After five hundred feet of this exhausting pastime we came out on the upper edge of ‘the sickle’, where we found a tent craftily pitched in the shelter of a sérac. We immediately named this Camp Four B. In the tent were Antharkay and Sarki, who explained to us in their broken English that they had gone with Herzog and Lachenal to establish another camp quite a lot farther on, after which they had received the order to return and wait here. They had frostbitten feet and seemed in poor shape. Our own two Sherpas were also complaining about their feet and lost no time in scrambling into the tent to get warm.
Following Angtharkay’s directions we now began a long traverse to the left, making use of a network of ledges which wound in and out of enormous séracs. Schatz ploughed relentlessly ahead through the deep snow. Rébuffat took over for a short time, but had to give up owing to loss of circulation in his feet. At the end of the traverse I went to the front again, zigzagging up through the icefall. To find the track in cloud would obviously be very difficult, and we did our best to pick out and memorise landmarks as we went along.
A breakable crust through which we plunged up to the calf had now taken the place of deep snow. Sometimes we had to crampon for a few yards where the crust had been particularly hardened by the wind. Despite the large new boots (which I had taken the precaution of carrying as far as Camp Four to keep them dry) I could feel the cold penetrating my feet. Constant wiggling of my toes didn’t seem to be having any effect, so I stopped, took off my boots and stockings, and massaged my lower limbs in the shelter of my pied d’éléphant, an undertaking rendered somewhat complicated by the strong wind.[14] Couzy and Schatz had halted to imitate me a short way above. Trail-breaking was getting progressively easier, and presently it became no more than a matter of cramponning up hard snow on a regular slope of thirty to thirty-five degrees. Camp Five, pitched at the foot of a short rock step, seemed a mere stone’s throw away, yet for all our efforts it never appeared to get any closer. I could feel the insidious onset of cold again, so I forced the pace in order to have time to attend to my feet before the others arrived. Rébuffat, reasoning the same way, overtook Couzy and Schatz, but I kept up my lead without much trouble.
When I reached the tent it was half buried, but I pushed my way into the small remaining space, and by the time Gaston arrived I was ready to yield it up to him while I started hacking out a platform for the second tent. Schatz, whose motto is ‘never say die’, gave me valuable help in this heavy task. We had nothing to work with but our ice axes and our mess tins. The wind-hardened snow was almost as tough as ice, and on such a steep slope a very deep step had to be cleared before there was room to erect a tent. At 24,500 feet, where the smallest effort is enough to make one out of breath, this navvy’s work was just about the limit. After every ten blows with the axe I felt as if I was about to spew up my lungs, and when I stopped the blood pounded in my ears. It would take a good thirty seconds to recover from the feeling of suffocation and to let my pulse slow down a little. At this rate we would never get finished, so I decided to go to the limit. At times I would force so much that a black veil began to form in front of my eyes and I fell to my knees, panting like an overdriven beast.
However I refused all help from the Sherpas and insisted that they should start down at once. This was the least we could do. The storm had risen, visibility was steadily getting worse, and it was essential that our devoted companions should get back to Camp Four before the tracks were completely covered. Couzy had now come to our aid and the platform was growing rapidly. Finally we improved the rather too rudimentary one left by our forerunners, pitched the new tent, and re-erected the original one in which Rébuffat had just succeeded in getting life back into his feet. The discomfort of this hurriedly installed camp was augmented by the fact that we had only three air mattresses and one pressure-cooker. Couzy and Schatz crammed themselves into one tent, Rébuffat and I into the other.
But what were Herzog and Lachenal up to? Since they had left their tent here they must be making a bid for the still distant summit. Time went by without our seeing anything. Outside the furies of the storm were in full cry, and we began to get seriously worried. It would soon be too late for anyone to get back to Camp Four, and we would be forced to sleep three in tents already too small for two persons. Couzy and Schatz, who were obviously suffering from altitude sickness, therefore decided to start on down and go as far as they could. No sooner had they gone than I moved bag and baggage into their tent and, according to habit, began to get busy with the cooking, which consisted of melting water for Ovomaltine and Tonimalt.
