Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (43 page)

So as not to waste the remaining power in the torch, River Leaf turned it off and they sat in the dark. There could be no doubt, McGee confided, that Junk had refused to rescue him. “You don’t even have to tell me. I know it. And I wouldn’t have wanted him to rescue me anyway,” he said. He would rather die than end his friend’s journey due to his own flagrant incompetence. McGee also promised her that he would calm down sooner or later, and that when he did, he would help get them out of the Oculus. “I just neded [sic] to let things sink in,” he wrote. “Then I’d be redy [sic] to win my million dollar bet.” How River Leaf responded to this is not easy to envision. She may have been disgusted by the endless bluster of the foolish men entering her life. Or perhaps she felt remorseful for questioning Junk’s judgment. He had only done what McGee had wanted. The fact it worked in his favor was only a lucky boon. What River Leaf felt about this we will never know.

She took out sleeping bags for them and laid them out on the ground. The two unlikely adventurers lay down for the remainder of the night. Sleep did not come to harbor them from their terrible sojourn in the ground. Their hopes of tackling the problem well-rested would not come to be.

When daylight did shine down from the Oculus and their living quarters turned deep blue, McGee was weeping again. River Leaf made a half-hearted attempt to cheer up the old street tough. She pointed out that they were at the true summit of Fumu at that very moment so McGee had actually beat his best buddy to the top. That had to be worth doubling the pay out. McGee wrote: “Nice of her to try and make me laugh. But that wouldn’t happen as I was to emberaced [sic]. I just blubbered again, ‘I will find my bravery, River. I swear. Soon. I swear.’”

Chapter Sixteen: Cannibals!

Upon returning to base camp several days later, Drake wrote in graphic detail about the events befalling Hoyt’s team just below the Eastern Ridge:

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I am writing this all down so soon after the event because, despite the pain it dredges up in my heart, I wish to never forget it. For if I forget, then that only creates an opportunity for me to remember anew, and that I could not bear.

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Chatham and I slept quite hard on the night of the tenth. It was the height of the storm and Camp Four had provided no protection from the wind. Nonetheless, exhaustion had gotten the better of us. I dreamt not at all and awoke in the same position in which I had fallen asleep. When I awoke at dawn, three things were immediately evident. Firstly, Chhiri Tendi had left. Wherever he had gone, he had taken his equipment with him. Secondly, Chatham was wide awake and sitting up in the corner of the tent, his eyes showing naked fear even through burnt, deformed eyelids. He was shaking uncontrollably. Thirdly and finally, there was a sound coming from outside the tent the likes of which I had never heard before nor do I ever hope to hear again. It was the sound of a man screaming. But the screams conveyed an unfathomable quality of distress, the kind of distress one only hears in the most vocal of infants as they are pulled from the birth canal. I mouthed to Chatham ‘What is happening’ to which he shook his head violently as if to reply ‘I haven’t the slightest” or maybe “This is not happening this is not happening this is not happening.

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I peeked one eye out of the tent and saw before me the worst sight of my life to date. There were four men, none of whom I had ever seen before, eating someone alive. I could not see whether it was Wilde or Ferguson and the scream could not be used for identification purposes. Three men held him down while another was chewing into the flesh of his arm. They had already removed other body parts - feet, testicles, fingers – and had thrown those away onto the snow behind them. Blood was everywhere. Then they moved, but for a moment, and I saw it was Wilde upon whom they feasted. Ferguson’s body lay right next to Wilde, already destroyed, missing eyeballs.

If this sight were not strange enough, the strangers wore white attire from head to toe, probably as camouflage. It was a strategy similar to that of the Germanic Harii warriors, albeit exchanging black for white. Of course, the white camouflage of their uniforms was now splattered with maroon. Topping off this ensemble was the one object on their uniform that was not white: a cobra tied around each of their necks like ascots. These were no doubt some sinister form of heraldry, the origins of which I did not care to understand.

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What made the scene even more surreal was the weather. The storm had broken and the sky was a deep blue. Only the summit remained grey. The sun had risen and the wind was unusually calm for 28,000 feet. Had I cared to look at the sweeping vista, I would have been able to see the Himalayan peaks to the south, the flat stretch of the Terai beyond them and at last the dense, lush forests of India on the horizon. But considering the view was not to be. What was happening only ten feet away held far more import.

