Thin Air

by Michelle Paver

  Cotterell groans in his sleep. He vomited after dinner, so my excuse for staying awake has become reality. I’m sitting with my back to him, because I can’t bear to have the wall of the tent behind me. So far, I’ve heard nothing untoward. Only the creak of canvas and the spatter of snow.

  Arthur Ward seems to have been a last-minute replacement, like me. He’s not in any of the photographs, and Lyell doesn’t describe him, so he has no face. From what I can glean, he was a talented climber, and they tolerated him, but they didn’t care to be shown up. Once, Ward saved Tennant’s life when he was stunned by falling ice. He was sliding towards a crevasse, and Ward grabbed him by the strap of his rucksack and hauled him to safety. Lyell only sees fit to mention this en passant.

  And later, he inveighs against climbers who aren’t gentlemen; he clearly means Ward. There is a breed of man which sees nothing dishonourable in the use of ‘climbing aids’. Such men can make tolerable alpinists, but they invariably betray themselves with the impulsiveness and lack of nerve inherent in their class.

  So there we are. Ward was common, talented, and didn’t fit in. That’s all I have. That, and the fact that this place where I am now – or to be precise, two hundred yards off on the edge of the crevasse – is where, twenty-nine years ago, Arthur Ward broke his neck in the kind of stupid, hypoxic accident that kills so many mountaineers.

  Is that why Camp Two is haunted? Did his death leave some sort of ‘psychic imprint’? Some lingering energy that re-enacts the accident whenever an attuned individual happens along? And I do believe that it is a re-enactment. I haven’t forgotten that cry of ‘Below!’ which woke me at Base.

  But none of this feels enough to justify what’s happening. Ward’s death was violent and unnecessary, but that’s hardly unusual, it’s how climbers die. So why him? Why not Freemantle or Knight, or Lieutenant Pache from ’05, or one of the porters, or that solitary American in ’29, or one of Bauer’s lot from the north face? Why am I so convinced that it’s Ward?

  Because – because none of the others died here. And because that figure I saw on the Crag wasn’t a Sherpa, but a European.

  And because I feel it.

  Cotterell wakes with a moan, and bursts into a fit of coughing. When it’s over, I make him gargle with dilute Condy’s fluid, and give him a chlorate of potash tablet. I ask him how he feels.

  ‘On the mend,’ he mumbles. I doubt that. His grey eyes are bloodshot, and with his grizzled beard, he looks crumpled and old.

  He heaves a ragged sigh. ‘I wish I could get rid of these damned images.’

  My heart skips a beat. ‘Images?’

  ‘Flashes, really. Nonsense. But rather ghastly.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Oh, they seem to sort of – come at me. Doesn’t matter what I’m doing. Climbing, eating, trying to sleep. Can’t keep ’em away.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Um – well, since we started the climb.’

  All this time? ‘What sort of images?’

  He blinks. ‘Faces, mostly.’

  ‘Whose?’

  To my consternation, his throat works, and his eyes grow moist. ‘I can’t …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Major, I didn’t mean to pry—’

  ‘No no, it’s …’ He pinches the bridge of his nose and scowls. ‘He was my subaltern. When we found him, he – we identified him by his cigarette case.’

  My disappointment is so savage that it elbows out sympathy. I didn’t want it to be the War, I wanted him to have seen what I’ve seen. Then I wouldn’t be alone.

  I pour us both a tot of brandy, and he sips gratefully. ‘I don’t understand why I only see him,’ he mutters. ‘I mean, one saw a good deal of – that. One became rather blasé.’ He scratches his hairline, which is already raw. ‘You don’t think I – I mean, there’s never been anything wrong in my family. I can’t be – unstrung, or what-have-you?’

  ‘You mean, mad?’

  Sometimes, merely saying the word is a kind of exorcism. I can see the tension draining out of him.

  ‘No, I don’t think you’re mad. Chaps with war neurosis mostly have some kind of bad blood in the family. There are lots of fellows like you, who simply have nightmares. These days, we call it war-strain.’

  ‘Ah. You don’t say.’

  His ignorance astounds me. Has the poor chap been carrying this alone all these years? Or is the mountain bringing it out? I won’t ask, he’s clearly embarrassed at having let down his guard.

