at least three. Letter????
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Darcy
9.44am
To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
There
were some comments posted on the column under your name. Bear felt you would
have made them if you were able, so he made them on your behalf before I got
hold of him. That bit hasn’t come to light yet but you’re on the circulation
list for the cease and desist letter, so saving his butt is down to you.
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Gerry
9.46am
To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Again.
Seriously. I leave you lot for fi
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From:
Ash
9.48am
To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade
Guys,
Gerry’s being got ready to be taken down now, thanks for distracting him while
he waited. I’ll let you know this evening how he’s doing. He’s fine, don’t
worry.
xxxxx
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Flight of the Phoenix:
the exclusive blog of Phoenix Loudon’s epic ascent of the World’s Highest
Mountain.
2nd May
At Camp Three!
I arrived in good time
yesterday and am blogging from the spectacular heights of the Lhotse Face. In
the early hours of the morning we’ll go up to Camp Four, sleep the rest of the
day, and in the early hours we’ll make our summit bid. Thank you for your many
kind comments and congratulations about the fellow climber I saved in the Ice
Fall, and for your good wishes to him. He’s recovering well, although his nerve
is badly shaken. I don’t chatter with the others much, I’m known as a bit of a
silent watcher, but I’m there where I’m needed and I think they know they can
rely on me.
Being somewhere alone and
this wild lets you think so clearly. I’ve been sitting here tonight reflecting
on the story of the Fisher King… and it makes me think too of Plato. “There is
a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill”. If you just have the
guts to look for it. The night before a man was knighted he spent a night alone
in a holy place, prayed and meditated and readied himself to be worthy. Our
Sherpa see this as a supremely spiritual place that is earned, not an
entitlement. We’re in a high place tonight and preparing ourselves to be
worthy.
Ex amino. Rock on!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
They
slept on oxygen that night. It was a slightly less comfortable experience than
staying awake and jabbing forks in your legs. The oxygen was set only at a
trickle to supplement breathing through the night instead of provide the
equivalent of sea level air; just enough to help avoid flat out hypoxia, and it
needed to last for hours. Whacked up to full stream your tank might last you a
mere two hours if you were lucky, and you’d need to have more oxygen bottles up
here to go through than anyone but the big client expeditions with the very
large teams of Sherpa support could provide. It took effort to breathe and to
doze, which was the best either of them managed at all, but they were in better
condition in the morning than they’d been on their previous night at this
altitude.
They
started out to camp four together at a little after four am in the morning of
May 3rd, this time dressed in the full gear they’d been carrying since base
camp. Several layers of fleece, down suit on top, and the wind suit over the
top that would block the sub-zero winds from penetrating. Dorje grinned at Tom
as he and Jake checked that their crampons were properly fitted before they
settled the big black shiny masks into place under the goggles that completely
covered and obliterated their faces, checked that harnesses were on right, and
zipped up the tent behind them before they stepped out onto the steep slope of
the Lhotse face in the dark.
There
were only a few other climbers stirring as they left; a few lights on in the
other tents scattered across the Face. It was too early in the season for the
crowds that would be up here in a few days’ time, when there could be queues of
fifty or more in a single file queue ahead on the ropes, some of them
floundering and taking forever to move, holding up everyone behind them in
these sub-zero, dangerous temperatures with oxygen running out while they
waited. More than a few climbers had lost their attempt – or lost fingers or
toes to frostbite - purely because they got too cold and ran out of oxygen
while waiting, and had been forced to turn back. It did not make the client
expeditions popular who brought climbers up here with frankly inadequate
mountaineering skills to flounder on the ladders or steep stretches of rock, or
needing long minutes of rest at a time between every step they took; the
thought of Max or Bart up here under these conditions made Tom shudder. It was
taking everything he had this morning as he clipped back onto the rope and
continued his way up the Lhotse face behind Jake, to find the breath to put one
foot in front of the other and make himself get going when his body was stiff,
sore and tired from overuse. Although this was the wall that led to the real
runner’s high, he knew it and he committed himself grimly to pushing through
it, making himself warm up and stretch and use his body properly, get his
breathing controlled, get his mind sharp and on the job, get his technique
right. They’d left in advance of most of the other teams up here too who would
set out around five am. Jake kept them well ahead for the same reason; to have
clear ropes. The price they paid was the extra hour of darkness and the extreme
cold of the night, but they were fast enough and experienced enough as a team
to handle that in return for the payoff of no time spent standing around.
It
was hard to make themselves heard above the oxygen masks in the wind and they
moved in more or less complete silence like spacemen, every inch of skin
covered and the bulky windsuits battered by what passed for the early morning
breeze up here which raised a low mist of snow around them. Lit only by their
headlamps, moving in a sequence of Bill, Spitz, Jake, Tom and Dorje, they began
the traverse – the trail that led from one side of the Lhotse face right across
to its other side, and they reached the yellow band still in full darkness.
The
band was the most obvious part of the sea bed that Everest had once been and it
rose up out of the snow like a vast stone beach emerging out of the sea. The
limestone band cut right across the mountain here, a wide layer of sedimented
rock that held fossils and the ancient remains of crustaceans if you had the
time, breath and energy to spare to look for them. Depending on the weather,
this stretch could be covered in ice and snow in any amount of combination.
This morning it was dusted with snow but it was largely one big stretch of
undulating frozen rock to climb, in crampons, which grated horribly and slid
against the limestone. It was not unlike trying to climb a cliff in roller
skates, and without the ropes it would have been somewhere between bloody difficult
and nearly impossible. At sea level it would not have been a particularly hard
challenge to climb for an experienced climber. Here with minimum oxygen, the
slipperiness of trying to make crampons grip on rock, it was a leg sapping,
breath stealing ordeal that took some time to cross as the sun came up, casting
red light in streams across the rockface. Aware that Jake paused regularly to
glance back to him and that while he was taking it slowly he was moving well,
Tom followed in his wake, some tiny corner of his mind beyond the intense
concentration singing the ancient words from a carol he’d known since
childhood.
Mark
my footsteps good my page,
Tread
thou in them boldly
Thou
shalt find the winter’s rage
Freeze
thy blood less coldly…
In his master’s steps he trod – it was a
romantic fancy that made him half smile beneath the cold and sweaty discomfort
of the oxygen mask, but it helped. This place was wild, with its primordial
coils and swirls of rock beneath the dusting powder of snow, the elephants
graveyard of the mountain, the resting place of bones of monsters unseen by
human eyes.
At
the top of the yellow band Jake sat down for a moment to wait for him, reached
down to take his hand and pull him the last few feet to sit with him, panting
for breath. The sun was almost fully up. Looking back down the band – it was
like sitting with him on the edge of some crazy cliff, looking out over the
sheer drop below, the insanely steep ski run of white snow slopes all around
them.
“All
right?”
