Experience
Wongdhi is only twenty-nine but has already earnt an excellent reputation on the Himalayan circuit. Recently he accompanied our French friend Lionel Terray on the ascent of Jannu in Eastern Nepal, a height just short of 8000 metres, and it is interesting to note that Wongdhi, unlike Terray, did not use oxygen. He also took part in the Women’s Himalayan Expedition to the summit of Cho Oyu, an undertaking which ended tragically when the leader, Claude Kogan, was overtaken by a giant avalanche together with Claudine van der Straeten and three Sherpas. One of them was Wongdhi, the only member of the party to survive. In broken English he described how he was able to dig himself out with the aid of his penknife, which he always carries in his top pocket. Several of his fingers were damaged by frostbite and later amputated in France.
Omelette
We have another Sherpa celebrity in our midst … Danu the cook. All expeditions nowadays vie for the services of this young man, known for his extraordinary cooking skills and exceptionally good humour. For Danu the high point of the day doesn’t arrive until evening.
When we settle down to enjoy a moment of leisure after a gruelling day, he starts rushing around to attend to our needs. Tea is usually served within five minutes, often accompanied by a delicious omelette … almost better than back home!
At times I had the impression Danu simply made for the nearest cottage and snatched the kettle from the hob … so as not to keep the sahib waiting! In short, Danu’s a great guy!
Loyalty
A minor incident that occurred during this expedition may serve to illustrate the Sherpa mentality. As Brandel and I lay sleeping in our tent near a mountain hamlet, some child started pelting our tent with stones from on high. Immediately the Sherpas came running to chase the little blighter away.
Soon after that, having drifted off again, I was woken by a scuffling sound close by … it was Danu, lying down across the opening of the tent in his sleeping bag, his pick at the ready to protect his sahibs should the need arise. The fact that it rained during the night was immaterial: Danu remained at his post till daybreak. It is clear why the Sherpas are so highly esteemed for their loyalty and devotion.
Weight
The porters or coolies are mainly recruited from the area around Kathmandu, where large numbers of men have made portering their profession. The wages here are considerably lower than in Pokhara, where local men may be hired by the day in between their other occupations. Loads of thirty to thirty-two kilograms are normal during expeditions, but the porters are capable of carrying more than twice that weight, if necessary from early morning till late at night.
It is by no means unusual for a porter to carry a load of seventy kilos and more over long distances into the mountains, although it is a very slow process. We saw the most astonishing demonstration of load-carrying at the airfield in Pokhara. Included in our equipment flown in from Kathmandu was a crate weighing one hundred and twenty-five kilos. None of the adult men volunteered, but a lad of about seventeen hoisted it on his back and carried it up the slope for about two hundred metres. Afterwards he was weighed by one of our doctors – thirty-seven kilos!
Setting out
As regards our ascent of Nilgiri, we can rely on trusty Sherpas such as Wongdhi, Dorjee, Danu and Mingma Tsiring putting on a good show when it comes to setting up high-altitude bivouacs, and more than likely at least one of them will accompany us to the summit.
Trusty Sherpas putting on a good show … I’ve had enough of reading the paper, so I lay it down on the seat beside me …
Sitting in a plane always gives me a sense of being conveyed somewhere without actually travelling. Out of the window I can’t see anything but the wing, nor is there much to be seen on the back of the seat in front of me. Where else but in Western civilisation would they invent a means of transport requiring no more than passing a couple of hours facing the back of a seat fitted with a little net containing sturdy paper bags in case of air sickness?
A far cry from the loyal Sherpa! The loyal, mountain-climbing Sherpa who is prepared to carry burdens four times his own weight for the convenience of his sahib! Who’s going to help me carry my burden?
Arne wants to borrow or hire a horse in Skoganvarre to carry our gear for us the first part of the way – twenty-five kilometres. That’s all, after twenty-five kilometres the horse will have to go back. There’s nothing for horses to eat where we’re going. So back it will have to go after just one day.
