The Ascent of Rum Doodle

by W E Bowman

  To my utter astonishment, there were no obstacles.

  We were on the summit!

  For the second time on the expedition I doubted my own sanity. Rum Doodle was 40,000 ½ feet high. Unless either my barometer or myself was mad, we were at 35,000. What could have happened?

  Then I saw. Over to the east a magnificent mountain stood against the sky, its glittering summit 5,000 feet above me.

  We had climbed the wrong mountain.

  13

  It Goes!

  VERY SMALL AND lonely I felt as I shivered in the biting wind on the summit of North Doodle. The majestic summit of Rum Doodle towered above me, scarcely more than a mile distant; but between us the Conundra gorge plunged to awful and unseen depths.

  My thoughts went back to that evening, which seemed an eternity ago, when we had stood on the summit of the Rankling La, our hearts beating with hope, eager to challenge the mountain. All the effort, the suffering, the planning, had been in vain. The confidence of those who had chosen us was betrayed. We were failures and frauds; the world would laugh at us, and rightly.

  I thought of my comrades below, struggling against bodily weakness, building up their strength for the work which they imagined lay ahead, forcing their way up the mountain slowly but valiantly, and all to no purpose. It seemed infinitely pathetic. A lump rose in my throat and I fought back unmanly tears.

  I looked up at the summit of Rum Doodle, so serene in its inviolate purity, and I had the fancy that the goddess of the mountain was looking down with scorn upon the puny creatures who had set sacrilegious feet upon her slopes, daring them to do their utmost, daring the whole world. She it was who had led us astray, and would lead astray or destroy all who set foot on her.

  Would the mountain ever be climbed, I wondered.

  And as I looked I had the answer.

  On the broad slopes of the summit a small black speck had appeared. As I watched, it moved slowly upwards. Behind it came another speck. Then another.

  Men!

  Who could it be, upon our mountain? I felt a surge of indignation. Who had dared to come to the mountain in secret, to beat us to the summit and make fools of us? Who?

  The three specks moved upwards. Behind them appeared other specks, in ones and twos and larger groups. There were ten of them, twenty, dozens, scores; the virgin whiteness of the summit snow was dotted with them. They swarmed all over it, like slow-moving ants.

  The porters! It could be no one else. Ninety-two had been left at Base Camp. They must all, or nearly all, have climbed the mountain.

  But why? Why?

  And where was Prone? Was he with them, or had he been abandoned? Had he led them himself?

  I seized my radio. The distance was beyond normal range, but contact might be possible in this clear air. I buzzed and called:

  ‘Binder to Ailing. Binder to Ailing. Are you receiving me? Over.’

  No reply. I tried again, and went on trying. I became frantic.

  So Lo and Pong were seated placidly on their loads, smoking stunk and watching their friends on Rum Doodle with no sign of interest. It seemed to be all in a day’s work to them. The specks on the summit were working in groups. Tents were being erected. They were evidently going to camp on the mountain top!

  I went on calling.

  At last, to my great relief, there came a faint voice:

  ‘Ailing to Binder. Ailing to Binder. Receiving you strength 2. Are you receiving me? Over.’

  And he told me his incredible story. On the day Constant and I left Advanced Base for the last time the porters had started to pack up all the equipment which we had left at Base Camp. When everything else was ready they pulled his tent down too and indicated by signs that he was to get out of his sleeping-bag. Assuming that they were carrying out Constant’s orders to move the camp to a safer site, he did as requested, and they moved off in good order, Prone, who was suffering from suspected catalepsy, being carried by a porter on top of his load.

  To his surprise, instead of making for the chosen site they marched straight to the North Wall and began to climb it. He shouted and wriggled, but the porter who was carrying him took not the slightest notice. He kicked and bellowed, and banged the fellow on the head with his fist. The man bore it for a while, then threw Prone off and went on alone. Greatly alarmed, Prone staggered after him, calling on him to stop. The porter halted, waited for Prone to come up, flung him over his shoulder and went on again. Prone, quite demoralized, made himself as comfortable as he could and fell asleep.