As time went by we became more and more anxious. I kept on sticking my head out of the tent to see if I could see anything, but there was nothing but the pitiless blizzard. At last my straining ears heard the unmistakable scrunching of footsteps on snow, and I threw myself out of doors just in time to greet Maurice, who was alone. With his beard and his clothing all strangely coated in rime and his eyes shining, he told me of victory.
I seized him by the hand, only to find to my horror that I was shaking an icicle. What had been a hand was like metal. I cried out: ‘Momo, your hand is frostbitten!’ He looked at it indifferently, and replied: ‘That’s nothing, it’ll come back.’ I was surprised that Lachenal was not with him, but he assured me that he would arrive at any moment and then crawled into Gaston’s tent. I began to heat up some water. Lachenal still hadn’t arrived, so I questioned him again. All he knew was that they had been together a few moments before entering camp.
Putting my head out of doors, I fancied I could hear a cry coming from some way off. Then the raging wind carried a faint but unmistakable ‘Help’. I got out of the tent and saw Lachenal three hundred feet below us. Hastily I dragged on my boots and clothes, but when I came out of the tent again there was nothing to be seen on the bare slope. The shock was so terrible that I lost my self-control and began to cry, shouting in desperation. It seemed that I had lost the companion of the most enchanted hours of my life. Overcome with grief I lay in the snow unconscious of the hurricane that howled around me. Suddenly the thing occurred for which I had not dared to hope. A gap in the clouds showed him still on the slope, but much lower down than I had remembered. Without even waiting to put on my crampons I launched out on an audacious glissade, shooting down the steep slopes at the speed of a racing car. The surface was so crusted by the wind that I had considerable difficulty in stopping.
Lachenal had obviously had a long fall. I found him hatless, glove-less, axe-less and with only one crampon. With staring eyes he called out:
‘I peeled. My feet are frozen stiff up to the ankles. Get me down to Camp Two quickly, so Oudot can give me an injection. Quick, let’s get going.’
I tried to explain the mortal danger of a descent without rope or crampons in the dark and the hurricane, but his fear of amputation was such that, when he heard me starting to argue, he suddenly grabbed my ice axe and started running across the slope. His single crampon impeded him, however, and he crumpled on to the snow weeping and screaming:
‘We must get down. I’ve got to have some injections or I’ll be ruined for life. They’ll cut off my feet.’
I forced myself to reason with him, to explain that there was no hope but to spend the night at the camp, but he didn’t want to listen. Thus we carried on a sort of deaf man’s dialogue for some minutes, while the gusts cut the snow across our faces like a whip. Finally he gave in. Puffing and panting I hacked furiously away at the slope, while he followed on all fours, at the end of his tether.
As soon as we were back in the tent I tried to unlace his boots, but everything had gone as hard as a block of wood and I had to cut the leather with a knife before I could get them off. My heart sank at the sight of the feet inside, white and utterly insensible.
Annapurna, the first eight-thousander, was climbed, but was it worth such a price? I had been ready to give my life for the victory, yet now it suddenly seemed too dear
ly bought. But this was no time for meditation – I must act, and quickly.
So began a night more deeply dramatic than any ever described in fiction. Seated on packages of food which had to serve as insulation in the absence of an air-mattress, I rubbed and whipped till I was out of breath. When I missed my aim and my blows landed on still living parts Lachenal would cry out in agony. Every so often I would stop and make hot drinks for the two invalids. From the other tent came sounds of Rébuffat going through the same processes for the benefit of Herzog. The hours crawled by and sometimes I would fall asleep at my work and collapse on top of Lachenal, always starting up again with a new burst of energy. As I toiled away my friend told me the story of the assault.
The tent had almost collapsed under the weight of snow the night before, and in the morning they had been forced to set out without even a hot drink. The higher they climbed the farther away the summit seemed as cold and fatigue took their toll, but at last they had got there. Those moments when one had expected a fugitive and piercing happiness had in fact brought only a painful sense of emptiness. He could remember nothing of the descent except the fall and being resigned to death as he bounded madly down the slope, followed by the unexpected and inexplicable stop and the return to life and fear and suffering.
