The way was not difficult, but the exposure grew extreme as the ridge narrowed, the faces to each side of them falling away vertically to vanish into thick cloud lying far below. To the west, the huge, multiple peaks of Kangchenjunga reared up from the flat base of the same low-level cloud. Beyond, the summit pyramids of other great mountains appeared like atolls emerging from a calm but grey sea. Ang Noru and Namgel pointed to them in turn, mumbling unintelligible names until Ang Noru, his hand held above his round snow goggles, pointed to one in particular in the far distance and said pointedly to Josef, “Look, Sahib Becker. Mount Everest.”
Josef immediately looked at the black wedge that broke the far line of the horizon. A thick plume of cloud was blowing from the summit as if the distant mountain was steaming slowly off the edge of the world. He expected, any second, for it to vanish, consumed by the curvature of the planet, but it remained, fixed to the horizon, bleak and severe, so much higher than all the other peaks in between. The more he looked at it, Josef began to realize that this, his first real view of Everest, no longer in a photograph, was filling him with dread. He felt foolish that he had ever thought he could climb such a mountain.
It’s imposs—
Schmidt, struggling back up onto his feet and coughing as if he was about to choke, broke the moment, preventing the silent admission.
Josef quickly wrenched his gaze back from the immense mountain to say to the two Sherpas, “He’s on his feet. Let’s go.”
Ang Noru, who had been watching Josef as intently as he had been looking at Everest, said only, “Yes, Sahib Becker,” and when Josef stepped forward, instantly moved with him.
Namgel however stayed stock-still, as if frozen in his tracks, the rope between them all straining until it pulled them to a halt once again.
Turning back to see what was wrong, Josef saw Namgel’s eyes fix on the badge sewn to the front of his cap. His usual smile was missing. When he tugged angrily on the rope to get the Sherpa moving, Josef glimpsed him hastily perform a sign against the evil eye and start mumbling something continuously under his breath before he would follow.
49
The Zemu Glacier, Northwest Sikkim—15,250 feet
April 3, 1939
8:45 a.m.
Lieutenant Macfarlane was finishing his breakfast in the otherwise empty mess tent of the expedition camp. There was a thick fog outside and it was unusually quiet now that the raucous Schmidt and his equally noisy team were exploring the mountains above. He was happy to have the place to himself that morning with just the cooks and some of the porters for remote company. It was even better that it was his first without one of the splitting headaches that had dogged him since their arrival at the glacier. Opening the copy of Douglas Freshfield’s Round Kangchenjunga that Smethwick had lent him as they were leaving Darjeeling, he called for some more tea and biscuits. Appetite’s back too.
Studying the pictures of the hidden mountains that surrounded him, Macfarlane tried to imagine what it must be like to be up there above the clouds. He was not a climber and Colonel Atkinson had been emphatic that he was not to try to be. His role, as the colonel put it, was “to be supervisory, not participatory,” something he had immediately reinforced when he arrived to see them off and saw Smethwick hand over the mountain book to the lieutenant as a parting gift.
“Read that book, by all means, old fellow, but make sure you stay off those bloody mountains,” Atkinson had cautioned. “It’s the only place where the Hun won’t be able to get up to any mischief, and I have been ordered to send you back to London in one piece as a condition of your presence on this expedition. Once that fat führer and his cohorts take to the snows, let them get on with it. Go and bag some of that wildlife I mentioned. It should be fine hunting.”
It was true. Macfarlane did like to hunt. When time permitted from the busy routine at the barracks, he had made trips with some of the Gurkha to track the wild pigs and the small, nervous antelopes that picked their way through the tropical forest below the hill station. He had been invited twice by other officers to try for tiger, but, beyond the impressive sight of some big, splayed paw prints in the soft orange mud of a jungle stream, they had never found one, which had been a dissappointment.
