Dead Lucky (32 page)

To the young Sherpa, I said, “I will go down, but I will go down first.”

He grimaced in refusal.

“You want me to go down?” I said. “Then let me go down first.”

“Okay,” said the Sherpa above me.

Now the young Sherpa did what I had wanted to do—he unclipped his descender and put it back on the rope above me. Because he had no need to moderate his speed, he did not adjust it. I realized that he had decided to disagree with everything I said. But I did not want him to sabotage my rappel, which he could have done had he still been beneath me. I readied myself to rappel, and as I began, I pulled the rope across underneath me so that I was slowed by the extra friction as the rope slid across my backside. The technique went a long way to reducing the strain and damage to my hands.

When the young Sherpa saw what I was doing, he immediately rappeled down after me, shouting, “No! No! Stop! Stop!” He was objecting because I was not following the one-method-only procedure he had been taught.

I did not stop until I reached the bottom of the steep section. I had achieved my goal—I had protected my hands—and, as far as I was concerned, our dispute was over. The young Sherpa obviously did not think so, but his companion showed no signs of his feelings.

I had taken my oxygen mask off during our dispute, which must have lasted half an hour, and I could now feel the effects of oxygen deprivation. I took my ice axe from my pack to use as a walking stick and donned my oxygen mask. The adrenaline produced during our altercation had left me feeling drained. My rule at high altitude has always been never to get flustered, but this time I had blown it.

A significant amount of snow had fallen overnight. The fixed rope remained obvious, however, and there was a line of footsteps left by Dan's team and the Italians from when they had climbed up. Despite the tracks, the deep snow made the going awkward. For what looked like several hundred feet the track was virtually level, cutting across the North Face. I felt impossibly weak and I could walk only very slowly. Every twenty or so steps I had to stop and lean on my ice axe to rest.

Immediately the young Sherpa began to hassle me.

“Fast!” he urged. “Go fast!”

Of course I was going as fast as I could. The fourth or fifth time that I rested on my axe he came and snatched it from me.

“Now you just walk. No rest.”

I objected but to no avail. The Sherpa behind me laughed. I attempted to follow the tracks, but with nothing to help me balance I kept falling onto the snow. When I landed in a drift of deep snow from which it was difficult to extract myself, neither of them would help me up. They smiled and watched me flounder.

I struggled to my feet and begged for my ice axe back. This seemed to be what they wanted, to have me begging. I begged readily—I didn't care, I just wanted my ice axe returned. But the young Sherpa kept it.

“Go,” he said, waving the axe in the direction ahead.

I staggered onward but grew weaker with every step. In the hope of breathing more oxygen, I held my mask to my face with my hands.

“Fast, go fast,” he said.

I kept walking and I kept falling in the snow, but I could not go any faster. Then he raised my ice axe as if to strike me.

“Yes, go fast or I hit you.”

“No, not that,” I pleaded. “You need to help me, then I can go faster.”

He gave no answer but turned on his radio and talked into it rapidly, smirking and glancing at me as he spoke. It was easy to see that he was bad-mouthing me. That was fine if it kept him from attacking me with my ice axe.

I was falling over more frequently, and I began to wonder if soon I would not be able to get up. I could not bear to think about what might happen then.

I begged them to let me walk in between them, one Sherpa in front, one Sherpa behind, with each of them keeping tension in the rope so that I could use it to balance.

“This way I can go faster . . .” I began again.

The young Sherpa interrupted immediately, saying, “No kissy-missy, sweetheart deals. Just go.”

The two problems I faced were poor balance and the weakness of my legs. The only way I could stay upright for more than a dozen steps was to walk more slowly. By concentrating on each step individually, I could ease my weight onto my leg, which allowed me time to bring my leg muscles into play and to be conscious of my balance. With that leg stable, I could repeat the process. Decades of trekking and climbing with heavy packs had given me very strong legs, which operated as if on autopilot. I used to enjoy running down steep, rugged trails, jumping between levels, watching my feet put themselves where they wanted to go, with me only consciously intervening to avoid a slippery surface, or when instant damage control was needed. But now, with my mental functions impaired by exhaustion and hypoxia, each step through the shallow snow felt like walking on a balance beam.

