Far, Far The Mountain Peak

by John Masters

  ‘I can’t accept that until we are actually stopped,’ Peter said.

  After a while Harry said: ‘I thought you’d say that. Then let me go on the Needles with Cadez tomorrow. Gerry needs a rest. Perhaps you and he, or you and Lapeyrol, can try for the top the next day, if we do manage to get over Six and Cleopatra.’ Gerry had been lying on his side, half dozing, between them. Now he said, very clearly: ‘I’d better go, Peter.’

  His meaning was obvious, and Harry Walsh understood it at once--that they could not really believe negative reports unless they were made by himself or Peter. Harry was looking at Peter without saying anything, but his expression spoke for him . . . See? That’s not Gerry Wilcot speaking. When did anyone ever hear Gerry speak as insultingly as that? He’s not himself.

  All the same, what Gerry had said was true, Peter thought remorselessly. If Harry and Cadez went out on the Needles the next day, and reported that that route was finally impassable, he would have to take someone the day after and see for himself--and that would be the last day they could stay here at Camp II. The rations would be finished by then. They had already been five days over 23,000 feet and no one, except Gerry, was as good a man as he had been at lower levels. There would, in fact, be no attempt made for the summit.

  Peter said: ‘I think Gerry had better go.’

  After a moment Harry crawled out of the tent, without another word.

  The next morning when Peter awoke it was bitter cold and the wind howled and it was dark, utter dark, not even the snow reflecting any glimmer, for there was no light in the sky. Peering at his luminous watch, he saw that it was half-past six. He struggled into his frozen boots and staggered across and into Gerry’s tent.

  ‘Wake up!’ he screamed. ‘Half-past six.’

  Gerry awoke with a low moaning shout, with words embedded in it. ‘Yes! . . . Hold, hold. . . . Eh, wha’?’

  ‘Half-past six,’ Peter repeated. ‘Get Cadez up. I’ll try and get something hot.’

  The Primus would not start, and everything was clogged by the cold, and the pair were not ready until eight. There was an evil light over the world by then and the Needles stood like black sentries directly over the little tents, their heads hidden in drifting snow. Walsh had protested twice that the weather was not good enough for any work on the Needles today, but Gerry said, ‘Nonsense,’ cheerfully, and Cadez said nothing. At last they roped up and clumped slowly away up the snow-bank towards the foot of Needle One.

  Peter followed Harry back into the tent, crawled into his bag, and tried to get some more sleep. It was not a luxurious place, Camp II. The tents were perched on a tiny ledge, sloping sharply to the south, a little below the crest of the ridge and perhaps one hundred yards from the base of Needle One. Their breath had been freezing on the inside of the canvas all these days and now there was a kind of congealed greasy scum there, and the tent was permeated with the smells of kerosene and sweat and woollen socks. The wind shrieked all day so that they had to shout when they wanted to say anything. It had seemed to drop a bit most evenings, but even so he realized that all their conferences and conversations had been carried on at the tops of their voices; each one had been as tiring as an average day’s low-altitude climbing. Their headaches were now permanent.

  He had nothing to say to Harry Walsh, and Harry had nothing to say to him. There had been a definite break between them, no less definite for being unspoken. Harry would obey him as the leader of this expedition until they got back to Rudwal; but he would never climb with him again. It was a pity, though expected. Only Gerry could be trusted, because only Gerry trusted him.

  At eleven o’clock he finally dozed off. At one, Lapeyrol, grim and short-spoken, crawled into the tent to report that the porters were in hand and that he had six of them down at Camp I, and what were the gentleman’s orders?

  It might be a good idea to send Harry down to Camp I and keep Lapeyrol here for the attempt on the summit tomorrow. But Lapeyrol had shown quite clearly that he did not want to climb with Peter again; so he had better go back down with orders to bring the porters up here the following day, with sufficient tentage. The day after that they would all go down to Juniper by convenient stages. Lapeyrol said: ‘Oui, monsieur,’ and eased out of the tent, and they were alone again.

  Two o’clock. Three o’clock. Four o’clock. No sign of Gerry and Cadez. They scrambled out of the tent, stood in the wind, beat their hands and arms. Back into the tent. Half-past five. The light was beginning to fade. Heavy clouds overhead. They went out again.

