by Dan Simmons
“He’s Political Officer for Sikkim,” says the Deacon from around his pipe stem. He sounds very angry. “Remember our maps? The easternmost province of the Raj in India, the one we have to trek through to get to Tibet? It’s a quasi-independent kingdom called Sikkim. Bailey got the Dalai Lama at Lhasa to back him on all this ‘the Tibetans are outraged’ nonsense, but in truth, it’s Bailey who’s stopping all British climbing permits except ours. He’s stopping German and Swiss permit attempts as well.”
“Why would he want to do that, Ree-shard?” asks Jean-Claude. “I mean, I see why a British Political Officer would try to head off the Germans and Swiss, to keep Everest an English hill, but why on earth is he stopping permission for English expeditions?”
The Deacon seems too angry to speak. He nods to Lady Bromley-Montfort.
“Bailey is a former climber, having achieved some lower summits here in the Himalayas,” Reggie says. “He’s far past his prime—and he never got close to Mount Everest even in his prime—but many of us believe that he’s stirring up and exaggerating the Tibetan anger over the dancing lamas as a pretext to save the mountain for himself.”
I have to blink rapidly at this news. “Will he try this spring or summer?”
“He’ll never try,” says the Deacon through gritted teeth. “He just wants to spoil it for the others.”
“Then how did Lady…Reggie’s…request get approved by the Tibetan prime minister and the Dalai Lama at Lhasa?” asks Jean-Claude.
Reggie smiles again. “I went straight to the Dalai Lama and the prime minister for personal permission,” she says. “And ignored Bailey completely. He hates me for it. We shall have to transit Sikkim as quickly and quietly as we can, before Bailey finds some way to block us. He is a malevolent man. Our only advantage is that I’ve done several things by way of misdirection to make him believe that our expedition will be attempting transit to Chomolungma in August, post-monsoon, rather than now during the pre-monsoon months, and that we would be using the direct northern route—over Tangu Plain and up over the Serpo La—rather than the traditional route farther east.”
“Why would Bailey be so foolish as to believe that someone would attempt Everest in August again?” asks the Deacon. His 1921 recon expedition had done just that, only to find how deep the snow could be in August. But then again, it had been June 5 when Mallory, Somervell, and the others—minus the Deacon, who thought the snow conditions too dangerous—had lost seven Sherpas and Bhotias in an avalanche during Mallory’s stubborn attempt to return to Camp III on the North Col after heavy early monsoon snows.
“Because Pasang and six others and I did just that in August a year ago,” says Reggie.
All three of us turn to gaze at her in silence. Dr. Pasang’s presence is only half-registered in the flickering firelight as he stands behind the wingchair in which Reggie leans forward over her brandy. Finally, the Deacon says, “Did what?”
“Went to Everest,” Reggie replies, with an edge to her voice. “In an attempt to find Cousin Percy’s body. I would have gone earlier in the summer, but the monsoon was at its worst right after Colonel Norton, Geoffrey Bruce, and the others in Mallory’s former party beat their retreat back this way. Pasang and I had to wait until the worst of the rains—and the snows on Chomolungma—stopped before we trekked in with six Sherpas.”
“How far did you get?” says the Deacon, sounding dubious. “As far as Shekar Dzong? Further? Rongbuk Monastery?”
Reggie looks up from her brandy, and her ultramarine eyes seem much darker in her anger at the tone of the question. But her voice remains firm and under control. “Pasang and two of the other Sherpas and I spent eight days above twenty-three thousand feet at Mallory’s Camp Four. But the snow kept falling. Pasang and I did press on to Mallory’s Camp Five one day, but there were no supplies left there, and the storm grew worse. We were lucky to get back down to the North Col and were trapped there for four more of the eight days, with no food for the last three.”
“Mallory’s Camp Five was at twenty-five thousand two hundred feet,” Jean-Claude says in a very small voice.
