The Ascent of Rum Doodle

by W E Bowman

  This made me feel very humble. ‘My dear chaps,’ I said, ‘I know you all want to go; but someone must stay behind. I feel it my responsibility. I hope you won’t consider it selfish if I go.’

  There was silence. Then Burley looked at me keenly and said, in his deep voice: ‘By heavens, Binder, I believe you would!’

  I looked at him in surprise. He seemed, for some reason, to be overcome by emotion.

  ‘If you go,’ he said at last, ‘I go!’

  At that moment the tent door was flung open, and in walked Prone.

  *

  A new Prone.

  An erect Prone.

  A thin but healthy-looking Prone.

  A Prone with a broad smile and a swagger.

  Prone, the hero of Rum Doodle; the man who had been higher than anyone else; for, as Wish pointed out, Prone stood head and shoulders higher than any of the porters.

  What a reunion that was! What laughter! What back-slapping! What wrestling and practical jokes!

  When we were all exhausted Prone said: ‘As medical officer to this expedition I prescribe champagne. Where’s the medical equipment?’

  At this a silence fell upon us. The others looked sheepish and nudged each other to speak. At last, Burley said:

  ‘The fact is, old boy, there is no champagne.’

  ‘No champagne!’ Prone was horrified.

  ‘No. You see, we . . . er . . . didn’t bring it back from Camp 1.’

  But nothing could dampen our spirits that day. In the absence of a more stimulating beverage cocoa was made. We were soon laughing again, telling and retelling our adventures. Everybody wanted to talk, none to listen.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said Shute, smiling, ‘how Binder got stuck to the glacier by his tears?’

  ‘And had Pong all to himself for a week,’ said Wish, chuckling.

  ‘And couldn’t find Camp 1,’ laughed Jungle.

  ‘And had to have number eights sent up,’ added Constant, holding his sides.

  We all roared.

  All of a sudden, Burley jumped up.

  ‘Stop it!’ he cried.

  He banged on the table.

  The laughter stopped at once. The mood changed instantaneously. We waited in tense silence for Burley to speak. Wish giggled nervously, then coughed and turned red.

  Burley was frowning. His fist thumped the table. He seemed to be struggling with words.

  ‘There’s something that needs saying,’ he said at last. Then he fell silent again, and again we waited.

  ‘A lot of things,’ he continued, ‘have happened on this expedition – and before it started – which seemed very appropriate at the time.’

  He stopped again. He was evidently choosing his words carefully. He banged on the table. ‘I wish now they had never happened.’

  What on earth, I wondered, was the dear fellow talking about?

  ‘I myself,’ he was saying, ‘have been as guilty as anyone else – probably more so.’

  I noticed that the others were exchanging glances and looking sheepish again. What was it all about?

  ‘Just now,’ Burley went on, ‘old Binder here was about to go to Prone’s rescue. Let’s not forget that. Let’s not forget also that Binder had already done ten times as much work as the rest of us put together and carried the whole responsibility for the climb. He had already been to 35,000 feet while we were wallowing at Camp 1. Yet he was the chap who was going to climb Rum Doodle to bring Prone back.’

  This was embarrassing. We had all done our best. I had perhaps been more fortunate than the others; but the luck might easily have been different. I tried to interrupt Burley, but he put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Let me finish.’

  He looked at the others, each in turn.

  ‘I will now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘propose the health of our leader: the most conscientious, the most modest, the most unselfish man I have ever climbed with.

  ‘And,’ he added, ‘he has more guts than any of us.’

  And those absurd fellows drank my health in cocoa.

  The next moment they were all trying to shake my hand at the same time, while Prone was patting my back and saying: ‘Well done, little man!’

  It was quite ridiculous. To this day I am not sure whether it was another of Burley’s feeble jokes.

  15

  Farewell to Rum Doodle

  NEXT DAY WE checked our stores and found that the porters had eaten nearly all the food, leaving only a few bags of butter beans. This was serious. We could not feed the porters another day; they must be dismissed at once. We decided to retain one porter only to carry our food for the return journey. We must abandon all our equipment, keeping only the most necessary personal effects, such as alarm clocks and hot-water bottles.

