Killer Storm

by Matt Dickinson

  We ate some dessert. Two tins of apricots and some almonds that we had found in a tent earlier in the day.

  Zhanna wrapped her sleeping bag around her, shivering with the cold. Finally the conversation turned to our situation.

  ‘OK, so we need to make a plan,’ I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt. ‘We can’t just wait here like sitting ducks.’

  Anatoly scooped the remainder of his food into his mouth. ‘How long will it take Viking to fix the crevasses?’ he asked.

  Kami thought for a few moments. ‘It takes about three days to rig the ladders. At least, that’s what it takes the Sherpa teams.’

  ‘They probably won’t be so fast,’ I said. ‘So maybe, say … four days.’

  ‘Can your radio contact Kathmandu?’ Anatoly asked.

  Kami frowned. ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘We have a good place for a signal at the edge of the Icefall.’

  ‘I will call a helicopter in to rescue us all,’ Anatoly said. ‘Let’s go out at first light and make the call.’

  Kami smiled. ‘Those are the best words I’ve heard in a long time,’ he said.

  ‘With a bit of luck we’ll be out of here by midday tomorrow,’ Anatoly said.

  I gripped his arm.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, my voice croaky with emotion.

  Zhanna embraced her father.

  I felt myself suddenly exhausted. It was like a plug had been pulled. The grief and shock about Alex and the nervous energy we had expended over the last few days had left me shattered.

  Kami and I decided it was time to get back to our tent.

  ‘Things are looking hopeful for us now,’ Kami said as we trekked back across the ice. ‘Anatoly will be as good as his word.’

  A sudden gust of wind blew across the camp. The tents rattled with the impact.

  I still had a pang of doubt. Would the helicopter companies really want to risk their aircraft at this altitude? Especially while the siege was ongoing?

  Wind was one thing. Bullets were quite another.

  We crashed out as darkness fell.

  The next morning we walked to the top of the Icefall. Kami was limping a bit after his accident but he still got there first.

  I heard him groan.

  ‘Come and take a look,’ he said.

  Part way down the Icefall, a group of men were working on one of the crevasses, fixing ladders across the gaps. Much higher than we had imagined. I muttered a curse.

  ‘They must have found a stash of ladders at Base Camp,’ Kami said. ‘It looks like they’ve been at it all night. They’ve only got three big crevasses to go.’

  My stomach churned. The men were more than halfway up. Five out of the eight crevasses we had stripped were now bridged again.

  Viking was keeping her promise. And now the chase was on.

  ‘We’ve been too complacent,’ I said. ‘They’ll be here in hours at this rate.’

  ‘We should have checked,’ Kami said bitterly. ‘We could have seen their head torches if we had come out to look in the night.’

  As we stood there, a big bank of misty cloud rolled across our position.

  How soon would they get to us? I wondered. Would they keep working non-stop? Even if we hurried up to Camp 2 further up the valley, would we wake up tomorrow to the sound of gunfire?

  The cloud thickened. Soon Viking and her team were lost to view.

  ‘No helicopter this morning,’ Kami said bleakly. ‘The visibility is too low.’

  ‘Then we’ve only got one move we can make,’ I muttered.

  We hurried back to the tents where a groggy Zhanna and Anatoly were just waking up.

  ‘Get your rucksacks ready,’ Kami told them urgently. ‘Viking is on her way up and we’re leaving for Camp 2 right now.’

  ‘C … C … Camp 2?’ Anatoly stammered. ‘How close are they?’

  ‘Close enough that we have no choice,’ I told him.

  ‘What about the heli …?’ Zhanna’s voice faltered as she saw the cloud.

  ‘No one’s going to be flying today,’ Kami said.

  We headed back to our tent and kitted up. Kami asked me to lace up his boots; his back was too sore to do it himself.

  When I was ready, I hurried back to the Russians. Anatoly was deathly pale.

  ‘My head,’ he complained. ‘It’s been aching the whole night.’

  We brewed them a quick cup of tea and left Camp 1.

