by Clint Willis
They dug until nine o’clock and then settled in for the night. Their oxygen was gone. They had run out of fuel for the stove. A handful of Everest climbers had survived bivouacs high on the peak. Dougal and Doug thought they could survive this night—assuming the weather held—but they feared for their fingers and toes.
They removed boots and gloves and rubbed each other’s hands and feet to maintain circulation. It was oddly pleasant to hold another man’s bare hand or foot. Doug had left behind his down suit to save weight, and he couldn’t stop shivering. He hacked at the back of the cave with his axe to try to keep warm. The climbers’ minds wandered; the altitude and their fatigue made them loopy. Dougal unzipped his duvet and took Doug’s left foot under his own right armpit; the intimacy of this was not disturbing to either man. Dougal spoke aloud; he seemed to be having a long conversation with one of the other climbers—it was Dave Clarke. Doug noticed this without finding it odd, and meanwhile carried on a series of conversations with his own feet. He found that each foot had a separate personality. The right foot was very solicitous of the left one.
They were resolved to stay awake. Warmth was a pale ghost of a memory. The world seemed very cruel; this was too cold. Dougal worried vaguely that time itself had frozen, like a glacier, or like one of the winterbound rivers he knew in Scotland. The climbers’ childish imaginings helped to undercut any sense of achievement or anticipation.
They had thought of the Southwest Face as it appeared in certain photographs: enormous, sky-hooded, snow-wreathed and empty of man. The morning illuminated their sorrow at finding themselves complicit in the end of something staggering.
They found they could stand and move their toes and fingers. The sun at first offered no real warmth but movement warmed them and they felt their blood’s return with a pleasure that was a distraction from their regret; this pleasure at last triggered another, less familiar pleasure, a sense that they were entirely unassailable, that the mountain itself could protect them now, that they were a part of its enormous presence. And still they eyed one another with suspicion—each man knew that neither was physically or otherwise reliable now. They had not slept or taken food for thirty hours. They had survived a night without oxygen at 28,700 feet, the highest bivouac in history.
They found the fixed ropes and followed them down to their tent at Camp Six. And still the others didn’t exist for them. Doug looking for food came upon the radio. He picked up the device and turned it on and spoke into it.
CHRIS KNEW THEY were alive; he had watched them make the traverse back across the ropes of the upper snow slope that morning. Doug’s call frightened him. Doug was so strong—stronger than the others—and he sounded half-destroyed by his ordeal. Chris was in tears when he put down the radio.
And now the others were hell-bent on climbing the mountain. The second party—Martin Boysen, Mick Burke, Peter Boardman and Pertemba—had left Camp Five that morning. Chris was afraid for all four of them, but especially for Mick, who had been at Camp Five for eight nights and was showing it.
That evening’s radio call brought news that Mick had fallen behind the others and had not yet arrived at Camp Six. That did it: Chris told Martin Boysen that Mick should stay behind when the others left for the summit the next day—September 26.
Mick came on the radio less than an hour later. He’d been delayed helping one of the Sherpas with an oxygen set and sorting out a tangle of ropes. He insisted he was no more tired than the others; at any rate, he was going for the summit. Chris conceded the point—still worried but partly consoled by the fact that the decision was no longer his to make. He asked to speak to Martin. Martin shared Chris’s concern but agreed that the decision was Mick’s. Chris urged him to keep the group together—if one climber turned around, they should all turn around—and left it at that.
Even that was too much to ask. The climbers at Camp Five talked; they decided that anyone going poorly in the morning should turn back before reaching the top of the fixed ropes. The others would continue.
The four climbers left at dawn under a high windless sky. Clouds surged up from the valleys, and a thin haze rode the western horizon. The weather was changing; a bivouac would be very dangerous. They needed to move quickly. Martin left camp first. Peter and Pertemba came behind him on the fixed ropes. Mick came last.
