Dead Lucky (17 page)

I refrained from saying to Caroline that an internal injury was not good news for her husband, whose location alone put his life on the wrong side of borderline. I was shocked when she mentioned that he had been left on the mountain four days earlier. To my mind, he was obviously dead and she must find a way to accept this. She was grave but not tearful, and I sensed her constant talking was a way for her to deal with the emptiness she could not yet fathom.

The sun had long since left us, and with it went its warmth. Now I was shivering, but I tried to hide it because Caroline needed to be heard. I learned that Jacques-Hugues Letrange had been collecting samples of snow and ice from different places on the mountain for research into the history of Everest's climate. From the data, French scientists hoped to learn more about global warming. I was unclear about how much Jacques-Hugues's two friends, Roland and Freddy, would have been able to do for him at those impossible heights. They had conveyed to Caroline much about his situation but not enough to provide any sense of closure. Any questions on the subject, I was sure, would only open her wound even further.

She said, “I have not found anybody who has seen that he is dead.”

“It is four days now.”

“But I must talk with someone who has seen him dead.” She held her breath. “Otherwise I cannot be sure. If you meet any Sherpa or climber who can tell me they have seen him dead, please find me and tell me.”

“I will,” I said softly. It was the only tone I could trust my voice to manage. “I will do that for you.”

Then she described the location of her camp.

BECAUSE OF THE COLD, I went straight to my tent. The small vestibule was filled with my pack, still bulging and ready for my summit bid. In it was the Australian flag handmade by Margaret Werner and taken to the summits of K2, Chongtar, and Manaslu. I pulled on my down jacket and lay on my sleeping bag, thinking about the events of the day. The possibilities of the next few days were also beginning to tie a knot in my stomach. There was no denying the seriousness of this game we had chosen to play.

A hot drink was sure to warm me, so I walked across the loose rocks to the mess tent. To my surprise, A-Team climber David Lien was there. It was good to see him, but I was not ready to talk to anyone. However, I made the effort to ask about his climb because, although he had turned back at Camp Two, it had been an amazing experience for him. Even now, twenty-two years since I had been to that height on the North Face, I could still conjure up the magnificent view. It was a personal altitude record for him, and as I listened to his tired enthusiasm, I began to loosen up and remember why I had come here. I had a lot of respect for people who trusted their intuition and turned back before being forced to by dire circumstances. Not enough people on Everest listen to that inner voice.

I had not expected to see David, but I was astonished when a commotion outside the mess tent was followed by Slate stepping through the door.

“How on earth did you get here?” I asked, standing up in surprise.

He must have descended from the summit to Advance Base Camp in one grueling, unbroken epic. Consequently, he looked exactly as I expected—he had been “processed” by the mountain. He had lost weight (not that he had any to spare to begin with), his sunburned face had been freeze-dried by the wind and the cold, his hair set a new record for bad-hair days, but most telling was the look in his eyes. It was a sight I had seen before in the faces of my companions when we had managed to descend alive from some unspeakable ordeal. Words said nothing; there was no spare breath to speak with, the whole experience conveyed only in the eyes.

“I don't know,” he said. “Doesn't matter. Good to see you, man.”

“Good to see you, too.”

He had collapsed onto a chair. I went to grab his hand, but before I could shake it, he had to peel off his gloves.

This was not a simple process because he had come to regard them as a second skin, so I slapped him on the shoulder instead.

“Congratulations! I watched you on the summit triangle through a telescope. At least, I think it was you. Everyone looks the same when they're the size of an ant.”

He managed a smile.

Chandra, one of the cooks, came into the tent with a hot lemon drink for Slate, who thanked him. Chandra nodded and congratulated him as well.

“It's such a long way,” said Slate. “I was the only one to make it to the North Col camp. The weather got bad up high for the others, so they stayed above me at Camp Two.”

“I can't believe you've come all the way from the summit to here in one day. And that's after having started climbing at Camp Three.”

“Yeah, I might have overdone it. But Alex and Andrey insisted I come all the way down.”

“You'll be all right. A good week's sleep and you'll be just like new.”

He attempted a laugh, knowing it would take much more than that. Then his laugh became a cough. Now that he was warming up, he undid some zippers and said that he would take his boots off—cumbersome, heavily insulated mountain boots—but he neglected to do so. We sat there drinking tea and eating biscuits while he talked about the hardship and the sheer size of the mountain.

There was a mixture of moods in the mess tent that evening. David and Slate felt weary but relieved, so everything was fine by them. The numbing sadness I had felt after talking with Caroline had lessened with Slate's return, but I was anxious about my own path because so little separated the experiences of the distraught French woman and my exhausted American friend. The Russians were invariably in good spirits at dinnertime but not today. Whatever the issue was with Igor, it had not yet been resolved.

When we had eaten, I told Christopher that despite his apparent recovery, I felt it would be very dangerous for him to go high on the mountain. My advice was for him to abandon the climb for this season. He said nothing because he was holding back his tears. Not long after that conversation, he left the tent. I had to admire Christopher for staying committed to the climb, despite all the hardships, despite being ten or twenty years younger than all his teammates, despite being on the other side of the world from the haven of his family. The illness of his father and the spate of deaths must also have been playing on his mind.

I felt more tired than I should have, given that I had been away from camp for only two hours during the day. It was the emotional load that was weighing me down, and I was happy to wriggle into my sleeping bag.

