Thin Air Read online

  Faster and faster the devils whirl, stamping their bare feet in an insistent rhythm that thuds right through me.

  All of a sudden, the ‘god’ leaps towards me and thrusts his mask in my face. I jerk back with a cry. For an instant, from those painted sockets, I could have sworn that Charles Tennant’s flinty eyes glared out at me.

  The dancers are whirling away, but my heart is pounding, and my fellow sahibs are staring.

  McLellan barks a laugh. ‘Good Lord, Dr Pearce! Not letting this mumbo jumbo put you in a funk?’

  ‘’Course not,’ I snap. My cheeks are burning. What must they think?

  The light is dying by the time we reach our first dak-bungalow. It’s at about five thousand feet, on a wooded ridge above a straggling native village. The chaukidar, or caretaker, is a villainous old opium addict with yellow eyes. The bungalow is reserved for us sahibs. The coolies have built themselves shelters from branches and bamboo.

  It turns out that Nima is my personal servant; each sahib has one. In no time, he’s unpacked my gear, brought a basin of hot water, and bustled off to see to Flick.

  Of the three beds in the larger room, he’s nabbed the best for me: a simple kindness that steadies me a lot. Not that I need steadying, but I’m annoyed with myself for having taken fright at that mask.

  We dine on the verandah, on tough grey meat and stewed greens, tinned pears and condensed milk. If it wasn’t for the lashings of Scotch, we might be at school. It’s raining again. The noise on the tin roof is deafening, but that doesn’t prevent the others from ribbing me about what Kits delights in calling ‘my fainting fit’. I don’t mind; only McLellan doesn’t know when to stop. In the end, I say my goodnights and take myself off.

  The downpour is over, and the night is alive with secret tricklings.

  I hadn’t noticed till now, but this bungalow is really rather dreadful. Green walls oozing damp. A pervasive smell of mouldy canvas. The jungle thrusting in through broken shutters.

  My bed is a flimsy native charpoy sprung with strips of knotted cloth, and Nima has draped my mosquito net over four bamboo poles tied to the legs. As I shake out my sleeping bag, something drops to the floor and scuttles past my foot. A scorpion. I crush it under my boot.

  Somehow, turning in has lost its appeal, so I wander outside for a last cigarette.

  The red fires of the coolies flicker in the dark. Nima sits near one, cradling a bowl of tsampa, the natives’ barley gruel. He has the inward look of a man at prayer, and before starting his meal, he flicks a gobbet at the shadows.

  Christ, what a way to live. Must he make an offering before every meal? How can he imagine it’ll do any good?

  On a nearby boulder, someone has placed the head of a goat; presumably that’s the remains of our dinner. In the gloom, I make out the brute’s thick grey tongue protruding between its teeth. Its half-open eye watches me slyly. Beside it, someone has placed a snake lily and a bunch of those funereal white orchids. Not another bloody offering.

  Suddenly, I’ve had enough. ‘Nima!’ I roar. ‘Come here at once and take this disgusting thing away!’

  Leaping to his feet, he scurries to obey.

  Behind him, the tip of a cigar glimmers, and Cotterell strolls over. ‘Trouble, Dr Pearce?’

  ‘Not any more,’ I say crisply. I’m dismayed to find that my heart is racing. My hands tremble as I light another cigarette.

  Cotterell grimaces as he watches Nima bear the thing away. ‘Offering to the mountain, I’d imagine,’ he murmurs. ‘Poor devils blame it for everything: storms, floods, earthquakes. I gather that in the past, it wasn’t only goats. Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Fine. Really.’

  He strokes his moustache, then clears his throat. ‘McLellan rather overdid the joshing at dinner, but you mustn’t mind him. He’s not exactly Varsity, and he feels it. But he’s a sound officer and a good man.’

  Cotterell’s on the wrong track, but I’m glad he’s changed the subject. I ask him why McLellan joined the expedition.

  ‘He’s a son of the manse,’ he says, inclining his leonine head. ‘Grew up in some parish in Glasgow, father’s still a minister there. Tells me he reads his bible every night. Seems to feel that climbing gets him closer to, um, God.’

  ‘Ah. And you, sir? Beating the Hun, and all that?’

