Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (18 page)

Junk made River Leaf a cup of tea and prepared a bed for her. “That night, I sat in a chair across the room from her bed and watched her as she laid there, her back to me. She was probably awake and aware of my staring eyes. I was not watching her in any untoward way. I was actually looking at her in complete despair. Was I actually going to ask her what I needed to ask her? Was I really so desperate to go through with this foolishness that I would invite this fainting flower into the mouth of Certain Death? I could not ignore the dying request of a friend and abandon my charge, but it was also mandatory I bring my personal war with Hoyt to a conclusion. So what else could I do? The sadness and shame were overpowering.”

She was indeed awake and she turned over and asked what he wanted. If it was to make love, fine. Just be quiet about it. In the moment, Junk came up with a compromise. He asked her to come with him on the journey, but she could wait safely in Darjeeling until he returned from Fumu. Again, her response was “fine.”

Sitting on the Chappaquiddick shore that night was also Cranston Fenimore, a law student from Chicago. Fenimore was only twenty-five years old. By far, and to this day, he is the youngest man to ever try for the summit of Fumu. Educated overseas at Eton, Fenimore had packed a lot of climbing into those twenty-five years, three times climbing Mount McKinley before even graduating from university. The summit was reached on all three climbs. Fenimore had signed up for the army in 1940 but could not join because a serious case of tinnitus made him almost deaf in his right ear. The constant ringing impaired not only his hearing but his balance. He was fervent in his patriotism and wanted desperately to be enlisted when the inevitable call would come to ship off to Germany or Japan. But the army wanted nothing to do with him. Fenimore would have to get his excitement from climbing.

Junk had actually climbed with Fenimore on
an earlier expedition in Europe
. He had been impressed with the young man’s abilities. When Junk made the offer to Fenimore to go off to Fumu, it was a godsend for the dejected youth. Fenimore had no wife or children yet, and he been struggling through law school at the University of Chicago. He was a strong student, but a distracted one. Upon receiving the call from Junk, Fenimore wrote to the dean, withdrew from his classes, declared “maintenance of status” until his return, and then left Chicago. His parents were too busy in their own social affairs to care about the comings and goings of their now-grown middle son of three, and so he did not even tell them he was leaving for Nepal.

The last person waiting on the beach that night was none other than Patrick McGee. The bear of a man was quieter than usual. He was actually petrified. Junk had approached McGee before any of the other team members, almost right away after Hoyt’s proposition. Over draughts at Beacon Hill Tavern, Junk said, “I need people I can trust in a tight situation even more than I need people who can climb.” McGee was shocked by the request. He explained he was in no kind of shape to be climbing anything. Junk responded that McGee could head off to Blue Hills Reservation every day for the subsequent week and just try to run up the mountains. It would hurt, but it
was
possible to get physically ready in seven days (of course it was not). In the debate between the two old friends it also came out that, to McGee’s embarrassment, he was deathly afraid of heights. He had lived his whole life on the city streets. Boston, Providence, and occasionally New York. He explained to Junk that the highest he had ever been was Commonwealth Avenue out past Brookline. They were like brothers, but McGee pleaded with Junk not to ask for this favor. He was not a mountain climber. Junk put his hands on the giant shoulders of his oldest friend who was visibly sweating and said, “There are people out there who beat their children yet they call themselves ‘parents.’ There are cretins with crooked writing and sparse vocabulary who call themselves ‘writers.’ So why can’t you call yourself a mountain climber?”

McGee mulled this over, and then repeated slowly and quietly, “I’m afraid of heights.”

Junk responded, “I swear you’ll be safe. I won’t let anything happen to you. Let me speak a language you understand; I will bet you one million dollars you die on this trip.” The largest wager the two had ever placed. An odd wager at that, but Junk must have felt he knew what he was doing. This man would work twice as hard if money were on the line. Of course if McGee died, he would not be able to pay out. Junk suggested he deposit the money into a bank account under both of their names.

Slowly and painfully, McGee put out his hand. Junk shook it and then hugged his old friend.

While he waited on the shore that night with his motley team of disenfranchised adventurers, Junk must have sensed how far away his destination lay. There he was on a clear, cool New England evening, listening to seagulls cry out in hunger and war, smelling salt air, watching large waves crash and roll away, and feeling cool winds from the north. How on earth could he be leaving the approaching spring for such a forbidding destination? Fumu may have been answering his question at that moment, but from so far away, Junk could not hear it.

Out of the dark a small boat appeared, the light of a small lantern in the bow bobbing on the waves. One distant voice was yelling rhythmically in a foreign tongue; commands to the others on the boat to take strokes of the oar. Then the boat was coming over the breaking waves. A short man stood in the bow. He was a dashing oriental, dressed impeccably – but oddly - in an American naval captain’s uniform. Next to him was a girl of no more than thirteen. The rowers, their backs to the shore, were shirtless and sweating. When the boat made land, the standing man jumped ashore and rushed up to the team. “Junk!” he shouted. Junk walked forward. The man saluted. Junk saluted back. Then the man shook Junk’s hand formally and said in very good English, “You may remember me as Than. I am Gary Cooper now. Please address me as such. It is a pleasure to see you once again. My ship is at anchor only a few hundred yards out. Now if you will excuse me for one moment.” He walked past the Americans and dropped to his knees. Then he dropped flat on the ground, face to the side and contorted in ecstasy. He slowly sifted the sand through his fingers. He craned his neck back in what appeared to be a painful position and kissed the sand beneath. For the first time in his life, he was touching America.

