But still he continued to fall, the axe’s pick slicing through the snow beneath him, refusing to bite.
More snow pushed down on him from above, heavy like wet cement.
For a few seconds, he was able to push his head up, spit snow, and gulp a breath.
Another even stronger wave of snow crashed down on him, forcing him back under.
The axe’s pick scythed beneath him.
A flashed image of Kurt appeared.
He shook his head at Josef and released his grip from the roof once more.
The thought told Josef to surrender to the inevitable.
He commanded his frozen fingers to open and release the axe as he asked himself if Ang Noru was already dead …
His frozen fingers ignored the order, remaining locked tight on the axe head.
The pressure was becoming unbearable; his mind faded to black amidst the white that was crushing him.
Josef came to with Ang Noru, looking like some form of snow monster, digging the snow from his face and desperately shouting his name.
One of his hands was still clutching his ice axe, the pick caught in a loop of old rope pulled from deep within the snow and ice of the face—a remnant of a previous expedition long frozen into the side of the mountain.
Worming his way out of the broken snow, shocked and shivering, Josef looked up to see a trace of blue through the clouds above. Below, a new, perfectly white cloud bloomed from the valley as the avalanche hit the floor.
88
East Rongbuk Glacier Camp, Mount Everest—21,200 feet
May 13, 1939
11:00 a.m.
When Macfarlane’s view through his binoculars went totally white, he dropped their brass eyepieces from his face to see, firsthand, that the avalanche was now charging toward him. Looking back at the flimsy tents of the camp arranged around him and the wall of the valley rising up behind, he understood that he had nowhere to run even if the altitude would permit it. He ducked behind a boulder in preparation for the avalanche’s arrival and waited for the impact. It never came. The approaching cloud of snow and ice slowed and collapsed in on itself, eventually stalling a few hundred yards away from the campsite, just as the more expert heads that had originally chosen that place many years before had known would happen.
Calm returning, Macfarlane stood up and urgently scanned the face again with his binoculars. When he saw the two dark shapes he had been watching slowly emerge from the upper part of the huge scar that the avalanche had rent across the mountain, he felt an unanticipated surge of joy. He also acknowledged that his relief at their survival made a mockery of his orders, that he was to be doomed by his own sense of fair play. Accepting it without remorse, he immediately ordered three of the Gurkhas and Zazar to the foot of the face to arrest the German and the Sherpa when they made it down and bring them to him. With a mistrustful look at Zazar, he stressed to the Gurkha sergeant that he wanted the two men “alive” before particularly urging the big Tibetan on his way, shouting, “Sherpa Ang Noru, Sherpa Ang Noru,” at him to speed him there. He knew that Zazar was strong enough to carry one of them back alone if need be.
Watching them leave, Macfarlane unscrewed his nearly empty hip flask, took a much-needed sip of scotch, and considered his next steps.
The rescue party got back two hours later, Zazar carrying an almost unconscious Becker over his shoulders, the Gurkhas walking alongside the Sherpa. Laying the German at Macfarlane’s feet, the Tibetan immediately spoke to the Gurkha sergeant who said, “Zazar says he has brought you the German, so the Sherpa, if you are a man of your word, is now his to take back to Kampa Dzong.”
Macfarlane looked at the crumpled, ice-covered German on the ground before him and then at a similarly battered, yet still standing, Ang Noru. Shaking himself free from the hold of the Gurkhas, the Sherpa defiantly stared back at Macfarlane and, with a curse about the English, spat in his face. The British officer made no reaction at all, simply wiping his face with the back of his leather-gloved hand and coldly turning to the sergeant to say, “You can assure Zazar that I am indeed a most honorable man. He must also understand that there will be no killing here, whatever he has really agreed with the dzong pen. He must take this man back to Kampa Dzong alive.”
The Gurkha sergeant and the Tibetan exchanged words before the Gurkha said, “Zazar has already promised the abbot of Rongbuk, who is the true master here, that there will be no killing in the shadow of Chomolungma. Beyond, he says it is soon the dzong pen’s land, and there it is his laws.”
“Undoubtedly, it is,” Macfarlane said as he turned his head back to Ang Noru, who immediately started cursing at him again. Staring back at the Sherpa in return, he said to the sergeant, “Tell Zazar that for now, neither of these two men is in any condition to move anywhere. He can leave with the Sherpa tomorrow when the sun is up. I will permit him all the supplies he needs for his journey so he can prepare his pack tonight. We will have to stay here longer with the German for him to recover properly.” Macfarlane then proceeded to help the four Gurkhas tend to Becker and Ang Noru as best they could, giving them water and hot tea, even feeding them a little before letting them sleep.
By sunrise Zazar was impatient to leave.
Macfarlane deliberately took his time before ordering the Gurkhas to awaken Becker and the Sherpa, bind their hands, and bring them out.
The Gurkhas led the Sherpa straight to the Tibetan, Zazar picking up a snake of rope already hung from his waist and tying Ang Noru to the end of it. The Sherpa, his hands bound, could only curse both the Tibetan and the British officer.
“Please save your energy for the journey ahead, Sherpa,” was all Macfarlane said back.
