We had heard the yodels of Schatz and his party as they forced a difficult way up the left bank of the ice fall, and now they joined us. Thus we were seven when we found a good shelf for a camp at around twenty thousand feet. We quickly decided that my four companions should stay there the night in order to take on a tent and some supplies as the nucleus of an upper camp, while the Sherpas were to go down to Base for more food and equipment. Since it seemed imprudent to let them climb down on their own I was to go with them as far as Camp One, where the sleeping bag we had left would enable me to bivouac. In this way I would avoid tiring myself pointlessly by a return trip to Base, and after a rest could rejoin the Sherpas on their way back up next day, provided always that their amazing stamina enabled them to do without a day off.
At Camp One, then, while the Sherpas carried on down towards the valley, I set about arranging a layer of flat pebbles to insulate me from the ice. By the time I had dressed up in every stitch of clothing I possessed and pulled the waterproof cape and elephant’s foot over the sleeping bag I seemed all set for the most comfortable bivouac of my life. But before long a violent wind sprang up and it came on to snow, turning the night into a continual fight. If I opened my hood to breath my face would be withered by the cold and snow; if I closed it to get warm I would start to suffocate. After several hours of this sort of thing sheer exhaustion made me drop off to sleep with my head jammed between two stones.
A clear dawn revealed me buried in new-fallen snow, shivering despite all my warm equipment. I curled up in a ball and waited for the sunlight to descend to my level. Interminable hours went by. For the first time in several days I had something to think about other than the next action, and my mind flew back to Europe, reviewing the whole of my past life. I felt no regrets. On the contrary, I blessed the providence which had vouchsafed me to experience this marvellous adventure. In my wildest dreams I have never imagined so much beauty and grandeur. My whole lifetime of platitudinous mediocrity seemed as nothing beside these hours of perfect happiness and total absorption in action.
At last the rays of the sun reached me, and before long it became unbearably hot. I tried fruitlessly to assuage my hunger by swallowing raw the little tsampa I had left.[12] I felt utterly weak and exhausted. Finally I literally dragged myself over to a tiny patch of shade under a boulder, where I curled up again. From here I could make out the new base camp which Couzy had pitched near the end of the valley.
A scrunching of pebbles announced the arrival of the Sherpas. Adjiba, his balaclava all askew and his face running with sweat, rummaged in his sack for some food for me to be going on with. By the time I reached camp the tents were up and a meal ready. Bit by bit strength began to return, running through me like a warm current, and my anxiety abated. I was certain now that I would be all right tomorrow.
Shortly before dark Herzog, Lachenal, Rébuffat and Schatz passed through at whirlwind speed. They rapidly explained that after hours of ploughing waist-deep through the snow they had forced a difficult barrier of séracs, but that shortly afterwards Schatz had had a fall and this, combined with the arrival of bad weather, had led to their decision to beat a retreat after gaining only about twelve hundred feet. A high altitude kit and some food had been left attached to an ice piton in an obvious place.[13] They were now going down to Base Camp and would come back up as soon as they felt fit enough. The fantastic up-and-down ballet which leads load by load and camp by camp to the highest summits in the world had begun.
On the 24th I left with Panzy and Aïla, Adjiba being condemned on account of his herculean strength to carry the loads between Base and Camp One. His conscientiousness in carrying out this dull and obscure mission was admirable, and there is no doubt that the mountain would not have been climbed but for his efforts in transporting hundredweights of food and equipment, all in the space of a few days. Thanks to an early start we got to Camp Two just after ten o’clock despite our loads, which consisted of two high altitude units and twenty-five pounds of food. I felt famished but still fit, so after a rest we decided to carry on, hoping to profit from the remains of yesterday’s steps despite the snow which had fallen during the night. With the intention of picking up the tent Herzog had left I only took one unit and a small amount of food.
There was no way of avoiding a seven-hundred-foot avalanche-couloir. I tried in vain to hurry, but the steps had been filled in by the previous storm and were practically no use even when one could see them. We were up to the knees in snow rendered glutinous by the hot sun. At last we succeeded in getting out of danger. Avalanches came down the couloir every day, and in view of the fact that it was also used by several parties each day for a fortnight it was a miracle that there were no accidents.
We were able to get a short rest on a ledge among some séracs before struggling on. I had to sweep the powdery stuff away with my hands, then stamp it down with my feet. Digging out a veritable trench in this way we advanced at no more than three feet a minute. Labour of this sort is extremely exhausting at such an altitude, and despite the necessity for haste I kept on having to stop and pant.
A fixed rope helped me to scramble quickly up the difficult wall which had cost Herzog an hour’s fight the previous day, but I reached the top in the state of semi-asphyxiation with which I was already familiar from the hard pitches on the spur, and which can scarcely be imagined by anyone who has not climbed at great heights. The Sherpas proved so clumsy at this gymnastic sort of exercise that I was forced to pull like a galley-slave to get them up at all. The track now led to a steep traverse, then I lost it again. Once more I had to plough my own furrow. The high altitude unit left by my friends seemed to have disappeared completely, but the daily afternoon blizzard was now upon us and there was no time to be lost in pitching the one small tent we had carried up. I found a little ridge of snow relatively sheltered from avalanches. It was not the moment to be choosy, and as we hacked out a platform and erected the tent we were already staggering in the force of the gusts.