Jake
had to raise his voice over the mask and the wind to be heard. Tom nodded,
still gripping his hand. Breath taking. Beautiful in the new morning light. The
exhaustion and the strain in his legs was worth it for this, for this view
here. It was unreal. The flash of blue caught his eye on the rock, some way
down and to the right of them, well off the rope marked trail up. A more
careful look identified the sprawled body. Legs. Boots. A hand flung out that
was now skeletonised. It was not the first body he had seen up here; there were
a couple visible on the Cwm, and the general law above camp three was not to
look around too much because you’d almost certainly find things you really
didn’t want to see. From camp three upwards, most bodies lay where the person
had died; no one had the oxygen or energy to spare to do anything more than
move themselves. It was still impossible to see that sight without a deep
internal shock that the body could be a year old or a decade old, that he or
she too had been through the same camps, done the same acclimatising and work
they had done, and somehow it had ended here. Jake pulled on his hand,
indicating to him to get up and steering Tom ahead of him on the rope.
The
Lhotse face continued above the band, another eternity spent on the steep ice,
slogging one step at a time up the rope. It was a bright morning, blue sky, sun
overhead, but the winds were hitting them at sixty miles an hour, battering and
rattling with so much noise that hearing each other was impossible. It was like
the flapping of massive wings, endlessly buffeting overhead. The trail finally
reached the end of the traverse and the last obstacle between them and camp
four; the Geneva Spur. It had been named by the Swiss expedition in the 1950s,
a black, snow speckled buttress of rock that looked far larger and more
intimidating when you reached it than it did from a distance. They had placed
their oxygen cache at the foot of it and they paused there to change their
oxygen bottles which were now running on empty to new ones, leaving the empty
canisters in the cache and shoving a couple of spare new bottles each into
their back packs, the weight of them was hard going at this altitude. It took
time with clumsy hands, and Tom turned Jake around to check his equipment and
ensure it was set right to a steady, low flow, and that the valve was free of
ice before he checked the others. Not with any lack of trust in their skills;
it was mostly for his own reassurance but no one argued with him. Bill,
stockier than ever in his suit. Spitz. Dorje, the shortest and most efficient
of them all at this height and he was the fastest with the oxygen kit and had
sorted out Spitz’s recalcitrant bottle. And Jake. Wide shouldered, towering
over the rest of them in the additional bulk of his suit, like the giant and
timeless Knight Templar in the Allingham tale. A man who should have been
carrying a fourteenth century cruciform longsword here, not an ice axe.
It
was a steep, mixed climb of snow and rock scrambling over the spur in the wind,
and in this place few climbers managed step after step in sequence – it was
nearer to step, get your balance, breathe. Step, get your balance, breathe. You
fought for every step here as your body fought for breath, and you had to know
what you were fighting for and want to win more than you wanted oxygen or to
just be allowed to stop. It was a straight forward uncomplicated battle between
you and the rock, the basic drive to conquer. There was no room for anything in
your head but that, and it was as oddly, purely peaceful as it was painful. At
the top of the spur as they came over the lip was the sudden, spectacular view
of Everest herself. Huge, an intimidating giant, and now she was directly in
front of them. This was the rood screen to her chancel. The open door that
showed heaven to the celebrants. And below her the ground now opened out like
into grey shale covered plateau and not too far along it there was the South Col
and finally the tents of camp four, the highest camp in the world and seated
well within Everest’s Death Zone. So called, because up here the human body
literally began to die. With not enough oxygen, with the withering cold that
could freeze exposed skin in seconds, where it was impossible to stay hydrated
even if you drank constantly, where exhaustion was the price of any movement of
your oxygen depleted organs and muscles, it was a battle of time; to get where
you wanted fast enough to achieve it and get out again before your body
deteriorated to the point you could no longer move.
Camp
four was on that plateau, a large open area like a theatre stage the size of
several football fields that allowed for tents to be well spread out in
different areas for different expeditions. It looked like the surface of the
moon. Several hundred old oxygen bottles and fragments of torn remains of tents
were visible, the remnants of old expeditions, and the few new, securely
pitched tents placed among the rags for this year’s expeditions. A black bird
walked slowly among some of the rags, picking at them. It was something of a
shock to see a living creature. The east end of the plateau dropped about 7,000
feet down the Kangshung Face into Tibet. The west end a mere 4,000 down onto
the Western Cwm. A sharp drop and a short stop in either direction. Standing on
it, Tom looked out over miles – how many hundreds of miles – with a sense of
awe that gripped him to the heart and stole what was left of his breath. An
immense world of white cloud below them, where sunlit peaks penetrated the
cloud field occasionally with their sharp pinnacles of grey and snow-capped
white. This was it. The top of the world. The place above the clouds. The
ascent into heaven’s realm.
It
was a bare, vast place and it was a private place seen only by the eyes of
those who had earned it with their own sweat and strength, who had proved
themselves worthy enough to climb here themselves. The tent they had pitched
there together on their last visit was a large one, it would be shared by all
five of them today which meant more of a chance of staying warm. Dorje dropped
his pack and went to check the moorings of the tent, tightening and stabilising
them with expertise Tom could only envy. It was good to get the packs and the
mask off. Dorje glanced up and smiled at him as he came to help There was an
exhausted muddle of chipping ice, getting stoves lit and ice in pans to melt in
the tent– staying even reasonably safely hydrated was going to mean a nonstop
cycle of melting snow to drink until they left for the summit. Seventeen hours
of extreme climbing lay ahead of them tonight, during which time eating and
drinking would be mostly impossible.
The
five of them crammed in together to the tent, where despite the closeness of
them squashed together, the thermometer read 30 below. At this point, sweaty,
exhausted, there was no nicer way to put it, they just plain stank at close
quarters once the tent was sealed. Spitz shrugged off his pack, flopped back
against it, and Tom saw him crash almost instantaneously into sleep. Jake
shifted into a corner of the tent, grabbed Tom by the harness and shifted him
over to sit between his knees and lean against him, making more space for Bill
and Dorje. Neither of them would think twice about it. As far as Bill was
concerned, there was not one single member of the Abeausante team who was
straight; Beau surrounded herself with people she felt comfortable with. And
Dorje glanced at them once with gentle, slightly wistful eyes but didn’t look
again. It was difficult to envisage what life was like for a gay Sherpa Khumbu
man. Nepal had legalised homosexuality only in the last eighteen months. It
meant people were no longer imprisoned for an average of two years for being
caught; Nepal were certainly working on welcoming LGBT international tourists,
but among their own population, particularly in the distant rural villages the
Sherpa came from where the traditional culture remained strongest, it was
taboo. It was unlikely Dorje had ever verbalised to anyone what Tom saw gently
present in him.