Morrow wrote near the beginning of his journal:

“
He bounced up quickly and strode back to the group, not removing the sand still holding fast to his face. Cooper then told half of us to get on the boat. He would return momentarily for the second group and then return several more times to pick up the equipment - over one ton’s worth- that could not fit on the first two trips. As part of the first group, I loaded my backpack, tent, and dried goods, and jumped aboard. I sat next to my equipment. My hiking boots were tied to my pack and they drove into my side. Water soaked through my loafers. The young girl looked at me, expressionless. To break the ice, I asked Cooper if this lovely girl was his daughter. Cooper looked back at me with an expression that could have set my hair on fire had it not been slick with sea water. Out of self preservation, I never said a word to the man again.”

And so, on the evening of May 22
^nd
, 1941, Junk’s team left the United States on its way around the war-torn world to ascend to its loftiest perch. Some of them would never return.

Within less than one hour on the
Souls At Sea
, a pirate was already trying to have his way with River Leaf. He pawed at her and flicked his tongue near her face. Morrow wrote, “His back was to us and he was quite tall, so we could not see River Leaf behind him.” The rest of the Americans watched quietly, uncertain what to do. If they did nothing, her honor would be compromised. If they acted, they risked roughly twenty armed pirates killing them in cold blood.

As it turned out, they did not need to do anything. The randy pirate was suddenly screaming. “From behind, all we could see were his hands trembling in the air, fingers contracted into claws. He whirled around to show a gaping orifice beginning at the left shoulder and ending at the right hip. He looked down at parts of his body he had never seen before, not daring to touch for the certainty of pain beyond that which he was already experiencing. Blood was already pooling at his feet. Then he fell and never moved again.”

River Leaf was brandishing a small knife she must have taken from the galley and stowed in her clothing for just such an occasion. She was standing as if ready to take on another comer. The Americans stood silently waiting for death. But to their surprise, after a long silence, Gary Cooper laughed deeply and this made the other pirates laugh. Cooper approached River Leaf, slapped her on the back and handed her a glass of whiskey. The dead pirate was unceremoniously thrown overboard like so much jetsam and the rest of the night was spent in sloppy revelry. Junk looked at River Leaf all night as she drank deeply. Perhaps he would not have to watch over her as much as he thought.

And so the journey started off well. The Souls At Sea traveled slowly eastward across the Atlantic. The Americans busied themselves studying maps of India and Nepal, checking and re-checking their equipment, and debating strategies to surmount the Qila Pass. Fumu routes be damned; the knotty issue of the Qila Pass would have to take all of their attention or else the mountain beyond it would be irrelevant. Fenimore recommended looking for a more forgiving route on the north side of the Qila dominion, but Junk felt the gamble was too great. A hike to the north around the
outside
of Qila - to the east of Abel and Mitya - would be two solid weeks, and the odds were high that no easier pass would be found. No one who had tried to climb Fumu had ever come across one. They would take the Qila Pass or die trying.

As the
Souls at Sea
left the continental shelf of the Americas and the swells began to grow, the vomiting began. Those seasoned climbers who had been on ships before were better off, vomiting only when the weather got rougher. River Leaf also did relatively well. But McGee was unstoppable. He vomited throughout the day and dry-heaved throughout the night. He would sit in bed waiting for sleep to rescue him from this ceaseless universe of movement, but it rarely came. At Junk’s pleading, McGee drank water constantly so as not to dehydrate. For the first time since he was about twelve years old, McGee stopped drinking alcohol entirely. Although not in much better shape, the rest of the team mothered him as best they could. McGee, who had little experience writing anything, began to compose a journal, just to keep his brain busy. The sentences were childlike in their brevity, lack of capitalization, and incompleteness. “I fel (sic) teribel (sic)” he wrote. “No horizin (sic). Just waves. Where is gravutee (sic) coming from? From difrent (sic) places every momint (sic).” For the whole team, especially McGee, their stomachs would not stop until they reached shallow waters again.

The journey then hit a serious snag about two weeks in. Junk had an uncanny sense of direction, and for the life of him, he could not detect any southerly tendency in the ship’s course. The sun remained at their bow every morning and to their stern at sunset. This concerned him no end. Were they not going to head into the South Atlantic and make their way into the Indian Ocean around Cape Agulhas. If so, then by now he would have surely detected some gentle turn to starboard. But none came. Junk gently prodded Cooper about the route, but Cooper always showed resistance. “Leave the route to me” Cooper would say in a patronizing voice. But Junk was persistent. He began to ask other related questions in the hopes of obtaining clues about their course. “How long do you estimate before we see the African continent on our port side?” But Cooper did not bite. “Don’t you worry Mr. Junk. I will you get you to your destination.”

Finally, Junk was out of patience. One evening after the crew had attained a state between drunk and asleep, Junk convinced his team member Cole to inquire about the chances of coming ashore in Liberia. “I’ve heard great things about the natives. Apparently they look resplendent in their colourful robes. I fancy myself a photographer and would love to take some photographs.” The Americans were all at the table and they listened intently for Cooper’s reply. Cooper was not fooled. After a long pause and a smile clearly designed to mas annoyance, he pushed himself away from the table at which he sat and said “Fine Junk. You really want to know? No, we are not going around Cape Horn. We are going to get there by way of the Mediterranean. It is a far quicker route.”

This was Junk’s worst fear realized. He immediately inquired as to whether Cooper was insane. Such a route would take them within firing range of the European continent. The Straits of Gibraltar were guarded by the British, who upon detecting a ship full of pirates would show no quarter. And even on the outside chance the British missed them or
did
let them pass, the Germans and Vichy French were making air and sea incursions on Gibraltar regularly. Never mind the German navy controlling most of the Mediterranean that lay beyond, or the Suez Canal bordered as it was by Italian occupied territory, The Straits of Gibraltar was a death trap.

Morrow recalled in his writing that Cooper was visibly angered: