Dead Lucky (24 page)

“Jom! Jom!”
said Lakcha. “Let's go! Let's go!”

I knew I had to keep moving, but because I was on my knees, I began to crawl. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than standing up. Lakcha grabbed me and pulled me to a sitting position so that I was now facing outward, leaning with my back against the cliff, my feet hanging over the huge drop. Lakcha tried to drag me to my feet, but—out of oxygen and on the go for sixteen hours—he no longer had the strength. I crawled to the crest of the rise in the path and lay there. Ahead I could see Pemba, who seemed to be talking with someone, maybe a Sherpa who was waiting for us, maybe Dorje.

Together, Lakcha and Dawa Tenzing pulled me to my feet. With the help of the cliff-face I stayed vertical. After one or two steps I leaned against the cliff, like a drunk leaning on a wall, and took a few more steps. Then I managed to stagger a few more yards without support. Ahead of me was a slight broadening in the trail, which was an obvious place to rest. A couple more steps and I reached out for the cliff, then slid against it down to the ground. I lay on shards of rock, free of snow. In the late afternoon sunshine, the rock looked warmer than the snow, but at these heights it was just as cold. For now, this spot was where I needed to be. I would rest for a few minutes, then I would continue down. The perfect weather created the illusion that all was well with the world and our circumstances. Dawa Tenzing and Lakcha insisted that I stand up, but I took no notice.

I shook my head and said,
“Ek chin bosneh.”
Sit for one moment.

Lakcha called out to Pemba, who came back up along the ledge to where I lay.

“Other Sherpas stay with you,” he said. “I must go down. You will spend the night just along from here. Very close.”

I knew this was not right. It was still a beautiful sunlit afternoon. I did not want to stay here; I had only stopped to rest. Deep in myself, I knew I had to keep going until I reached somewhere safe. Many times I had descended from the summits of mountains in darkness after burning up daylight hours on prolonged climbs. In 1984 Andy, Tim, and Greg had reached the top of the North Face as the sun set. Tim and Greg stood on the summit as darkness fell, and the three of them returned to me and our camp at 27,700 feet at three thirty in the morning.

Now, on this highest ridge of Everest, I faced yet another occasion when I would have to push myself through walls of pain and exhaustion to reach the relative safety of our camp. Survival was not guaranteed; I would have to fight for it. But what I needed now was a few minutes' rest, then I would climb down and continue through the night until I reached Camp Three. But I could not convey this to Pemba. I could barely speak.

“Very close for you to spend the night,” Pemba repeated, and gestured to the place where he had been standing when Lakcha had called him.

The spot was only twenty yards away, where the trail of footprints led toward the crest of the ridge. Although I could not see past that point from where I lay, I sensed there was a drop-off beyond it. The route from the Second Step had been a long traverse just below the crest of the Northeast Ridge, and we had not lost much height. The crest itself was a mass of jagged tors, cliffs, and jumbles of boulders, so the obvious route to follow was where the narrow but easy-angled slabs at the very top of the North Face met the rocky crest of the ridge. The drop-off to the north was steep but not vertical, which made it all the more frightening because you could see exactly how far you would fall—8,000 vertical feet, starting from where my boots hung over the edge. My back leaned against the low rocky rampart that formed the crest of this part of the ridge. On the far side of the rampart the Kangshung Face plunged two miles of height to the glacier below. We were at a very exposed part of the ridge. This was certainly not a safe place for me to spend the night.

“Not far,” Pemba repeated, the matter decided. “You must go along just a little way and stay where there is more space.”

I did not want to hear what Pemba was saying. Instead, I heard something altogether different. I was no longer capable of distinguishing between the reality of the mountain and the fabrications of my mind, so I was not surprised to hear the pronouncement in a voice I did not recognize.

“There are three women along here and they've got a shelter—you can join them.”

Then Pemba spoke again. “I must go,” he said. “Sherpas will be with you.”

I understood that three women were camped in a little space among the rocks where Pemba wanted me to spend the night, but he was now gone. I could hear women chattering and laughing, but I couldn't be bothered visiting them. I didn't have the energy. I couldn't face the social interaction.

