Above All Things (18 page)

The Col had shocked him when George took him to see it the day after they arrived at ABC. He’d stood at the bottom of the long saddle that connects Everest to her neighbour Changtse and looked up: thirteen hundred mostly vertical feet. All ice and snow. Above the Col, nothing was protected. Above it, the wind screamed down in a terrible way that he couldn’t quite grasp. That was where they got turned back in ’21. Where the avalanche had occurred in ’22. George pointed: “On the lower section we’ll cut steps and haul ourselves up them. But the last twenty feet” – George drew his attention to the chimney that they would follow, the route he would try to take – “might as well be rock.”

Even then Sandy was certain he could come up with something to make scaling the Col easier. An idea was already ticking
in the back of his mind. Yesterday he had broken down some of their empty crates and used lengths of climbing rope to fashion a packable, moveable ladder that he would show to George when he got back. It might be useful for moving loads up the Col. The rope ladder had turned out well. Maybe a little heavier than he had hoped, but the added weight would be worth it if the ladder made that last stretch easier. They’d need an extra man to carry it or they’d have to leave a load of supplies behind so that someone could cart the ladder up there instead, but delaying a load for a day or two couldn’t hurt that much, surely.

Advanced Base Camp would be full that night. He was expecting George and Somes to return from higher up, Odell and Norton to arrive from lower down, and both teams had their own set of porters. He’d enjoyed the night on his own; he’d kept the lantern burning longer than he should have, read a little, and written letters to Evie and Marjory without feeling that anyone was looking over his shoulder; a rare luxury. He probably should have taken the opportunity to write to Dick.

For weeks already he’d been trying to finish his letter, but nothing he wrote seemed adequate. If only they could have resolved the whole messy situation before he’d left, but Dick had remained recalcitrant and Sandy hadn’t been able to think of a way to bring him around.

“For God’s sake, I could die out there,” he’d pleaded the last time they saw each other. “And you’d let this come between us?”

“You’ve put it between us. You humiliated my father. My father. Who’s done everything for you. He thinks of you as another son. And you slept with, you’re sleeping with that woman.” Dick had taken to calling Marjory “that woman” ever since the discovery of their affair almost a year ago.

“Ending it won’t change things, Dick. It will still have happened.” Dick said nothing. “Can’t you just wish me well?”

“Of course I want you to do well, Sands, but …”

“But nothing.” Sandy had spread his arms, an invitation. “You’ve got to put it behind you.”

Dick extended his hand instead, grasped Sandy’s. “Good luck. And I want to hear from you. You’ll be in my prayers. But when you come home, you’ll have to make a choice.”

For now, all he could do was try to fill the gap between them with descriptions of the day-to-day business of the expedition. It seemed ridiculous. But it would be days before he got the chance to try again. Having others in the camp again would be a welcome distraction, in a way.

And someone else could take over the responsibility for the camp. It had to be done: someone had to stay at the camp, readying food and support in case any of the climbers higher up stumbled back in, but he didn’t much care for being the one left behind. Even if it did prove he was capable of running things on his own. He wanted to do more. Like actually climb the damn mountain. God, what if George and Norton thought boiling water was all he was good for?

George would soon be announcing which teams would be making the push for the summit. Sandy longed to be able to write home with that news.
That
would be something to tell Dick. A chance at the summit would mean all sorts of opportunities: job offers, more expeditions, lecture tours like George had done.

He looked up to see Odell coming into camp from below, a half-dozen fully-loaded porters following close behind him, and Norton bringing up the rear with one flagging porter. Sandy left the cooker to carry on melting the snow and got up to go meet them. At least there was nothing to catch fire up here.

“How was it?” he asked as he reached Odell.

“Same as always.” Odell sounded strong. Sandy reached to take his load, but Odell waved him off. “No. Could you help Teddy with Tsering?” Odell gestured at the porter stumbling
ahead of Norton at the end of the rope. “He’s slow. There must be something wrong with him. He’s not usually like this.”

