Chapter 10
I was awake at 6 a.m.
I got the cooker going but as I searched for the teabags a vicious blast of wind hit the tent. The whole structure shuddered violently, as if swatted by a giant hand, twisting the Kevlar poles out of shape and almost flattening the dome.
Tashi woke, stirring groggily in time for a second devastating round of wind.
‘Are we going to be blown away?’ she asked fearfully.
All went quiet for a few seconds. Then came the whistling approach of another blast as it raced across the rocks towards us.
‘The water!’ Tashi warned. I snatched for the pan but the cooker had already overturned, sending the precious melted water spilling across the foyer. Yellow flames flared up as the gas ran out of control. I cursed, grabbed at the toppled stove, burning the tips of my fingers on the scalding metal as I turned it off.
‘Hold on!’ Tashi said. The two of us reached up for the roof, grabbing the fabric to stabilise it as the wind tried to rip us right off the face.
‘I’ll get more ice,’ I said.
I jammed my feet into my plastic boots and laced them up. Even that simple action left me panting for breath. Tashi helped me into my down jacket and I pulled my fleece hat low over my ears.
I unzipped the front flaps, letting in a raging mini blizzard of swirling ice. The sudden exposure to the outside world was shocking and abrupt, the stone-hard crystals beating against my cheeks and lips.
‘Quickly!’ Tashi urged. ‘We’re filling up with snow.’
I quit the tent and stood up. The sudden rise from the horizontal gave me a dizzy moment or two as I squinted in astonishment at the fast-changing scene. The glorious mountain views were now gone.
Instead, the scene was filled with a terrifying primal power. A boiling mass of bruised clouds was churning up the sky to the south. Lightning strobed across the purple interior of the storm front, a muffled roar of thunder following a heartbeat later. The wind continued to play cat and mouse, easing off into a deceptive calm then springing back to life and clawing at the face with angry swipes.
I staggered backwards as a new front pummelled the face. It was like being body slammed in a rugby match.
Tashi shouted from inside the tent.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah. But we’re getting trashed!’
The wind had loosened all of the guylines tethering us to the rocky terrain. The ice blocks we had placed on the edges of the fabric had simply been blown away. The dome shape was sagging, the tent poles bent and twisted. And the storm was still gaining strength.
Suddenly the clouds parted. A momentary gap allowed me to see down on to the North Ridge many hundreds of metres below. Climbers were coming up! A line of eight figures were beating a determined trail up the ridge.
I felt my heart surge as a wave of dread engulfed me. The army men.
They must have left in the middle of the night.
It was a cunning plan on their part. Make a surprise arrival. Trap us as we sheltered in the tent.
The clouds swept back across, concealing the view. I waited for a few minutes but there was nothing more to see. I shivered, my body core already getting dangerously cold. I bustled into the tent.
‘The army men are halfway up the ridge. We have to move!’
Tashi stared at me in dismay. A fresh blast of storm-force wind punched into the tent. I turned off the cooker. There was no time for tea now.
Tashi burst into action, rolling up her sleeping bag and stuffing it into the bottom of her rucksack. I did the same, packing up the stove and the cooking pans. No words passed between us as we stowed the gear away, but the shared sense of urgency was enough to see the task done in record time.
I kept my inner gloves on. I didn’t want to check out my fingers just yet, even though they felt worryingly numb.
We wriggled into the wind suits, zipped up the hoods and pulled them tight against our heads. Then the plastic boots went on, followed by crampons and gaiters.
‘What about the oxygen?’ Tashi asked. ‘Maybe I should use it as well today?’
‘You’ll be faster,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s go for it.’
We connected Tashi’s mask to one of the cylinders and placed the bottle in her rucksack. I helped her to put on the mask.
She unscrewed the valve, checking on the little circular gauge to make sure the oxygen was flowing.
‘OK. I can feel it,’ Tashi said.
We fixed my mask. I felt stronger as oxygen-rich air entered my lungs.
‘Right. Let’s go.’
I pulled my goggles down and went out first. Straight away I could feel that the wind had picked up speed, the storm now strong enough to make standing upright a real challenge. Tashi came next, reaching for my hand as she was blown sideways.
We stood by the side of the tent, huddled together for a few moments as the wind raged.
‘This is crazy!’ Tashi shouted. ‘We’re going to get blown off the face!’
A flurry of snow crystals swirled into us hard at that moment, as if in confirmation. We ducked down, protecting our faces from the needle impact of the ice crystals.
‘Let’s pack the tent,’ I said urgently, ‘We need to get moving.’
We brushed off the ice with difficulty.
‘Hold it with both hands!’ I told Tashi.
She grabbed at the tent, the stiff, frozen fabric flapping wildly as she tried to pack it away. For a few moments I feared the wind would rip it from her grasp but she managed to hang on to it, throwing it on to the ice and kneeling on it while she folded it up. Then we strapped it on to the top of my rucksack and Tashi took the poles.
I put on the pack. The weight was a shock and I figured there must be a few kilos of ice that were still encrusted on the fabric of the tent.
‘I can see them!’
Tashi’s warning cut through the rip of the wind.
