Above All Things

by Tanis Rideout

  God, he just wanted a minute alone. “Just on my way to the latrines. Then more repairs. Your campbed’s next on the list.” He stalked off in the direction of the latrines before Hazard had a chance to say anything else. If there was solitude to be had anywhere, it was there. They all gave one another a wide berth when using the privies.

  As he approached the latrines, the smell wafted towards him and he almost turned back. Calling them latrines was being generous. Imagine, a shallow hole behind a low wall of piled stones. That it’s cool here is the only thing that keeps the stench down. An open pit used by nearly a hundred men … The ancients had it better than this! It seemed a safe enough thing to write to Dick about. Latrines couldn’t have less to do with Marjory. And he certainly wasn’t going to share this with her. Sandy dropped his pants, the cold air shrivelling him, then squatted, peering over the wall.

  Base Camp was crowded, a small city of tents. A hundred porters, lowing yaks. Not at all what he’d imagined. He’d pictured a vast emptiness, the luxury of being alone in the middle of nowhere.

  “Oh, it will all be so glamorous,” Marjory had said from the clawfoot bathtub, her hand dangling over the edge. He lit her cigarette and put it in her outstretched fingers. “Exotic,” she said, with a puff of smoke.

  “No, that’s you. Glamorous and exotic.”

  “You’re such a charmer.” She splashed at him. “But really. Think of the food and the spices. They say India is so dark and secret. And you’re going farther than anyone else has. Nothing around you but the wilds and local men to carry your champagne and caviar.” She kneeled in the tub, leaned over to kiss him where he sat on the floor. She tasted of nicotine. “I wish I could go. What an escape from all this.”

  He hauled up his trousers. It was an escape, of sorts. At least here he didn’t have to think about what to do about Marjory or Dick. It really was just them and the mountain. He didn’t have time to think of anything else. Or at least that’s what he told himself. He promised himself he’d straighten matters out with both of them when he got home.

  He had thought things would be simpler on the mountain, but relationships were strained. He understood how it happened in these extreme circumstances. In Spitsbergen, after only three days on the glacier with Odell and Simon, he’d grown sick to death of them. Of Odell’s instructing and Simon’s ongoing optimism. You can imagine, he’d written to Marjory at the time, how such close contact can breed contempt. She’d written back, jokingly – it certainly did with my husband. Now he was avoiding Odell, and Odell was peeved at Norton for some perceived slight Sandy didn’t know about. Somes and George were barely speaking after their terse exchange inside Sandy’s work tent. Only Norton seemed to be above it all. Yet for all the sparring, they seemed confident in each other. He’d be able to count on every one of them farther up.

  His work tent was, thankfully, deserted when he returned to it. If Norton wanted the oxygen rig ready by the time George got back, he’d do his best to get it done. He threw back the tent flap and the bright sun cast his shadow darkly across the empty tent. All right then – the Unna cooker first. Then back to the oxygen. Then lunch. Leaving the flaps open for the fresh air and light, he sat cross-legged on the floor.

  As he worked, his thoughts drifted back to what Somervell had told him the other night.

  “That’s precisely what I was talking about,” Somes had said, after George stormed off with his crampons. “He’s impetuous and he lets his temper take hold of him. When he’s excited there really is no way to stop him. But the Lord knows he’s good. When George is focused, Sandy, there’s no one better.” Somes shrugged a little. “Of course, publicly, we can’t say things like that. Publicly, we have to present a united front. George was the easy target, and perhaps that wasn’t fair.”

  It had been George’s name associated with the avalanche. George who was singled out for blame.

  Sandy tried to fire up the cooker. It still wasn’t working. He pulled the tubing from it, unscrewed the cap.

  “Maybe,” his mum had said, after reading the articles and editorials, “maybe we shouldn’t be going over there if it’s going to be like this. Too many have already died.” Her voice was tight, as if she wanted to say more, but couldn’t. It was the same voice she used for talking to his father when he came home too late from the pub. “And these Sherpa men. Well, it isn’t even for them, is it? They’re just farmers or whatever it is they are. Maybe we should leave them alone.”