The man was limping, his face a grimace of pain. As he approached, Sandy pointed at the straps of his pack, but the Sherpa shook his head. Sandy nodded, emphatic, aware of his own silence. He felt awkward in front of the porters, all miming and half sentences. “All right?” he asked loudly. The porter shook his head again, but this time he let Sandy take the load before he turned and limped towards the camp. Norton caught up to him then.

“Thanks, Sandy.” Norton stepped past him, head down, plodding on. “He’s been dragging all day.”

Sandy followed, dumped the load, and then sat the porter down on the camp chair he had vacated. Tsering was pale under his sunburned skin. Sandy stood over him. “You’re not all right,” he said too loudly, shaking his head.

The porter nodded, pointed at his left foot. Sandy knelt down and took the cramponed boot in hand.
Boot
was being generous. The Sherpa’s footwear certainly wasn’t meant for climbing, trekking like this; the leather sole was thin, the upper already cracking. Tsering moaned as Sandy touched his foot. Sandy held up his palms, a calming gesture, and then moved back to the man’s foot. The crampons were tight. Maybe too tight. He unstrapped them and Tsering grimaced again. The foot was swollen, he could tell even through the leather of the boot. It was misshapen, like a rotten fruit.

He pulled at the boot and Tsering screamed.

“Dammit,” he cursed.

“What is it?” Odell was over his shoulder, pulling off his gloves.

“Frostbite?” Sandy guessed.

“Damn.” Odell crouched down. “We’ll need to get the boot off. That’s why we don’t let them use the crampons. They don’t
know how to use them properly. Now we’ve lost a porter and a pair of boots.”

“Why didn’t someone check him?”

“We can’t nanny them. Go find something to help.”

By the time Sandy came back with scissors from his pack, Odell had enlisted another porter, who was crouched next to Tsering, talking to him in Tibetan.

“I can take care of this until Somes gets back,” Sandy said. There wasn’t much to be done beyond getting the boot off and slowly warming the Sherpa’s foot. Other than that, they’d just have to wait and see.

“Hold his foot,” Odell said, as he took the scissors. Sandy took hold of the porter’s leg, just above the ankle, and braced it for Odell as he slipped one of the blades into the soft leather of the boot. Tsering moaned and bit his lip as Odell began to cut. The anguished expression on the man’s face made Sandy nauseous.

“If he’s in that much pain, it can’t be that bad,” Odell was saying. “If it was frozen solid he wouldn’t feel a bloody thing.”

Sandy tried to think of what it would be like to have your feet frozen solid, or your hands, imagined the sound they might make knocked against each other. A dull thump. Dampened and slightly soft.

Tsering’s wool sock stuck to his skin as Odell tore it from the swollen, blistered flesh. The exposed foot was white, like a fish belly. “We’ll have to warm him. Slowly.”

“I know.”

“Then we’ll have to get him back down as soon as we can. Someone will have to take him through the Icefall.” Odell looked up; the sun was already dropping to the high horizon. Tsering was breathing heavily through his clenched teeth. “Tomorrow, maybe. If the weather holds.”

The sky was clear, the spindrift off the summit a white flag. There weren’t any signs of bad weather as far as he could see.

“You don’t think it will?”

“I don’t know. It’s so hard to tell here, but it’s awfully calm. That’s always cause for suspicion.” He returned the scissors to Sandy. “You get back to the tea. Make Tsering a beef one. I’ll get him settled. Hopefully one of the coolies can warm him up. Shouldn’t George and Somes be back soon?”

Sandy pointed. He’d been watching the two spots moving down through the wide snow bowl of the Cwm for the past hour. George and Somes looked as if they were moving well. If they kept that pace they’d be back in another hour or so. Just as the sun was setting. He’d never have enough tea ready in time.

“WELL, WE GOT
up there,” George was saying. “Got the loads up. A couple of tents, but it took us longer than I’d have liked. There’s still too much work to do.”