From then on we’ll be carrying several weeks’ worth of rations and all the other stuff we need on our own backs. No horse. No loyal Sherpa sleeping across the front of the tent in the pouring rain to protect his sahib. No Danu the chef, whose services are so much in demand. Danu of the extraordinary cooking skills and cheerful nature, Danu who doesn’t stop at house-breaking to get hold of a kettle of boiling water! Merely to serve his sahibs a nice cup of tea at the end of a weary day!
I have no idea how much weight I’m capable of carrying on my back, when it comes down to it. Twenty kilos strikes me as a fair weight. Twenty-five? Possibly. Stupid of me not to have done a dry run at home first. Loading my rucksack with as much as I think I can carry, then weighing it. Subtracting a percentage from the total weight to allow for the fact that I won’t be carrying it in short bursts, but for hours at a time over rough, rock-strewn terrain, up hill and down dale.
On the other hand, what good would it do to know exactly how much I think I can carry? The likelihood is that our combined baggage will be divided into three equal loads. And I wouldn’t want to carry less than my share, in any case.
I’ve never actually been on an expedition like this before. I’ve had some experience camping, but there was always some village nearby to buy food in the evening. There’s a first time for everything, Mama.
Of course, Alfred. No use blaming me for having missed out on sporting activities.
I was never one for sport, I have to say. Had I not chosen a career that obliges me to travel I’d have been a real scholar holed up in a study. As it is, I have no choice. What else can you do in a study besides study other people’s books?
I am not interested in finding the kind of rock samples everyone else has already put in little boxes. No, I’d go further and say: I am not interested in finding rocks that have always been on earth. What I really want to find is a meteorite, a lump of stone deriving from space, preferably composed of matter never hitherto encountered on earth. The philosopher’s stone, or, failing that, a mineral that would be named after me: Issendorfite.
What was the date of that newspaper? The day before yesterday. But the article could have been despatched from Nepal three weeks ago.
Brandel has never been a close friend of mine. He’s different in all sorts of ways. Likes a lot of action. Always eager to take a risk. The main reason he went to university was to give his love of sport an academic edge. Won medals for long-distance skating, a skilled alpinist by the age of seventeen. Did two hundred kilometres an hour on a motorbike: going so fast that the trees along the road blurred into a hoarding. Never read a book to the end if he didn’t have to.
It could be that Brandel is reaching the summit of Nilgiri at this very moment. Let’s see, my watch says five to nine. By my reckoning it must be about three p.m. in Nepal.
So It’s possible.
Brandel’s summers from the age of seven were spent in Switzerland. Scaling mountains like a chamois. Yodelling, too. Didn’t drink or smoke. Switzerland! I’ve never been there myself, unless you count the time I travelled through on a night train.
A load of thirty to thirty-two kilograms is normal. I suppose I should be able to manage that. I wonder what my daily food intake actually weighs. Would a sandwich weigh fifty grams or less? I haven’t a clue. Don’t reckon I can carry sixty kilos, though. I weigh just over seventy kilos myself. How much was it that young Sherpa weighed? Thirty-seven kilos. And he carried one hundred and twenty-five kilos uphill over a distance of two hundred metres. In e
xcess of three times his own weight. In my terms that would work out at two hundred and twenty kilos. A pointless calculation. A three-tonne truck weighs something like ten thousand times as much as a Dinky toy, but that doesn’t make it ten thousand times stronger. If a man were, relatively speaking, as strong as a flea, he’d be capable of dragging a railway carriage behind him single-handed, but no-one can do that.
In my mind’s eye I see Sherpas filing past. Sixty kilos suspended from a wide band around the forehead, backs so bent their hands almost touch the ground. Crooked legs, incomprehensibly spindly like those of donkeys.
I could of course reduce my load by leaving behind my transistor radio. Saves three hundred grams.
Brandel is a friendly sort of chap, always ready for a laugh, never gets into arguments. An inveterate optimist. People like that are beyond me, but I believe they’re quite content. A bit like dogs, really. A dog’s life: proverbial misery. Yet most dogs are optimistic.
