Parrado and Canessa could see that the peasant in front of them was poor – so poor, indeed, that his clothes were in worse condition than their own – but they suspected that, though poor, this man might have what they valued at that moment more than any treasure, and sure enough, when they told Serda that they were starving, he brought some cheese out of his pocket and gave it to the boys.
So happy were they with this cheese that Parrado and Canessa did not mind that the Chilean now left them and went on up the valley to see to the cows that were grazing there and to open some sluice gates to let water into the fields.
While he was doing this, Canessa and Parrado ate the cheese and rested. Then, before Serda returned, they took what remained of the human flesh they had brought with them and buried it under a stone, for no sooner had the bread and cheese passed their lips than some of the early revulsion they had felt for their former diet returned to them.
At about eleven o’clock that morning the peasant finished his work and rejoined the two survivors. Canessa could not walk, so he was placed on Serda’s horse, and the three of them set off down the valley. When they came to the tributary of the River Azufre which Parrado had thought impassable, Serda told Canessa to dismount, and while he took the horse up the mountain towards a ford, he instructed Parrado and Canessa to cross by a footbridge which Parrado had not seen the night before.
On the other side they waited for Serda and the horse, and when he had rejoined them Canessa was lifted into the saddle once again to ride farther down the valley. There, in a meadow, they came to the first human habitation they had seen since the accident. It was a modest house rebuilt every spring, with wood and bamboo walls and a roof made with tree branches, but no palace could have seemed finer. Canessa dismounted and stood with Parrado on the grass, tipsy with the smell of the wild roses which grew over the primitive portico. Their host led them into an open courtyard, seated them at a table, and introduced them to a second peasant, Enrique González. More cheese and then fresh milk were brought to them by this man, while Armando Serda busied himself at the stove. In a short time he brought them each a plate of beans, which he refilled four times as they gobbled it down. Both boys ate as they had never eaten before; with no thought at all for the state of their stomachs. When the beans were finished they moved on to macaroni cooked with scraps of meat, and after that bread and dripping.
At first, while they ate, the two Chileans stayed timidly at the other end of the room, but Parrado and Canessa asked them to come and sit with them. The peasants did so and sat watching the two boys stuff themselves with the food they had given them. Then, when both could eat no more, they led them to a wooden hut on the other side of their cottage. It had been built for the landlord when he came to inspect his land, and in it were two comfortable beds on which Parrado and Canessa were invited to take a siesta. With repeated professions of gratitude to their shy hosts, they did so. They had hardly slept the night before and they had been walking for ten days through some of the highest mountains in the world.
It was midday on Thursday, December 21, and seventy days since the Fairchild had crashed in the Andes.
Eleven
1
The C-47 of the Uruguayan Air Force left Santiago for Montevideo at two in the afternoon of Wednesday, December 20, but while flying over Curicó the pilots were informed of bad weather on the Argentine side of the Andes, and so they returned to Santiago. The three passengers – Canessa, Harley and Nicolich – waited at the airport until five, when they were told that the weather had improved and they could leave again. The plane took off, flew south to Curicó, then east towards Planchon, but while approaching Malargüe in Argentina it once again gave the familiar lurch which went with the failure of one of the engines.
The pilots had no choice but to make an emergency landing at the airport of San Rafael, about 185 miles south of Mendoza. There, in this small Argentinian town, the fathers spent the night. The next morning they were told by mechanics at the airport that the plane could not be repaired without parts from Montevideo. At this point the three men were inclined to find some other means to continue their journey, but there was a factor which made them hesitate – the two Uruguayan pilots who had charge of the C-47. Both men had been friends of Ferradas and Lagurara, and while they had long since lost hope for their lives, they thought that by discovering the cause of the accident they might save their honour. They were depressed, quite naturally, by the continual breakdowns of the C-47, and it was to support and encourage them that Harley and Nicolich decided to wait there until the plane was repaired. Canessa, on the other hand, had promised to get home for Christmas, and he discovered that a bus left San Rafael for Buenos Aires that evening.
While they waited, the three men decided to contact their wives through Rafael Ponce de León’s network. Once again they sought out the helpful radio ham who was to be found everywhere they went. They had some difficulty tuning in to the right wavelength because there was interference from other hams in Chile, and it was amid the whistling and crackling that the four men caught a scrap of an exchange between two hams – ‘incredible, but the plane’s been found’. No sooner had they heard this than they lost the station.
The three Uruguayans looked at one another. ‘It couldn’t be …?’ one began. The others shook their heads. Their hopes had been raised only to be dashed too often before for anything to be built on such a paltry scrap as this.
A moment later they were in contact with Rafael. They told him what had happened – that the plane was grounded and they would make their way home as soon as they could. Ponce de León promised to pass on this information to their families.
The three men wandered around the warm dry streets of San Rafael until the time came to see Canessa onto his bus. At eight o’clock the doctor embraced his two friends and set off for Buenos Aires.