I sensed that other Sherpas were with me, but they could only be Lakcha and Dawa Tenzing, and maybe Dorje, whom I had not seen for a while. There could not be others as the upper reaches of the mountain were deserted. I promised I would stay where Pemba had suggested, but I don't know to whom I made the promise. I could not hear the women now. Silence surrounded me. Wind noise was muffled by the hood of my down suit. The only sound was my own breathing. And then that stopped as well.

I was alone now.

I did not think of my whereabouts at all. The thought that I had climbed Mount Everest did not enter my mind. Of most importance was what I could see. The panorama stole my attention completely. The sun was low in the sky, casting a yellow hue across the upper reaches of the Northeast Ridge. Gone was the black-and-white contrast between the snow and the rocks. The soft light gave texture to the snow and patterns to the rock surfaces around me. The dark rocky ridges of the mighty peaks stood even more proud, parading their sharp, conclusive angles. Clouds appeared high above. They framed not only the mountains, the glaciers, and the sky but also the silence, giving a depth to the landscape that I had never before experienced. There was much to be said for letting time vanish like this. I could see forever, for one thing. I could also see the curvature of the earth. A sight to die for.

Only when the sun left my high ridge was the
tick-tock
of time kick-started again by the cold. The entire landscape was freezing now, pulling the clouds down toward me, pulling the color out of the sky.

I WAS SITTING AT that same spot when a man appeared from the direction of the Second Step, a Westerner with a beard, wearing mountaineering gear. I knew that I was the only Westerner alive and close to the summit of Everest, but I did not comprehend the contradiction of his appearance out of nowhere. He stopped and looked at me but did not speak at all. I did not think this was strange either. Somehow I understood that he had come to make sure that I kept my promise, the promise to go to the place Pemba had said would be best for me. I insisted that I had kept my promise, but the man just stood there waiting for me to provide proof.

And so I gestured for him to follow me down the narrow path, which now ran alongside a wall built from rough-cut but well-fitted stones. It was a style used for houses in rural Nepal, much like the walls that line country lanes in Britain. The top of the wall remained level, so as we went downhill, the wall became higher. I had to step up onto it to show the man that I had been here before. There were no cheerful women—no women at all—and no sign of a camp. Without speaking, I pointed at the pair of socks which I had placed there, tucked into each other to form a ball, lying on top of the wall. The whole time the man kept his silence and a close-lipped mirthless smile on his face. I picked up the socks and showed them to him, then I placed them back on the rock. This seemed to reconcile any issues between us.

At that point, I sensed that the rock wall was the side of a building and that there could be people inside. The man waited while I headed down the track, with the top of the wall above my head level. I took a ninety-degree turn to the right and continued a few steps along the wall to a doorway. It was big and squarish, but there was no door. Inside, it was dark, but the doorway shed light upon a few stone steps that led to a flagstone floor. I went down the steps. To the left, a second doorway framed a huge wood fire. There were people sitting around the fire, quietly talking and laughing. I turned on my heels and retraced my steps, as I needed to see the bearded man go. He was waiting where I had left him, the same inscrutable expression on his face. I followed him until we reached the place where I had been sitting, then he looked back up toward the Second Step. I was not capable of realizing that the only people left above me on the mountain were dead. Without a backward glance, without another footstep, the man disappeared.

Alone again, I realized how cold I was, even though I was wearing my down suit. I decided to revisit the room with the fire. Light was fading as I hurried down beside the wall. I turned the corner only to find that there was no doorway in the wall. I continued past where the doorway had been, panic rising within me. I rounded the building's next corner, which led me back uphill. There was no doorway there either. I continued up beside the wall. Boulders blocked the way, so I scrambled over them and onto the roof of the building, which was also built of flagstones, although the blocks were bigger than those used for the walls. Nowhere was there an entry or exit. I lay on the rough-hewn slabs, hoping there would be some heat transmitted through the rock from the fire inside. But everything remained as cold as ice. There was no joy to be had here.

