Far, Far The Mountain Peak

by John Masters

  Peter arranged to speak to all the porters that night, to reproach them for their sudden action, which was part reasonless panic, part sympathy, part herd instinct, and to ask them to work harder still now, as the expedition could not afford any more delays.

  The talk went off well; the porters murmured their apologies and promised full support, and everyone went to bed. The next day they began again on the Wilcot Ridge, and established Camp I by the second evening. Then came three days of bad weather, a howling wind and dust storm that lasted twenty-four hours and was succeeded by dry snow. On June 7 they began moving stores up to the new Camp II at 21,690 feet, and on June 9 to Camp III.

  Camp III was to be placed on the same ledge as the Camp II of 1913. It was to consist of three small tents, and as soon as it was established Peter intended to send most of those who had done the work down to Camps II and I, while George Norris and he, working alone, put the Needles in a condition where loaded Sherpas could safely traverse them. This, he estimated, would take three hard days.

  On June 9, Peter was therefore at Camp II, and the establishment of Camp III was in the hands of Oscar Hutton, while Harry Walsh was working between Juniper and Camp I to keep the supplies flowing evenly up the mountain.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon a mild snowstorm suddenly descended on the Wilcot Ridge. Peter scrambled out of the tent, where he was writing his diary. He could not see more than a couple of hundred feet up the ridge, and thought that the snow would be a good deal heavier at Camp III (23,600 feet) than it was down here at 21,690 feet; but he had confidence in Oscar’s judgement and returned to finish his work.

  At half-past three he heard a muffled shout from outside and went out again. Robin Granger joined him from the other tent. One of the Sherpas was there, beating his gloved hands together against the bitter cold. They leaned together while the Sherpa shouted that one of his comrades and two Rudwalis had fallen off the ridge on the north side--that is, down towards the Great Chimney Gulf. Robin didn’t stay for more, but dived back into his tent to get ready. Peter’s heart sank as the Sherpa, almost beside himself with his exertions, the effort of shouting against the wind, and making his Gurkhali-Tibetan dialect understood, said five of them, one cordée of three and one of two, had set out in fine weather from Camp III. Then it began to snow, and they were just going to stop because the visibility was getting bad, when it happened. The three had gone too far to the north on a smooth patch of snow, and it had given way under them.

  A few more questions--they were by now crouched inside Peter’s tent while he struggled into his climbing gear--and Peter knew that a snow cornice had given way under them; that Barnes and Hutton, at Camp III, should by now have learned the news from the other member of the cordée which had not gone over; and that Pahlwan had been first on the other rope and had led the way on to the treacherous place.

  He could spare a thought for Pahlwan, and berate himself for allowing him to join the Sherpas; but he knew he would have done it again. Sherpas had no inherent knowledge of mountaineering, the difference between them and other Himalayan peoples being mainly a desire to climb for some object deeper than just getting paid for it. Pahlwan and his three volunteers had shown that they too wanted to climb and though they lacked even the small technical experience of the Sherpas, the Wilcot Ridge below the Needles was as safe a place as any to gain that experience--in good weather. Oscar had put Pahlwan as Number 1 on the rope coming down--quite correctly, as another Rudwali was Number 2 and a Sherpa, presumably the best climber of the three, and the ‘commander’ of the rope, was Number 3. If anyone was to blame it was this last man, who should have stopped moving as soon as the snow began to fall, especially as he must have known he was near the only dangerous place on the ridge, that smooth expanse of snow about half-way between Camp II and Camp III.

  Peter conjured up pictures of the Gulf as he had seen it from various places along the Wilcot Ridge. He did not know exactly what it was like below the point of the accident, because no one had gone out on the treacherously smooth snow of the cornice. He had seen it from lower down the ridge, though, and knew that the cornice overhung about twenty feet in a beautifully curved and thinning parabola, like the arching of some swan-necked bird. There might be a ledge or platform of snow not too far down, but there might not. Three hundred feet down there was certainly a band of greenish rock that ran horizontally along the mountain, jutting out of the sweep of ice and snow, until it ended directly below the west end of the Mirror Wall. Below this band, a thousand feet lower, there was another band, and below that rocks, cliffs, scattered snow patches, ice chutes, rock funnels, and the final direct fall into the head of the Great Chimney Glacier. There was little chance that the men could have survived.

