The Everest Files (16 page)

They began the slow grind up the ridge, gaining height at a rate of about sixty or seventy metres per hour. The route here was unroped and Brennan's progress was erratic. Kami was unable to get into a rhythm and after an hour of fitful climbing he was grateful when Brennan spoke.

‘Can you take over in front?' he asked.

Kami did so, finding his natural pace and remembering Jamling's advice to keep his breathing under control. Brennan fell in behind him, matching the young Nepali's steady pace but still gulping for air and coughing intermittently into his oxygen mask.

Dawn was now just an hour away and Kami could sense the weather deteriorating. He gathered in the drawstring of his hood, pulling the down suit closer to his face to reduce the amount of exposed skin. But the wind still sliced through, making his cheeks numb and freezing the tip of his nose.

Daybreak was depressing. The light didn't erupt with a fanfare, it just sneaked up on the mountain and wrapped it in a sort of sullen grey shroud, a brooding pewter sky loaded with menacing clouds.

Kami felt his spirits sag. Was this a message from the gods, he wondered?

Brennan called a rest stop and Kami chipped out a small ledge with his ice-axe so they could sit. Brennan unclipped his waist strap and shrugged off his rucksack. He opened it up and began to fiddle with the oxygen bottle inside.

‘Problem?' Kami asked.

‘Nah. Just some glitch in the airline.'

He closed up the rucksack and munched on a granola bar for a while. Then they got back up and continued the ascent of the ridge.

Kami focused on landmarks, wanting targets to head for. Mostly he set his sights on exposed rocks, counting out the laborious steps until he reached them. Once he set a mark on a patch of dark material some thirty metres above, only to find to his horror that it was the partly buried body of a dead climber.

They passed two more victims of the mountain in that hour alone, dessicated figures, their clothing ripped to rags by the wind.

At the place known as the South Summit – a small outlying nodule of rock which was still a serious distance from the true top – they rested again and Kami was able to cache two of the full oxygen bottles for the return. Slipping the lighter pack on his back was a big morale booster; eight kilos less to carry.

More energy for the climb.

Every once in a while Kami had checked to see if he could see the Japanese team higher up the ridge. Earlier, the steepness of the terrain had obscured them from view.

Then he saw movement. Now the Japanese team were in sight above them, returning along the ridge. Kami tried to deduce from their movement if they had made it or not but at this distance there was no way of telling; they just looked like three immensely weary men.

Half an hour later, the first of the three man team arrived at their position.

‘We made it!' The climber clasped Kami's hand and pumped it up and down in slow motion.

‘That's great!' Kami told him with a huge smile as his two fellow climbers arrived.

‘You get some good pictures?' Brennan asked.

‘You bet. Video, phone call back to Tokyo, everything worked like a dream.'

The Japanese leader took off his goggles and polished off the ice which had formed across the lenses. He looked like a man who hadn't slept for a week, but the triumph of the summit was still burning in his eyes.

‘How long to the top from here?' Brennan asked. His voice was becoming hoarse from the constant cough.

The Japanese leader looked back up the ridge.

‘Three hours, maybe more.'

‘Three
hours
?' Brennan and Kami exchanged a look. Neither of them believed it could possibly take that long from their position.

‘I was watching you just now,' the Japanese leader continued, ‘you're climbing too slow.'

‘We'll make it,' Brennan told him.

‘Maybe,' the leader replied, unconvinced, ‘but you are too late my friend.' He tapped his wrist to emphasise that time was ticking away.

‘Thanks for your opinion,' Brennan replied curtly, ‘but I'll make my own decisions.'

‘Whatever. I'm only trying to give you some advice.'

With that the three exhausted Japanese climbers picked up their ice-axes and slowly resumed their descent.

‘I need a good rest now,' Alex told him. He sat heavily on the ice, his head in his hands. He looked depressed, Kami thought, not surprising when considering how much work there was still to do.

Kami waited ten minutes. ‘We go now sir?'

But Brennan did not respond. In fact, he seemed asleep behind his mirror goggles.

Kami had a sudden instinctive thought; he unclipped the straps on Brennan's rucksack and checked out the little red and green gauge on his oxygen cylinder.

It was showing empty.