Three men in a two-man tent is a hellish state of affairs. The smallest gestures have to be planned. Hungry as I was, I was too worn out to take the trouble to eat. We had only two sleeping bags, and it was Panzy who made the sacrifice of wrapping himself up as best he could in three down jackets, then snuggling down between us. We spent a night of terror listening to the avalanches that thundered down the couloir less than fifty feet from our tent, which shook with the wind of their passing. The Sherpas never closed an eye all night, but just sat there smoking cigarette after cigarette. As for myself, my teeth were chattering so much from fever and the lack of my down jacket that Panzy and I sounded like a pair of castanets, but eventually I doped myself so heavily with sleeping pills that I dozed off.
In the morning I climbed the wall of ice that had protected us even before the tent was packed away. Breaking the trail through fresh snow a yard deep was both slow and exhausting, and only a short sixty-degree ice slope interrupted the monotonous toil. Deep inside me, I was beginning to doubt. If it went on like this every day we should all be worn out long before reaching the summit, even if an avalanche didn’t settle the matter before then. Only several days of unqualified fine weather could save the situation.
I forced the pace as much as I could across an ugly-looking couloir, but the effort used up my last remaining strength, and at the far side I slumped down in the snow. Panzy now took up the task for a while, but I was at my last gasp and the Sherpas seemed in little better case. Though we had gained barely six hundred feet there could be no question of going farther. I staggered across to a sérac where I made fast all the kit and provisions we had brought up. The sunbeams were glittering like tinsel on the snow, so we stretched out luxuriously and devoured some food, making the most of the moment.
Far from getting better on the way down, I felt increasingly ill at ease. Not until Camp Two, where we ran into Maurice, Ang Dawa and Dawatondu, did I recover sufficiently to laugh and talk as w
e rested. The same evening I went on down to Camp One, hoping to recuperate by losing altitude. The bulk of the team were there, fully rested and ready to slay dragons. I was too done in to share their optimism and paid little attention to anything but culinary matters. We were in fact now beginning to get short of food, and I spent most of the next day sampling our high altitude supplies, especially the fruit blocks, chocolate and biscuits. We seemed to have rather a surplus of these last. The Sherpas therefore devised a vast dish of crumbled biscuit and chocolate, and I confess I did my fair share towards demolishing it.
Plenty of food and rest soon revived me. On the 27th I fairly bounced up to Camp Two, arriving in time to follow Herzog and his Sherpas through the telescope as they descended from installing camp Three the previous day a few yards above the highest point I had reached. It seemed probable that they must have also set up a Camp Four, but I was unable to make it out. I did notice, however, that they didn’t seem to be following the easiest line, and later this piece of observation was to come in handy. As Camp Three was already occupied by Couzy, Lachenal, Rébuffat and Schatz, Herzog had to carry on down to Camp Two.
We spent the evening analysing the situation in extreme detail. Maurice was very put out by the poor physical and moral state in which he had found the others. Although he had spent no more than a few minutes in their company he considered them sick, discouraged, and altogether incapable of effective action. His own form at around twenty-three thousand feet, by contrast, was very hopeful, and he still felt confident of victory as long as the daily snowfalls did not exceed six to eight inches. He also seemed satisfied with my own physical and mental state, and wanted me to husband my forces for the final assault. His plan was for me and the Sherpas to take a load up to Camp Three next day while he rested, and to rejoin him the same evening. Next day the four lightly-loaded porters could clear the trail for us up to Camp Four, and, we would take this on as high as possible in order to go for the summit on the following day.
Once again I spent a rotten night in order to be awake at the right time. The organisers of the expedition, needless to say, had failed to provide us with anything so simple as an alarm clock. The journey up to Camp Three was still tough, but not so bad as the first time. The snow was somewhat less thick and the tracks left by Couzy and Lachenal in their descent helped us considerably. We met them half way. They explained that they felt too weak to carry any loads up to Camp Four, and were going down for a rest in the hope of recuperating. Shortly before arriving we encountered Schatz and Rébuffat coming down through the cloud, but they decided to go back up with us. No sooner had we reached camp than I fell on the provisions like a bird of prey, after which I felt ready to review the situation.
As a result of their lack of form my four companions had been unable to fulfil their mission of carrying a unit and more supplies up to Camp Four, and this threw the whole operation out of phrase. A delicate question now arose: was I to obey orders and go back down, or should I stay where I was with the Sherpas and carry out the uncompleted task? By doing this I would lose my chance of teaming up with Herzog, who at present was in the best condition and best placed for the summit dash, so that a bitter paradox would make a disinterested action the frustration of all my hopes. It would be so easy to obey orders and bow to a fate another had ordained. Nobody would ever hold it against me; after all, I was only a simple foot soldier who had taken an oath of obedience. And yet, and yet … it seemed to me that by going down at this juncture I would be letting down the side. The very idea gave me a pang such as one might feel at the suggestion of committing a crime. This internal struggle lasted no more than a few minutes. No doubt I was an ass imbued with mediaeval ideas, but I would take the finer and harder way by carrying on to Camp Four the following morning.
