Annapurna (22 page)

¹
At this time we still thought that we had been up to 21,700 feet, the height registered by our altimeters.

²
On the way up, between Tukucha and the Base Camp, this particular Sherpa had consumed an excessive amount of chang and methylated spirits.

11

Camp II

THE MINUTE I
arrived, Terray gave me some boiling hot tea. I was not allowed to get a word in: he forced me to eat, indeed, practically stuffed the food down my throat. In the other tents, the Sherpas were very busy looking after Dawathondup, who was putting up a continuously good performance as an invalid. And as for me, after this very substantial meal I was not in the least worried by the fact that I was tired; this seemed a perfectly natural result of our exertions. At last Terray allowed me to speak and I gave him particulars of the present position of the camps.

‘By now most of the equipment is already on the spot. We’ve got to do one more carry to establish Camp V, which will be the taking-off point for the final attack; we’ve got it all taped. This time there’s a very good chance.’

Terray had apparently completely recovered down at Camp I, from which he had just come up, but he still looked worried.

‘Yes, everything will be all right if only the weather holds. The weather reports on the wireless are very bad: the monsoon has reached Calcutta, and it will be here in a few days.’

‘Anyway, I’m feeling in splendid form,’ I said. ‘I’m certain, from the way I’ve been going at 23,000 feet, that I’ll do fine at 26,000, and without oxygen, too.’

But Terray was not so optimistic.

‘If we have to plough along as we’ve been doing so far, it will be a labour of Hercules and we shall end by running into trouble.’

He asked me what I thought of the condition of the climbers up at Camp III, and I had to admit it was not promising. The four I had left up there had struck me as being in a poor way, both in their physical condition and in their morale.

‘On the other hand, Lionel, I’m not in the least anxious about us two,’ I said. ‘What’s more, the route is now equipped right up to the glacier. With the four Sherpas we’ve got here, you and I can now go steadily on up to the top.’

‘We’ll have to go all out,’ replied Terray, enunciating the phrase as though he had just invented it.

‘Listen, I’m absolutely certain now: unless there is some unforseeable catastrophe, we’ll succeed. Even admitting that the four at Camp III remain in poor form, which I don’t think likely – particularly the ones who are better acclimatized – we ought to be able to make it. I suggest that we stay here all tomorrow to give ourselves a rest. We’ll have plenty of time to make our preparations, and the day after tomorrow we’ll be as fresh as paint and able to go on up from camp to camp. Then of the four who come down here tomorrow, the two strongest, after resting a day, will go up again to back us up. The other two, who will have had the advantage of an extra day’s rest, will have plenty of time to follow on a camp behind. Both these parties will bring up more equipment, and help the first summit party to come down.’

‘There’s not a minute to lose,’ Terray replied obstinately. ‘Your plan is all very fine, but it makes me waste time. What will I be doing all day tomorrow? I’m already rested. It’ll be better if I go on up and so gain a stage that might well turn the scales …’

‘I don’t deny that, but if you go tomorrow we shan’t be together any more; we’ll be out of step, and for the moment we’re the only two who are really fit – and two men are needed for the work above 23,000 feet. I’m positive that together we’d bring it off.’

‘Let’s be practical, Maurice. However you look at it, we lose a day that way. It can’t be helped if I’m not in the first party to reach the summit – I’ll be in the second, that’s all. But if only one party gets there, it may be because of the load that I’m going to carry up.’

I hardly knew what to do. Terray’s selflessness did not surprise me – I had appreciated it for years – but at this moment it seemed to me that his heroism had in it a certain disregard for reality. Terray thought only of doing his duty. But I could not help wondering if there might not be an element of selfishness in my wish to have him as a partner the day after tomorrow. With Terray’s example of utter disinterestedness before me, this notion worried me and made me hesitate.

‘Well, I suppose I must say yes,’ I said, regretfully: ‘on the face of it, you’re right, but I am sure a chance like this will never occur again.’

Terray seemed uncertain. Then I had an idea.