And why shouldn’t Brandel look on the bright side? He’s got Wongdhi the Sherpa-sirdar and one hundred porters to convey his toothbrush and pyjamas to the summit of Nilgiri.
As for me, I have just wasted a whole day trying to get some conceited, near-blind old codger to give me the aerial photographs I need.
9
Trondheim strikes me as the kind of place I could grow fond of.
Russet wooden warehouses along the waterfront.
All the buildings here are made of wood. It’s odd to see trams riding in the streets. There ought to be a law against trams in wooden towns. Not a real town. More like a replica, fashioned not by carpenters but by cabinet makers for display at some world fair.
But I have no time to lose. The plane to Tromsø leaves three hours from now, and I still have to lay my hands on those photographs.
In the taxi I keep an eye out for the sights of Trondheim. I see a large cathedral with copper-green roofing. Also a red-and-white communications tower.
Sunshine, clear blue sky. I don’t feel in the least drowsy, and just now, when I told the taxi driver I wanted to go to Østmarkneset, he understood me even though I don’t know any Norwegian and had to guess at the pronunciation.
We drive across a long bridge, after which the town rapidly thins out.
The road isn’t even metalled any more. Rolling hills. Tall spruces. Here and there a row of new wooden houses, no longer the work of craftsmen but of machines.
The taxi pulls up. The driver turns to me, reaches over the passenger seat to open the door on my right and points to a half-finished structure ten or twelve storeys high.
‘Geologisk Undersøkelse,’ he says.
I can see why he can’t drop me off any closer. Surrounding the block is a zone of potholes, primed radiators, felled trees and sawn timber. I pay him and get out of the car.
Although there are bricks in ample supply, there isn’t a bricklayer in sight. But then, as I draw near to the building, I catch sight of two workmen struggling to right a sheet of plate glass the size of a small football pitch.
I wave at the men, calling out:
‘Geologisk Undersøkelse!’
I can see myself reflected in the glass between them.
One of the men doesn’t react, both his hands being occupied, but the other frees his left hand briefly to describe a circle in the air.
I set off in the indicated direction, walk around the perimeter, find my path blocked by bushes, don’t dare go back, push my way through the bushes and find myself in a kind of forecourt with a parked jeep and a vehicle on caterpillar tyres.
Some warm-up for my meeting with Direktør Hvalbiff!
I pause to dust myself down. Anyone watching? No.
This part of the building appears to be finished. It has windows and even a small door.
There’s nothing to stop me entering, and I step into a narrow corridor. Finding the secretary’s office is my next challenge.
One I needn’t rise to. A figure emerges from a laboratory filled with throbbing machines. He comes towards me, smiling. He has white wavy hair and wears a bow tie. I give him a meaningful look, thinking he must be Direktør Hvalbiff in person.
‘I’d like to speak to Direktør Hvalbiff, if I may,’ I say.
All innocence.
And I am innocent.
‘Direktør Hvalbiff? He is not in today. I am Direktør Oftedahl, of the Statens Rå hstoff laboratory.’
‘Isn’t the Norwegian Geological Survey in this building?’
‘Not in its entirety, or rather not yet. But maybe I can help you. Come with me.’
I go with him, down the corridor and into his office. He seats himself behind his desk and motions me to a chair.
‘Our building is by no means finished yet, as you can tell. What did you want to see Direktør Hvalbiff about?’
‘Professor Nummedal made an appointment with him on my behalf. I’m from Holland, doing postgraduate research. My thesis will be about the soil structures of Finnmark. I was supposed to pick up some aerial photographs at Professor Nummedal’s office, but he didn’t have them. Professor Nummedal said I could get them from Direktør Hvalbiff, here in Trondheim. Professor Nummedal said he’d telephone Direktør Hvalbiff to tell him I was coming.’
‘Telephone? From Oslo?’