  Maybe. She said maybe when she believed something was true.

  “Nonsense,” his father responded. “There’s a cost to pay for something worth doing. Anything worth doing. Isn’t that right, Sandy? Isn’t that what I’ve always taught you?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Sacrifice is the watchword.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Maybe,” his mother said, “this isn’t our sacrifice to make.”

  Sandy fired up the Unna cooker again and flinched back from the static sparks. Everything was so bloody dry here, there was a constant tingle of static electricity. The cooker was giving off a distinct hiss now, a whiff of gas. A leak somewhere. If he had been at home, the job would have been done in a quarter-hour. There he had the tools. Here he had only the most basic kit, and the grit of dust that stuck in everything.

  “But you didn’t,” he’d said to Somes. “You didn’t stand by him in the press. The Committee did, but none of you said anything.”

  “We weren’t allowed to, Sandy. You know that.”

  Until he’d had to sign his own contract for the expedition, he hadn’t realized that expedition members weren’t allowed to speak to the press unless they had express permission. “But George did.”

  “He shouldn’t have. And he’s lucky he was invited back. Finch was let go for talking without permission and he didn’t say anything near as controversial as George did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “George said he wished that one of us had been among the dead. One Englishmen among the seven porters, so that we could share the grief. As if we didn’t.”

  He hadn’t wanted to challenge Somes, but he wondered if that wasn’t what George meant. Maybe he just felt they didn’t really share the burden.

  He set the cooker aside. He’d have to ask Odell if there was any spare tubing left. Might as well get it over with. Then he could get back to the oxygen. If Norton was expecting George back at Base Camp today, that meant they’d start moving up in a day or so. The oxygen had to be ready. He had to be ready. He didn’t want to be the one left behind here, supplying the higher camps, playing nanny to the porters. He didn’t want to be forgotten.

  GEORGE WAS ON his way to check the mail after being away from Base Camp for almost a week. He was hoping for a letter or two from Ruth. He had another one ready to go and a poem for Clare’s birthday, if the post hadn’t been dispatched yet.

  Sandy called to him from near the mess tent. “George, you’re back. Norton wanted you to look at what I’ve done with the oxygen as soon as you returned.”

  “Can it wait? I was just going to check the post.” His lungs burned as he moved. By the time he came down from the summit this would be easy.

  “There isn’t any. Hasn’t been since you left.”

  “Nothing?”

  Sandy ignored him. “I’ve overhauled the oxygen rig. Norton had a look at it and liked it.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in using the oxygen?”

  “Well, if it’ll work. And maybe it will.” Sandy led George towards the work tent. “I mean, I’ve been thinking about the oxygen. About acclimatization. It’s practically evolution in fast motion. Our bodies are changing while we’re here.” Sandy reached out and placed his palm over George’s heart. “Since the air gets thinner the higher we go, our bodies make more and more red blood cells, so they can carry more oxygen. We can’t make oxygen, so our bodies make the most of what they can get. If they want to carry more, well, maybe we should carry more. I m
ean if it’s lack of oxygen that makes us so sluggish and seedy up here, causes us to make bad decisions, then we really should take full advantage. Shouldn’t we?”

  Sandy pointed at the scattered canisters outside his work tent. “The biggest complaint last time was that the benefit wasn’t worth the weight of the apparatus. Or the leaks. Well, I’ve fixed all of that. If it’s light enough, reliable enough, maybe now it’ll be worth the energy of lugging it up there.”

  “Let me try it,” George said.

  While Sandy strapped him into the contraption, George put on the mask and breathed through the tubes, sucked the cold dry air from the cylinders.

  The stale smell of the mask, the dryness of the forced air. His breath quickened, came short and tight. It was too much. Claustrophobia pressed in around him. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs froze. He heard the gas alarms, the panicked voices: Gas! Gas! Gas! The fumbling prayers. Fingers slipping off metal clasps that wouldn’t fasten. Praying your mask wouldn’t leak. Wouldn’t clog or falter. Praying that the lack of air, that fear, wouldn’t smother you as you lay in a mud ditch, gas creeping down on you. Yellow green. He gagged. The smell of decay.