  As a distraction for us both, I check him over. Heart rate and breathing sound, no water on the lungs.

  We don’t speak again. Cotterell pretends to fall asleep, and I try to push snow off the sagging tent. The canvas feels as if it’s resisting me.

  Poor old Cotterell. Well, there’s no bad blood in my family either and I’m pretty sure I’m not going mad, but right now, that’s not much comfort. It’s two in the morning: another two hours before we can think about getting ready to head off – if it stops snowing. And then we’ll be climbing the Crag, where Ward was killed. What if I see something? What if I panic and kill myself, or someone else?

  One thing’s for sure. Even if this snow keeps up, I am not spending another night in this camp. I shall declare that in my medical opinion, Cotterell must descend to Camp One, and I must go with him. Or something. This is the last night I will ever spend at Camp Two.

  * * *

  Nima was right, the weather did clear. There’s not a cloud in the sky. The snowstorm has buried Camp Two, and we’ve left Tenrit and Dorjit digging out the tents and the stores.

  Our aim today is to climb the Crag and head up the edge of the Icefall, establishing Camp Three about a thousand feet below the Great Shelf, on a sort of plateau beneath the ice cliff. We’ve found a tolerable route up the Crag, thank God, and it isn’t technically difficult; Kits says that won’t come until after the Great Shelf.

  Cutting steps is the usual exhausting toil, and the sun’s so fierce I have to peel off sweater, muffler and mittens. Then clouds seep down and I have to put it all on again – and at this altitude, it takes ages, and one must be so dreadfully careful. I’m trying not to think about Ward dropping his rucksack. Perhaps the others are too, for it’s been three hours and we’ve climbed in total silence. No humming from Nima or Pasang, no whistling from Garrard or Kits. Even Cedric seems cowed.

  When you’ve been frightened – I mean really frightened, as I have – you don’t relax afterwards. All through the snowstorm, and now today, I’ve been braced, in case the threat hasn’t passed. It’s as if there’s another self inside me, keeping watch.

  We’re nearly at the top of the Crag, where Ward met his death. What an ugly phrase that is, evoking an image of a shrouded grey figure, from whom there is no escape.

  A shadow slides across me and I duck. It’s a bloody gorak, of all things.

  Garrard, above me, glances down with a lopsided grin. ‘Seems our camp follower has joined us from Base.’

  ‘How d’you know it’s the same one?’ I pant.

  ‘I don’t, but it feels appropriate. Poe, and all that.’

  With an indignant whuff, Cedric scrambles after the bird, which hitches itself on to the wind. The dog can’t stop in time, and nearly pitches off the Crag. We yell at him to come back, and he slithers down to us, lashing his feathery tail.

  That’s broken the tension; even Cotterell’s chuckling. Soon afterwards, we reach the top of the Crag.

  It hasn’t quite finished with us. It turns out that the crevasse, which I thought we’d left down at Camp Two, actually zigzags up and behind the Crag. It now lies directly across our path.

  At its narrowest, it’s about six feet across. Icicles a yard long hang from its edge, leading the eye down into fathomless black.

  I’m the last man on the rope, so I’ll be the last to cross. Kits has already clipped together the ladder that Nima’s been carrying, and has bridged that yawning gap. He goes first (of course): n
ot crawling, but walking.

  ‘Nothing to it!’ he calls when he’s on the other side.

  Thanks, I think sourly. That helps a lot.

  Garrard takes the ladder at a cautious crawl, as does Cotterell. Like all of us, he’s roped by the waist. He stares ahead without looking down.

  Once he’s across, he grins at me. ‘Reminds me of the duckboards in Flanders!’ There’s a touch of bravado about him. He’s telling me to forget all that guff about faces last night.

  Nima and Pasang are next, then it’s my turn. I’m not scared, just reluctant. According to Lyell, Ward landed with a ‘sickening crunch’, and lay half over the crevasse. Of course, that would have been over the part of the crevasse that is below the Crag. But it’s still the same crevasse.

  Nima carries Cedric in his doko, and tackles the ladder at a sure-footed walk, so that the dog has no time to be alarmed. Pasang also walks across, singing a tuneless prayer under his breath.

  Now the five of them are waiting for me on the other side. A veil of wind-blown snow drifts between us, shrouding them in white. With their snow glasses and Penaten-smeared faces, they seem scarcely human.

