Dead Lucky (34 page)

Andrey had been giving instructions to the Sherpas, but now he was ready to leave the North Col. Mingma Gelu led the way, followed by me and then Andrey. I was confident about my ability to walk but was concerned about how, with my frostbitten hands, I would manage rappeling the steep sections of fixed rope. Some of the Sherpas had gone ahead, and even though I was squinting because of the glare, I could see them moving slowly farther down the face under their huge packs.

I descended the ladders across the crevasse at the top of the face very carefully. Because I put my palms on the rungs instead of my fingers, I had no problems. The first fixed rope was steep and very tight, the tightness preventing me from being able to attach my descender. At this point on my previous trips down from the North Col, I had wrapped the rope around my wrist and lower arm because that technique provided enough friction to slow my descent. This time I kept the rope away from my fingers and wrapped it only around my arm. I had expected my biggest challenge would be managing tasks without using my fingers. Although the first couple of steep ropes were demanding, the rest were much easier. Instead, I found that the biggest problems for me now were my lack of energy and the weakness of my legs.

Energy. I no longer knew what the word meant, at least in the physical sense. While my body was completely drained, my brain had switched itself on. As we descended, I talked nonstop, as if someone had given me a truth serum.

Mingma talked back, saying that everyone was amazed that I had survived a night so high on the mountain, alone and without shelter. “No one has survived that,” he said.

This morning I could not remember much about that experience. I thought of it as just another night out on a mountain, but at a ludicrous height. I did not want to discuss it. Instead, I talked about my sons and my wife, and our home, and my friends—anything that had nothing to do with Mount Everest.

I was speaking to Mingma in Nepali, but suddenly I realized that Andrey, who was close behind me, would not have understood a word. He may not have been at all interested—it was the Russian style to appear that way at least—but I apologized and then repeated myself in English. Moments later I forgot about English and chattered away in Nepali to Mingma. Then I remembered Andrey, and the cycle continued. When we stopped at each anchor to clip on to the next section of the fixed ropes, I sat and told an anecdote until Mingma urged me on.

Because I had no sunglasses to protect my eyes from the intense glare of the sun reflecting off the snow, I wore one scarf low over my brow and another pulled right up close to my eyes. On the long and simple snow descents, when safely clipped on to the rope, I would close my eyes to keep out the glare. It took a little more energy to descend this way, as I had to take more care with how I placed my feet.

After one particularly long section of fixed rope, I announced, “I need to rest.”

“No, no,” said Mingma and Andrey, almost in unison.

“We must go down,” added Mingma.

Only a few minutes later the snow leveled out. We were at the bottom of the slope, with only the broad névé of the glacier to cross. I clumsily hugged Mingma, then Andrey.

The morning sunshine in the glacial bowl was now unbearably intense. Andrey led the way, with me right behind. The ground sloped gently downward, leveled out, then rose over the slightest of humps. That small rise was almost more than I could manage. I was so hot that I had to ask Andrey to stop so I could crouch behind him in his shadow. My thirst had become almost unbearable. I had not changed any of my clothing since adding a fleece underneath my down suit the night we left for the summit. I was still dressed for the extreme cold on the heights of Everest.

We reached the edge of the névé and rested on rocks that were strewn across the exposed ice. I took off my down suit, slowly, because of my fingers. There were trickles of melt water, but Mingma and Andrey would not let me bend down and suck it up. I said I could not continue without a drink. No one had any water at all, which I could not believe. Mingma radioed Advance Base Camp, which was now only a twenty minutes' hike down the moraine valley and asked for thermoses to be brought up.

Imagine a tap that has locked up, with only a dribble emerging from its spout. The effort required to loosen the tap suddenly yields results, with the sudden release causing the tap to be turned on much too far. Water gushes forth, splashing out of the sink, before the tap can be turned back to a practical level of water flow. My garrulous babble during the descent from the North Col had been like such a tap—when suddenly turned on full, I spouted irrelevant facts, painful wordplays, and meaningless opinions. But as I sat on the rock, I began to relax, the wildness in my mind subsided, and I no longer felt like talking.