  He was ready, and Robin Granger waited outside. Peter sent the Sherpa on down with instructions to Harry Walsh, and started up the ridge.

  The snow fell thicker as they climbed, but he did not think it would last beyond nightfall, about three hours off in that latitude and season. The problem would be to get the rescue party down on to the cliffs below the ridge. Unless examination showed something different the site of the collapse itself would probably be the best place. He thought of taking Oscar with him to find the men or what had happened to them but Robin said, as if he had read his thoughts: ‘I’ve got to go, Peter. They may be injured.’

  Now--should he go himself? In spite of everything, he was the best climber in the party, and as his thighs drove him up the ridge, at a pace that he knew he could have bettered if the weather were not imposing a hard caution, he could feel an exultant resurging of his old at-all-costs power.

  He put the problem aside, having decided he must wait till he got to the site of the accident, and concentrated on climbing. They reached the place in fifty-eight minutes; Hutton, Barnes, Garakay the Sherpa leader, the three remaining Sherpas, and the two remaining Rudwalis were there. The snow towered in great spirals above and around them, a sure sign that the storm would not last long. Robin Granger’s breath was coming in great sobs, and he had thrown himself down on the snow to recover after the effort of their climb.

  Oscar said: ‘I’ve been up and down the ridge, Peter. This is the only place to go over. I’ve got a rope anchored. I was going to go over and break the cornice back to the rock. Do you want us to start now? There’s only an hour and a half of daylight left.’

  ‘We must go now,’ Peter said. ‘Robin and I.’ Now that he had seen, he knew that he ought to go.

  He examined the rope and saw that it was well anchored to an ice-axe driven into the snow. Oscar shouted in his ear, ‘Two hundred feet.’

  Good. He would fasten himself to the end and crawl out towards the edge. Soon his weight would break the cornice, and he would fall through. Some of the cornice on either side would fall away, on and around him, so much so that he might disappear under it, like a man being dragged through a high, thin sand dune. Still, he had plenty of men to work him gradually up and down while he slashed away with his ice-axe. Sooner or later the cornice would be broken back until what was left was firm and deep enough to hold the rope.

  He stepped forward. All the heads were turned towards him, and he could feel the concentrated intensity of all those eyes behind the dark goggles. At that moment Oscar shouted in his ear--but muted, so that probably no one else heard--’I’d rather you sent Billy and myself, especially Billy.’ Billy stood there, a little back from the rest, hunched like a young tiger, his jaw stuck out.

  Peter thought quickly. That was best. Billy should go, because he was a good climber and because he wanted desperately to recoup his own opinion of himself. Would anyone think that he himself was avoiding the duty if he changed his mind now? He dismissed the thought. It had no bearing on the problem.

  He stood back and said: ‘Oscar, take charge. Robin and Billy, with him--one first, to be lowered on the fixed rope to see if he can see anything, and report whether the three of you can move by yourselves once you’ve reached the
end of the rope.’

  Oscar raised his hand, fastened himself quickly into a loop at the end of the rope, and got his ice-axe firmly in his glove. Garakay watched the anchored ice-axe, everyone else hung on to the rope, and Peter stepped a little back, as far towards the edge of the broken cornice as he judged safe. Oscar slipped to his knees and began to crawl backwards away from the group, towards the edge of the cliff, while the men paid out the rope. The strain came suddenly, but very lightly, as Oscar reached the edge and went over. The rope cut about six feet into the cornice. The men hauled up against a tremendous strain. Oscar, dangling in mid-air just below the swan-neck of snow, hacked away at it with his ice-axe. After five minutes he reappeared and reached the flat again. Once more he crawled backwards, and again dropped off the edge; again the men hauled while Oscar widened the channel the rope had cut into the snow. After twenty minutes he shouted that it was as firm as it was going to get, and that so far he could see nothing below him.

  ‘Lower away,’ he said.