Martin’s crampon came off. He put it back on—but his oxygen set stopped working. He found a place to sit and he tinkered with it, growing angry and then despairing as the others caught and passed him, each making his clumsy and infuriating gestures of sympathy from the shelter of wind suit and oxygen mask. Martin eventually admitted defeat and descended, practically howling with frustration. This trip had been a misery from the start; he’d arrived two weeks behind the others and never really found his stride. He’d come here straight from a failed attempt on Pakistan’s Trango Tower, a spectacular rock monolith that had given Martin and his companions many days of hard technical climbing. The Southwest Face was something quite different, huge and steep but mostly snow and fixed ropes; it wasn’t what he loved. And now there was to be no reward—not the one he’d wanted—and it felt like a punishment. It brought him to tears that seemed useless even as he shed them.
He retreated to the tent and lay miserable in his sleeping bag through the long morning. He unzipped the entrance at eleven o’clock and peered up into the day; it was impossible not to be conscious of the time and it was strange to be idle in this place where each hour of daylight was a commodity to be consumed with care. He saw that two climbers had reached the top of the final gully; a third stood at its base. The wind was rising. He closed the tent flap and lay back with his anger and sadness and what he recognized as the beginnings of fear.
PETER FELT VERY strong. His strength was mixed up with his happiness at being above the fixed ropes, the clutter of the camps, the people there. The snow was firmer than Dougal and Doug had found it; the frozen remnants of their steps provided a blurred stairway up the gully that led to the South Summit. Peter glanced back and saw a figure traversing the snowfield far below. He figured it must be Martin or Mick coming back up to watch, having abandoned the climb early on.
Peter and Pertemba climbed the steep gully and crossed to the South Summit. They moved unroped; here the sun still lit the sky above them but clouds obliterated the landscape below—only here and there summits showed, fins frozen in a white sea. Pertemba’s oxygen set failed and Peter stopped to help him. They spent more than an hour clearing ice from the apparatus and managed to get it to work.
They roped up and climbed together across the corniced ridge that led to the final snow slope. They reached the summit together just after one o’clock. They had made very fast time but neither man was particularly tired. Peter felt much as he had felt on other good days in the mountains—simply happy. They stood in mist. No view. They spent a half-hour taking photographs of each other and snacking on chocolate and cake and then they left.
They descended a few hundred yards and came upon Mick, still laboring upward. Peter was amazed; he had been certain that Martin and Mick had turned back. Mick wanted to film Peter and Pertemba on the ridge above; they could pretend it was the summit. Peter told him that the Chinese who had climbed Everest from the north the previous spring had left a big red flag at the top. The flag needed to be in the shot or people would know it was a fake.
Mick asked if they’d be willing to go the top again so he could film them there for real. Peter agreed—he and Pertemba were still moving strongly—but he wasn’t happy about it. Mick read Peter’s tone and withdrew his request. Peter and Pertemba climbed back up the ridge for 50 feet or so and turned to parade down past Mick’s camera—it wasn’t a summit shot but it would make a nice image for the film.
Peter took some pictures of Mick, who wanted to continue up alone and tag the summit. Peter and Pertemba would wait for him at a big rock near the South Summit; they had dumped some gear there earlier. The three climbers would descend together.
Mick left. Peter watched him for a moment or two, almost envious, and then turned away and plunged down with Pertemba. The Sherpa had asked to rope up for this portion of the descent. Peter was surprised at his partner’s speed. Peter moved quickly himself; they were men on a spree, divesting themselves of altitude, throwing it from them in fistfuls, eagerly spending the height the expedition had acquired at such cost—getting the hell out of here.
They had to stop at the South Summit to wait for Mick and it was like doing themselves harm; it felt wrong. The weather had grown worse as they descended. The wind continued to rise now and they stood shivering, waiting, until somehow it was late, four o’clock; they had waited an hour and a half. The sky was turning dark and there was no sign of Mick.
It was snowing. They couldn’t see to find Doug and Dougal’s bivouac site. Pertemba had lost feeling in his fingers and in his toes. They were three hours above Camp Six with only an hour of light, and they were now in a blizzard. Peter felt the night’s approach as the coming of a mindless army.