They
melted ice. Drank. Melted more ice. It took about 2 hours to get even mostly
hot water. No one talked much, and attempts to eat were dogged and soon
abandoned. Up here the digestive system just ceased to work at all, it took in
no nutrition. By early afternoon they undressed the amount that was bearable
and climbed into sleeping bags, resumed their oxygen masks and huddled deep
inside the thick down. It was one of those times where the fact that he and
Jake could share a bag was very, very much to Tom’s way of thinking a blissful
bonus. They were far warmer together than either of them would have been alone,
and exhausted and sore, all he really wanted to do was curl up to Jake and shut
his eyes. On the oxygen it was difficult to really do more than try to sleep
and wait for zero hour.
~
~ ~ ~ ~
We
were so crowded together we lay body against body right across the tent; if Tom
and I hadn’t been able to occupy one sleeping bag together we wouldn’t have all
fitted in. Tom was dozing at intervals, I could feel him let go against me and
the moments where he went limp and his breathing got so spaced out it was
mildly alarming, but his face was turned against me, and when he relaxes like
this it means he’s turned his head off. It’s one of the hardest things he can
do, and it was a great relief to know he could do it tonight. That he could let
himself take comfort, let me do the worrying for both of us.
Tonight
I was getting a bit too good at that. You have to be able to ignore a rather
huge amount of discomfort and personal stress to get up here. You can’t be hung
up on being clean or having enough to eat or being warm enough or that your
throat is now bleeding and you’re coughing up bloody phlem and bits of your
throat lining from the constant icy air. Unfortunately the people who can do
that also tune out the signals that they’ve committed too much and are in
danger. They’re people obsessed on a goal, who push themselves, and that makes
them likely to get summit fever and die trying. Summit fever as it is known
here has taken a lot of lives – people who fought for their goal, sacrificed
everything for it, and had nothing in reserve to survive beyond the achievement
of it. Tom and I were both such people and we were not going to be counted in their number, neither was any other man
in this tent if I could help it. This mountain is the closest physical
challenge in the world to walking into the valley of death and coming back; if
you achieve the summit you actively do that. Take your body to the brink, it’s
extreme climbing for that reason alone. Less than one third of those who
climbed here ever reach the summit – not all of those make it down again – and
half of those climbers are Sherpa.
The
racket that started outside began with lights and the crunch of feet on the
shale and then high voices over the sound of the wind that rattled the tent;
voices distressed enough that I listened and then sat up to unzip myself and
yank off the oxygen mask, sliding quickly out of the bag and grabbing my down
suit and outer boots. Bill was sitting up on the far side of the tent but let
me go, wincing as I opened the outer flap and drenched the inside of the tent
with the icy wind. There were two climbers some way from us, outside a tent
brightly lit from the inside with a lamp, but the two men were roughly dressed
in their down suits and milling outside their tent entrance with that total
lack of co-ordination that comes from severe shock. I’d seen it in victims at
plenty of crime scenes. The wind was brutal across the plateau, it was
shockingly cold – the kind of cold where bare skin freezes in seconds and I
grabbed the nearest guy and shook him a little, pushing him towards his tent.
“Get
your gear on. What happened?”
I
got a flood of language I didn’t understand other than it was high and cracked
and horribly distressed. It wasn’t Spanish, but something in the vicinity of;
possibly Portuguese, but I crawled into their tent and thrust all the kit I
could see at them, pushing it into their hands. The third man in their tent was
curled on his side in the sleeping bag at the far side. His colour said most of
what I needed to know. Outside I heard Tom’s voice, hoarse over the wind but
managing broken phrases in Portuguese and a moment later he ducked inside the
tent behind me.
“They’re
saying he’s dead.”
“They’re
right.” I took my hand away from the guy’s jaw where I’d been searching for a
pulse, or anything, even the faintest trace of breathing, making absolutely
sure. His eyes were fixed and dilated and there was no response. He was just
starting to cool; probably no more than an hour or so gone. With no sign. No
obvious cause. It happens sometimes here; he’d probably stroked out or his
heart had given way or he’d quit breathing through the lack of oxygen, he’d
just died in his sleep, five or six hours away from his summit attempt. We were
never going to know why; there would be no getting him down from here. Outside
I could hear one of his team mates sobbing. I pulled the sleeping bag hood
gently right up and zipped it, enclosing him. These guys had only the one tent,
they were going to have to use it tonight willing or not, and this was not
something they were going to find easy to do for themselves. Tom stooped to
help me and somehow we manhandled the guy outside.
Usually
we’d have done it in seconds, a smooth lift and carry together. Here…. the lack
of oxygen, it was like trying to move underwater. We were clumsy, tired,
impeded by our motor skills being off, by the heavy suits we were encased in,
and it took us some minutes to get the limp figure which felt unbearably heavy
even outside of the tent, and then to be able together to drag him some way
from the tents. Dorje was there on the plateau. The Sherpa avoid death on the
mountain. Many of them will not touch or go near to a body, their beliefs struggle
with it, and he watched us but I could hear his voice through the wind, saying
something in his own language I didn’t understand. Tom dropped on one knee to
help me place the body and ensure it was completely covered by the bag.
Wherever we put him now was where he was likely to stay for all eternity, and I
saw Tom’s hand move to cross himself as he straightened up; I had a fair idea
of what he was murmuring too. I put a hand on his arm and went with him to the
other two climbers, standing shattered and distraught outside their tent. Tom
said something to them in their own language, a few phrases, and one of them
grabbed for me, clutching my shoulders and sobbing against me for a moment. I
hugged him, not able to do anything else for him, and then he let me go and he
and his companion returned to their tent, which was I was sure, the very last
place on earth they wanted to be tonight.
It
was pitch dark out here, completely silent and so isolated – so barren – that
it was like being on the moon. There was something alarming in this darkness, a
sense of this place so powerful that it was like being watched; I hadn’t been
this nervous about a dark place since I was a little kid. I hustled Tom ahead
of me towards our tent and we stripped off a few bits and got back into the
sleeping bag as Dorje settled back into his bag next to us.
“What
happened?” Bill said quietly.
“Died
in his sleep. One of the Portuguese team.”
“Bloody
hell…. The poor bastard.”
I
pulled Tom closer against me, wrapping both arms tightly around him. I’d read
once that at the high camps you would feel like you were climbing with the
worst case of flu you can imagine. They were not far wrong.
“Dorje?
Are the Sherpa as disturbed by deaths here as it’s rumoured?” Spitz said
bluntly in the long, sombre silence that followed, broken only by one of us
coughing at intervals. We were all at it more or less constantly now. Breath
steamed in front of all of us and every face I looked at was sunburned brown,
flushed red with the nip of cold and weathered, showing dehydration and
exhaustion in equal amounts.
Dorje,
huddled in his sleeping bag beside us with a book in his hand, looked over and
gave him a faint smile. Spitz had commented to me that Dorje spent as much time
reading as he did sleeping since we left base camp; always the same book with a
battered, green cover, a book of prayers.