  They lowered away gently. At a hundred and twenty feet the tension came off the rope and it twitched twice, the signal that Oscar was on firm footing. Peter signalled to the men, and they let out a foot or so of slack so that Oscar could move, but not so much that if he slipped there would be enough slack to break the rope when his weight came on it. Peter moved close, took off one glove, and held the rope in his bare hand just in front of Billy Barnes, the lead man of the anchor team. By feeling the tension in it, and giving signals with his other hand, he could ensure that they gave Oscar just as much rope as he needed but no more.

  He waited tensely. The rope slid through his bare hand and moved back and forth in its channel in the cornice. He reckoned he had about twenty minutes before he’d get frostbite in that hand. The falling snow thinned, and a dull bluish pall began to darken the murky, howling sky. To the west, behind the summit cone, it was purple and dark red; then that faded.

  The rope twitched three times sharply, and the men began to haul up. Peter put on his glove and took off the other. If they were not careful they would jam Oscar into the underside of the cornice, where he could do nothing with his axe, and might break the rope. But it went well, and soon Oscar appeared, holding on to the rope with one hand and walking up over the edge of the cornice, his body almost horizontal.

  ‘Couldn’t see anyone.’ He gasped. ‘Saw a headband--one boot, with crampons. The slope’s damned steep.... Thought I saw fall marks. ... If they started an avalanche, they were behind it, not in it--or there wouldn’t have been any marks.’

  Now there was less than an hour of daylight. Peter said: ‘Over you go, then. Who’s going to take your rope? And a spare. We’ll leave this one dangling at full length. Make sure you can always get back to it. There’ll be a tent and a party here.’

  He wanted to say a whole lot of other things--if you find them stay with them until daylight and then bring them out this way, or down, or along, whichever is best; if you don’t find them, try again in the morning, but whatever you do, don’t try to find this rope-end in the dark once you’ve left it; dig yourselves into the snow; (to Robin) take an extra ice-axe in case you have to set a leg. .. . But all that would have been a waste of time. They knew, and he could trust them absolutely.

  He said: ‘Good luck.’

  In less than ten minutes, going over one by one, they had all gone. Now Peter could see nothing, nor could the rope tell him anything. It ran across the snow and over the cliff, but it had no life. The three had roped up on the slope below and were moving down and across the mountain in the fast-fading light.

  He sent Garakay and two others up to Camp III with orders to bring down a tent, a Primus, tea, sugar, and as many sleeping- bags as they could carry. That left one Sherpa and two Rudwalis with him at the head of the rope. The minutes passed, and soon he had to admit that it was dark. They stamped up and down to keep warm, the wind shrieked, and a large star came out in the west, hovering like a golden coin over the high shoulder of the Gendarme Ridge. Garakay returned about midnight with the tent, and they all tried to scramble into it. It was impossible. The Rudwalis refused to take turns, as he suggested, but grabbed ice-axes and made a deep hole in the snow outside. By the time they were satisfied with it it was half-past three in the morning. Then Peter thought that he slept for an hour, while Garakay held the rope between his hands. Then he held the rope while Garakay slept--and somehow the dawn of June 10 came, as dawns had come before to him on lonely mountains. An hour and a half later Harry Walsh reached them with an army of porters and supplies and everything else that might be needed in the rescue. They had been climbing all night.

  Harry said: ‘I hear Pahlwan was leading.’

  Peter nodded. Harry said: ‘I’m sorry I suggested you promote him.’

  Peter said: ‘Don’t be an ass. Wouldn’t you be sorrier if you hadn’t?’

  Harry began to take off his goggles--they were inside the tent. After a while he said: ‘Yes--I was feeling what I ought to feel, not what I do. It’s a hard habit to get out of.’ He seemed preoccupied.

  Chapter 41

  That had been on June 10. Only today, June 15, had Camp III been established, five days late. Well, it was done at last and here they were, he and George Norris and a stack of pegs, crampons, hammers, and extra rope.

  Of those who had fallen over the cornice, Pahlwan was dead; the Sherpa had pneumonia, a broken leg, and severe frostbite of the other foot; and the other Rudwali was sound and actually back on the mountain--though he had agreed to stay below Camp II in future.