On the long trek from Gangtok to the Zemu, he fleetingly saw some of Atkinson’s wildlife but with no desire or capacity to shoot any of it. From the moment they entered the upper Tista Valley, Macfarlane had been absolutely pummeled by the effects of altitude. At times it had been so bad his only wish had been for someone to shoot him. He could only look on with envy at the porters and the likes of Becker, who seemed totally unaffected however high they went.
Becker …
He still hadn’t fully worked that one out, even if he thought he was now closer to an answer. The “farmworker,” as Schmidt had labeled him, was elusive, ephemeral even. He floated silently on the margin of Schmidt’s team, detached from its brutish camaraderie and enthusiastic lack of serious purpose. He actually seemed closer to the Sherpas and the porters, more at ease moving with them along the tracks and trails that had led them into the hills. Becker was usually accompanied by one Sherpa in particular, Ang Noru. They didn’t seem to say much to each other, but they were never far apart. If they did speak, it appeared to Macfarlane to be in a very simple German. He didn’t have the ability to follow what they were saying, although he did detect the occasional word of English being thrown in, particularly by the Sherpa. Any time that he himself tried to engage Becker in conversation, he was met with an immediate shrugged response of “Kein Englisch” before the German quickly moved away with a shake of his head. It was a pity because of Schmidt’s team, Macfarlane suspected that Becker was probably the best of the bunch.
For that matter Ang Noru was also equally reticent to speak to him. This was unusual because the majority of the porters, particularly the climbing Sherpas, were chatty within the limitations of their rudimentary English. It made him recall Smethwick’s warning about the man, even if, at first, it was difficult to see why he merited it.
The Sherpa Ang Noru, although tough and undoubtedly dour, was an indefatigable workhorse. Soon however he had heard from the other climbing Sherpa about how Ang Noru had been higher than all of them except for Namgel, that he had even been to Everest, proving to be one of the strongest on the mountain until his feet suffered frostbite. Ang Noru had made the mistake of blaming the English sahibs for it, they said, because they gave him boots that were too small and refused to change them when he asked. He had lost all his toes as a result and now only the Germans would give him work. When Macfarlane tried to imagine what it must be like to suffer such injuries yet still have to continue to use your feet to make your living, he understood that it could make a man somewhat bitter. In fact, the English officer thought that Becker and Ang Noru complemented each other. They were both quiet loners within the current company, which was probably what pushed them together.
But why had Schmidt described Becker as a “farmworker”?
At one communal meal in the mess tent, Macfarlane had taken the opportunity to study Becker’s hands. He didn’t have the rough, thick-fingered hands of the farm laborer. They were wiry and thin, moving with a delicate dexterity and precision more suited to a piano player or a watchmaker. Yet one of his fingers had been caught in some form of accident. A long, still-livid scar pushed from the very tip back to the first knuckle. It had no fingernail. Maybe Becker did work with machinery, but Macfarlane didn’t think that it was a thresher or a plough. There was something else about Becker that suggested his background wasn’t farming. His climbing clothes were much more specialized than those of the others in Schmidt’s party. Becker’s equipment was equally purposeful. He was never without his ice axe, his backpack, and a coil of rope once they neared the glacier.
When Schmidt announced that Becker and Ang Noru would be accompanying him on a first trip to bag a peak, it had all become a litt
le clearer to the English officer. Becker was obviously some kind of professional mountain guide from the Bavarian Alps, brought along by Schmidt to ensure that the fat man made it to the top of a mountain so he could brag about it on his return to his beloved Nazi Germany. If Ang Noru had Everest experience and was as good as the other Sherpas said he was, toes or no toes, then Schmidt must have instructed Becker to team with him.
That has to be it.
Leaving the mess tent later, his breakfast over, Lieutenant Macfarlane looked up into the blanket of thick cloud and wondered how they were doing up there. Schmidt was a big man, always red-faced and out of breath at any altitude. Becker and the Sherpa were going to have their work cut out to get that man to the top of anything. If the day cleared, he would use the expedition’s telescope to see how they were progressing. Firstly however, he was going to have a chat with the porters to see if there was word of anything worth hunting down the valley.