Kami checked it again to be sure. It took a moment or two for his altitude dulled mind to register what he was seeing but the information got through in the end.

Four litres a minute. The highest flow rate possible.

Brennan had set his delivery rate at the maximum.

No wonder his oxygen had run out so fast.

Jamling's words flashed into Kami's mind; strict instructions not to use more than two litres a minute maximum.

Brennan had ignored it.

All this was bad news, Kami knew, but there was something even more troubling; even though Brennan had been running on the maximum oxygen rate, he had been getting slower and slower as they headed up the ridge.

Brennan was really
suffering
. Altitude had undermined all that raw strength and corroded his ability to think straight.

What he had done was illogical and dangerous.

But what could Kami say? He could hardly reprimand the boss.

‘I'm going to set up a new bottle for you,' Kami told Alex.

‘Go for it,' Brennan mumbled. Five minutes later it was done; the full bottle clipped onto the line and feeding into Brennan's mask at two litres a minute. Kami snapped the American's rucksack straps together and told him. ‘All set.'

‘That's a bit better,' Alex commented. He drew deeply on the oxygen, somewhat revived.

Kami pulled his fellow climber to his feet and they climbed around some rocky pinnacles and regained the ridge. Brennan was moving a bit better now he had more Os running into his system, but before long the epic climb entered a more technical phase.

A sheer wall some five metres high.

Kami realised it had to be the famous Hillary Step, the most serious technical challenge on the South East Ridge.

Kami stared up at the ice wall, feeling a surge of adrenaline course through his body. It looked serious and awkward in equal measure, patches of diamond hard blue ice overlaid with wind packed snow. Dozens of ancient ropes were embedded in the ice or just flapping uselessly in the wind.

This would be a real test, Kami realised, but he knew he could do it.

‘You go first,' Brennan told him.

Kami could see a solid length of fresh rope had been fixed to the right of the climbing line. He pulled on it hard to test it then clamped his jumar onto the cord.

He started to climb, reaching up with his left arm to whack his ice-axe into the face, gaining a bit of height then sliding the jumar clamp up the rope with his right hand.

After each upwards lunge, he kicked his crampon spikes into the ice surface and rested on his front points. Once or twice the snow crumbled without warning; giving way in an instant, leaving his legs scrambling in mid-air with all the weight on his arms until he could kick them back in to a firmer spot.

Kami's jumar/ice-axe combination wasn't the most elegant climbing technique but it was effective; after seven or eight moves he was able to lunge onto the shelf at the top of the Hillary Step. He flopped onto his stomach and lay there for long moments, savouring the satisfaction of the climb and trying to get his breath back.

‘OK,' he called down to Brennan after a bit, ‘Your turn.'

Alex Brennan waved a hand at him but did not rise to his feet as Kami expected. Instead he just sat there staring out into the billowing clouds which now filled the Western Cwm, spindrift pattering against his wind suit, his shoulders hunched against the wind.

Kami left it for five minutes. Ten. He knew that things were getting really late now; they really
had
to get moving.

‘You OK?'

‘Yeah. Just taking a break,' Brennan shouted back.

A few minutes later Brennan got up and started the climb but he looked weak from the start. He wasn't
attacking
it as Kami had done. Rather, he was pawing at the face, burning precious energy as he drew quantities of snow down.

But slowly he did manage to make some headway up the ice face, gaining two body lengths and reaching the midway point on the step.

Brennan reached up again with his ice-axe, and plunged it into the face. But there was little power in the strike and the axe was not deep enough to get a true purchase.

Kami watched him struggling, amazed that this Olympic athlete could have been reduced to a shambling shadow of his former strength. He understood it; he was feeling the same effect in that moment – but the young Nepali knew he still had something left in the tank.

And Brennan was running on empty.

Finally, Kami made a decision. He reached down and grabbed hold of the back of Brennan's wind suit. He gritted his teeth and pulled up with a mighty heave, hauling his fellow climber up onto the snow shelf where they both now collapsed in a heap.

‘That's a tough one, Brennan gasped, ‘thanks, man.'

They rested for a while, lying flat out on the ridge as Brennan coughed like his lungs were on fire.

Kami had no idea how much time went past as they waited in that exposed spot. Enough time for great regiments of clouds to sweep across the summit. It seemed that Brennan had given up looking at his watch.