Now, as I sat there waiting, facing away from the sun to protect my eyes, my mind dealt only with what was in front of me, and that was a scattering of rocks lying in the snow. As I hunched over, all that was required—not by me but by my state of being—was a flat, chocolatey-brown rock, about the size of an abalone. Slowly I began to close my eyes, to block out everything but the rock, leaning closer as I did so. All I could see through the narrow slits of my trembling eyelids was the brownness. I watched a swirling in the color—not a pattern but a movement—and I sensed the rock was opening itself up to me. At first it seemed that some kind of metamorphosis was taking place, but as I watched, I realized no physical change was happening, only a change in my perception. Rocks were always like this, but my mind had never before slowed down enough for me to be a witness. The swirling movement took shape and rose toward me, which made me fearful, even though I knew it was not alive. It was the kind of anticipatory fear I sometimes experienced when being led into a deep meditation by my teacher, where I became aware of other levels of consciousness that challenged my everyday view of the world.

I drew back, opening my eyes fully as I sat up, and looked at Mingma. Weeks ago, at Advance Base Camp, he had told me that there were gaps in the everyday reality, which, among other things, allowed satellite phone messages to be delivered. He had described an opening through which the messages could come and which afterward would close again. It was a description of the Eastern concept of ether, the fifth element of existence.

“Mingma,” I said, “there is movement in the rocks. I can see them opening up.”

He nodded in agreement, and although we were talking about rocks and not the sky, he said, “Like for the sat-phone.”

TENDI ARRIVED with a single thermos, which was ridiculous given that there were ten of us. He poured warm water into a mug and offered it to me, watching with great concern. I felt in dreadful shape, and I imagined I looked it as well.

“Do you know my name?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said. “You are Tendi.”

A couple of other Sherpas asked me, and though I knew both of them, I could remember only one of their names. I apologized to the other man with sobs rising in my throat. I don't know why—perhaps it was because I did not want him to think that I saw him as a faceless person in whom I had no interest. But he told me his name and smiled at me warmly, aware that my misadventure had exacted deep consequences.

The same question came again from the edge of our circle, with an edge of hesitancy. “What is my name?”

“I don't know. Forgive me.”

The man sitting next to him asked the same question. I gave the same answer but did not cry. Neither of them could hide the relief they felt at my replies. Their packs were loaded high with sleeping bags and other gear, their faces almost black with sunburn. I knew who they were all right, even if I did not know their names. They were the two Sherpas who had terrorized me.

Tendi's water had moistened my throat but did nothing to quench my thirst. We continued on down along the icy edge of the glacier. Its slipperiness was negated by its covering of rock shards. Sometimes there were slabs of rock, which were good to stand on and were perfect for sitting. Whenever Mingma looked around, he saw me sitting down. His solution was to put a loop of rope around my waist, with the other end in his hand, so that while he led the way, he could tell when I had come to a halt. And although he let me stop, he prevented me from sitting down. He knew that what I needed more than anything else was to be in the 7Summits-Club medical tent at Advance Base Camp. Once he had me on the leash, we rested only once, and that was when some of our Sherpas were resting with their heavy loads.

We arrived at the camp around midday, and the height of 21,000 feet felt like sea level. In the five days since I had climbed the mountain, most people had gone. Piles of gear were stacked up, waiting for the arrival of yaks. A few Sherpas at other camps were still packing, but the place was almost a ghost town.

As we walked past the remaining tents, two people stood watching me, only about four or five yards away.

I heard one of them say, “That's Lincoln!”

“Yes, it's me,” I replied, my recognition of them very cloudy. “I have to get back to my tent, but just drop by and say hello when you feel like it.”