Reggie only nods. “I lost more than thirty pounds during those eight days on the North Col at Camp Four. One of the Sherpas, Nawang Bura—you shall meet him tomorrow morning—almost died from altitude sickness and dehydration. We finally had a break in the weather on eighteen August, and we retreated all the way back to Mallory’s Camp One—the four Sherpas who’d remained at Camp Three below the Col all but carried Nawang down the glacier—where we regrouped before trekking out. The snows never stopped. The downpour continued as we clumped back through the steaming Sikkim jungles in mid-September. I thought I would never get dry.”
The Deacon, Jean-Claude, and I exchange glances in the firelight. I am sure my thoughts are being echoed. This woman and that tall Sherpa climbed to above 25,000 feet on Everest at the height of the monsoon season? Spent eight consecutive days above 23,000 feet? Almost no one in the three previous Everest expedition spent so much time so high.
“Where did you learn to climb?” the Deacon asks. The brandy seems to be affecting him, which is something I’ve never seen before. Perhaps it’s the altitude here.
Reggie gestures with her empty glass, Pasang nods toward the darkness, and a servant moves into the light to refill all of our brandy snifters.
“I’ve climbed in the Alps since I was a girl,” she says simply. “I’ve climbed with Cousin Percy, with guides, and solo. My trips back to Europe from India were more often to the Alps than to England. And I’ve climbed here.”
“Do you remember the names of your alpine guides?” asks Jean-Claude. There is no sound of challenge in his voice, only curiosity.
Reggie gives the names of five older Chamonix Guides so famous that even I know them well. Lady Bromley had named three of those guides as having climbed with her son Percival in years past. Once again, as he’d done when Lady Bromley had given three of these five names, Jean-Claude whistles softly.
“What summits did you do solo?” asks the Deacon. His tone has changed.
Reggie shrugs slightly. “Pevous, the Ailefroides, the Meiji, the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, the north east face of Piz Badille, the north face of the Drus, then Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. And some peaks around here—only one eight-thousand-meter summit.”
“Alone,” says the Deacon. His expression is strange.
Reggie shrugs again. “Believe it or don’t, it makes no difference to me, Mr. Deacon. What you need to understand is that when my aunt, Lady Bromley, wrote me last autumn asking me to seek permission for access to Chomolungma, for your expedition to—and I quote—‘find Percival,’ I had already been to Lhasa to receive permission from the Dalai Lama and the prime minister…for another attempt this spring. My own second attempt—with Pasang and more Sherpas this time.”
“But the permission refers to ‘other Sahibs,’” says the Deacon.
“I expected to find some on my own, Mr. Deacon. Indeed, I had contacted them and invited them to join me on the recovery expedition this spring. I would have paid them, of course. But when Aunt Elizabeth sent me your names, I did some research and found you…adequate. Plus, you had been a friend of my cousin Charles and you’d met Percy. I thought it best to give you a chance.”
I suddenly realize that the tables have been turned, that we are now supplicants to her for this trip, not the other way around. I can see in the Deacon’s somewhat glassy gaze that he has accepted that fact as well.
“How is your cousin Charles?” he asks, as much to change the subject, it seems, as to receive an answer.
“I received a cable from Aunt Elizabeth only a week ago,” says Reggie. “Charles finally died from the progressive lung failure while you were in transit to Calcutta.”
All three of us express our condolences. The Deacon seems especially disturbed by the news. There follows a long silence broken only by the crackling of the log fire.
J.C. and I finish our cigars and I
follow his example of tossing the cigar butt into the fire. We set empty glasses on tables.
“We have to make some changes to the route and your plans for provisions,” says Reggie, “but we can do that in the afternoon, after you’ve chosen your Sherpas and ponies. The Sherpas will be here at first light—they’re camping less than a mile from here tonight—and I want to be outside to greet them. I’ll have Pasang knock you up in case anyone sleeps late. Good night, gentlemen.”
We rise as Reggie stands and leaves the circle of firelight. A few minutes later, still silent, we follow one of the male servants to our rooms on the second floor. I notice that the Deacon seems to be having trouble lifting his feet as we climb the wide, winding stairway.
Chapter 12
But how do you keep a chicken carcass fresh over weeks if the snows hit you at Camp Three below the North Col, Mr. Deacon? Do you plan to carry ice with you? An electric refrigeration unit?