  There was a puddle of gas at the bottom of the crater. The walls were almost impossible to climb. They crumpled, melted under him, wet with blood, with rain. Why was everything wet all the time? Gaddes knew the walls wouldn’t hold, that his mask was failing. George could see that in the jerky movements, the desperation, as Gaddes clawed at the walls, mud sliding down on top of him. He couldn’t get away from the gas. Couldn’t get up above it. Couldn’t climb. The walls were collapsing on Gaddes at the bottom of the shell hole, sucking him back down. George scrabbled about him, grasping for something that he could use to help Gaddes. But there was nothing he could do.

  “Are you all right?” Sandy asked, peering at him. Concerned. God, what did Sandy see?

  He forced himself to focus on Sandy – on the weight of the pack on his shoulders, on the peaks surrounding him, the blinding white air. The mask pinched at the flesh on his cheeks. His pulse thudded at his temple, his throat, his ears.

  He might need the oxygen to get to the top. He couldn’t panic like this. Sandy’s voice was a muffled burble over the beating in his ears. Waving Sandy off, he peered up toward the summit, the bleached sky. He needed this. He took a deep breath. Pushed it back out. Breathed in and out. In. Out. The air expanded his lungs. With the oxygen, his head cleared somewhat, the ever-present headache receding. It would work. It had to.

  His hands shook as he unfastened the mask. The mountain air in his lungs felt thin again, anaemic. His face was clammy.

  “This is good, Sandy.”

  “Really?” Sandy looked pleased.

  He reminded George of some of the other boys he’d taught at Charterhouse. They all wanted to impress so badly. Had he ever been like that?

  “Yes. It’s lighter and the gas is coming faster. I can feel it.”

  “And I can repair it,” Sandy went on. “If something were to go wrong with it, higher up. I could fix it on the fly.”

  “And the others? What do they think?”

  “Somes is still against it. Odell seems ambivalent. And even though Norton seems impressed, he’s still non-committal.”

  “Sounds like Teddy.”

  “Maybe you can convince him,” Sandy said, looking past his shoulder.

  Teddy was coming towards them. “I’ll do my best,” George said, turning towards the expedition leader.

  “Have you seen him?” Teddy asked, out of breath, before he even reached them.

  “Seen who?”

  “The boy. He’s missing.”

  He hadn’t noticed the shouting until now. It wasn’t unusual, the loud babble of Tibetan, but this time the noise was different, the voices more urgent. There was no laughing, no lightness in the sound. One man yelled, bawled, louder than everyone else. He was standing in the middle of the other coolies, his head tossed back. A few others stepped close to comfort him, while beside him a woman collapsed. There were people moving in all directions – coolies, Shebbeare and Hazard. Noel hurried after one of the coolies with his camera.

  “He probably just wandered off,” George said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. He won’t be able to find his way out of here.” He gestured around the Base Camp, set in the bowl of mountains, surrounded by peaks and sheer walls in every direction except for the glacial valley, down which they could see for miles. “There’s nowhere to go but up. We’ll find him.”

  “He loves the Victrola,” Sandy said. “Maybe he’s there?”

  “Maybe.” Scanning the camp, George rotated slowly on the spot and thought about John.

  John was dogged. He’d worry at something for what seemed like hours. “Unusual in a boy,” Ruth told him, though he wasn’t so sure. Couldn’t he work on a climbing problem for hours until he figured it out? That must have started when he was a boy. How did women know these things about children anyway? John, at least, could entertain himself. Not like the girls. The girls always wanted his attention, were always grabbing at him, clinging to him.

  That’s why he hadn’t worried about leaving John alone in the back garden with his football. John would happily kick the ball for an hour. More. Until he exhausted himself.

  “I’ll be right back, John,” he said. “Stay here. Kick the ball, yes?” He kicked the ball once at the wall and John stumbled after the rebound and then kicked it back. It stopped short of the wall. John looked up at him.