‘If you insist on going up tomorrow, Lionel, why don’t you go up just to Camp III, with a high-altitude unit which the others can then take on further up, and come back here yourself the same evening? We’ll stay a day longer so that you’ve time to recuperate and then we can start. We’ll both go up with lightly-loaded Sherpas who will then be able to take turns at making the tracks, leading for short spells. As we go up we can strike Camp IV, and establish Camp V if necessary, and then we’ll carry right on to the top.’

I had seized on this solution, for I was positive that it would enlist Terray’s support, anxious and impatient as he was to ensure the continuity of the load-carrying.

‘All right, if that’s what you want,’ he said to my deep relief.

We spent a very cheerful evening. I appreciated the great comfort of Camp II with its valley tents, electric lighting, reserve containers, camp boots, and water in plenty. It had been entirely re-organized by Terray after an avalanche had blown down the tents: it was in a well-sheltered position behind a crevasse wide enough to swallow up even the largest avalanches.

We were warm in our sleeping-bags, while outside the snow was falling thick and fast. By the dim light of the hanging lamp I could barely see the smoke curling up from our cigarettes, and Terray’s face was hidden in the shadows. We kept coming back to our plan of attack, and wondered how soon Noyelle would arrive from Tukucha with our main supply of food and equipment. But we were tired, and Terray, economical as ever, soon put out the light. In a few minutes we sank into oblivion.

In the dark somebody knocked against me, I heard a steady muttering – a hand brushed my face and the light went on. ‘Time to be up,’ said Terray.

He put his boots on and went out to wake his Sherpas. All through the expedition he remained faithful to his tactics of the early start. And he was certainly right, for the snow is far better during the first hours of daylight. But it needed resolution, and only he seemed to have it. I shut my eyes again and reflected with deep satisfaction that while others were sweating their guts out I should be warm and snug and pampered by the Sherpas. At the first streaks of dawn I heard a deep: ‘Goodbye, then, Maurice.’

‘Good luck!’

Terray closed the tent carefully. He was an invaluable chap. I know no one in France who comes nearer to being the ideal member of an expedition.

The hours went by and the sun lit up my tent and warmed it. The camp was silent as the grave. My two Sherpas were recuperating too. But it was getting late and from my sleeping-bag I called out.

‘Angdawa!
Khana! Khana!
’

I heard muffled sounds, then: ‘Yes, sir!’ and I guessed that preparations were somehow getting under way.

With depressing slowness I extricated myself from my bedding, took my frozen boots, and began tapping them before putting them on. I put on my eiderdown jacket, my cap and glasses, and was then ready to go outside. The weather was magnificent but the valley down below was filled with a splendid sea of clouds. Above, everything was perfectly clear. There had been a heavy fall of snow during the night and I thought that Terray would be finding the going very bad. Looking through the glasses I followed his tracks and soon picked up his party just at the first ice wall. He and his Sherpas were battling their way up and must have been breathless with the struggle. I examined the neighbourhood of Camp III and saw two black specks leave it and come
down
. But they ought all to have been continuing
up
to Camp IV; I was afraid that their physical condition must have taken the heart out of them.

Heavy clouds appeared in the Miristi Khola Valley, and their unusual colour bothered me; I had gloomy forebodings about the outcome of the day. Could the clouds be the precursors of the monsoon?

Dawathondup was feeling worse and worse and I decided to send him down in the first party returning to Camp I. For the moment he lay in his sleeping-bag, moaning and holding his stomach with both hands.

Snow began to fall again; I went into my tent and lay on my air mattress day-dreaming. Before long I heard shouts. I thought it was sure to be Lachenal and shouted back. There was such a maze of tracks on the plateau that a sound signal might well be useful. A few minutes later he arrived, with Couzy.

‘No use going on,’ said Lachenal, ‘my stomach was all inside out.’

‘And I had the most appalling headaches,’ said Couzy. ‘Even with aspirin and sleeping-tablets I couldn’t sleep a wink.’

‘If only you could have heard him,’ Lachenal began again. ‘He moaned all night, and said he felt as if his skull was splitting.’

‘It’s the altitude,’ I said. ‘You were perfectly right to come down. What about the others? Will they go up again with Lionel?’

‘We weren’t feeling enterprising up there,’ explained Lachenal, ‘particularly after all the snow that fell during the night. I can’t really tell you, but I think they were waiting for Lionel before deciding.’