2
That same afternoon, Páez Vilaró and Rodríguez Escalada had driven from Santiago to Pudahuel airport to catch their plane to Montevideo. When they got there they waited in a queue to check in their luggage, but every time the line moved forward Páez Vilaró would remain where he was, permitting those behind him to pass in front.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ Rodríguez Escalada asked him.
‘I’m waiting for something,’ Páez Vilaró replied.
‘Well, you’ll miss the plane,’ said Rodríguez Escalada.
‘You go ahead,’ said Páez Vilaró. ‘I won’t be long.’
Rodríguez Escalada went on through the passport and customs controls while Páez Vilaró continued to keep to the back of the queue. Then, just as the last passenger had checked in and the final call had been made for the flight, a man ran up.
‘Here it is,’ he said, furtively handing Páez Vilaró a small poodle puppy which he had promised to bring home to his daughters for Christmas.
Knowing that it was against the regulations to take an animal on board the plane, Páez Vilaró quickly hid the puppy under his coat and put his case onto the scales. Then, with his boarding pass in his hand, he made his way through the passport control and customs barriers. No one seemed to notice the odd position of his left arm, and Páez Vilaró was just congratulating himself on his success as a smuggler, when over the airport’s loudspeaker system, came the words, ‘This is the international police, this is the international police. Detain Carlos Páez Vilaró. Detain Carlos Páez Vilaró.’
His face fell. Someone must have seen him put the dog under his coat. He turned to the policeman who stood nearest to him and said, ‘I am Carlos Páez Vilaró.’
He was led away across the wide foyer of the airport, cursing this latest piece of ill luck, but when he reached the office of the airport police he was faced not with handcuffs but a telephone.
‘What is this?’ he asked.
The officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know … an urgent call for you.’
Still trying to conceal the puppy, he took hold of the telephone. ‘This is Páez Vi
laró,’ he said.
‘Carlitos? Is that you?’ It was Colonel Morel.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ said Páez Vilaró, in a tone of mild irritation. ‘And I appreciate you calling me like this to say good-bye, but the plane is waiting for me … I’ll see you after Christmas.’
‘Okay,’ said Morel. ‘I’m sorry to keep you. It’s just that I thought that since you’ve been looking for those boys of yours for so long, you might like to come and see them.’
Páez Vilaró said nothing. The puppy fell to the floor.
‘You could also help me with this note,’ Morel went on. ‘It might be a fake, but I don’t think so. It says, “I come from a plane that fell in the mountains. I am Uruguayan”.’
Blinded by tears, Páez Vilaró rushed from the police station out onto the tarmac. The engines of the plane had already started; they were only waiting for him to climb the steps before pulling them away.
‘Rulo, Rulo!’ Páez Vilaró yelled. ‘They found them! I’m staying.’
In a moment Rodríguez Escalada was at his side, and the two weeping Uruguayans fell into each other’s arms, shouting to the skies, ‘They’re alive, they’re alive!’ Then together they rushed back through the customs and passport control, shouting and weeping and causing some consternation among the various officials and fellow passengers.
‘What is this?’ one policeman asked another, wondering whether they should interfere with this somewhat irregular behaviour.
‘Leave them,’ said the other. ‘It’s that lunatic who’s looking for his boy who went down in the plane which crashed in the cordillera.’
It was only when Páez Vilaró and Rodríguez Escalada reached the taxi stand that they realized that they had no Chilean money.
‘Will you take us to San Fernando?’ they asked the driver of the cab at the head of the line.
‘I don’t know,’ the driver replied. ‘It’s a long way.’
‘They’ve found my son. He crashed in the Andes.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the driver, recognizing Páez Vilaró. ‘You’re the nut, aren’t you? Okay. Climb in.’
‘We haven’t got any money.’
‘Don’t worry.’ And the two men climbed into the back of the cab.
They reached San Fernando three hours later and drove straight to the headquarters of the Colchagua Regiment. There, while the taxi driver took charge of the poodle, they were met not just by Colonel Morel but by a large crowd of all the Chileans who had been helping them in the search – the radio hams who had spread the news of the note, the pilots from the Aero Club of San Fernando, the guides, the local Andinists, and the soldiers themselves, who had so often marched fruitlessly into the mountains.
When Morel could extricate Páez Vilaró from this crowd of excited well-wishers he took him to the headquarters of the carabineers and showed him the note which had been brought from Puente Negro. ‘What do you think?’ Morel asked. ‘Is it genuine?’
Páez Vilaró studied it with care. At first he was inclined to think it was a fake. So often before he had received hoax telephone calls, and here he was presented with a note which was not signed. Also, the writing was exceptionally neat for someone who had been up in the Andes for seventy days.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It might be a fake.’ Then he looked at it again and thought he recognized in the lettering something that was unique to the Stella Maris College. ‘But I don’t know,’ he added quickly. ‘It could also be written by one of the boys.’
He returned with Morel to regimental headquarters. There an operative command had been formed consisting of Morel, as commander in chief, the mayor of San Fernando, the commander of the garrison, and the commander of the carabineers. Morel appointed Páez Vilaró to this committee. ‘You’ve been searching for so long,’ he said. ‘You can’t just sit around now doing nothing.’
