The Next Horizon

by Chris Bonington

  Our gentle introduction to the Blue Nile did not last long. Imperceptibly the speed of the current increased and a distant roar heralded the first cataract. We were swept round a bend and could see a cloud of spray in front. I had a sagging feeling as we were drawn towards it. It was barely possible to steer and we were spun, helpless, against the rocky bank. Somehow we straightened up before hitting the chute of racing water that led into the cataract. Walls of white water lunged above us and around us, smashed into us with a solid force. There was now no time for fear, just an intense excitement. It was like skiing and surfing and fast driving all rolled into one – a roller coaster ride down an avalanche of white water. We were all shouting as we smashed through the last wave.

  That night we set up camp in a meadow near the river. We were full of confidence and talked of reaching the Tississat Falls in the following two days. Next day we started by pushing the boats through an archipelago of tree-covered islands – rather like the Everglades in Florida, with spiky palms overhead and dank undergrowth blocking the stream bed. It was midday before we reached the open channel, where the current raced wide and shallow over a series of cataracts, each one more dangerous than the last. There was no chance of making a foot reconnaissance, for the banks were covered by dense scrub and tentacles of marsh. We had to press on and hope for the best. In one of the cataracts the crew of Hope were flipped out of their boat by a wave. Jim Masters was dragged underwater and only got back to the surface by inflating his life jacket. As we paused on the bank to repair the bottoms of the boats, he sat very quiet and tense, slightly away from us. At that stage we could not conceive what he had experienced nor fully understand why he was so badly shaken.

  As we set off again we were joking about it being ‘Charity’s turn next’. For a short distance we roped the boats down the bank, but it was a slow process and we were becoming impatient. We could hardly see the next fall – it was just a shimmer of water in the distance, but we decided to take it: Roger Chapman went first and vanished from sight with a frightening suddenness. There was a long pause and then we saw the green miniflare which was the signal to follow. We let Hope go a few yards in front and followed immediately. They managed to get through without tipping over, but were carried, barely in control, over several more cataracts, before pulling into the bank.

  We were the unlucky ones, and capsized. I don’t think there was any question of greater or less skill; it was simply a form of Russian roulette, with us and our boats helpless playthings of the river. Once I escaped the grasp of the undertow and had reached a rock, I was able to see Chris Edwards bobbing down in the main stream, a few yards from me. He had had the same treatment, but had been hurled out into faster water and was now being dashed, helpless, over the sharp volcanic rocks. His wet-suit trousers had been dragged down over his ankles so that he could not swim, and his legs were completely unprotected. On the brink of a huge cataract he managed to hold on to a rock just below the surface.

  ‘I’d lost all control by that time,’ he said. ‘It took a good five minutes just getting a grip of myself. I kept on repeating the number written on my lifejacket. It was all I could do to hold on to the rock and I knew that if I was swept over I’d almost certainly have had it.’

  Meanwhile, Ian McLeod had managed to get back on to the upturned boat and was floating downstream. For a few moments the boat paused in an eddy and I even thought I might be able to reach him. I abandoned the dubious safety of my rock and dived into the river, but before I had gained more than a couple of yards the boat was clutched by the current and whipped out of sight. McLeod did his best to steer the boat into the side with a paddle, but he was helpless against the force of the water and was swept down over several cataracts, past Faith which had now reached the bank, to the brink of the worst fall we had yet encountered. McLeod described this as ‘a smooth brown chute that went straight into a great pit of boiling water’.

  He told us that he never thought he would survive. He just clung to the straps on the bottom of the boat and went right under. Fortunately, as he felt himself being torn from it, he was swept into the bushes at the side of the river. He grabbed them, but was unable to hold the boat, and had to let it go.

  Roger Chapman had managed to stop Faith just beyond the cataract where we had capsized, and had swum out with a rope in an attempt to ‘field’ Charity as it swept past. I was now able to swim across to him and grabbed the rope, but we still had to rescue Chris Edwards. We could hear him shouting for help, a desperate, raucous quality in his voice. Knowing we could not afford to make a mistake, slowly and methodically Peter O’Mahoney and I let the boat out on a line from a tree on the bank, so that Roger and Alastair Newman could reach Edwards.

  There just was not enough rope, and the boat was still twenty feet from him, so they threw a line, but it missed and the boat pivoted away. It was all we could do to pull it back against the force of the current so that they could try again.

  This time they tied a paddle to the end of the line and it reached him, but he was unable to move as his leg was trapped in a crevice in the rock. Alastair Newman went over the side, fighting his way across to him: from a distance it was like a terrifying slow-motion ballet. Although the water was only around their knees, it threatened to dash both of them down the cataract with its unbelievable force. Eventually, they both got into the boat and we dragged them back to the tree. We were now presented with the problem of getting to the other side of the river in a leaking boat which was weighed down by five men.

  We bottomed on every cataract, had to jump out in the swirling water to push the boats free, then on the last one I was dragged away and found myself once again swimming for my life. My nerves were so deadened that I barely noticed it, allowing myself to be swept through the turbulence till I could wait for the boat to pick me up. It was almost dark when finally we reached the bank, and then we found a thunderstorm crashing over our heads.