50
The Summit of Unnamed Peak 23a, Northwest Sikkim—20,376 feet
April 3, 1939
11:47 a.m.
Arrival on the summit gave the utterly spent Schmidt just enough of a boost to pull a swastika flag from his pack and insist that Josef take photograph after photograph of him holding it. As Josef squinted through the viewfinder of Schmidt’s camera, the image sickened him. It was a sham. He, Namgel, and Ang Noru had virtually dragged Schmidt to the top, and there he now was, waving his damn flag as if he had run up there. To make matters worse, when Schmidt was finally satisfied he had enough photos of himself on the summit, he told Josef to pass the camera to Ang Noru to photograph them together with the flag. Josef knew why Schmidt wanted that photograph and just as quickly told himself that he wasn’t going to have it.
To Josef’s relief, even though it was something he needed to remedy, it was obvious Ang Noru had no idea what to do with the camera. But then Namgel, saying a sahib had once showed him how on Everest, took over, pointing the camera at them expertly as he clicked and wound. When he finished, he offered the camera back. Josef quickly took it, telling Schmidt he was going to take some views of the other mountains, turning away from them all as if to scan the horizon. Feigning that he was taking long-distance shots, he actually released the base cover of the camera within his hands to let the brilliant high-altitude light leach in. Only when he was as sure as he could be that the film inside was ruined did he resecure it and return the camera to Schmidt, saying to them all that it was time to go down.
It was a long and slow descent all the way to the upper edge of the glacier that took most of the afternoon. There, drained from having almost dragged the ever-weakening professor back down the mountain, Josef and the Sherpas could do little more than just sit for a while. Eventually Josef suggested they brew some tea. He knew that Schmidt needed it badly if he was to go any further and the time to prepare it would ensure it was night when he did arrive back at the camp. The cover of darkness was essential for the deceit ahead.
Ang Noru instantly broke out a small metafuel burner from one of the packs, while Namgel took a pan and his axe to collect some ice from within the glacier.
When he was sure Namgel was out of earshot, Josef whispered, “It is time now, Ang Noru. We will make tea, and then you and Namgel must take Schmidt on to Base Camp. Carry him if you have to. I stay here. You will tell the others that I am sick and that they must send people to bring me down.”
The Sherpa nodded as he battled to light the burner. He already knew the plan. When Fischer had taken him aside with Schmidt and Josef in Darjeeling and explained Operation Sisyphus in his own language, Josef had watched Ang Noru listen intently without a flicker of emotion. Afterward Fischer had told them that when he had asked the Sherpa to swear to secrecy on the spirits of his ancestors, the reply had been that it wasn’t necessary, that he wanted to do it as much as they did.
Josef looked across at Schmidt. He was a mess, collapsed against a large rock that projected from the snow, dragging slow, shuddering breaths into his lungs. His eyes were closed. He was drifting into sleep. Leaning closely into the side of his head, Josef said slowly and firmly, “Do you hear me, Schmidt? You need to stay awake. We are making some tea. It will help you make the last few hours down the glacier to the camp. It is easier going from here. Ang Noru and Namgel are going to help you. You need to pull yourself together if you are going to be the one who sends me away. Do you understand me?”
Schmidt grunted unintelligibly in reply as Namgel reappeared with the pan full of broken ice and water. When the Sherpa set the pan onto the sooty burner and huddled down alongside Ang Noru to wait for it to boil, Josef stared directly at Namgel and forced himself to cough violently.
The Sherpa immediately looked back at Josef with an expression of horror, his eyes glancing repeatedly upward at Josef’s SS cap badge. He pointed to it as he muttered to Ang Noru. He then began mumbling to himself, turning his eyes down to stare worriedly into the faintly steaming pot while Josef continued to force himself to cough and groan.
The combination of the tea and the lower altitude of the glacier basin slowly put a little life back into Schmidt, even if it took another ten fits of coughing from Josef before Schmidt finally took the hint.