  My mind turned over and over as we began the trek. Kami was increasingly fragile after his slip in the Icefall. Then there was an overwhelming feeling of responsibility for Zhanna and her father.

  A twelve-year-old girl. A man who – so far as I knew – had never been on any kind of mountain before. Zhanna was headstrong. Anatoly was showing every sign of being totally out of his depth. Not a good combination if things got heavy up there.

  Would the two Russians listen to Kami and me if a difficult decision had to be made?

  Everest was waiting for us. Unpredictable, ever dangerous, and we really weren’t prepared.

  Anatoly was slow. Dead slow. Altitude had dulled his whole body and it took him half an hour just to walk out of the Camp 1 zone.

  The route began to follow the climbing trail. Pushing slowly but determinedly further up the valley. The day was overcast, the sky glowering with a sinister grey sheen.

  My rucksack was shockingly heavy, crushing my shoulders. Kami and I had deliberately taken more to give Zhanna and Anatoly lighter packs. I reckoned mine weighed twenty-five kilos at least.

  We were carrying plenty of food and cooking gas, mainly because we had no idea how much would be stashed at Camp 2.

  The wind was playing, kicking up small plumes of powdered ice.

  I watched Zhanna as she put one foot in front of the other, her shoulders set, her pace strong.

  Then I grinned. Maybe I had got it all the wrong way around. It might be us that would be relying on her.

  A cascade of ice blocks crashed down the slope just a stone’s throw in front of us.

  ‘Why are you taking us this way?’ Anatoly grumbled. ‘We can be killed by an avalanche here.’

  ‘It’s the only path,’ Kami replied. ‘There are too many crevasses on the other side.’

  I looked up. The valley sides were loaded with threat. Hanging glaciers the size of shopping malls defied gravity as they clung to sheer slopes above us. Spindrift avalanches were coming down constantly, lightweight snow blown down in vast quantities that could bury us if we strayed too close to the edges of the valley.

  From time to time the clatter and rattle of falling boulders echoed across the valley.

  There was no opportunity to relax.

  We were the first climbers to take the route for many days. The fixed ropes had mostly been buried in deep snow and we had to pull them out and shake them free. We lost plenty of time excavating them from the grip of the snow.

  It was hard drill but I was glad to be moving. Every step we took kept us a step ahead of Viking.

  I figured that there was a chance she and her team would not be able to follow beyond Camp 1. Altitude sickness could strike them.

  If all went well, we could hide in Camp 2 and wait for her to retreat.

  ‘I’m seriously worried about Anatoly,’ Kami told me, as we stopped to share a hot chocolate from the flask. ‘He’s grumpy as an old goat and that’s a sign his altitude sickness could be getting worse.’

  ‘I agree,’ I replied.

  I stared at the route ahead, taking in the impact of the scene, the incredible scale of this, the highest valley in the world. Camp 2 was at the far end of the natural amphitheatre, a collection of about fifty tents, which looked half buried in snow.

  It was no place for a human being.

  ‘Looks lethal up there,’ I said.

  ‘The shrine bell will guide us,’ Kami said. ‘It will keep us safe.’

  His words were calming and reassuring.

  I couldn’t resist casting my eyes
even higher. Way above the col, we could now see the final ridge of Everest, a knife-edge switchback rising steeply to the heavens. The summit was out of sight, obscured by a swirling mass of cloud.

  Zhanna and Anatoly trudged wearily up to our position half an hour later. Anatoly fell to the ground like he’d been hit with an axe.

  ‘Do people really call this a sport?’ he gasped.

  ‘Headache,’ Zhanna said. We gave them both a paracetamol and some fluid.

  We ticked off an hour of downtime. Body recovery. It went like a flash as we gradually felt the crystal sharpness of the invading cold, our muscles seizing up with inactivity.

  From time to time we glanced nervously back to Camp 1.

  Then it was time to go.

  ‘Get up!’ Zhanna told her father. When he didn’t move she reached out and helped him to his feet.

  It took a while for our legs to snap back into the rhythm. Setting off is always a shaky time when body tissue is chilled.