  ‘Come on, Stephen,’ barks Kits. ‘Chop-chop!’

  Gripping my ice-axe in one hand, I crawl on to the ladder. It sags under me. I won’t look down at what yawns beneath, but I feel its pull.

  I keep going, fixing my eyes on the others – and for the blink of an eye, there seem to be six men watching me, not five. I count them. Kits, Garrard, Cotterell, Nima, Pasang. That’s five, you idiot. Get a grip.

  ‘What’s the matter, Bodge!’ taunts Kits. ‘Got the wind up?’

  Behind me, ice falls with a glassy tinkle, and without thinking, I glance down. Deep in the blackness, I fancy that something moves. Is Ward’s body down there? Is that why it haunts?

  ‘Nearly there, you duffer!’ Kits is stretching out his hand, and there’s a reassuring note in his voice that I don’t like. It’s as if he’s cajoling a frightened horse. Or a younger brother who’s never quite measured up.

  Ignoring his hand, I reach the edge, and lurch to my feet. As long as he doesn’t come out with one of his snide little ‘jokes’ about Bodge nearly flunking it.

  Instead, he pushes up his snow glasses and give me a pitying look, then turns away.

  And just for a moment, I hate him.

  * * *

  The weather is glorious, and so is Camp Three – chiefly because it isn’t Camp Two. We can no longer even see Camp Two, or the Crag, or that bloody crevasse. We’re at twenty-two thousand eight hundred feet, and we’ve left it all behind.

  We’ve pitched Camp Three where Lyell did, at the foot of the ice cliff. It’s windy, as we’re facing west, but much roomier than Camp Two, with none of that alarming feeling of huddling on a ledge. The site is enlivened by the odd enormous block of ice, and so level that we don’t need crampons. In fact, the snow is too soft; it would only ball up underneath, and make them dangerous.

  The tents have been pitched at the foot of the cliff, and in front there’s a good twenty yards of flattish snow – we’ve dubbed it the Plateau – before a nasty drop to the Yalung Glacier. As one stands facing camp, the stockpile and latrine area are to one’s left, and some way beyond them is another crevasse – but it’s not the crevasse, so I don’t mind. Anyway, we can’t see it from the tents, because of the stockpile.

  Last night, the temperature dropped to forty below. That roaring wind, which sounded so distant down at Base, was much louder up here – and yet I slept better than I have since we started the climb. No doubt that’s sheer exhaustion, and relief at having escaped Camp Two.

  I woke to find my eyelashes frozen shut, and the tent and my sleeping bag crackling with frost. We’d declared a non-climbing day, but camp was in shadow, and we couldn’t get warm – until mid-morning, when the sun reached us, and within ten minutes we were baking, and strolling about in shirtsleeves.

  Tenrit and Cherma have gone down to Camp Two to finish excavating the last of the stores, and the rest of us are in camp. Another day’s climbing should take us to the Great Shelf, where we’ll establish Camp Four. From there, it can’t be more than two days to the summit. However, the plan is to stay here for a few days, to stockpile supplies and get out of this wind by digging the famous ice caves out of the foot of the cliff. I’m glad. I like it here.

  Kits and I are working on one cave, Cotterell and Garrard tackling the other ‘next door’, and the Sherpas are beavering away at the third. It’s my turn to dig, which means I’m lying on my back, hacking as best I can with my ice-axe a few inches above my face, while Kits crouches behind me, shovelling away débris with a saucepan.

  Under any conditions, this would be tiring. At nearly twenty-three thousand feet, it’s sheer bloody hell. But it’s a simple, physical hell, and I find it bizarrely enjoyable. Ice chips are showering down and soaking me to the skin, and when I pause for breath, my arms are shaking with fatigue.

  From next door, Garrard gives a muffled groan. ‘How the blazes did those Huns manage a cave big enough for six men?’

  ‘That’s what they say they did,’ Cotterell mutters darkly.

  ‘Remind me again,’ I pant. ‘Why are we doing this?’

  ‘Because it’s fun,’ replies Kits.

  We exchange grins, and quote Aunt Ruth in unison: ‘And what can’t be avoided had better be enjoyed!’

