Above All Things (8 page)

“My head hurts,” Sandy protested.

“Of course it does. And that is why you need to dance.”

He pulled Sandy to his feet and the boy swayed against him for a moment. Briefly they struggled for the lead before Sandy began to follow. George could feel Sandy’s heart beat. He counted it out. One. Two. Three.

The men fell into one another again and again as the jazz played, their laughter becoming raucous. Eventually the coolies slipped away to their own sleeping arrangements, gathered in the mess tent, or tucked under the shelter of boulders. The Englishmen danced, became dervishes as champagne and whisky took fast hold in thin blood, thinner air.

An avalanche of notes, like death on the mountain.

The deaf boy was watching him. George thought about waving him over, lifting him in the air to the music, but Sandy faltered. He held Sandy up instead.

George hadn’t meant to hurt the boy. He was frustrated, exhausted from having to trek back down from Camp I because
he’d forgotten his damn crampons. With no way to move into the Icefall, he’d lost a day. All he wanted was to collapse in his tent, sleep, and get ready to do it all again tomorrow. But the child was in his tent again.

“Give me those,” George said, holding out his hand.

The boy gaped up at him, his eyes only half-focused, spittle and crumbs on his chin. When the child didn’t respond, George grabbed the crampons away. Their sharp points caught the boy’s flesh, and blood welled up before dripping from his hand in bright red threads. The boy stared up at him, his mouth jawing around the pain, his eyes panicked and wide. George thought of Berry tumbling on the back walk at Holt House, the scrape of blood on her knee, the way she screamed as if she would never stop. He waited for the wail of pain but the boy didn’t make a sound. George grabbed the white vest that was drying across the peak of his tent and tied it tightly around the child’s hand. Then turning the boy by the shoulders, he pushed him out of the tent towards a group of coolies gathered around a small cooking fire. “Someone needs to bloody well keep an eye on him!”

When he found Sandy outside his work tent, soldering a length of pipe, George held out his crampons. They were slightly twisted, a scrape of blood on one of the points. “The boy broke them and I need them on the ice tomorrow. I haven’t even started and already I’m a day behind.”

Sandy wiped away the blood and peered at them. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

“He’s always underfoot. This isn’t the first time I’ve found him in my tent. His parents ought to be minding him.”

“They’re probably working.”

“This is no place for a child. What kind of parent brings a child here?” He wiped a sleeve across his face. The sun was blaring down on them.

They’d been at Base Camp for only a week, but already he reeked of his own sweat. It dripped down his back while he was breaking trail or sorting loads, and pooled and froze when he slowed or stopped, exhausted to stillness. He pulled off his hat, ran his hand through his greased mess of hair. It stayed standing at odd angles, held up by its own oils. His fedora smelled acidic, sharp. A few more days and he wouldn’t be able to smell the stale stench of it on himself anymore, but he would know the odour was there, coming off all of them. They reeked of the latrines. There was shit on the cuffs of his trousers, hidden beneath puttees, the backsplash of piss from when the wind changed direction suddenly, inexplicably.

He felt feral.

“Where is he?” Sandy asked.

“Some of the coolies are looking after him.”

“Maybe Somervell should have a look at him.”

“I’ll mention it to Somes later,” he said. “Can you fix them? I need them tomorrow.”

“So you said, George. I’ll get to it tonight. I was actually just on my way to talk to Somes.”

“What for?”

“At breakfast he mentioned he’d broken something. You just reminded me. I’ll get to these later. Promise.”

Sandy left the crampons on the ground outside his tent and walked across the camp towards Somervell’s makeshift infirmary.

After tea, George sat alone in his tent, reading the most recent letter from Ruth.
Don’t forget Clare’s birthday, all she wants is to hear from you
. As if he could forget his children. As if Clare, Berry, and John disappeared when he left.

Still, he knew that altitude could make him forget, that the mountain had a way of unmooring things. He scratched Clare’s
name into the margin of his journal, scrawled
birthday
beside it, and then counted back the days it would take for a letter to reach her. Four weeks, to be safe. He’d have to send her something soon. The letters he sent from now on would travel down valleys in yak trains, drift backwards away from him, and board other ships bound for England, relaying old news, old worries. Letters to Ruth, to Will, to each of his children. He would remember Clare’s birthday, send her a poem from her daddy. Nine years old. Impossible.

For now, he pushed aside the journal and turned to the letter he’d been writing to Will.

Ruth tries to sound happy in her letters, light. But I know her too well for that. Thank you for being there for her, Will. You are watching out for her, aren’t you? You’ll keep Hinks in line and not let him badger her? It’s enough for her to deal with already
.

Is she getting out? Seeing people? It seems unlikely. She’ll lock herself in to be stoic all on her own. Don’t let her. Perhaps you could suggest a dinner party? All our close friends. It would be good for her to have you all around, I think. Maybe even invite Hinks and you can handle him head on
.

It was growing dark outside by the time he finished the letter. He checked his watch. Where was Sandy with his crampons?

As he approached the work tent, he heard Somervell’s voice through the thick canvas.

“He is good. It’s true.” George flushed a little. They had to be talking about him. “But sometimes he doesn’t always do what’s …” Somervell paused, seemed to contemplate his words carefully. “Prudent.”

“What do you mean?” Sandy asked.

“Last time there was the avalanche. You read about it, I’m sure. It was in the book, in all the papers. I guess it could have
happened to any of us. But it didn’t. Maybe it was just dumb luck that George was leading that day. There was fresh snow. He should have called it off. It wasn’t safe. We could see where the snow wanted to slip. But George pushed up anyway. Teddy should have been more adamant or I should have been, maybe. But it was George’s insistence. ‘We’ll lose our window,’ he said. So we went.”