  ‘I feel like I’m switched off,’ Anatoly said.

  My knees ached like crazy but Kami and I soon pulled ahead.

  Kami was pensive.

  ‘We should have brought oxygen cylinders with us on this section,’ he said, ‘for Anatoly.’

  ‘I couldn’t carry any more,’ I told him. My rucksack already felt at the top end of what I could bear.

  ‘What if they chase us up higher? It might end up being a big problem,’ Kami said. ‘Normally we’d have Sherpa high-altitude porters helping to carry the bottles. How are we going to manage when we’re up in the zone where we all need the O2?’

  ‘We’ll just have to carry our own bottles,’ I said.

  Easy words. But at eight kilos for each full bottle I guessed the reality could be devastating.

  ‘Every gram counts up there,’ Kami said, doubtfully. ‘And if you look at Anatoly now …’

  He left the statement hanging.

  The Russian was a good 500 metres behind us already, taking just three faltering steps with each burst of activity before slumping over his ice axe and resting for long minutes.

  Zhanna waited by his side. Ever patient.

  We started the traverse, crossing the entire glacier to the northern flank, following the red marker wands that poked out of the drifted snow here and there.

  Finally, ahead of us was Camp 2.

  Camp 2 was another ghost camp devoid of climbers. Like Camp 1, it was placed strategically, on the downhill side of ridges and humps that might divert the power of an avalanche from the slopes above.

  ‘There have been a lot fewer load carries to this one,’ Kami observed. ‘We might struggle to find food.’

  We waited in the wind shadow of a solitary boulder as Zhanna and her father caught up.

  Most of the domes had been buried. We found a couple of avalanche shovels and began to dig two tents clear.

  ‘It’s lonely being up here like this,’ Kami said. ‘Camps are normally full of life. There should be voices, laughter.’

  Kami was right. The camp had a melancholy air of abandonment. It was hard not to feel depressed as we gradually dug out our frozen homes.

  Zhanna, typically, just kept scraping off the snow without complaint. The harder the work was, the more she seemed to relish it.

  An hour of shovelling freed up the two tents. My chest and shoulder muscles were aching like crazy. We had run out of fluid hours before, so we were all seriously dehydrated. We gathered ice for melting and sat there with our tongues stuck to the roofs of our mouths.

  While we waited for the stove to melt the ice, I went out to check the view down the valley. I could see people moving at Camp 1. Viking had made it, but we were still one climbing day ahead.

  The crucial question was: could she go higher?

  If she pursued us further we would have no choice but to move up to Camp 3.

  Zhanna had been on a food raid around the camp, burrowing into buried tents like a little mole, scoring a hotchpotch of packet noodles, corned beef and potato powder.

  ‘I will cook!’ Anatoly announced. I think he felt guilty about holding us up earlier and it was a sign that he was feeling a bit stronger.

  After we had eaten, there was the nervous wait for 7 p.m., our agreed radio rendezvous with Tashi. We walked up to some higher ground near the camp to try and get a signal, but all we heard was static.

  Try as we might, we couldn’t get through.

  We trudged back to the tent and I couldn’t help feeling blue. ‘I wish we could have spoken to the girls,’ I told Kami.

  ‘Don’t feel too sad,’ he said. He brought the shrine bell out of his rucksack and turned it fondly in his hands. ‘Positive thought is important. One year ago I was lying on my back. Paralysed. But I never had negative thoughts. Now I am back on Everest and expecting a baby with Shreeya.’

  ‘You always put others first,’ I told him. ‘Never felt sorry for yourself even when things must have seemed helpless.’

  ‘I still worry about Shreeya. I wonder if she and the baby are OK. I just have to pray everything will be fine.’

  I thought about the girls, heading down into the mayhem of Kathmandu. They would be there in a few days. Would the riots be over by then?

  They were both tough; I had seen that for myself. And they had lots of friends they could call on in the city.

  Nevertheless, I was besieged by dark thoughts that night. They seemed to come as part of the package when strong winds hit the mountain.