He spoke to Pertemba. They would wait ten more minutes. Mick’s fate now seemed in some obscure way to rest with Peter’s watch; no person was responsible. Peter unpacked his stove and left it in the snow. Mick would not find it; if he did it would be useless in these conditions. The ten minutes were up and the two climbers turned down and lost the way almost immediately, then found it and lost it again. A half-hour of this and the snow let up for a moment. Peter turned to look up toward the South Summit. No Mick.
Peter directed his full attention to Pertemba. The Sherpa was going too slowly; he had little experience moving on snow in these conditions. Peter placed snow pickets—long aluminum stakes—and used them to belay his companion. They found the gully at the top of the Southwest Face and descended it, unable to see the route beneath them.
Peter at one point thought they had strayed from the gully. They had not. They reached its bottom and now they searched in growing desperation for the fixed ropes. Powder avalanches from the newly laden slopes chased and buffeted the climbers. One slide threatened to sweep them from the mountain; Peter plunged the pick of his axe into the ice and it held. He stood and resumed his search and a few moments later he found the fixed ropes in the dark, a near-miracle that brought him no joy or relief.
They set off down the ropes. Pertemba lost a crampon almost immediately but kept moving without it. Peter stumbled and fell and slid over the lip of something—bare rock—to fall 15 feet before the rope came taut and stopped him. He wasn’t injured by the fall but he saw that Pertemba was fading, seemed likely to collapse at any moment. Peter would need to untie the rope that still joined them, but he didn’t know if had the strength to do so; he might have to sit down and die with his friend. Peter half-dragged Pertemba toward camp, following the ropes across the last stretches of snow-covered rock to Camp Six. Martin was there, waiting in one of the shelters, afraid for them. Peter stuck his head in the tent and Martin felt enormous relief even as he saw that Peter was crying.
CHRIS AND THE others at Camp Two had resumed their vigil that morning. They’d seen two figures early in the day, moving up near the foot of the gully that led to the top of the face; after that cloud had obscured their view and they had waited, keeping the radio open all day. Martin in his tent at Camp Six told them of the rising wind, and they heard the worry in his voice. The storm came and with it darkness and still the others had not returned.
Martin came back on the air about eight o’clock to tell them of Pete and Pertemba’s return and that Mick was still out in the storm. It was bad but Mick might still show up, maybe just behind the others. Or he might find Doug’s and Dougal’s snow cave and bivouac; in that case he’d be down in the morning.
Their hope faded and disappeared as the storm intensified during the night and continued through the following day. Martin and the two summit climbers were pinned down at Camp Six. Pertemba was exhausted and snowblind. Peter was wracked with grief and guilt, punished by his memory of Mick departing up the ridge and by notions that he might have stopped Mick or gone with him or waited longer. Martin took care of them. He went about it almost absentmindedly at first. Mick had been his particular friend, very different from Martin himself. Mick was a tough little guy; he used to shake when he climbed and you would think he won’t get up this but he surprised you. And he made you laugh; however miserable the circumstances on a mountain, you could make the best of it with Mick. He made you feel better.
Martin after a time put Mick out of his mind and went on running things. He established the two summit climbers in their shelter and made them tea and soup. The three of them had to get down. They were low on gas cartridges for the stove; for food they had only one more soup packet. They might be stuck here for days, losing strength by the hour; the altitude would eventually kill them. Martin felt an unreasoning anger and an intense desire to be gone from this place. He felt once again as if he was being punished unfairly and he despised his own weakness—his inability to retaliate. He believed that they might all three die in this storm that by now had surely killed Mick.
Night fell again. The three climbers at Camp Six settled in to sleep. The darkness and wind were almost a comfort—the climbers’ helplessness in the face of conditions seemed a respite from what lay ahead. Martin slept in the box he’d shared with Mick, and woke in the morning to quiet. The wind had stopped. Martin lay in his sleeping bag and sobbed for Mick and also for himself and the rest of them—the ones who were going home.
