Far, Far The Mountain Peak

by John Masters

  The carriage halted in front of the bungalow. She went directly to the bedroom and lay down. When she awoke the heat of the day was past and she felt better. She spent an hour with her son, had a bath, and began to dress.

  Peter had been away for nearly a week. He had left Rudwal the morning after the expedition arrived; so he had just seen them, wished them good weather and good luck, and gone. He was not due back for another four days--the day after they were due to set off. She remembered that he had not expressed a hope that they climb the mountain. He meant exactly what he said, no more, no less! That they should have good luck and good weather--and still fail. She did not know what to hope for. Well, all their arrangements were made, and perhaps the large contingent of Dhotial coolies they had imported from Garhwal would serve them better on the mountain than the Rudwalis had--though Peter doubted it.

  The day after they marched off, the two expedition wives now staying at the dak bungalow--Mrs Ewell and Peggy Walsh-- would go up to the hill station of Manali to wait there until the party returned.

  Peggy had changed--outwardly, little, except in a fining-down of her face and a hardening of her expression; inwardly, a great deal. She was a secretive woman now, giving the impression that she had some deep but shocking source of pleasure concealed about her person, like a child who intends, at the right moment, to give her grandmother a long-dead frog. Emily had not spoken to Peggy of the past--there was no purpose in it--but had tried to show by her manner, and in the genuine love she felt for her, that they could make a new affection in the present. Peggy smiled carefully and moved more gracefully about her life, and hugged the unseen thing.

  Emily was in the drawing-room, talking to Gerry, when the bearer announced the arrival of Walsh Sahib and Memsahib.

  Gerry sprang to his feet. ‘Someone’s ill!’ Then Harry and Peggy came in, and Emily saw at once that, while Harry was worried, Peggy was doubly wrapped up in expectations.

  Gerry said anxiously: ‘What is it, Harry? What’s the matter?’

  Harry said: ‘Ewell broke his ankle this afternoon.’

  ‘No!’ Gerry cried. ‘How?’

  ‘He slipped on that board you have in the bathrooms out here.’

  Peggy said: ‘Isn’t it an awful place for a thing like that to happen to a mountaineer?’ She looked at Emily with an unhappy, sympathetic shake of her head, her eyes bright.

  ‘The doctor came up,’ Harry said, ‘and told us there’s no chance of it healing in time to let him climb this year. Is he any good, Gerry? I mean Parkash? I must say I’m a little dubious of these brown chaps with a degree from heaven knows where.’

  ‘Parkash is an excellent doctor,’ Gerry said indignantly. ‘Why, he---‘

  Harry went on. ‘It doesn’t much matter, because it’s obvious the ankle’s broken--his foot was twisted right round. So he’s going home, and spending his furlough there instead of with us. It’s hard luck. He was very keen.’ He twisted the whisky glass Emily had signalled the bearer to give him, and spoke slowly, as much to Emily as to Gerry. ‘The point is that he was the only Urdu speaker on the expedition. He was going to look after the porters and the administration, though he’d have been available for climbing too. You remember, Gerry, when we were coming down last year, Peter said that the whole administrative side would have to be more carefully organized--and now Ewell can’t come.’

  Peggy was looking at her brother with alert eyes, her second drink steady in her hand, though the rest of them had hardly touched their first.

  Harry went on. ‘That’s bad enough, but the actual climbing problems are worse. If there are only three of us we’ll have to try to be in two places at once. We’ll have to do more than it is really sound to ask anyone to do.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get so tired that there’s an accident,’ Peggy said loudly. Gerry’s shoulders hunched a little, as though something cold had touched the back of his neck.

  ‘It reduces our chances almost to vanishing point,’ Harry said, ‘but I can’t give up without even trying. And there’s one more thing. Ever since we came back last year I’ve been trying desperately to find some faint hope that we would be able to approach the mountain from some other angle. We’re going to look at the Yangpa ridge first--but the more I remember of what I saw of it--’

  ‘It’s out of the question,’ Gerry said. ‘Peter said so.’