“We
not like go near bodies. Touch bodies. Say superstitious in the books, I know
that word.”
It
seemed a vaguely derogatory term to me; the western inbuilt superiority. Tom
had muttered to me about many westerners here didn’t understand humility and
care for others as a purposeful value in a strong faith in the Sherpa and just
saw it as the deference of the naturally subservient and were happy to benefit
from it.
“There
is belief that spirit there near the body for time after death… climbers laying
on the mountain have restless spirit nearby. And funeral important for re birth
–no funeral is not good thing to us. Death is…. Polluting.”
“That’s
a bit rough on the poor guy, it’s not his fault.” Bill muttered. Tom coughed
again, laying on his back against me with his eyes on the tent roof above, and
shook his head, waiting until he had the breath to talk.
“No,
it’s just not a word that translates well. Polluted to us means ‘dirty’. Some
of what they mean is there’s a separation occurring between spirit and body
that is felt by people around it- it’s like the idea of women menstruating
being ‘unclean’ in the old testament, it’s a buggering up of translation, the
Romans didn’t get semantic content. It’s not about ‘unclean’, it’s that there
was a potential for the most holy moment of life, for a spirit to enter and
animate flesh, and now there’s a kind of death of that potential life, and that
creates a kind of… spiritual vacuum where there isn’t exactly life or death.
This is that same intensely powerful energy in reverse, the separation of flesh
and spirit.”
“Other
spirits are attracted, overwhelm – balance – of those too near.” Dorje said,
searching for the words. “Lungta. In our faith we maintain our balance, our
duty to maintain, and not look on things or touch things that distort us, what
we take inside ourselves. We encourage spirit to move on, to form new life, not
linger in old, finished. It take great strength to witness present spirits
without them touching us, strongest only of lamas, not us.”
I’d
heard Jasper speak of similar beliefs.
“What
of your angels, Tom?” Dorje said after a moment of slightly noisy heavy
breathing as we worked for air and the occasional spluttering as one of us
breathed too deep. “Do they guard balance in death for you? Which one?”
“Several
of them have been called the Angel of Death,” Tom’s eyes had gone distant but
in the peaceful way I was starting to recognise and know what he was thinking
of. That cathedral on another continent, a place he had loved, what I thought
was in some ways the deepest and the most peaceful part of him, held safe there
in his sanctuary. He saw this as a very similar place. He was distressed about
the guy outside, I could feel the stillness in him but he was calm against me,
his body turned against mine. “Azrael. Samael. Gabriel. They’ve all taken the
role at different times in stories. They bear away the worthy – mostly they act
as guides. Good counsellors.”
It
wasn’t the first time I’d noticed a major omission and dug my fingers into what
I could reach of his ribs, making him squirm. “Are you going to tell me what
your problem is with Michael? He’s the most renowned Angel of Death of the lot
of them, he never gets a mention in any of your stories.”
“I
always forget about him.” Tom gave me a sideways sheepish smile. “Yeah, I
suppose Michael too.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Excerpt from The New York
Times, May 4th
... the Twitter feed has been exceptionally active, with several
well-known celebrities contributing their comments which has resulted in the
post going viral last night. The blog has received thousands of hits worldwide
in the last few hours; those who have followed Phoenix over the past few weeks
know that this story of a young man’s assault on the world’s highest mountain
has been gripping and often poetic, particularly including his now famous post
from camp three:
The night before a man was
knighted he spent a night alone in a holy place, prayed and meditated and
readied himself to be worthy. Our Sherpa see this as a supremely spiritual
place that is earned, not an entitlement. We’re in a high place tonight and
preparing ourselves to be worthy.
Ex animo.
His signature – the ancient Latin for ‘from the heart’ – makes
this a particularly touching sign off the night before the most dangerous part
of this climb, and is a reminder that this quest is indeed one of heart and
soul as well as body.
His mother, Madeleine Loudon, a journalist of the Manhattan
Times, describes herself as ‘proud and terrified’. She is appearing this
morning on the Today Show to share how it feels to be waiting for news that her
son has summited in the climbing jargon, and returned safely to camp within the
death zone – the most lethal part of Everest. Phoenix set out on his climb to
the summit in the late hours of last night with his goal to reach the summit
itself this morning. We hope as you are reading this that he is indeed found
worthy and is safely stood upon the pinnacle of his quest.
~
~ ~ ~ ~
From: Ash@Gerashley.net
To: Theo; James; Luath; Flynn
Subject: Um, I
have a question? 9.42pm.
Hi guys
Just to let everyone
know; it’s done, over, Gerry’s doing well and we should be going home in the
morning. He was awake and very much with it by lunchtime, has very little pain
and has been enjoying himself this evening holding court to what seems like
about half the population of Seattle who popped in to see him. It was an effort
to keep visiting down to an hour, but it’s wiped him out and right now he’s too
deep asleep to be bothered by the gown, the décor, the nurses, being messed
with or anything else. Thank you for the flowers, his room is swimming in them.
Thank you too whoever very kindly thought of the crate of food that appeared in
the porch, I hadn’t had time to think of shopping since we only flew in this
morning and was extremely grateful.
I nipped home while
Gerry was in theatre, changed and grabbed some things he needed and checked the
mail since we’ve been away from home a few weeks. I’m fascinated that Gerry
appears to have a letter from Jake’s solicitors asking him to stop posting
comments on some newspaper website, particularly since I know Gerry has had no
internet access for several weeks. From the cc list it looks like family
business, so can anyone help me out here? What exactly is going on?
Love
Ash
PS – phones on
and waiting for news on J&T, they have sworn to let the ranch know when
they are safely down.
~
~ ~ ~ ~
The Flight of the Phoenix:
the exclusive blog of Phoenix Loudon’s epic ascent of the World’s Highest
Mountain.
3rd May
8.50pm
This is it! I just radioed
down to Base Camp to check in.
It was a sad day for us up
here in camp four. One of the Portuguese expedition died in his sleep. It
happens occasionally here, the poor guy must have stroked out or stopped
breathing, his team mates are devastated. I had to help them move him out of
their tent, the whole of our team were shattered for them.
The communications tent is
full of people around the radio, all full of good wishes for our expedition.
Hopefully in a few hours we will be radioing down to them with the good news
that it’s happened - the Phoenix is on the Summit!