  He awoke to find himself being carried into his tent. From a brief glimpse which he caught of the surroundings he guessed that they were encamped on the South Col. He was given food and his personal equipment was brought to him. After treating himself for Bavarian measles he turned in for the night.

  Next morning they struck camp and Prone with it. Taking no notice whatsoever of his expostulations, the same porter threw him on top of his load, and off they went again.

  And they kept hard at it, day after day, until they reached the summit. Prone said that he had never been so miserable in his life. The things he had endured, he said, would make a strong colonial turn pale by the mere telling. Rum Doodle was a far stiffer mountain than he had ever, in his most pessimistic moments, dreamed. He was carried all the way by the same porter, whose name was Un Sung.

  I sympathized with him, and gave him my news. We then considered what was to be done. Obviously, Prone and the Base Camp must be got down the mountain. But how? At my suggestion Prone tried, by signs, to persuade his gang to go downhill, but they took no notice of him. They had by now finished pitching the tents. Those not engaged in preparing food were sitting inside smoking and apparently quite contented with their unusual situation. Prone said it was hopeless.

  I said I could not imagine how the thing had happened. Prone said that he, on the other hand, knew exactly. The Yogistani word for mountain base was evidently the same as the word for summit, except for a grunt, gurgle or other internal convulsion which Constant had got wrong. In his opinion the porters would stay where they were until told by Constant to come down, or until supplies gave out. He expected to be dead long before either of these happened.

  I begged him to bear up, for all our sakes. I told him that his sufferings had not been for nothing. Had we not, after all, reached the summit of Rum Doodle? We had, in fact, accomplished far more than we had set out to do, having climbed both Rum and North Doodle.

  Prone said that, in years to come, if ever he sat again in comfort before a blazing fire, this fact might be of some small satisfaction to him. At present it was a raindrop in his ocean of misery. He begged me to get him off the mountain.

  To comfort the poor fellow I promised that this would be done at once; though how, I had not the faintest idea. We said good-bye, and started downhill with my small party.

  *

  At Camp 4 I found my precious packets of stomach tablets. I called up Wish and told him the news. I said I would go down to Camp 2 next day and Camp 1 the day after. I took a frugal supper and turned in early. So Lo and Pong both came and belched at me, and I hoped they were only saying ‘good-night’.

  It was a pair of belches which woke me next morning. I looked at them both suspiciously, but Pong had brought a piece of leather for me to eat with my lentils and pemmican. I took this to be a friendly gesture and was ashamed of my suspicions.

  I can remember little of the next two days except my continual struggle with Binder’s Butter Beans. At 27,000 feet I called up the others and asked them to direct me to Camp 1. They were very helpful, but their detailed instructions did nothing but lead me in a circle. But it was good to hear Burley’s voice again. In the background, as he spoke, I could hear the sound of singing, and now and then someone would break into our conversation with a friendly enquiry, such as: ‘How’s old Binder today?’ or ‘Binder, old boy, did I ever tell you the story of the Young Lady from Kettering?’ and so on. Burley himself offered to sing for me. It was v
ery kind of them, and after my lonely journey I was touched; but it was no help to me in my search for Camp 1.

  At last I gave it up. I said I would go down to Advanced Base, and asked them to follow next day. Burley consulted the others and I heard Shute say: ‘We might as well; there’s none left, anyway,’ – meaning cinematograph film, I suppose.

  I have since discussed with Totter the mystery of Camp 1. Why was I never able to find it, in spite of repeated instructions? Why had Constant been able to find it easily when he went down from Camp 2? And why did the others, notably Burley, who never went higher, find it so difficult to leave the camp? Was it a local climatic effect similar to the enervating air one often finds on a glacier? We never found a satisfactory explanation. To this day the mystery of Camp 1 remains unsolved.

  So down I went to Advanced Base, and one day later we were all together for the first time for nearly a fortnight.