  Constant addressed the porters and, after much excitement, told us that they understood the position. They insisted, however, on being paid up to the probable date of our arrival at Chaikhosi. Since to argue with them would mean feeding them for several days there seemed nothing else to do. We paid them and told them to be off. But instead of going they all came and stood in front of my tent, where I was cutting my toe nails. When I went out to see what they wanted, Bing came forward and stood in front of me. He looked me straight in the eye and uttered a powerful belch. Then he walked away. Bung followed him, then Bo, then So Lo and Lo Too; then all of them. One by one they came and belched at me. The glacier echoed with belches – from the deep bass rumble of Bing to the treble peeps of the boys. Burley said it reminded him of Aldershot. One little fellow seemed to be stomach-tied. He stood in front of me shyly, unable to produce a sound. Then he made a kind of cough and ran off amidst laughter.

  Last of all came Pong. Poor fellow, the tears were streaming down his face. His magnificent belch brought a murmur of approval and admiration from all present. We embraced, and he pressed upon me a small black object, wizened and of indeterminate shape. I examined it, but could make nothing of it. I showed it to the others, who shook their heads.

  Suddenly, Wish gave a great cry and snatched the thing out of my hand. It was a warple! A toasted and blackened warple; but still a warple!

  Wish asked Constant to find out about it. Pong told him that the warple was considered a delicacy by the Yogistani. His kitchen hands gathered them every morning before breakfast.

  Wish told Constant to offer bohee one for every warple brought to him. The porters immediately scattered in all directions, and soon started coming back with warples many, which they dropped at Wish’s feet after receiving their money. Soon he had a pile some three feet high and was bankrupt. He appealed to Constant to stop them; but they went on until the district was denuded of warples. Wish was now surrounded by a wall of warples and heavily in debt to the expedition.

  The porters were now ready to depart. Being a punctilious race, they found it necessary to say good-bye all over again. Once more the glacier rang with belches. Once more Pong and I took an emotional farewell of each other. We little dreamed that we should meet again before many months were gone.

  *

  Next morning we made an early start. Wish had been up all night making a distillation of warple exegesis, which he carried in an exegesis bottle brought specially for the purpose. Burley had kindly stayed up to help him. Wish was overjoyed. His presence on the expedition had been justified, his fame assured. He was, he said, almost certain of an FRS.

  Shute took the lead. He too had been up all night, helping Jungle to finish his map. Jungle had complained of fatigue in the morning and had drunk the spirit out of his compasses. As a result he had become slightly tipsy and had developed a tendency to face north, which caused him to walk sideways when going east or west and fall over backwards when going south. Owing to the path twisting in all directions his movements became remarkable. Shute helped him good-naturedly, but Wish, who was following, became so bewildered that he went quite giddy and fell on his hip, smashing his exegesis bottle. The contents ran down hi
s legs and froze, so that he was stiff-legged for the rest of the day and fell down frequently. Burley spent the day picking him up and consoling him for his bruises and the loss of the exegesis.

  Constant and Prone followed. Being deprived of Pong’s cooking, Constant had been awake all night with stomach-ache. Prone sat up with him, worrying himself to death over his friend’s condition. Constant was also very down at losing his porters. To comfort him Prone walked with him, his arm around his shoulders. Unfortunately, they both fell into a crevasse, but were rescued by the porter.

  I brought up the rear. I was quite sad when I turned my back on the majestic stage where we had played our drama of suffering and triumph. When my companions broke into song with ‘Binder’s Butter Beans’ I almost sobbed. But I comforted myself with the thought that our suffering was not yet over; and as I followed the happy and united party I was cheered by the reflection that our friendship had been tempered into bonds of steel by the perils we had faced together. I was tasting the keener rewards of leadership.

  *

  Three days later we stood on the summit of the Rankling La, facing the Rum Doodle massif for the last time. The evening sun had sunk below our horizon. The wilderness of mountains around us was a symphony in modulated shadow. Below was the utter blackness of river gorges. Only Rum Doodle itself stood in the sunshine, its great pyramid framed against a turquoise sky. The vast icy precipices and snowfields glowed with changing sunset tints.

  It was a fitting farewell from a mighty mountain. Burley put his hand on my shoulder, and together we made our way through gathering darkness to our halting-place in the valley.

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  Copyright © W.E. Bowman 1956

  W.E. Bowman has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Max Parrish & Co Ltd in 1956.

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