Rock on!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
There
was a kind of dim twilight outside when they began at around eight pm to
prepare. It was a relief to finally get up and get started; the sense of
tension became manageable with something to do, although no one spoke. With
breathing an effort, it took time in the light of their head lamps to put on
the gear and double check kit, harness, boots and crampons, to drink, to try to
get down some packet soup that carried some calories, to manage some glucose
tablets, to fit on a brand new bottle of oxygen and start it at the low flow
they would use to climb. To don their very lightly packed backpacks. For the
first time carrying nothing but the emergency supplies for the next few hours,
no sleeping bags, no gear; it was a great difference to shrug it on and clip
the harness and know – the months of preparation were over tonight. There was
nothing more they could do to make ready, this was it. None of them had really
slept, none of them had done any more than lie and try to rest their body; even
thinking straight at this altitude wasn’t easy, but that wasn’t the reason for
no talking. It was too great a task ahead of them for chatter. Inside his down
suit as he zipped it up, Tom found another crinkled scrap of paper and unfolded
it, hunched over it as that was the only privacy possible in the tiny, crowded
tent. Jake’s handwriting was scrawled across it.
You are worthy. You are loved. You are
free to do this if you choose to be.
Free
of heart and free of the people in Sussex, their ghosts and the feelings they
invoked. If he chose to be. Jake understood that. Free of the kind of spiritual
pollution Dorje had spoken of this afternoon; the mountain was angered by
pollution of any kind brought into her sacred cloisters. Free to be with Jake
doing whatever he chose to do. Like cutting away the chain that bound Scrooge,
the burden that encumbered Pilgrim. The weight of what he carried in himself,
the impurity he had hugged to himself for years, afraid to release it until he
came here. And bit by bit it had flowed out of him until he looked at this note
now, at this moment, and smiled because it made sense. Because he was excited
and deeply scared and had a grip on both, and Jake did too.
You are free.
Outside
the tent he paused beside Jake to look up at him and Jake turned him to stand
face to face, the two of them very close in the windblown, dark plateau unnoticed
by the others and their preparations. Jake pulled off both sets of his gloves
for a moment to take Tom’s face in his hands, look straight at him, his voice
quiet but the tone that went right through Tom.
“Are
you ready?”
He
didn’t mean had he checked his crampons. Tom met his eyes, the Mediterranean
aqua here in the snow and desolation, the warmest thing up here at 8,000
metres, and knew that question meant if he wasn’t sure, they’d be staying
behind for a short discussion before following the others and Jake wouldn’t
think twice about it.
“Yes
sir.”
Jake
looked at him for a moment more, searching his face, and Tom let him look, let
him see. And then Jake smiled, his eyes lit and he bent his head to kiss Tom’s
forehead, like the old ancient benediction, then he lightly kissed Tom’s mouth
and put his gloves on.
“Come
on then.”
A
few feet away Dorje, shrugging his pack into place and straightening his red
and yellow woolly hat, caught Tom’s eye and gave him a warm, equally alive-eyed
smile as he began to fit his face protector and oxygen mask.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bill
radioed down to Shem when they were ready to leave. Shem, Max and Bart seemed
to be camping out in the communications tent, they answered immediately and
their brief conversation was mostly good wishes. They were settling in with
coffee to keep a vigil around the radio: no one in base camp in their compound
would get much sleep tonight.
Just
before 9pm they hiked together in a tight group the rest of the way across the
dark, silent plateau in a steady wind. It felt to Tom like some ancient rite
more than the simple, honourable tradition of explorers and the intense
excitement – the awe of it – threaded itself through his belly. Druids had
processed like this in the dark towards Stonehenge. The Knights Templar had
drawn swords to enter two by two to the divine ceremonies of Roslyn Chapel. It
was the approach of armed men together towards a gateway that a few human souls
slipped past in darkness in this month every year, and not all of them ever
returned. Somehow everyone whispered here. In the far distance a small flicker
of light ahead indicated a couple of other climbers on the triangular face
ahead of them, but most of the big expeditions were still preparing below,
there would be no crowds here tonight. The real break in the weather had not
yet come. They would climb against strong winds; not the hurricane blasting
ones Everest was capable of year round, but not yet either the clear conditions
that would mean most of base camp trying for the top. This was their best,
quietest chance.
The
night was still coming. It was cold, as Tom had expected and prepared for in
the blasting wind, but the sky above them was absolutely clear. This was the
final, longest and toughest part of the climb. The true summit was still
concealed above them, they were above 8000 metres now and it was just over a
mile to the top. A mile that took an average of 6 to 9 hours for the average
summiteer. There had been horror stories of years where snow was so heavy up
here that climbers struggled to wade thigh deep, and other years where the snow
was so thin that climbers scrambled and slid with their crampons on the rock,
losing energy fast as they scrabbled for purchase. This was, the Sherpa Ice
Doctors had confirmed who had been up here to fix the ropes for this year’s
expeditions, a good year. There was snow, enough snow that the route was
already marked by the tracks laid down in it, but not deep enough to be wading
in.
The
hours of hard work up the Triangular Face to the Balcony seemed to take
forever. It was here, above every foot he’d covered on this mountain, that Tom
felt his will tested the most. It was steep, pitch dark, nothing to see but the
flickering light of his head lamp casting a small pool of light on the snow in
front of him illuminating Dorje’s boots tramping slowly forward, and the pool
of light cast ahead of him. Nothing to do but resign himself to thinking about
the rope and each step and Jake behind him, the discipline of moving, step
after step upward, stubbornly ignoring the fatigue, the struggle to breathe,
the cold, the pain in his legs and chest. Gradually they spread out in their
line; this was a climb each climber made alone, their focus on their own body.
Their breathing was loud over the masks and the carabiners jingled on the rope
in the buffet of the gale blasting over the face, filling their goggles with
blown snow, buffeting them at each step. It was a slog, a mind numbing struggle
that went on and on through the night, nothing easier than that; he wasn’t
prepared to see the headlamps above him suddenly stop and realise he was
standing on the balcony with Spitz, Bill and Dorje, the first flat area since
they left camp. They paused there to rest, to change oxygen bottles to the new
ones Dorje had stashed there for them some days ago, to drop their masks and to
drink hot tea from their thermoses. It meant stripping off outer gloves for a
few minutes to fix the screw of the new bottle into the regulator, and they’d
practiced this a lot to be ready for this moment in the dark, not thinking
clearly, but they hadn’t known to practice it with hands shaking with cold, the
penetrating cold that struck as soon as the layer of gloves were removed. Tom
did it as fast as possible, shivering hard. It was minus 42 degrees when he
checked the thermometer function on the altimeter that hung on his harness.
Jake dug in his pack and pushed several glucose tablets into Tom’s mouth,
taking several more himself. He was standing angled to Tom, acting as a wind
break to shield him; Tom saw it as he hugged his hands to his chest, trying to
keep himself warm, and stepped closer to run a hand over his back. Spitz was
sitting on the ice, head bowed to catch his breath. Bill crouched beside him.
Dorje stood a few feet away, his head raised, looking up at the mountain above
them. The moon was rising below the balcony, huge and luminous and just short
of full, and above them stars were sharp, bright pinpricks of light in a
midnight blue sky. It reminded Tom of the sky he’d read of above the dying
Titanic, another still, freezing, beautifully lethal night among ice.
