A Day to Die For: 1996: Everest's Worst Disaster - One Survivor's Personal Journey to Uncover the Truth (38 page)

Iswari looked at Oscar, not sure what to say, and then turned to me. ‘Is Thamel OK for you, Graham?’ he asked.

‘Absolutely fine by me,’ I replied.

‘Thamel will be safer for you,’ said Iswari, trying to get Oscar to change his mind.

In the back of Oscar’s mind were the instructions Henry had given him. Iswari was worried that people he knew might have been killed or injured in the Icefall, we were in the middle of a volatile military curfew, and this 19 year old was struggling to grasp the seriousness of the situation. I couldn’t believe it. I stepped to one side while Iswari and Oscar continued their conversation. A moment later, I heard the first signs of common sense when Oscar asked Iswari what Henry would do in this situation.

I leant forward and said, ‘He would listen to Iswari.’

I got the impression that Oscar did not like my interference, perhaps because he felt it was his family’s affairs. My interruption into their conversation was a mistake. I should have left it to Iswari to talk him round. Oscar told a bewildered Iswari that he wanted to go to the Summit Hotel.

Iswari was in a terrible position. Oscar’s uncle Henry, the man who employed him, was the one who had originally told Oscar he had to go to the Summit Hotel. But at the time Henry had given this instruction he would have been unaware of the curfew conditions we might encounter when we landed and what Iswari would be strongly recommending. Iswari was our man on the ground, the person who had our immediate safety in mind.

If I had known what was to come next, I would have instructed Iswari to take us to Thamel. This he would have done. However, I did not. I was trying to stay out of Henry’s arrangements. I’m sure if Oscar had known what was just around the corner he too would have accepted Iswari’s wise recommendation.

Parked nearby was the Land Cruiser and its attendant driver. ‘Can you sit in the front, Graham?’ asked Iswari.

I knew instantly that I was to be the token visible Westerner sitting in full view, to steady the jittery nerves of heavily armed soldiers. I had no idea of how right I was.

After driving out of the airport, we turned left along the deserted road, not a pedestrian in sight. Dogs that normally scavenged along the roadside sheltered under cover, unnerved by the deathly silence that hung over this normally busy place. The rasp of our exhaust broke through the air. Faces peered from behind the shutters as we passed by; people were too frightened to stand in their doorways.

Within a quarter of a mile, we reached the first military checkpoint. Other vehicles leaving the airport, in the opposite direction towards Thamel, had been bearing a white flag. We were not; this concerned me.

Possibly because of the close proximity of the airport, we passed through this first obstacle with little delay, eased by Iswari having a few words with the officer in charge. This was not the case at the next crossroads.

Soldiers, protected by sandbags, held rifles hard against their shoulders, their fingers nervously placed on the trigger as they took careful aim at our approaching unmarked vehicle. The driver slowed to a sedate pace. I cannot begin to imagine what thoughts were going through his mind. Oscar, Tom and Iswari sat quietly in the back. This was risky, very risky.

In the last few days, soldiers had been attacked and killed, civilians also; explosions had destroyed properties and riots had taken place. The terrified soldiers we were edging towards had no idea if we might be the decoy for another deadly strike, or where the next one was going to come from. I hoped that beneath my heavy stubble and dishevelled appearance they might be able to see I was a foreigner.

The relief on the young soldiers’ faces to see that we were not a threat was matched by my own as they lowered their guns. Once again Iswari began to talk his way through. The officer in charge was less sympathetic than the previous one had been, remonstrating with Iswari for travelling in an unauthorised manner during the curfew. We were let through.

By the time we were approaching our fourth such checkpoint, I lost my temper. Without turning my head, as I didn’t want to make any sudden movements inside the vehicle, I said out loud, ‘This is getting f**king dangerous.’

Iswari knew how right I was and didn’t need to respond. Oscar sat in silence. The soldiers this far out were at greater risk from surprise attack, and their heightened state meant they kept their guns trained on us even when we pulled up to stop, their fingers resting uneasily against the trigger. Their youthful faces were wracked with fear. Their eyes were like saucers as they scanned the buildings around them; others nervously kept an eye behind.