  We had lost our boat, had nearly lost our lives, and even the next morning we were still stunned by the accident, but most of us were determined to continue. Chris Edwards was obviously going to be out of action for some time and John Huckstep decided that he had had enough.

  The boat was quickly discovered by the Beaver aircraft which had been flown out from England to support the expedition, and I went out to retrieve it with several members of the shore support party. Twenty-four hours later the shock of my near-escape really hit me, and manifested itself mainly in a sense of horror at letting down my family. I had learned to accept the risks involved in mountaineering, but the risks I was taking now seemed so totally uncontrollable. I went to Roger Chapman and told him that I did not think I could go on any longer.

  The entire venture was now on the brink of failure, and Roger Chapman, realising that a thorough reconnaissance was vital, decided to leave the ‘white water’ party for three days to make a foot reconnaissance of the river below the northern gorge while the rest of the party roped the boats down the Tississat Falls. I agreed to help in this and, working with Ian McLeod and Alastair Newman, I slowly rediscovered my confidence and peace of mind.

  We edged the boats through narrow channels, often dragging them over waterlogged grass in order to avoid the worst of the falls. Even so, the river was always ready to pounce on a single mistake. John Fletcher nearly lost his life when he was dragged under as they lowered his boat down a fall.

  I could not help wondering and worrying about my decision to pull out and that of the other married members of the expedition who had decided to press on. John Fletcher had a simple philosophy – ‘I came out here realising that I was doing something dangerous and that I might be killed. I told my wife of the risks involved and she accepted it.’ I thought of Jim Masters, happily married for twenty years, with three children; he was obviously unhappy about going on, but his sense of loyalty to the expedition was so great that he persevered.

  Roger Chapman now decided to reduce his team to six men in two boats: Ian McLeod, Richard
Snailham (a lecturer from Sandhurst) and himself in one; and Jim Masters, John Fletcher and Alastair Newman in the other. As a result of his reconnaissance, he decided to portage the boats from the Tississat Falls to a point about a mile beyond. I was to follow the bank on foot.

  The river had now assumed a new character, racing through a single channel between tree-clad banks. Stretches of choppy, fast water alternated with boiling cataracts. As I watched the members of the ‘white water’ team arrive at each cataract I could not help noticing a tension which was getting close to nervous exhaustion.

  ‘The river’s alive with power,’ Ian McLeod said. ‘It seems to be sucking us down the whole time and you can’t stop the boats filling up with water.’ Once the boats were full it was impossible to manoeuvre them and it took a good 500 yards to get into the bank.

  After about twelve miles the river plunges into a sheer-sided gorge. This was one of the most frightening sights I have ever seen; the entire volume of water pouring over the Tississat Falls is compressed through a gap no more than fifteen feet wide, into a cauldron of bubbling, effervescent water. Even if they had carried the boats beyond this point, the next six miles of gorge seemed unjustifiably dangerous, for it would have been impossible to stop the boats before reaching the numerous cataracts boiling at its bottom. Roger Chapman, therefore, decided to send the boats down by themselves to be picked up by a party already in position at the Portuguese Bridge, while the two crews walked round the top.

  It is one of those tragic ironies that Ian McLeod lost his life while taking the safest course. We had nearly finished our march to the Portuguese Bridge and had to cross the River Abaya, a miniature Blue Nile, at the bottom of a deep gorge. It was only thirty feet wide, but he was snatched away from us with such speed that there was nothing we could do. Alastair Newman had swum across first and McLeod followed, after tying on a safety-line. He nearly reached the other bank when he seemed to lose his strength and was swept back into the centre. As the rope came tight it pulled him under. We gave him more slack and although he came back to the surface he was now being swept rapidly downstream. The next moment the rope ran out. Someone shouted ‘Free the rope’ – at that split second it seemed the only way to prevent McLeod from being dragged under. At the same time Roger Chapman, with considerable heroism, dived in in an effort to save him, even managing to drag him to the side on the brink of a cataract. But McLeod was snatched out of his arms by the force of the water. We never saw him again.

  We were stunned with a terrible feeling of helpless guilt that we had managed to do so little to save him. It seemed callous just to carry on with the expedition, yet there was no other course. Captain John Blashford-Snell, leader of the expedition, was waiting at the Portuguese Bridge to take command of the final phase, through the 120 miles of completely unexplored gorge, down to the Shafartak Bridge. Air reconnaissance had shown that the cataracts were not quite as savage as they had been higher up, but that there was a large number of crocodiles. He had, therefore, decided to reinforce the two Redshanks with two inflatable army recce boats, powered by 9½ horsepower engines.

  By now I had decided to return to the water for this phase, since it was impossible to cover the story from the bank, but I dreaded going back to the boats. The two Redshanks released at the start of the gorge had reached the Portuguese Bridge, only to be swept past. As a result, two new boats which had not been modified with inflated football bladders, were brought in. They were named Deane-Drummond and Crookenden, after two British generals who were supporting the expedition.