I WAS UP EARLY on the morning of May 22, and so was Richard, who wanted to talk with me. I suspected that he was going to ask me not to go up the mountain because it might disappoint Christopher too much; he had already mentioned the possibility of this to me. But, in fact, he wanted to talk to me about Christopher taking another shot himself. He and Christopher had been inspired by Simone Moro's optimism. Andrey was noncommittal, saying that it was not his decision. It was not my decision either, but with Christopher having come so far, and with Richard out of action from a sprained ankle, I reluctantly agreed to be involved. But on this morning, another perfect day, we had not even left the outskirts of Advance Base Camp when Christopher felt his breathing beginning to fail again. He intercepted the event before there was a crisis. The game was over.

After a rest and more oxygen back at the 7Summits-Club Camp, Christopher quickly returned to normal. Richard made arrangements with Alex for their gear to be taken down to Base Camp the next day. There was a mood of acceptance, and I sensed some relief at the dangers being past.

Richard turned to me and said, “Lincoln, the mountain's still there, mate. You might as well go for it. We've got plenty of oxygen up at High Camp, so you might as well use it. And I'll give you the Iridium phone so you can call Barbara from the top.”

I smiled and thanked him and felt another half-hitch add itself to the knot in my stomach. There was the option of returning down the glacier with them, which I considered only long enough to reject it. This was the opportunity of my lifetime, the one that I had dreamed about.

My pack was ready. All I needed was to square the climb with Alex. I went to the radio tent, where Andrey was manning the radio. I waited for the chance to talk with Alex, who had gone up to the North Col. I needed to sort out the logistics of my ascent, but Andrey, in his curt but not insensitive fashion, reminded me that Igor Plyushkin's rescue was still under way and that we needed to keep the airways clear because he was standing by to give medical advice as it was needed.

Lunch was served, so I returned to the mess tent. There was constant noise in the radio tent, with the crackling of messages between Igor Svergun, the guide at Camp Two, and Alex at the North Col. In between were what I assumed to be Andrey's advice, given quietly but insistently. I did not want to interrupt, but I did want to be ready for any chance that I might get to speak with Alex, so I returned to the radio tent and squatted next to Andrey. I was in that position when there was a rare silence in the radio traffic.

Without looking my way, Andrey spoke to me. “It is no longer a rescue.”

Igor Plyushkin was dead, the tenth fatality of the season.

The radio burst into frantic Russian, so I did not even reply to Andrey. I simply stood up and walked out of the tent.

I found Richard, Christopher, and Mike sitting on chairs in the sun. I sat on a low rock and broke the news. Mike groaned softly; Richard shook his head. Christopher said nothing, but I imagined that now he was relieved not to be going back up that dangerous mountain. We sat there in the sun.

“Still going up?” asked Richard.

I paused, then said, “Yeah, but I'll go up tomorrow. Alex and the guys don't want to worry about what I'm up to. I'll just stay in the background.”

The four of us continued to sit there, not saying much. Slate and David had left that morning. The only other Westerner at Advance Base Camp, apart from the Russian crew, was Kevin Augello, Harry's film-maker. Kevin had had a very difficult time acclimatizing and had arrived at the camp for the first time only two days ago. He had made several previous attempts but had always been forced to turn back. He was obviously delighted to have made it. Acclimatization is a different process for everyone. Better late than never. Occasionally, one of us would make a remark about nothing in particular, but mostly we were with our own thoughts. I could hear the stoves being fired up in the kitchen tent behind me.

Andrey called out to me from the radio tent.

“Lincoln. It is Harry. He wants you.”

PART TWO

BIG STEPS

I
T WAS A SIMPLE ANNOUNCEMENT with huge implications. Harry had radioed to let me know that his team of four was heading from the North Col to Camp Two the next morning, en route to the summit, and I was welcome to join them. My immediate thought was that I had to leave straightaway or I would be climbing in the dark. Harry had explained how they had spent the day at the North Col, not wanting to get in the way of the rescue but wanting to be available if they were needed. Milan would stay at the North Col to do some long-shot filming, but Harry, Thomas, Pemba, and Passang would leave after breakfast. I told him I was on my way.

Despite the delicacy of the situation, I had to speak with Alex. Because of the rescue-turned-burial, many Sherpas had climbed up to Camp Two. When I finally managed to talk to Alex, he insisted that I climb with the Sherpas allocated to the Australian team—a total of four—even though Richard and now Christopher and Mike had dropped out. This number of Sherpas, he said, would be much safer, not only for me but for Harry and Thomas as well. However, the only Sherpa from our team that I had been able to find was Dorje, and we needed to leave immediately.

Ten minutes later, both of us shouldered our packs, still ready from the day before. I said my good-byes, then we set off together, hiking as fast as we could. Soon we began to meet 7Summit-Club climbers descending to Advance Base Camp. Arkadiy Ryzhenko, who had summited, and Ilya Rozhkov, who had turned around at 28,700 feet, took up only a minute of our time because both spoke little English and we no Russian. All we did was shake their hands and step aside to let them pass. At five- or ten-minute intervals we stopped to congratulate Henrik, Kirk, Ronnie, Lorenzo, and Noel. Meeting us allowed each of them to take a rest. As I welcomed them, I was silently thankful that they were alive. I expected that our familiar faces, clean and not yet trashed by the mountain, reminded them of the haven of Advance Base Camp, which would soon replace the hell they had been through.

Their feedback about conditions on the mountain was welcome, but I was keen to keep moving. Seeing the last of the A-Team disappearing down the ice gully toward Advance Base Camp was proof that summiting and surviving were not mutually exclusive.