  He chuckles. ‘Well, someone’s got to stop them! They’re after revenge because they lost the War. But we can’t go on letting them get away with it, or why did we fight? First it was the Eiger. Now this mountain. They’ve tackled it three times, so they think it’s theirs!’

  ‘Like us with Everest?’

  He laughs. ‘Touché, Dr Pearce! And you? Kits tells me you used to do a good deal of climbing.’

  ‘We were brought up by an aunt with a fondness for doomed heroes. Whymper and the Matterhorn, that sort of thing. She was a pretty decent climber herself, so we spent every holiday in the Alps.’

  ‘And yet only Kits has kept it up.’

  ‘Small matter of having to earn my living, sir.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. So in a way – Kits has been climbing for you both?’

  No, I’m tempted to reply, Kits climbs for himself, because he’s the oldest and inherited a fortune and married money.

  ‘You know,’ says Cotterell, ‘I’ve read about the Himalaya all my life. Had a copy of Freshfield in the trenches.’ He scratches his hairline. ‘I was fifteen when Lyell set off. Kept a map on my wall. Used to mark his position with pins.’

  ‘I did the same for Captain Scott.’

  ‘Ah yes, you’d have been too young for Lyell.’

  I smile. ‘I wasn’t quite five.’

  We smoke in silence.

  I like Cotterell. He strikes me as a romantic – which is odd, given his time in the trenches; although that seems to have left him curiously unmarked. I fancy he’s not so different from the schoolboy who tracked his hero’s progress on a map.

  ‘Kits tells me you lost your books,’ he says. ‘I have Freshfield, Smythe – Lyell, of course. Happy to lend them whenever you wish.’

  I’m unprepared for the strength of my response. The idea fills me with visceral revulsion. ‘That’s awfully kind of you, sir,’ I say, struggling to keep my voice steady, ‘but I don’t think that’s wise. In fact – if you’ll forgive me, I think it’s distinctly unhealthy. We need to concentrate on the task ahead. We can’t let ourselves be distracted by disasters from the past. Especially not Lyell.’

  He draws on his cigar, then nods. ‘Sound. Very sound. Thank you, Dr Pearce. I’ll spread the word.’ He bids me goodnight and strolls inside.

  Soon afterwards, I follow. A thorough search with my electric torch reveals no more scorpions, and I wriggle into my sleeping bag.

  I’m exhausted, but wide awake. The jungle, the devil dance, that goat’s head on the rock … And Lyell. I can’t bear the thought of following in dead men’s footsteps. I can’t bear the idea of being infected by Charles Tennant’s irrational fear.

  Thank God I talked to Cotterell. Thank God there’s to be no more Lyell.

  5

  Seven days out, and this weather’s getting on my nerves. I can feel the mountains in the thinness of the air, but I still haven’t seen them.

  We’re at their mercy, though. So far, they’ve sent sleet, hail, rain and snow; sometimes the whole lot within an hour. The change comes without warning. It plays with one’s perceptions. It’s making me jumpy.

  Right now, it’s freezing fog, and two Sherpas have gone ahead to mark the way with cairns. They call them ‘stone men’. None of us likes the way they loom out of the mist. Maybe that’s why the coolies are making trouble again about following Lyell’s route. It’s taken ages to settle them.

  We left the ponies at the last village. As we trudged higher, we emerged from the jungle and hacked our way through tortured thickets of dwarf rhododendron, and out on to bleak, stony uplands. I can’t shake a sense of unreality. The fairy-tale forests are far below
, and we’ve emerged into this eerie upper world haunted by unseen creatures: snow leopard, wild blue sheep – and the coolies’ imaginary spirits.

  To them, this wilderness is thronged. Every rock and stream possesses its own demon. They refuse to burn rubbish, for fear of the fire spirits, and rarely venture out after dark.

  Even we white men are finding the sheer immensity hard to take. Like ants, we pick our way around gigantic boulders, and over thunderous torrents whose roars follow us up deserted valleys. We all feel our insignificance. We keep it at bay with routine.

  Nima wakes me at five with tea, while the coolies flit about like wraiths, striking camp. We march for two hours, then halt for breakfast: bacon, eggs and chuppatie, the unleavened native bread, delicious smothered in butter and Oxford marmalade.