  The question was: what was to be done about Prone? Jungle’s telescope revealed that Base Camp was still pitched on the summit. A dark cloud which hung over it was doubtless the smoke from ninety-two pipes of stunk. Did they intend to stay there, as Prone feared, until ordered down or food ran out? Constant consulted the porters, who assured him that this was undoubtedly the case. Orders, they said, were orders; and these particular orders had been to take Base Camp to the summit and wait there for the rest of the expedition.

  Clearly, someone would have to be sent after them. But who? Since none of the Europeans was fit to try we must send porters. Constant asked for volunteers, with disappointing results. He picked out two of them and ordered them up. After a haggle about overtime rates they packed their loads and set off at once without a sign of enthusiasm or reluctance. It was all in a day’s work to them.

  The South Col was no place for a group of tired mountaineers. Next day we descended to the glacier and set up our camp at the foot of the North Wall.

  We waited.

  14

  Return of the Summit Party

  WE RESTED FIRST, having our sleep out. Then, with returning energy, we became active again, each in his own way. Wish collated his many readings and announced with pride that they were proving of the greatest importance. Jungle was profitably employed in surveying the area. Unfortunately, he lost himself every day and had to be rescued at great inconvenience to the rest of us. This became so irksome that we appointed a porter to be his guardian, giving him strict instructions to bring Jungle back to camp at dusk. One evening they had not returned by nightfall and Shute sent up a number of flares – brought for photographic purposes – to guide them. One of the flares fell on Wish’s tent and burnt it to the ground, together with his records. Wish was distracted. All his work had gone up in flames. Having boiled all the mercury out of his thermometers he could take no more readings, and the remainder of his equipment was on the summit of Rum Doodle. He had been unable to find any living creature on the mountain; this line of research also had come to nothing. There was only one hope of justifying his presence: he must concentrate all his energies on the search for warples. Since Shute had no work of his own – all his film being spoiled and his lenses cracked – Wish conscripted him for the search. Burley was also enlisted. He was now fully acclimatized and as fit and active as a schoolboy, and fairly wore out both Wish and Shute on the daily warple-hunt.

  Constant, insatiable as ever in his desire to improve his knowledge of the language, spent much time with the porters. At other times he was to be found wandering about the glacier practising grunts, gurgles and other phenomena which are the backbone of spoken Yogistani. It was the general opinion, he said, that Yogistani was unpronounceable to the Western stomach, and it was his great ambition to prove that this was a fallacy. He was, he told me, within hearing of success. He had developed unmistakable symptoms of the permanent gastritis which is hypodermic amongst the Yogistani due to their speaking from the stomach. Burley was unkind enough to suggest that if Constant had developed his stomach-ache at the right time Prone would not now be marooned on the summit of Rum Doodle. I reminded him that but for this accident we would have failed in our purpose, and I congratulated Constant on his gastritis. It was, by the way, interesting to notice that as this complaint increased in severity Constant became more and more immune to the effects of Pong’s cooking, and began even to enjoy it. He put forward the theory that the Yogistani method of cooking provides a counter-irritant to the indigenous indigestion pains. However that might be, it seemed to work in his case. It was unfortunate that on returning to civilization he found himself quite unable to stomach Western cooking. For weeks he lived on a starvation diet while he experimented with every conceivable mixture of ill-assorted foodstuffs and every possible method of rendering them indigestible. Finally, when on the verge of committing suicide by eating pre-digested invalid food, he conceived the happy idea of employing a Yogistani cook. He at once sent off cables in all directions, one of which, by great good fortune, reached Pong. Owing to the difficulty of transmitting grunts, gurgles and so on by cable, as well as to objections by Pong’s trade union, the negotiations were prolonged, and Constant nearly succumbed to indigestion complicated by excitement. But matters were arranged at last. Pong is now installed in Constant’s Hampstead flat. Almost any time of day they may be found grunting and gurgling together in the kitchen as they gloat over some malevolent mess which is burning on the bottom of a disgusting saucepan, or huddled in ecstasy over bowls of the same atrocity. When I last saw him Constant was smoking a pipe of stunk, which, he found, served the same purpose of counter-irritant as Pong’s cooking.