  Suddenly we’re spluttering with laughter, and Kits is bombarding me with frozen slush. I scramble out and pelt him with snowballs, and Cedric is barking at us and the snow is glittering and we’re happy, like that time when we were boys and freewheeling down Primrose Hill, and everything felt just right.

  * * *

  Last night we slept in the tents again, as the ice caves won’t be finished for another day at least. I was so shattered I didn’t wake once.

  Lots to do today. In between bouts of digging, one has to dry one’s gear in the sun, prepare food, and melt snow for endless mugs of tea. Garrard has devised a clever short cut for that: you fill a wind jacket with snow and set it to melt in the sun, collecting the water in a canvas bucket. It saves effort and paraffin; even if the water does taste of canvas.

  All this sounds remarkably orderly, but we can’t forget that altitude plays tricks. Yesterday evening, I was about to wriggle into my sleeping bag when I was surprised to find Garrard’s brass altimeter lying on top. I’d borrowed it earlier, but I was convinced I’d given it back. I had no recollection of having brought it inside, and yet Cotterell and Kits both saw me do it. The others have reported similar slip-ups, so we’re all on our mettle.

  * * *

  Like Camp Two, the porters’ highway needed clearing after the snowstorm, but it’s working well again now. Despite the odd icefall, teams of Sherpas are managing lifts of stores between camps in a matter of hours, which is also allowing a brisk exchange of notes between us and poor old McLellan, down at Base.

  Digging is over for the day, and it’s the lull before tea. The Sherpas in the support party left a while ago for Camp One (they refuse to sleep at Camp Two), and Tenrit, Cherma, Nima, Angdawa, Dorjit and Pasang are in their tent, cooking tsampa. Cotterell is in ours, watching the Primuses, and Kits is over by the stores dump, sorting the last odds and ends that have been excavated from the snowdrifts down at Camp Two.

  Garrard and I are sunning ourselves on camp stools in the lee of an enormous lump of ice, which squats by itself about ten yards in front of the tents. Nima has planted it with a stick of prayer flags, so we’ve named it the Sherpas’ Altar.

  The sun is still warm, so we’re in sweaters without windproofs, but it’s sinking rapidly towards the western peaks, and shadows are creeping up the slopes.

  The prayer flags on the Sherpas’ Altar are snapping in the wind, and the air is astonishingly clear. In this flat white glare, the guardian peaks seem so close that I feel I could leap from one to the other, like Nima’s sacred snow-lions. I remember how overwhelming those peaks appe
ared when we were camped beside the moraine. Startling to realise that we’re above them, now.

  Cedric pads over and slumps at Garrard’s feet. The ungrateful beast is still avoiding me, but he’s been less jumpy than he was at Camp Two, and I’m taking this as a good sign. Dogs are sensitive to these things.

  In front of me, and far below, stretches the vast, chaotic jumble of the Yalung Glacier. Here and there, I catch the cerulean glint of a lake. I can even make out the red dots of Base Camp. The moraines on either side of the glacier are dusted with emerald, a startling reminder that down there, it’s spring. I try to picture the jungle, with those extravagant magpies – but I can’t. They belong to another world.

  Sitting here in the last of the sun, I’m in a state of armed peace. Camp Two is gone, and with it the dread. I’m relishing the precarious security of my little realm: that ice cliff behind me, the Plateau in front – and beyond it, the drop to the glacier.

  The pistol crack of an avalanche makes us jump. In silence, we watch the great white monster clawing its way down the Talung Saddle. By now, we’ve seen dozens, but you never get used to them.

  Cedric has leapt to his feet, and is pressing against Garrard’s leg for reassurance.

  ‘I wonder if McLellan’s looking up at us,’ muses Garrard, lazily scratching the dog’s scruff. ‘I wonder if he can see us?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I say with a yawn. ‘I should think we’d have to go right to the edge for that.’

  He stretches. ‘Hard to imagine him down there, isn’t it?’

  ‘My God, it can’t be!’ Kits’ voice rings out across camp.

  ‘By Jove, it is!’ cries Cotterell.

  They’re over by the stockpile, squatting on their haunches and staring at something lying in the snow. Cotterell is grinning, with his pipe clamped between his teeth, and Kits is flushed and excited – no, he’s ecstatic. The Sherpas stand a little apart, their faces impassive.