Bear Grylls

by Bear Grylls

  It brought us abruptly back to our senses. We couldn’t afford to relax; not yet. Just a bit more luck, come on, we are so near, I thought. My desperation to be safe was greater than ever before. As the journey nears its end, the risks increase – there is more to lose. We had tasted the summit yet were still within the mountain’s grasp. We could not afford to be careless, not now. After all, we still had one last descent through the Icefall to complete. Statistically, I knew our odds would now be at their very worst. The familiar Army expression of ‘it’s not over until the fat lady sings’ rang in my ears. I began to long for the sound of her voice to ring round the mountains instead.

  As we crossed each crevasse, the mountain began to feel more distant behind us. We were emerging slowly from her jaws. I hadn’t descended below Camp Two now for over ten days. I knew that I was leaving something extraordinary behind me. We all walked in silence, lost in our thoughts.

  Twice during those few hours moving through the Cwm, I quietly wept behind my glasses. I wasn’t quite sure why I was crying. I thought of my father waiting back home. Somehow I knew that he understood what I had gone through. I just longed to be home. I didn’t try to stop the tears; they had been stored up for a long time. I just let them flow.

  Two hours of wading through the powdery snow of the avalanche, and we sat at the lip of the Icefall. The tumbling cascade of frozen water seemed to beckon us in, one last time. We had no choice but to oblige.

  Neil strangely crossed himself again at the lip and plunged in, the rope buzzing as he abseiled over the edge. He was gone from sight. I smiled; that was twice he had done that now. Something deep had happened up there with him, I could see it. I pushed the thought away, clipped in, checked the rope and followed Neil down into the glassy depths.

  The route had changed beyond all recognition. There must have been a lot of movement whilst we had been up there. The new ropes snaked over the giant ice cubes and led us through treacherously angled overhangs that would crush a house in an instant if they chose that moment to come loose. I swallowed and raced through them. Geoffrey and the others followed on. The ice must have laughed at our feebleness as we hurried nervously through the dark shadows of its jaws above. With each mousetrap of ice we passed through, I felt some of the tension leave me. Each step was a step towards home.

  We could see Base Camp to our left, below us. My body filled with excitement and I felt energy fill my weary limbs. I could hardly believe we were almost back. I felt like it had been an age since I had last seen Base Camp. An entire lifetime seemed to have passed up there. The tents seemed to shimmer below us, as if calling us back. I hurried through the ice.

  At 12.05 p.m. we unclipped from the last rope for the final time. I let my head fall on my chest as I moved across the ice, out of the Icefall; I couldn’t quite believe it, but it was true. We were home – a little ruffled, but home.

  Neil and I threw our crampons to the ground and hugged like three year-olds at a birthday party. I turned excitedly and looked back up at the tumbling, broken glacier and shook my head in disbelief. I was breathing heavily. It had let us through. I thanked the mountain sincerely in my mind and looked around me.

  I hardly recognized the bottom of the Icefall now that summer was coming and some of the ice was beginning to melt into stream water. Relieved, so relieved, we splashed in the puddles of freezing water. It felt cool on my sweaty face. I splashed water into the air, dunked my head in the stream and then shook it violently. Waves of worry and tension seemed to leave me as I yelped and threw my head back and forth, shaking my hair. The sun was warm and we knew we were safe at last.

  We hugged again as Geoffrey, Michael, Andy and Ilgvar arrived with Pasang and Ang-Sering. It was one of the finest moments I have ever known. We shared the same emotions; the same relief swept over us all. It showed in our eyes. They were all ablaze.

  The walk across the rocks to our camp, that before had been the curse of us, suddenly became a delight. I skipped over them with renewed vigour. I could see everyone at Base Camp waiting outside the mess tent. I was dying to see Mick.

  My windsuit now undone to the waist, karabiners clipped to my jacket and with water dripping off me, I dropped my pack for the last time. Neil beside me was smiling from ear to ear. He looked a different person now that the strain was lifted from him. He whacked me hard on the back and grabbed my head in his arms; we had come a long way together.