  But I anticipate. During this anxious time at Base Camp, when the fate of poor Prone was as yet unknown to us, I was once more heartened and inspired by the devoted way in which my companions went about their tasks, allowing no personal grief to interfere with duty. I forced myself to take my part in all activities, social and otherwise, and found that in helping to lighten the burden of others I had also eased my own.

  I had for sometime been eager to learn something about Shute’s fiancée; but now that opportunity presented itself I was at a loss how to broach the subject, not knowing what tender susceptibilities might be involved. One afternoon I was sitting alone in the mess tent, composing a letter of condolence for Prone’s father, when Shute rolled in. He was, he said, at a loose end. Did I mind if he showed me some snaps? I said I should be delighted. He produced several photographs of a nice-looking young lady whom he said was his fiancée. They were to be married soon after his return. I congratulated him and wished him every happiness. He thanked me. I said that his fiancée looked a very nice young lady. He said she was the nicest and dearest person in the world. He told me quite a lot about her and it all sounded very happy and very normal. He asked me if he was boring me. I said no, but was there not some drawback to his happiness? He said no, why should there be? I said it often happened; perhaps he had had unhappy experiences before meeting his fiancée. He said no; they had been childhood sweethearts; there had never been anyone else; why did I ask? I said that somehow I had expected something different. He looked at me rather suspiciously, I thought, and said he was sorry to disappoint me. I at once assured him that he had mistaken my meaning and asked him to tell me more, which he did, and more than satisfied my curiosity. His fiancée was evidently as normal and contented a person as he was himself; I could see that they would have a very happy life together. I asked him what they did on Saturday afternoons. He told me that they visited his fiancée’s elderly aunt, who was bed-ridden.

  I noticed that the daily belch with which Pong and So Lo greeted me on the mountain had spread to the other porters. I asked Constant if he knew what it meant. He said that since Yogistani was spoken from the stomach the belch – the stomach’s sign of ultimate contentment – was used as an expression of respect; it indicated the great pleasure which the belcher found at being in the illustrious presence of the belchee.

  This pleased me greatly, not only because I appreciated the hon
our, but because it confirmed my faith in Pong and in human nature. I wished that time and my duties would allow me to make friends with each of the porters. What a wealth of affection must, I thought, be hidden by their unresponsive manner. I spent much time with Pong, who told me many interesting things about his life. Poor fellow, he seemed to have developed a great affection for me. He told Constant that I was the only person who had ever been kind to him without expecting something in return. This touched me deeply. He also developed a habit of bringing me little offerings of food at all hours of the day. This touched me deeply too.

  *

  After some days of careful thought I sent off the following despatch: ‘Expedition more than successful, having climbed both Doodles. All in good health and spirits. The spirit of the team is excellent and the porters are beyond praise.’

  I inadvertently signed this message ‘Binder’ instead of with my proper name. This caused some perplexity at home, and the despatch was at first considered to be a hoax. Then the rumour went round that we had been forestalled on the mountain by an unknown party under the leadership of one, Binder. Enquiries were made in mountaineering circles, but no clue could be found. The affair caused considerable excitement, the national press making the most of it, and was not cleared up until our arrival at Chaikhosi, where we were inundated with telegrams from all parts of the world and had to employ three secretaries to deal with them. One of the secretaries turned out to be a practical joker named Pluke, who made the most of an unparalleled opportunity and had the world’s press at its wits’ end by issuing foolish and contradictory statements. We had to employ six extra secretaries to clear up the confusion he caused.

  But again I anticipate. As the days passed and no sign was seen of Prone I became more and more worried. Heaven alone knew what torments the poor fellow was enduring – if, indeed, he was still alive. At last I could stand it no longer. I called the others to the mess tent and said that something must be done. Someone must go up the mountain. The question was: who? All looked at each other, but no one spoke.