Conquistadors of the Useless (28 page)

What seemed even more inexplicable than their slowness was the fact that they should be persevering at all when a storm was obviously brewing up rapidly. The blue sky of the previous few days had given place to heavy clouds of ill omen which, as the morning went on, became increasingly menacing. I could perhaps just have understood an extremely fast and daring party pressing on, if the mountain were in perfect condition, in the wild hope of reaching the summit that evening. Lachenal and I had done something of the sort on the Walker eleven years before, but with the difference that the weather then was infinitely less threatening than on that Tuesday the 6th of August 1957.

I simply failed to comprehend. What was going on before my eyes was a hundred times more stupid than the normal run of heroic follies which the nature of the sport sometimes entails. The mountain was obviously in bad condition, and the four men had taken a day and a half to climb the easiest part of the face, usually done in a morning. (Only later did I learn that the Italians had attacked on Saturday and the Germans on Sunday, which makes the whole thing madder still.) Now, on a simple snow slope, they were advancing at a snail's pace, despite every sign of imminent bad weather. It would still have been possible to retreat without too much difficulty, instead of which they just trailed on at the same tedious pace as though they were not mortal and reasonable beings, but robots insensible to pain and death.

Sitting helplessly on the grass, I saw at once that these men were heading for certain disaster. I couldn't understand what motivation could drive them thus to continue a doomed ascent. No ideal, no technical gifts could serve to explain it. The time was long past when, as some say, an exaggerated patriotism caused certain climbers to run mortal risks for the prestige of their country. In attempting the twelfth ascent of the Eigerwand these men could hope for neither gain nor glory. The least glimmer of common sense must have shown them that they were already at the limit of their capacities, and that bad weather would render them helpless however stout their morale. It was no longer a question of adventure, of pushing back the frontiers of the impossible, or any of the other motive forces of high-standard mountaineering: it was high time for an honourable and sensible retreat. Only a monstrous vainglory stronger than instinct could lead them on like this to certain death.

But still they pushed slowly on, reaching the foot of the Sedlmayer-Mehringer buttress at midday. At 2.30 p.m., by which time they should have attained the ice field beyond, there was no sign of them on it when the clouds parted for a moment. There seemed nothing to be done, and we left Grindelwald until the Thursday evening. The weather seemed quite good on the Wednesday morning, rather as though fate was giving them a last chance, but later it broke up. A terrible storm was followed by an absolute deluge all day Thursday. On Friday morning a clearing enabled me to get another look at the face, and tracks could be seen leading from the buttress to the Ramp. Some campers told me that they had seen the party two days before trying to escape on to the Lauper route on the north-east face. My Dutch friends, less accustomed than myself to goings on of this kind, were very harrowed by the whole business. Tom, whose excitable and generous nature comes from an Irish grandmother, was pacing up and down in despair at not being able to do anything. He suddenly burst out:

‘For heaven's sake Lionel, can't we do
something
for those poor devils?'

‘In weather and conditions like this it'd be madness to try. There wouldn't be a hope of succeeding, and every chance of getting chopped ourselves in the process. There's nobody more willing than I to try and save people when there's the remotest chance, but I'm all against turning one accident into two for no good purpose. Believe me, I know the face – they're still too low on it. You couldn't do much until they'd got to the level of the Spider, or at a pinch the Lauper route, and even then you'd have your work cut out.'

‘Well, anyway, if they get that far, will you try and get up a rescue party? It would be terrific if we could save them.'

‘Listen, Tom. You know what happened last winter. I got called every name under the sun because instead of standing around talking I tried to help two poor lads who could have been saved without any bother if people had got on the job a little earlier. People who behave badly don't like having it pointed out. If the Eiger were in France I might have a shot at it even so – I know enough people to call on there who might come with us. But what can I do here? I don't know anyone, I don't even speak a word of German. The local people have made their position perfectly clear, in any case. They've even put it down in black and white that the Eigerwand is strictly for nut-cases, and anybody who goes on it does so at his own risk. What do you expect me to do about it after that? Anyway, after the Mont Blanc business, I don't feel like rearing my ugly head again: everyone will just say I'm looking for publicity and write me off.'