  At six o’clock Harry said: ‘There they are.’ They were the first words he had spoken since Lapeyrol left.

  Peter scanned Needle One and with difficulty made out a figure near the top, coming down slowly--very slowly, because he was alone. Harry saw at the same time that there was only one climber. They grabbed ropes and ice-axes and hurried up the ridge.

  Who was lost--Gerry or Cadez? His best friend or the paid guide? Peter hoped it would be the guide. Gerry was worth three of Cadez--more; there could be no comparison of their values, to himself and to mankind. But neither was it right that a man should be killed like this while earning money. Peter promised himself then and there that he would never again take guides on a big climb.

  It was Gerry whose arms they grasped as he swung down off the lowest rocks of Needle One. ‘Cadez is dead,‘ he said at once. One end of the rope coiled round his waist was broken.

  ‘Later,’ Peter said, for Gerry had stopped and was looking miserably at him. ‘Come on down.’

  Then Gerry went with them, and they hurried to the tent. By then it was full dark. They lit the Primus and melted snow and rubbed Gerry’s face with snow, and he began to speak. They were jammed together like sardines.

  ‘I led to the foot of Six. As far as we’d gone yesterday. Three hours. Cadez took over. Peter, it was hard! Inch by inch, searching, hammering in pegs, stretching the rope, moving on. The weather changed--we got sudden blasts of wind that shook the mountain, Peter! They roared like explosions, only they lasted a minute--two minutes--each, and we clung to the side of the Needle. Then it blew from all points, with snow. “Ne va pas” Cadez said at last. That was on Cleopatra’s, low down. He’d been going like a god, Peter, like you--standing on one foot, on holds less than a quarter of an inch wide, hammering at full stretch of his arm in front of him. “Ne va pas,” he said again. “We’ve done our best, monsieur. More, more!” He was right, Peter. His best and mine, but not yours. I said: “I’ll lead!” I’ve got five, six inches longer reach than Cadez. We were in cloud. Lit by flashes of something--lightning? Green, yellow, black light. So much noise that it was really silent except for the booming of the wind. “I’ll lead,” I said again, screaming in his ear. “Suicide,” Cadez shrieked. I shook my head. “Murder, then,” Cadez screamed. “Murder!” I began to untie the rope, but I was slow. My fingers cold, thick, fumbling. Cadez snatched it from me and tightened the knots. He said: “It is not you who are the murderer, milord. Go on!” What did he mean?’

  He looked from Peter to Harry, and Harry looked at Peter, and Peter said: ‘Go on.’

  ‘Cadez led on. Fifteen minutes in one place--one hold, I mean. Rock broke. I fell. Cadez held me. We got over Six, Cleopatra’s. It’s all done, Peter.’

  Peter patted his shoulder. Gerry was calming down and spoke--shouted--more rationally now. ‘On the way back, Cadez as Number Two, he fell. Wind blew him off. Or he was using a peg--stepping down on to it. He wasn’t used to them. Or he was trying not to use them, he didn’t trust them. I don’t know--I had a good belay, good anchor. But it was on Three, you know, Harry, the place where there’s a runout of nearly forty feet. No belay will hold the leader going up, or the Number Two coming down, if he falls there. The anchor held. The rope broke. He disappeared into the Bowl. I saw him for about two hundred, three hundred feet. Arms and legs out, stiff, flat, like a black cross, whirling, I’m sorry, Peter.’

  Oh God, this was a time when Gerry should have be
en a woman, so that he could take him in his arms and comfort him as one could a woman. He gave Gerry ten aspirins and lay quiet, patting his hands. It was bitterly, furiously cold.

  His body was growing numb from the cramped position he was in. What fantastic power of fear or remorse had got Gerry down the Needles alone after the accident? What he and Cadez had done on the fault was nothing compared to that.

  After a long time, when Gerry sounded as though he were asleep, Harry Walsh said: ‘And tomorrow?’

  Peter said: ‘Are you going to come with me?’

  Walsh said: ‘No. And Gerry obviously can’t. So we’ll go down. We ought to look for Cadez’s body--though it’s hopeless. All you have to say is that it was your decision to turn down. I’ll back you to the hilt, here and at home.’