I told Rébuffat and Schatz what was in my mind, and Gaston, feeling somewhat better, decided to try and accompany me. Marcel was still too sick to be anything but a burden and resolved to descend alone in spite of the risk. Though it was little more than a vertical height of a thousand feet to Camp Four it took us over seven dangerous hours to get there, due to the constant zigzagging and difficulty of the route. The deep snow and strong downhill wind made the going harder than ever before, and by the time we arrived a blizzard was in full swing. The tent had foundered under the mass of snow. We had all the trouble in the world to get it up again and also pitch the one we had carried. Gaston had felt nothing in his feet for some time and got in quickly to examine them, his thin features sharper than ever with anxiety. By means of rubbing and whipping I eventually got the circulation going again. Thanks to drugs we spent a reasonable night, but even if we still had some strength left we were nevertheless suffering badly from the effects of altitude.
By dawn the tents were half buried in the snow. There was so little space left inside that one could hardly move. We had to dig them out with our mess tins and re-erect them as best we could, though they looked pretty sorry for themselves. The cold was positively arctic, and the strange downhill wind which had troubled us so much the day before was worse than ever. We were up against it already: how could we hope to climb another four thousand feet in such conditions? Victory seemed farther off than ever. However, we must just do our best to carry on.
It was a positive pleasure to leave this camp, installed as it was in the middle of an avalanche slope with no more protection than a moderate-sized sérac. If this could not shelter the tents enough to stop them being half buried in the night it seemed unlikely to keep off a really big slide. We made short work of the descent, and it was not until a long way down that we encountered Herzog, Lachenal, Angtharkay and Sarki. Louis seemed much fitter and said he was now back on perfect form. They explained that they were going to implement the plan that I was to have executed with Maurice, and that they had no intention of coming down before reaching the summit. I wished them luck without the smallest feeling of jealousy, for I was convinced by the previous day’s experiences that the mountain was not yet adequately equipped. In my opinion they were simply deceiving themselves.
Next morning I scanned the mountain through powerful binoculars. The four men had already surmounted the very steep ice slope above Camp Four, and before they were hidden by clouds I could see them trying to find a way across the chaos of séracs to the left of the great arching wall of rock which divided the upper slopes. We called this wall ‘the sickle’. Much lower down, I could see Couzy, Schatz and their Sherpas making slow progress in the direction of Camp Three.
Camp Two had by now practically turned into a village. Large, comfortable tents had been brought up from the valley, and Noyelle and Oudot were both installed there. They told us about all the difficulties they had had to keep us supplied. Only after innumerable complications both technical and diplomatic had they managed to get forty porters as far as Base Camp, and of these not much more than a dozen could be induced to do a few portages to Camp One. Two only would consent to help the indefatigable Adjiba in his ceaseless comings and goings from Camp One to Camp Two. It had in fact been touch and go whether our efforts on the mountain would be brought to nothing by a rupture of our lines of communication, and perhaps this dull and patient work in the rear was the finest example of team spirit shown on the whole expedition. Certainly we would have been able to do nothing without the devotion of our companions who, without hope of personal glory, performed the extraordinary feat of keeping us supplied across the five or six days of difficult ground that cut us off from the inhabited world.
One good day’s rest sufficed to make Gaston and I fighting fit again, and we formulated a daring plan which would gain us a day. Light loads and an early start would enable us to reach Camp Three by ten or eleven o’clock in the morning where, with the help of Couzy and Schatz’s freshly-broken trail, we would carry everything on up to Camp Four. Oudot and two Sherpas would carry up a new camp three (which would be necessary for the retreat) the following day. For once everything worked out exact
ly as planned. We duly picked up our loads at eleven o’clock in the morning, and the ready-made track enabled us to reach Camp Four in an hour and a half instead of seven hours, despite the weight of two units and twenty-odd pounds of food. To climb getting on for three thousand feet with heavy loads in one day at well over twenty thousand feet is a sign of real form, which we felt augured well for the future.
On the way we met Angtharkay and Ang Dawa, forced to descend due to finding one tent fewer than expected at Camp Four. Faced as they had been with the prospect of humping double loads, therefore, Couzy and Schatz were naturally overjoyed at our unexpected arrival. I spent an excellent night, and in the morning started breaking the trail like a giant while the others struck camp. For the first few yards I was up to the chest in snow, but its depth gradually diminished until it was just a thin layer through which the ice penetrated here and there. The angle became as great as a difficult Alpine couloir. Cramponning is very exhausting at these altitudes and Sherpas do not seem very adept at it, so I nicked out well-spaced steps which Schatz enlarged and multiplied behind me.
Conquistadors of the Useless Page 36