Now the ridge was getting perilously narrow and the wind was coming in hard. Kami felt himself buffeted by the blast and he angled his body to prevent himself being blown off his feet, dropping his shoulder into the wind and standing side on.

While he waited for Brennan to catch him up, he stared ahead, realising with some despair that the summit still looked far away.

There was plenty of climbing still to go and all of it along that scary looking ridge line.

Brennan was following on, but in fits and starts. He would take a few miniscule steps, then pause for what seemed to be an age, hunched over his ice-axe and coughing with that deep lung-rattling shudder that had been worsening ever since Camp Two. Kami was itching to push ahead but he knew his duty and he would not leave the boss.

The walkie talkie squawked into life; Brennan fumbled for it in his pocket.

‘We just lost you on the long lens,' Kurt told them, ‘We got nothing but cloud here at Base, over.'

‘We're still here,' Brennan replied, ‘Still on the ridge and heading up.'

‘We got a meteo report and it's not looking good,' he continued, ‘Wind's rising fast. The guys here are saying you should maybe call it a day.'

‘Not now,' Brennan replied slowly. ‘We've come too far to fail.'

Kurt started to reply but Brennan terminated the call. He clicked off the walkie talkie and stuffed it back into his pocket. Then he succumbed to another of the coughing fits and Kami couldn't help noticing flecks of blood in his saliva as he spat.

‘You cool to keep going?' Brennan asked Kami.

‘Yes, sir.'

A new gust of wind suddenly ripped across the ridge, sending them both crashing down for cover. Kami thrust the tip of his ice-axe in as an anchor, holding on to Brennan's harness with his other hand as the violent blast threatened to blow them down the Kangshung Face.

The gust whipped away, taking a vast amount of ice particles with it. Kami got to his feet and surveyed the situation; he was shocked to find that none of the subsidiary peaks were now visible. Pumori, Ama Dablam, Changtse; all were smothered in cloud.

‘We should keep moving, sir.'

No response.

Was he asleep? Or was cerebral oedema shutting down his brain?

Kami decided he would radio down to Base. The whole situation was way beyond his experience and he needed some advice from Tenzing or Lopsang. Should he try and persuade Brennan to turn around? Or was his condition more or less normal on a summit day attempt?

‘Sir!' Kami gave the boss a gentle knock on the shoulder and he came around with a start, ‘I want to use the walkie talkie sir.'

Brennan shook his head; ‘No time for that. We've got climbing to do. Time is rolling on.' Brennan tried to rise, but slumped back. Kami clasped his hands, pulling him upright. He clipped both of their karabiners onto the frayed safety line, figuring that even doubtful protection was better than none.

Ten minutes' more rest. Brennan's flask giving them both a precious mouthful of sweet tea. Then back to the climb and the technical challenges of the ridge and the ever deteriorating weather.

Now Brennan was crawling more than walking. His breathing was definitely stressed. Kami could tell that every upwards movement required prodigious amounts of will.

How much longer could the American keep going? Kami was thinking about the dead bodies they had passed earlier.

The ridge became steeper again. Complicated rock requiring big steps up. Just what they didn't need, Kami thought miserably. Not vertical like the Hillary Step but not far off it. The American put his arm around Kami's shoulders, looking for support. But the terrain would not allow the two of them to pass in that way, the ridge was so narrow that only one could traverse at a time.

A further assault began from the wind, the force sufficient to make Kami wonder if his goggles would be ripped away from his face. Small stones and rocks were actually
moving
he realised as he stared downwards at his feet, prised out of the mountain's icy clutch and spun away down the Kangshung Face.

‘Hell, Kami!' Brennan called out, ‘we're so damn close! We can almost touch it from here.'

Brennan bent over as another feverish round of coughing set in. Kami didn't know what to say, unsure whether he should be encouraging the boss to go further or advising him to give the whole thing up and turn back for the col.

Brennan got himself upright, again with Kami's help. Over the next hour he made it about another ten metres along the ridge line, pulling himself along the fixed rope in a despairing manner which was devoid of conviction or strength. Every step cost him a five-minute rest.