Ang Noru responded by hurling himself face forward into the snow like an enraged small child. With a shout, Zazar tugged violently at the rope that held him, seemingly prepared to drag the kicking Sherpa on his way if necessary.
Seeing Zazar was ready to go, Macfarlane walked over to Josef, who was sitting on a rock under the watchful eyes of two of the Gurkhas. Nodding to the two soldiers that it was all right, Macfarlane beckoned the German to get up. “Walk with me, Becker.”
With great effort, Josef stood, and together they stepped down from the rocky outcrop of the camp into the deeper snow around the Tibetan and the Sherpa. Slowly and precisely, so that he was sure the German understood him and the Gurkhas heard him, Macfarlane said, “Say goodbye to your companion. That Sherpa brought you a long way. A gentleman would shake such a man’s hand one last time.”
With that said, the British Army officer turned to Josef and took the German’s bound hands, as if checking the ties, before saying something more under his breath and pointing him toward the Sherpa.
When Josef pulled his hands back, he found a small bone-handled pocketknife had been placed in his right palm.
Macfarlane had quickly turned away to shout to the Gurkha sergeant, “Tell Zazar that he must permit the two to say their farewells, and then he can go.”
Josef went to Ang Noru, who was still lying in the snow. He helped him to his knees and then, crouching down in front of him, shook the Sherpa’s tied hands exaggeratedly as they exchanged their final words in German.
They both then got up from the snow while Zazar shouldered his heavy pack, crammed with all the equipment and supplies the British officer had permitted him to take for his journey. Despite the additional burden, the Tibetan was delighted with the haul, still surprised that when the British officer had checked the pack in the dark of the early morning he hadn’t ordered him to leave some of it. Zazar would sell most of it in Shekar on the way back to Kampa Dzong. It would fetch a good price but nothing like the amount the dzong pen was going to give him for the Sherpa.
With a faint smile, Macfarlane watched as the big Tibetan buckled slightly under the weight of his pack before resolutely forcing himself to straighten up and bear the
load.
Without any further words, Zazar tugged the rope and started tramping off through the deep snow, pulling the Sherpa along behind him. Josef watched them leave as Macfarlane stepped alongside him, saying quietly, “You should rest some more, Becker, but afterward I will want to talk to you about the direction of your next steps. As far as I can see you have two alternatives. You can either come with me to captivity or go back up. I suspect I already know which you will chose, and that is why I offer it.”
89
Upper East Rongbuk Glacier, Mount Everest—20,750 Feet
May 14, 1939
10:25 a.m.
Ang Noru fought all the way, but Zazar was unbending, relentlessly pulling the Sherpa across the snowfield that stretched before them. The Tibetan paused once to go back and stop him struggling, but his pack was heavy and the snow so deep that he decided to save his energy with a different idea. Whatever the promises he might have made, he would simply kill the Sherpa when they were within the cover of the glacier’s ice pinnacles. Carrying his head might increase his load still further, but it would be a lot easier than enduring the Sherpa’s continued resistance all the way to Kampa Dzong. He tramped onward.
Slowly nearing the spiky horizon of ice that marked the beginning of the glacier proper, Ang Noru scanned the landscape for what Josef said he should seek, but the new snow and the bright morning sun made it difficult. Squinting into the light, squeezing his eyelids until they were slits, he tried to break down the view ahead until it was nothing more than light and dark. Eventually he thought it revealed what he sought: a faint line of shadow running straight across their path. Ang Noru dearly hoped that Josef was right as he stepped slowly toward it, pulling back on the rope whenever he could to keep Zazar roughly tugging him forward. The nearer they got, the more awkward he became, just as Josef had told him to be.
Enraged by the Sherpa’s growing resistance, the Tibetan stopped again, shouting back at him, “You can try and delay all you want, Sherpa, but once we are in the ice, your head is mine. I will enjoy cutting it from your neck with you still alive to watch me do it. There will be none of your famous hawk spirits to save you there, only vultures to eat what remains of your body.”
Zazar grabbed at the rope and pulled the Sherpa once again. This time Ang Noru did move, letting them both make easier progress through the soft snow, allowing the Tibetan to feel he was winning his battle. Following quietly behind, he waited until Zazar was stepping above the line of shadow, the faint depression in the snow he had identified. Then, with all his remaining might, the Sherpa tugged on the rope once again, throwing himself back into the deep snow as far as he could go.
The Tibetan lunged in instinctive response to the Sherpa’s fall, stepping hard ahead to tug the Sherpa back up onto his feet. When his heavy boot touched the snow, it broke through the new crust.
It didn’t stop. The surrounding snow splintered and collapsed to reveal a yawning crevasse that ripped open beneath the big man as he plunged forward, his heavy body and pack pulling him down into the narrow ravine of ice. The force of the Tibetan’s unchecked fall snatched the rope, wrenching the Sherpa up into the air and onto his face, dragging him helplessly toward the gaping black hole that had sliced open.
Thrashing his legs and wriggling his body, his bound hands useless, Ang Noru tried desperately to stop himself from following the Tibetan down into the slot; but the rope dragged him relentlessly on until he heard the sound of something making hard contact with the ice below followed by a loud grunt.