  Apparently Pahlwan had insisted on going on after the snow began. ‘This is not enough to worry a Rudwali,’ he’d said. The Sherpa, stung by pride, had allowed himself to be overruled. Pahlwan went too far out, taking a short-cut across the cornice, or losing his way, and fell through. The second man was also on the thin part, and he too had gone through. The Sherpa at the rear had some sort of grip on firm ground and was able to delay the fall of the others before their combined weight snatched him from his place. They shot over the first green rock band, and here the rope broke behind Pahlwan. The others never saw him again. The other two rolled and fell another thousand feet to the second green band. Here they stopped, and Oscar’s party did not find them until eight o’clock the following morning. Both parties had spent an appalling night out on the side of the Great Chimney Gulf, not very far from each other. When the rescuers reached them Robin set the Sherpa’s broken leg, and then the real problems began. It was Gerry’s ice-axe that Robin used to set the leg, so it went down to Juniper and did not see the mountain again. Peter thought that on the whole this was the most fitting end for it.

  The five men had had to face the severest trials before they reached safety. They could not get back to the foot of the rope, and instead had to traverse the ice wall for nearly a mile before they could strike up towards the Wilcot Ridge above Camp I. This took them the inside of a full day, since they had to do it twice, once with each man.

  By mid-afternoon Billy Barnes had come up the ridge to tell Peter what was happening, and Peter and George Norris went down to help. The next day Walsh, Granger, and Billy Barnes went down into the Great Chimney bowl to find Pahlwan. They searched all day and did not turn back till they had found him and Robin had made sure he was dead. By then it was dark, so they spent the night with the corpse in the Gulf. The next day they tried to bring his body back, but after fruitless and dangerous attempts they gave that up. Instead Robin, who had been an attentive listener to Peter’s occasional dissertations on the Rudwalis and their life, cut off his hand and brought that up in his rucksack in order that it might be burned and some portion of Pahlwan’s ashes thrown into waters that would eventually reach the holy Ganges and the sea.

  Then Peter had ordered a day of rest for everyone, and now it was June 15. The weather was turning uncertain and supplies were low, though still enough, with care, to allow for two attempts on the summit unless there were more delays. Of the climbers, Ge
orge Norris and he were in the best shape, and they would need to be to surmount the Needles and make them fit for semi-trained Sherpas carrying heavy loads. They were together in a narrow tent at Camp III, its canvas flapping and booming like the sound of distant war, and, beyond again, the wind moaning a slow melody. It was bitterly cold. All the rest of the climbers were at Camps I or II, except Robin who was at Juniper, wrestling for the Sherpa’s life against the pneumonia that had stricken him.

  On the sixteenth, George and Peter began on the Needles. They worked for three days and did it. The rock was in fair condition for the most part, the snow bad to very bad. They found verglas most mornings on the north sides of the cliffs. The wind never fell to less than forty miles an hour, and for hours on end would hover around sixty or seventy, with gusts that were considerably heavier. Camp III marked the end of anything that could be called Alpine climbing, or even pleasure. As far as there the Wilcot Ridge led gradually up; one climbed; there were wide views; the wind howled, but it was only wind. Above Camp III, as soon as one dug one’s crampons into the slope below the Needles, it was different.

  The cruel air jabbed into the lungs like icicles; clouds boiled around the rocks and occasionally lashed volleys of huge hailstones into their faces; chunks of rock fell off as they hammered the pegs in; the wind ceased to be wind and took form as a third and utterly evil member of the rope. The views, when they saw them, were always suddenly expressed and as suddenly gone, like curses spoken against them in a deserted cathedral. As they clung to the cliff, wholly absorbed in the microscopic texture of the rock under their hands, the clouds would boil away, and there was the great gulf--and they two--and under them the livid green light of high altitudes.

  The only good result that Peter could see, apart from the stupid-seeming fact that they were getting the job done, was the change in George Norris. His taciturnity broke down against the evil silence of the Needles, and he left his misery as an extra coating over the black verglas of those bitter dawns. By the third day he was almost voluble with fatigue and bad temper, most of it directed against Peter. He had done great work; and the Needles had proved to him that though his wife was dead love and hate were not.