  ‘I’m beginning to be afraid so. I was just mentally trying to get away from the certainty that we will have to tackle the Needles again. Gerry, you’ve learned Urdu pretty well. You know the mountain--and you know the whole of the Needles. Will you please come with us?’

  Emily had seen it coming and grown cold, but Gerry had not, or had hidden the certainty from himself. ‘Me?’ he muttered. He stared at Harry; then his eyes wandered to Emily, as though for help. He said: ‘Meru. When do you expect to be back?’

  Emily watched him, and the room was silent. She saw that the first emotion to come to Gerry was fear, fear that sprang on him so powerfully and from so deep in his being that he could not prevent it from flashing momentarily in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. Then his courage beat it down and conquered it. He would be afraid, but that alone should not prevent him. But . . . his medical studies?

  Harry said: ‘The end of August, without fail.’

  Gerry was due at the university by the first week in September. As to the work he was supposed to do before then, he had already done it.

  ‘Are you sure he’s fit enough?’ Emily asked. Meru was towering over them again, and Peter was not here. Perhaps Gerry should go--to purge himself of that, at least.

  Harry said: ‘Yes. That’s really why I was asking what sort of a doctor Parkash was--because I asked him today about Gerry. He said he had examined him a couple of times recently and thought he was thoroughly fit, physically.’ He went on quickly. ‘I know you’re fit enough in every other way, Gerry. There’s not another man in the world I’d rather be with, on any mountain, at any time.’

  Gerry nodded abstractedly. He said: ‘I’d want to have an equal chance at being chosen for the summit party, Harry . . . Because of Peter. He can’t come, I know, but I could sort of represent him, couldn’t I?’

  Harry hesitated for a perceptible moment. Then he said: ‘I was hoping to rely on you to establish a new camp above the Needles, if that’s the route we have to use. But--all right. An equal chance, depending on what happens--how we all go.’ Emily knew that he would have liked to keep Gerry off the heights, because of what had happened last time. But the Needles still stood, and this time Peter would not be there. If Gerry was himself--his old superb but normal self--Harry would give him a chance at the summit, even at the cost of his own place.

  Gerry still stood thinking, a whisky glass in his hand.

  He turned to Emily. ‘Do you think Peter will---?’ She braced herself to lie.

  ‘Gerry, Harry needs you,’ Peggy broke in gently.

  Gerry made up his mind. ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll come.’ He put out his hand.

  Harry jumped up. ‘Wonderful!’ They clasped hands.

  Gerry said: ‘All my things are here. And you’re not off for a couple of days. Wish I had time to go and say good-bye to Peter. I’ll send him a note. Get it off first thing in the morning.’

  Emily saw Peggy make a small, happy movement. Dear God, what would Peter say? He would never believe that Gerry had not appreciated his bitter sarcasm when they had talked about this very thing as an impossibility two months ago. He would see it as a deliberate action to wound him, on Gerry’s part. Perhaps it would lead to a final break between the two of them, and Gerry would go back to England to be a doctor. That would hurt, too, but it might be best in the long run.

  Gerry said suddenly: ‘Peter’s the best climber in the world. It’s a damn shame. But his work’s important too. I never realized how important until this year.’

  Peggy said eagerly: ‘Of course!’ Harry nodded without speaking. Harry had been very car
eful to say nothing during his week here that might even hint of any adverse opinion he held of Peter. When he could praise, he did; when he did not wish to, he was silent.

  A thought suddenly struck Emily. She said: ‘Peggy, Mrs Ewell must be going home with her husband?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Peggy said brightly. ‘She is going to look after him, and has made all the arrangements. She’s very efficient. They’re going to start out the day after tomorrow. Dr Parkash has set his foot in plaster of Paris, and they’ll have it looked at in Lahore and then go on.’