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I closed up the flaps and moved to the back of the tent next to Chatham. What was there to do? Nothing? Nothing. Perhaps something, but in my panic the ideas just did not come. I intentionally do not carry knives on climbing campaigns (they tend to give a climber unpleasant options when tied to someone who has gone over the edge of a precipice) and I had no other weapon at my disposal. Nothing came to mind. Nothing, that is, except the scene of unholy carnage I had just witnessed outside. The altitude was also sapping my ability to make any decisions whatsoever. The look in Chatham’s eyes suggested he was in the same predicament. Our brains did nothing now but regulate basic body functioning, and they did not even do that job well anymore, sending every system into a poorly organized frenzy of activity.

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The screaming outside became a tired, half-conscious moan. The moan then included a bubbling sound as fluid blocked air passages. Then a crescendo in which the moan returned to high pitched scream one last time, a loud snapping sound, and then merciful silence. Ferguson and Wilde were gone…most of their bodies and all of their souls.

“’
Hello’ came a voice from outside. It was overly friendly and accompanied by laughter from colleagues. I could not place the accents. English is not his first language, but he is certainly fluent in what appears to be British English. ‘Good morrow. Where is the one they call Chhiri Tendi?’ I could not speak. ‘We know you’re in there. We’re not fools. Is Chhiri Tendi in there with you? These two meals were white eyes. Not Chhiri Tendi. We want him, and then perhaps we’ll leave you alone?’

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I knew then what I had to do. I had to make a run for it. I would race out the flaps of the tent as fast as my straining lungs could take me, ice axe in hand, and glissade down the slope. My pack was next to my sleeping bag. I filled it with as many things as I could think of and started putting it on my back. Chatham was not moving so I signaled to him to please do the same. He simply shook his head. There was no way he was going to muster the courage to move, let alone leave the tent! The man outside began to speak again. His voice was closer now.

“’
How rude of us not introducing ourselves! We are the Nepalese Cobras: Cannibal Division.’ With that, a huge, curved blade cut through the tent only a foot from my face and then disappeared. ‘We have been following your Sherpa since Calcutta, just as we have done so many times before with countless teams of Western Men and their coolies. The plan, as always, has been to track colonialists as they enter the Kingdom without welcome, wait until they are at their most fragile, and then kill them. And what better way to kill them than to eat them?’ Chatham cried out a little at this. The blade slashed through again. ‘Their nations are masters at the art of cannibalism. Cannibalization of land, culture, resources, wives, children, fighting strategies, languages. And what they do not eat, they spit out. Trash. Refuse. Not worth a farthing. Leave them hungry and penniless on the side of the road. No, this will not stand. So now we are the ones who eat.’

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I continued to pack, hoping to get away from these savages. I suspected I had enough to survive at least down to the cliff that my failed ‘magic rope’ had gotten us up. There I would need to move quickly to set up a rappel. Perhaps they would not chase me that far? Maybe they would let me go? No way of knowing.

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From outside, I heard some complaints in what sounded like Nepali. Groans mixed in with the words. Some of the cannibals were not well perhaps? Then the leader continued. ‘We watched the porter groups who wait by the docks. It was climbing season and these mindless ants were ready as always to aid Europeans and Americans come weighted down with lucre. “Let me ease your burden and maybe some day I can be like you?” Fools.’ The knife slashed through again, turning the wall into ribbons. ‘Anyway, we were thrilled when we spied a team of Americans unloading from some small dinghies. They connected with a group of porters on the docks and made for the train station. We prepared to follow suit. Then our luck increased manifold. Another group of porters began to prepare for an outing. No foreigners seemed to be present. When we asked, it seemed some Americans were waiting for their porters and Sherpa at the mountain. You! Not only that, but one of the Sherpa was none other than your sardar, Chhiri Tendi. This man Chhiri Tendi owes the Nepalese Cobras. Owes us in blood. Owes us in cries for mercy. You see, his father killed one of our leaders. We promised to come back some day and kill the son. And here we are. We get to address two goals in one climb…kill colonialists and exact revenge on a local enemy of the Kingdom.’