  I turned to Mick and we hugged. Grinning, he shook Neil and I with excitement. We had done it together. Mick had also tasted life up high – near the top; he knew what was up there; we had climbed this mountain as a team, as brothers. Mick felt no bitterness about having got so close. He had seen and experienced too much to feel bitter. He had come within a whisker of dying, and he knew it. His family had implored him not to go back up, and a lesser man might have ignored them. He had made the only real decision and was alive now. That was all that mattered. In my mind he had reached the top. I have never thought of it as any other way. He is my bravest friend.

  Still sweaty from the descent and soaked from the melt-water at the bottom, we drank in the morning sun. The vast jeroboam of champagne that had sat like some idol at Base Camp for two months was ceremoniously produced. It took four of us twenty minutes of hacking away with ice-axes and leatherman tools to finally get the cork off. I feared it would blow a hole in the tent at 17,450 feet in Base Camp. I squinted behind Neil as we wrestled with it.

  ‘If it hits you, Neil, it won’t make much difference to you, so let me tuck in here behind,’ I argued. He chuckled as we wrestled frantically, shaking the jeroboam way beyond the recommended ‘safe’ limit. Neil tried to shield his head under his arm, but before he managed to get it there, the cork just erupted like some tectonic explosion. It flew round the room what seemed like four times, then lodged itself in a bucket of used tea-bags. Screams went up. The party had begun.

  I groped for the cigarettes that Patrick had brought out for me over two months ago. I opened them, lit one and spluttered violently. My throat was still red and sore from my illness and the incessant coughing up high had reduced it to an inflamed mess. I spat blood-filled saliva on the floor. Much as I would have loved to have my first cigarette for ten months there and then, I just couldn’t. I stubbed it out on the floor and sipped at the champagne. At least I had tried.

  I felt like drinking a gallon of this Moët et Chandon that had travelled so far, yet my body just couldn’t cope. Sipping slowly was all I could manage and even after a few of those I felt decidedly wobbly. People were noticing this, but I didn’t care. I closed my eyes and flopped against the rock wall; a huge smile was plastered across my face.

  An hour later I began to peel myself off the wall. I felt hungover, and I had only had three and a half sips. I felt sure that climbing Everest meant that I would be able to drink like a whale. Something must be wrong. I rather sheepishly got up and staggered out of the tent, squinting in the bright sun. The Sherpas were chuckling as I emerged. I smiled and waved at them to be quiet. My head hurt.

  Ed Brandt announced that the sat-phone was charged. We could call home. I remembered his waterbottle that I had dropped. I winced; I would tell him some other time. I went into the communications tent, sat down and dialled home. Someone could let Colonel Anthony now know that I had really reached the top. I grinned. I am sure he would just turn and say that he knew that weeks ago.

  That afternoon I lay in my tent with Mick. I peeled off my clothes and got into fresh socks and thermals. I had reserved a set especially for this moment. It had been a good decision. Mick wore my tweed cap and plied me with questions. We sat huddled for hours and talked and talked. I had missed him.

  ‘How come Geoffrey has lost two stone in weight, I’ve lost about one and a half stone, Neil looks like he’s fresh out of Weight-Watchers HQ, yet you still have love handles, eh?’ Mick joked.

  ‘You know what they say, Miguel, it takes courage, faith and chocolate cake to climb Everest.’ He shook
his head in disbelief, and I secretly felt my sides to see if I did have those love handles. He was right.

  Henry poked his grinning face through the tent. He had done his job well. He had orchestrated the entire expedition successfully. That in his books meant that we were all alive. To him that was what mattered. His face showed the relief.

  ‘Well done, boy. Well done, eh?’ he said to me, smiling. He had watched me on Ama Dablam, all the way through to now. He had trusted me and helped me; I owed him a lot for that trust. I had lived up to his expectations; it was all I had hoped for. I thanked him; it was his help and advice that had carved the way for me. He knew how grateful I was; I hardly needed to say it.

  ‘I knew you had it in you,’ he added.

  ‘I’ve been lucky, though, Henry, you know. Very lucky,’ I replied.

  He reeled on me, his eyes ablaze.