I whipped around, seeing that the clouds had partly cleared below. There in the gully, the same gully we had just climbed, was the army team, coming up steadily. They looked strong. Horribly strong. Moving in a single line at a pace far faster than we had achieved.
‘They’re following our tracks,’ Tashi said. ‘Less than two hours behind us.’
‘Duck down!’ I warned. The followers had stopped. The leader raised his arm, pointing directly towards our position.
It was Chen. Although my vision was impaired by the oxygen mask and goggles, I knew with a crushing certainty that it was him.
‘They’ve seen us!’ Tashi exclaimed.
Clouds returned to the face. The white-out resumed, hiding us from view, at least for the moment. I found myself in the bizarre position of actively wanting the storm to continue. The truth was that as soon as the clouds were swept away we would be perfectly visible to our pursuers.
‘Let’s climb!’ Tashi said.
We set off up the ridge, following the tatty old ropes that acted as a guide.
One hour passed with no rest. Then another.
My throat was bone dry. A terrible thirst began to rage. Our emergency departure had put us in danger of dehydration.
Clouds were now embracing the peak. Visibility had dropped to some tens of metres and the wind had become a constant force. The howl of the gale had reached a new intensity, a deep sound that told of unimaginable power.
We left the ridge and began to move out across the face, still following the fixed lines. I had the sensation that a noose was tightening around our necks. The whole thing was spiralling out of control and I couldn’t think of one idea which would enable us to shake off the captain and his men.
The ground became increasingly steep. The trail traversed beneath crumbling cliffs of fragile rock. Stonefall was frequent. We got used to the clattering sound of tumbling rocks.
‘We�
�re being bombed!’ I called to Tashi.
Everest was falling apart.
A break in the clouds gave us a chance to see the Camp 6 zone for the first time.
Tashi gasped.
The avalanche had caused terrible devastation up here at the high camps. The entire face looked like it had been pulverised by missile fire, rocks fragmented, ropes swept away. The only evidence that humans had ever been here were small fragments of tent fabric and ripped-up sections of aluminium tent poles.
We stumbled across the face, horribly aware of the incredible exposure. A slip would undoubtedly lead to a fatal fall. Gradually we became separated, Tashi taking a higher route than me as we explored the debris.
Then she called out.
‘Here!’
I made my way up the slope.
She had found a body, partly buried by rockfall. A hand was protruding through the stones, the fingers rigid and frozen hard. The side of a man’s face was partly visible, a dark beard matted with ice.
‘It’s not Karma,’ she said with relief.
I wondered what we should do. It seemed utterly wrong just to move away. Should we say a prayer over the body? Place some stones to make a grave?
Tashi reached out, her gloved hand taking mine and squeezing tight. I knew she felt the same way. Tashi muttered a Tibetan prayer. I couldn’t understand the words but I could sense they were respectful and heartfelt.
We moved on.
Two more bodies came into view. One was a Sherpa, distressingly young, his face serenely peaceful in death. The other was a female climber, badly mangled by rockfall, golden hair twisted with frozen blood.
‘Where is he?’ Tashi said, her voice cracking with emotion. Then she called out: ‘Karma!’
I shrugged off my rucksack and took out the flask. We shared the sweet tea, feeling our bodies energised by the sugar.
Ten minutes later we found yet another corpse. To our surprise he was dressed in military clothing.
‘A soldier … ’ Tashi said. ‘What would … ?’
I noticed something glimmering in between two rocks.
I bent to pick it up, holding it gingerly.
A gun.
Tashi took it, turning it in her hand.
‘Do you think … ?’ Her eyes locked on to mine, the darkest of all thoughts running through both our minds.
We stared up the slope. High above our position was a crack in the face.
‘That looks like a cave,’ Tashi said. A small tinge of hope had entered her voice.
Could this be it?
Tashi placed the pistol back on the ground.
We clambered up the slope, making a few awkward moves over the boulders. Tashi led the way, eager, pushing hard.
As the crack came into reach I realised it was more an overhang than a cave, but still a good sheltering spot. First came a ledge. We saw oxygen bottles stacked against a wall. Food packets scattered around. A cooker attached to a single gas canister. Then, pulling ourselves up higher, in the darkest recesses of the overhang we saw a shape. A figure in a sleeping bag.
A tousled head of hair shifted as the figure stirred. Two bright brown eyes opened wide in surprise as a sleepy-looking Tibetan face emerged from the protection of the down bag.
‘Karma!’ Tashi lunged forward, throwing her arms around her brother.
Karma pulled the oxygen mask away. A massive grin of pure joy stretched across his face.
‘Come here, my sister,’ he said. Tashi gave him a big hug and then pulled back so she could inspect him closer.
I studied Karma closely, struck by the strong family resemblance he had to Tashi. His face bore the same telltale marks of Everest that I had seen on the climbers back at Base Camp, the high points of his cheeks burned by altitude radiation, his eyes red with the same tiny haemorrhages that those guys had had.
Tashi pulled back the sleeping bag, drawing in her breath sharply as she saw the state of Karma’s shoulder. He was wounded. The fleece he was wearing was holed, encrusted in dried blood. It looked a real mess.