It was only another twenty yards to the much diminished 7Summits-Club camp. Alex welcomed me warmly, and I was pleased to see him as well. I was surprised by the great enthusiasm of Kevin's welcome. I looked behind me to see if there was anyone else, but there was no one.

Kevin and I had always gotten along well. Altitude treats everyone differently, and he had been very slow to acclimatize. He made three or four attempts to reach Advance Base Camp, setting out each time with Harry, Thomas, and Milan. The first time he had turned back at Intermediate Camp, the second and third times he had continued toward ABC, but nausea and weakness had forced him to retreat. It had taken him most of the expedition to make it to here, and now he was a permanent resident.

“Good to see you, too,” I said, but he could tell that I was puzzled.

“The rest of the world thinks you're dead, mate.”

THE MEDICAL TENT WAS right near the kitchen, so while Andrey prepared space on the floor to accommodate my arrival, I sat outside on a chair sipping warm lemon cordial. It was sticky and sweet, and I would have preferred water, but it was liquid. Andrey had obviously briefed the cook because the mug was only one-third full. I could have drunk the whole kettle.

As soon as Andrey was ready, he ushered me into the sun-heated hospital tent. My inflatable mat was on the floor with my sleeping bag on top. The thought of lying there on the floor was bliss, and it proved to be so as Alex, Andrey, and Sergey lowered me onto my mat. If I had been allowed to drink my fill—not cold water, I had had enough cold—it would have been paradise.

There was a stuffiness in the tent, and immediately I began to feel hot, so I stripped down to my long thermal underwear and lay on top of my sleeping bag instead of in it. Alex peeled off my socks—another of the duties of my expedition leader—and I could see I had a few frostbitten toes on my right foot. I had learned to cope with amputations on my left foot, so I was not too concerned.

After a quick check-over, the first thing Andrey did was to insert a drip into my arm.

“What's in it?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Some things you need,” he said, his dismissive gesture confirmed by the way he pursed his lips.

I gathered that he wasn't accepting questions at this time. That was okay; I was quite happy just to relax. His next move was to deal with my fingers, one by one. All of them were numb, but to differing degrees. A strange sensation came to each finger, which I didn't bother analyzing until he got to my right index finger, when I felt the sharp pain of an injection. Pain's good, I thought. Means I've got feeling there.

He continued injecting a vasodilator into each finger of my left hand, to stimulate circulation just below the level of the frostbite.

My hands had thawed by then, but—mercifully—I did not remember the pain of them thawing, which I knew from my first bout of frostbite years before to be intense. The thawing must have taken place during the night, in the deep sleep of exhaustion.

Kevin came though the tent door with his big movie camera whirring, which did not worry me. However, Andrey scowled at him, so he retreated outside, his lens poking through the door flap.

A short time later, Kevin came back into the hospital tent and offered to ring Barbara for me on his sat-phone. It was an offer I could not refuse.

“Tell me the number,” he said, “and I'll call her.”

I had no difficulty remembering our number, and after dialing it, he held the phone to his ear. Would there be anyone at home? He waited and I waited, and then he began to speak.

“You don't know me,” he began. “My name is Kevin Augello, and I am at Advance Base Camp with Lincoln and he wants to talk to you.”

Sat-phones often lose their signals and drop out without warning, so with every word he spoke, I was thinking: just give me the bloody phone. But then he passed it to me.

“Hello, this is Lincoln,” I said, and waited.

“Who is that?” said Barbara. It was definitely her voice, but she sounded worried or confused.

“It's Lincoln.”

“Is that you?” she asked again. “Is that you, Lincoln?”

“Yes, it's me.”

“You're Lincoln?” She still did not sound convinced.

“Of course it's me.” Then I remembered that my ordeal had destroyed my voice. “It's me,” I repeated, but I needed some way to convince her. “It's Lincoln Ross Hall of Wentworth Falls.” Then I added, “I hope you haven't started looking for another husband.”

“It's you!” she cried, knowing that only I could say such a thing. “It really is you.”