Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (22 page)

However, the damage was done. The
Auxesis
was off course and the compass broken. Randolph used the setting sun to steer west, but he had no idea how far north or south he was. They would simply need to hope the waves and wind had not blown them too far, and that the evening stars were visible to help them find their way.

It was two days later they arrived in Japan. Arrested immediately by ships off the coast of Miyazaki, all crew and passengers of the
Auxesis
were quickly rounded up and driven to a military prison miles away in Osaka. They were there for three days, given nothing to eat but water and rice, which for the actors was a banquet.

On the fourth day, things moved quickly. Randolph and a few actors who claimed to be “in charge” were taken to meet Major-General Tatsuya Ubugai of the Japanese army. Ubugai had a stern countenance with unmoving facial features save the slightest variation in lip placement when he spoke. He was tall; as tall as the Hoyt brothers who were both well over six feet. Ubugai looked to be approaching sixty-years-old, with white mustache and sagging jaw, but he stood like a man half that age. He spoke perfect English and demanded to know who they were and what they were doing off the coast of Japan. Randolph spoke for the group. He claimed they were an acting troupe, traveling to India to perform a musical. They had been blown off course by a storm, provable by the damage to the ship, and simply wished to go on their way to Bombay.

“
Which musical?” asked Ubugai. Randolph, who could not care less about musical theatre, was stumped. Luckily for him, the actors had been most impressed with his deception and one of them quickly joined in the ruse. They were performing ‘The Mikado’
by Gilbert and Sullivan. Ubugai seemed skeptical, but he had also heard of the opera and wished to see it for himself. He demanded the company perform the show for him that night, sung
a cappella
and without costumes.

They had three hours to prepare. Directors and actors scurried to get the show ready, teaching songs, dance numbers, and choreography to one another. Randolph sat with his brother William, watching the chaos, the two of them trying to figure out if there was some way to escape. No options came to mind. The predicament was absurd and impossible. Their only hope was the actors would pull off the performance of a lifetime.

Apparently, that is exactly what happened. One of the stage directors on the journey named Arthur Spelke wrote in his autobiography many years later:

The entire audience stood and cheered for a long while. The actors and directors patted one another on the back, confident their performance had guaranteed their freedom.

About three minutes after the actors took their bows, Ubugai followed by four soldiers walked up from the darkness of the back of the room. He was not amused. He said his soldiers should feel great shame for laughing at this ‘travesty.’ He felt it was a mockery of his great nation. The Japanese were made to look like buffoons. Most angering to him was the music. Why, Ubugai asked, was the music full of Western tonalities if it was supposed to be Japan? The answer, he explained, was simple: The Mikado was an act of musical imperialism by the West. If Americans and the British did not attack a people using one weapon, then they would attack brandishing another. Ubugai finished his scolding by saying ‘none of this matters’ because other events had transpired during the performance. He held up a pocket-sized book. Ubugai said the book was found in the hold of the
Auxesis
along with fifteen other copies. He threw it hard at Captain Randolph Hoyt, who had stood up when Ubugai began to speak. The crew of the ship would only see later that it was an English-Chinese translation book.

Without another word, Ubugai pulled out a pistol and shot Randolph in the chest. Ferguson wrote:

Ubugai did not leave after that. He looked around the room and asked in a loud voice, “Who are the mountain climbers here?” Everyone was silent. Ubugai went on to explain that he had found in the hold climbing equipment for six men. If they came forward, he made a promise he would not harm them. William Hoyt rose from the ground “tears in his eyes and staring off to nowhere” wrote Ferguson. Hoyt simply said in a shaky voice, “I am, as are five others.” The five others came forward. Ubugai told the climbers to follow him. They did as they were ordered. They were followed by the four soldiers who were prodding them with occasional shoves from their rifles.

According to Ferguson’s journal, Ubugai took the climbers to his office, a sparsely decorated space with walls of rice paper, a desk with a few framed photographs and a tea tray, and one larger table in the middle of the room. Ubugai suddenly turned gracious, pouring tea for his guests and gesturing downward toward the table sunken into the floor. While the soldiers stood in the corners of the room, the seven men sat down.

“
I was once a climber, as was my father and my grandfather” explained Ubugai. “Ibuki, Shirouma, Fuji. The Ubugai family has climbed them all countless times. Many in this great nation are drawn to the sea and its life-sustaining riches. Ubugai men are different. In Japan, being different is not something that is celebrated. No, we climb despite ridicule. That is how much we crave it.” Hoyt likely did not even hear the Major-General’s words. “I have also been to the mainland and climbed in China before the war began. Many difficult climbs there. And after my father died, my first expedition without him was all the way to Tibet with the goal of Chomolungma, which I believe you call Everest. The ascent would have been a success, had it not been for early snow ahead of the monsoon. So you see, I know a thing or two about your world.” Still, Hoyt said nothing.

Ubugai clapped his hands unexpectedly and loudly an inch away from Hoyt’s face. Hoyt summoned the ability to focus on the Major-General for a moment. “Listen to me” Ubugai said very seriously. “I looked through your maps and your journals and I know you are going to a mountain called Fumu which you claim to be the tallest. Being a fellow climber, I have found it in my heart to let you go. Your brother was an enemy of Japan, as are all of those performers and their handlers. But I have no quarrel with you. You clearly talked your way onto that ship with no intention of wrongdoing against the Japanese Empire. So you are free to go on your way. That is not all. I am prepared to airlift you to your destination. We can fly over Nepal at night and you can parachute down. We will airdrop your equipment as well.”