THE CLIMBERS IN the lower camps were convinced that Mick was gone. Dougal and Doug figured he’d been blinded by the storm—his eyesight wasn’t that good in the best of conditions—and had walked off the edge of the summit ridge; it would be like stepping into a hole in the dark with only the difference that it was all white. Or he might have climbed the peak and made it down the ridge and stopped to wait out the storm; if so he’d be dead after two nights that high without food or supplemental oxygen.
Chris wanted the climbers all down. He’d evacuated Camp One, which had continued its gradual slide into the Icefall. Nick—with Ronnie Richards, Tut Braithwaite and Ang Phurba—had weathered the blizzard at Camp Five. Their summit hopes were finished; they reported huge snow avalanches down the Great Central Gully that split the face. Their camp was protected from the slides, but it wasn’t yet safe for them to descend.
Camp Four was more exposed to avalanche, so Chris had asked Adrian Gordon to evacuate it. Adrian sent six Sherpas down the face and then followed them, but he took a wrong turn in the storm. Chris led a rescue party up from Camp Two and found Adrian calm but exhausted. The rescuers got him back down to Camp Two at midnight. An avalanche hit the camp a few hours later, wrecking one of the box shelters and the kitchen.
The climbers took each near-disaster calmly. They continued their systematic withdrawal from the face. September 28 dawned clear and bright. The climbers agreed among themselves that there was no point in going up to look for Mick. Chris asked Nick and his three companions at Camp Five to wait for Martin and the two summit climbers to descend. The seven climbers could then make their way down to the others at the bottom of the face.
PETE STOOD IN the sunlight outside of his MacInnes Box at Camp Six. He felt his youth amid this ancient landscape. He had nothing to say to Martin or Pertemba. He didn’t want to leave but he followed them down the ropes, losing height quickly. Space swam up beneath him and receded above; it was like a descent into the depths of some great body of water, the Western Cwm the bottom of the sea. The conviction rose in Peter that he had wanted all of this—the summit, the difficulty, the loss, and now this return to an alien world. He was obscurely, darkly happy and ashamed of his happiness.
It was odd to come upon Nick and the others at Camp Five. There was still the work of descending the rest of the face and the seven of them got on with it. Dougal, unbearably gaunt, his long face a horse’s death’s head, walked out of Camp Two into the Western Cwm to meet them. Doug S
cott still looked strong; he kneeled to take the boots off Peter’s battered feet. Chris was kind as well, as if to show that he didn’t blame Peter for Mick. Their tenderness swamped Peter. He felt himself a necessary younger brother to these men—Mick almost forgotten in each man’s regard and care for him. He was comforted by what seemed newly familiar: Tut absurdly scrawny, Charlie Clarke in red silk underwear.
The expedition members took two days to empty the Western Cwm, making their retreat through the Icefall. They finished on September 30. The Sherpas built another fire, and there was a celebration. The climbers got drunk and danced and sang with the Sherpas in the darkness. After a while, they stopped making so much noise and sat in little groups and some of them—especially Chris and Dougal and Doug—talked about other mountains, smaller ones. They believed they were finished with Everest.
BETH BURKE GOT a telegram at home with the news that Dougal and Doug had made the summit. She went out right away and sent a telegram to Mick; she wondered if he’d get it. This was to be his last big expedition; as it was, he’d be missing Sara’s second birthday. He’d said on leaving that he would never miss another one. The wording of the telegram suggested to Beth that Mick was on the mountain and probably somewhere high on the face. She slept badly that night. Sara was up too, and acting strangely—that was Thursday night.
The next morning they had a meal with a vicar. Beth felt very young and for some reason—it puzzled her—she started a conversation about what happens to people when they die.
Sara’s birthday was Monday. They spent that morning at a friend’s house. There were three calls for Beth. The first was a man she didn’t know who told her that Mick had lost his life—Mick has lost his life. She said All right, thank you then she hung up very quickly. Her friend, whose own husband was traveling in Africa, went into hysterics at the news. Beth was fine.