  Would Kami have the strength to go higher? How far could he push his newly restored body? What about Zhanna and her father?

  If any of them hit the wall there would be no chance of rescue.

  And what about me? I still felt the occasional twinge in my arm from the climbing accident. I wondered if it would let me down if we had to go higher. Hauling on the fixed ropes would require all my strength.

  Halfway through the night I went out to check that Viking and her team weren’t on their way up. There was just enough moonlight to see down the valley.

  No movement. The climb through the Icefall must have exhausted them.

  I fell asleep to the repetitive crackling noise of the tent fabric as it was pummelled by fierce winds.

  By dawn we were awake, rubbing our fingers and toes over the heat of the gas fire to get some circulation going.

  We met outside the tents, my head aching from the thin air. The wind was from the north. It already felt like it was going to be an extremely cold day.

  The good news was that Anatoly and Zhanna had both slept well. They looked more alert than the previous day; a sign that they were acclimatising.

  Then I felt Kami grip my arm. He pointed down the valley.

  Back at Camp 1 there was movement amongst the tents. Then, four climbers walked out.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Kami said.

  ‘Damn that woman!’ Anatoly exclaimed.

  I looked at Kami. We both knew there was no choice now.

  This was a poker game and Viking was calling our bluff. They were armed. We didn’t have a single weapon.

  We had to continue up. Camp 3 was our next refuge.

  ‘No time to lose,’ Kami told the Russians.

  Anatoly looked up the Lhotse Face, his jaw clenching as he saw how far it was to the next camp.

  ‘Seriously?’ he murmured. ‘I’m not sure I …’

  Zhanna put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘The only alternative is giving ourselves up.’

  Anatoly nodded, but his eyes were glazed.

  I switched on the radio while we waited for Anatoly to get ready. It was a terrible line but I managed to get Tashi for a few seconds, long enough to tell her that Viking and her men were still on our trail.

  ‘I will look into other options,’ she promised. ‘You might be able to go over the col and escape on the other side.’

  The connection died. Thirty minutes later, we left the relative safety of the camp.

&n
bsp; Tashi’s words chased around my head.

  Escape on the other side of the mountain.

  It was an intriguing idea.

  – CHAPTER 10 –

  Camp 2 quickly became a distant memory. We were trekking up to the vast wall at the end of the valley. The closer we got, the more I became awed by its scale and gradient. It didn’t just look punishing. It looked a total epic.

  Deep inside a voice was starting to question: Can you hack it? Even the flat terrain here is exhausting. The air is so thin and it’s getting thinner. Better if you admit defeat now.

  Self-doubt. Self-perpetuating. Feeding on its own weakness.

  ‘Everest is a mind game,’ Kami said, as we rested at the bottom of the face. ‘And the worst thing you can do is look up.’

  Zhanna and Anatoly trekked to our position. Anatoly had put on too many layers that morning and was now complaining about being too hot. He stripped off his outer wind suit and stuffed it in his pack. Zhanna sipped at her water bottle, preferring to stand rather than slump on the ice as the three of us had done.

  ‘Mountain beaten you already?’ she asked.

  I had to grin. Her sparky attitude showed no signs of relenting even as our situation worsened.

  ‘Don’t be arrogant,’ Kami told her. ‘The gods will teach you a lesson if you get too cocky.’

  Zhanna tossed her head. ‘We’ll see.’

  We began the climb up the Lhotse Face, legs and arms protesting as we hit the steeper terrain. Our pace crashed to a crawl, each kick of the crampons gaining us just a few centimetres of height.

  We hit the fixed ropes. Kami taught Zhanna and Anatoly how to do the changeover from one rope to the next. They were fast learners and I was pleased to see Zhanna clipping her karabiner around the line with great care. The slightest slip would be fatal up here.

  ‘This reminds me of the climb to the North Col on the Tibetan side,’ I told Kami.

  ‘I hated this slope the first time I did it,’ he replied. ‘And I don’t feel any different now.’

  Step. Breathe.

  Wonder where the strength will come from for the next step.