From
the balcony they climbed on up the South East Ridge, and if the Triangular Face
had been a bastard…. It began quite gently, but as they reached the ridge
itself, it was a long section of steep, jumbled rock to climb where there were
extremely steep spots where all you could do was brace yourself on the front points
of your crampons on the bit of jutting out rock you were standing on, push your
jumar on your harness ahead of you and pull yourself up. Hillary had likened
this stretch to climbing roof tiles and Tom had always loved roof tops – that
helped. And at least moving and forcing yourself to maintain a pace kept you
warm. Above those rocky slabs of the ridge it got even steeper hellishly so,
and then suddenly it opened out into a wide snow slope. This was the South
Summit. And above it, for the first time visible above them, was the true
summit. Her most cloistered secret. Her white, frozen heart. And as if in
response to their reaching that point, the wind began to drop.
The
up and down undulation of her highest slopes meant a climb downward for a while
to reach the foot of the Cornice Traverse, the most exposed section of all the
climb. Tom had seen pictures of it: it was a steep knife edge to haul up, like
climbing the angular corner of a pyramid. In places, the small snow path that
gave purchase for climbing was no more than five foot wide between the two
triangular planes of exposed rock, and on one side lay an 8,000 foot drop down
the southwest face. On the other side was an 11,000 foot drop down the
Kangshung Face. This was the spot where some climbers were hit with vertigo or
panic. However in the dark it was less terrifying. You could not see anything
but the snow path and the rope ahead of you and Tom was grateful for it. In the
dark, in utter, thumping exhaustion to a degree he’d never before felt in his
life, a blinding, numbing exhaustion, it was simply a cast of follow the path
and deal with the next immediate challenge. His mind was working too slowly to
really think about anything further. It was here, at some point on that slope,
that he became aware of something beside him. Beside him, on a path that did
not exist, the being was walking beyond the narrow knife edge ridge; a silent
companion from the side of his eye that had no real shape but had most definite
form.
He
had read of this phenomenon. No few climbers reported it, he had wondered with
fascination in his study whether he or Jake would experience it and how it
would feel; in the reports it always occurred at this point, above the balcony,
travelling upward on the last stretch to the summit. Hillary had imagined there
was a companion beside him with whom he had conversed as he climbed. Many
others had described the same. In the moment….Tom found there was no sense of
surprise, no sense of academic interest, no sense of anything but a calm
normality that someone should be walking there, just as it was normal for Jake
to be climbing steadily behind him. A deep, flowing, uplifting calm such as he
hadn’t felt in years, as though the mountain was somehow pouring it through
him, up through his crampons and every step he took upon the ice. Some part of
his brain was aware that this was the result of hypoxia; the oddest part was
that it was a familiar feeling, one he had known before. Decades ago, when he
had been very small, when he had been free to wander the cathedral for hours in
that world of coloured light and candles and carven stone, he had known it and
he had forgotten it until this moment. In the alcove opposite the stained glass
windows of the Archangels with their spread wings. In the smallest and his most
favourite of the little dedicated side chapels where he curled up on the stone
ledge for hours in the silence, gazing at the pictures, this sense of a
formless, benign and comfortable companion had been there, filling him with
that peaceful ease. It waited for him as he automatically checked the anchor
point of the rope he was switching onto, there was no sense of needing to talk.
Beyond
the Traverse lay the Hillary Step, the 40 foot wall of rock that Hillary had
climbed, the first human to breach this point of the mountain’s sanctuary, by
jamming his shoulders and feet into a thin crack and levering himself up,
hauling his Sherpa friend up behind him. There were ropes there today, good
ropes, although only one of them could climb at a time and Tom waited with
Jake, stamping his feet to thaw them out of their increasing numbness and
rubbing his hands in their thick, heavy gloves while Bill went up the ropes
ahead of them. Beyond him was the first deep blue cast of dawn, a thin sliver
of light on the horizon that grew slowly, lifting the darkness away. Sunrise.
Above
the step the ground was unroped and vague, as if it went nowhere. In the thin
early morning light Tom followed Bill’s footsteps forward towards a strange,
white set of massive cornices made of snow swept upwards into twisted and
curved points by the sweeping winds, strange towers and pinnacles like some
Russian fairy palace…. and abruptly – there. There it was. There was no further
mountain to climb, just an end with a sharp drop in all directions. A few
flapping prayer flags, a few tightly tied down photographs, notes, the altar
itself. He heard Bill’s holler of delight ahead of him, saw him and Spitz grab
each other in a bear hug, saw Dorje move towards the prayer flags slowly like a
man in a dream. Tom walked past them and dropped on his knees in front of the
world below.
He
knelt there for some time, watching the sun come up over the cloud fields
spread below him. Watching the day return to the heavens. The holiest hour out
of every twenty four.
Mine
is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born
of the one light Eden saw play…
When
he finally stumbled to his feet it was to find Jake standing behind him in the
brightening sunlight, watching, and he held out his arms as Tom turned to him.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It
was actually possible from here to see the arc of the horizon. High enough to
see the world was round. One of the secrets of mankind only visible on earth
from here.
What you have seen, you forever carry
with you.
He had thought that in abandoned cities in jungles un-trod by humans in
centuries. In caves and on waterfalls, in deserts, in the buried depths of the
sea in wrecks and hidden ruins he and Jake had dived together. Some of the most
wonderful moments of his life. There were secrets of beauty, of hidden wonders
that they kept for the world of things few human eyes saw, and this was one of
the rarest and most sacred. Whatever he did in the rest of his life he knew he
would carry this moment, this view, this secret of what truly lay up here at
the highest point of the planet. They radioed down to Shem, Bart and Max,
knowing that many other teams on the mountain would be listening in and
smiling, glad for them. The brief conversation included a lot of cheering, muffled
shouts through the radio as the three in the tents below celebrated with them.
All five of them. Here, unscathed. It would set the reputation of the
expedition, and it would be one of the success stories of all this year’s
expeditions; Mountain Eagles would be known as one of the winners.
They
stayed there only twenty minutes. The pinnacle of the world, the most wonderful
of places. But the greatest half of the climb now lay in front of them and
their oxygen was running out, their tanks draining every minute they stood up
there with the balcony to reach where the full canisters were waiting, and they
gathered themselves and began together the slow and careful climb downwards
from her highest point, leaving her prayer flags streaming their blessings in
the wind above them.
They
were coming down off the Hillary step towards the top of the cornice, the ten
foot ascent upwards – the very last ascent with every other step from this
point downhill. It was infamous. Rob Hall, one of the most renowned of Everest’s
climbers, had foundered here, too exhausted to make that ten feet upwards and
survive. Tom was half way up it when he saw a flash of red to one side of the
trail, tucked below a ledge of rock, and paused, then crouched down to look. It
was a snow suit; he recognised it with a jolt of alarm. The guy was so curled
in under the ledge that it would have been easy to miss him, but there was no
dusting of snow on him. He was unclipped from the line, there was no sign on
the path, they had walked right by him in the dark a couple of hours ago
without noticing. Tom unclipped himself, feeling Jake’s hand immediately close
on his harness as he knelt down over the figure and turned it onto its back,
pulling the scarf away from the face. There was no oxygen tank.