“Sahib Becker is sick,” he eventually slurred to the two Sherpas. “We must go on and send help back for him.”
Upon hearing Schmidt say this, Namgel became instantly alarmed, raising his voice as much as he dared. “No, Sahib, no. We cannot leave him. I will stay. He must not be left alone here.”
Namgel continued to plead to Schmidt causing Ang Noru to say something to him in their own dialect. The conversation between the two Sherpas became heated until, with difficulty, Schmidt broke it up, saying between deep gasps for air, “Look, you two ... I give the orders ... And I say we go now ... We will leave Sahib Becker with what he needs ... Then send help for him when we get to the camp.”
While Ang Noru made an elaborate display of making Josef comfortable, he said to him under his breath, “Namgel says you are the strongest sahib he has ever seen on the mountains, strong as the Sherpas, but that you carry the mark of death on your head. He says the bones have attracted mountain devils. He says they will come for you if you are left alone, and they will eat your heart and lungs to take your strength for their own. He says you must rid yourself of the bones, or you will die.”
“Tell him, Ang Noru, he is right. I will die if he doesn’t get back to the camp and bring help as soon as possible. Now go. You know what to do. It is time.”
“But the bones …” Ang Noru began to question.
Josef cut in. “Ang Noru, think about it. You know the plan. It is not the bones.”
“Yes, Sahib Becker.”
When Josef watched them leave, Namgel was still protesting, wanting to stay. He looked back at Josef with fear in his eyes, Ang Noru pulling him on until they disappeared with Schmidt into the broken ice towers of the glacier.
The bones, indeed.
Alone, Josef told himself that now was the time to be rid of them but for his own, not Namgel’s, reasons. He reached for his pocketknife and, with the point of its blade, delicately unpicked the stitching that held the metal skull and crossbones badge to the front of his cap.
For the next half hour, as the sky darkened and the cold closed in, Josef occupied himself by placing the badge on a rock and hammering it with the pick of his ice axe. It gave him a strong feeling of satisfaction to finally cast its mangled shape onto the snow. He then turned his attention to preparing for his rescuers’ return.
First he retied his army cap into a roll and hid it back inside his jacket. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out a small tin of baking soda. Opening it, he emptied a handful of the powder into the pocket of his wind jacket. Putting his woolen hat back on, he pulled it down over his eyes and the sleeping bag up over his head to settle in for the long wait. He would bite the inside of hi
s lip to draw some blood and put some of the baking soda in his mouth to create a foam when he heard them returning. There was no need to suffer yet. It was going to be a long night.
51
Parkhotel Koblenz, Schillerstrasse 5, Munich, Germany
September 19, 2009
4:48 a.m.
The green glow of a battered digital clock radio illuminated the dark of the room like a sickly full moon. The beer of the dinner and the cheap whiskey of a solitary bar crawl back to his cheap hotel pushed down on Quinn’s forehead with a dull throb, a ripple of nausea turning his stomach when he raised his head from the spongy foam pillow to check the time.
4:48 a.m.
Needing some water to wash out the heavy funk of too much alcohol, Quinn got up, squeezing himself into the minuscule bathroom to fill a plastic beaker at the sink. The extremely cold water tasted brackish as it rinsed his rough throat and chilled the tops of his spine and lungs. Returning to the bedroom window, he pulled aside a curtain and looked down on the wet, deserted street below. It was empty, a temporary silence having finally fallen on the run-down, trashy Hauptbahnhof district.
Quinn had seen it all after he refused the collector’s offer of a lift back to his hotel at the end of their dinner and walked instead. He had wanted—needed, in fact—to be alone, to let his mind turn over all that Graf had said. Enjoying the buzz of the beer from the dinner, he stopped for more in a sequence of good-natured bars along the way. At some point, he couldn’t precisely recall when, he’d left beer behind and made the switch to cheap whiskey and then, at the last bar before the hotel, the Café Istanbul, he also left Graf’s “coziness” behind.
Summit: A Novel Page 26