Iswari’s words were cutting little ice with the commanding officer. He resorted to making frantic calls on his mobile phone to connections he had within the ministries. His demeanour of a calm ‘Mr Fix it’ had long since vanished. Panic was written right across his face. No one was more relieved than him when we pulled up at the Summit Hotel, a short distance behind checkpoint number five.

As we clambered out of the vehicle, I turned to Oscar and spat out the words, ‘Next time bloody listen to him.’ I had nothing else to say to Oscar about what I saw as a ridiculous decision. He wasn’t perhaps to know the dangers until he had seen them for himself, although I felt Iswari had given him reasonable warning. There is no doubt in my mind that both Oscar and Tom were fully aware of what a lucky escape we had just had. I felt heartily sorry for Tom. He had not said a single word since Iswari had met us at the airport.

As the two young men went off to get a room, Iswari sat down opposite me in the hotel garden. ‘We cannot move for nine hours, until the curfew ends,’ he informed me.

‘That’s OK, don’t worry about it,’ I replied. I understood what he had just been through.

‘Time for some beer and a curry,’ I said in an attempt to lighten the conversation. ‘Would you like some?’

He declined the offer; he’d lost his appetite.

It was while I was tucking into my meal that the hotel’s English managing director approached me. He was aware we had been airlifted that morning. However, the sight of an unshaven and rather scruffy-looking man eagerly consuming beer and curry in the hotel garden was not conducive to the image they were hoping to portray.

‘Can I offer you the use of one of our rooms to take a shower?’ he asked. ‘Complimentary, of course.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind,’ I replied. ‘As soon as I’ve finished my meal.’

‘The key will be waiting at reception when you are ready,’ he said before departing.

Iswari wandered off and began making phone calls on his mobile. I presumed he was trying to glean information as best he could from our current location.

News had begun to filter through that a group of Sherpas had been climbing along a narrow corridor in the Khumbu Icefall that morning, at about 18,300 feet, when the accident happened. The reports coming in suggested that one or two of the large ice towers above the area they were in had collapsed without warning; this had caused the wall of ice directly above the Sherpas to partially cave in. The debris struck the last six Sherpas in the line, of whom three were completely buried. Those around were unable to get to these three because of the volume of ice; the others had fortunately only suffered minor injuries. Three more lives, those of Sherpas, had been lost in the notoriously unpredictable Khumbu Icefall. The accident would be felt by the whole of their community.

‘We’ll be leaving in half an hour,’ announced Iswari. ‘I’ve called in some favours.’

‘Great,’ I said, not quite sure what this meant. My shower was going to have to wait.

He left me to finish my meal and returned 20 minutes later, saying, ‘Right, time to go, Graham,’ as he beckoned me to follow him out of the hotel entrance and around the corner.

Parked before us was a mid-blue van with thick wire mesh covering all the windows, including the windscreen.

‘Get in,’ said Iswari, holding open one of the two rear doors. Inside were 15 police officers in full riot gear. I stepped back for a second and glanced down either side of the vehicle. As I suspected, it had POLICE emblazoned on both sides. Yep, I thought, that should let the Maoists and angry crowds know exactly who we are.

I climbed inside and settled on the end of the wooded bench that ran along the right-hand side; on the opposite side there was another. Iswari got in and closed the door behind him.

The occupants, seated along either side, were facing in and with bowed heads they stared blankly at the worn metal floor in nervous apprehension. They looked up as I got in, no doubt wondering what use a tourist might be in a tight situation. The body armour they wore covered the front of the torso, knees and shins. Each had a battered steel helmet with protective face screen and held a thick plastic riot shield. The weapon they had been issued with was a three-foot-long rigid bamboo stick. With these, they had to face hostile crowds of their own countrymen who would hurl bricks, lumps of concrete and heavy metal objects. The officer in charge carried an automatic rifle with a curving magazine of bullets and a handgun at his side. As the van pulled away, I was beginning to wonder where this epic journey was going to end.

With 17 people crammed inside, the windows firmly closed and the oppressive sun heating the metal exterior, the temperature inside the vehicle quickly rose to an almost unbearable level. It was shortly after midday and I had been airlifted out of the Everest region by helicopter. I had been a legitimate target for the Nepalese army by travelling in an unmarked vehicle under military curfew. Now I was a legitimate target for both the Maoists and the violent mobs seeking justice, because I was an occupant in a police riot vehicle out on active patrol. I looked down at the floor, trying to control my overwhelming urge to laugh at the ridiculous situation I was in. I had seen comedy films like this, but this was for real, and it was no laughing matter for my fellow occupants. As we turned each corner there was the possibility that the vehicle might be confronted by a large group of protesters armed with missiles to hurl at us.