I trudged onward in this fashion, with my left hand holding my oxygen mask to my face and my right hand free on the uphill side so that I could protect myself when I stumbled. Mercifully, the terrain was level. I would not have been able to take an upward step.

This slower mode of walking was effective, but it riled the young Sherpa. I tried to explain, but he would not listen, and I suspected that he spoke more English than he understood and in these circumstances it made him feel inadequate.

I turned to speak to the older Sherpa. “If I can go slowly, then I can keep going. But if I try to go fast, I fall over. Too much time wasted.”

“No kissy-missy, sweetheart deals,” pronounced the younger Sherpa.

That phrase again. Where did he pick it up? What did that mean? Deals? What kind of deals?

“Go quickly or I hit you.”

Then a cold chill came over me, different from the cold of the snow I had been floundering in. From the recesses of my mind came the warning that Sue Fear had given me about banditry at high altitude. Suddenly I was very, very scared.

The shock drained me and I crumpled to my knees.

He raised the ice axe and swung it at me.

“No! No!” I cried and threw my forearm up to block the blow, but it never came.

“Go!” he said.

I struggled to my feet and staggered forward. I forgot about controlling my legs and my balance, so after only a few steps I stumbled again and collapsed in the snow.

“Go,” he said again, threateningly, as if he were training a dog.

“I can't. I have to rest.”

“No rest,” he shouted, “or I hit you!”

I shook my head, then he raised the axe as if to strike, but I was too exhausted to lift my arm in defense. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him swing at me. This time he followed through and struck me hard across the back of my ribs. I stared in horror as he swung the axe again, aiming at my head. I threw my arm up, and the metal shaft slammed into my upper arm. Instantly, I rolled out of the way.

“Now you go!”

Slowly I stood up, my heart thumping. He was a madman. The blows had been delivered without restraint. If I had not blocked his second swing, it would have whacked my skull and cheek with sufficient force to knock me out. And had I been knocked unconscious in my weakened state, I would surely now be dead.

He stared hard at me, with no regret apparent in his expression.

I was physically drained, but my survival instinct had snapped into action and with it came mental energy. I would have to play my cards very carefully, except that he and his partner held all the aces, all the trumps. It would have to be a lay-down misère.

The young Sherpa took a step toward me, lowering his voice as he said, “You tell no one. You see what happens. You don't want trouble.”

I watched him carefully and said, “No, I don't want trouble.”

That would be my key.

“You need to walk fast.”

“I will walk as fast as I can. I do not want trouble.”

The incident had brought clarity to my mind or as much clarity as was possible at this height. I needed to make progress. I needed to avoid angering my tormentor, and I needed to get among some other people as soon as I could.

During this whole episode, the older Sherpa had said virtually nothing, which was far from unusual at these heights, where every breath mattered and speech was a waste of oxygen. His silence was not surprising, but his lack of interest in the tyranny of his young friend could only be seen as complicity. I knew I could not seek from him the voice of reason.

My pace slowed as my body metabolized the oxygen that had accumulated in my muscles while we had “rested.” I was still holding my oxygen mask to my face with my frostbitten fingers in their clumsy lightweight mitts because I was unable to fasten the elastic strap.

The young man came toward me and gestured at my oxygen mask. “You love that mask. Maybe I take it from you and you walk quickly.” He pretended to grab for it and, as he had wished, I jerked away from him. “Too much time with your oxygen.”

Then he weighed the ice axe in his hand and said, “Anyone coming, you say nothing, or I hit you many times.”

My heart sank. A few hits would be enough to stop me from saying anything ever again. I kept walking, then I realized that the threat had real meaning.

I heard another voice and turned to see Marco Astori, the second Italian, approaching us at twice our speed. The demeanor of both Sherpas changed to one of welcome. Marco had seen that I could walk unsupported but must also have noticed how badly ravaged I had been by the mountain. I said nothing, sticking to my instructions. Marco offered the Sherpas his oxygen cylinder, which was almost empty and which he was no longer using. They said that they had enough oxygen for me but I did not want it. Marco walked on.