It
was a man – Tom recognised him vaguely as one of the independent climbers, a
young man climbing without support and without oxygen… an admirable ambition
but it looked as if it had gone horribly wrong. He was breathing. It was
between his teeth – and his teeth were bared and clenched tightly when Tom put
his hand to the man’s jaw, there was a very slow, faint pulse and when Jake
leaned past him to raise an eyelid the man’s eyes were fixed. But he was alive.
“Get
him in the sun.” Bill said through his mask behind them, coming with Dorje to
grab his feet. It took the five of them, breathless and clumsy, to drag him out
from the shadow of the rock. In the sun he stood some chance of warming a
little, or at least slowed the process of his freezing to death. Jake pulled
his thermos from his backpack. The hot tea they had carried up hours ago was
tepid now, but Jake poured some against the man’s teeth, a little at a time. It
ran straight back again, the teeth never unclenched. Dorje had pulled off his back
pack and pulled out a full canister of oxygen. He had clearly been carrying it
as an emergency spare and he took off his own mask, gently overcoming Bill’s
protest.
“I
can climb from here, not much to carry.”
He
fixed the oxygen tank to the mask and turned the regulator up to full flow,
fitting it over the man’s face. Jake pulled up his radio, crouching where he
was.
“This
is Mountain Eagles. We’ve got a downed climber just below the Hillary Step,
he’s one of the independents, does anyone know his name?”
There
was no answer but static for a few minutes. Spitz had opened his medical kit
and took one of the several pre-loaded syringes of Dex they all carried,
fumbled to uncover a patch of skin on the boy and stuck him, shooting the Dex
in. Then a heavy Russian accent from somewhere on the mountain came back on the
radio.
“Mountain
Eagles. Aegerter was to summit yesterday. Swiss.”
Tom
had heard the name in camp. Loic Aegerter, an ambitious young mountaineering
champion making a name for himself worldwide. Twenty three years old.
The
boy’s face could have been an old man’s visage under the oxygen mask.
“We
haven’t much time,” Bill said quietly, standing back with his hands on his
hips. His eyes above his mask showed deep pity. “Our oxygen’s not going to last
out Jake, we need to get down.”
They
still waited. It was shocking how cold it became just hanging around here, even
in full sunlight. Jake tried the tea again without any more luck, and lifted an
eyelid again. The boy’s brown eyes were still fixed in their sockets. He was
breathing still but rigid, showing no more sign of reviving than they had when
they found him.
No
one could be brought down from above 8,000. It was a fact that no one ever had
been. The Cornice Ridge was the next obstacle that lay ahead and no one not
able to climb by themselves could possibly be taken, roped down, lowered or anything
else- it took all you had up here to breathe, to move yourself, to survive
yourself. Even below 8,000 it took a team of around eight experienced Sherpa to
lower down an immobile climber at immense risk to everyone involved, and it
very often resulted in injuries, accidents and deaths among the rescuers. Tom
shut his eyes for a moment, knowing what was coming next and bracing himself
for it as Bill said quietly but definitely, “Ok. We’re out of time people, we
have to go. There’s nothing more we can do for him.”
It
was an unthinkable thing to do. Unthinkable to just… leave him. Jake reached
for Tom’s hand, drawing him to his feet with too strong a grip to argue with,
guiding him to the rope and watching to ensure he clipped on. He was turning up
his radio again as he clipped himself on, standing squarely between Tom and the
figure laying in the sun on the ice. Dorje came quietly to join him, and Spitz,
the last to rise from the climber’s side, came the most slowly to the rope
ahead of him.
“Mountain
Eagles. We have the climber on oxygen, we’ve given him Dex. He’s still alive
but he’s not reviving. Is anyone in a position to help?”
In
a few days from now as the full season came into swing and many people were
climbing on this route the big expeditions, who had enough Sherpa support
spread across the mountain, would consider requests like this and whether or
not a rescue attempt was possible. Often it wasn’t. Not through lack of
compassion or interest, but through sheer practical impossibility. There was
another long moment then the radio crackled and a German voice answered.
“Mountain
Eagles, this is Abenteurer expedition
at base camp. Is he talking? Can he stand?”
“His
eyes are fixed.” Bill said behind Jake. “He’s unresponsive. Breathing, but his
jaw’s clenched, he isn’t swallowing. He was without oxygen probably all night.”
“Then
he’s going to die.” The German voice said soberly but bluntly. “If he has gone
down there, below the step… there is nothing you can do for him, I am sorry. It
is hard, I know, but you are going to have to leave him.”
Jake
keyed the radio again, his face was expressionless below his goggles. “Is
anyone near enough to bring him more oxygen? Anyone near to Camp Four?”
“Jake.”
Shem’s South African accent cut across the line, quiet above the static. “If
he’s not responding then I agree, you’ve done all you can. There will be no way
you can get him down from where you are.”
“Our
team are on their way down from Camp Two,” the German voice apologised. “The
Portuguese team are descending, they have abandoned their summit attempt. There
are no other teams in your area Mountain Eagles. If he is not reviving on the
oxygen you have given him then you have already given him every chance, he is
not going to recover. I am sorry.”
“It’s
a risk he took when he came up here.” Bill said quietly to Jake. “He knew what
he was doing. We need to move, Jake.”
It
was horrible. Beyond horrible. They had talked about this, been prepared for
this, and yet in abstract it meant nothing compared to being stood beside a man
in this state. Tom glanced at Spitz who was standing quietly but from the
shaking of his shoulders, not without emotion. How did you walk away from
someone up here, knowing what you were leaving him to? “I will stay.” Dorje
said behind him. “I will wait hour, see if he revives.”
“I
won’t let you do that,” Jake said levelly, “Not without oxygen.”
Dorje
smiled at him. “I independent climber. I stay.”
“Dorje-”
Bill began explosively. Jake paused for a moment. Then took off his own oxygen
kit and handed it to Dorje, blocking Tom’s reflexive grab to stop him.
“Dorje,
take this. Yes, take it. Between my kit and what’s left of your other oxygen
bottle you’ve got enough to wait and still get down.”
“Jacob,” Tom said furiously. Jake shook
his head.
“No.
We’re heading down, the oxygen’s getting thicker all the time, it’s a clear day
and we can move it. Let’s go.”
“If
anyone’s going to do this without
oxygen it’ll be me, not you.” Tom
spat at him, “I’m the lightest here-”
“And
he’s a stubborn, stupid oversized
bastard,” Bill said behind them. “Tom don’t argue with him, don’t waste the
bloody air, just move. Move it, now.”