I listened to him in silence. The willpower and sacrifice of my friends had crowned all our efforts and dangers. The action of the hero had fulfilled years of dream and preparation. Those whose work, undertaken in the service of a pure ideal, had made it possible for us to set out, were rewarded. And with what typically French panache Herzog and Lachenal had set the coping stone in this great arch of endeavour, showing the world that our much-decried race had lost none of its immortal virtues!
Outside, the hurricane had risen to unheard-of heights, threatening to tear the tents from their moorings. Snow had filled up the gap between them and the slope, and was now pushing us gradually towards the edge. In spite of everything we could do to shake it off it continued to encroach in a most worrying way. But my night’s work had not been in vain. Lachenal could now move his toes, and the horrid pallor of the evening before had given place to a healthy shade of pink.
Having heard no signs of life for some time, I called to our companions in the other tent. They had dropped off to sleep, utterly worn out. Dawn was approaching, and to our bitter disappointment the storm did not abate as usual. Was our wonderful luck giving out on us at last? It was the first time in two months that the normal afternoon blizzard had not died down during the night. Was it the vengeance of the goddess Annapurna at the desecration of her shrine, or simply the more mundane but redoubtable arrival of the monsoon? Whichever it was we had to get down fast. Tomorrow we should only be weaker and the mountain in worse condition.
I began to dress Lachenal for the fray, but immediately came up against the problem of footwear. His feet were too swollen to be squeezed into his boots. It would be a cruel fate for him to wade through the snow in stockinged feet when I had only just succeeded in getting rid of the frostbite, and anyway how would we fasten his crampons? He would never be able to keep his footing on the hard-frozen slopes without them. We might be able to lower and tow him at first, but we would never manage it once we got to the traverses. What a silly sounding but insoluble problem!
At first I could not think of any way out of it, but suddenly I had an inspiration: my own boots were two sizes larger than his, and would now fit him perfectly. No sooner had I thought of this than I realised the implication, and a shiver ran through me. If he wore my boots I should have to wear his, too small and hacked about with a knife. Without a doubt it would then be my turn to get frozen, yet try as I might I could think of no other solution. The weight of destiny crushed me for a moment or two. To sacrifice a portion of one’s own body seemed somehow more horrible than death, but in every fibre of my being I felt the duty more urgently than instinct itself. To give way would be dishonour, a crime against the name of friendship. There was nothing else for it, and with the feelings of a soldier going over the top I hauled off my second pair of stockings and stuffed my feet into the new instruments of torture.
The spirit of action now possessed me completely. Foreseeing the worst, I crammed some food and a sleeping bag into my sack, calling out to Herzog and Rébuffat to do the same. I also intended to carry a tent. Four of us, taking turns with two sleeping bags in such a tiny space, ought to be able to resist the cold for a long time. Outside it was still blowing an icy gale, and we had trouble doing up our crampons. As Lachenal had lost one of his the day before I had to be content with the remaining one. But where was my ice axe? In my haste the previous evening I had forgotten to put it away carefully, and now it was nowhere to be found. As Lachenal had also lost his during his fall we only had two left between the four of us, and Gaston and I took over these as of necessity. I wanted to fold up the tent, but the first pair had already started off down the slope. The gale was still at its height but it had stopped snowing for the moment and visibility was not too bad, so Lachenal, more impatient than ever, tugged at the rope and bellowed:
‘Hurry up! What the hell do you think we’re going to do with a tent? We’ll be at Camp Four in an hour.’
Suddenly I felt a wave of optimism. We ought to be able to see far enough to find the way back through the séracs without going wrong. In the upshot I let him have his way. We should just have to take our chances. It was up to luck now.