Then he folded up. Just collapsed with nothing left to give, lying awkwardly with his thigh on a painful looking rock. Kami helped him to shift into a better position, knowing in that moment, instinctively, that the summit quest was absolutely over.

And that Brennan knew it too.

‘You know what makes me more sad than anything?' the boss rasped.

‘No sir.'

‘All the people who've put so much into this. People back home, people down at Base. It's not just for me, this whole thing, you do know that don't you?'

The clouds had darkened. Kami sensed the wind was intensifying again, that a full-on storm was now brewing to the north. He flexed his fingers inside his gloves wondering if they were really as frozen as they felt.

‘I think I understand, sir.'

‘Hell, we're pretty much on the summit anyway.'

No we are not, thought Kami. We are still very far from the summit. Far enough that you will not make it.

Kami's hand moved to the shrine bell where it sat nestled safely in his breast pocket. He looked up the ridge line, longing for the freedom to leave Brennan and complete the promise he had made to Shreeya.

To put the shrine bell in the true home of the gods. The real summit of the world.

He knew that he had the strength to make it. There was no question of that. A half hour more of effort would get Kami to that sacred spot. He could scrape a little hole in the ice and place the shrine bell reverently inside before covering it up. The sins of the past would be forgiven and he could return to Shreeya with his head held high.

But abandoning the American would be a cardinal sin. The boss was already disorientated and confused. He needed Kami with him and there was no getting around that.

‘They don't deserve us to fail, Kami,' Brennan said, ‘we owe it to them … even if we have to ... ' his words tailed away as fresh snow began to be driven through the air.

‘What did you say, sir? I am sorry I could not hear you,' Kami bent down closer.

Brennan was hit by more coughing. Each attack seemed to be deeper, inflict more pain.

‘Maybe we can still make give this some kind of happy ending? You know what I'm saying?'

‘I don't understand, sir. I am sorry. We have to turn around now.'

‘What do you say we make this the summit?'

Brennan's desperate, bloodshot eyes burned into Kami. The young Sherpa did not know where to look.

‘Take a photo or two ... make it seem ... '

It was an excruciating moment and he wasn't entirely sure he really understood Brennan's intention. Was he proposing to pretend they had reached the top? That was how it seemed.

Kami was utterly lost. What should he do? How should he act?

‘Everything is your decision, sir,' he said. It was the only thing he could say.

‘There'll be an extra bonus for this,' Brennan told him. ‘But you'll have to back me all the way.'

Kami remained silent. He was bewildered by the unexpected direction the conversation had taken.

‘Will you back me all the way Kami?'

Kami nodded uncertainly. ‘Of course, sir, that is my job.'

Brennan handed Kami his digital camera.

‘Get a good shot,' Brennan said, ‘make sure you get me in the middle of the picture, right?'

‘Yes, sir.'

Close to their position was a prominent fang of rock and ice. Brennan crawled over to it and managed – with some considerable difficulty – to get himself upright. He struck a weary but victorious pose with his ice axe in the air, the wind and snow raging about him.

‘Take a few,' he told Kami, ‘might as well get a good one.'

Kami clicked away. Brennan checked the images and tucked the camera back in his pocket. At that moment the walkie talkie ripped out a bleep; it was Kurt.

‘Base Camp to summit team. Base Camp to summit. You guys are scaring us now. Please God tell us you're on the top of the world.'

Brennan thought for a few moments then replied, ‘We're here. Job done.'

‘You say job done! You're on the summit … ?' Kurt's voice was filled with instant joy.

Kami watched Brennan closely. The American turned his face away ...

‘We just kept going ... just kept moving and fighting and Kami's been a star, man, he's kept me going all the way.'

‘They made it! They made it!' Jubilant cheers broke out thinly from the walkie talkie. ‘Congratulations Alex and well done Kami you two are amazing do you hear me amazing! This is just so cool.'

‘It's all down to Kami,' Brennan replied. ‘I wouldn't have had the strength myself.'

‘You're a force of nature, Alex. The world is yours from now on, you know that don't you?'

There was a brief pause, then a Sherpa voice came on. It was Tenzing. ‘Kami? The gods are smiling on you!' he said. ‘You've done us proud and you'll be a great Everest man! This is the first of many, many ascents to the top.'