  Our baggage train resembles the progress of a medieval king. We sahibs only carry what we need for the day (although my rucksack’s heavier, with my medical case), but the coolies are astonishing. Each bears a wooden packing crate on his (or her) back, or firewood in a conical basket called a doko; each load weighs eighty pounds, and is borne suspended from a band across the brow. The tendons of their necks stand out like ropes. God knows what it’s doing to their cervical vertebrae.

  Lunch is Plasmon biscuits with tinned pâté and Kendal Mint Cake; then we march till four, when the coolies pitch camp. Cotterell and McLellan check supplies, while Garrard gets busy with his cameras and Kits with his gun. Yesterday he shot a red panda for sport, but mostly it’s ibex and wild goat.

  I’m finding it a strain being with people all the time, so I often wander off with the dog. My pony trod on his paw in the last village, and when I jumped down to make sure it wasn’t broken, he got the wrong idea and followed me. He’s ridiculously shaggy, like a cross between a collie and a sheep, and he’ll fetch anything I throw, as long as it isn’t a stick. I call him Cedric, because he has a trick of cocking his head that reminds me of my cousin’s husband.

  We dine at seven, seated on crates in the mess tent. We’re saving the tinned meats for the mountain, so either we slaughter one of the sheep we’ve brought along, or we feast on whatever Kits has bagged. It all tastes of charcoal and our cook’s yak-dung cigarettes.

  I’m having a job keeping everyone’s digestion in order. I insist on our chuppaties being made with English flour, as the native stuff is full of grindstone, and I dispense liver tablets for iron and stewed wild rhubarb for Vitamin C. Yesterday, constipation struck; I was doling out Livingstone Rousers as if they were toffees.

  It’s too cold at night to undress, and we’ve reduced washing to what Garrard prettily calls ‘a French whore’s bath’: strictly armpits and groin. We’re in our tents by eight, and sleep like the dead.

  Well, the others do. I’m still having half-awake arguments with Clare. That’s pure guilt. The poor girl didn’t love me, but she didn’t deserve to be jilted.

  The bad dreams aren’t letting up either, although the snow globe has given way to Charles Tennant in a devil mask. He steals into my thoughts by day, too. I can’t forget the terror in his eyes.

  These wretched nightmares. I don’t think I’ve woken any of the others, although once or twice I’ve heard someone in another tent cry out in his sleep. I think it’s Cotterell. Perhaps he was more affected by the trenches than I thought.

  Or perhaps, like me, it’s this country. This unreality.

  * * *

  I still have no idea why it happened.

  Yesterday, we camped at thirteen thousand feet on a desolate moor called Dzongri, where McLellan paid off most of the lowland coolies, and took on the yak-wallahs.

  I was glad to leave Dzongri. It’s supposed to be particularly spirit-haunted, and I didn’t care for the chortens that seemed to watch us from the hills.

  But I took to the yaks at once. They’re like small, immensely shaggy bulls with extravagant horns and flowing, horse-like tails. You always know where they are because of the dull clank of their bells; and they’re as placid as oxen. Except when they’re not.

  We were on a trail halfway up a steep-sided gorge when one of them panicked. I saw it happen. The beast spotted something above it on the slope and simply went wild, bucking and rolling its white-rimmed eyes. Before the coolies could do anything, it had blundered off the trail and crashed all the way to the bottom, where it lay, twitching and grunting, until a yak-wallah skittered down and cut its throat with his kukri.

  The crates it was carrying were smashed to splinters. ‘Christ bugger fuck!’ exploded Garrard. ‘That’s the wireless and the cinematographic camera! Fuck!’

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped Cotterell, who has a spinsterish dislike of bad language. ‘We mightn’t have got reception at the mountain anyway, it could’ve been worse.’

  Not for the yak-wallah, it couldn’t. Yak-wallahs are so poor they don’t even own a bedroll; they sleep wrapped in their beast’s saddle-cloth. I slipped the man twenty rupees – that’s about three weeks’ pay – and he bowed as he cradled it in both hands. His deference made me feel ashamed.

  The yak was butchered where it lay, and soon all that remained were bones, some bluish entrails that even coolies won’t eat, and a great splash of scarlet on the rocks.

  Ravens appeared from nowhere, cawing like birds of ill omen. I had to restrain Cedric from chasing them.