‘But if someone else got up the rescue, wouldn't you take part? If we went along as a party of three nobody could say anything against you.'

‘In the first place, who do you think is going to bother to get a party up? Nobody cares two hoots about those poor bastards up there. Anyway, I wouldn't go even if they did. Somebody would find a way of twisting my motives, and they can manage quite well without me – one person's as good as another. There's plenty of climbers around in Switzerland who know how to run a rescue party.'

‘Lionel, you disappoint me! You've no right to put personal feelings before duty. There's no doubt at all that you could help, and if so then you damn well ought to.'

‘No, to hell with it. I'm browned off with the whole business. On Mont Blanc it was a question of some good kids who'd had a bit of bad luck, but these characters are just idiots. I've no wish to get chopped for a bunch of cretins like that.'

‘You mean you wouldn't go, even if you were asked?'

‘Ah, that would be another matter. If I were formally asked I'd go for the sake of solidarity. But since only Rubi knows I'm in the vicinity it's not very likely.'

And so the morning went by. The Eigerwand was still cloaked in cloud, but overhead a number of blue patches showed that the weather was improving. Having nothing to do around Grindelwald we decided to go and do a climb, and in view of the poor conditions we settled for the relatively modest Nollen ridge on the Mönch. About mid-afternoon we took the train up to Kleine Scheidegg, intending to stroll on up to the Guggi hut. In the train no one could talk about anything but the Eigerwand, and one passenger told us that Seiler, a climber who had taken part in the fourth ascent, was organising a rescue party.

It was raining so hard at Eigergletscher that we decided to sleep there and set out at one o'clock in the morning if things improved. Nobody said much over the evening meal. My friends could see that I was preoccupied, and they too were unable to forget that four men were in mortal agony a few hundred yards away. Kees suddenly broke the silence:

‘Lionel's got to go up and join the rescuers. That's where he belongs.'

I answered:

‘Maybe so, but I'm not going unless the leader of the party actually asks me.'

Tom got up without a word, walked to the telephone and called Jungraujoch. He got through to Seiler and began talking to him in German. I could make out the words ‘Bergfuhrer', ‘Terray', and ‘Chamonix', then he held out the receiver towards me:

‘Seiler wants to speak to you.'

Conversation was easy, as Seiler spoke excellent French. He asked me to come up at once. He had plenty of helpers, but most of them were not particularly strong from a technical point of view and he desperately needed guides and experienced amateurs. It was by now nine o'clock, and there were no more trains that evening. We decided to go up on foot through the tunnel, but the railway employees placed an absolute embargo on the project. Tom got through on the telephone to one of the directors without any better success. The rules were the rules, and no rescue party was going to change them!

Faced with the insurmountable stupidity and ill will of the railway staff, we came to the conclusion that our only course was to set out at four o'clock via the west face of the mountain in order to meet the others on the top. When the alarm went off Kees was feeling ill and stayed behind, fearing to delay us. The weather seemed a bit clearer as we walked out of the station, but a violent wind had set in from the north which could hardly fail to complicate the rescue. We decided to go up in any case and see. We were very fit by this time, and climbed fast. We reached a point on the north-west ridge only about a thousand feet below the summit by 7.30 in spite of finding the rocks plastered with verglas. In good conditions this point commands a fine view of the north face, due to its general concavity, but now the clouds allowed only a few glimpses of ice-armoured crag.

It seemed patently absurd that anyone could have stood up to a week of bad weather in such an inhuman place, and if I had agreed to take part in the operation it was more from approval of the generous and humane action of the Swiss rescuers than from any real hope of hauling the victims from this apocalyptic gulf. It was therefore without much conviction that I leant over the crest of the ridge and shouted, during one of the rare lulls. As I expected, there was no response but the roaring of the wind. We were getting ready to start again when to our extreme surprise we distinctly heard a voice. At first we wondered if our excited imaginations were deceiving us, but other cries soon proved that there were indeed human beings still alive and calling from the depths. We therefore hurried on at once, buoyed up by new hopes of actually doing something useful if only the weather would improve, as now seemed possible.