  Peter said: ‘Good night,’ and left the tent.

  Chapter 15

  He did not get to sleep for a long time. Cadez was dead. He had chosen his way of life, and must have been prepared for such a manner of death. All the same it was sad that he had died, sadder still that in the moment of his falling he had not thought of the greatness of the endeavour, but of Peter, and with hate.

  Harry had refused to climb tomorrow. He had reached his limit. Lyon had never been really fit--not because of the altitude, but because the food and water and the general conditions of Indian travel had started to upset his disciplined Scottish stomach the moment he landed at Bombay. Besides, he was at Juniper; and, if asked, he would follow Harry’s lead and refuse to come. Lapeyrol would refuse.

  No one, including Peter himself, now knew the whole route up the Needles, except Gerry.

  Gerry was still going strongly. Something had changed in his ego and his personality--but not, apparently, his climbing nerve. He was the only man Peter could trust to the end; and he was the only one who would come with him; and he was here.

  He, Peter, might go alone.

  He thought about that for a time and soon dismissed it as folly. There were places, Harry had said, where one man literally could not pass without help from above or below. The chances would be at least even that he would fall; then nothing could prevent Gerry from coming to find him, not even a direct order from himself before he set out.

  Gerry would expect to come with him as soon as he learned that Harry would not. This was the mountain, this the effort, towards which they had been pointing their mountaineering selves for six years--longer, perhaps, without knowing the exact place. They had talked bravely about how nothing could stop them. Now, here, was the opportunity to put that philosophy into practice and seal their lives to each other.

  All the same, it was hard. He was afraid of the mountain by now. As he lay there he could feel the fear creeping along his veins, and crawling in the muscles of his thighs. Gerry was doing superhumanly well; but how much longer could he keep it up? When would something break? What would it be? What harm might it do to both of them? Suddenly he was again clinging to the highest pitch on the fault, and vertigo pounced on him so that he had to press down with both hands against the ground to control himself.

  Down, down, then! Turn away from the mountain, his own mountain, for this time. They had done all and more than all that men could do. Harry would support him. Cadez’s death would be told to the world in different words. Harry himself would probably relent, for he was not a vindictive person, and might even again climb with him. Emily would not reproach him over Cadez--or Gerry. He himself would live to fight another day, on another ridge of Meru. Lapeyrol, Lyon, the porters, everyone would be happy. All he had to do was give the word--down!

  Very well, then. They would go up, to the summit. Gerry and he. Who else? Nothing would stop them. Harry and Lyon and Lapeyrol would stir the climbing world against him; and their tale would react in other quarters as well. Those people who called him the Duke of Rudwal would call him the Butcher of Meru. And if they failed, Gerry and he, then it would be worse.

  So be it.

  He kept thinking of Emily. He wanted to explain to her why he must go on, but she was not there with him. She was asleep in their big bed in the big bungalow, tranquil and strong. How could she be so strong and not need to lead? Would she understand if he came back tomorrow, and not Gerry?

  He started violently, as from one of those muscular and nervous contractions which often made him jerk, like a dying fish, when he was near sleep. Whatever happened, that must not. If anyone was to come back alone tomorrow, it must be Gerry. He could not face Emily if it were not, because she loved Gerry. Not as she loved him, not in any way that could make a man jealous of his sexual rights, his private possession of her body; hardly even as a brother or a son. She loved him for the same causes that he, Peter, did--as an ideal, a personification of decency and unselfishness. ‘Sir Galahad,’ she had once called him; but if she had spoken her inmost thoughts, and his own, she would have said ‘Christ,’ a twentieth-century Christ, born in the unlikely mould of an English earl.

  But if that was the truth, or near the truth, what, who, was he!

  No, not Christ. Gerry did not have the strength. One of those wounded Italian saints, with blood streaming from life-like arrows implanted in his body, and a beatific smile on the gentle face and an iridescent halo held by waiting angels above his head.

  Peter could pursue his thoughts no further, though he tried. He could only fall asleep.

  He awoke at five o’clock and aroused Gerry. ‘Wake up, old man. We’re going to the top.’ It was impossible to tell what had happened to the weather, except that it was not snowing. The wind blew a gentler note and the air, though cold, had lost its bitter point.