I had desperately wanted to call out to him, but the attitude of Roby when he had stormed down the First Step made me fear that Marco, too, might choose not to get involved. Certainly he did not give that impression, but if I spoke out and he rejected my claims, I feared that once he was out of our sight, I would be beaten again.

I was prepared to take what I had to in order to stay alive, but it would have been so easy for the young Sherpa to overplay his hand with the ice axe. I felt sure that he had no comprehension of how deeply exhausted I was. He treated me as if I was lazy and therefore not worthy of respect, whereas I was holding myself together by a thread so fine that it made a spider's web look like a tugboat's towline.

As Marco disappeared from view, I regretted my silence. If we encountered anyone else, I decided I would throw those lowly misère cards down on the snow and let fate decide the final hand.

I began to trudge through the snow again, thinking that the Sherpas must now be confident that I was their tool. As we walked, they demanded various things from me as a reward for my rescue. We talked about money, we talked about cameras, and we talked about not saying a word to anybody. I said yes to everything.

There was a new buoyancy in their step as they chatted to one another. It seemed to me that we had entered a new phase, and I wondered whether they were enjoying the calmness before my death or merely the exploitation. I preferred that it not be both.

Of course, I had no money. I only had the empty pack they had brought with them so that I could carry my oxygen equipment. Anything they could get from me would be in the form of promises, promises I would not keep. Death had been trailing me for too many hours now for me to get excited about it, but I did not want to give these men the opportunity to take others to the point of death in order to exploit them.

Ahead of us, I could see the crest of the ridge, where a number of people were gathered. This was the point where the long traverse of the Northeast Ridge finishes and the fixed rope leads down the Exit Cracks and through mixed rock and snow to High Camp. Judging by their size, the Sherpas—they could only be Sherpas—appeared to be still 200 yards away. Fifty yards ahead, the North Face bulged slightly, obscuring all but the final section of the traverse to the rappel point.

If I could make it past the bulge before my two Sherpas attacked me again, I would be close enough to shout for help. The only problem with this plan was that my voice had been reduced to a hoarse whisper. I burned with frustration, but at that moment a figure began approaching us purposefully. I hurried, and as a result, I stumbled and fell to the downhill side of the slope. I was only too aware of the huge drop beneath me. The young Sherpa approached me, and I feared that he might unclip me from the rope and dispatch me with his boot. Instead, he repeated his chorus, “Get up. Go fast.”

Safety was within my grasp. The man striding toward us was too close for them to abuse me anymore. He spoke to me directly. “Why are you so slow? Very fast when we climb to summit, but now too slow.”

It was Lakcha, and I could not have been more pleased. He was strong and forthright, straight down the line. I was still on the snow and I waited until he was right next to me. As I moved to stand up, I made a sudden grab for my ice axe, and the element of surprise allowed me to snatch it from the young Sherpa.

Bad men! Let's go!

I attempted to leap to my feet but in the process tripped over the fixed rope and fell backward. My mountaineering boots, with the sharp crampons that had wounded Pemba accidentally, were now in the position to wound with a purpose, plus I had the ice axe. I clambered to my feet and hurried across the slope, with Lakcha at my heels. I was worried that either one of us would be axed in the back, until I remembered that I had the axe.

“Chito! Chito!”
Quickly! Quickly!

This time it was Lakcha urging me on. I was not sure if he believed that the danger I conveyed was real, but he certainly knew that I was in such bad shape that I needed to lose height quickly. There were rocks among the snow, so I had to watch where I was putting my feet as I ran. It was the slowest running I had ever done in my life but by far the most exhausting. I looked up to find that we had reached the rounded snowy crest at the top of the Exit Cracks. There were four or five Sherpas waiting, exuding a completely different ambience. They were obviously pleased, not so much because of where they were but because my arrival meant that all of us could now descend to safety. However, the burst of energy that had allowed me to escape had been completely spent, to the point where I could do nothing but sit at the top of the fixed ropes. All the Sherpas were encouraging me to start down the ropes, but it was only when my two “companions” appeared that I was motivated to move.