  ‘What will you do? You were going to stay with Mrs Ewell in Manali. You’ll be alone.’ Emily knew what she must do-- what it could be best to do, in spite of the obvious disadvantages. ‘Yes,’ Peggy said.

  Emily said: ‘You must stay with us here.’

  ‘Of course, you’ll be alone too, most of the time,’ Peggy said. ‘I never thought of that--with Gerry gone.’ There was the secret self-hugging again, and Emily waited; but that was all. Peggy said: ‘Are you sure I won’t be in the way? It seems such an awful imposition to have someone settle on you for three months.’

  ‘It isn’t as though we were strangers,’ Emily said evenly, looking directly at her girlhood friend, trying to make her come to the point, to say something that would clear the air and dispel the metallic shimmering of the atmosphere around them.

  ‘Of course not,’ Peggy said. ‘I’d love to. And I can help with the baby. I don’t seem able to have one. It’ll be quite like old times, won’t it?’

  No, it won’t, Emily thought, not a bit; not until you come out and scratch my face, and we argue and fight and cry and know what has happened to each other. It would be difficult, especially at first. Having the baby would help her over that time. Later, surely, they would be able to find each other again?’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘You can have Gerry’s room.’

  ‘We’d better get back to the dak bungalow,’ Harry said. ‘Goodwin and Lyon will be delighted to hear you’re coming, Gerry. Really overjoyed. Ewell too, poor devil. What stinking luck!’

  Emily, smiling, full of unease, saw them to the outer door.

  Chapter 19

  She looked around the table carefully, the bearer at her side. Harry on her right; Gerry sitting as host with Peggy on his right; Mr Lyon; Mr Goodwin. It was a pity that the Ewells had had to go, as that left herself and Peggy as the only women.

  Flowers. Everything in place. The menu rechecked and the khansamah busy in his kitchen.

  They’d be off at ten tomorrow morning. ‘Never like to make a long stage the first day, or try to get away too early,’ Harry had said. Gerry was over there at the dak bungalow, trying to get the others to admit that pegs were permissible aids on Meru. A refusal on their part would imply that they thought Peter had been wrong to use them in ‘13. She thought that they would accept the pegs, with private reservations, as much for Gerry’s sake as because even Harry seemed to think the Needles would be impossible without them. She had taken it on herself to offer them the pegs brought down from last year, though each one would have to be carefully examined before use.

  The time passed; Gerry returned; the guests arrived; and slowly the evening began to take shape. It was a time such as she had often watched from the outside, or from the shadowed edge, at Llyn Gared while she was growing up, but had seldom fully been a part of herself. The men were all of the same metal, though formed into different shapes. Gerry was at ease, happy and excited as he used to be in the untroubled days. He and Lyon were going to climb as a pair as much as possible, because Lyon knew nothing about pegs and didn’t like them. He explained that he would trust Gerry, not only to show him their uses but to find the balance of justification, so that they would not be used needlessly but would not be shunned when they might make for greater safety.

  Even Peggy had relaxed something of her disquietingly eager manner. After all, Emily thought, Gerry is going tomorrow, and, whatever Gerry thinks, Peggy is quite well aware that Peter would have preferred him not to go. And Peggy’s feelings towards Peter were--strange.

  The warmth of friendship and common endeavour wrapped them all through the meal and after, when the men stayed in the dining-room and she talked with Peggy in the drawing-room, discussing a few details of the life they would share here until the end of August; and after again, when the men joined them.

  They were still talking about the mountain, and as she listened she thought that in some odd way, without detracting from Harry’s leadership, Gerry had become the focus of the expedition. She had not seen the places they talked of, though they were as real in her mind as the room wherein she was sitting, but she thought that the others felt that Gerry knew more about Meru than any of them, even felt perhaps that he had some indirectly acquired communion with the mountain which they would never have. Of course it was a fact that he had been higher than any of them. Perhaps that explained it. Or perhaps the secret was that Peter was not coming this time, and Gerry felt that he must in himself represent as much of that daemon power as he could; and it was there, certainly, but transmuted by his character into a firm, steady desire to help them all to do well what they had come so far to do. Harry, the wise leader, sat a little back and left the spirits of his companions to gather inspiration and strength where they would.