We awake early at Reggie’s estate. The plantation house has a neatly manicured backyard as trim and broad and long as a cricket field. Above and below the house, morning fogs seem to be rising like respiration from the green rows of tea plantings, and suddenly I can see silhouettes of men moving between and then out of those rows, onto the yard, as if the fog had congealed itself into human forms. I count thirty figures as the sun brightens and the fog begins to dissipate. Beyond the plantation hills rise the distant white peaks of the Himalayas so brilliant with the dawn’s sunlight that I have to squint toward them, and yet still their white glare makes my eyes water.
“Too many men,” says the Deacon. “I’d planned on only a dozen or so Sherpa coolies.”
“Just ‘Sherpas,’ not ‘coolies,’” says Reggie. “‘Sherpa’ means ‘people from the east.’ They came over the nineteen-thousand-foot Nangpa La generations ago. They’ve fought a thousand years for their land and independence. And never have they been anyone’s ‘coolies.’”
“Still too many,” says the Deacon as the ragged forms of men solidify more fully and move across the grassy expanse toward us.
Reggie shakes her head. “I’ll explain later why we need at least thirty. For now I’ll introduce all of them and pull aside the dozen or so that I think will make excellent high-climbers. ‘Tigers,’ your General Bruce and Colonel Norton liked to call them. Most of the chosen speak English. I’ll let the three of you interview them and choose whomever you want as your two co-climbers.”
“You know all their names?” I ask.
Reggie nods. “Of course. I also know their parents and wives and families.”
“And these Sherpas all live near Darjeeling?” asks Jean-Claude. “Near your plantation?”
“No,” says Reggie. “These men are the best of the best. Some live in the Solu Khumbu region of Nepal, near the southern approaches to Mount Everest. Others come from the Nepali district of Helambu or the Arun Valley or Rowaling. Still others from Kathmandu. Only about a fourth of these climbers live within four days’ walk of Darjeeling.”
“Previous expeditions have always chosen a few Darjeeling Sherpas and then added more porters from the Tibetan villages along the way,” says the Deacon.
“Yes,” says Reggie and smacks her leather riding crop against her gloved palm. She had come in from her morning ride as the three of us were gathering in the huge kitchen for coffee just before sunrise. “That’s why the first three English expeditions had some good Sherpa climbers but many porters not at all fit for climbing. Tibetans are wonderful people, proud and courageous, but when pressed into duty as porters, as you probably remember from your two expeditions here, Mr. Deacon, they tend to act rather like unionized Englishmen and go on strike for better wages, more food, fewer carrying hours…and always at the worst time. Sherpas don’t do that. If they sign on to help, they help until they die.”
The Deacon grunts, but I notice that he doesn’t argue the point.
Pasang has put the thirty Sherpas in a rough line, and one by one they come forward, bow to Lady Bromley-Montfort, and are then introduced to us by Reggie herself. As the strange names wash over me, I wonder how she can tell the little brown men apart, but then I realize my own American astigmatism: this Sherpa is heavier than the others, this one has a full dark beard, that one a few wispy whiskers, this one is clean-shaven but with brows grown together into a single black line above his eyes. This man has missing front teeth, the man after him a dazzlingly brilliant white smile. Some are burly, some thin. Some are dressed in fine cotton, others in little more than rags. A few wear Western-style hiking boots; far more are in sandals; some are barefooted.
Introductions completed, Pasang waves more than half the men into a more distant part of the yard, where they squat amicably and speak softly amongst themselves.
“I’ve never interviewed a Sherpa for a job position before,” whispers Jean-Claude.
“I have,” says the Deacon.
But in the end it is Pasang and Reggie who help us make up our minds. As the three of us make little more than small talk, Pasang might say, “Nyima can carry more than twice his weight all day without tiring,” or Reggie might comment, “Ang Chiri lives in a village situated above fifteen thousand feet and seems to have no trouble with greater altitudes,” and that sort of information, along with a man’s ability to speak or understand English, is what helps us decide, especially on who our personal Sherpas will be.