Soon afterwards we saw parties of climbers on the Eigerjoch ridge battling against the wind. Convinced that there would already be a large group on the summit we forced the pace, only to find it deserted when we arrived at 8.45. I felt a medley of emotions to be standing once again on this crest, where, ten years earlier almost to the day, I had emerged into the storm exhausted from two days of concentrated struggle. The feelings of that ardent moment returned to me with the utmost intensity.

The freezing wind cut us to the bone, and in order to get warm in a useful sort of way we started hacking platforms out of the ice. We had been at the job for nearly two hours before the climbers eventually arrived. Decisive-looking, craggy-featured and sparing of word and gesture, they greeted us briefly, then sat down and made tea. Tom, who could speak not only German but even Swiss-German, began to question them at once, and we learnt that the rescue party had started out at 1 a.m., but had been terribly impeded by the gale on the narrow ridge of the Mönch. They had been forced to fix ropes and goodness knows what else, but their arrival would not be much longer delayed. We also learnt that the larger of the two men was none other than Eric Friedli, inventor of the rescue equipment adopted as standard by the Swiss Alpine Club.

I realised at once our luck in having this specialist in difficult rescue operations with us. After a quick snack the German-Swiss began working on a platform where cables could be anchored. The rock was so broken that they had to put in numerous pitons and even wind their cables round a large block. I took the liberty of suggesting to them that the final couloir was in fact somewhat farther to the east, but they took no notice and carried on working where they were. The other parties started arriving about two o'clock, and before long the summit got positively crowded. All these good folk were members of the Swiss Alpine Club, mostly from Thun and Berne, but also a few Biennois who spoke French. They told me that a dozen German climbers had arrived from Munich the previous evening and were coming up the north-west face. The famous pilot Geiger came and made signals to us that the victims were still alive, and quite soon there were two or three aeroplanes circling the summit and diving spectacularly but uselessly down the face. Their noise and aerobatics created a fairground atmosphere rather unexpected in a place of this sort.

The cables were all in place by three o'clock, and Friedli asked for volunteers to make a reconnaissance descent. Seiler, the excellent Biennois climber Perrenoud, and myself stepped forward. Friedli chose Seiler, who after descending only two hundred feet was able to shout up that the couloir was farther to the east. This meant that everything had to be moved and all the installations remade on the new site. While the experts from Thun were getting on with this task, we set about preparing places to bivouac. Part of the team was to descend to Eigergletscher for the night and come up again next day with food and more equipment, but more and more people kept on turning up.

First came the Germans led by Gramminger, a man who had himself accomplished some of the most difficult rescues ever made. Later we got a welcome surprise at the arrival of the famous Italian climbers Cassin and Mauri, who had hurried from Lecco to help their compatriots. Just before nightfall eight more stout looking fellows emerged on to the summit, bowed under heavy loads. They turned out to be a group of Poles who were in the area to climb some of the great north faces and had come up to join us as a spontaneous fraternal gesture. The mountain had turned into a veritable Tower of Babel, and Tom's multilingual capacities were invaluable. Apart from Dutch he can talk equally well in four languages. His eyes sparkling with intelligence and good humour, he was here, there and everywhere among the various groups, gesturing and explaining until they all understood each other.

Over thirty men were now digging and hacking along the summit ridge, clearing platforms to sleep on and even caves to shelter them from the still violent wind. Having the Latin tongues in common, the two Italians, the Lucernois Eiselin and Tom and I all settled down together in a friendly group. It would be exaggerating to say we weren't cold, but we had all been in much worse situations in our time, and despite our lack of equipment it was just an ordinary bivouac.