Dusk was upon me, so I scrambled back onto the path that I had originally followed. My socks were no longer there. I returned to the spot where I had sat to watch the end of the day. There were no colors now, only whiteness swallowing the gray shapes of the mountains across the empty valley. I thought of setting up camp, but my pack was gone. In it had been my oxygen, my thermos, my two headlamps, my spare gloves, my ice axe, and my Australian flag. The whiteness came even closer. Soon the only things that were solid were the narrow ledge I sat upon and the gray tooth of rock against which I rested my back. I thought about climbing the tooth, which was only five or six feet high, but where would it take me?

I sat where I was and thought about how simple life is when there are absolutely no options. I lay down among the rock shards, with my knees brought up to my chest and my hands in my groin. I felt the need to rest, rest in peace. Darkness was not far away. Snow began to fall.

TIME TO KILL

F
OURTEEN MILES FROM Base Camp, near the head of the East Rongbuk Glacier, Alex Abramov was up early at Advance Base Camp. He was monitoring as best he could the progress of those few of us still high on the mountain. During the night I had forgotten about the radio nestled in an internal pocket of my down suit. At first light, Lakcha, Dorje, Dawa Tenzing, and I had drawn well ahead of Harry, Thomas, Pemba, and Passang, but it had not occurred to me to make a progress report to ABC until we stood on the summit at 9:00 A.M.

A snail's pace is the norm for those lucky enough to be approaching the highest point on Earth. Although Thomas had been feeling strong, his seriously impaired vision forced him to trudge even more slowly. Suddenly, other factors came into play. The summit was in sight for Harry, Pemba, and Passang, but Thomas's already compromised vision now worsened to almost total blindness. He stopped responding to the directions given to him by Harry and Pemba, and he almost stepped over the huge drop of the Kangshung Face. Harry knew there were no second chances this close to the summit. Shortly after my call to Advance Base Camp, Harry radioed to say that he and his team had no choice but to retreat. So, 150 feet below the summit, the four of them turned for home—which in every sense was a very long way away.

By the time Harry began his call to ABC, I had tucked my radio back into the pocket of my down suit. I continued to descend without realizing that Harry and his team were not far in front of me and my Sherpa mates. I was never to see Thomas again. In fact, I came close to never seeing anyone again. Cerebral edema, one of the great evils of climbing at extreme altitude, had struck me suddenly. At ten o'clock in the morning, on the easy-angled slopes of the summit pyramid's snow triangle, I had become a casualty. Less than a hundred vertical feet below the summit, I had posed a huge problem for Lakcha, Dorje, and Dawa Tenzing.

A sea of lethargy had overwhelmed my mind's ability to think of what I should be doing. The thinnest air on the planet seemed to weigh more than rocks at the bottom of the ocean. Occasionally, I had managed to shrug the weight away long enough to experience what was happening—a dangerous mix of hallucinations amid rare moments of wide-eyed lucidity.

At Advance Base Camp, Alex moved between the radio and the telescope, anxious to know what was happening up high. Base Camp was listening in. Also at ABC, Mingma heard from Lakcha that I was having serious difficulty, and that he, Dawa Tenzing, and Dorje could only move me very slowly down the slope toward the Second Step. There were times that I would descend of my own accord, but very slowly. Most of the time I just lay in the snow, refusing to move. In desperation, they kicked me, but I did not seem to notice.

Mike, Christopher, and Richard were stunned to hear Harry on the radio stating that Thomas had died. They learned that at the bottom of the Second Step, as Pemba was swapping Thomas's almost empty oxygen bottle for a full one, Thomas announced, “Pemba, I am dying!”

He collapsed and slid down the slope, and although he was attached to the fixed rope, his weight carried him ten feet or so beyond the narrow track. Harry was unable to get Thomas upright until Scott Woolums, guide for the Project Himalaya team, came to his assistance. Thomas certainly appeared dead; his face was ashen and showed no discernible signs of life. Alex asked Harry to record the event by taking photographs of Thomas.