That wasn’t how George remembered it. They had agreed to push up together. Yes, there had been fresh snow on the mountain, but the sun had warmed it. It should have bonded to the colder layer of older snow underneath. He knew about avalanches. They saw them often enough here – first the low thud, like untamped gunpowder, and then a building rumble, like the whole world collapsing. And then the rolling waves of snow, picking up speed and crashing down the rock face, carrying off everything in its path.

No, he and Somervell had made the decision together. It was going to be their last attempt, that much was clear. They had the burst of good weather that always preceded the snow storms that the wet monsoon weather swept up and across the Himalaya. They examined the face of the mountain, tramped up away from Camp IV, and jumped up and down on the snow, watching for it to ripple, to pull away. It didn’t.

Avalanches happened on mountains. It was one of the risks. They all knew that. Foolish to pretend otherwise. Yet here was Somervell again, saying he was the reckless one. That it had been his fault that seven men had died.

He pulled back the tent flap and ducked inside. “Telling war stories, are we, Somes?” When Somervell wouldn’t meet his eye, George turned to Sandy. “Did you get those crampons taken care of?”

“Yes. Yes. Sorry. I was just on my way to bring them to you.”

“You just got sidetracked?”

“They’ll hold,” Sandy said, handing him the crampons.

“Thanks.” He turned to leave.

“George,” Somervell called after him. “We should run another series of tests when you get back. See how the stress is getting to you. Maybe I’ll get you to take Sandy with you so I can check him too. He’s doing remarkably well, actually. Come see me.”

“I’ll see how the schedule looks when I get back.” He held up his crampons. “We’re already behind. Teddy and I will talk about Sandy,” he said, turning away.

He’d always suspected that Somervell thought him reckless. Ever since he put up his first solo route in Wales. It didn’t really much matter what Somes thought, though. As long as he had Teddy’s confidence, Somervell could bloody well go to hell.

IT WAS QUIET
, blessedly quiet. Sandy hadn’t been interrupted in his work tent for at least a half hour. George had warned him back on the
California
, when Sandy had sought him out, that he should guard his privacy when he could. “It will be hard to find a moment to yourself once we’re on the mountains. You might want to enjoy some solitude while you can.” But the quiet was too good to last. Outside the tent was the crunch of footsteps, the whisper of the canvas. Sandy inhaled deeply and looked at the list of repairs he had to make –
camera, Unna cooker, Hazard’s campbed?, torch, oxygen
. A silhouette fell across the page.

“What is it?” he said, more sharply than he meant to.

“Not quite the greeting I expected,” Odell said. Sandy could hear the smile in Odell’s voice, but even the grin he couldn’t see aggravated him.

“Sorry, I assumed you were another one of the porters with something else to fix.”

“Well, still no reason to be so short. Could’ve been anyone, really.”

Sandy didn’t respond. He’d forgotten this side of Odell – the instructing, headmaster side of him. In Spitsbergen, Odell had always been correcting Sandy’s glissade, how he pushed his skis forward, no matter that Sandy had won a race his first week on the damn things.

Odell pushed on into the silence. “Teddy’s hoping you might have another of the oxygen rigs ready. George is due back from the Icefall today. Teddy would like him to take a look at it.”

Sandy stood and stepped towards the flap, and Odell backed up to allow him to duck out. “I’ll get to it,” Sandy said. “There’s just so many interruptions.” He inhaled again. “I’ll get to it,” he repeated before turning and storming away towards the far edge of the camp. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had to get away from Odell. From everyone. No matter where he looked, though, there were people – porters scurrying about, Shebbeare sorting through a pile of ropes, Norton stepping out of the mess tent, paper in hand. Sandy tried to head away from all of it. Past the mess tent, past the Victrola, towards Noel’s tent at the far edge of the camp.

He wished he could conjure the affection he’d once felt for Odell, but he was still irked by what Odell had done the other night at one of Norton’s after-tea war councils.

“Sandy’s done a complete overhaul of the oxygen system,” Odell had told Norton.

“That’s a waste of time,” Somervell interjected.

“We haven’t made a decision yet, Somes,” Norton said. “But if the oxygen will get us to the top and back down safely, we’ll use the oxygen.”

Sandy had been surprised by Somervell’s resistance to the idea of using oxygen. During one of their debates on the topic, Somes had made his case: God created Man. God created Earth.
Man should be able to reach the highest point on Earth on his own. “God doesn’t make mistakes like that,” he argued.

“Right, Somes,” George had responded. “Forget that man can’t get to the bottom of the blooming ocean.”

Not that Sandy was in favour of using oxygen. “I’d much rather get to the base of the final pyramid without than to the summit with it,” he’d once told George, though he wasn’t sure he meant it, not even at the time. Everyone had an opinion on the oxygen question: Was it sporting or not to use it? Would it even work? But the sheer mechanics of the system fascinated him.

“Sandy, why don’t you fetch the prototype you’ve finished for Teddy to take a look,” Odell had said, making him feel like a child, asked to show off the good work he’d done at school. By the time he returned, Odell was showing Norton the sketches Sandy had made. He didn’t remember giving his drawings to Odell.

“Maybe I should show him?” Sandy said.

“I was just trying to explain what you’ve been up to,” Odell told him. It seemed to Sandy, though, that Odell was trying to take some of the credit for his work.

Even so, Norton had been impressed and told him to carve out some time to get a few more rigs overhauled. He’d added it to his ever-growing list of chores and repairs.

The sun beat down on Sandy now as he moved towards the edge of the camp, and he squinted against the sharp light. His face had been scoured by the sun, burned early on during the trek, and the skin hadn’t had a chance to recover. His bottom lip was swollen and blistered. He ran his tongue over its pulpy tenderness. He’d left his hat in his tent. He could go back and get it, but Odell was still standing nearby, reviewing his own list of duties.