They
left Dorje with what they had left of hot fluids as much for him as for Loic.
Bill got in front of Jake and Tom climbed close behind him, seething and
praying in close combination. Only the most serious elite of the climbers – the
athlete elite of the mountaineering world – ever climbed here in the death zone
without oxygen, and none of them to his knowledge was Jake’s height. Spitz
stayed right against Tom’s back as they went down – at speed, the descent here
if the ropes weren’t cluttered with people was about three hours, far less than
the hours of painful fighting their way upward this morning, and they were
going fast enough to stay warm.
At
the balcony, Tom pulled his own mask away and handed it to Jake, turning up his
regulator to full power for a few minutes while they drained the tank. Jake
took it and sat down, breathing the full air for a few minutes and to Tom’s
relief his eyes were clear, he was moving well and with his usual, smooth,
graceful co ordination, he was showing no serious signs of being any more
hypoxic than the rest of them. There was as much fierce pride in him as utter
fury with him.
“I’m
taking him on down to camp three.” He informed Bill over Jake’s shoulder. “It’s
still early enough in the day and I want him down at least that low.”
It
might be going well so far, but he was still utterly terrified of seeing Jake
start to reel and hear his voice start to slur, the hypoxia that had happened
at camp two on their first night there. Bill nodded agreement.
“Right.
Spitz and I’ll stay at four tonight and wait for Dorje, that’s a good plan.
Come on, let’s get moving.”
Jake
handed the oxygen mask back to Tom and put it on him, steering Tom ahead of him
towards the rope.
They
reached camp four around eleven am, a tight climb of just over two and a half
hours, and Tom stopped only to change oxygen bottles, shoving a spare one in
his rucksack. Bill gave him a rough, hard hug on the plateau. He looked
exhausted, grey and ready to drop and Spitz looked no better.
“Go
on. Get him down. And don’t thump him, he’s always got to do the noble thing.
You of all people know he does.”
Too
angry with Jake to speak to him, Tom started ahead of him down the steep route
to camp three with fierce concentration and equally fierce prayers that he
could do this, watching his every move. Thankfully this was one of the shorter
camp descents and the Lhotse Face allowed for several stretches of being able
to rappel down the rope; just over an hour later they reached camp three and
Tom unzipped the tent, threw his rucksack down and ripped his crampons off, and
crawled across to make room for Jake, who sat down more heavily to take off his
own gear, and breathed out. A long, heavy breath of relief and exhilaration.
He
was tired. Tom had never seen him look more tired – or actually more alive or
more elated. His eyes were on fire, he looked horribly scruffy, weather-beaten,
thin and wild and utterly, spectacularly beautiful, and a whole lot of other
emotions in Tom fought with the desire to bat him hard across the back of his
head and shake him. Instead he grabbed for his own radio.
“Mountain
Eagles. Bill, Shem, we’re at three. We’re fine.”
He
heard Max’s voice in a short, “Thank God,” and Shem’s South African accent
breathe out in a gusty sigh from base camp.
“Halleluia.
I’ll send those emails out, let everyone know you did it and you’re ok. Well
done guys, bloody well done.”
“Good.”
Bill’s voice sounded exhausted. “We’ve been waiting for you to check in. Right,
Dorje’s called down to say he’s fine, Spitz and I are going to get some sleep.
Do the same. We’ll catch you up in base camp.”
“Come
here.” Jake said, dropping onto his back on the mat as Tom let go the radio.
Tom batted his hand away.
“I’m
not bloody talking to you.”
Jake
evaded the swipe, grabbed his arm and yanked. Tom collapsed on the mat beside
him, exhausted and fuming and… bloody euphoric himself. The high was …
outstanding. Out of this world. Beyond any high he’d ever found on any
mountain, ravine, harbour or anywhere else with Jake in the last few years. To
have done this with him – that moment on top of the world with him this morning
– was one of the greatest moments of his life. There was the craziest urge to
laugh, to whoop and shout, far more than he’d felt in that sunlit moment of
actually standing on the summit.
“You
know what?” Jake said to the roof of the tent, finding his hand and winding his
fingers through Tom’s and his voice was both wondering and with the same sound
of laughter that Tom was suppressing. “We did it. You and I, we actually did it!”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Euphoric
or not, they were knackered. It was a long time before Tom could summon up the
energy or interest to force himself to move, to roll over and light a stove, to
fill pans with clean snow and ice, to work on re hydrating and undressing some
to get into a sleeping bag. His body was aching fiercely, limp, almost too
exhausted to respond. He was laying beside the stove in a half doze, waiting
for the snow to melt with a plan of getting tea down them both, forcing Jake to
use the oxygen mask to sleep to replace some of the oxygen debt his body would
be carrying around for some hours yet, and then both of them sleeping the clock
around – when the radio buzzed and crackled and a voice with a French accent
said anxiously,
“’Allo
all expeditions. Is any expedition missing someone? We have spotted a climber
on the ropes about three quarters of the way up the Face to camp three, he has
been hanging there a while and he is not moving.”
There
was a moment of silence, then several buzzes on the radio from teams checking
in who were mostly around camps one and two. Jake reached a hand over and
grabbed the radio from his discarded harness without sitting up.
“Hey.
This is Mountain Eagles. It’s not us. Tom and I are at three, the rest of us at
four. We’ve got no other climbers on the mountain.”
“Well
he has to be somebody’s.” the French voice on the radio rose a little. “Guys
please, this climber isn’t moving, we’ve been watching him over forty minutes
now since we spotted him, he’s in trouble and the weather’s turning.”
“What?”
Tom leaned over to the radio and changed the channel. “Max? It’s Tom. What’s
the weather doing?”
“It’s
another of these flash gales, it’s coming in fast.” Max said darkly, “It’s come
out of nowhere in the last half hour, looks like it’s going to be a rough
night. You guys well battened down up there?”
“We’ll
get the tents checked and tied down.” Tom told him. “Thanks.”
He
sat up to zip his down suit and reached for his crampons. Jake changed the
channel back to the main one. The French voice was still arguing.
“…
going to have to go down and get him, the guy is clearly in trouble! Will you
people check in? Where are the Taiwanese couple?”
“Back
at base camp as of this morning and probably in their tents asleep,” someone
else’s voice said over the static, “I spoke to them both when they came down
together, I’ve seen them.”
“There’s
no one at camp three not already knackered,” another voice protested. “We’re
headed up to camp four in the morning, if we go down now that’s our summit bid
buggered, can’t anyone at camp two come up?”
“It’s
quicker to go down and take him down with you than for people to try climbing
up, especially with the weather,” someone else argued. “Has any expedition got
guides or back up team they could send?”
“This
is Mountain Eagles,” Shem’s South African accent cut across the radio, sounding
sharp. “Has any expedition seen Phoenix Loudon today? Is he in camp with you?”
Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015
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