The Americans, with the exception of Hoyt, looked at each other, eyes wide and disbelieving. Backs were patted. Ferguson wrote that the feeling at the moment was “as if a growling dog, baring its teeth inches from your face had suddenly started panting and licking.”

However, Ubugai was not finished speaking. “As the American expression goes, ‘Too good to be true’. Yes? Indeed it
is
too good to be true. You see, I require something in return.” Ubugai then stood up and growled “Yuudai,” causing the prisoners to flinch because they did not know what the word meant. One of the soldiers in the corners of the room came quickly forward. The soldier bowed to the Major-General. Ubugai put his arm on the soldier’s shoulder. This man was only slightly shorter than Ubugai and had a similar look to him only many years younger. Both of their noses were rather pronounced for Japanese, and the two were strikingly handsome. Apparently, Yuudai was the name of this soldier, and this soldier was Ubugai’s son. Yuudai stood at attention, looking ahead while his father continued to talk. The father explained his climbing days were well behind him, and then paused as if he were holding back tears. Three generations of Ubugai men, he continued, had climbed and enjoyed considerable success. Yuudai represented the next generation. He had a moderate amount of climbing experience and was smarter than most.

Ubugai sat back down and looked directly at the catatonic Hoyt, who did not return his gaze. He looked at him for a very long time and then presented his demands. “You must bring my son with you to this Fumu and I fully expect he will accompany you all the way to the top. Once he arrives there, he will plant our nation’s flag alongside yours.” Yuudai’s stare broke for one shocked moment, his eyes darting over to his father’s. Then the old man continued. “I will have mercenaries retrieve him - dead or alive - on the docks of Calcutta at nine pm on the first of November.”

The prisoners did not know how to respond. His demand was, on its surface, not too difficult to meet. However, the moment one scraped back the rind, one was greeted with several problems. To begin, Yuudai was Japanese, and therefore anathema in the mind of the 1940’s American. The United States had not yet experienced the tragedy of Pearl Harbor, but it was already wary of the Japanese. They had aligned with Nazi Germany and were hell-bent on conquest. Although these Americans had little involvement or interest in the war, they were not fools. They likely knew consorting with the enemy in any way could threaten their futures once they returned to the States, no matter how hard they tried to cover up where they had been. Yuudai’s nationality also posed another problem. The members of a climbing expedition needed to work together like a family of acrobats, each one placing their life in the hands of the others. Trust was of the utmost importance. “How,” Ferguson wrote, “will the team be able to work with this man, let alone look at him if he is an enemy of our nation?” What is more, this man’s father had just killed Hoyt’s brother. How in the blazes would the two ever be able to work together? It is not out of the realm of possibility that some of the Americans were already considering abandoning Yuudai the moment the planes dropped them in Nepal. However, the Major-General had made it clear that Yuudai was
one of them
: A climber. There was an unspoken code among climbers that they look out for one another. William Hoyt had broken that code once before on Everest, and was not likely to do it again. No, Yuudai would not be abandoned.

Ubugai looked at them for a long time in the silence. “So? Do you agree or do I kill you all?” Hoyt was still silent. Wilde, who was unofficially second in command, agreed to the offer. This apparently made Hoyt look up at Drake, but only for a moment. He was then back to staring at nothing. The Major-General smiled and, in a Western gesture, put out his hand which Drake shook heartily without a moment’s hesitation. He then bowed, and knowing a little about Japanese culture, Wilde bowed lower.

Then Wilde had a moment of concern. “The Sherpa” he said. They were planning on meeting their Sherpa and porters in Rangoon. How would they handle this problem? Ubugai told them not to worry. He would send soldiers out to the mainland who would in turn pass the information along to spies. The spies would then catch up with the Sherpa in Rangoon and let them know where to meet Hoyt and his men. The soldiers would leave with the message that evening and the Sherpa would know within twenty-four hours. “You may have to wait several weeks for the Sherpa to arrive at Fumu, but they will arrive.”

The climbers were released long before dawn on the fourth day of their captivity. As they walked out of the giant cell, they looked back at the sailors, actors, writers, and directors. Ubugai had made it clear that the sailors were officially prisoners of war. They would not be going anywhere. Ubugai also pointed out that because the sailors’ mission had been secretive, the United States could not loudly respond to this as an act of war. The actors, writers, and directors were more of an issue. The burden of keeping all of them imprisoned was more than Ubugai wished to take on, not to mention their histrionics got on his nerves. They would be released in a few months and placed on the
Auxesis
.

However, in the months before they were let go, Ubugai chose to take advantage of the presence of the entertainers. Along with the best writers and actors in Japanese
Shingeki
theatre, Ubugai decided to give the Chinese a taste of their own medicine. Japanese soldiers in charge of sending messages via radio were given scripts and acting lessons. They could not use the “tsunami play” because the Chinese would be aware of the ruse and ignore it. Therefore, Ubugai himself oversaw the creation of a new script, one in which the United States unleashed a surprise attack upon Japan using a phalanx of “giant, amphibious war machines.” Each treaded behemoth was a thousand feet high and covered with spinning cannons, flamethrowers, and catapults throwing containers of mustard gas. The machines had risen from the depths of the South Pacific and had cut a swath of destruction across the island. The radio men speaking the information over the radio were sure to use voices laced with panic and terror. They shook as they read their lines into the microphones. They pleaded with others to check on their families in their homes towns. They cried openly. Then they continued the charade through choked up voices: Based on (completely fabricated) radio transmissions they had picked up from the United States, the Japanese found out the killing machines were “out of control and on a rampage.” According to calculations from headquarters, some said, the “now master-less machines would reach China and begin wreaking havoc within six hours.”