3
At midnight in San Rafael, Harley and Nicolich were in touch again with Ponce de León in Montevideo. He told them at once that a note had been handed to the police in San Fernando purporting to come from a survivor from the Uruguayan plane crash. Harley and Nicolich immediately wanted to return to Chile, but at that time of night it was not clear how they could do so. They waited, fretting and frustrated, for half an hour in the home of the radio ham, who, upon hearing the news, had run off in search of some form of transport. He returned half an hour later with the mayor’s car.
Without waiting to collect any of their luggage, which was locked up in the C-47 in the airport of San Rafael, the two men set off for Mendoza. They reached it at four in the morning and went straight to the military airfield. They had no money, but when they explained what had happened, the officers of the Argentine Air Force promised them a ride in the next plane that went to Chile.
For the rest of that night they sat waiting, warmed by greatcoats given to them by the two Uruguayan pilots before they left San Rafael. At eight in the morning a plane landed with a cargo of refrigerated meat bound for Santiago. Half an hour later it took off again with Harley and Nicolich on board.
4
That same morning Dr Canessa arrived in Buenos Aires. He had spent the night sitting in the bus and thought that before continuing his journey to Montevideo he would go to the home of a friend to wash and perhaps rest a little. He left the bus station, hailed a taxi, and slumped in the back seat as it rattled and swerved along the streets of the city.
The radio was playing some music which the driver interrupted by half turning his head towards Dr Canessa and saying, ‘Have you heard the news? They’ve found the plane.’
‘What plane?’
‘The Uruguayan plane. The Fairchild.’
Before the taxi driver could say another word, he found his passenger sitting next to him, fumbling with the radio.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Canessa.
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Are there survivors?’
‘Two boys.’
‘Did they give their names?’
‘Their names … yes, I think they did, but I didn’t really take them in.’
Suddenly Canessa raised his hand to silence the driver. The news was coming over the radio that two survivors from the Uruguayan Fairchild that had crashed in the Andes on October 13 had been found in a place called Los Maitenes on the River Azufre in the province of Colchagua. Their names were Fernando Parrado and Roberto Canessa.
On hearing this last word, tears poured down Dr Canessa’s cheeks, and with a cry of happiness this strong middle-aged man turned and embraced the bewildered taxi driver as he spun his car down the streets of Buenos Aires.
Twelve
1
Canessa and Parrado, the two expeditionaries, awoke from their siesta at seven in the evening. They came out of the wooden hut into the valley, lit by the mellow light of the evening, and breathed into their lungs the warm air scented with flowers and vegetation. The beds they had slept on and the smell in the air were proof to their dazed, incredulous minds that they were no longer trapped in the Andes, but all the same they went immediately along the grass path towards the peasant’s hut covered with wild roses to talk to their hosts. The two boys had talked to one another for long enough; now they wanted to talk to someone else. There was also the small matter of food, for the beans, cheese, macaroni, milk, and bread and dripping had all settled nicely into their stomachs while they slept, and both now felt ready for more.
Enrique and Armando were waiting for them and with shy sympathy understood at once what the two Uruguayans required. Though their larder was now almost exhausted, they brought out more milk and cheese and then dulce-de-leche and instant coffee.
As Canessa and Parrado devoured this evening meal, roasting the cheese on the fire, they questioned the two peasants about the man who had gone for the police. His name, they were told, was Sergio Catalan Martínez. He was a hill farmer, and it was he who had first seen the two boys on the other side of the river the day before. He had thought they were tourists on
a hunting trip – that Canessa was Parrado’s wife and that the sticks they held were rifles for shooting deer.
‘But are you sure he has gone to the police?’
‘Yes. To the carabineers.’
‘How far is the nearest post?’
Enrique and Armando looked at each other uncertainly. ‘At Puente Negro.’
‘How far is that from here?’
Again the two peasants looked at one another.
‘Twenty miles? Fifty miles?’
‘A day, I should say,’ said one.
‘Less than a day,’ said the other.
‘Walking?’ asked Parrado.
‘Riding.’
‘He went on a horse?’
‘Yes. On a horse.’
‘And how far is the nearest town?’
‘San Fernando?’
‘Yes. San Fernando.’
‘Two days, I should say,’ said Armando.
‘Yes, two days,’ said Enrique.
‘On horseback?’
‘On horseback. Yes.’
The boys’ impatience was not for themselves. With their own stomachs filled, their thoughts had returned to their fourteen friends who were still trapped in the Fairchild. They thought not only of their morale but of Roy and Coche and Moncho, whose state of health had been so bad ten days before. Every extra hour that they waited could mean the difference between life and death.
Suddenly there was a shout from farther down the valley. The two boys leaped to their feet. Parrado rushed to the entrance of the cottage, and Canessa hobbled after him. There they saw running toward them, and puffing and panting as he ran, a fat carabineer with a rope over his shoulder. Close behind him came another. They reached the cottage, and still panting from his exertion the first said to the two Uruguayans, ‘Okay, boys, where’s the plane?’
Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors Page 25