We ran down the first couloir of hard snow easily enough, and the difficulties only began when we reached the first séracs. The wind had fallen and it had begun to snow in huge flakes, making it difficult to see a man at fifty feet. It was impossible to recognise a thing. An awful feeling of being lost came over us, the full gravity of our situation appearing in all its horror. In these conditions we hadn’t one chance in twenty of finding Camp Four B, but it was Hobson’s choice – we just had to keep on trying while there was any daylight left. Tomorrow, if there were any survivors after a bivouac without equipment, they would be in no fit state to help themselves, and only the return of fine weather could possibly save them.
We wandered backwards and forwards for hours and hours, constantly thinking we had found a way out of the maze only to meet each time with the same bitter disappointment. The flakes fell thick and fast, building up so quickly on the ledges that you could see it happening. It was getting harder and harder to break the trail; we sank in up to the thighs, then to above the waist, though fortunately the light powder was not too difficult to pack down. I was amazed at my own reserves of energy. Rébuffat took regular spells at the job too, showing a great deal of courage. His legendary stubbornness worked wonders, and I well remember how, after I had retreated from a particularly trying bout with a steep, loose slope, he patiently advanced up it inch by inch until he had won. Sometimes we would sit down in discouragement, and I would take advantage of the respite to remove my boots and rub my numbed feet back to life. Though ready for death, I had no wish to survive mutilated.
Herzog followed his leader without a murmur, but Lachenal gave me more trouble. Convinced we were wasting our energy to no purpose, he wished for no more than to dig a hole in the snow and wait there for fine weather. To get him to budge I had to haul on the rope and curse him roundly. Personally I had reached the stage of complete detachment. In perfect consciousness of what I was doing, but without any sensation of fear, I crossed zones that were ready to avalanche and wandered happily in my one crampon over steep ice slopes, surprising myself by the manoeuvres I was able to perform. The object of all these peripatetions was to find the narrow exit on the left of the séracs which alone gave access to Camp Four, but unfortunately the cloud distorted everything and upset one’s judgement to such an extent that one might have passed by it a hundred times without recognising it. In case anyone happened to be at Camp Four B we periodically shouted for help. We had now eaten practically nothing for twenty-four hours, yet our energy was amazin
g for men who had lived and worked for several days at an altitude of over twenty-three thousand feet. Did we owe this miraculous state of affairs to the drugs which Oudot insisted on our taking regularly?
While we fought for our lives time had gone by unnoticed, and now, suddenly, it was almost night. The essential thing was to find a crevasse which would shelter us from the rising wind. I therefore began to explore the various holes which surrounded us, and in the meantime Rébuffat and Herzog made one last effort to reach a landmark we thought we recognised. There seemed to be nothing but bottomless abysses or tiny hollows round which the wind howled unimpeded. I had already given up the search as a bad job and was trying to deepen a hollow with my ice axe when there came a terrible cry from Lachenal just behind me. I jumped around, but he was nowhere to be seen, a fact explained by the presence of a small round hole in the snow from which issued a muffled voice assuring me that he had accidentally fallen into the very place we needed. A twelve-foot jump down proved that he was telling no more than the truth. We were in an ice cave the size of a small room and perfectly sheltered from the wind. It seemed almost warm by comparison. After a certain amount of arranging we managed to settle down in relative comfort. I hauled out my sleeping bag, only to learn immediately that the other pair, overexcited at the prospect of leaving our wretched camp that morning, had neglected to bring theirs.
I was absolutely perished by the cold, and the soft touch of the down-filled bag sent waves of warmth along my limbs. With the brute selfishness to which men return in moments of suffering I slid it up round me, carried away on a tide of voluptuous bliss. Beside me my friends sat freezing in silence, huddled up against each other. I soon began to feel my disgusting egoism, however, and after some contortions Herzog, Lachenal and I all managed to squeeze our lower portions into the providential bag. Little memory remains of that terrible night. I only know that the constant struggle against the cold, the cramps that racked me and the intermittent bouts of rubbing my friends’ hands and feet kept me so busy that I had no time to think of anything else. Perhaps this was just as well, since I knew that only fine weather could save us. Yet hope springs eternal, and so we concentrated all our energy on surviving until daybreak. There would be time to think of dying after that. After hours of resistance sleep and exhaustion finally overcame me.
Conquistadors of the Useless Page 37