  Nima told me their Nepalese name is gorak. ‘There will be more as we go higher, Doctor Sahib.’ I couldn’t tell if he thought that was good or bad.

  I wonder what spooked that yak. There was nothing on that slope. I know because I happened to be looking right at it when the beast panicked. So what frightened it?

  And how quickly it happened. The yak was alive, then it was dead. It’s a warning: this land is dangerous.

  But it’s a physical danger. I’m not afraid of that.

  * * *

  I can’t get used to how cramped it is in my tent.

  I dislike the way my torch stabs the darkness as I squirm into my sleeping bag, and the shut-in sounds of rustling and breath. I hate being so enclosed when I tighten the drawstring around my face. I always end up poking my head out and pulling on my balaclava instead.

  Tonight, my tent stinks. My kitbag was part of the dead yak’s load, and despite Nima’s best efforts, it reeks of blood; although at least it didn’t seep through.

  Perhaps that’s why I sleep even worse than usual. Muffled voices and half-heard footsteps bleed into my dreams, and I keep fancying that someone’s there: someone outside the tent, standing in silence, unnervingly close. It’s because I’m half asleep, of course, but it’s peculiarly alarming. That’s what I dislike most about tents: you can’t see what’s coming.

  I’m just drifting off when I’m jolted awake by thudding hooves and the clang of yak bells.

  Drowsily, I listen to muffled cries and the patter of barefoot coolies. Sounds as if one of the beasts is running amok through camp. Well, I’m too sleepy to stir. Besides, I’m safe in my tent.

  No I’m not. If that yak trips on a guy rope, I’ll be crushed.

  I struggle out of my sleeping bag, but the beast has blundered off. In the adjacent tent, Garrard mumbles in his sleep. Then all is quiet.

  When next I drift up to consciousness, it’s still dark, and something’s moving near my head. The tent is bulging inwards, cold, musty canvas pressing on my face. Moaning, I fight it off with both fists. Then I’m awake – and it’s only the dog. He couldn’t get inside, so he’s burrowed under my groundsheet.

  ‘Bugger off, Cedric,’ I mumble as my heartbeats return to normal. Outside the tent, the dog heaves himself up and slumps down again, by my feet.

  I lie smelling the bitter tang of burning rhododendron, listening to the crackle of the fire and the murmur of coolies. I don’t have to get up for another hour, but I will. I’ve had enough of tents.

  All this starting at shadows, it must be the altitude. We’re at over fourteen thousand feet. Soon we’ll climb to the Kang La, the high pass o
ver the Singalila Ridge; then it’s down into Nepal, and on to the glacier.

  I’ll sleep better down there.

  * * *

  Milky swirls of ice on the track, and a light snow falling as we trudge the final stretch towards the Kang La. The pass is at over sixteen thousand feet, that’s nearly the height of Mont Blanc. I’m holding up fairly well, only a little breathlessness. Cedric, plodding beside me, seems fine too; but I’m worried about the coolies, most of whom are still barefoot.

  My fellow sahibs aren’t doing amazingly, either. Cotterell’s panting hard, Garrard’s complaining of a headache, and Kits is forging ahead to conceal his breathlessness.

  Catching up with him, I ask if he’s all right. ‘Never better,’ he gasps. But his breath smells, and I suspect he’s been sick behind a rock.

  I don’t want to goad him into further exertion, so I drop behind. ‘Time to call a halt and issue those boots,’ I tell McLellan.

  ‘Not till Nepal,’ he pants.

  I stare at him in disbelief. So much for his Christian principles. ‘Come now, man! It’s snowing, these people need—’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, leave it to me!’ He’s replaced his topi with a sheepskin flying helmet, which makes him look like an infuriated Biggles; and a blood vessel has burst in his eye, turning it a bright oxygenated scarlet.

  ‘Have you a headache?’ I say sharply. ‘Nausea?’

  ‘Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m ill!’

  I turn on my heel and stomp off to find Cotterell. ‘Call a halt, please, Major, the coolies need boots.’

  ‘Not far to the pass,’ he gasps. ‘Can’t it—’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it bloody well can’t!’

  McLellan staggers up, his freckled face puce with fury. ‘How dare you go behind my back!’