  “Kick the ball, John.” And he did. He watched John kick it twice, three more times, and then he stepped away. John hadn’t even noticed. He’d left John alone for only a few minutes. He couldn’t even remember why. What had been so important?

  When he came back John was gone. There was a metallic taste in his mouth. His heart hadn’t beat faster but slowed, painfully, even as he told himself John must be there somewhere, that he was being ridiculous.

  And of course he was. He found John by the small stream at the back of the garden, poking at the wet dirt, hunting for bugs or frogs. His football, stuck behind a rock, spun in the quick current.

  Dear God, his heart thumped back into his ears, his temples. He swore he’d never let the boy out of his sight again and hugged John, squirming, to his chest, even as he was making plans to return to Everest. The memory brought with it a rising feeling of panic. His heart slowed. He feared it might stop.

  Near the camp the melting glacier resurfaced from under the moraine in a small rush of water. He loved the small stream, fresh and so cold it hurt his teeth. It was so dry here they were all perpetually thirsty.

  Maybe water attracted all little boys.

  “Teddy, have some of the porters check towards the Icefall,” he said before moving off. “It’s where I would go.”

  SANDY HAD BEEN standing not far from where he stood now, just a short distance from the mess tent. He had scanned the near horizon, the jumble of the boulder field, the hundreds, thousands of places to hide. A repeated combination of syllables bounced around him. The Sherpas were calling the boy’s name even though he wouldn’t be able to hear it.

  “Anything?” Sandy asked as Hazard approached from around the side of the mess tent.

  “No. You?”

  Sandy shook his head.

  There was a lull in the shouting, a brief respite that drew Hazard’s attention over Sandy’s shoulder. Sandy turned to follow his look. Across the moraine, one of the porters was carrying the boy back into the camp. He was so small in the man’s arms, yet he seemed heavy too. The man staggered slightly, and then Sandy was running towards him. He reached him just as Somervell tried to take the boy from the man. The porter’s face was impassive, dark and wrinkled, but calm in a way that was unsettling. He stared blankly across the camp, not seeming to see anything, and clutched the child tight to his chest. The boy’s clothes were wet, dripping, his hair plastered to his forehead. His lips were blue, his face tinged with it too.

  Sandy
wanted to look away but couldn’t. He couldn’t move at all. He stared – at the boy, at the man holding him in his arms, at Somervell trying to examine the child. One of the women was crying. No, keening. A sound he’d never heard before. It slid along the full register, articulating her grief.

  Norton was beside them now, drawing Somervell back and saying something in a quiet, calming tone to the porter in Tibetan. The man didn’t respond, said nothing.

  “Sandy, you don’t need to see this, come on.” George was at Sandy’s elbow, pulling him back towards the mess tent. “Sandy?”

  “Sandy? Are you with us?” Norton’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Sandy, I need you to focus. We need to finish this.”

  Sandy closed his eyes, squeezed hard, willing the image of the dead boy away. When he opened them again, he stared hard at the loads lined up in front of him. Tomorrow, the first group of climbers would be heading up to the next camp. They had to stay on schedule. They couldn’t afford any delay. Not for the drowned boy. Not for anything. “We only have so much time on the mountain,” Norton had said. “If we want to succeed we can’t get derailed now.” Sandy tried to understand. Tried to believe that they didn’t have the luxury of showing the simple respect of waiting one day.

  “The list for the next five camps,” he said now, handing the manifest to Norton. “And what needs to go to each one.”

  “There isn’t much wiggle room,” Somervell cut in.

  “There never is,” Norton said.

  “Why did you let them bring him here?” Sandy’s voice was louder than he meant it to be, sharper. It sounded like an accusation. Norton and Somes exchanged glances. Somes turned to walk away.

  “These loads look good,” Norton said, ignoring the outburst. Then, “They’re not children, Sandy. They can make their own decisions. Decide what risks they’re willing to take. We don’t force them to do anything. Bad decisions get made. By all of us. The only thing to do now is not make any more and not make things worse.”