  Gerry said: ‘Look, Harry, I’ve got an idea about Needle Five---‘

  ‘If we find the Yangpa won’t go,’ Harry said with a smile. ‘Yes. Em, can I have six pepper-pots?’

  ‘Six!’ she cried. ‘Well, I’ll see.’ She got up to call the bearer. He entered the room before she had reached the door. He was smiling. He said: ‘Sahib a-gya.’

  She gasped. ‘What! Oh, no!’

  Peggy said urgently: ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Peter’s back.’

  ‘Peter!’ Gerry cried.

  ‘How wonderful! He’ll be able to see them off in the morning after all.’ Peggy’s voice was suddenly full of suppressed excitement.

  Emily asked the bearer: ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In the study, memsahib.’ He salaamed and went out.

  She said: ‘I must go. I’ll be back in a minute. Gerry, do the honours, please.’

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ Peggy said happily.

  Emily hurried along the passage, her mind racing. She found Peter at his desk, scribbling notes with one hand, mopping his forehead with the other. He was covered with dust, and outside she saw the syce leading away his horse.

  He got up and kissed her quickly as she came in, and asked, ‘How’s the baby?’ His icy eyes were rimmed with red, and yellow dust lay like a hood under his brows and in the corners of his nose. He began scribbling again while he talked. ‘We’ve broken it--the famine,’ he said. ‘I forced the speculators down there to put their stocks on the market. I’m on my way to Lahore to make a special report to the Lieutenant-Governor. I have to catch the midnight train. You’ve had dinner?’

  ‘Yes---‘

  ‘Good. I’ve told the khansamah to make me some scrambled eggs. Harry’s expedition’s off tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes---‘

  ‘I’ll come in and wish them luck before I change. Though they won’t climb it.’ He laid down his pen--’There’--and stood up.

  She said: ‘I’ve asked Peggy to stay with us while the expedition’s away. Did Gerry tell you in his note?’ She had to find out whether he had received the note, or whether he had come back now, two days early, only because his work was done.

  He looked at her, his brows bent, and said: ‘Why did you do that? You can’t re-create Llyn Gared in Rudwal. We’d have had a better time as we are, the three of us--you, me, and Gerry.’

  ‘Then you didn’t get Gerry’s note.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he said quietly, still holding her eyes on his.

  She said: ‘Then you know Gerry’s going with them--but you just said, “the three of us.” Peter, what---?’

  His left hand rested on the table-top, the
long fingers taut under the bright glare of the pressure lamp. The fizzing light fell on white papers; red tape binding the files; gleaming black- japanned metal of two boxes; red ink, blue ink in glass pots. His face was in shadow, and behind him on the walls the pictures of mountains.

  ‘Do you think Gerry really believed I wanted him to go?’ he said at last. Again she had to forget some of the urgency of her emotion in admiration of his perspicacity and of his self-control. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course! That was why he accepted.’

  Peter said: ‘I think I’d like to tell him the truth.’

  She lurched in front of him as he made to pass her. She caught hold of the lapels of his thin, stained coat and whispered fiercely: ‘Listen, Peter! You’ve got to let him go, because he’s promised. If you make him break his promise . . . Oh, God, it’s awful to think that you might be able to. Before he met you no one, nothing, could have made him break a promise. If you do he’ll have nothing left in the world except you, no place to go, no one who will speak to him, accept him--only you.’

  ‘And his patients,’ Peter said. ‘Does he want anything else?’ Gently he put her hands away and went out. She followed him heavily along the passage. At the drawing-room he opened the door for her, so that she might precede him into the room.

  The four men were on their feet. Peter went past them to take Peggy’s hand. He said: ‘Hello, Peggy. I hear you’re staying with us while the expedition’s away.’