The current problems were not seen as involving tourists in any way, and in that lay a precarious safety. I bore no identification to say I was press or anything else of that nature. If the situation arose where the police in the vehicle had to take action and I was spotted, what might the crowd’s interpretation be?

Kathmandu was rife with rumours and counter-rumours. What if a protestor in such a volatile situation said he thought he saw I was carrying a weapon? I wanted out of that riot vehicle as soon as possible. This was a very bad idea.

The troubles had first erupted into violence on 13 February 1996, at the time when I had been packing my equipment and making arrangements for my imminent departure for Nepal. This was only three months prior to the disaster of 10 May, an event that gripped the media more than this country’s worrying unrest. In fact, three months to the day after the Maoists’ ‘people’s war’ began with its brutal killings, the dramatic airlift of Beck Weathers and Makalu Gau from the Western Cwm hit the headlines. I found it difficult to comprehend that ten years had passed since I had witnessed the disastrous outcome of 10 May 1996, yet the images in my mind, the memories of those events, were undiminished. It was a period during which this beautiful country had been ravaged by the bitter consequences of civil war.

After about ten minutes, the blue van swung into a barbed-wired but otherwise open compound. It was full of police vehicles – the sort of place the Maoists would go out of their way to bomb.

Iswari, who hadn’t spoken since we had left the Summit Hotel, looked up and said, ‘We will only be here for ten minutes before moving on.’

He was right; we were going out onto Kathmandu’s deserted streets once more with a new crew of riot police. It was a shift change.

Within a minute of leaving the compound, we had turned two corners. The vehicle felt isolated in a hostile world; the lifeless streets bore a menacing presence. Suddenly the driver eased his foot off the throttle. The van began to weave. My fellow occupants raised themselves with bended knees and turned to peer nervously out of the windscreen. Their grip on the rigid bamboo sticks tightened. I couldn’t see what was happening up front. Peering through the toughened glass window of the rear door and then through the small squares of the thick wire mesh that lay beyond, I saw hundreds of half-bricks and lumps of concrete scattered across the road. Smouldering piles of burnt tyres that had melted the surface of the tarmac road pushed a thin column of black smoke into the sky. The acrid smell of burning rubber filled the air. Only a matter of hours before, it had been the scene of a blood-soaked confrontation between police and protestors.

Three hundred yards further down the road we came to an abrupt halt. Nobody in the vehicle moved.

‘This is where we get out,’ said Iswari, as he leant over to open the rear doors.

I eagerly scrambled from the wooden bench I had been sitting on.

As the police vehicle pulled away, the sensation I had was that the further away it was from me, the safer I would be. Iswari and I both gave a sigh of relief. We had survived.

A short distance away, I could see a few tourists aimlessly walking on Thamel’s unusually quiet streets. A more lenient approach was taken to the curfew in this area. Visitors could move unhindered but were expected not to stray from the district. Businesses were allowed to open. The majority of traders had their shutters firmly closed.

Here, I was confronted by a sight I had not seen in Thamel for more than a decade: that of a cow grazing on a pile of rubbish. During the intervening period, better organised, and more frequent, refuse collections took place. This, combined with a concerted effort to keep cows from straying into the tourist area, had made such sightings a thing of the past – that was until now. With the recent escalation in the troubles, street collections had ceased. Restaurants and shops had discarded their waste on the road outside. Revered by the Hindus, these creatures had wandered unhindered into the relative calm of the tourist quarter; here, they nuzzled into piles of decaying refuse. The cellulose contained in old newspapers also caught their eye. It was not unusual to see a page or two of the
Kathmandu Post
wrapped around their thick muscular tongue as they digested yesterday’s news. To the cow, it was no more than a tasty addition to add to their dietary requirements, but for the people of Nepal it brought frightening news of the country’s spiralling unrest. However, this bovine intruder brought with it a sense of tranquillity, even normality; a short distance away, humanity’s potential for violent conflict hung heavily in the air.