  ‘No, Bear, you haven’t been lucky. No.’ He spoke fast and abruptly. ‘You, young man, have pushed and pushed for this. You alone got there. Do you understand? You pushed hard, didn’t you?’ I remembered our conversation before I had left Base Camp. Our eyes met. I nodded. We smiled and he withdrew from the tent chuckling.

  As the day dragged on, with Sherpas moving slowly around Base Camp, exhausted but exhilarated, the rest of us focused on Neil’s feet. They were in the early stages of severe frostbite. The feet and toes looked blistered and puffy. He sat soaking them in warm water. They were tender and battered. He suspected that he wouldn’t ever feel them again properly. We didn’t know whether he would lose them or not. We didn’t discuss it.

  The long wait we had both had at the Balcony had left its mark on him. We had to get him evacuated as soon as possible. He would need proper medical attention on them soon, if he was to keep them. Andy helped bandage them carefully; they had to be kept warm and protected. There was no way that he would get them in a pair of boots; he needed an airlift out of here by helicopter.

  The insurance company said that dawn the next day was the soonest they could get one out to us. At 17,450 feet we were on the outer limits at which helicopters can fly. Only the Nepalese military pilots have the suitable choppers and local knowledge to reach here. One would be with us, they hoped, weather permitting, at 6.30 a.m. tomorrow morning. We waited in anticipation; yet no amount of anticipation could keep sleep from me that night. I knew I would sleep like never before as my body began to wallow in the elusive rest that it had so longed for. I daydreamed for a while for some strange reason of getting a dog. Yes, I’ll get a dog when I get home, I said to myself, then I fell fast asleep, smiling.

  ‘One only, one only!’ The Nepalese pilot bellowed over the noise of the rotors. I took no notice and hopped in.

  ‘I am his personal doctor, I must under all circumstances be with him,’ I fibbed unconvincingly. The pilot looked somewhat bemused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, at all costs,’ I insisted, bundling Neil in. He grinned. His feet all bandaged up looked like loaves of bread. I winked at him.

  The co-pilot looked bemused as well. ‘Most unusual, but if you are his doctor then I’ll take him down to Lobuche then come back for you. The air is too thin to take off with two passengers.’ I felt a wave of guilt come over me and nodded gratefully.

  ‘Yes, I must insist,’ I continued, showing the patience of a pregnant camel in the latter stages of labour, ‘I’ll be waiting here.’

  I pray the insurance company never gets to hear about this. I’ll be stung for thousands, I thought. Oh, sod it.

  The chopper struggled to lift off, then pointed its nose down and swept away across the glacier fading from sight in the glaring sun that was now rising.

  Mick and Geoffrey never believed it would work.

  ‘That’s the last you’ll see of them,’ they joked. I sat staring into the sun, squinting to see if I could see it returning. There was no sign.

  Twenty minutes later, the distant sound of rotors could be faintly heard. I could still see nothing. I dared not get too excited. I couldn’t face a thirty-five-mile walk out to Lukla, in the lower foothills. I didn’t have the strength. ‘It has to come back.’

  Slowly noise grew and on the horizon I could see the tiny speck of a helicopter winding its way through the valley. It was coming back. My heart leapt. Geoffrey and Mick shook their heads in disbelief.

  ‘You dog, I can’t believe it,’ they shrieked over the noise of the chopper, now hovering above the ice. It touched down and I clambered in, grinning. I tapped the pilot on the shoulder to say okay. All I had with me was my filthy fleece and my ID documents; everything else would have to be taken down through the valleys by yak. If this was going to work then there wouldn’t be room for any surplus baggage. I knew that I wouldn’t see any of my equipment again for some time.

  Inside the cockpit both the pilots were breathing through oxygen masks. They needed to, coming straight into this height. They pulled on the throttle and angled the blades. The chopper strained under the weight, then it slowly lifted off.

  Six feet up, though, all the warning lights flashed and buzzed furiously. The chopper began to lose height then just dropped the last three feet down on to the ice. It had been an abortive take-off, the rotors didn’t have enough air to bite on. We tried again and failed. The Nepalese pilot scurried round to the fuel dump and let a load out onto the ice. He scrambled back in and we tried one last time. If it didn’t work then they would have to leave without me. I can’t be that heavy, I thought.