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I had been warned about Fumu’s cannibals before. Several teams, including Malick’s, had returned with tales of their brutality. But I had considered the claims so preposterous as to be figments of climbers’ exhausted imaginations. I had also heard rumors [sic] of the Nepalese Cobras, a small, crazed group of insurgents, spawned from the noble and unparalleled Gurkha infantry, hell-bent on banishing or killing all interlopers in Nepal. But the cannibals pre-date the Cobras. The cannibals have been mentioned in accounts of Fumu expeditions going back almost a half-century, well before the Nepalese Cobras existed. I could only assume the two had joined forces, and the ones we faced now – the “Cannibal Division” – were the newest division of the Cobras. I could not believe Chhiri Tendi was at odds with these monsters; certainly not an enviable position in which to be. Then again the position Chatham and I were in at the time was no better.

“’
Chhiri Tendi is not here. He left to find our expedition leader. He went west.’ I lied to save Chhiri Tendi, maybe the bravest thing I’ve ever done, but it did not matter because my words were ignored by the men outside. I heard more groans. Some of the cannibals were in pain. The speaker kept talking to them in another language. Nepali perhaps. Then he said to me ‘Your fellow adventurers in the other tent. Were they….fresh?’ I told them the men were in fact not fresh. Both suffered from food poisoning. Then I lied. I said we were suffering from food poisoning as well. My bravery, my concoction of lies, was really no more than semi-consciousness; dream states aiding waking thoughts. I looked at Chatham cowering in the corner, his face a monument to unsightliness. Its paisley blotches of blue and red skin flaked and rose up in a scatterplot of welts. A perfect simulation of putrefaction. ‘We’ve also caught some kind of flesh-ravaging scourge,’ I yelled to the cannibals. ‘…an airborne syphilis we think!’

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The moans outside increased and the leader seemed deeply concerned. His fellow men were collapsing. They were throwing up. The food poisoning had hit them at an alarming rate. ‘The meat of the Americans has made them sick! I cannot save them! I have no way to get them down the mountain! This is Chhiri Tendi’s fault! Give him to me now!’ I swore to him Chhiri Tendi was not in the tent and that we had food poisoning and pestilence and that he should not touch us and that he should go away if he knew what was good for him. He did not buy my story and began slashing at the tent furiously with his weapon.

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I had no other choice. I grabbed my tent-mate who was now too far into shock to resist. With a surge of energy, I stuck his head through one of the slashes in the tent’s roof. ‘Feast yours eyes on this’ I bellowed. Upon seeing Chatham’s ghastly visage, the man outside yelled in terror. The yell became less piercing because the man seemed to be half-falling and half-running away from the tent. The ruse accomplished, I let Chatham down. He fell back on the ground, eyes rolling back, his exhaustion having turned into a kind of defensive slumber. I would not be able to help him.

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The window of opportunity was now open. With my pack now on my back, I pushed out of the tent flaps. I almost tripped over three people on the ground, dressed in bloody white, doubled over in agony. I stepped on one of them with my crampon, unintentional but well placed. It sunk into his neck. His blood shot up in three separate, parallel fountains, each corresponding to where one of my boot spikes had punctured flesh covering his jugular.

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Their leader had not run away. The Chatham trick had only fazed him. He was just feet away, near the corpses of my colleagues, on the ground and looking angry. When he saw me make a run for it, he bolted up – as if he had access to all of the oxygen in the world – and ran at me. ‘You are not going anywhere!’ he yelled.

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Then he was upon me. He grabbed onto my backpack and, moving faster than me, pushed me down and forward. I landed face first in the snow. He straddled me and punched me a few times in the ribs. Then there was a pause in the blows as he unsheathed his knife. ‘Oh no’ I thought. ‘The end has come.’ He fell forward on top of me and my pack so his head was over my head, his legs closed around my legs. One hand pulled off my hat and grabbed my hair, pulling my head up out of the snow. The other reached around and placed the blade of the knife to my throat. I felt him playfully sink his teeth into the top of my head while making a growling sound. I screamed as a chunk of my flesh pulled away. Then he hissed, ‘Humanity is the sweetest fruit, yet armored is its prickly skin.’ Those words haunt me to this day.”