‘The avalanche?’ Tashi asked hesitantly.
Karma shook his head. Tashi unzipped the fleece, pulling the fabric back so we could see an ugly circular wound punched right into the centre of his shoulder.
My mind flipped back to the gun.
‘You’ve been shot.’
Karma nodded.
‘Chen sent a soldier after me. He would have killed me if the earthquake hadn’t happened at that moment.’
‘Let me see,’ Tashi said.
We helped Karma to sit up, a movement that caused him to cry out in pain.
‘Turn a bit,’ Tashi said. Karma twisted, and we could see the exit point of the bullet at the back of the shoulder.
‘We have to clean the wound,’ I said.
I rolled out my first aid kit, selecting iodine and cotton wool. I cut away the clothes from his shoulder and started to clear the dried blood away, realising that the sterile nature of this high altitude place was working in Karma’s favour.
There was no infection. At least not so far.
‘I thought there might be others coming after me,’
Karma said as I worked on him. ‘So I crawled in here to hide. That’s how I got lucky, there was enough oxygen and cooking gas to keep me alive.’
‘This is going to sting like crazy,’ I told him. I squirted iodine right into the wound.
Karma clenched his hands into two tight fists but didn’t cry out. He was incredibly courageous. I finished off the treatment by bandaging up the whole shoulder then safety-pinned the cut clothing back into place.
‘We’re going to get you down,’ Tashi told her brother.
She unzipped the sleeping bag and we rolled Karma clear. I packed the bag up carefully and stashed it in my rucksack. His boots were lying nearby and we soon had him laced up and ready to stand.
It took several tries to get him to his feet. He was extremely weak and wobbly. We got him seated on a rock while we snapped his crampon spikes into place.
‘When was the last time you ate?’ Tashi asked him.
Karma shook his head.
‘I’ve been melting ice,’ he mumbled. ‘Hardly any food, just a couple of tins of tuna.’
I poured him the remainder of my tea. Tashi gave him a hi-energy bar and he wolfed it down enthusiastically. Then he ate a Twix and another energy bar. The food and drink had a miraculous effect. Straight away Karma seemed more focussed and alert.
My mind snapped back to the immediate predicament. We’d been so busy sorting out Karma that we had almost forgotten about the troops coming up.
I walked forward and used a big boulder for cover so I could spy down on to the gully below.
Chen and his men were still a good couple of hours below our position. Their movement had slowed, the altitude had knocked their pace right back. One or two of the men were clearly suffering, dragging their feet and resting over their ice axes with their heads down for long periods.
Chen looked strong. In fact he was ranting at the men although they were too far away for me to hear his screams.
Wind flurries began to whip across the rocks. A huge bank of turbulent cloud was seething to the south. I shivered violently; the air temperature was dropping fast.
Tashi came to my side.
‘We mustn’t tell Karma the troops are coming up,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure his mind can cope with that right now.’
‘OK,’ I agreed.
Then I saw it: a second gully, heading down. It looked a bit steeper than the one Chen and his men were ascending, but it definitely led down to the fixed ropes near to the lower camp.
A new thought kicked off in my mind: could we use the storm to our advantage? Bypass Chen and his men in the white-out and skirt round them in the blizzard? Buy o
urselves some time to get off the mountain while they searched for us on the higher slopes?
I told Tashi the idea. She looked at the steepness of the second gully and reacted with just one word.
‘Risky.’
‘Correct,’ I agreed. ‘But we don’t have many other options.’
Tashi nodded, her expression grim.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s try it.’
We returned to Karma and helped him to fix his oxygen mask snugly to his face.
‘OK?’ I asked him.
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ The Tibetan boy nodded gamely but I could see his eyes were screwed up with pain behind the glass of his ski goggles. The wind was still intermittently ripping through the air at gale force, causing us all to duck instinctively every time a big blast came through.
Tashi adjusted the gauge on his air tank.
‘Can you feel the oxygen coming through?’ Tashi asked.
Karma gave a thumbs up.
‘We’d better get going,’ Tashi said.
I led the way across the face, stepping over the scattered debris from the earthquake. Karma walked stiffly after his long days in the shelter but he seemed to gain strength as his body got used to moving again. The cloud had now rolled in. Visibility was down to ten, sometimes only five metres, masking us completely from Chen and his team. That was the good news. The bad news was the danger of losing our way completely.
At the top of the gully I checked my watch. Almost 3 p.m. We had no more than four hours of light left. Speed was as vital now as it had been on the way up, perhaps even more so.
We began the descent, plunging through thigh-deep snow, and straight away got lucky. An old fixed line was dangling down the slope. It was buried in loose spindrift but a few sharp tugs were enough to free it.
‘Lifeline!’ Tashi exclaimed.
It was. Literally. Karma could abseil down the fixed rope. And it would prevent us losing our way down the gully.
We clipped Karma’s harness on to a sling, attaching a figure of eight descendeur so that he could step safely backwards down the slope. He did a few practice steps and nodded with satisfaction.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I can do it.’
North Face Page 13