In that brief moment, Ang Noru was able to turn his body, dig his heels into the snow, and bring himself to a stop just before the edge. For some minutes it was all he could do to sit there in the snow, breathless, as the Tibetan’s shouts boomed and echoed from within the glacier and the straining rope that connected them cut into the snowy lip of the crevasse.
Slowly Ang Noru recovered enough to be able to lean forward and, with his teeth, open the small pocketknife Josef had secretly placed in his hands as they said their goodbyes.
Its cold blade stuck to his warm lip. Ang Noru ripped it away, tasting blood.
Gripping the knife in his bound hands, he forced the razor-sharp blade under the taut rope that led from his body down into the hole. Its tension pushed it down onto the blade.
Ang Noru rocked the knife slightly from side to side, the cords splitting and unraveling until the final strands burst apart and the frayed end before him vanished like a fleeing snake.
There was another heavy thump and a shout as the Tibetan’s body slipped deeper down into the crevasse.
Pulling himself up, the Sherpa stood to look over the edge. Letting his eyes grow accustomed to the shadows below, he saw that Zazar’s body was jammed between two sheer walls of ice about thirty feet down. The man’s pack was still on top of him, but ripped open, the contents strewn over his horizontal form. To his surprise Ang Noru could see, amongst the many cans and provisions, two big rocks resting on the upper side of the Tibetan’s body.
The Sherpa spat the blood from his torn lip down onto it. He then cut away the rope that tied his hands, listening as he did so to the man hunter’s panicked curses becoming interspersed with the sound of the ice snapping and cracking as it closed ever tighter on the man’s imprisoned body.
Tossing the remnants of the rope down into the crevasse, Ang Noru turned back up the glacier to return to Becker and the mountain. He walked a long way before the valley fell silent once more.
90
Northeast Ridge, Mount Everest—27,850 feet
May 17, 2010
1:00 a.m.
Quinn is being crushed.
His body is caught within an iron vise that, sensing some final resistance, has stopped one millimeter before the breaking point—his breaking point.
A faint filigree of a cold blue fire intrudes onto the edge of his darkness, releasing a grey ash that floats down like snow.
It is the residue of a burned notebook, its ruled pages empty of writing.
As the cinders crumble over him, they demand a life story as yet unwritten, but he is trapped, paralyzed—he can’t even talk to tell it.
Unsatisfied with his reticence, the dissolving embers cluster on his face to reveal an old photograph.
A hundred, or is it a thousand, people fill the picture—a lifetime of acquaintances frozen for the camera in one final image of remembrance.
The photograph begins to burn from the center.
The people bubble and dissolve as the expanding circle of blue flame incinerates them.
From within the burning, a single face appears.
It grows into a figure.
It is Graf.
With a faint smile, the German collector shakes his head as his long index finger beckons to Quinn repeatedly.
“Am I dead?” Quinn asks.
“Everyone who climbs Everest dies sooner or later, of that you can be sure. You need to get up, to get moving, or you too will become just one more color in the Rainbow Valley.”
Quinn’s mind forced itself up into consciousness.
In the freezing dark, he pushed himself from under the bodies of the Russian and Stevens. They were both completely rigid, suits and faces covered in a rime of frost, snow built up around them. Quinn had to fight to squeeze his way out on his back, digging hard into the ground with the heels of his crampons. Like a grub, he arched his body and gradually pushed himself from beneath the two dead men.
Finally free, Quinn lifted his head to look back at the outline of the human tunnel he’d left behind. In some way, he thought, it must have saved him, but his brain was unable to explain how. He stopped trying to understand it and lay back to look up at the stars. While he counted them one by one, an inner voice stated with authority that if the stars were visible then the bad weather had passed.
He tried to get up, but he couldn’t.
With no sense of time beyond night, constantly losing his place in the heavens, he closed his eyes and let his mind drift from its task.
He wondered how many toes and fingers he would lose.
He wondered some more.
Am I actually dead?
He knew the second thought in some way rendered the first irrelevant.
He told himself to stop thinking and count some more stars.
Opening his eyes, he saw that they were blocked.
A face was looking down at him.
Thinking it must be Sarron, Quinn flinched at the blow to surely come.
It didn’t.
He looked again.
The peaked cap pushing out from under the baggy white canvas hood, the young, haggard face told him it was Josef Becker.
The realization came with no feeling of surprise, only relief.
Becker spoke to him in German. The words fused their meaning into his brain without need for translation.
“Come on, time to climb. We have to get this done. Ang Noru is here.”
The Sherpa Ang Noru stepped out from behind the German, looked at Quinn and pointed back up the hill.
“We go top now, Sahib.”
Quinn sat up to face his ghosts properly.
In turn the two shadows sat alongside him speaking of what they saw. They described the two dead bodies, becoming agitated about the Tibetan knife jammed into the vertebrae of Stevens’ neck, the frozen fall of blood that hung from it.
The face of Becker peered in again at Quinn.
“Take the British soldier’s pack. Find my ice axe. It’s time to go.”
“But I need oxygen. I need water. I need to sleep,” Quinn heard himself pleading.
Summit: A Novel Page 43