After twenty minutes, we realize that Pasang will be Reggie’s sole Sherpa—as well as Sirdar or boss-man of all the Sherpas, even while serving as the expedition’s physician. J.C. has chosen Norbu Chedi and Lhakpa Yishay as his Sherpas. The two men, while from different villages and evidently not related, look enough alike as to be brothers; both have let their bangs grow down over their eyes, and Reggie explains that these long bangs take the place of darkened goggles to protect against snow blindness where the men live high up amongst the glaciers.
The Deacon has chosen Nyima Tsering—a short, stout Sherpa with a loud giggle he uses as prelude to his pidgin English answer to each question, and who can carry more than twice his own weight. The Deacon’s second choice is a taller, thinner, more English-proficient man named Tenzing Bothia who never went anywhere without his own assistant, young Tejbir Norgay.
I choose a smiling, roly-poly, but obviously healthy and happy fellow named Babu Rita to be one of my two Tigers and Ang Chiri of the high-altitude village as my other co-climber. Babu’s wide grin is so infectious that it’s everything I can do not to grin back at him all the time. He has all his teeth. Ang is a relatively short man but with a barrel chest so broad that my father would have described it as “doing a Kentucky thoroughbred justice.” I can imagine Ang Chiri climbing all the way to the summit of Everest without ever needing oxygen from anyone’s tank.
We spend a few more minutes chatting, and then Reggie announces that the jovial little fellow named Semchumbi—no last name evidently—will be the head cook for the expedition. A tall, serious, relatively light-skinned Sherpa named Nawang Bura will be in charge of the pack animals.
“And speaking of pack animals,” says Reggie, “we need to start apportioning the gear into bundles for the mules.” She claps her hands, Pasang makes gestures, and all thirty of the men rush toward the lower stables, where our trucks are parked with the gear.
“And, gentlemen, you need to get about choosing your riding ponies and saddles,” says Reggie, leading us briskly toward the larger upper stable.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I’m sitting on the white pony and my feet are flat on the ground.
“They’re Tibetan ponies,” says Reggie. “Much more surefooted than regular horses or ponies on the icy mountain trails we’ll be taking, and able to graze where a regular horse or mule would find no forage.”
“Yes, but…,” I say. I stand up and let the pony walk out from under me. Jean-Claude is laughing so hard he’s holding his sides. His legs are short enough that he can hitch them up his pony’s flanks and look as if he’s actually
riding. The Deacon has chosen a pony but hasn’t bothered getting on the thing.
When I saw Reggie’s big roan gelding trotting into the stable at dawn after her ride, I assumed we’d be riding real horses into Tibet. After all, Bruce’s equipment list for the 1924 expedition had recommended each Englishman bring along his own saddle.
I look at the miniature white pony walking out from under my bowed legs. Hell, even an English saddle would weigh the poor thing down; an American western saddle would crush it.
As if reading my mind, the Deacon says, “You can ride with just a blanket pad on the poor beast, but you’ll get tired holding your legs up, Jake. Sliding off the pony on some of the narrow mountain trails we’ll be on would be a bad idea…it might be three or four hundred vertical feet to the river below. There are wooden Tibetan saddles that Mallory wanted us to use in ’twenty-one, but I would not recommend them.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“They’re shaped like a wooden ‘V,’” says Reggie. “They’ll crush your testicles after two or three miles.”
I’ve never heard a woman say testicles before, and I realize that I’m blushing wildly. Jean-Claude doesn’t help by laughing.
“I’m going down to help Dr. Pasang supervise the loading,” says the Deacon.
Reggie is telling the liveryman which small pony saddles should go with which small pony. I get the largest saddle.
“Luncheon is at eleven sharp,” she calls after the Deacon. “We have to settle the provisions problem then.”
The Deacon stops, turns, opens his mouth to say something, but then pulls his unlit pipe from his tweed jacket’s pocket and bites down on the stem. Making a military turn on his right heel, he walks quick time out of the stable and down toward the garages and smaller stable, from which direction we can hear the shouting of Sherpas and the braying of mules.
The Deacon and Reggie argue loudly during lunch, continue the argument over sherry in the afternoon when the gear and provisions finally have been apportioned to packs for quick loading on the mules in the morning, and resume the arguments again during dinner in the grand dining room.