  Harry Walsh sat up, fully awake on the instant, and said fiercely: ‘You’re coming down with me, Gerry! I told him last night I wouldn’t go with him.’

  Gerry was not fully awake, though he was already half into one boot. ‘Eh?’ he mumbled. ‘Are we going down?’ The tent seemed to have shrunk. There was hardly room to move, and they were all shouting.

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘If you refuse, he can’t go by himself. You’ll save his life, Gerry.’

  Gerry seemed to grasp what was happening. ‘Are we going up, Peter, you and I?’ he asked simply.

  Peter said: ‘Yes.’

  Gerry nodded and kept working at his boots. Harry turned on Peter. ‘You can’t take Gerry! By God, Savage, you’re the biggest swine I’ve ever met!’ He mouthed almost incoherent words of loathing. Then he said: ‘I thought even you must see that Gerry’s not fit to climb.’

  ‘Of course I’m fit, Harry,’ Gerry said reasonably.

  Harry went on as though Gerry had not spoken. ‘Cadez didn’t matter a damn to you, I know--but Gerry!’

  Peter said nothing. Harry said at last, after a violent, single oath: ‘I’ll come. Forget what I said last night.’

  Peter had been expecting this, and had decided on the right response. He said: ‘I’m sorry, Harry. I have no confidence in your guts.’

  Harry tried to hit him then, but the blow glanced harmlessly off his shoulder, and Gerry said calmly: ‘There’s no need to get excited, Harry. Peter won’t hold anything against you.’

  Harry groaned and put his head in his hands. Gerry busied himself with the Primus and then went outside for a moment.

  Harry began again, speaking with desperate reasonableness. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the Matterhorn didn’t fall at the first attempt.

  Nor did the Eiger or the Jungfrau---‘

  ‘Trisul did,’ Peter said.

  Harry shook his head. ‘That was different. Give it up,’ he said. ‘I swear that I’ll say nothing about anything that’s happened here. I’ll keep Lapeyrol’s mouth shut. I--I promise I’ll come with you on your next expedition to Meru. I promise I won’t form one of my own before you can get back here. I’ll use all my influence to see that no one else does. I’ll---‘

  Peter said flatly: ‘We came here to climb Meru. I expected you as deputy leader, to see that the attempt was forced home if I were killed or inju
red. I was mistaken. You’re a great climber, Harry, but you’re not fit to lead on Meru--or even to follow. Now, listen. If Gerry and I are not back by nightfall you are to go on down to Juniper first thing tomorrow morning. Lapeyrol and some porters will be here by this afternoon. Take them down with you, but leave this tent with a little food, all that you can spare, in case we have to spend the night out on the Needles or higher. I doubt if we’d survive, but we might, and if we did we’d need to find the tent and food here. Do you understand?’

  Harry said: ‘Yes, but---‘

  Peter went on. ‘Lapeyrol and Lyon are to spend one more night--tomorrow night--at Camp I, and then join you at Juniper. After that you will be in command. Harkabir will help you get everyone back to Rudwal. One more thing. No attempt is to be made by anyone to look for us if we do not come back. No one, under any circumstances, is to go beyond the base of Needle One. Do you understand?’

  ‘That’s against all the traditions of mountaineering,’ Harry said hoarsely.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Meru is not a traditional mountain.’

  Harry said: ‘But. . . Look, what can I say, what can any of us say, if you and Gerry don’t come down, and I do? How can I explain that I didn’t make any attempt to find you or rescue you? Lapeyrol will never be employed again. You might be dead--or you might only have sprained an ankle on the other side of Needle One.’

  Peter fumbled in the small leather box where he kept his diary, in which he recorded all that happened, for the sake of the articles he would later write about the expedition. He took off his gloves, tore out a sheet of paper, found his pencil, and wrote slowly: ‘Harry--Under no circumstances is any attempt to be made to rescue or search for Gerry or myself if we do not return to Camp II as planned--P. Savage, Camp II, July 19, 1913.’

  He handed it to Harry. Harry glanced at it and cried: ‘This won’t help, and you know it. You can’t bind me once I’m the leader. And I tell you that if you don’t come back I’m coming to look for you, with Lapeyrol.’