As though eager to redress any oversight that might have been committed, he picks up one of the two telephones on his desk, asks something, says something, of which I can only make out his concluding words: ‘Takk takk’. He replaces the receiver.
‘They don’t know anything about a phone call. Direktør Hvalbiff was here briefly yesterday, then went straight back to Oslo. We are in the process of moving, you understand, and most of the property of the Geological Survey is still in Oslo. Both our departments will be housed in these new premises.’
He begins telling me about the new building. Direktør Oftedahl’s English sounds flawless to my ears, and apparently he considers mine good enough not to propose switching to another language. He talks at length. He’s not in the least concerned about my having come all the way here for nothing, nor about whether Hvalbiff did or did not react to a putative telephone call from Nummedal.
Oftedahl’s face is red and fleshy, with white bushy eyebrows like overhanging eaves, but the scars on his neck draw and hold my attention. The bow tie is far too small to hide them. All the way up to his jaw his throat looks as if it has been scooped out with a large spoon. I can’t imagine what kind of operation this could have been – but then what do I know of operations? It doesn’t look as if there could be much left of his larynx or his tongue, but there must be, because he has a strong, deep voice, and, given his clear diction, there can’t be anything wrong with his tongue either.
‘Is there any chance,’ I ask, when he’s run out of steam about the problems of relocation, ‘that the aerial photographs have already have been moved here? I can’t think why else Professor Nummedal would send me to Trondheim.’
And in my mind I add: Professor Nummedal was positive that the photographs were here.
*
Oftedahl rests his forearms on the desk and eyes me intently for a moment or two, then says:
‘Possible. Possible. Let us have a look.’
He stands up.
I get up too and move to the door while Oftedahl comes out from behind his desk.
Beside the door hangs a framed photograph, a portrait with an autograph: Roald Amundsen
‘Amundsen,’ I say, while Oftedal holds the door open. ‘Is the signature real?’
‘It certainly is. Do you know why Amundsen was successful? He wore clothes made of animal skins, with the fur on the inside. He didn’t wear anything underneath. Capacious, warm clothes, you understand, warm and yet well ventilated. Whereas others, such as Shackleton and Scott, wore thick shirts and woollen underpants. Their clothes got drenched in sweat, froze solid in places. It was impossible to get them dry. But Amundsen was fine. That is why he was the first to reach the South Pole.’
We go down the corridor, turn a corner and find ourselves in another corridor, low-ceilinged, wider than it is high.
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ Oftedahl muses, ‘the way explorers like Amundsen had to relieve themselves – at fifty degrees below zero, ha ha! It must have been a very quick business!’
The corridor, lit by concealed ceiling lights, has moiré rosewood panelling and a parquet floor.
*
‘So you studied geology,’ Oftedahl says, tearing himself away from Amundsen and the South Pole to focus on me again. ‘Interesting. My training was as a geophysicist. My department keeps track of every significant geological finding. I feel like a warehouse steward at times, and then I regret not being a geologist. I spend too much time in the office with paperwork. Fieldwork is better, more romantic. Geologists are the last explorers in the world.’
He laughs.
‘But do watch out! Better not step on the planks, just use the beams. The builders are months behind schedule, as usual in the construction business. All this ought to have been finished long ago.’
The parquet flooring comes to an end. No more partition walls either. Nothing like a corridor or passage. We cross a floor surface that is no more than an unmade-up layer with concrete pillars between one slab and the next. At the far end of the space is a stairway of raw concrete, up which we go.
‘What brought you to Norway?’ Oftedahl asks as we arrive on the next level, which is in the same unfinished state as the one below.
‘I met a Norwegian student in Amsterdam called Arne Jordal, who told me about Finnmark. We decided to take a trip there together this summer. He has been there before, so he can show me the ropes. We’ll keep each other company, but we’re researching different subjects.’
‘Good, good. There is someone else who will be in Finnmark this summer, a petrologist by the name of Qvigstad. He works at the Geological Survey.’
Beyond Sleep Page 4