“And bloody hell,” Somes added, “the wind up there will cut you in two. It just comes screaming down the ridge. One moment you’re tucked in behind it, sheltered. The next it’s tearing you apart.”

They were gathered in the larger of the tents, spacious enough for the five of them to sit close but not on top of each other. They’d eaten cocooned inside their sleeping bags, hats pulled over ears, fingerless gloves on their hands.

Somervell had come in late after checking on Tsering. “You two did well with him, no damage in the cutting at all,” he said to Sandy and Odell. “He might lose a toe, but if he keeps his foot warm he should keep everything else.”

“His crampon was too tight,” Sandy said. “He didn’t have enough circulation.”

“How many times do we have to tell them?” Teddy cut in. “Now we’re down another man. We’re two days behind schedule
because of the cache left down at Camp Two. George, you need to establish Camp Five tomorrow. That’s all there is for it.”

“I know,” George said, slumping after the lousy night on the Col.

“Speaking of,” Sandy began, “I have something that might be of some help. I made a ladder, for the top of the Col.”

“A ladder?” Teddy sounded incredulous.

“Yes. A rope ladder. One person can climb up with it, get it in place, then everyone else can climb it.”

George nodded. “Could be a good idea, Teddy. We need to save all the time we can up there.”

“But we’ll be down another load,” Odell said. “And we’re already down a porter.”

“George is right,” Teddy said. “We’ll have to take extra care. Make sure we get those next loads up as quickly as we can. But we’ll give the ladder a try. We need to get the camp up. That has to be the first priority.”

George woke with his feet numb from a small drift of snow that had gathered in the tent near them. The flap had come undone in the night and the canvas rumbled and snapped, almost tore apart as the wind ripped at the material. The roar of it was deafening, but they weren’t snowbound. Not yet. The tent was tossing too much for that. A hefty gust picked the whole thing off the ground and then dropped it hard back down to the scree. Next to him, Odell grunted. He hoped the guy wires would hold.

George sat up, hunched under the angle of canvas. A rain of rime from his condensed breath fell on him. “Odell?” His throat hurt and he couldn’t hear his own voice for the sound of the wind, the whipping canvas, the pressure in his ears. “Odell?” He kicked at the shape in the sleeping bag, which grunted, moaned again.

He pulled a jumper around his shoulders, tugged his leather
hat down around his ears and hunched further into his sleeping bag. The wind whistled. He tightened his scarf and exhaled into it, where his breath condensed and froze again in an instant. They would be pinned down for the whole day. This was more than another one of the mountain’s almost daily skirmishes. It was really bearing down. It would mean a day’s rest, but it also meant another day’s delay. And they were already behind. Loads were still too low down on the mountain. They needed to establish the upper camps. They didn’t have much longer before the monsoon began its sweep across the continent. Two weeks, at most, and then the clear break that always proceeded the heavy snowfall. If they were lucky.

But the idea of just staying put in his sleeping bag – not moving – was appealing. His whole body ached. Everyone could take care of themselves. If they stayed put in their tents they’d be fine. The coolies could make do. They stole food all the time anyway, even if they thought the English didn’t notice. Besides, they were used to this. The weather, if not the altitude. He thought about checking on the injured porter, but even if he dragged himself out into the snow now, Somervell would still need to see to the man. That was
his
responsibility. He was the doctor.

It would be so easy. To just give in to the torpidity. To just sit here and be rocked by the snapping, rolling tent. But the delay would make his head ache, his cough worse. With every delay the summit receded just a little farther. Dammit. He couldn’t afford this.

He roused himself and coughed again with the effort, phlegm on his scarf. The muscles that wrapped around his ribs wrenched painfully. He fumbled into his boots, huffing with the effort, with the cold. He didn’t bother to tie them, his fingers stiff and clumsy in mismatched gloves. On the way out he kicked Odell again. Harder, maybe, than was necessary.