  The attitude of the local villagers was a further complication. The people of the Gojjam province, particularly those living on the brink of the gorge, had a long record of warlike independence. They had been fighting with Government forces over a new tax law. Their chiefs, having taken exception to our invasion of the river, had tried to force us to withdraw, even threatening violence if we did not comply. A band of thirty local chiefs and retainers, all armed with Italian rifles captured during the war, gathered on the 300-year-old stone bridge over the Abbai, offering us a rising crescendo of threats. However, they left guards with us at night to ensure that no other band would attack us. Eventually, the police chief from the neighbouring town of Mota persuaded them to allow us to continue on our way down the river, and we set off on the final leg of our journey on the morning of the 20th September.

  A belt of creaming waves stretched across the river only a few hundred yards below the bridge. The two recce boats went first, one of them helmed by Sub-Lieutenant Jo Ruston with John Blashford-Snell, and the other helmed by John Fletcher with Colin Chapman, a twenty-four-year-old zoologist, who was hoping to make a crocodile survey. Their job was to protect us against crocodiles and come to our assistance if anything went wrong. Our boat, with Alastair Newman and a newcomer to the river, Lieutenant Garth Brocksop, was the last to go. It was like waiting to go into a boxing ring for a fight which you were convinced you would lose. I had a queasy feeling in my stomach, and could not take my eyes off the tumbling waves in the distance. And then the green flare went up and it was time to start.

  The water was never as bad as it had been above the Tississat Falls, but it was like going down a liquid Cresta Run, never sure what was round the next bend and barely able to stop. There was no more exhilaration, just a nagging fear and taut concentration, as we spun the boats out of the way of the boulders, or edged round the worst of the waves.

  Now the river began to take on a new character, hurrying in a solid smooth stream between sheer rock walls. It was at last possible to relax and marvel at the rock architecture around us. Slender towers jutted hundreds of feet out of the river bed, while huge natural arches spanned its tributaries. We stopped that night in an idyllic campsite by the tree-covered banks of a side stream. The walls of the gorge towered 150 feet above us.

  We were intrigued by two caves in the sheer cliff opposite, which had obviously been inhabited at one time. Next morning, we succeeded in climbing to them from the boat, and discovered a number of broken pots and old grain silos well covered in bat dung. We were all excited by the discovery as we packed up camp. I was drinking a cup of coffee when John ran into the camp and shouted: ‘Hurry up, it’s time we got out of here.’ At the same time, there was a sudden, high-pitched keening from above, followed by a volley of rifle fire. We were completely taken by surprise, finding it impossible to believe that people were actually trying to kill us.

  After our experience at the Portuguese Bridge, my first reaction was that perhaps they just wanted to warn us off. John Blashford-Snell ran out with the loud-hailer, shouting ‘Ternasterling, Ternasterling’, the conventional form of greeting, but one of the men on the cliff opposite replied by firing at him. I can remember running out myself, trying to wave to them, and then noticing a rifle pointing straight at me.

  While some of us tried appeasement, others loaded the boats, racing out from cover with handfuls of gear and hurling them in. We were still arguing in the shelter of the trees about what we should do, but no one recommended firing back at this stage. One party wanted to make a break for it; the other, of which I was one, felt we should stay put and try to reason with our attackers, or call up support on the wireless. The deciding factor was a huge rock, the size of a kitchen table, that came hurtling down from above.

  ‘Gentlemen, someone has got to make a decision,’ said John Blashford-Snell, in a remarkably cool voice. ‘When I say go, run for the boats.’

  The next thing I remember is pushing our boats through the shallows. Glancing up, the whole sky seemed full of rocks; bullets spurted in the water around us. We were gathering speed in the main current when I suddenly felt a violent blow on my back and was hurled across the boat. I had been hit by a rock.

  John Blashford-Snell and Colin Chapman had now got out their revolvers and were giving us covering fire. Fortunately, only a few of our attackers were armed with rifles. At John’s third shot, one of the attackers seemed to be hurled backwards �
� it was almost certainly a hit. His fire might well have saved or lives, for it seemed a miracle that none of us or our boats was hit by a bullet. If an inflated side had been punctured, it would have been fatal for the entire crew.

  At last out of range of their fire, we were now worried in case the entire country might have been raised against us; we watched every bluff overlooking the river with apprehension. Whenever we saw anyone on the bank we waved a friendly ‘Ternasterling’, but kept our weapons at the ready. Fortunately we could easily outstrip anyone following us on the bank, and that afternoon we covered about twenty miles. We even found Charity, snagged in some trees at the side of the river.

  At the end of that day we stopped on an island just off the Gojjam shore. At 1.30 a.m. Roger Chapman decided to make sure the boats were moored securely. Casually shining his torch at the water’s edge, he picked out a group of men. Automatically, he called out ‘Ternasterling’, but they replied by firing at him; he returned their fire immediately and ran back to the camp. I remember waking to the high-pitched war-whoops of our attackers. I had been worried the previous night about the boats, thinking that if the bandits did manage to release them we should have little chance of survival.

  Putting on my boots, I started down towards the boats. It was a confusion of gun flashes and shouting. John Blashford-Snell was a magnificent sight, wearing his pith helmet, firing mini-flares and taking pot shots at a bandit.