  The chopper struggled and just managed to lift off, then dipped its nose and swept only feet above the rocks that raced away below us. The skids missed some of them by what seemed like only a few inches. The pilot strained to get more speed and lift; the joystick shook in his hands. Their eyes darted between the dials and the rocks below, just beneath the height of the skids. They were sweating. Now would be a bad time to die, I thought, having just got off the mountain safely. I knew that only a few years ago a chopper had crashed trying to take off from here, killing everyone aboard. I swallowed, I couldn’t do this as a living.

  Slowly the chopper gained height and the glacier dropped away below us. The pilots sat back in their seats and looked at each other, then at me and grinned; it had been close. I think they knew that I wasn’t a doctor, but they also knew when someone was desperate. That is why they had come back. I thanked them and smiled.

  As we swept down through the valley, the rotors began to bite into the thicker air. On the horizon I could see a tiny figure with two big white dots on his feet. ‘Neil?’ I muttered, grinning to myself questioningly. We swooped down to pick him up and lifted off with ease. The pilots, still both on oxygen, looked round at us. A look of understanding came over their faces as they saw us huddled together, grinning. We were away.

  Mick and Geoffrey raced ahead of the rest of the team and covered the thirty-five miles to the rocky airfield at Lukla, in some twenty-eight hours, non-stop. An amazing feat that I knew I could never have done. My body was in pieces.

  As the two of them began the long journey down, Neil and I leant back in the helicopter, faces pressed against the glass, and watched our life for the past three months become a vague shimmer in the distance. The great mountain faded into a haze, hidden from sight. I leant against Neil and closed my eyes – Everest was gone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  WHY

  ‘Two roads diverged in a wood –

  I took the road less travelled,

  And that has made all the difference.’

  Robert Frost

  The harsh world of the mountains – cold, white and hostile had been our life for the past ninety-three days. We were leaving that world behind us now. As the chopper swooped and wound its way back through the valleys, that hostility slowly became replaced by the rich flora of the foothills. Glaciers were exchanged for the warmth of yellow rock-beds, and snow was substituted for the buds of the late-spring flowers. I felt the richer air fill my nostrils and a warmth swept over me
. We were leaving a lot behind.

  The three months up there had changed every one of us. Fear, worry, pain, but also a sense of wonder had held us strongly together for all that time. But still, the long awaited dream of home held me captive. As the valleys that we knew so well flew past beneath us, I felt that dream getting ever closer.

  Kathmandu was the sprawling mass of fumes and ancient diesel buses that I remembered it to be. Nothing else seemed to have changed. I felt like a naïve stranger returning into the hustle and bustle of it all. I had been away from all this for so long, living a life of simplicity amongst the hills. The confusion of the city below frightened me as we hovered above the landing pad at the airport. A different world was now awaiting us.

  On arriving at the Gauri Shankar hotel, I apologized to the receptionist for my smell. My clothes were black with the dirt of months of mountain living. I shifted around slightly embarrassedly. She seemed most forgiving and smiled. I returned the compliment and took the key. It had been a while since I had seen a girl.

  The shower was all I had hoped it to be; it was unlikely, though, to disappoint, when my last shower had been over twelve weeks earlier.

  The bathroom floor became thick with grime, as the dirt and sweat washed off me. I felt both fear and strain falling away with it. As the cold water splashed over me, I felt a deep relief. I sang quietly to myself. Neil sat on the bed, swigging a cool beer, his feet still bandaged and raised.

  Leaning over the balcony of the hotel in my towel, whilst Neil showered, I saw the Russian team, who had been on the north side of Everest. They talked in low voices and moved their bags lethargically around. They looked mentally exhausted. I put on a T-shirt and, still in my towel and holding my beer, I went down to see them. As my eyes met theirs, I knew something was wrong. I knew that look. Neither of us talked for a few seconds as we just looked at each other. They had been crying; big Russian, bearded men, crying.