We went inside the tent. Lachenal visibly relished the comfort it offered. Couzy’s headache had disappeared as he came down. It commonly happens – as soon as you descend a few hundred yards all the ills due to altitude disappear. While the two of them were changing and getting dry, I went off to find out from Angdawa what there was for lunch. There must be no hesitation about killing the fatted calf to raise my friends’ morale! In spite of their exertions they had scarcely eaten a thing since the day before yesterday.

We managed a very substantial meal, and, to my great satisfaction, Lachenal and Couzy did full justice to it; then we lay down and chatted in a more cheerful frame of mind. As we were taking it easy like this, Angdawa poked his panic-stricken little face through the opening of the tent and cried out:

‘Bara Sahib! Other Sahibs come!’

Then, after a moment’s silence:

‘Bara Sahib, hear!’

And indeed I heard someone calling.

As it was still snowing steadily I quickly put on my gaiters and anorak and went out. I could not see more than ten yards. From time to time I distinctly heard shouts. It was certainly a Sahib, for the Sherpas could make themselves understood over great distances. The voice did not come from the direction of Camp III, but from a point much nearer the Cauliflower Ridge. There were two possibilities: either it was someone coming from Camp III who had gone off to the left and who now found himself among the crevasses, or else it was someone from Camp I who had gone up too high. Anyway they were in no danger, because there is never any mistaking a cry of ‘Help!’ in the mountains. I gave an answering shout, and in spite of the distance the man heard; he appeared to
move
to the left – he had understood. His shouts came nearer and I was able to give directions.

‘Keep left, always to the left, beside the big crevasse.’

I went on repeating this until he answered that he had understood.

A quarter of an hour later a reeling white ghost appeared; I had difficulty in recognizing it as Schatz.

‘Where’s Rébuffat?’

‘I came down alone.’

‘Alone? You’re crazy! In this weather and over that ground?’ I felt the blood rushing to my face.

‘But my dear chap,’ said Schatz, ‘I couldn’t do anything else. I felt completely done up at Camp III. I was quite incapable of helping Lionel tomorrow, and just a useless mouth to feed, so I decided to come down.’

I was really angry. It was, I think, the first time since the beginning of the Expedition that I had been roused like this.

‘And so, in a place like this, you, practically a sick man, go and run useless risks! Just imagine, a simple slip, like the other day – and suppose Angdawa hadn’t heard your shouts …’

However, it was over and done with. The thing now was to help Schatz forget the strain of his lone descent. Hot tea and a good meal brought the colour back to his face. And then he, too, became infected by the pervasive optimism of the camp and began to see the future in a rosier light.

‘Did Lionel reach Camp III all right?’ I asked him.

‘The deep snow had slowed him up a lot. When Gaston and I were coming down we ran into him in the mist. He was in such tremendous form that we went back with him.’

‘How was it that Gaston didn’t come down with you afterwards?’

‘I’ll explain: we talked it all over. Lionel said that Camp IV ought, properly, to be organized by the four who had slept at Camp III the night before – Couzy, Lachenal, Rébuffat and myself. Even though two had gone down, the job ought to be done.’

‘So you decided to go up with him?’

‘Exactly.’

As usual Terray had put efficiency before everything else. He considered it his plain duty to do so. But Schatz went on:

‘As I was so tired, I told Lionel that rather than conk out next
day
on the slope, it seemed far better for me to go down to recuperate. Later, I could make a rope with Couzy.’

‘So tomorrow Lionel and Gaston will be going right up?’

‘Yes, if it’s fine enough.’

Would they really be able to go on? Perhaps they were now to be given the real, longed-for chance.

Outside, the Sherpas were talking excitedly. What was going on now? I put my head out and saw Ajeeba, who had just come up from Camp I, followed by a number of porters. Behind him was a coolie whom Ichac had dubbed ‘the Chinee’. Later we learned that his real name was Pandy. He had come up to Camp II easily, in spite of the technical difficulties; he was a sort of honorary Sherpa. To celebrate this promotion, we made him a present of a magnificent nylon waistcoat which he wore with great pride. Ajeeba handed me two notes which I read aloud in the tent: